Girls on the town. I hold my gaze at them as they approach.
…Look at me…
They won’t catch my eye, so I speed up my last three remaining strides to the door, grab the handle and swing open the door which I stand beside.
Good manners, always good manners.
‘After you ladies’ I chime, smiling, with a flamboyant hand gesture towards the now open door.
They breeze through. They say nothing. Not to me at least, but are still full flow in their own conversation.
I try to quell emotions as I silently remind myself the circumstances that brought me out on a Tuesday night.
‘THANK YOU!!’ I call after them, sarcastically. It is a pet hate, and it always tends to anger me quickly and instantly.
The one with the dark hair looks back at me and sneers, then links her arm through her friend’s arm and walks to the far end of the bar. I feel a comment rise to my lips, but am interrupted by Paul calling me over.
‘Robbie. Come here, I’ve got them in!’ He’s holding out a shot glass and I groan inwardly when I see the gold flakes floating around in the clear liquid. Goldschlager.
‘Fuck me, Paul. You are not fucking about are you?’ I smile, anger now forgotten and well and truly gone. Of course he isn’t fucking about. He never does. We both knew exactly what would be happening tonight, as this is how we deal with things.
‘I do not, sir. I do not.’ he says and we clink glasses, chug back the liquid and wince. I can smell the faint odour of skunk weed on him and can see his eyes are a bit bloodshot.
Here we go, I think to myself. We do our manly handshakes, bump chests and clink the pints of Stella together, both take a gulp and sigh.
‘So,’ Paul starts, knowing that someone has to, ‘didn’t see that one coming, eh?’
‘Nope. Anoushka must’ve just been showing us a front the whole time. I’d’ve never had her down as suicidal,’ As I say this, I look over to the girls (girl, dark haired girl) who blanked me on the way in.
Look at me dark-hair. That was rude. Be nice.
As if sensing me, she turns round and catches my eye. I raise an eyebrow, smile, hold aloft my pint in a silent cheers. I’ll get an apology for the bad manners, get talking, and we’ll see where it goes from there. There’s two of them, there’s two of us, we coul..
‘Fuck. Off’ the one with dark hair mouths at me across the bar, a mixed message of full, pouting lips and anger; then she gives a sarcastic smile and a tilt of her head, turns back to her friend and resumes their conversation. Her friend seems oblivious to the exchange between us.
‘Woah. What was THAT, Robbie? Do you know her? Making friends and influencing people I see.’ He cackles. He’s obviously a bit stoned, but that’s ok. I don’t judge as I can’t judge. Not with my ways.
‘No,’ I answer, watching the back of this ill-mannered girl, trying to turn her around again with the weight of my stare, ‘but she was a bit of a cow on the way in, mate, to be fair. Blanked me when I held the door open. I hate that. ’
‘Ooh dear,’ He knows what I’m like about that and gives me an unreadable look. Then blows through his lips. ‘Anyway. Never mind her’, he’s beckoning over the man behind the bar and pointing at the two shot glasses then raising two fingers to signal another round of shots, ‘let’s have these for Anoushka and put the world to rights. Fag?’
I take one of the Marlboro Lights and lean forward with it clenched in my teeth towards the flame that Paul is holding.
‘Ta. Yeah, I suppose so. My round.’ I say around the cigarette clamped in my teeth, one eye squinting in the smoke streaming past it, and hand a tenner to the barman. I also point to our already half empty Stella glasses signifying another round of those too. In for a penny, in for a pound. ‘This is about toasting Anoushka. That…..horrible, horrible person’.
Again, we erupt into raucous laughter that has people turning their heads. Including dark-hair. I wink. She gives a disgusted look and turns away.
(Ha. You still looked though, didn’t you?)
Chapter 27
‘Just go over and talk to him’ Pamela said. Already slurring her words.
‘No, Pam’, Lisa replied, ‘I am HATING men right now after my shitty news today, I still can’t believe it. So, tonight is just about the girls. Men are not allowed, especially not arrogant good looking ones. Ignore him. Besides, I just told him to fuck off!’
‘What? You didn’t!’ Pam replies all drunken wide eyes and open mouth, they laugh and touch their glasses to a variety of amens and cheers and take a gulp of the relatively cheap tasting yet overpriced Chardonnay.
Lisa Bimson had found out that afternoon that her boyfriend of nearly three years had been cheating on her. He had rushed off late to work from their shared flat that morning and had left his Yahoo email account open. She now wished that she hadn’t read through his emails, particularly the folder section marked ‘account’; where the little shit had been organised enough to have a folder for each one of the six girls he had been fucking, or trying to fuck behind her back.
She was, quite understandably, livid.
It wasn’t so much the fact the he had done it, or that she felt so stupid, which she did. But she knew all of the girls, albeit peripherally. She had at least met them all once at various occasions or night out and had been nice to them; as they were in Mike’s large circle of friends. It seems that they weren’t so bothered about her affable treatment of them when it came to sucking her boyfriend’s cock.
