Layer Cake

by J. J. Connolly

  ‘If he was gonna die, son, he would’ve died before he got to hospital. I don’t know if Freddie was unlucky or what but from what I can gather yer man Fred was always that far –’ he places his thumb and forefinger an inch apart ‘– from a fuckin rare hidin.’

  He pulls hard on his snout and very gently shakes his head before going on.

  ‘Mister Mortimer’s the wrong man to be givin backchat. You’ve only got to look at him to know he can have a row. Every single day Morty’s not at war with society is a let-off for civilisation. If you had a hundred like Morty you’d have civil war. I’m not saying Freddie what’s-his-face Hurst deserved a thrashin but you’ve got to give the likes of Mort total respect or give them a very fuckin wide berth.’

  So I’m learning.

  ‘Who the fuck is this Freddie geezer anyway?’

  ‘Freddie Hurst. Now, when Morty tells you this, and he will, it’s the first time you’ve heard it, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Has Morty ever told you the story about how he got captured for the disposing of the body business?’

  ‘Fuckin endlessly.’

  He laughs. ‘The main mover on that little firm was Freddie Hurst, big chiv from here to here,’ says Gene, running his finger from his eye to his chin.

  ‘Same geezer,’ I nod.

  ‘I know, it’s sorted already, no worries. Anyway, Freddie was the number one capo, the one the others looked to for a clue. When Morty got caught with the body they coulda got Mort outta it cos they were all going away for concurrent sentences anyway, they were all looking at twelves and fourteens.’

  ‘But how would that’ve helped Mister Mortimer?’

  ‘The Director of Public Prosecutions, as it was back then, had accepted that there was no murder and that Kilburn Jerry, who I knew, by the way, cos he was one of Crazy Larry’s little bum-chums, had shot himself whilst under duress. It woulda only took a few of that fuckin crowd to go in the witness box and swear they threatened to shoot Morty if he didn’t help dump the body.’

  ‘But Morty offered no defence.’

  ‘That’s the way he tells it nowadays but everyone at the time was waiting for them cunts to do the right thing. Morty couldn’t ask them straight out, of course, but it made no fuckin odds to them, one way or another, another concurrent sentence for threatening to kill, to go with all the others. Basically Morty didn’t have to do that nursery rhyme but Freddie couldn’t be bothered.’

  ‘And that’s the first time he’s seen him in twenty years?’

  ‘Oh, he’s seen him plenty times since but not when Morty’s in a bad mood. See, fellas like Mortimer, one day some idiot’s having a laugh with him, slapping his back, and it’s okay, so they come back the next day, same line of questioning, and crash, he puts ’em in hospital.’

  ‘Crazy Larry was the other way?’ I’m a bit shocked.

  ‘Bent as a nine-bob note. Rampant homosexual,’ announces Gene, rolling the ‘r’ with glee.

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Think about it, son, ain’t you lucky you didn’t? The first most young lads knew about it was when Larry was doing an attempted burglary on ’em.’

  ‘Shouldn’t that be buggery?’

  ‘Same difference. He woulda been after your little ring-piece if he was still around,’ he winks.

  ‘No fuckin chance. Whatever happened to Larry, Gene?’

  ‘Fuck only knows,’ he says, shaking his head.

  That’s a fuckin turn-up, Crazy Larry being of the other persuasion, a feared and respected armed robber. I bet he was of the ‘It’s better to give than receive’ school as well, always had one of the waifs and strays in tow. It don’t bear thinking ‘bout. Larry was shot four times walking into the entrance hall of his apartment block by a masked gunman. The kid who ran and rang an ambulance, who was meant to be a passer-by but after what Gene’s just told me may have been chummier with Larry than that, came back from the phone-box to find Larry gonski. Police found shell casings, rounds embedded in the wooden panel-work, a blood trail leading to the pavement, but no sign of sixteen-stone, six-foot-two, Crazy Larry Flynn.

  ‘Hang on, Gene, you said it was sorted already?’

  ‘As good as sorted. I sent someone over to see Mort and then come back and tell me all about it and then I sent the same guy off to talk to this fella who was gonna have a little chat with Danny O’Mara and he sent word back saying if you wanna kill Freddie Hurst he ain’t got a problem with that, says he can’t believe nobody’s done it before and when Freddie wakes up in hospital Freddie’s family’s gonna mark his card and let him know there’s a good few bob waitin so he can go to Disneyland in Florida and piss Mickey and Minnie right off and Danny said he’d ask someone to drop by and have a little word with the café proprietor, ask him if he wants to stay in business and that.’

