Faces (12 page)

He grinned nastily. ‘Thanks, son, you saved me a job.’

‘Fuck off.’

His mother’s hand made contact with the side of his head and the pain was immediate.

‘Jonjo, don’t you dare speak to your father like that.’

Jonjo was holding his injured ear as he cried, ‘And you can fuck off and all . . .’

His father’s stick hit him on the back before he could move out of his reach and the blow knocked him flying. He hit the sink head first with a sickening thud, and the blood was pouring from the gash within seconds.

As Jonjo felt his mother picking him up he tried to escape her grasp, but the feel of her arms around him was too seductive; it had been years since she had held him for any reason. Annie was now at hysteria level, her terror for once genuine as she saw her mother trying to stem her brother’s bleeding with a tea towel.

Her father looked on, white-faced and silent, as he surveyed the damage he had caused. All the time his ears strained for the sound of the front door opening and his son coming home to all this carnage. Don’t go looking for trouble, his old mum used to say, it’ll find you soon enough. If only he had bothered to listen to her now and again, so much trouble in his life could have been avoided.

 

Colin Baker walked down the road with his usual jaunty air. He was tall for his age, and at seventeen he had the poise of a much older boy. He wore his hair long and greasy, and his skin was a purple mass of acne. He had a slight stoop already, and he favoured rocker-style clothes and music. His big regret in his short life was that he had no motorbike, but that was something he was working on. He was a natural-born bully, and he made a point of using this ability at every available opportunity.

Unknown to him, the small lad with the gentle ways and thick brown hair, who he tormented on an almost daily basis, had finally cracked and reported him to his mother. Had Colin been aware he was the nephew of a known bank robber he would have tempered his anger. However, oblivious to the boy’s heritage as yet, he enjoyed making his life miserable for no other reason than that he could.

As he got to his road he was surprised to see a young fellow in an expensive overcoat leaning on his front gate. He went straight into his hard-nut role: legs akimbo and hands on hips.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

Danny looked him up and down as if unsure whether he was animal, vegetable or mineral. ‘I was about to ask you the same thing. Colin, ain’t it?’

Colin nodded slowly, unsure of himself now, wondering if this chap might turn out to be good news. He doubted that, but he was ever the optimist.

‘I have a message for you from a mutual friend,
Colin
.’

Colin knew that the exchange was being watched by half the street and he opened his arms wide as if inviting a confidence.

‘Do you want it now, mate? The message, I mean,’ Danny said.

Colin nodded again, his natural antagonism coming to the fore. ‘Well, don’t stand there all night, if you got something to say, fucking say it.’

Danny’s fist crunched his nose, and with that first punch the fight was well and truly over. Colin crumpled and concentrated on covering his head and face with his arms to minimise the damage. The beating was swift, brutal and very public; all the requisites needed for a warning in their world. When he was finished, Danny had hardly broken a sweat.

‘That’s from Frankie Daggart on behalf of his nephew, Bruce. Fucking leave the kid alone. You hear me, cunt?’

Frankie had watched everything from the comfort of his navy blue Jaguar. He couldn’t have clumped the boy, he was too old, and it would have been seen as necessary but well over the top. Having Danny Cadogan, a younger lad, doing it for him, would be seen as a stroke of genius. But this young boy had a definite edge; he fought like an old hand. He had a calm and calculated precision that was instinctive. He could row all right, there was no doubt about that. But he did it with aplomb. He did it with a genuine disregard for the victim, and that was practically unheard of in this day and age. Weapons were the new order; a good fucking hammering, man to man, was not often observed any more. The boy had done good, and he would pay him well.

As they drove back to the yard Danny was shocked when Frankie said jovially, ‘Poor old Bruce, bless his heart, he’s as queer as a ten-bob clock. But he’s a game little fucker for all that.’

