Human Conditioning

by Hirst, Louise

  “I’ll have water… please,” she replied.

  “Sure!”

  Jackie disappeared back into the hallway they had come from. Whilst alone, Gina surveyed the room. The walls were a stark white, but all the accessories were modern and in an array of bright colours. She had never seen anything like it before. All she knew was the bleakness of her estate: all greys, browns and blacks. But this place was like what she would assume a modern art gallery would look like. She loved it and a twinge of jealousy struck her. How much money would you have to earn to live in this kind of luxury?

  Jackie reappeared with a glass of water and handed it over to her. She was attempting to discreetly study her, and Gina wondered what this affluent woman must think of her in her mini skirt, Adidas jacket and trainers.

  “You’re very pretty… you’ll earn a lot with that face.”

  Gina frowned with confusion. “Will Mr Baker be long, do you think?” she asked awkwardly.

  “No, he’s due back any moment.” Jackie smiled coyly, then added, “He’s, er… seeing a man about a dog.”

  Gina understood this phrase more than anyone. Her father used it pretty much every time he walked out of the door. It meant he was going to the pub, but she had a strong feeling that Mr Baker was actually doing business and this made her nervous. Aiden had merely asked her to collect a debt. He hadn’t gone into detail as to who she was collecting from. In fact, he hadn’t even explained why he couldn’t collect it himself, other than because he didn’t want to personally upset the man – whoever he was.

  Just then the front door opened, and Gina turned in surprise. “That’ll be Mr Baker,” Jackie announced and waited eagerly for his arrival into the lounge. When he stepped into the room, she smiled widely at him. He smiled back briefly, but was distracted immediately by the stranger sitting on his couch. “Who’s this?” he asked Jackie.

  Gina peered up at him and saw a very fine sight. Mr Baker was rather young, clearly only in his thirties. For some reason, she had expected him to be a lot older, probably because Aiden and Jackie didn’t call him by his first name. He was tall and blonde with hazel eyes, and handsome, with a straight nose and defined cheek bones.

  “Her name’s Gina Watson, Mr Baker… I haven’t done any of the introductions yet.”

  “Uh… introductions?” Gina queried, Jackie’s words cutting through her reverie.

  Jackie’s warm brown eyes were gazing at her. “Where’s she come from?” he asked Jackie, his thick, sandy eyebrows arching with incomprehension.

  Jackie shrugged. Gina felt as if she wasn’t even in the room and they were addressing her as if she were some sort of animal unable to communicate with them. “I thought you’d arranged for her to be here?” Jackie said, her face falling with immediate concern.

  Gina finally stood and both Jackie and Mr Baker stared at her in utter astonishment. Gina couldn’t understand why this would cause such surprise. “And where do you think you’re going?” Mr Baker growled, his hazel eyes narrowing into a mean scowl.

  Gina straightened her back. “Look, Mr Baker, I’ve come to collect a debt?” she explained, radiating impatience.

  His eyes narrowed further. “A debt?” he asked, and a quiver of a smile rose on his lips. Suddenly he was intrigued.

  Gina continued in defence, “Yes, on behalf of Reggie Driscoll?”

  Mr Baker’s eyebrows rose and, raising a hand to his mouth, he tapped three fingers in quick succession and repeatedly over his bottom lip as he considered her. “He’s sending beautiful women to entice me into paying, now, is he?”

  Gina blushed and her eyes instinctively glanced at Jackie, but Jackie was smiling. She took a breath and replied, boldly, “I guess he is.”

  Mr Baker laughed, “How much?” Gina was surprised by how easy this was going to turn out to be. Aiden had made this man seem like he was going to be a nightmare. Why couldn’t he have just done this himself? “Miss Watson?”

  “Oh… um… twenty…”

  “Just twenty pounds? It seems hardly worth your trouble.”

  Gina managed a brief smile and she got the feeling he was attempting to tease her. Maybe Aiden’s plan was working. Maybe this man liked dealing with women more than men. She pursed her lips. “No… thousand,” she replied spiritedly.

  He whistled through his teeth. “Do all your debtors carry that amount of money on them, Miss Watson?”