  ‘Morty’ll have to weigh him on?’

  ‘Of course he will. Listen, Freddie ain’t gonna be winning any popularity contests or curing cancer but he’s still got to have a few bob compo from somewhere and if he ain’t getting it one way, he’ll go the other.’

  ‘And he’ll have to have a conviction to have the claim-up with the criminal compensation.’

  ‘Exactly. Some of these fuckers think they’ve come up on the football pools, getting a hiding. Morty can afford it, anyway. Ten or even fifteen large ain’t gonna mortally wound Morty.’

  ‘Didn’t Danny wanna know why me and Mort were up the Cally in the first place?’

  ‘I think Danny’s got better things to worry about than where you two eat your din-dins. Having said that, if we didn’t send word over and let them know the score then he might have been within his rights to get the hump but as it is he’s –’ Gene does a very bad Cockney accent ‘– sweet as a nut, governor.

  ‘Now,’ says Gene, ‘I wanna go over this with you in detail, okay? And like you said to JD the other night, don’t take anything personal.’

  Gene starts to debrief me slowly and with great attention to detail. He’s asking me about how it went off back at the café over and over again, like the cozzers would do, over and over, questions, questions. Okay, you come out of this squat-affair with Billy Bogus and Tiptoes. A million questions about Billy and Tiptoes. You had a pow-wow with them and off they went and in walked Freddie. I told Gene I thought that, at the moment of impact, if you like, Fred went into some kinda power trip, like he simply couldn’t help himself taking the piss outta Morty. Bad mistake, says Gene. The wink, the nod of the head, the ‘All right, Mort’. Very bad mistakes all of them, agrees Geno. He wants to know how it went down from there on in, blow by blow, heel-kick by fuckin heel-kick, but not in the way some blood-thirsty little hound would or even one handyman examining the handiwork of another, but in a very cold, very factual, very calculated way, like he was hearing evidence or preparing a defence. Now listen, did you feel that Freddie provoked Morty into his action? Yes, I guess he did but I could’ve swallowed it. But you’re not Mister Mortimer, are you? Over and over again, start at the beginning, the very beginning, more and fuckin more details. Who were these guys, eating in the gaff? Did Morty take his gloves off at any time? Think. Did he? Are you sure he didn’t? That’s good. Who paid for the teas and coffees? I think they’re still outstanding, we owe for ’em. Freddie was givin it large, slagging everyone. Slagging the O’Ma-ras? Slagging everyone, Gene, tapping up Mort for a few bob, this one’s on you, Mort? Those words came back to fuckin haunt him. You, let me double-check this, you ain’t got no form, no CRO, is that correct? Good. Did Freddie eat? He was fuckin eatin, all right, the fat bastard. He probably ate in his sleep. I think he’ll be on liquids for a while, nil by mouth, anyways. Morty was spitting on him, now I remember, could be a problem, but I very much doubt it, there was probably a fuckin lot of DNA flying about already. Okay, let’s kick this can around the yard one more time. Fuck sake, Gene. Blow by blow, from the top. I’m worn fuckin out with it. It’s very fuckin important, son, blow by blow,
in slow motion. The jacket you get rid of sharpish, you shoulda fucked it into one of those big old bins round the back of one of those hotels up the West End, ripped the sleeves off first so it weren’t any good to anyone. It cost me five hundred quid, and as soon as the words come outta my gob I realise how fuckin stupid that sounds. This could be murder, it’s that word again, and we ain’t outta the woods yet. I’ll give you five hundred quid, six hundred, even, right now, out me own pocket if you like, but jettison that fuckin jacket. Sorry, Gene. And no fuckin miracle dry-cleaning jobs or fuckin conspicuous bonfires, either, okay? Okay. I’m sorry. That’s okay, son.

