by Robert White
He spoke absently. “Geoff.”
I pressed my hand on his shoulder and did a quick scan around the garage. Still alone. I dropped my thumb behind his collarbone and applied pressure. It hurts like hell. I know.
“Geoff. I need to speak to Jimmy Albright.” I nodded toward the Porsche. “He was arrested in this car last night. You need to help me speak to Jimmy.”
The kid’s face contorted with pain. I added a little more pressure. It’s not that I enjoy inflicting pain, you understand? It is part of the job. Business, that’s all.
“You are going to help me, Geoff, aren’t you?”
Geoff nodded at me. He looked very worried.
“He’s being released now,” he gasped. “He’ll be going out the front door in a few minutes.”
Pressure released another fifty in the pocket, pain and reward, like training an animal.
“Thanks, Geoff. We will be friends for a long time, me and you.”
Geoff stepped away from me. I looked in his eyes. The fear had turned to distaste. He knew he had been taken. It wouldn’t be the last time. He wouldn’t be a copper long, not enough bottle. You need a certain amount of that to be a copper in Manchester. So, maybe we wouldn’t be friends for years to come, he had slipped through the net. Either Greater Manchester needed to tighten its recruitment process or no one wanted the shit job any more.
He hit the ‘open’ button on the garage door and I fired up the Porsche. They don’t make a satisfying noise, do they? I prefer the low growl of a real muscle car and they don’t make many these days. British TVRs or Aston Martin, that’s me.
I blipped the accelerator and watched the response of the rev counter. The interior smelled like the inside of a whore’s handbag. The only thing missing was the fluffy dice. You can’t buy taste, eh?
A brief squeal of tyres and I was out in the open just in time to see my man Jimmy dropping down the nick steps two at a time. There was a God after all, see?
Jimmy spotted the car straight away. For a moment, he didn’t know what to do. I could see it in his face. That most basic of emotions in us all. Fight or flight. The adrenalin hits the bloodstream and there is nothing most people can do to control it. He set himself to run and then relaxed the pose. Relax? Well, it’s the wrong word. He sort of, deflated. Have you ever seen a rabbit in a snare? They kick like mad for a while until the snare tightens, then they simply resign themselves to their fate. Lie down and die. Well that was Jimmy.
He must have known the minute he came down from the coke he was in the shit. You see, Jimmy had been on an errand for my client. It’s fuckin’ obvious to anyone Jimmy wasn’t a choirboy. He’d been dropping off my client’s current girlfriend, (unknown to the relatively new wife), hence the Porsche. If Jimmy had tried to get inside the girl’s knickers due to his heightened state he would have been in a lot less shit. Even if the numb nut had told my client’s wife about his boss’s adultery, he may have survived.
No. Jimmy had been sampling my client’s produce without paying for it and that is not recommended.
You see I’ve worked for the higher end of the criminal fraternity. Not your stupid muscle boys, driving around in their Shoguns, pushing their way to the font of the queue at the local nightclub with a big bag of ‘E’s’ in their pocket.
My clients were, to all intents and purposes, bona fide businessmen. The Porsche was registered to a leasing company. The letter I produced to recover it was from a well-respected legal firm in the City. You were not going to see my client’s name anywhere in that business transaction.
Don’t get me wrong, the big guys are just as stupid as the Shogun brigade, which is why they needed me. The trouble was they didn’t like my fees. I come expensive; so they employed people like big daft Jimmy for the day-to-day muscle stuff and ended up getting fucked over. After a while they finally discovered they had a problem that was costing them serious money and called me.
I pulled the Porsche up alongside matey-boy. He was a big lad, well over six foot two and built with it. He looked a hard man. You know the type, all skinhead and tattoos. Look outside any nightclub on a Friday night in Manchester and you’ll see a Jimmy. He held his arms slightly away from his bulky frame and sucked in his gut. He probably thought he looked good, a final attempt at intimidating his pursuer. He looked a proper twat.
“Get in, Jimmy. We’re going for a ride.”
I was being polite again. I didn’t want to have to chase the son of a bitch around town and have to wrestle with him in the public eye. He stalled.
