The Business

by Martina Cole

  Gerald had collected the money owed, as always, but the fact that the boys had not even had the fucking brains to actually cover his back had really hit home to him. They had waited outside for him, had waited for him outside a pub that was not only on a busy fucking road, the A13, but was also a road that guaranteed a fucking easy shoot, an easy getaway for anyone in the know.

  As he looked around the pub, watched everyone carrying on as if nothing untoward had happened, he wanted to scream out his frustration. He walked out with the envelope of money and felt an anger towards his sons that he knew was born out of his utter disrespect for them and all they stood for. It was a real eye-opener. Somewhere in his drunken brain he knew that there was something radically wrong with them. He knew that they should have been as angry as he was, as offended, and as disgusted. But they weren’t.

  They were like half men, like a pair of fucking eunuchs. That thought had occurred to him many times before but he had suppressed it. He knew they were not like him, not really. They were only on his firm because they were his flesh and blood. If they were not his sons he would not have given them the time of day. They were a pair of fucking losers, and he knew that deep in his boots. He also knew that he was not the only person who held that opinion where they were concerned. He felt, rightly or wrongly, that these boys of his should have known what was happening with their little sister, should have looked out for her, protected her, but they hadn’t. They had not bothered to even oversee their little sister’s life, which was something that any Irish Catholic boy would have done without any kind of prompting, would have done because it meant something to them. Because their sister’s welfare should have come before their own.

  Imelda’s predicament had only served to prove something that he had already suspected, that his sons had no fucking real perception of the world that they inhabited. He was still carrying them, and he would always be carrying them because they didn’t have the fucking brains to hold their own cocks unless he saw fit to draw them both a fucking detailed map.

  Outside in the evening air Gerald Dooley saw them as he had never seen them before, standing by the motor with the usual expectant look on their faces, both waiting for him to tell them what to do. Waiting for him to tell them both what the next step was going to be. They were an embarrassment to him, they were a pair of fucking leeches. He knew they were frightened of him, and until now that had not bothered him. But seeing them, with his world crashing down around his ears, he had to admit the truth to himself. Even now his daughter had more brains in her little toe than this pair shared between them on their best day. Imelda had been taken down by a piece of shit, a piece of shit that her brothers should have been aware of, should have been policing. He had stopped by this pub to collect a debt that was outstanding because he knew that after tonight he could be banged up. Even with all that was going on he still had the sense to do his job, do what he was paid for. Once that was out of the way he could concentrate all his energy on the matter in hand.

  ‘Where the fuck were you two?’

  He had thrown the envelope full of cash at his eldest son. ‘I was left in there like a fucking spare prick at the proverbial wedding. You two are fucking useless. I can’t even fucking sack you, can I?’

  He had got into the motor and waited for his sons to do the same. Shaking his head, he had said sadly, ‘Drive to Jackie’s, at least with him I’ll feel like I have a fucking back-up.’

  Now when they finally reached Jackie’s house Gerry watched the way that they looked at each other; it was a furtive look that he had seen before. A look that had told him that he had stepped on their necks once too often, that he had not allowed either of them to form a real personality of their own. They both always looked to him for direction and, whereas that had once pleased him, all it did now was irritate him.

  He had to tell them what to do, when to do it, and how to do it; initiative was not one of their strong points. Even now, at a time like this, when they could see what was important to him, neither of them had the fucking guts to offer any kind of opinion about it all, about their sister’s predicament.

  They followed him inside quietly, their large bodies and expressionless faces making him feel angrier by the second. As always, they were waiting for him to give them a heads-up, some kind of lead. His big fear was what the fuck they would do when he was inside, or when he finally popped his clogs. Who the fuck would look after them then? When he was gone they would be like a rudderless boat drifting on a sea of ignorance.

  Jackie was in bed asleep, but his wife was shrewd enough to notice the demented look in Gerald Dooley’s eyes and consequently had the sense not to ask him what he wanted with her husband. Instead, she pointed upstairs before retreating to the kitchen without a word. A small part of her hoped that her husband was about to be disposed of. It was unlikely, but she knew, better than anyone, just what a two-faced, treacherous bastard he could be, and she hoped that this trait had finally caught up with him.

  Five minutes later, however, Jackie left the house with a smug look on his face and the assurance that he would see her later. She knew her husband well enough to know that whatever was going down, he was not the cause of it, but he was determined to be part of the cure.

  ‘Stop crying, Mel, you and I both know that this is all a fucking scam.’

  Imelda knew from the fear in her mother’s voice that she had gone too far. Though she too was terrified at what she was going to cause, there was still a big part of her inside that was enjoying it all. Was enjoying the drama that she was creating around her.