(Bitches. Bastard.)
He still didn’t know that she had found him out. She was planning to confront him later after concocting a plan with her long-time friend Pam. This colluding would, of course, be done whilst consuming a couple of bottles of wine. The confronting would come afterwards once the courage had been built.
They plotted and planned, berated and belittled mankind through the first bottle, and continued into their second, Lisa purposely avoiding any potential eye contact with the man earlier, or any man in the place for that matter. She had begrudgingly acknowledged that it was the best looking man in the pub that was trying to connect with her, though. She still had it, when she was ready to use it.
So engrossed were they in their huddle that they failed to see the clock edge towards 10:30pm, and what few people that had been in there disperse to livelier places or home.
Pam nudged Lisa, harder than intended, the white wine on their empty stomachs having made them both fairly pissed by now .
‘He’s still looking over, Lees’ Pam was saying, ‘and he’s bloody fit. You could get your revenge on Fuckface using him’.
Lisa laughed, but there wasn’t much humour in it. She wished this massive hole in her guts wasn’t there. The wine wasn’t filling the hole or numbing the pain as much as she had hoped. She now really did wish that she hadn’t read the emails, sometimes ignorance is bliss. Not that they had been particularly blissful of late behind closed doors.
Now she knew why.
It made her head pound to think of the betrayal. Her boyfriend. Those sluts. For fuck’s sake.
It made her head pound and her stomach gnaw, flipping and flopping and biting down on the empty space of angst it now held. Fucker.
And it was whilst these angry thoughts were spinning around her mind that she noticed that the man that had been trying to get her attention since outside the pub, the one she’d already purposely let the door close on, and mouthed the words ‘fuck off’ to; was stood by her at the bar. It was the last thing she wanted in the mood that she was in.
He was taller than Lisa, but was respecting her personal space enough so that his height wasn’t threatening. He was well dressed, wearing a Diesel t-shirt tight enough to show his not overly muscular yet still toned physique, with Diesel jeans, large buckled belt and some clean looking K-Swiss trainers. He had a fashionable and expensive looking haircut, with enough product in it to style it well but not too much to make it look greasy.
His eyebrows
were shaped, but not too feminine and they sat atop bright blue eyes that were looking at her, and as he looked into her eyes and smiled a lopsided smile she noticed dimples. Normally she liked dimples. He had designer stubble that accentuated his strong jawline. He really was quite fit, the wine in her said. Lisa looked at him looking at her, and then could only think of Mike doing the same to some random girl somewhere.
Pulling someone behind her back. Bloody. Unfaithful…
‘The name’s Robbie. Robbie Manners’ he said cheesily, and then leaned in to kiss her cheek in greeting.
‘Bastard’ she said out loud to this guy hitting on her, dodging the cheek kiss and glaring at him.
‘What?!’ he said pulling back his head, smile disappearing and genuine hurt on his face.
He’s not used to being turned down, Lisa immediately concluded. That’s three strikes and still he doesn’t know he’s out.
‘Look at you. You are soooo slick’ she suddenly felt drunk, the ‘s’ pronounced as ‘sh’ each time. She knew the words were coming out, but she couldn’t stop them. Not now. The floodgates just opened.
He was staring at her, open mouthed. It only served to infuriate her further, all of her current drunken hatred of her cheating bastard of a boyfriend was channelling through her and onto the persistent stranger.
‘Rotten. Cheating. Shit!’ she shouted at him and threw her half glass of wine at him. Apart from his neck and part of his earlobe, the wine missed him. Distraught, she turned to Pam, burst into tears and managed; ‘I’m off to the toilets for a bit’
Pam watched Lisa run off with little broken sobs trailing behind her, then turned round and started to apologise to the man, her words trailing off when she saw he was already striding away in the opposite direction.
Such a shame, he’d actually seemed nice, she thought. Nice enough for Lisa tonight at least.
‘Ah, give a shit’ she slurred, and messily poured the last of the wine into and around her glass. Where had Lisa gone? Oh yes. Her memory always became vague on white wine. This was to prove an issue soon enough.
Chapter 28
October 1996, what a shit month for me being legal. Tony Williams thought to himself and laughed inwardly. He felt the handle of the gun tucked in his belt, just like in the films. He’d had a few rum and gingers by this time, and was feeling frisky. This good mood had been added to by getting quite a bit of trade on his pub circuit thus far.
Only 19 and 6’2’ he cut a formidable figure. Ghetto limp (still being perfected), long braids with a centre parting, like his favourite MN8 member and unusually piercing blue eyes; he knew he already made people nervous. Good. Plus there was the black thing. Despite what anyone said, people got a little fear creep into their eyes when approached by a towering black man. Most drew the conclusion that he was a criminal.
They were right, of course, but that wasn’t the point. It was just racist. He felt the Browning 9mm again, newly illegal. Well, very illegal as it was dodgy even before the law was passed last week, banning handguns on the back of the Dunblane massacre.
That fucking prick.
