by Kerry Kaya
“I will if I want to.” Cynthia reached out her arms to take the child from his mother. “And less of your cheek, you,” she playfully scolded.
Cathy grinned. She had always loved Cynthia. She was the very epitome of what a mother should be, and after growing up with Angie, Cynthia was like a breath of fresh air. She loved her children with a ferociousness that Cathy was determined to one day aspire to.
From the hallway, the telephone began to ring, and turning her head, she watched as Paul lifted up the receiver. Within a split second, his whole countenance had changed.
“Problem?” she enquired.
He looked down at her and gave a forced smile that didn’t quite reach his dark blue eyes.
“No problem.” He placed the receiver back on the cradle, hardly even saying two words to the caller. “I have to shoot off for a bit though. You don’t mind staying here with my mum for a while, do you?”
“Of course she doesn’t.” Cynthia spoke for her son’s girlfriend. “We can have a good natter, and talk babies.”
Cathy laughed softly. “Sounds perfect to me.” She turned to look at Paul. “Are you sure that you are okay?”
“Course I am.” He kissed the top of her head. “As I keep on telling you, you don’t have to worry about me.”
Cathy watched him go, and as the front door slammed closed behind him, she narrowed her eyes. She knew Paul inside and out, and she knew when something was troubling him. Oh, he could tell her otherwise until he was blue in the face, but she wasn’t daft. She knew the truth; she always could when it came to him.
* * *
Slamming his foot on the brake, Paul brought the Range Rover to a screeching halt. He yanked the key out of the ignition and jumped out of the car. “What the fuck is going on?” he yelled.
Jason shook his head in a warning. His fingers held the struggling young man beside him in a vice tight grip, and as the boy tried to flee from the scene, he jabbed his elbow into the side of the terrified boy’s face.
With a groan, the boy dropped heavily to the concrete floor.
“Well?” Reaching into the backseat of the car, Paul brought out a baseball bat. He vaguely recognized the boy as being one of Samson’s young foot soldiers. “What the fuck is going on?” he repeated.
“Tell him. Tell him what you just told me.” Jason spat out the words and he breathed heavily through his flared nostrils. “You need to hear this,” he told Paul. He turned his head back to the boy. “Oi, you little fucker,” he kicked out his heavy boot, “tell him. Tell him everything.”
Devan Barkley placed his hands protectively over his head. He’d only just turned seventeen, and with dark coffee-coloured skin and startling blue eyes, he was a skinny kid and small for his age. Fear caught in the back of his throat, and looking between the two men, he tried to weigh up his options. Samson Ivers may have been his biological father, but between him and Mooney, he didn’t know which one out of the two scared him more.
His eyes settled on Paul. He saw the anger spread across the older man’s face and knew for a fact that he was capable of violence, real violence. Mooney’s temper was legendary on their estate, and they were not made up tales. No, they were real-life accounts told by people who had seen firsthand the extreme violence Mooney had dished out. As the man in question stood over him with a baseball bat held in his fist, he looked not only scary, but downright terrifying.
“Is that your car?” Paul surveyed the area around him. It was in near darkness and he knew for a fact that there were no CCTV cameras in operation, despite what the sign on the nearby dimly lit lamppost stated.
As the colour drained from his face, Devan warily nodded his head.
Taking the bat, Paul walked around the car. It was a decent motor, an XR3I—the dream car of any boy racer—and for a short second, he felt a moment of pity for what he was about to do. He then proceeded to smash each window to smithereens.
With each loud crash, Devan winced. He’d saved up for months to buy the car, and knew for a fact that his wheels were the envy of his peers. For the first time in his life, he actually had some street cred.
“Now that,” Paul said, pointing the weapon toward Devan, “is me just warming up.” He stalked forward, crouched down, and grasped the boy’s jaw tightly in his fist. “Now, you are going to tell me exactly what the fuck is going down, and if you don’t, then I’m going to break every single bone in your fucking body until you start talking, because let me tell you now, you are seriously beginning to fuck me off.”
