The Business

by Martina Cole

  Kenny Boy was always on the lookout for the hidden insult or the clever riposte. He was so determined to make sure he was never disrespected by anybody that he had made a point from day one of ensuring that anyone within his orbit knew he was not to be taken lightly. Not ever. Not even once.

  He had been completely on the ball from the off, and his foibles, his natural eccentricities, had worked for him. People respected him for his organisational skills, even saw his refusal to do business with anyone who did not have the manners to arrive on time, as a strong point. As his right. Kenny Boy had made his reputation by being different. It had worked for him. The real Faces appreciated him, they wanted to deal with Kenny Boy, with someone who insisted on complete privacy, who insisted that they met up without women or hangers-on in the mix. Kenny Boy saw business as being something very personal and he always conducted it in complete privacy. One to one.

  What had been seen at the beginning as Kenny Boy’s paranoia, had been laughed at as him being over-cautious, was now seen as his personal signature. No one who had ever dealt with him had even been questioned about their investments, let alone captured. What Kenny saw as nothing more than precautionary measures, others now saw as a guaranteed swerve where Old Bill were concerned. This, coupled with Kenny’s insistence that he would only deal with the people who mattered, also worked for everyone involved. So he had inadvertently managed to give himself a certain mystique, and therefore his natural distrust of people was now seen as his greatest asset. He did still have a healthy distrust for the people he dealt with, and it was this that had made sure no one would ever get a tug. He knew somewhere inside that his behaviour was not really normal, but he also knew it was working in his favour, so he didn’t bother about it too much.

  Mary looked around at the gathering. Gerald Junior and Brendan, and their pug-ugly wives, were sniffing around. She turned her back to them and looked for Kenny Boy and Jordanna. The brother and sister were standing together and Mary wondered at how two such beautiful people had been produced by her daughter. It was beyond her comprehension. She saw Imelda off and on, and she saw that the drugs had finally started to take their toll on her. Unlike most junkies, Imelda had somehow been immune to their lasting effects for a long time. Her skin had stayed good, the hair and body had not deteriorated within months as normally happened; her daughter had looked good for far longer than was expected. Far longer than was good for anyone, herself included.

  Mary knew that she came here for money, and only then if she was rock-bottom; she dressed it up as an excuse to see the kids. Consequently, if possible, Mary tried to be out when Imelda deigned to visit them.

  A large part of her was angry about that, but the sensible part of her knew that the kids had to see Imelda as she really was, for themselves.

  At the moment, Imelda was once more on her best behaviour, she had no choice but to try and become a part of their lives. She was well past her sell-by date, and all that was left to her now were the children she had abandoned. But Mary was not going to let her daughter cause any more upsets than absolutely necessary.

  But if she kicked off about her daughter’s reputation, she knew she would only make Imelda seem even more alone, even more unwanted in their eyes, and they both felt guilty about her, about their feelings towards her. Jordanna loathed her, but she felt guilty for those feelings, which was something Imelda played on, as she did anything that would get her what she wanted.

  Since Jordanna had given birth to a tiny premature son, and then buried him within the week, she had not been right. She was like a pretend person now, like a marionette. She laughed and talked, but inside she was dead. It was evident in her eyes, in her smile.

  Mary saw the devastation eating her away, and yet there was nothing she could do about it. She had always said that Imelda was a fucking Jonah, and she was. Everything she touched disintegrated, was somehow spoilt by her presence. She carried sorrow and heartbreak around with her like other people carried a handbag.

  It was not that noticeable at first, it was such an intrinsic part of her personality. But she caused trouble wherever she went. And Kenny was determined to overlook that for the time being. He wanted to believe his mother really had changed, was a different person. He believed that she could be reached if only they would give her a chance. A last chance.

  Well, she had given Imelda more chances than the Chinese lottery, and it had been a futile exercise. She knew her daughter was incapable of making something good happen in her own life, let alone her family’s. Imelda needed only one thing; her stash. If she had enough drugs to last her for a few days, she would be in a happy frame of mind. She would also be on the lookout for the next stash, and the one after that. If she had concentrated her efforts on getting herself heroin into getting an education or running a business, she would have topped the tree.

  She had done well at running the girls all those years ago, and what had she done then? She had let the self-destructiveness that was such a large part of her overtake everything else. She had taken up with another piece of shit, and she had sat back and waited for it to explode. And, as usual, the explosion when it came had caused dire problems for everyone concerned. Imelda knew she looked good, but she still had no real confidence in herself. Her natural beauty was fading rapidly and her panic at her future was now all-encompassing.

  Imelda needed the kids to survive, and that was all she needed them for. One day Mary knew they would see that for themselves. Until then, she had to let them do whatever they felt was necessary to ease their troubled minds.

  But Mary was determined to watch, wait and, when the time came, step between them all. She was going to make sure that, this time, the kids were not going to become no more than collateral damage in the abortion that passed for their mother’s life.

  Jordanna was pretty, very pretty, she had the look of an older girl but that was put down to her tiny baby’s death. Everyone knew that it had broken her in some way.

