Ecstasy (10 page)

Thing is, at first Bal ain’t nowhere to be seen, then he comes back, eyes all fucking glazed, hand dripping with blood. It looks quite bad. The cunt’s cut him and run, the fucking conniving little toe-rag.

– Slag fucking got my hand! Tooled the cunt was! A fucking toe-to-toe we was on! That slag’s fucking history! Fucking history! Bal screams, then a light comes into his eye when he sees the geezer that I’ve given the slapping to, just lying there, groaning on the fucking deck. – CAHHNNTS! FUCKING ILFORD CAHHNTS! He starts booting fuck out off this Ilford slag who’s gone into a ball to try to protect his fucking face. – Hold on, Bal, I’ll open this cunt up for you, I says, and starts booting at the base of the cunt’s spine and that makes him buckle, giving Bal cleaner shots at the fucker’s nut. – I’LL TEACH YOU CAHHNTS TO PULL A FUCKING BLADE IN A TOE-TO-TOE YOU CAHHNNTS!

We left the Ilford wanker lying there. He’d have got worse if he hadn’t been one of our geezers, I mean not Mile End, but like Firm. Well, they call themselves Firm but they ain’t the real Firm. We proved that fucking point. Foot-soldiers, them cunts. Ideas above their fucking station.

Anyway, we leaves the cunt in the car-park and goes into the Grapes to finish our drinks. Bal took off his T-shirt and wrapped his hand in it. Standing there like fucking Tarzan, he was. It was bad n all, the hand like, needed stitching pretty sharpish at the A&E at the London Hospital down the road. It would have to wait though; this was about show, about flash.

Cause it felt great walking into that bar: grinning like a pair of
bleeding
Cheshire Cats we was. Our boys cheered when we got in; some Ilford cunts skulked out the fucking door there and then. Les from their mob came over.

– Well, you got the result, fair and square, lads, he said. Not a bad geezer, Les: decent sort of bloke if you know what I mean.

Bal ain’t a happy man though. No wonder with his bleedin mit cut up. – Weren’t fair n square at all, you cunt. Some slag slipped that Hypo geezer a tool!

Les just shrugs like he dunno nothing about it. Maybe he don’t. Not a bad geezer, Les. – Dunno nothing about that Bal. Where are they, Greenie and Hypo?

– The mouthy slag, Greenie, is it? Last seen in small fucking pieces outside in the car-park. That Hypo cunt, he was heading for the fucking Tube. Probably caught the East London line across the fucking river. He’ll be running with the fucking Millwall next season!

– Come on, Bal, we’re all West Ham. No fucking doubts about that, Les said. Les was okay, but there was something about the slag that was giving me the hump. I drew my head back and stuck one on his nose. I heard the crack and saw him stagger back, trying to stem the flow of blood with his hand.

– Fuck me, Thorny … we’re on the same fucking side … we shouldn’t be fighting each other … he says, all fucking gasping as the blood splashes out onto the deck. It’s fairly coming out n all. That was a nice one. That blood though. He should hold his fucking head back, the daft cunt. Somebody should give the fucker a hankie.

– And don’t you Ilford cunts ever forget it, Bal shouted, giving me a nod. He looked over at Shorthand and Riggsie. – Come on, lads, get ’em in for Les and the boys over there. We’re all fucking Firm after all!

– Oi! I shouts over at the Ilford, – One of you cunt’s get old Les a hanky, or a towel from the shithouse or something! Want him to fucking well bleed to death?

They jump n all, the fuckers.

I looked over to Chris, the landlord, who was washing some glasses. Looked like he had the hump. – Sorry, Chris, I shouted, – just
putting
a slag right on one or two little things. No aggravation like. He nodded over. An alright geezer, Chris.

The Ilford cunts stay for a couple but their hearts aren’t really in it and they’re queuing up to make their excuses and leave. Bal had to stay until the last one had gone: put on a brave face on account of the hand. Don’t want that Hypo slag boasting about how he’d given Barry Leitch a bad cut.

Once they’d gone Riggsie says to me, – Bit out of order there, Thorny, nutting Les like that. He’s an okay geezer. We’re all on the same fucking side.

Yeah, and he’s out off his nut on ecstasy, the fucking ponce. I ain’t getting into it with him.

– Bollocks it was, Bal said. – Thorny was in the right. You beat me to it there, Dave. Yeah, we need these slags, but not as much as they fucking think.

– Something about the cunt’s attitude I didn’t like, I tell them. – He didn’t show enough respect, you know?

Riggsie’s shaking his head, all humped up and everything, so he don’t stay for too long, which is good, cause after taking Bal down to the A&E to get him stitched up, me, him and Shorthand are straight back to his place to plan tonight’s job, which was the real order of business before those Ilford wankers came down here disrupting things.

