by Carol Rivers
'Micky?' Suddenly Ronnie felt a chill go over him. Whenever Micky's name came up and it had cropped up once or twice lately, there was trouble. Micky had sworn he was clean. And Ronnie had believed him.
Ronnie landed hard against the wall. He was growing tired of this big ape pushing him around. He wanted to retaliate. But he knew his satisfaction would be short lived. He would have to wait until reinforcements arrived.
If they arrived…
But his gut was telling him the fun was likely to be over by the time they got here.
A stool sailed through the air, fragmenting the mirror on the wall. It was worth a small fortune and Ronnie had been glad to pay it. Now he was yearning to rip these two clowns apart.
Two fat fists reached out and grasped his lapels. He could smell his assailant's bad breath. Another stool washed through the remains of the booze. 'Suddenly run out of conversation have we? Need a little light entertainment? Well, my boss has got a nice quiet room for you back at the Indigo and a comfy chair. All you have to do is sit in it and me and my friend there will do the entertaining.'
So that was the score, Ronnie thought edgily. No chance of waiting for Micky and Sean. Suddenly he wondered if he would ever see the inside of the Blue Moon again. Whatever Micky had done, he had excelled at it.
'Thanks for the offer,' Ronnie replied with a smile on his face. 'Some other time maybe, when the odds are more even?' He thrust his head forward and chinned the man facing him. Blood spurted from his mouth on impact, spraying over them both.
'He nutted me! He's broken my teeth, the bastard!'
Spinning sideways, Ronnie was free. He listened with satisfaction to the shrieks of agony. Then felt the prickle of fear as he saw the glint of a knife. He dodged sideways, but the blade flashed sharp and close. He backed slowly up the stairs, but the weapon swept into his jacket. If it had penetrated him, Ronnie knew he couldn't yet feel it. He turned and vaulted the cloakroom counter melting into the shadows beyond. His last thought was of his brothers and how much time it would take them to find him.
Sean Bryant and his friend, Ashley Crane, were laughing together in Sean's bedroom. There were two suitcases open on the bed and Sean was sitting by one of them, a frown on his forehead as he held up the jacket of a shiny grey suit. His blue eyes twinkled under his shock of light brown hair that was plastered up and away from his forehead. He liked to dress snappily and his recent investment pleased him. The suitcases were filled with gents clothing, recently acquired from a West End store. Sean's smooth features and expressive mouth were highlighted by the mid-grey dullness of the cloth but Ashley, dressed in a striped green shirt and dark trousers, shook his head in disgust.
'It's definitely not you, Seany. Grey is so dull, you need a colour to lift your complexion, not swamp it.'
Sean looked disappointed. 'But it's a dead ringer for the type of suit that Cary always wears. Look at the stitching, feel the quality.'
'But Cary Grant is tall and tanned.'
'So what are you saying, Ashley?'
Ashley Crane drew his short, expressive fingers over his pale hair, almost always worn as a crew cut. 'You're not a Cary, if anything, you're more a Bergman.'
'Now that's being rude.'
'I'm only teasing. Don't get shirty.'
Sean impatiently thrust the jacket back into the suitcase. He adored Ashley but sometimes he just didn't understand the burning desire to look good. No, not just good, unique. Sean's two passions in life were inherited from his parents. Cooking from his Mum who had taught him everything she knew and clothes from Dad, whose family were royal weavers, so the story went. Sean smiled at the thought because Dad's tall tales were legion. That being said, he was a real sharp dresser. Sean liked to think if he didn't have the hard edged masculine lines of his two brothers, he was right up there in the fashion stakes.
'So what's this?' He drew out a white vest and held it under his chin. Without waiting for his friend to reply he laughed derisively. 'This is supposed to be Oxford Street and I wouldn't be seen dead in it, whatever it is.'
Ashley put his hand on his hip and looked thoughtful. 'You know who you remind me of?'
'No, who?'
'What would you say if I said Montgomery Clift?'
Sean's blue eyes widened. 'You're serious?'
'Absolutely. White vests are all the rage in America.'
A little put-out that he hadn't offered this information himself, Sean frowned again. 'How do you know?'
'I read all the magazines, don't I?'
