Mr Shamir huffed and snorted a couple of times, his hands on his hips, glaring after their retreat. The boys took a right into nearby Thomas Street, getting out of his sight as quickly as possible.
Mr Shamir turned his attention to them - becalmed now by the back down.
‘OK boys you can go now, that way.’ He had nodded in the opposite direction to Thomas Street, ‘is probably the best for you.’
Pasquale and Junior voiced their thanks and Mr Shamir went back into his shop. They’d have to get a leg on now, late already, which was not a good habit to get into. Leeside would be avoided in the future though - fuck Dwayne and his alternate routes.
Despite the little dark cloud that was hanging around up north, they had managed to have a good weekend together. Tommy wasn’t sure how she would hit it off with his mates but he needn’t have worried. Donna and Bernie talked their way through most of the Friday and it was all a breeze to Lee, the happily self-contained sod. Another little dark cloud had manifested itself before he had left his work at the Centre. Pauline had announced at the staff meeting that they had only received a quarter of the money they had asked for from the Lottery. So, it meant hours would have to be cut across the board and, in just a couple of month’s time Pauline herself would be going down to four days a week. She was giving those who wanted it the opportunity to reduce their hours on a voluntary basis and then she and the treasurer would sit down and make the necessary adjustments.
But, she promised, nobody will be losing their job. This, she said, with a little pugnacious jut of the jaw and a lift of the head that, perhaps a little ungraciously, put him in mind of a diminutive red headed Mussolini.
Tommy had chatted to Pauline after the meeting, patiently taking his turn behind Helen, the rather comely young manager of the pre-school kid’s service. Helen had been a narrowly averted near miss. He’d almost made a bid for her affections at a staff piss up some time just before Christmas. They had briefly been left in a one to one moment and she had let it slip that she had a ‘thing’ for older guys. He feigned surprise at the news but his instant tumescence had him feeling fifteen years younger. He still patted himself on the back for having the judgement not to go through with it and now she had a nice young bloke in tow. Word on the street, was that he was a surveyor, working for a city based firm - wedding bells were already being mentioned by the Centre’s cognoscenti.
When Helen finally made tracks, he told Pauline that he was willing to drop a couple of days if that would help her and if that would keep Corrine in her present hours. Pauline looked at him with a gratitude that he found almost frightening in its sincerity. But, he took the plaudits in good faith - this was not the time for him to be a hard arse.
They had blasted their way through the Saturday; Greenwich, Cutty Sark, the market, an early curry then back to the flat so Lee and Bernie could get ready for their gig. The band’s bass player had picked them up in a battered but colourfully decked out transit van and he had ferried the four of them to the gig. Tommy and Lee had sat in the back with the gear - the girls were up the front, riding shotgun with Wendell.
He asked Lee what she thought about Donna. After a couple of beats Lee gave him that shy smile of his.
‘Well, she’s definitely a looker Tommy.’
He waited for a little more but Lee didn’t add to it and Tommy didn’t prompt his friend for any more. He had a distinct sense of faint praise, which puzzled him slightly. He left it; he’d known Lee for forty years and that was the only maths that mattered.
Wendell was playing some Steel Pulse up front and it looked very much like he and the girls were sharing a spliff, the party had started.
The gig was a blast, the pub was packed, the band had been playing regular gigs there for over a year and they had built up an appreciative following. Two songs in and the front half of the audience was grooving to Lee’s chopping guitar and Wendell’s rumbling bass, with Bernie and a tasty mate funking out on backing vocals. The combo was fronted by a singer with one metre dreads and a voice that, if you closed your eyes….
They pulled outside for the interval, taking in the cooling air and the busy streets and Wendell and Bernie had joined them. According to Bernie, Lee was still inside checking out a problem with the keyboard mike. Wendell laughed, ‘man’s a perfectionist,’ he said. Wendell had a quick shufty up and down the street and pulled out a twin of the earlier joint that the girls had shared with him in the van. The four of them passed it around like naughty teenagers. Tommy noticed that there was a half moon slowly rising to the rooftops over in the east and just the faintest twinkling of a few stars up there too. He had the thought that he hadn’t seen the Milky Way ever since he’d been back in England. Donna shook him out of the reverie, nonchalantly nestling her gorgeous backside into his groin and then passing the joint over her shoulder. He took a long hit then turned her chin towards him leaned into her and blew the smoke into her mouth. Wendell laughed at that too, ‘good to share eh man?’