Devan’s body shook. He looked up at the two men and physically cowered away from them. With each passing second, their large frames seemed to grow even larger. It was at that moment, he regretted smoking the joint he had happily shared with his friends. The sweet pungent scent of the grass lingered, and that laced with the fear he felt, was enough to make him want to empty his bowels. “It’s the coke,” he finally stuttered.
Paul glanced up at Jason and narrowed his eyes. “What’s he talking about? What fucking coke?”
Devan swallowed deeply. “The coke, man,” he stated. “The coke you got from Mad Dougie. Well, some of it was snide, see, and Samson is going off of his fucking trolley. He’s on the warpath, ready and waiting to maim anyone who gets in his way.”
“How do you know this?” Paul tightened his grip on the boy’s jaw. “Who told you this?”
Fright got the better of Devan. A wet patch appeared between his legs, and as the steaming urine seeped onto the cold concrete beneath him, he squirmed even harder. “It was Samson,” he cried. “I heard Samson tell Jerry Dolan. He’s going mental, reckons you replaced one of the bags with baking powder or something like that. He reckons you’ve tucked him up.”
Paul threw the boy away from him, straightened up, then glanced across to Jason, and slowly shook his head. This wasn’t good and that was an understatement. “Is this a joke?”
Jason shrugged his shoulders. His expression told Paul everything he needed to know. It was no joke. In actual fact, it was a nightmare, a nightmare of epic proportions.
“Get out of here.” Paul raised the bat in a warning and watched the boy scramble to his feet before running away, as if his life depended on it. The kid looked positively terrified, not that he gave one iota about the boy and his feelings.
“What the fuck?” Jason’s eyes were wide. “What the actual fuck, Paul?” he growled.
Paul looked into the distance and rubbed at his temples as he tried to think the situation through. He knew for a fact that they hadn’t touched the contents of the bag, so who exactly had replaced the coke, if indeed anyone even had? And more to the point, why was this the first time he was hearing about it? Why had none of the men in his employment given him a heads up on the situation? It was a fuckup of epic proportions, and as a result, heads would roll. He’d make sure of that, if it was the last thing he ever did.
“You know that this puts us in the firing line, right? We collected that coke; we were the ones who dropped it off.”
Paul didn’t answer. He wasn’t stupid and knew exactly what this sudden change of events meant. Instantly, he regretted letting the boy go. He needed to vent his anger out on someone, and could think of nothing he would like better than to take the bat and smash it across the boy’s body until he was a broken and bloodied mess on the floor.
“Michael Nicholls,” he finally growled. “He took the bag from us, and it’s no secret that he likes a bit of Charlie.” He slammed his fist against the palm of his hand. “Get in the motor. I’m gonna kill that fucking ponce for once and for all when I get my hands on him.”
Chapter 11
Talk about Oscar winning performance. Samson was pleasantly surprised by his theatrics. He screamed and hollered down the phone at Dougie Ward, barely even letting the nutcase get a word in edgeways.
“Where is my coke?” he screamed. “Think you can get one over on me, do you? Me, fucking me?” Adding to his performance, he poked a stiff finger into his ches
t. “You think you can treat me like I’m a first-class fucking cunt? I pay you,” he continued, barely even pausing to take a breath, “a great deal of fucking wedge for my merchandise. I’ve stayed loyal. I could have gone elsewhere. I could have gone to the fucking Turks, who let me tell you now, were more than willing to make a deal, but I didn’t. I stayed loyal to you, to fucking you, and this is how you repay me?”
He allowed Dougie the opportunity to answer him, and could hear the shock in the madman’s voice. He actually sounded contrite and he had to stifle down the urge to laugh once more.
“This,” he continued, “will be all over the smoke by the end of the night and you, you thieving bastard, will rue the day you ever tried to tuck me up—to treat me, me,” he spat, “like a fucking cunt.”