'And I suppose you've seen Montgomery Clift wearing one?'
'I got hold a copy of Life last year and he looked dead gorgeous. I tell you, that boy is going to be big in Hollywood. Honestly, the photos would make you drool.'
'You never mentioned him before.'
Ashley smiled flirtatiously. 'No, well we've all got our fantasies.'
Sean dropped the vest back in the suitcase. 'I can't see the attraction myself. He's just a kid. Now if you're talking steamy, Cary is the tops. That kiss on the balcony in Notorious! It went on forever. Wasn't that our first film together?'
'No, it wasn't,' Ashley replied, looking hurt. 'Our first film was Bogie and Bacall, remember? The Big Sleep. Oh God, it was lovely.' He blushed. 'And we held hands when it was dark.'
'We must have been daft to chance it,' Sean breathed excitedly. 'Anyone could have seen us. One of them usherettes for instance, always shining their torch in your face! I really don't know how we had the nerve.'
'It was lust pure and simple,' Ashley admitted with a grin. 'I nearly died of happiness when you asked me to go to the cinema.'
'Did you really?'
'I never thought we'd last this long.'
'Neither did I.'
Sean gazed at his friend and felt a deep longing to take him in his arms, making certain he was real and he wasn't dreaming. Instead, he said softly, 'When I was young I felt so confused about being – you know, the way I am. Mum and Dad produced two great strapping blokes like Micky and Ron and there was me, all curls and freckles and terrified that Dad would find out I was a nancy boy.'
'You shouldn't refer to yourself as that.'
'It was what they called me at school,' Sean admitted miserably. 'I didn't even know what it meant. It started after our Dad died. I never thought I'd miss the old man so much, especially as he was such a real man and there was me, hanging round Mum all the time and learning how to make apple pies and custard.' He laughed gently. 'But I had a respect for my Dad. He was my hero. But one day he was there, the next he wasn't. Everything fell apart in my life. The other kids took liberties at school and it was Ron and Micky in the end that made them stop. They caught Johnny Burrows and Stan Baldrey in the lavs and nearly drowned them in the pans.'
'I wish I had brothers,' Ashley replied enviously. 'It was my bad luck to have six blooming sisters! Always dolls to play with. No wonder I'm like I am. It's a miracle I don't dress up in frocks.'
Sean giggled. 'We could always try it one night.'
'I might keep you to that.' Ashley opened his arms and a little awkwardly Sean moved into them. They looked into one another's gaze and Ashley stroked Sean's cheek softly. 'I don't care what you wear, Seany. Put on the grey, it don't matter to me. You've got more clothes in those suitcases than a Petticoat Lane spiv.'
Sean grinned. 'I know. They're all knocked off from Cox Street. Some fly boy up there sold me them cheap. I couldn't resist a bargain.'
'Oh, and I suppose you couldn't resist him either!'
Sean looked into Ashley's eyes. 'You're the only one for me and you know it. Oh, Ashley, I wish we could tell everyone the way we feel about each other.'
'We'd land up behind bars if we did. And our lives wouldn't be worth living.'
'One day it won't be like that for people like us.'
'That day's a long way off, in my opinion, but until then, we've got to be - ' Suddenly there was a loud banging on the door downstairs.
They leapt apart. 'Gaw
d almighty!' Sean slapped his hand on his chest, 'I nearly had a heart attack then. Who is it?'
Ashley went stealthily to the window and looked through the lace curtain. 'Looks like Henry, Ronnie's doorman.'
'What's he doing here?'
'Dunno.'
'I thought we wasn't going to be disturbed?' Ashley backed away, fear filling his soft brown eyes.
'I didn't think we would be. Ronnie's at the club and Micky's over at the still.'
'So what shall we do?'
Sean checked the buttons on his shirt and confirming they were in order, walked to the door. 'Answer it, I suppose.'
'Shall I come with you?'
Sean looked back and smiled. 'Any time, big boy.'
The two young men giggled and went downstairs together. As Sean opened the door, Henry was about to knock again and Sean grimaced at the raised fist.
'Give us a chance, Henry,' he said a little coyly as Ashley stood by him. 'Your hand will come through the door any minute if you go on like that.'