Danny didn’t answer him, he didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure he would have taken the job had he known that. Queers frightened him: they were an unknown quantity. But he kept that to himself, he wanted Frankie’s goodwill. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

Annuncia was asleep; for once in her life she had done as asked without any arguing or scenes. The fright had kicked in and sleep was the only remedy. Once his head had stopped bleeding, Jonjo understood that it was not as serious as he had believed. Head wounds always bled profusely and, once it had stopped, he was disappointed to see it was little more than a small gash. His mother cleaned the kitchen up, and then made them a cup of hot sweet tea.

Then she tried to salvage the situation with her middle child. Jonjo was like his elder brother in many ways, but she was thankful for the fact he didn’t have Danny’s knack of turning even the most innocent of remarks into a declaration of war. She loved her children, she did. And she knew her husband’s treatment of them had been disgraceful over the years, but he was
still
her husband, their father, and nothing could ever change that fact. Married in a church, they were tied for life; that was what Catholicism was all about. Especially when it suited her.

Tucked up safe and warm in bed, Jonjo listened as his mother tried to explain to him why he must never tell his brother what had happened. Her voice was soothing and quiet, and he knew that was only so his brother, should he creep into the house, wouldn’t overhear what was being discussed.

‘It would cause murders, child, you realise that, don’t you? Now, surely you wouldn’t want to think of your mammy having to referee those two again?’ She was attempting to make light of the situation while, at the same time, reinforcing the seriousness of his actions if he decided to grass.

‘What about Annuncia though, she’ll tell him.’

Angelica closed her eyes in relief. That question said he was going to keep quiet. ‘You leave that little madam to me.’

 

He smiled wanly. ‘Why does he do it, Mum? Why don’t Dad take care of us?’

She kissed his forehead gently then, stroking his hair, she sighed heavily, ‘If I knew the answer to that the Dalai Lama would be out of a job!’

This son of hers was caught up in the middle, as usual. It was the bane of the middle child’s life. Caught between the first-born and the last-born, they were often left to their own devices. ‘He doesn’t mean the half of it. Your father is a very unhappy man, you know. He’s ashamed of what he did, ashamed of the fact that his gambling nearly brought disaster on us. Ashamed that his son has had to take over the reins of this household. Had to put bread on the table and a roof over our heads.’

Jonjo started to laugh then, his dry sense of humour coming to the fore. ‘Mum, he never did any of that anyway.’

They laughed together, conspirators for a few moments. ‘But he
wanted
to. That was once his dream, but sometimes, son, life makes it very difficult to do the right thing. Life can grind you down, especially if you never get the breaks, the chances that other people seem to get in abundance. But he’s still your father, Jonjo, still your flesh and blood, no matter what he’s done.’

She smiled down at this handsome boy of hers, whose life was blighted because the man she had married had more interest in women and horses than his own family. Poverty had a way of making people lose their reality; drink, drugs, gambling and whoring were symptoms, not the actual cause of people’s unhappiness. That was the thing they spent their lives trying to blot out, trying to get away from, even if only for a few hours. It crept inside them, numbed them, changed them, it was like a cancer.

Big Dan Cadogan listened to his wife’s voice and, for the first time in years, he felt the urge to cry. After all he had done to her, after everything that had happened between them, she could still find it in her heart to defend him to the children, the same kids he often conveniently forgot about for weeks, even months at a time, in the same way as he did her. She was just another reminder of his failure, another reminder of his complete uselessness.

Danny Boy would scalp him for this latest debacle he knew and, in a way, he welcomed that happening. It was going to happen, so it was best to get it over with once and for all. If nothing else, the Murrays had taught him that much.

 

Michael was listening intently to what Danny was telling him. They were sitting in a café off the Mile End Road nursing milky coffees and chain-smoking cigarettes. Neither of them liked smoking, it was just something they did to make them feel grown up. The café was far too warm, the windows were steamed up, and the smell of grease was heavy in the air.