  “I wouldn’t know… you are my first.”

  Jackie let out a giggle and, with a flick of his head, Mr Baker instructed her to leave the room. She obliged immediately and Gina watched her leave, all of a sudden nervous to be left alone with him.

  He was staring at her intently when she turned back to him and she squirmed under his penetrating gaze.

  “Turn around and close your eyes,” he said. Gina’s eyes defied him immediately and widened in shock at his instruction. He gave her a lopsided smile, knowing full well that he was intimidating her. “My safe is in this room, Miss Watson, and I do not wish for you to witness its whereabouts or its combination.” Twisting her lips, she reluctantly turned and closed her eyes. “Uh… fingers in ears, too, Miss Watson.”

  Gina rolled her eyes and inserted an index finger into each ear, a brief smile rising on her lips as she considered why he hadn’t just asked her to wait outside. He was toying with her!

  Every now and then she heard the faint sound of a knock or a click, but she had no idea where Mr Baker was in the room or where he was accessing such a large amount of cash. Her mind drifted to what Jackie had said about introductions and ‘you’ll earn a lot with that face’ and it suddenly dawned on her what line of ‘business’ this handsome man was in.

  When she whipped around and freed her ears and opened her eyes, Mr Baker was standing before her, holding a briefcase.

  “Your twenty thousand.”

  Gina gulped and, holding out her hand, she added nervously, “Thank you.”

  He passed her the case and gestured to the hallway. He walked her to the door and opened it. “A pleasure doing business with you, Gina.” Gina stepped out of the apartment on a discreet sigh of relief. She peered around his robust body to catch any sign of Jackie, to thank her for her hospitality, but she was nowhere to be seen. “I expect the case to be returned to me,” he added, reverting to his earlier seriousness and business-like manner. Gina nodded. “And please inform Reginald that his produce didn’t live up to its usual quality. He needs to speak with his supplier.”

  “Yes, Mr Baker,” Gina croaked uneasily.

  She hurried down the stairs and out of the front doors, down the stone steps and onto the pavement. Her heart was hammering in her chest. He’s a pimp!, she thought as she rushed over to Aiden’s car. She noticed Aiden lifting his arms in protest at the length of time she had been gone. As she slipped into the passenger seat, he barked, “You took your time!”

  “He was out!” she snapped. “You must have seen him arrive after I was let in!”

  Aiden was shocked by her aggravation but chose not to argue. He pulled away from the kerb and headed back the way they’d come. “Is that it?” he asked a short while later, glancing at the silver briefcase upon Gina’s lap.

  “Yes!” she snapped. Aiden’s jaw clenched, but again he didn’t retaliate. She had done him a massive favour today.

  As they headed towards home, Aiden sensed that Gina had something to say. In fact, he feared she had a lot to say. Maybe she had figured out what Mr Baker was…

  His thoughts were confirmed when Gina abruptly turned in her seat and spat, “He’s a pimp! You sent me to a pimp’s apartment, alone!”

  “He’s alright, G… he likes pretty girls.”

  “I bet he does.”

  Aiden’s eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips as if something had just occurred to him. He glanced at Gina. “Handsome fucker, ain’t he?”

  Gina didn’t answer. She wanted to say yes, because it was the truth, but she knew Aiden would take it as a personal insult and sh
e wondered why he would ask her such a question. He wasn’t looking for a fight, surely? She glared out of the window. He was taking her out, whether he liked it or not! She refused to be coaxed into him dropping her off home because she’d said something out of turn. “Where you taking me, then?” she asked.

  “Where do you wanna go… pub?”

  “No, not the bloody pub!” She scowled at him.

  Aiden sighed, then a cheeky smile crept onto his lips. “Bed?”

  Mr Baker was suddenly a distant memory at the prospect of going to bed with Aiden. Suddenly she felt like a young girl about to kiss a boy for the very first time. A heat of lust and anticipation exploded in the pit of her stomach, as if her libido was connected with his.