  Murder, this could be murder. Fuck. Shit. I don’t need this, this isn’t what it’s all about for me. I don’t belong here. I trade drugs, no moral bullshit, no justification, it’s what I do. I’m way down the list in the criminal stakes but now I’ve wandered way off beam. It’ll be no good me getting all high-handed if the law kick my door off, telling them to spend their time catching some nasty pieces of work, killers and murderers, cos that’s what they’ll be looking to arrest. Three people sitting in a café, two walk out leaving one dead and that, my friend, is what’s called, in ye olde English law, joint venture and the only way out of this little predicament, this oh-so-inconvenient dilemma, is to trot into the witness box, swear the oath and do the business for Regina, lolly your buddy Morty, go Queen’s evidence, get him lifed-off. Murder, attempted murder, GBH, malicious wounding, not me, governor, not my style. Anything else you can think of, son? says Gene. No? Start thinkin of an alibi. We sit in silence.

  ‘Nothin you can think of?’

  ‘No, Gene.’

  ‘Okay, tell me all about Kinky and then you can tell me about the Dutch geezer and the Germans. Morty seemed to think you think they’re a problem.’

  I wish I’d stayed at home and unplugged the phone. For the next twenty minutes I get the server going-over and I’m sure Gene’s interrogation technique was learnt from the Provos cos it’s very fuckin thorough.

  ‘Listen, when Morty tells you this, it’s the first time you’ve heard it, right?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘That geezer Kinky was Morty’s distant cousin.’

  ‘Really. That’s a turn-up.’

  Gene seems to be filing all my answers away, musing over them, unhurried, then suddenly upping the tempo to start grilling me, lots of questions very fast, bang, bang, bang. He asks all the pertinent questions, stopping me and telling, not asking, me to think harder, then asking me to say the first thing that comes into my head. Fuckin ‘ell, Mister McGuire, give me a fuckin break for fuck’s sake.

  Suddenly the phone goes off right in my fuckin ear. Those old fuckers still have a big fuckin bell in them like a fire alarm. I jump straight up in the air like one of those cartoon cats you see stuck to the ceiling, hanging by its claws. Fuck me, that livened me up. Gene’s got a slim smile on his face like he’s amused by my antics.

  ‘Relax, son, it’s only the flying tiddly-wink and his blazing moped. I get him to ring on his mobile when he gets downstairs. Before he buzzes up. I like to know who’s coming round.’

  It rings four times then stops. Gene laughs. I laugh as well. I realise Gene’s taken the sting outta things, the last two days. My appetite’s come rushing back with a vengeance. I have a long hit on the lager and, bollocks, why not, a big fuckin slug on the Irish.

  ‘Now, is there anything else you can remember about anything? says Gene.

  ‘Fuck off, please, Gene.’

  That’s a negative. I think I’ve told him every fuckin last detail I can remember and I’m sitting here thinking I really do worry too much sometimes. We eat some food and drink some more beers. Gene sits opposite and keeps my tumbler full. I’ve quickly grown a taste for the whiskey and very quickly the room starts to become a bit hazy. I feel warm and content, well off-duty.

  ‘Do you think you need a bit of weaponry?’

  ‘I fuckin hope not.’

  ‘I can sort you out one if you wish.’

  Gene gets up and goes into the bedroom. He comes back with a couple of guns. Cosy, lethal, black handguns.

  ‘You really don’t know what could happen. There’s lots of crazy people about.’

  ‘You know it ain’t my scene, shooters, shooting people.’

  ‘Okay, it’s up to you.’

  Gene sits back down by the low coffee table and puts one of the guns on the glass in among the tin-foil Chinky containers and plates, in among the leavings of rice, sweet-and-sour pork balls, crackers and noodles. He’s got the other one in his massive hands and it looks tiny, like one of those pretend guns that are really lighters. I pick up the other.

  ‘This isn’t loaded is it?’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll check.’

  He takes it, pulls out the magazine from the stock and flicks out five brass-topped bullets onto the glass. They roll in semi-circles, backwards and forwards, for a couple of seconds and then finally come to a halt. Gene pushes the magazine back in, points the guns at the ceiling and pulls the trigger. It makes a click like a toy. He hands it back to me by the stock. I’m half pissed and I love the way it’s so fuckin beautifully snug in the palm of my hand. I love the weight of something so fuckin powerful in my hand. Even empty I can feel the power that this little fucker can bring you. Someone made this little bastard with a lotta love. People say that guns are just dicks in disguise but if my dick was this heavy I’d walk with a limp.