So back at his we’re all pretty fucking well pleased with ourselves; well, Bal’s a bit broody on account of his hand I suppose. I look at myself in the full-length mirror he’s got: well fucking hard I am. I’ve been fairly hammering the old weights in the gym. I got quite a few things to sort out.

I look at my mates; they can be cunts at times, but they’re the best mates you could have.

Bal, he’s a head shorter than me, but he’s a heavyweight n all. Shorthand’s a bit of a wimp; he’s the joker in the pack, ain’t he. He gets on your bleedin tits at times but he’s all right. Riggsie ain’t with us so much these days. It was always the four of us, now it’s just the three, innit. He ain’t with us, but he’s still always with us, if you know what I mean.

– Riggsie, Bal scoffs, – Mister fucking love n peace these days ain’t he?

We had a good bleeding laugh at the cunt.

London, 1961

Bruce Sturgess was, as was his habit, in the boardroom fifteen minutes before the meeting was due to start. He went over his slides, checking the sharpness and clarity of the image the projector threw onto the screen from all seating points in the musty, wood-panelled room. Content, Sturgess strolled over to the window and looked at the new office block which was being constructed opposite. They seemed to spend forever on the foundations, but once they were complete, the structure rose into the sky rapidly, and it would change the city skyline for a least a couple of living memories. Sturgess envied the architects, the planners. They have their monuments, he considered.

His thoughts were distracted by the arrival of the others. Mike Horton came in first, followed by the ebullient Barney Drysdale, with whom he had enjoyed a robust evening of drink and conspiracy last night in the bar of The White Horse public house, just off Trafalgar Square. In the small, crowded bar, populated largely by staff from the nearby South African Embassy, he and Barney had spent a great deal of time discussing this meeting. Barney tipped him a wink and then started making gregarious remarks to the other executives who were coming in and filling the chairs around the large, polished oak table.

As usual, Sir Alfred Woodcock was the last to arrive, languidly taking his seat at the top of the table. Bruce Sturgess thought what he always thought when Sir Alfred sat down: I WANT TO BE WHERE YOU ARE NOW.

The buzz of the chatter immediately ceased, though Barney’s booming voice went on a little longer and was apparent in its isolation. – Oh … sorry, Sir Alfred, he said in crisp apology.

Sir Alfred’s smile was impatient but carried a redeeming dose of indulgent paternalism which Barney alone seemed able to elicit. – Good morning, gentlemen … we are here today to talk largely about Tenazadrine, our proposed new product lead … or rather, I should say, Bruce will be telling us exactly why this should be our new product lead. Bruce, Sir Alfred nodded.

Sturgess stood up, feeling a surge of power. With an assertive swagger brought on in response to an icy scowl from Mike Horton, he clicked on the projector. Bloody Horton pushing the promotion of a useless fucking mouth-ulcer cure. Well, Tenazadrine would blow all that away. Bruce Sturgess believed in this product, but much more than that, Bruce Sturgess believed in Bruce Sturgess. – Thank you, Sir Alfred. Gentlemen, I am going to tell you why, if we do not lead off on this product, this company would be missing an opportunity which probably only comes along perhaps two or three times in a lifetime in the pharmaceutical industry.

That was exactly what Bruce Sturgess did in his presentation of Tenazadrine. Horton could feel the cool reticence in the room thaw. He was aware of the empathetic nods and then the mood of growing excitement. He could feel his own mouth drying out and was soon wishing for a swig of his vaunted mouth-ulcer cure: a product, which, he realised, would be a long, long time in the making.

Suburbia

This fucking ski-mask’s too bleedin hot, innit: that’s the problem with them. Don’t bear thinking about. This one was a piece of fucking piss though. We had the place well sussed out, knew the whole family’s M.O. backwards. That’s one thing I gotta give Shorthand: he does his surveillance well. Mind you, them suburban types don’t exactly make it hard for ya. They are creatures of habit and no mistake. And long may it bleedin well continue, cause it’s good for business; and, as Maggie herself once said, what’s good for business is good for Britain; or something like that.

The only spot of nastiness about the whole thing was that it was the bleedin Doris that answered the door. Well, I was in the striker role so I just punched her square in the gob and she fell backwards into the house, crashing down heavily and just sort of lying there twitching on the floor like she was having a bleeding fit. She didn’t even make a sound, like cry out or nothing. I stepped in and shut the door. The way she was just lying there: fucking pathetic; it made me all sort of angry at her, you know? Bal bends down and holds a blade at her throat. As it comes into focus and she realises what it is, her eyes are popping out of her bleedin head. Then she’s holding her skirt down against her thighs. That gets my fucking goat, that does; as if we want any of her, the cheeky slag, as if we’re sick or something.