The second half was even better than the first; Stepping Razor, Four Hundred Years, Legalize It and Three Little Birds. Get up, Stand Up finished it off.
They waited while Lee and the singer sorted out the dough with the landlord and Wendell offered them a lift home, but they were all in the mood to kick on a bit.
Tommy woke up early the next day and, as was always the case when he had a hangover, he couldn’t stay in bed. Donna was out of it, silent and still and there was no stirring yet from either Lee or Bernie. He went into the kitchen and made himself a coffee and then another, turning over in his mind about what to do about one of those little black clouds up north. A phone call to Sonny would be all that it would take and then it would be dealing with the aftermath with Donna. He tried out a few permutations but couldn’t seem to make it avoid ending in tears. Tommy mused briefly on what the old man would have done but that would be easy enough to answer, the kid would already be in juvie cooling his heels and looking nervously over at his larger roommates. Lord knows that the two of them had had their darker days together. At the age of sixteen, Mick, after one of their more incendiary dust ups, had bounced him down the road for a year’s enforced sabbatical with family and friends.
Mick, just like Bonnie’s old man, didn’t believe in the softly softly approach. Give them the stick first and, maybe, if they behaved themselves, a bit of carrot down the track. Whatever, he thought. He couldn’t just let it slide on by.
Despite the quiet Friday Darrin was knackered all day Saturday, tired enough to crash in bed for a couple of hours after lunch. The last time he had kipped during the day he’d had a four-day flu, which had absolutely battered him. That was years ago now; just a few months after he had started working at the warehouse and he hadn’t been sick since.
He was out of the door at five and down the Quays in less than twenty minutes, more than half an hour early for his rostered shift. Lumb was parked up in there, on the headset as always, this time he was partnered up with a youngish DC by the name of Frankie Walker. Frankie was all boy-scout; alert at his post, eagerly scanning the entrance of the flats like a human periscope. A couple of cars had already pulled in and Keithy was busy entertaining in the lounge room, engaging in chit chat and the passing round of the hors d’ouveres.
Dalton left the flat half-fivish and returned just after six. Just about the same time that Young was nestling down into Lumb’s warmed up chair. Darrin had grabbed the camera from Frankie.
Dalton had returned with a couple of late teens in tow, a tall skinny young bloke and a bright young thing who was a sight to behold, a mini dress that was just about warming her arse matched up with a mid-riff top that was struggling to hold back her plentiful boobs.
Dalton dropped the two young ones off then turned the car out into the street and then came back twenty minutes or so later with a car full of revellers. Three more youngsters this time, a girl and two young guys, and a po-faced older guy who was sat ram rod straight in the front passenger seat. He wa
s a handsome looking jasper, late thirties, probably. He exuded money, a proper education and maybe even good breeding, definitely slumming it with the under classes.
At a little past eight o’clock, a souped up shit box announced its oncoming presence with some vibrating bass and a fishtailed turn into the car park. Looky there, he thought, a known face. A gangly streak of piss, mid-twenties or so, had sprung out of the driving seat as if a firecracker had been dropped down his shorts. The face gestured impatiently for the remaining occupants of the car to get out, pronto. It was the one and only Bazzer Dougan, the half legendary scumbag dealer from the Barrington. Bazzer would make a fair dent in the parties’ collective social standing. With him were two younger males and a couple of brassy young birds who could be heard from a hundred yards away. They spilled out of the car and trailed Bazzer to the lobby, the neighbours duly alerted to their presence by their cacophony. Darrin let Young know that Bazzer had joined the celebrations and a moment later Dalton’s intercom picked up Bazzer’s scally tones.