  Gene clears some space among all the shit and starts to dismantle his pistol. He’s only half looking. It starts to fall apart in his hands and he lays out the parts neatly in rows, square with the table’s side. He works in one long continuous action, his hands moving all the time. The metal doesn’t resist, it co-operates, and very soon the parts are building up on the glass.

  ‘You look like you could do that blindfolded.’

  ‘I can and do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I find it very relaxing. I find it’s very good for meditation.’

  ‘Meditation? That’s chanting and that. I’ve seen those monks down in Thailand.’

  ‘That’s only one approach. Meditation is to concentrate the front of the mind with a mundane task, mantras or breathing, then the rest of the mind can find peace.’

  ‘And you concentrate the mind with guns?’

  ‘Yes, on occasions.’ He laughs knowingly at his private little joke. ‘It has been known, son.’

  I can tell he thinks this is a fuckin classic, can’t wait to tell his spars about it. He’s got a double-cute smile on his boat. Don’t be fooled. Gene the convivial host is also capable of deeds dark and deep, concentrating people’s attention with a shooter in the mouth or under the base of the ear, so don’t be fooled, don’t be beguiled. Enjoy your food, your duck with plum sauce, the sweet-and-sour king prawns, your beer, your whiskey, your warmth, Gene’s funny stories about the old fellow, the late seventies, souped-up mark-three Jags, fruity Crazy Larry, the Cricklewood Cartel, no joke if you fucked with ’em, the three-piece suits for thirty-three quid, lotta money in those days, outta the Take Six boutique on Wardour Street, nutty twenty-four-inch flares but don’t forget what this geezer’s capable of. I look at my watch. It’s quarter to twelve.

  ‘I better be goin.’

  ‘Relax, son. It’s only early yet.’

  Gene opens another can of lager and hands it over to me. It’s there now, in front of me, so I think, fuck it. He tops up my tumbler for the umpteenth time. After that it starts getting hazy, very fucking hazy indeed.

  ‘You forgot your fortune cookie, son. What’s it say?’ says Mister Geno, completely sober.

  I open the paper, shut one eye and read it.

  ‘Beware flattery.’

  ‘That’s always good advice, son,’ says Gene with a wink.

  Thursday? Not a Good Day for It

  People think the hangover they’ve got at any moment in time is the worst hangover in the history of the world but for once it’s true. I’m wa
king up not knowing where the fuck I am but I soon realise I’m at home in my own bed. I can barely open my eyes cos every little bit of brilliant white light is painful and the blinds are wide open. My mouth’s completely arid. I think I’ve had nails driven into my temples at each side and my whole body aches like I’ve been run over. I’ve got bruises on the top of my arms and my hands smell of fags. The clock says five to ten. I feel like shit warmed over, my skull’s tight around my brain, I’m soaked in sweat.

  If I tried to get upright I’d fall straight back down. The thought of getting up is too much. I’d love a glass of water but the idea of making the journey out to the kitchen makes me feel like chundering. My clothes are strewn across the floor. One loafer is missing, the trousers are inside out, my shirt’s missing and the new jacket is in a pile. I need to go back to sleep for a couple of hours. This needs a rethink. I remember Freddie, Kinky, Germans, Yahoos, pills and feel even worse. I think about some poor fucker whose heart wasn’t in it waking up next to Crazy Larry. It chills me to the bone. My mobile starts to ring. I can’t see it but I’m fucked if I’m answering it anyway. I’d love to trust myself to get up and close the blinds but I reason that if I double-up one pillow under my head and put the other over my head I’ll be okay.

  As I go to pick up the pillow I jump back cos there on the sheet is a big black semi-automatic with a homemade silencer, just lying there on the bed. It’s neither of the guns Gene had out to play with last night. They were this bastard’s little brothers. The thought of last night makes my head hurt more. This is a monster of a weapon, like a hand-cannon. The silencer looks snidy, chunky, with old-school black electrical tape wrapped round and round it. It’s like waking up with a black mamba in the bed with you, dangerous but very beautiful, lethal and powerful, but how did it get here? It’s obviously one of Geno’s little orphans but what’s it doing in my kip? And Gene, he’s probably jogging round some rose garden somewhere with a hundredweight bag of cement strapped to his back after getting me in this state. I can’t remember getting home. Top of the morning to ya, Geno, thanks a bunch, thanks a fuckin million. The mobile stops ringing.