  Despite her shock at her father’s reaction, Imelda could not help feeling a deep satisfaction as well. After all, she felt that she was the wronged party in this. Jason had used her, and now he was going to pay for it, and pay dearly. She secretly hoped that her father crippled him, hoped that he was left a shadow of his former self. Was left unable to have sex with another woman as long as he lived. Her jealousy was so raw, so painful, she was willing to do anything she could to see him hurt, see him brought low.

  She wanted Jason to know what it was like to be left high and dry, as he had left her. She had banked on him coming through for her, had actually believed that her family would have been enough to make the ponce see sense. But he had blanked her without a second’s thought, had not even given her the courtesy of a phone call or a fucking verbal message. He had left her to face this lot alone, and he had to pay for that. He was already on to the next girl, was already fucking someone else. Well, he had made a mistake this time, she was not going to retreat with her tail between her legs. She was not going to give him a free pass, he was going to pay the price for his negligence.

  She had lived with this pregnancy and the fear it had engendered for weeks and he had not cared one iota about what she might have been going through. So, if she decided to get her revenge on him, then that was his fucking lookout. See how he felt now the boot was on the other foot and he was the one being harassed and accused. See if he liked being in the frame as the villain of the piece.

  Imelda looked at her mother then, saw the way her mother eyed her with distaste and disbelief and knew she had not conned her as easily as she had her father. So she shrieked with all the hate she could muster, ‘Oh, so what’s new, eh? You don’t believe me, do you? All this time I have kept me mouth shut to avoid all this.’ She gestured around her by holding her arms out wide. ‘To stop me father from killing someone, and as usual me own mother doesn’t believe me, doesn’t care about what happened to me. Then you wonder why I didn’t tell you about it. But I’ll tell you this now. There is a baby, Mum, and it got there somehow, didn’t it? I suppose you believe we all arrived with the stork. No dirty, sweaty sex for you, a woman who won’t even have the Sun newspaper in her house. A house that is so fucking clean and sterile it’s like a hospital, a fucking mental hospital. A nut-house and you’re the Queen Nutter.’

  Imelda was crying now, real tears; she was feeling genuine sorrow for herself
and her situation. She was caught up in the lie she had caused, was already half believing it. She was the proud possessor of an audience, and that was all she had ever wanted, had ever needed. She threw herself into the part of the victim, milking it for all that it was worth, while at the same time passing on the blame.

  ‘You knew that I couldn’t tell me dad who was responsible without a fucking war starting, you saw what he’s done to me over the last weeks, how he’s treated me, and you wonder why I kept fucking stumm. Jason used me, and now he has to face the old man.’

  Imelda’s lovely face was the picture of innocence, her large blue eyes pleading for some kind of understanding. In her bedroom, the bedroom of a typical teenage girl, she looked so young and so vulnerable. To anyone else she would have looked believable but to Mary Dooley, who knew what a gifted liar her daughter was, she looked just how she had always looked to her. Like a vicious, vindictive little mare. It was hard to admit that to herself, but it was the truth. Imelda had always had a dark side to her, had always been capable of causing great disruption to those around her. Imelda lied about the littlest things, it was in her nature. She embellished everything for no other reason than it came naturally to her. She was devoid of any kind of morality. Even as a small child she had schemed and lied to get what she wanted. She would go to extraordinary lengths to get what she saw as revenge for slights real or imagined. Until now Mary had not seen anything sinister in that, but now, now she knew that this child of hers was without real emotions, real feelings. She knew that Imelda was prepared to offer up Jason Parks like a sacrificial lamb to ensure that she came out of this without a stain on her character, and to ensure that Jason Parks paid the price for not putting his hand up and taking the flak. A small part of her could understand her daughter’s hurt, her daughter’s need to make him pay for abandoning her. But another part of her, the sensible part of her, knew that this daughter of hers had accused him of rape. Not just of making her pregnant, because that would have insinuated that she was a party to it all, she had accused Jason Parks of the most heinous crime a man could be accused of. And, knowing her daughter like she did, she knew that it was all a fabrication, a lie. A lie that would absolve her of any wrong-doing, a lie that her mother knew would haunt her until the day she died. Would haunt them all. This wasn’t just about revenge, this was about destroying one life to save another.

  Mary Dooley already knew deep down inside that the child her daughter was carrying meant nothing to her. It was just a weapon to her daughter, no more and no less. A weapon that her daughter would use as she used anything that she felt might get her what she wanted.

  Jason Parks’s father believed that he was a real Face, that he was a legend in his own lifetime. He wasn’t as well thought of, though, as he believed, but by the same token he wasn’t someone to be mugged off. He could have a row, there was no doubt about that. He was a shrewdie in his own way, was a man who saw the big picture. He was also an earner and, as such, he was respected. His only flaw was his over-inflated ego. It was because of this that he didn’t have any real friends, and it was why he wasn’t on the best terms with his only son.