True, Tony wanted to kill living beings, but that was just sick. Not kids. Even he drew a line at that, and he definitely wouldn’t kill himself. Fuck that.
He hadn’t used the gun on a man though, not yet.
There’d been practice runs on local pets around the estate, just to make sure he had the feel of the thing. A few dogs, lots of cats and even a donkey and a goat that someone had had tethered in their garden. Now he felt ready for the real deal.
He felt the time was rapidly approaching, the tipping point inevitable, like a runaway train he didn’t want to stop. His business was ramping up, and subsequently, so was his enemy count.
He had read that over 9 million people had taken illegal drugs in the previous year. 9 million! He wanted more of a share of that than he already had. That was nearly 15% of the population of the UK. He was good with figures, always had been. He liked to think that numeracy was one of the reasons for his entrepreneurial bent.
That, and Hollywood.
He was knocking out a lot more pills since the prices had dropped, so he had added coke to the menu, as it still commanded a decent profit if the product was good enough quality. With weed, the more common Moroccan solid, and some crack on top of that, things were going well. The more flavours he sold, the more successful he got. The more successful he got, the more enemies he got. The more enemies he had, the more money he had.
‘Money never sleeps’ he laughed to himself, quoting the film that had influenced him and his quest for money 9 years earlier; as he swaggered down the alleyway that linked his estate to the newer, more salubrious estate down the road. He wanted to live there, bigger, cooler apartments with a view of the Thames. That had his name all over it. Just like in the film Wall Street. Well, sort of.
He looked at his watch, an Omega Speedmaster. One of his few treats to himself that he’d allowed for the required image. That and the M3 BMW, only a few years old. The rest of his money went back in to his burgeoning business. More stock. More runners. More money. And so the cycle went.
But his profile was building. It wasn’t just the watch and the car, people were talking, they knew he was rising up the ranks and was becoming the go-to person if you knew him, or the go-to guy for the guys that you went to for your highs or your lows. He even had a nickname; ‘Tony the Treats’. Ridiculous name, he smiled, but he liked the fact that he had one.
Not taxing the wraps too much and keeping the quality high was his mantra. That kept them coming back, whether they liked you or wanted you dead. They still came back to Tony the Treats. He liked that power, and he loved the network of runners that were increasing his ranks of soldiers, subsequently bolstering his growing empire. He knew he was pretty vulnerable right now if anyone wanted a pop, but he was still close to his main area and he had the gun.
It had just turned 10pm, so even in London on his circuit, there was only an hour left of pub business. Driving would have been quicker, but ironically he didn’t want to drink and drive. Those were laws he respected, since his brother had been mown down by a drunk driver when Tony was still a kid. Anyway, a taxi costs too much, cutting into the profits.
Walking was good. Another fortification of the image, the local guy, Tony the Treats from the streets. It also meant he could find some targets to shoot. He was in the mood tonight. He hated animals almost as much as he loved money.
He looked at the fences either side of the alleyway he was walking down. Missing posters for some of the animals he’d chased and killed or had taken away for target practice. Some old and tattered, some new with recent victims of his. Naturally some had been written on, or had the ubiquitous cock, balls and drops of spunk that the less well versed tagger was wont to do. Tony surveyed the posts. It was like a trophy alley.
Recently, he was more prone to shoot them where they were, to get decent target practice from afar. Before the gun though, when he had to get up close with a knife, for the more visceral thrill; there were the chases. He liked the chase, it appealed to his competitive nature. Then the owners would wake up the next day wondering where Fido or Fluffy was at feeding time. They would mostly be in a dustbin or skip. He barked a scoffing laughed at that, then slowed his pace as he looked ahead.
The shadowy figure stood about 30 feet ahead, by a fence that some bushes were hanging over, overgrown and cascading from the garden the other side. The foliage created a large shadowy area, shielding the figure from the orange light of the streetlamp situated adjacent.
Tony was within 20 feet of the figure now and could see the glowing ember of a cigarette. It lit nothing of the face, so he was still unsure if this person wanted to speak with him, go for him or buy from him. He could just be waiting for someone else….
His pulse quickened, his adrenaline released. He took a quick look round and saw that they were the only two in a fenced alleyway about 200 feet long. There was little sign of any l
ife around, despite the fairly early hour. All was quiet, weirdly so.
This could be it. He thought to himself, easing the gun out of his belt a little further, his chance. If he wasn’t here for Tony the Treats, he may just be seeing his last night anyway.
The cigarette ember burned brighter, then the figure threw it on the floor and walked out of the pool of shadow and into the light, just as Tony walked to within a few feet of him. Long coat, collars pulled up, beneath the coat, smart jeans, Patrick Cox shoes. Tony knew him.
He felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. He had sold to this guy only yesterday.
‘Toneeey’ His customer said, mockingly. There was something different about his voice, about his demeanour. Tony had only met him three or four times, but he’d always been overly nice before. He sounded, well, sinister. Raspy. He had a different aura to him.
Manners Cost Everything (Manners Trilogy Book 1) Page 7