Bal talks to her softly in his put-on coon voice, sort of West Indian like, – Keep it shut an you live. Fuck wit us an your white ass is yesturday’s noos, woomun.

Total pro is our Bal, ya gotta give him that. He even has his eyes and mouth blacked under that ski-mask. This Doris just stares at him; her pupils huge, like some cunt’s dropped an ecstasy on her.

Then this geezer, the husband, comes through. – Jackie … for god sake …

– SHUT YIR FUCKIN MOOTH SLAG! I shout at him in my Jock accent. – IF YE WAAHNT YIR WUMMIN HERE IN WAAHN PIECE YI’LL KEEP IT FUCKIN SHUT! RIGHT? He nods all timid like and says, – Please, take anything, just don’t …

I move over and bounce his head hard off the wall. Three times I do it: once for business, once for fun – cause I hate slags like that – and once for luck. Then I stick my knee into his bollocks. He slumps down the fucking wall with a groan, pathetic little cunt. – Ah telt ye tae shut the fuck up! Ah sais tae shut up n dae whit we ask n that wey nae cunt gits hurt, right? He nods all fucking cowed, cringing into the bleedin wall, pathetic wanker. – Now if ah git any bother fae you, son, your missus here’s no even gaunny be good fir donatin organs. Right?

He nodded at me, fucking shitting himself.

It’s funny, but when I was a nipper, people always used to say to my old man – who’s Scotch – people like this smarmy scumbag, that they never understood the Jock accent. Funny thing is, when I do these little jobs, they always seem to get the message loud n clear and no mistake.

– Now dat’s di attitude we loike ta see, Shorthand says, sounding like a bleedin Mick. – Now. Right sor, I’ll be tankin you to be gettin all di mooney and jewellery you got in di house. Now. You stick it in dis hold-all, right? If you’re noice n quiet, sure, we won’t even be havin to be wakenin up dem poor little children up di stairs now will we? Now.

The accents is a great stroke: tactics to throw the filth off the track. I do a good Jock one on account of my old gel and my old man. Shorthand’s Irish is alright, a bit over the top sometimes, but Bal’s West Indian dread is fucking brilliant.

The shit-out cunt of a husband runs around with Shorthand, while Bal keeps a tight grip on the missus with the knife at her throat; too bleedin tight if you ask me, the dirty slag. I make us all a nice cup of tea, which ain’t that fucking easy with them gloves on n everything.

– Goat any biscuits, hen? I ask her, but the poor bleedin cow can’t even speak. She’s pointing to a cupboard above the worktops. I check it out. – Fuck me, a pack ah Kit Kats. That’s pure dead brilliant, so it is, by the way.

God, this bleedin ski-mask is hot.

– Sit doon oan the couch, hen, I tell her. She don’t move. – Sit hur doon oan her erse, Bobby, I say to Bal. Her gets her onto the couch, with his arm around her like he was her bleedin fellah or something.

I put the tea down in front of her. – Dinnae even think of flingin yon tea in anybody’s face, hen, I tell her, – or see they weans up the stair? Thair fuckin wormfood!

– I wasn’t … she stammered. Poor bleedin Doris. Sitting at home watching the telly and this happens. Don’t bear thinking about really.

Bal ain’t best pleased. – Drink youah fuckan tea, woman. My friend Hursty here, he make you nice tea. Drink Hursty’s tea. You think we you fuckan slave? White bitch!

– Hey, hey, c’moan you. The lassie disnae wahnt nae tea, the lassie disnae huv tae have ony tea, I told Bal, or Bobby as I called him.

When we went on jobs like this, it was always Hursty, Bobby and Martin we called ourselves. This was after Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters: the Hammers who won the World Cup for us in 1966. Barry was Bobby, the general; I was Hursty, the up-front striker. Shorthand – well, he saw himself as Martin Peters, the schemer: ten years ahead of his time and all that bollocks.

Of course, there wasn’t much bleedin cash around: we only got about two hundred. There’s never a fucking farthing in these bleedin places. We only really do it cause it’s easy and it gives us a bit of buzz. It also keeps your hand in with planning and all that. You can’t allow yourself to get all rusty. That’s why we’re the country’s number one firm: it’s the planning, innit. Any silly cunt can steam in; it’s the planning and organisation that sorts out the real professionals from the bleedin mob. Anyhow, Shorthand, he gets the card numbers from the husband geezer then tours around a few cashpoints and comes back with six hundred quid. These fucking machines and their bastard limits. It’s best to wait until midnight, then at 11.56 or whatever, you draw out two hundred, then another two hundred at
12.01.
It’s only 11.25 now, which is too long to hang about. You always have to leave a bit of extra time in case of struggle. This one though, it was too fucking easy.