  Aiden placed his hand on her knee and she squirmed beneath his touch. She was hungry for him, as she always was. What was it about Aiden Foster that she loved so much? His exquisite looks, his sculptured body that just wasn’t meant for someone his age, his confidence, his arrogance, his erratic temper? All of it, of course. He was the sexiest man she’d ever known: far too good-looking for his own good and the good of others around him. It just wasn’t fair how attractive he was.

  She didn’t stand a chance.

  Chapter twelve

  Vivien and Duggie were at each other’s throats when they came home after a night out with friends. Vivien stormed into the flat and went straight into the kitchen. Duggie stumbled in after her. He had still been drunk from the night before when he’d woken on the living room floor of their friend’s flat in Homerton, and the cider he’d consumed on the bus on the way home had somewhat contributed to the blazing row he and Vivien had got themselves into.

  “Every bloody time, man!” Vivien yelled as she stormed back into the lounge, having filled the kettle and flicked the switch to boil.

  Duggie switched on the television and collapsed into his armchair. “You still moaning, woman?” he slurred, “Forever fucking moaning, you are!”

  “You’re an embarrassment, Duggie, a bloody embarrassment!”

  Aiden had heard the commotion from the shower and when he arrived downstairs ten minutes later he found his father in the armchair snoring like a fog-horn, and his mother sitting at the kitchen table, tears dripping down her cheeks, cigarette in hand and a cup of tea on the table.

  “What happened?” he asked, out of duty and because he had nothing else to say. He didn’t really care what had occurred, but he knew his mother would expect him to show a modicum of concern. He’d rather she keep her anger directed at his father than him.

  “He ruins everything,” she snivelled. Aiden made some tea and toast whilst she ranted. In his opinion, she chose to be with the twat, so why should he care what he’d done this time to make her unhappy? His mother continued, more indignant now, “We go out with Benn and Ange and he’s hammered by six o’clock. He starts chatting up all the women at the bar, right in front of me! Ange is sitting there watching him, and oh, how embarrassing that was… then he gets himself into a fight…”

  Aiden had called Reggie earlier and said he’d be late, but he was pushing his luck now. Reggie said he had something to talk to him about, and now, as his mother’s words drifted into the background of his consciousness, he wracked his brain to think whether he’d done something wrong. “I’ve gotta go,” were his last words to Vivien before he sauntered out of the flat and headed to the ground floor.

  When he arrived at Reggie’s flat, he took a deep breath and knocked on the door. He was nervous, convinced that he must have done something wrong. It came from a guilty conscience. There had been a couple of Reggie’s customers who Aiden had let off a couple of quid now and then. It was important to Aiden to stay on the right side of people. A couple of quid here and there was a small price to pay for loyalty, and that was what Aiden was buying: loyalty and trust. It would set him up nicely in the future if he had people on his side – people willing to lie for him, people willing to do him favours.

  But he bought such things as trust and loyalty with someone else’s money, and now he wondered whether Reggie had begun to notice the small dip in his profits. However, when Reggie opened the door and beamed a megawatt smile, Aiden sighed quietly with relief. He hadn’t yet been on the wrong side of Reggie Driscoll’s temper, but he’d seen people who had, and it wasn’t something he’d like to experience himself. He knew he was taking the piss just a little, but in the grand scheme of things, it was just a little, and in the long run it could benefit Reggie as well as himself.

  “Alright, son?” Reggie swung a muscular arm around Aiden’s large shoulders and pulled him into the flat. When they entered the living room, he announced, “Aiden, I want you to do a little sniffing about for me.”

  “Alright,” Aiden replied, intrigued, and took a seat on the couch. As he did so, Reggie pulled out a block of hash from his pocket and threw it in Aiden’s direction. He caught it with ease and automatically began skinning up with his own Rizla and cigarettes as he waited for Reggie to explain his mission.

  “There’s a crew who have set themselves up in Bermondsey called the KKKs…”

  Aiden looked up at him with confusion. “Ain’t that like the Ku Klux, whatever?”

  “Nah, I’m guessing it’s a play on that, but it’s actually their names: Kamal, Kyle and Kris with a K. Kyle and Kris are brothers, but Kamal Kakar is the ringleader…”

  “So, what’s their deal?”