He slammed the phone down with a ferociousness that almost split the plastic receiver in two. Oh, he was good all right, better than good. He was a fucking mastermind. He slowly turned around to face the group of heavies in his employment who had gathered in the lounge waiting for instruction from him. Taking direction from his number two, Jerry Dolan, they were big men, as tall as they were broad shouldered, and more than capable of taking care of his business. “Get out there now and find that fucking cunt Mooney.” He threw Jerry a sly grin. “I want the bastard brought to me.” He paused momentarily to light a cigarette. “And make sure he is alive.” He stared at each of the men in turn. “You got that?”
Jerry and the crowd of heavies nodded their heads. Their bull necks virtually disappearing as they did so. “Got it, boss,” they grinned back happily.
* * *
Bringing his car to a halt outside The Jolly Fisherman, Paul threw open the door and jumped out with Jason swiftly following suit behind him.
“He’s got to be in here,” Paul stated.
Jason nodded his head. They had already searched all over the estate looking for Michael Nicholls, and still they had come up empty handed.
They pushed their way into the public house and bustled through the crowd of revelers. As usual for a Saturday evening, it was noisy and crammed to the rafters with punters. The familiar scent of cheap perfume and stale cigarette smoke clouded the air and filled their nostrils.
“Over there,” Jason shouted to be heard above the music, and with a flick of his head, he indicated toward the back of the premises where the pool table was housed.
Without missing a beat, Paul stormed forward. His hand shot out and he grabbed Michael around the throat. “You and me are gonna have a little chat.”
“What?” Michael’s eyes bulged and the colour drained from his face. Even though he’d been expecting this visit, he was once again reminded of just how powerful, how dangerous, Mooney was. “I gave you your dough back. You know I fucking did, and with a hefty amount of fucking interest, might I add.”
Paul ignored Michael’s protests and dragged him bodily toward the exit, all the while, he had to stop himself from laying his fists into the terrified man.
Outside on the pavement, Paul could no longer control himself and he swung his fist full pelt into Michael’s face. The man staggered backward from the force of the blow.
“Where is it? Where is the coke?” Paul’s words came out in a low, menacing growl.
“How would I know?” Regaining his balance, Michael wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing blood across his cheek. Looking up and down the near empty street, he was stalling for time. “How the fuck would I know where it is?” Unusually, he was now full of bravado, his tone bordering on mocking. “Why don’t you ask Samson where it is?” he smirked.
“Because you, you cunt, were the one who took the fucking bag from us.” Slamming his fist into Michael’s gut, Paul’s breath streamed out ahead of him, and as Michael dropped to his knees, he grasped a handful of his hair in his fist and roughly snapped his head backward. “Where is it?” he demanded. “And I’m warning you now, don’t even try to fuck me over on this. I know it was fucking you. It’s no secret that you hoover that fucking shit up your nose. So, where the fuck is it?”
Michael groaned out an inaudible reply. Blood trickled down his chin and onto the front of his shirt from a deep split at the corner of his mouth, and hawking deep into his throat, he spat out a mouthful of blood. “It weren’t me.” Gone was the bravado; he was clearly terrified. “I swear to God, Paul, it wasn’t me.”
Paul was so incensed; he could practically taste the anger he felt. He was no mug and as such, wouldn’t be treated as one. Grasping Michael’s head, he repeatedly slammed it against the wheel arch. Each loud crash spurned him on. The fact that he could so easily kill meant absolutely nothing to him. He had gone past the point of no return. No amount of reasoning would lift the red mist that had descended over him. “Where the fuck is it?”
Michael slid unconscious to the ground and Paul proceeded to punch and kick out his heavy boots with as much strength as he could physically muster. As far as he was concerned, the hammering he was dishing out was long overdue.
“Paul.”
