Get Even (6 page)

Sharon had cooked a steak and kidney pie and she was very happy with how it had turned out. The pastry was perfect and it smelled divine. She was really getting good at this cooking lark, and more of a surprise was that she quite enjoyed it. She glanced at the clock and saw it was nearly seven. That meant her Lenny would be in any minute. She still felt a shiver of excitement at his arrival. She loved him so much.

She rushed into the bedroom and brushed her hair and reapplied her make-up. She made sure she always looked nice when he came home from work. Some of the girls on the estate were only a couple of years older than her and already looked like their mothers. She sprayed herself with Blue Grass perfume and she was ready for her husband’s return.

As she started to plate up the meal, she heard his key in the lock and she smiled happily.

Lenny shouted from the small hallway as he took off his overcoat, ‘That smells fucking handsome, Shaz. I could eat a scabby horse between two mattresses.’

She smiled. He said the same thing nearly every night, even when her food had been an absolute disaster, but she loved him for it.

He washed his hands in the bathroom and then made his way into the kitchen. The house was spotless, and the table was laid like a restaurant: napkins, the works. She was funny like that, his Sharon – she even refused to have red sauce in the house. She said it was common. He had to go along with it. The house was her domain.

The pie and mash, peas and gravy looked delicious. She was getting to be a really good cook. Even his mum was impressed, and that wasn’t an easy thing to accomplish. As his dad was often heard to say, she would have found fault at the Last Supper.

They chatted amiably and ate together in complete harmony. Sharon wasn’t a girl who forced opinions on you; she was quiet, willing to listen to her husband’s chatter. But Lenny knew there was steeliness inside her. If she thought she was in the right she would not back down. It was one of the things he loved about her.

‘Here, Len, Isaac is thinking of selling the betting office. He’s had enough, I think. He is getting on, bless him.’

Lenny stopped chewing at her words. ‘How much does he want for it?’

Sharon shrugged. ‘I dunno. Why?’

Lenny grinned. ‘Just wondered, that’s all. It’s a nice little earner.’

Sharon opened her blue eyes wide as she said, ‘It’s that, all right. I should know, I do the takings.’ She carried on eating, her lovely face intent on her food.

‘Listen, Shaz. I have a bit of business tonight. I will be out late. But it will bring in a good few quid.’

Sharon nodded. ‘Okey-doke.’

He smiled. He loved that she never questioned him. She accepted everything he said at face value. Most girls would have wanted the ins and outs of the cat’s arse.
Where you going? Who with? How long will you be out?

‘I will be back as soon as possible, babe, you know that.’

She smiled again and nodded happily. ‘I know that, Len. I’m going to have a long bubble bath and an early night. I feel tired today.’

He was immediately concerned. ‘You all right, babe? I can stay here, darling.’

She rolled her eyes in irritation. ‘I’m pregnant, not suffering from fucking terminal cancer. I’m just tired, mate. Plus I want to watch
Dempsey and Makepeace
without you making remarks all the time.’

He laughed at her, she was such a strong character. ‘OK. If you’re sure, mate.’

She cut him another huge piece of steak and kidney pie as she said, ‘I will be fine. Just you be careful, OK?’

He nodded. She knew he wasn’t going out to wish anyone well. She was aware he was up to some kind of skulduggery, and she was a woman who understood that the less she knew about his nefarious businesses the better. She was a real fucking diamond was his Sharon, and he couldn’t believe his luck.

Billy Mason was a man who always had to have
just that little bit more
. No matter how good the earn, he always felt it should be greater. Greed was a prerequisite for a criminal lifestyle, but that depended who you were nicking from. Banks, building societies, big houses or Post Offices were seen as fair game. Council flats were seen as off limits, unless you were a junkie piece of shit. No one with half a brain nicked off their own. Billy Mason should have known that better than anyone – he had been in the Life long enough.

But Billy lived by his own rules; he prided himself on that fact. He also had a belief in his own God-given right to take any earn that he saw fit. He was confident that the men he worked alongside were too frightened of him and his reputation to even consider giving him the hard word. He was happy with his life, and he was coining it in.

Billy Mason’s big mistake was that he was a creature of habit. A large man with a beer gut and Denis Healey eyebrows, he wasn’t exactly the answer to a maiden’s prayer, but what Billy had going for him was money and a sense of humour. He could laugh a woman into bed. He genuinely loved them – all shapes and sizes. He could find something complimentary to say to any woman he came across, even if it was only that she had nice eyes or a good set of teeth. He frequented Tiffany’s in Ilford every Thursday for Grab-A-Granny night, or if you were a female, Grab-A-Granddad.

As he tripped out of his house in Manor Park, bathed, shaved and smelling of Old Spice, he was nonplussed to see young Lenny Scott on his doorstep.

Lenny smiled graciously and said respectfully, ‘Sorry, Billy. Can I come in a sec, mate? I need to discuss a rob I heard about. Thought you might be interested, like.’

Billy Mason was always up for a rob of any kind, and he liked this kid. Smiling, he said jovially, ‘’Course, son.’