“You know it’s for the best, Jimmy.”
I was still polite, even if I was losing patience with the halfwit.
He spoke for the first time and nodded toward the nick. “I didn’t tell them anything, boss. I’m no grass, like. You know I wouldn’t. Mr. Davies knows that too, eh?”
I stepped from the 911 and walked to him. The night air was chilled. There was rain in the air and I wished I’d left my overcoat on. Somewhere in the distance a band was playing and the drums reverberated around the hard surfaces of the street. We stood face to face. Jimmy’s eyes were watering.
I checked the street for emerging coppers or the odd civilian, but it was all quiet. Any hope Jimmy had was fading fast.
So the scene was set. Me, in my Paul Smith suit, which I was not going to get dirty, and Dopey in his copy Reebok tracksuit. He must have been a good two inches taller and a good two stone heavier than me.
So why was he so fuckin’ scared?
Remember the rabbit?
I looked him straight in the eye. “Get in the fuckin’ car, Jimmy.”
I saw the look. He was thinking of doing one. He hadn’t noticed the syringe concealed in my right palm. With one swift movement I punched it into his groin. The reaction was instantaneous. I’d rehearsed the move repeatedly on a life-size dummy. A doctor friend helped with the medical questions and mapped the exact area I needed to hit. The last thing I wanted was the needle to break and get sonny-boy’s blood mixed with mine. That would never do.
The move was text-book and his legs gave way. I had to guide him to the car. By the time I got his frame in the seat, he was unconscious.
I kept a secure lock-up just off Oldham Street that held several cars, a couple of vans, and a big old safe for anything confidential. I left the Porsche in a spare bay and heaved Jimmy into the back of an Escort van. He mumbled something in his drugged haze and farted loudly as I dropped him onto his back.
I drove all the way to Salford with the bastard rolling around and stinking the van out.
Finally we got to his building. Jimmy lived on the sixteenth floor of a council high-rise. It was one of three towers that had been built mid-sixties and then recently renovated at a massive cost to the taxpayer. Unfortunately most of the inhabitants didn’t give a monkey’s about the place and it was rapidly declining again. The grassed areas around the blocks were patrolled by local boys on BMX bikes wearing the standard uniform of hoodies and Stone Island coats. They did tricks and watched the van pull up, suspicious of anyone they didn’t know. There was probably enough firepower hidden under those clothes to start a small war. I just wanted to get in and out. Jimmy himself was coming round. The concoction of opiates was beginning to wear off enough for him to stagger from the van, but he was still stoned enough to be a pussycat. The hoodies took a second glance at him and figured I was giving the fat bastard a lift home. He giggled as we stood in the evil-smelling elevator. The lads had been using it as a toilet since Adam was a lad. I read the graffiti to take my mind off the stench. Apparently Susan from 1202 sucked cocks for a fiver.
Once at his door, I had the unenviable task of rooting in Jimmy’s rather nasty tracksuit for his door key. Directly inside the outer door was a second metal gate. This was a security measure popular with drug dealers and designed to prevent unwelcome visitors, namely hairy detectives with warrants. It made me smile. Obviously Jimmy liked the feeling of being behind bars even when he wasn’t in priso
n.
I pushed him onto the grubby settee and checked the rest of the flat. We were alone. I was happy. The flat itself was sparse and, like Jimmy, in need of a good scrub. The only items of value appeared to be the absurdly large television with the all singing all dancing satellite receiver, DVD recorder, and a fuck-off sound system.
I noticed Jimmy had only three CDs.
I walked back to the poor sap on the sofa and slapped him around the face hard enough to get his attention.
“You buy this gear with Mr Davies’s money, Jimmy?”
Jimmy was still out of the game when it came to answering questions. He blubbered a little and let out another rasping effort. I already knew all the answers anyway so why prolong the agony?
Jimmy had a small balcony just off the lounge. A uPVC sliding door led to it. Most tenants let their washing dry on the small outside areas. Some, more house-proud people had flowerboxes filled with seasonal plants. Jimmy’s just had a green plastic-coated washing line filled with grotty socks and skids.