  He earned a wedge that was not only large, but also respectable. In effect that meant he had a legitimate business, a business that was doing exceptionally well and could be used to explain away his affluent lifestyle if ever the need should arise. He also had his other business, the real money spinner, for which, unlike his regular business, he had to share out a large percentage of the profits. And share them he did because he had no choice. Though at times he resented the need to placate those around him.

  Timothy Parks felt that he was well past the days of needing any kind of protection, but it galled him that he was still expected to hand out a large percentage of his wedge on a weekly basis to the people he had paid to give him an in all those years ago. He was not the sort of person where this kind of a long-term arrangement was ever going to sit easily on his shoulders. He was more than grateful for the initial introductions, and he had been more than happy to pay the premium for a while, after all, he was not a complete fucking moron. But now he was having serious doubts about the validity of the payments that were still required from him, even though the people involved had no actual involvement any more in his purchase of the products their friends were so willing to supply. Ergo, they were now fucking obsolete as far as he was concerned. They had done what was required and been reimbursed for their troubles. So now he felt that they were taking the piss.

  In fact, he was now of the opinion that he might actually be getting ripped off. Royally ripped off, if he was being honest. He had weighed everyone out at the off, so why were they still so sure that he owed them something, that he owed them a large part of his fucking livelihood? He could fucking score off any number of dealers, it wasn’t as if they had a unique fucking product. In their world, cocaine, grass or amphetamines was the equivalent of fucking Avon; anyone could get access to it if they really wanted to. He really didn’t need such a jealous supplier, especially as nowadays there were so many others to choose from.

  That his son was a complete idiot had not escaped him either. He had heard through the grapevine that his boy was now a professional bank robber, and that was fine by him. He saw that as a mug’s game himself, it was a lot of bird for what he felt was not enough dough. It was his son’s latest foray into the world of dealing that was really getting up his nose, he smiled at the pun. Mainly because he didn’t even have the sense to see that he was treading on his own father’s toes. Now what did that say about the boy? What kind of fucking idiot shat on his own doorstep?

  At the end of the day, he was his son after all. Though, like his mother, Jason was a fucking taker. He took what he wanted and didn’t give a fuck who it affected, whose toes it might cause to be trodden on by all and fucking sundry.

  But Timmy was being very good about it. He was prepared to give the boy a leg-up, help him get a proper corner for himself, all the little fucker had to do was ask. It wasn’t exactly rocket science.

  Jason irritated him because he was quite happy to use his family connections to further his career, while at the same time begrudging his father his success. The same success that the little fucker was now trading on to get himself a fucking gee-up in the world of the illegal: the cheap, recreational pharmaceuticals.

  In his calmer moments Timmy enjoyed the fact that Jason was a real chip off the old block as far as everyone else was concerned. He admired the fact that his son had the guts to go out on his own, was sensible enough to see that anyone with half a brain used what they could to get on in life. But he only felt like that when he was really mellow, after he had imbibed a few drinks, smoked a few joints. Then, and only then, would he find it in his heart to see the boy as someone to be proud of.

  Not that he would ever tell him that, of course, that was something he would one day understand himself through learned wisdom, through his own hard graft; consequently the knowledge would then be far more advantageous because he would have come to that realisation on his own.

  As he opened the safe, he was surprised to see Gerald Dooley walk into his office. His office was currently in a rented Portakabin on an industrial estate in South London, an office that he made sure was moved every three weeks to another location so he had a heads-up if anyone decided to flip on him. The appearance of a gang of men was bound to make him feel that something untoward was going down.

  ‘How the fuck did you know where I was?’ Timmy was genuinely interested, he really had believed that his constant movement of premises would keep him safe.

  Gerald looked around the small space as if he thought the person he was looking for might be hiding under a seat cushion or in the desk drawer. Timmy watched him not only with suspicion, but also with outrage. The people he had been paying the serious bucks to all this time should have ensured that this kind of thing didn’t happen.

  Gerald Dooley and his crew made the confines of the little cabin seem minuscule
, and for the first time Timmy Parks felt a stirring of fear. He knew that this was serious, and he racked his brains for any reason whatsoever why these people should be confronting him like this, in the sanctity of his private offices. He could not come up with anything, he could only assume, which he did, that someone was out to take what was his.

  They were blocking the only entrance and the only exit and all Timmy had going for him was his mouth, so he would attempt to try and talk his way out of this situation as best he could. He smiled as if their presence was the most natural thing in the world, as if he was somehow expecting them. Opening his arms wide in a gesture of welcome he said happily, ‘Come on, Gerry, don’t tell me you’ve decided to start dealing.’