He held the front door open and followed the lad inside. Billy’s house was like him – old but well looked after, all Axminster carpets and Dralon furniture, smelling vaguely of beeswax polish and Flash liquid.

Lenny went into the through lounge-diner with him; it was a typical Ilford house – practically on the pavement and no garden to speak of. High ceilings, though, and nice cornices, with the original fireplaces. Lenny approved of it.

Billy was eager to get going – it was nearly half past ten, and all the birds would be turning up at Tiffany’s after the pub. It was free for women before ten thirty. He liked to get in early and stake his claim. Still, he was all smiles as he asked, ‘Is this the robbery at Lloyds Bank in the high street? Because I never shit on my own doorstep.’

Lenny sighed heavily, and slipped an iron bar out of the sleeve of his raincoat.

Seeing it, Billy shouted angrily, ‘You cheeky little fucker!’

Billy Mason could have a row, no one would dispute that. But young Lenny Scott could have a better one. He concentrated on the man’s eyes and legs. When he left twenty minutes later, Billy Mason was barely functioning.

Lenny stopped at a phone box and called an ambulance; he had left Billy’s front door ajar so they could gain entrance. He went to a mate’s and washed up there – burned his clothes and changed into a new set.

He was home and in bed by twelve fifteen. He hugged his young wife to him, and she snuggled into him naturally as she slept contentedly in his arms.

Jack Johnson was over the fucking moon. The fact that Lenny had done a perfect job was just the icing on the cake – carrying it out that same night was an even more pleasing surprise. Lenny Scott just did what he was told, no questions asked. Not yet twenty years old and he had the nerves of an old hand. From what Jack could gather, old Billy Boy was half-blind and would walk like he was on a fucking carousel for the rest of his life.

That was the result he wanted. Never leave an enemy with the means to come back at you, but make them serve as a reminder to everyone just what your retribution would be if they decided to fuck you over. Billy Mason was a treacherous cunt. Jack had given him a serious earn but he had always suspected that Billy Mason would one day want more; he was a greedy ponce. Well, he would regret his covetous nature now. Jack took a few deep breaths to calm himself down, but it still rankled. He had trusted Billy once. He had given him a good lifestyle but that had not been enough for him: he still wanted the main chance.

Lenny drove into the yard, satisfied. He was happy with his night’s work, and felt that he had done a good job. He had liked Billy Mason, but he had been given a task and he had done it to the best of his ability. He hoped that Jack was pleased with him, though he was suddenly filled with trepidation as he walked into his office. Maybe he’d gone too far. But he had been asked to teach the man a lesson and he had done just that.

Jack was smiling as if he’d just won the pools and Lenny immediately relaxed.

‘You fucking little fucker!’ Jack was out of his seat and pulling out a chair for Lenny. ‘Sit down, son, you earned it.’

Lenny Scott was embarrassed; he had not expected this. Jack Johnson appreciated the boy’s reticence – he wasn’t crowing about his job like many others who would have given him a blow-by-blow account, acting like it had been a fucking royal event, trying to prove they were indispensable. Young Lenny just did it, and that was that. He had seen this boy’s potential and Jack loved it when he was proved right.

‘You’ve done good, Lenny. I’m impressed. I told you what I wanted and you did it without fear or favour.’

Lenny smiled sheepishly.

‘Who did you bring on board?’

Lenny frowned. ‘No one. I thought this was best kept in-house, so to speak.’

Jack grinned; this was just getting better and better as far as he was concerned. ‘What, you did it on your Jack Jones?’

Lenny nodded. ‘’Course, Jack. I wasn’t sure you would want it done mob-handed, like. It was just me. I gave him the business, though. He ain’t going anywhere for a long time.’

Jack Johnson sat back in his comfortable chair and wondered at a lad like this; he was clearly a fucking one-man war machine. Billy Mason was no easy mark. He could take care of himself – that was why he had worked for Jack in the first place.

‘Well, Lenny, I can’t tell you how fucking impressed I am. Especially as you went all on your tod. I want you to know that I won’t forget this. I am going to bung you a serious drink – ten grand cash. And, listen to me, son, if you ever need anything you just have to talk to me, all right? I will give you the earth on a plate. You proved yourself to me, mate, not just as a worker, but also as a man I would be honoured to have running my businesses.’

Lenny Scott felt almost tearful at Jack’s words. This was what he had dreamed of, what he had always wanted – the big in, the rite of passage.

‘I think the world of you, Jack, you know that. You gave me the opportunity to have a serious earn. I will never forget it.’

Jack Johnson looked at the huge young man sitting before him. The lad was humble, he was grateful. And evidently he was also a dangerous little fuck.

‘Son, listen to me. You’re on the road to greatness, and I want you right beside me.’

Lenny nodded his huge head, and he smiled as he said, ‘Thank you, Jack. Appreciate that.’

Jack Johnson looked at Lenny Scott and thanked Christ and all the saints for dropping this boy into his lap and not someone else’s.