A few more cars pulled in over the next couple of hours, mostly older guys, all of them arriving alone, giving the environs a cursory once over before they walked over towards the entrance and its buzzers - hard-ons and guilty minds alright. By ten the joint was jumping but there was too much babble and not enough clarity on the tapes to pick up anything up of consequence. Dalton had told Bazzer to calm it down- ‘once and once only’ was the caveat he gave him. A little later than that and the music was dimmed to a quiet murmur and then there was a vacuum in the hub-hub, which slowly began to be punctuated by some moaning and groaning from amongst the ensemble, probably a bit of a cabaret on Keith’s shag pile. Half an hour of that and then somebody put the music up again but not as loud as it had been before the screwing had started. The party itself sounded a little more subdued too, a few voices, some doors opening and closing, a brief reprise of the squelching noises, which was underscored by a volley of lewd female laughter. That was pretty much it for the next couple of hours. People intermittently broke away for some banal slightly surreal post coital chit-chats - that and the irritation of the balcony door being repeatedly opened and closed. They had picked up a few names; a Tony, a Neil, a Claudia, a Stuart, a Chad, a Nicky, a Paula, and a Jess and then the rest were all initials, the older guys. Mr’s B, F, G, J, P, S and T. That would account for all of the older guys who were there, not including Dalton and Bazzer.
By two o’clock the fuck fest was starting to wind down, Keithy still the loud, jovial mein host holding court and dispensing good cheer and funnies in the lounge room. Darrin pictured him in a silk kimono, stretched tight by the barrel chest and hard gut, a cigar and a malt, everything fucking hunky-dory in Keithy’s world.
Then there was a bit of a commotion, a crying girl - Paula. A man’s voice came into the lounge room just a few seconds behind her. The guy was pissed off, calling the girl a slag and he complained loudly to Keithy reiterating his assessment of her, telling Dalton that he was dissatisfied with the ‘service’. Keith shushed the girl and told the guy to take a powder - he was level with him but he put a bit of steel in there too. After he dealt with the guy, Dalton went straight back to the girl with some soothing counsel.
‘Don’t worry love,’ Dalton cooed with an unnerving gentleness. ‘He didn’t mean it. Here have a taste of this, that’ll sort you out. That’s a good girl, don’t worry I’ll keep him away. I think Mr G. might have his eye on you and why not, you’re such a gorgeous thing - aren’t yer?’
A few sniffles and a snort and that was it, the drama was over. By three most of the well-heeled gents were pulling away from the forecourt, back from whence they came. One of the men left with the tall young guy that had turned up with the voluptuous honey in the mini skirt, a pair up by the looks of things. Bazzer and Dalton ferried the non-driving youth home in a couple of runs. Dalton was back at the ranch before four.
Darrin looked at Young, ready for the post mortem.
‘Well Sarge what does all that get us apart from fading hard ons?’
Young didn’t laugh.
‘Well - it’s all intel’ for us Constable, the devil is in the detail son, although I shouldn’t have to point that out to you really. We’ll look up the names and the registrations, try and make sense of the web later. Drugs on the premises obviously, I don’t think the kids were under agers and that would be a bloody minefield anyway.’
‘Yeah but are we any closer to nailing this fucker to drugs, prostitution, anything?’
Young became irritated with him.
‘It’s not that easy Darrin, as I’m sure you’ve already been told. Beyond reasonable doubt - remember? Or do you think we should pull him in because you don’t like the sleazy fucker?’
Darrin sighed, he knew Young was right, Mozzer or Mac would have told him the same thing.
‘Maybe grab Dwayne, or Bazzer Dougan then - a body, any fucking body?’
Young shook his head and laughed.
‘You’re a piece of work you are Dazzler, Wyatt bloody Earp indeed, Mac’s on that fucker Dwayne. Don’t worry he’ll be nailed soon enough.’
Young laughed again and leant over to give him a comradely pat on the shoulder, ‘come on let’s get the fuck home to our beds.’
Darrin stood up and stretched and looked out of the tinted window that faced the car park - all was quiet now. The birds were already hitting their straps when they walked back to their cars and he felt tired enough to sleep for a week.
Sonny had called round for lunch during the week and they had chatted about the Glasgow gang’s project for a while. Sonny was of the opinion that the money would probably be through early in the new year. Four days a week, fifty-fifty split of the workload if he wanted it that way. He told Sonny about Pauline’s Lottery disappointment.