  The fact that Kenny Boy had been quite vocal in private, had certainly not gone amiss. He had been seen as a bigger, better person by the people he dealt with because of his care for his sister and her unfortunate predicament. In fact, his loyalty had endeared him to the people he had dealt with. His care for his sister, and his disregard for how it might be construed by outsiders was seen as just another of his foibles. Once more, his absolute resolve where a big problem was concerned was seen as another one of his strengths. That he was willing to kill anyone who even remarked on Jordanna and her problems was to his benefit. After all, if he didn’t look out for his sister, who the fuck would? So he had inadvertently been seen as a young man of principles, a young man of decency and rectitude. In short, Kenny Boy was the young man they all hoped would one day marry their daughters. He had an old-world morality that struck a chord in the most jaded of men; he was the epitome of what they believed in.

  Kenny Boy was like the old-time Faces, all decent beliefs and caring retributions. For the majority, it was a real privilege to be in his company. And he was the biggest fucking annoyance for the minority, for the people who saw the dinosaurs once more emerging against the odds, because he was already seen as a fucking rising star and as someone to emulate and see as a role model. It was like he was re-writing the book of villainy and everyone but him was coming up wanting.

  Kenny Boy had systematically brought back every old-style value and belief, and it had worked for him. The other young guns, who saw their elders as muppets, saw them as people to walk over and away from, were now having to regroup and rethink. Basically, Kenny Boy had cornered the market and, to make things worse, he had not even tried to do that. It had come naturally, it was just his way of doing his business.

  Imelda was looking around her nervously, she knew she was not about to be welcomed with open arms. The majority of the people here had an axe of some kind to grind, and if they could grind it by giving her a permanent parting she knew that they would do just that. She had made a lot of enemies o
ver the years and, at the time, she had not understood just how foolish she had been. Like all bullies, while on the top of their game, she had never allowed for how hard her life might be should her star begin to wane. Well, her star had not only waned, it had imploded, and in a spectacular fashion. All the people she had blanked without a second’s thought when she had reached her heyday were now, through hard work or, in some cases, good marriages, the same people she needed to accept her so she could once more be a part of normal society. Imelda was having to eat enough humble pie to make Uriah Heep look like Fanny Cradock.

  But she was willing to do just that, after all, she was the mistress of illusion, she had even been known to fool herself when absolutely necessary. As she waited on the sidelines, she was impressed, despite herself, at the people who had arrived to give their blessing to her son’s new enterprise.

  She was in the bar, mixed in with the other no-necks, all watching the door in the hope of seeing a real Face or two. That she was waiting like the other plebs had not gone unnoticed by the people around her. She was a well-known name, and her son’s new status as a man of importance had not gone unnoticed, either. That she was waiting in line like everyone else was more shocking than anything. After all, Kenny spent his life making sure he was respected, why would he be so resolute about that if not for this woman who had birthed him? Her name and reputation had been the reason why he was so stroppy and pedantic; he was the antithesis of his mother and he was proud of that fact. He was so strong-minded and so resolute in everything he did because, unlike his mother, he was never about to let anyone ever get the better of him. He would kill before he would ever be seen as a waster, as someone without self-respect. He was so frightened of being seen as a cunt by his peers that he had created a whole persona to counteract her negative influences. He knew how quick people were to judge, and he also knew how quickly people reassessed their opinions when faced with someone who was willing to destroy them if they did not decide to take on a new, more enlightened opinion of the person concerned. He had, without any thought for the people around him, or their hangers-on, made a point of erasing his mother’s reputation, and he had replaced it with one of his own. He was happy to acknowledge that he had single-handedly wiped out the bastardy his mother had caused in her life. And, as she had caused more fuck-ups than the whole of the West Midlands police force, he felt he had done a really good job.

  Tonight he was opening his new premises and he was being fêted by the best of the best, and he finally felt that he had shrugged off the shame of his birth, of his beginnings.

  Most of the men here this night had done the same thing: had been born poor, had been forced to make their way in a world that was not really attuned to the uneducated, the permanent poor. That was the expression the Irish used to describe the men who were unable to better themselves because of politics and governments. The men who were left with no other course in life but villainy.

  The men here, though, who had come to pay their respects to a young lad who was making it against all the odds, were all aware that they had never had to live down a mother like Imelda. She was the cause of so much death, so much hate, and so much destruction. She was a byword for everything that was to be despised in the female species. Yet, somehow, this boy had proved to everyone that you really could overcome the biggest of handicaps, the hugest of embarrassments.

  Kenny Boy had lived her down and, more to the point, he had ensured that no one ever said a bad word about her. She was off-limits where he was concerned and, on the rare occasions he mentioned her, he spoke of her with the utmost respect, thereby ensuring that everyone else did too. It was another reason why he was so liked, why he was seen as a good bloke by all and sundry.

  Anyone else would have turned their back on her, but his loyalty towards her, especially as she did not warrant it, only made him look even more like a viable option where they were concerned. He was possessed of a loyalty unsurpassed in their world; his determination and forcefulness where his mother was concerned had caused people to take a step back and remember who they were talking about and had struck more than a few chords with the people he had became part of.