  “Nothing much yet, not around here anyway, but apparently they’ve already made their mark around London Bridge. Now, at the moment they’re staying south of the river. They know who I am and they know their place, but they’re causing a buzz and I just need to stay on top of their movements.”

  Aiden nodded with understanding. “I’ve not heard of them. When did they establish themselves?”

  “Well, this is it. They seem to have just arrived out of nowhere and started calling the shots. I even hear that old Davey Stokes has stepped down…”

  “Davey Stokes, the dealer in New Cross?”

  “Yeah…”

  Reggie was clearly perplexed. He fell into thought whilst Aiden lit his joint. Aiden took a long drag then passed it to Reggie. He took it gratefully, also inhaling a long drag and holding it in his lungs for a short while before exhaling loudly. He forced himself to smile. “Nothing to worry about, son, not yet. Just keep your eyes and ears open, yeah? Keep in mind who you’re delivering to, see if you can spark up a conversation without it looking like you’re prying and, more importantly, don’t come across as if you’re worried. Worry spreads worry, son, and we don’t need people thinking we can’t handle ourselves.”

  “I gotcha,” Aiden replied simply, then he showed Reggie his famously exquisite smile. “So, you seeing Hailey tonight? It’s Saturday. You taking her anywhere special?” he teased.

  Reggie smiled at the only person other than his mother and his closest cousin who could get away with talking to him on such a personal level. “I am, as it goes…” He smirked and shook his head. “She fucking loves you! Said if she was younger… you good-looking bastard!”

  Aiden laughed. “Younger? She can’t be far off my age already! How old is she?” Reggie grinned and winked at him. “Come on, how old?” Aiden pressed jovially.

  Reggie let out a roar of laughter. Reggie’s laugh was like a lion’s roar. When he really laughed, his whole body shook, and it always made Aiden feel good inside. “She’s twenty-one,” Reggie finally admitted, and Aiden being Aiden, he congratulated the man with a lascivious smile and a handshake.

  Chapter thirteen

  When Aiden pulled up outside Carlton House tower block in a shiny red Vauxhall Corsa, the first thing he saw as he jumped out onto the pavement was Gina hanging over the balustrade on the fourth floor. He couldn’t see her expression, but he knew she would be pissed off.

  Meeting him at the top of the stairs, she nudged him forcefully in the arm. “I told you not to get him that car! Do you know how much shit he’s gonna give me n
ow?”

  Aiden swaggered up to Gina’s flat, throwing the car keys up into the air and catching them as he went. Gina stormed past him and into the open front door, calling out to her father irately as she charged into the kitchen. “Well, you’ve done it now, Dad. Really put us in the shit!”

  “What you on about?” Roy asked disinterestedly from the kitchen table as he sipped on his morning tea. He was dressed, or rather undressed, in an off-white vest and striped pyjama bottoms. When Roy saw Aiden step into his kitchen, his eyes narrowed. “What the fuck do you want?”

  Aiden threw the car keys at him and he caught them clumsily. Staring down at the keys in his hands, his eyes widened slightly then narrowed again as he glared back up at Aiden. “What are these for?” he growled.

  “You know full well what they’re for!” Gina snapped, her arms crossed tight across her chest.

  “Shut your trap!” Roy spat. Aiden’s deep blue eyes conveyed amusement and went from father to daughter, then back to father, but he didn’t attempt to intervene. Roy could feel the acceleration of his heart and the clamminess of nerves as he thought back to the conversation with Aiden a few weeks before and he continued irately, “You’re having me on…” He was angry. That he might be proven wrong by this kid would be more humiliating than the time he’d been found passed out in an alleyway around the corner of the pub with his trousers around his ankles. He’d never remembered what had happened that night, but this he’d remember for the rest of his life.

  “Go take a look downstairs if you don’t believe me,” Aiden replied, casually stepping back and gesturing towards the front door.

  Roy got to his bare feet and stormed outside. Peering over the balustrade, he took in the red Corsa sparkling in the sunlight. Against the bleakness of the grey estate, it was a treat to the eye. It was one nice motor, but there was no way he could afford it.

  Aiden stepped outside after him, his dry smile remaining on his handsome face. “Nice, ain’t it?”