The café owner, Denis, was a heavy-set Cypriot with a thick head of dyed-black hair, a gleaming smile, and a wandering eye. He also provided the best hash this side of Marrakesh market. Because of this he had a bustling clientele and an easygoing manner, due mainly to the fact that he smoked a large percentage of his stash himself. All the young people loved him. During the day the place was packed out with the general populace; the olds, the workers, and the displaced. But once the evening arrived, it was jukebox heaven, and a place for the teens to sit and chat over a coffee, all the while practising being a grown-up. Leaving school at fourteen was a rite of passage for these kids, and whatever their parents allowed them to keep from their wages they would spend wisely but quickly over the weekend. The weeknights were therefore mainly used by the up-and-coming young Faces. These were either classed as the new generation of prison fodder, or the new local businessmen, depending on how they conducted themselves and earned their living. Every once in a while though, a real Face would emerge, someone who would be a real name. Someone who would one day not only be feared but also respected.

Denis came over to the table and placed another two coffees in front of them; pulling out a chair noisily he sat down. It was gone midnight and there was a lull in customers. Leaning on the table he said easily, ‘Hey, Danny, I hear you can shift stuff.’

Danny shrugged nonchalantly. ‘So?’

‘I am going to Cyprus for one month. My Cypriot wife is having a baby and I must go there. May she have a boy this time, please God. Marianna will run this place for me with her sister, but I need someone to keep my regular customers supplied. You know what I mean, yeah?’ He winked at the two boys.

Danny knew what he meant, all right, his smile said it all.

‘It’s only for a short while, and you’d be well paid for it. So, what do you say?’

Michael watched as Danny processed the information, then he said quietly, ‘How much will we get?’

‘A oner, payable when I get back.’

Michael frowned then, and Danny smiled as he heard the outrage in his friend’s voice. ‘How many people you talking about us supplying for you, Denis? How much do they want, how often do they want it and how much running about does this all involve?’

Danny shrugged then, his eyes hard. ‘Well, answer him then, Denis. He ain’t called the human abacus for nothing, is he?’

Denis was surprised at all the questions, but brought out a small, dog-eared notebook from his trouser pocket and threw it onto the table. Michael picked it up and quickly scanned the pages, working out the economics of the deal.

‘What is he doing, Danny?’

Denis was now nervous: Michael had not been a part of the equation. He had heard nothing about him at all.

Danny sighed heavily. ‘He’s working it all out, mate, that’s what he does, see? It’s what’s called his forte. Look and learn, because if you ain’t earning to your full potential, or you’re trying to rip us off, this little fucker will know.’

Denis didn’t answer and Danny went silent while his friend worked out the possible returns they could expect from their new friend’s business. Finally, after fifteen minutes, he politely handed the notebook back to Denis.

‘So. What do you think, Mike?’ Danny sounded bored, without an interest in any of it.

Michael shook his head slowly. ‘Not worth the aggro really, Dan. A oner a
week
each, then maybe . . . We’d have to do drops all over the Smoke and, as we don’t drive, and as we’re not car thieves, it will mean a lot of public transport. Given the time this would take, then combine that with the risk factor and we couldn’t do it for any less than a oner each a week for the duration. That will be four hundred a month, times two.’

Denis was laughing his head off at these two young men; he knew Danny was sound as a pound, he had asked around for a while and it was this boy’s name that kept cropping up. But, watching them like this, working out the pros and cons was as ludicrous as it was hilarious. Marianna’s brother would do it much cheaper, but he would serve every one of his customers up light, causing them to look elsewhere. He was also looking to keep it out of his English wife’s family’s hands. This boy, this Danny Cadogan, was already working for the Murrays, among others.

‘We also want a cut off each person we weigh out. You are on the trot, we will look out for your end. We won’t offer anyone an in, or shout your rout about: you have my word on that.’

Denis knew this would cost, but he also knew he wouldn’t lose anyone. Once he returned they would fade back into the woodwork. It was a win-win situation, and he knew it. ‘You’ve got a deal.’

‘Half the money upfront, and the rest on completion.’

Michael was serious as he said that and laughing uncontrollably at his front, Denis held out a meaty paw and the boys shook hands with him.