The warning in Jason’s voice immediately made Paul look up. His chest heaved from the exertion, and as the screech of tyres ground to a halt on either side of where they were standing, he was hastily brought back to his senses. He looked around him as four of Samson’s most loyal men, all built like the proverbial brick shithouse, jumped out of their cars and advanced upon them. Not for the first time did he want to curse his temper. Not only should he have waited until he was thinking straight, he should have put the feelers out and played clever instead of jumping in head first.
“You piece of shit.” He kicked out at Michael’s unconscious body one final time, hoping more than anything that he had actually killed the man. As far as he was concerned, he was nothing but a sly, sneaky, useless fucking ponce who more than deserved death.
“Mr. Ivers wants a word with you.” There was a hint of delight in Jerry Dolan’s gruff voice as he dragged him toward the waiting car. Paul noted that he and Jason had been separated, and as he made himself comfortable on the back seat, he watched with irritation as Michael Nicholls’s prostrate body was peeled from the pavement and unceremoniously dragged toward the rear of the car.
“Let’s get this over with, shall we? Leave the no-good treacherous bastard where he is.”
The unexpected punch to the side of his head not only made Paul see stars, but also made him inwardly groan a second time. He’d been right all along; it was definitely a nightmare all right.
* * *
Throwing open the front door, Samson’s expression was a mask of pure anger.
“Get in here, boy.” For a brief moment, he was impressed with his men. He hadn’t expected to see Paul Mooney on his doorstep so quickly, and there and then, decided to give Jerry a pay rise. The big man was a diamond as far as he was concerned.
He walked through to the lounge, knowing full well that the two boys would be dragged in behind him. In front of the patio doors, he came to a halt, and as he slowly turned around, his eyes flashed dangerously.
“You thieving bastards,” he spat. “Do you take me for a fucking mug? Who was it that gave you the wink that you could steal my,” he stabbed a stiff finger into his chest and his gravelly voice rose even further, “my fucking coke?”
Paul opened his mouth to speak, and taking a menacing step forward, Samson cut him off. He clenched his meaty fists into tight balls and noted that much to his annoyance, the boy didn’t flinch. In fact, he didn’t even bat an eyelid. He pointed down at the overstuffed sealed polythene bag on the glass coffee table, a split down the center of the bag was clearly visible, and spilling out of it was traces of white powder. “This,” he snatched up the package and waved it underneath Paul’s nose, “is not what I sent you to collect. It isn’t what I paid a considerable amount of money for.” He threw the bag across the room. It landed on the floor with a soft thud and a cloud of white powder filtered up into the air. “That,” he hollered, “is not the fucking coke I paid
for.”
Both Paul and Jason watched the cloud of white powder settle on the furniture as though it was the most fascinating thing they had ever seen.
Tearing his eyes away from the scene before him, Paul shook his head. “I don’t know what you want me to say …,” he began.
“You don’t know what I want you to say?” Samson roared out the words. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand the front this kid had. He’d known from the start that the lairy little fucker was a danger to him, that the little runt had the intelligence to take over the estate. Not only that, he had the nerve to see his threats through. The quicker the kid was out of his eye line, the better. “I want to know who gave you the wink to switch my merchandise.” His voice rose a decibel with each and every word he spat out. “Who gave you the fucking nod?”
Paul was perplexed. He looked down at the package a second time before looking across to the heavies and shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know. We did what you paid us to do. We collected and dropped off, that was it.” He opened out his arms. “Why the fuck would we switch the bags?”
Spittle gathered at the corners of Samson’s lips and his eyes bulged. Was this kid for fucking real? “Because, you little bastard, you want what’s mine, and let me tell you now, I’ve erased men from this earth for doing far fucking less. So what makes you think that I’ll turn a blind eye now, that I’ll let you, either of you,” he spat, flicking his eyes between the two men, “off with this fucking piss take?”
Paul was genuinely confused. He was more than aware that both he and Jason were outnumbered, and if they wanted to get out of the situation alive, then he needed to use his brain, to think the situation through. He knew that as well as his own name.
“Well?” Samson’s voice rose even further and he screamed out the words. “Who gave you the fucking nod?”