'I thought you was out,' Henry said breathlessly as he looked into the hall behind them. 'Where's Micky?'
'Not here, obviously.'
'Oh Christ,' Henry cursed, 'there's just you two, then?'
'Yeah, and so what?' Sean felt annoyed at the intrusion. It was the weekend after all. Even he had a day off once in a while. For the last six months he had been working solid with Ashley, making deliveries to the clubs at night for Micky and the markets for Ronnie by day. True he just had to collect the takings, but it was all leg work. His private time alone with Ashley was rare. He was just about to say so when Henry pushed the door back and stepped in.
'Hey, what's this in aid of?' Sean demanded as Ashley gripped his arm. Sean knew that Ashley was terrified of big men like Henry. Having had no brothers to protect him, he had been bullied to the extreme all his life and it had left his scars.
'There's aggro at the Blue Moon,' Henry explained rapidly, his big ears standing out from his bald head as if he was receiving radio signals. Nervously glancing over his shoulder, Henry said in a low voice, 'Ronnie wants you and Micky there on the double.'
'What sort of trouble?' Sean began to feel as nervous as Henry looked.
'A couple of geezers from the Indigo turned up. Ronnie thinks they're up for a bundle. He needs reinforcements.'
Sean felt Ashley melt away from him. Ashley's horror of violence was a strong as his need for love. And Sean knew that when push came to shove, the former came first. He was on his own here and yet Micky would kill him if he divulged where he was. He'd been on at Micky forever to bring Ronnie up to date on the still. Cursing Micky for landing him in it with Ron and Ronnie for expecting him to drop everything, excluding his trousers which he now could not do, Sean reached out reluctantly for his jacket on the hall stand.
'You're not going with him?' Ashley asked incredulously.
'Ronnie's on his own,' Sean said impatiently. Unlike him, Ashley was never called on by his sisters to do anything more than baby sit one of their kids. Micky and Ronnie only had to crook their fingers in his direction and he was expected to jump to it. 'You could come with me of course?'
'I couldn't fight my own shadow,' Ashley declared. 'Why don't you just go over for Micky and – '
'How can I?' Sean cut his friend short. 'We don't know where he is.' He didn't want Ashley to say anything that Henry could take back to his older brother. If Ronnie found out about the still, there would be world war three.
'Look, we're wasting time,' Henry interrupted irritably. 'You'll have to do for now, Sean. Taking your pal here, they'd only die laughing.'
Ashley glared at the big doorman, then snatching his jacket from the stand, he strode out of the front door.
'Thanks very much,' Sean muttered after Ashley had gone. 'You've got a real bedside manner, Henry, that's for sure.'
'Yeah, well, as long as it ain't his bedside, I don't bloody well care. Now hurry up and get in the motor. Or your brother will have our guts for garters.'
Sean tried to put the thought of garters tied around Ashley's slender legs out of his mind and slouched moodily towards the car in the road. No one understood what it was like to be a sensitive like Ashley. Especially his brothers. Now his friend would be in a strop and it would be days before he came round again.
'What are these?' Sean demanded as he sat on the front seat of the car.
'Toothpicks. What do you think? Shove 'em in the back.'
Sean struggled to lift the array of heavy iron bars and hammers into the back seat. 'You didn't say it was that kind of trouble.'
'Be prepared is my motto,' Henry declared as he jumped in beside him.
'I can't see you in a boy scout's uniform,' Sean murmured, and shuddered at the thought of using the weaponry. He wondered if Henry was exaggerating, but when they arrived at the club and walked in through the door, he knew that he wasn't.
Sean gasped as he gazed around the wrecked club. Tables and chairs had been turned to matchsticks, glasses and mirrors smashed. Sid and Bernie were standing with Ronnie. They were holding iron bars and looked as though they'd been pulled through a hedge backward. The two big men dwarfed Henry. They had obviously dealt with trouble and were about to tie rope around two men who lay on the ground bleeding and groaning. Sean was relieved that Ashley wasn't there. He would have fainted at the sight of them.
'Ronnie, are you hurt?' He felt queasy as he saw Ronnie holding his side, his shirt soaked in blood under his jacket.
'Thanks to Bernie and Sid, I'll survive.'
'Shit, Ron. What happened?' he asked, dreading the answer.