I ushered Jimmy to the balcony rail, pulled the syringe from my pocket, and showed it to him. He giggled stupidly.
“Good shit, man.”
I wiped the item clean of my prints and gave it to the clown. He took it and attempted to remove the needle guard.
Slowly, he looked up from the needle and straight at me. There, in that moment was the grim realisation of who I was. Where he was, and what was about to happen.
I pushed my right hand between his legs, my left under his chin and the balcony rail hit him in the small of his back. His heavy upper body pivoted him over.
The poor useless sod grabbed at the washing line. I watched him drop. The line and its pegged coalition fluttered above him like the tail of a kite. I followed him all the way down.
It was a mess.
Jimmy was a bad boy but he probably didn’t deserve to go flying from sixteen floors up. Maybe he should have been given a second chance by Joel Davies. The trouble is, the drug business is one of ‘eat or be eaten’. These people have to be seen to be ruthless. One chink in their armour is seen as weakness. Before they knew it, some other meaner, more ruthless guy would turn up and take the business away from them. Fear was their greatest weapon.
Jimmy stole drugs from his boss, simple as.
Me, I’ve never used the stuff. It’s a mug’s game.
Joel Davies was forty-four years old. He started out with a second-hand goods stall on Stockport market when he was sixteen. His three older brothers assisted him by actively burgling various quality homes in and around the city. The stall became an antiques shop. The shop, in turn, became a warehouse exporting artefacts to the USA by the container load.
Five years ago, Joel discovered his older brothers were on the take, creaming off the best quality gear before it hit the company. They met with an unfortunate boating accident in the North Sea, courtesy of yours truly.
His seemingly bona fide antique business made Joel over a million quid a year. That would have been enough for most men. Not Joel. He supplied cocaine, Ecstasy, and cannabis in massive amounts to scally crooks who thought they were ‘big time’ dealers, and recently opened a lab that manufactured enough amphetamine sulphate to speed up the whole of Greater fuckin’ Manchester. The drug business made him three times more than his antiques.
His ruthlessness was matched with great business sense. His big weakness, as I told you earlier, is he paid peanuts and ended up with monkeys, for instance, Jimmy the skydiver.
I sat in his lounge. It was a shrine to overindulgence and bad taste. Joel could tell you the story and value of every quality antique in the place, but nothing fitted. Some huge sideboard that looked every inch of Far Eastern origin dwarfed a splendid Victorian child’s chair. It’s as if he couldn’t decide where to put anything. Having said that, any man who was willing to have all three surviving members of his family topped for stealing from him had to be considered decisive and driven.
Totally fuckin’ evil, actually.
I sat in a green wingback leather chair. It was very comfortable but cold to the touch, sort of gentleman’s club chic.
He smiled at me as I counted my fee the way a shark looks at a seal cub.
“It’s all there I take it?”
“It is.”
“Fifteen ‘K’ is steep for a little shit like Jimmy.”
“The risk to me is the same no matter who it is. Besides, he was putting two hundred quid a day up his nose. In a couple of months you’ll have broke even.”
Joel was a small man, maybe only five foot five or so. He was well-muscled and treated his fitness seriously. His body was almost completely covered with thick black hair. A tuft of it protruded from the neck of his shirt. He swallowed a large shot of Blue Label and the tuft was momentarily dislodged by an equally prominent Adam’s apple.
“Why don’t you work for me full time?”
I wanted to say that I’d prefer not to spend more than passing moments in the company of a psychopath, but instead I was straight to the point.
“I like being self-employed.”
I closed up the holdall with the fifteen in it. It had been delivered in twenties, used, like I asked.
“I have to be going. I’ll drop the Porsche in a day or two.”
I was about to leave when he gripped me by the forearm. I don’t like anyone to touch me. When will these tactile idiots realise not everyone likes to play pat-a-cake? I let it show. He shrugged and released his grip.
“Before you leave I want to show you something.”
I have to say I wasn’t keen. I had things to do.