‘That might work out alright for you Tommy, if you can carry the shortfall for a couple of months.’
He could, there was no doubt about that, though it might mean a bit of frugality for a while.
‘Old Mick wouldn’t see you starve would he?’
That he wouldn’t, they had made do with scrag end and dumplings plenty enough in the past and that was fuck all to what the old man had endured in his youth. As a youngster Mick had had a bad enough diet to see him rendered toothless by the age of seventeen.
There was a moment, a lull in the conversation where he almost spilled Donna’s news about the kid to Sonny. Sonny had let him know earlier that Dougy’s boy, Darrin May, had told him that he’d seen Pasquale and his mate regularly hanging around the Coleshaw.
‘Recently was it?’ Tommy had asked him, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.
Sonny, thankfully, was not blessed with supernatural powers of intuition and he hadn’t noted his veiled concern. But he gave him some info, which stayed with him for the rest of the day and beyond.
‘PC May said he was up there farting around only last week. He has him down as a possible courier, no proof though - just speculation…reasonable speculation.’
That evening he’d raised it with her with what he hoped was a tactful deftness as they laid into the fried beans and guacamole that she’d cooked up for them.
‘I have to trust him Tommy.’
‘But you know Donna, the tin in the attic - the lies.’
‘You don’t have kids, Tommy, you don’t know what it’s like.’
He let that through to the keeper - there was plenty he could have said but, as it was, the taste of the nachos was already dying in his mouth.
Tommy didn’t mention the conversation with Sonny and he wondered, again, who or what he was trying to protect.
The rest of the meal was an exercise in uncomfortable silence. TV maintained the barrier for the rest of the evening. He thought about skipping out but he didn’t. That night, for the first time, they slept together without having sex.
Breakfast was a bit more of a cheery affair. Donna told him that Bernie had mentioned that she and Lee were thinking about
moving to Brighton.
‘Really!’ He exclaimed. That was out of the fucking blue.
She nodded, Lee hadn’t mentioned or hinted at a move but Lee was a cagey prick, he told you about most things in his life well after the bloody event.
‘Bernie said we should go down for a weekend with them. It would be a sus out for them and a break for us.’
‘Hmm,’ he said, ‘that sounds like an idea.’ Giving it a lot more enthusiasm than he actually felt.
She dropped him off at his place and he did an in and out, grabbing some paperwork that he would need to help him put the youth service newsletter together.
Us, he thought - was starting to feel like a distant shore.
AUGUST
Monday and he was back at the window chatting to Mac about the party and his attendant frustrations with the operation.
Mac only gave him more cold comfort - toeing the party line.
‘Info gathering Darrin, it’s like a big fucking jigsaw and you need every piece to get the full picture. You got those registrations and tied in that scrote from the Barrington to Dalton too, that’s a result.’ Without pause Mac did a quick change of gear, ‘what do you reckon to working with Young then?’
Darrin turned and looked at Mac who was giving him that steady, slightly unnerving look of his.
‘OK, I guess, yeah, why?’
‘Just be careful with him son, that is all I’m saying to yers. Don’t look to be jumping on his coat tails. He doesn’t count higher than the number one the smooth bastard, know what I mean?’
Darrin did, he nodded and turned back to the window, plenty of kids were out hanging around the shops and scattered on further down the road. Dwayne regularly grabbing his crotch while holding court, gape mouthed laughter at his own jokes.
Mac came over and joined him at the window. Mac was gearing up to make his nightly pilgrimage to The Admiral. He was flying solo tonight, no June on the arm, which Mac didn’t mind at all. As far as he was concerned that was easier in a lot of ways. Recently, a couple of the regulars had made less than gentlemanly remarks about June. Pushing him a little bit, seeing how much he’d take from them. He’d considered asking one of them to step outside to give him a touch up but the guy was fairly tight with Johnstone and he had let it pass. Mac was keeping it in his back pocket. A bit of hard man stuff could be another way in for him with Johnstone. Apart from his brother, Johnstone did look a little light on muscle.
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