  Coupled with his zealous care for his sister and for his grandmother, he had become a person of real interest to those in the know. Now he was about to reap the benefits of his labours, and there was not one person who felt he was undeserving of that. He was a real little dynamo, well, a big dynamo in reality. But although his youth still saw him referred to as the new boy, his innate shrewdness and business acumen already had him marked down as a permanent player.

  As Jordanna sipped her drink, Kenny Boy watched the men who were already eyeballing her; he knew she was a looker, and he also knew that as his sister she would now be seen as a bit more than a decent-looking bird. Jordanna was unaware that, even with her track record, she would soon be in demand. He also knew that she could never be told that, her confidence was almost zero as it was. He knew that he would have to steer her in the direction of someone he could trust, someone he could manipulate. Jordanna would fuck anyone who was nice to her, she was still very fragile and he knew he needed to keep her close and safe.

  She was good tonight though, he saw her smiling and chatting with the other women around her and he sighed in relief. He was thrilled at the turn-out for him, saw the rows and rows of Faces who were there. He knew that even as young as he was, he had somehow managed to command this kind of respect from his betters. All because he was not willing ever to compromise, because he had never once gone back on his word. He was proud of that fact. He was proud that he was already on the verge of joining the pantheons of the big boys, was already being hailed as the new Face on the pavement. He was proud that he was seen as the perfect person to run the new businesses that were emerging all over the Smoke. He was more than willing to be a trailblazer and, as such, open up a whole new set of businesses through which everyone could benefit in some way.

  Kenny Boy had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the drug business, and he was more than willing to share it with people who were willing to utilise and exploit that knowledge for their own personal gain. Kenny Boy had made sure he was the future for these people, and that is exactly what he was. It was as simple as that.

  Jimmy Bailey was impressed. This was a real good night by anyone’s standards. Kenny Boy had laid on a great spread. Good food, plenty of drink, no drugs that were obvious to the untrained eye, but plenty of good-natured banter and camaraderie.

  Kenny Boy was where he wanted to be, among the people he liked to mix with and, as an added bonus, he was also the centre of attention. That was his main forte; being in the middle of everything; being the instigator of whatever was happening around him. Kenny was a mass of contradictions. Like his mother, he had the knack of sussing any situation out within seconds and, like his mother, he would then use that knowledge for his own ends. As he looked around him at Bailey, Driscoll, Hannon and Basil and saw their enjoyment and pleasure at his accomplishments, Kenny knew he had made it. After this night, he was set. He would always be remembered for this one outrageous evening. His youth, coupled with his natural friendliness, would always be remembered. He knew that this night was his entrance into the world of men, real men. He felt that he belonged here, and he knew that feeling would never leave him. Then, just as he was really enjoying the night for what it was, he saw his sister talking to a large West Indian man with overly white teeth and a very suspect sense of fashion.

  The man was Jamsie O’Loughlin, a very well-known pimp and a drug dealer. That he was talking to his sister with a smile that was as bright as a hundred-watt bulb and had an arm around her shoulders, and that she seemed to find it enchanting, rang his alarm bells; Kenny Boy knew she was ready for any old shit that might be fed her. He knew she was vulnerable and naïve, she only needed someone to give her a load of old cods and she would swallow it hook, line and sinker. Jordanna was an accident that had already happened, and he was not about to let it happen t
o her again, not on his watch anyway.

  Jamsie, for his part, was genuinely thrilled with Jordanna; like most pimps he could actually distinguish between his earners and his love life. He would never be faithful to any woman; as far as he was concerned that was not something to even be discussed. He was, however, capable of loving and, as far as he was concerned, that was far more important, even though it had never happened to him before.

  This lovely girl with her huge blue eyes and thick blond hair had attracted him from the moment he had clapped eyes on her. She had a deep sadness inside, a desperate need for care and attention that had hit him full-on from his first glance in her direction. He had wanted to protect her from the world, wanted to protect her from everything that she was terrified of, from that split second of seeing her standing alone. He had never felt like this before in his life, he wanted to make sure she was safe, get to know her, talk to her. He wanted to become a big part of her life and, from the way she was smiling back at him, he had a feeling she was of a similar mindset.

  Jamsie did not know Jordanna was Kenny’s sister, he was not aware of her history at that time; all he knew was, for the first time ever, he was bowled over by a female, and not because of her earning potential.

  As Jamsie chatted to her he was amazed to realise that she was all he had thought she was, and much more.

  Jordanna for her part was thrilled at his attention; Jamsie was handsome and he had the gift of the gab but mainly because it stopped her from thinking about her mother and studiously avoiding making eye contact with her. Once that happened, she would be forced to acknowledge her and, worse than that, she would be honourbound to invite her into her company.

  She had no intention of doing that, her mother was still someone she was wary of. Kenny might think she was rehabilitated, but Jordanna knew that people like Imelda were immune to real life, real situations. They used everything for their own ends, to ensure they got what they wanted from any situation.