We strolled the length of the lounge, a walk in itself, and exited through patio doors big enough to drive a bus through. Joel looked crisp and clean with his fresh white cotton shirt tucked neatly into Diesel chinos. He swaggered like a king into the sunshine. The perfectly landscaped garden was totally ruined by God-awful pot figures and privet hedges cut into animal shapes. Topiary, they call it. Shite I say.
He pointed at a large green bird.
“Works of art, aren’t they?”
“Different.”
He eyed me suspiciously so I added, “I’ve never seen a bush like it,” and issued a practised laugh.
He got the pun and cracked a smile but I could tell he was unsure if I was taking the piss.
A cobbled path lined with beautiful bedding plants took us to his garage complex. I counted no less than twelve newly painted doors. Joel pulled a remote from his pocket and made a show of pushing button 6 and smiling as a motorised door kicked into life. The expression ‘big fuckin’ deal’ came to mind.
The door open, I was faced with an insult to the sensory gift. Joel puffed out his hairy chest and strained the buttons on his shirt.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?”
The car was a Lamborghini Diablo. One gull-wing door was open. An elderly man was hoovering the interior, the fuckin’ white leather interior. Now why a car manufacturer with the prestige of Lamborghini makes a purple car is baffling to me. Why an individual with all the cash in the world would want to choose that colour is unbelievable. I had the greatest difficulty in hiding my disappointment. In fact I almost burst into fits of laughter when I saw the private reg. LAM 130. Joel had ensured the plate was made with the 1 and the 3 almost touching so it read LAMBO. I wanted to tell him what a proper arse he would look driving the thing, but as I had just taken the sap for a quick fifteen, with more to come, I kept my mouth shut.
“Come and sit in her,” Joel said, and stepped forward waving at the old boy to stop his cleaning duties. The cleaner shot me a look that told me he was pissed off with being interrupted.
I slid into the driver’s seat and smelled the new car smell, something I have never tired of.
“Go on, fire her up.”
I looked at Joel; he was like a kid with a new toy. Who was I to say no? The engine roared into life and I had to say it made a fairly satisfying noise for an Italian car. I turned it off
almost immediately and stepped from the car with a little difficulty. I had to lift myself from the seat using my right hand on the roof of the car. The old boy scuttled straight over and wiped my finger-marks from the paintwork. Joel gave him a satisfied look and me a derisory one.
I had just about overloaded on the Diablo when I heard the tell-tale bubble of a V8. A big bore exhaust was attached to it. It was designed to produce that delightful sound that should be bottled and sold as stress relief. I turned toward the noise and saw the Mustang. It was a ’67 Shelby GT500 Fastback; rare as rocking horse shit; a pure muscle car. A 428 V8 delivered 355bhp at 5400 rpm and 0 to 60mph in just over six seconds. Imagine that in a car just about to have its fortieth birthday bash. Sadly Shelby fell out with Ford after that model and the car was never the same again for me.
When I was a young soldier I had dreamed of just this car.
It was black, the only colour to have, with two fat white stripes running from bonnet to boot. The black interior had a matching white pipe. She was immaculate, someone had loved this car all its life. Massive white walls surrounded gleaming, non-standard chrome spokes which had replaced the old rostyles. If the car was beautiful the driver was stunning. This girl made Julia Roberts look average.
She killed the motor and leaned into the big heavy door. The old car creaked slightly as she alighted. The steady plink-plink of the cooling engine announced it had been driven hard.
Her legs appeared first. Bare legs, her feet encased in dark blue leather Gucci sandals. A pure white pleated tennis skirt, trimmed in the same blue as the sandals, briefly revealed a little more thigh than she’d planned and there was the merest hint of white cotton. She wore a figure-hugging white Rock and Republic T-shirt which showed her ample assets, and the change in temperature from car to garden was obvious to see.
Her hair was cropped short. Small spikes of auburn brushed her pale cheeks. Her eyes were the most brilliant blue.
I suddenly realised I was staring. She glanced at me. I sensed no emotion whatsoever, maybe mild displeasure at there being a visitor. Joel hardly noticed her. He was embroiled with the purple mess in the garage. He shouted, without turning to face her.