'Let me ask you a question,' Ronnie said angrily. 'Where's Micky? Or are you going to tell me you don't know?'
Sean was silent, his face grey with shame. He had to tell Ronnie the truth and he wasn't looking forward to it. He began to tremble at the enormity of the disaster that had befallen them. A disaster that clearly involved the two bodies on the floor that were bloodied and bruised and currently being tied like lambs to the slaughter. A disaster that in all certainty would now involve him and Micky.
Unable to look his brother in the eye, words failed him. Ronnie wiped the blood from his own face with a handkerchief and placed it under his jacket. 'As bad as that, is it Sean?' Ronnie's voice was rough with pain and Sean could detect it. He dragged his eyes up from the wound in Ronnie's side and finally to his waiting gaze.
Sean nodded. 'You won't like it, Ron.'
'Why am I not surprised?' Ronnie's dark eyes accused him. And Sean's annoyance with Ashley, his feeling of abandonment and the way his day had been spoiled by his family, now paled into insignificance as he began to explain.
Chapter 14
It was Sunday morning and Bella gazed out of the broken window; the mild February weather was more like spring. The city was hidden in haze as the tide ran out to sea, a ripple of smooth grey-green.
She had been working for Micky since he opened the still; it wasn't the palace he had described, but it had become her second home. The first she had ever shared with Micky. Used for storing munitions during the war, the wooden timbers still smelt faintly of explosive. She had bought cushions from the market for the couch and a rug for the floor. There was a cupboard in the eaves and she'd cleaned it, filling it with her clothes. When they were alone, she and Micky made love here. The couch wasn't a bed, but it was heaven compared to the hotel in Tottenham Court Road. Lenny kept a Primus stove downstairs and sometimes she cooked food on it, pretended she was a real wife to Micky. And she'd even made them a spaghetti dinner to celebrate her seventeenth birthday in January. Pasta was Micky's favourite dish accompanied by a special sauce that she had made from fresh tomatoes and herbs. All down to Gina's training, of course.
'Blimey Bells, are you a bit mutton or what? I've been yelling myself hoarse down here,' Micky shouted up the stairs.
Bella reluctantly left the window and went down the rickety staircase. Micky was waiting impatiently and thrust his hands d
eep in his overcoat pockets. 'Just in case you're interested, we're behind schedule and I've got deliveries piling up like farts in a constipated bowel. Sean and Ashley are missing as usual so I'll have to deliver this lot up West myself. There's twelve quart bottles of cherry brandy, fifty assorted spirits and five crates of beers over there. Check them and make sure they've got tops.'
Repeating the numbers in her head, Bella crossed to the table where the crates were piled. There was no paperwork to refer to and no accounts to keep. Micky had decided that all the accounting was safer done in his head. Not that Bella was disappointed. She preferred helping Lenny to refine the alcohol in the big hundred-gallon tank that rumbled like thunder and fermented the contents into a potent wash.
When she had confirmed the bottles were in order, she tied an apron over her coat. It was dirty work as the bottles needed cleaning before they were filled. Bella's fingers often turned blue under the freezing water. She was in the middle of scouring a large green gin bottle when Micky appeared beside her.
'Where's Terry disappeared to?' he asked irritably. 'He's never around when I want him.'
'He's having a smoke.'
'One day he'll turn into a chimney.'
'He works hard in here, Micky, lugging all them crates.'
'And so he should. Who else would give him a job?'
Bella turned sharply wiping her cold wet hands on her apron. 'What's the matter with you this morning, Micky?'
'What do you think? I've been out since the crack of dawn looking for that flaming sugar beet. You would have thought it was a life and death situation and yet when I get back here, this place is practically deserted.'
Bella knew that Lenny and Micky were arguing again, which wasn't unusual. It was a way of life for the two men. Usually the quarrel was forgotten by the end of the day, but this disagreement had begun yesterday morning, when Lenny had asked Micky to go out buy the sugar beet used to aid fermentation. Micky as usual, had forgotten. The production of crystal clear alcohol depended on this wash. Lenny took pride in the slow and meticulous process necessary to ensure a high quality product. Micky considered it unnecessary. It was a sore point between them and still unresolved.
