“No, single and sad as ever,” he replied with a friendly laugh. “Still living by myself. The business is taking off though, I have a few boys working for me but they’re out of town at the minute. Gives me an excuse to pop in here for a few drinks eh?” he laughed joyously and nudged Phillips who laughed along with him.
“Anyway, it was good seeing you again,” Harry said unconvincingly. “I’ll have to get back in there; don’t wanna keep the lads waiting.”
Phillips smiled and they exchanged awkward goodbyes.
“You want to fill me in?” Richards quizzed as the door to the toilet swung shut.
“He’s a drunk, or a recovering one at that. He’s been convicted for drink driving a ton of times. His driver’s license is in his wallet,” Phillips explained.
“So you figured he would have been through so many drink driving schools that he wouldn’t be able to remember anyone from any of them?” Richards looked impressed.
“That and the fact that he’s a fifty-four year old drunk; he’ll have a memory like a fish.” Richards smiled at the comment. “He had two credit cards in there,” Phillips flashed his notepad which contained Harry Allcross’s account numbers. “And the dumb fucker even left a spare car key in there.”
“Luck is on our side. What’s the plan?”
“That’s where you come in. That van outside is bound to be loaded with a few grand worth of equipment and we’re going to steal it.”
“Are you fucking mad?”
“Probably,” he took out a twenty pound note from his pocket. “Take this,” he gave him the cash, “courtesy of Mr Allcross, don’t worry he won’t get suspicious; he had two hundred notes in there, I only took twenty. I need you to keep him and his friends busy while I head down to Shoddy Simons and offload the gear, he’ll take anything.”
“And the cards? You know how I feel about holding onto things like that.”
“Simon will take those too. Allcross is a business man so his limits will be high, they should fetch a good price.”
Richards nodded.
“Keep him busy until I phone you,” Phillips warned. “Don’t let the fat fucker out of your sight.”
21
Through the clouds of rising steam that glared out of his coffee cup, Howard Price watched the reams of passing shoppers. People came and went, buzzing through the centre like agitated bees carrying bags of gifts and honey for their Queen.
He heard extracts from numerous conversations: loud, varied and mingled voices which formed to concoct one murmured noise. He felt like he was in an airport departure lounge, listening to clusters of excited conversations and spying on them from an inconspicuous vantage point.
Lisa sat opposite him. He shot her a warm smile but her attention was elsewhere: she was staring blankly at the shoppers behind her father at the other end of the restaurant, her mind on the gifts he had bought her as she hungrily ate a cheeseburger, chewing each large mouthful with jaw aching rapidity.
Price poked at his own food. He had ordered a Tuna sandwich, but the tuna had been bathed in mayonnaise before being wrapped in disturbing amounts of salad. He lifted the sesame seed bun and looked in disgust at the foliage that greeted him. Pushing it to one side he chose to concentrate on his coffee.
“Where to next, darling?” he queried, bringing his daughter out of her daydream.
“Can we go look for some clothes?”
“Sure, that’s perfect, there’s a new leather jacket and some slippers I’ve been wanting.”
“Oh, okay,” she agreed reluctantly.
“I’m kidding,” he said with a wink. “We’ll go to that new clothes shop that you wouldn’t shut up about.”
She beamed a delighted grin and tucked into her food with more relish, keen to finish.
Price looked down at the bags of merchandise they had already purchased. He had agreed to buy her whatever she wanted and she hadn’t missed a single opportunity, picking up computer games, toys, an MP3 player and an assortment of magazines and posters.
They had also paid brief visits to an antique shop to pick up a porcelain teddy bear for Elizabeth -- one of the many things she collected -- and to a sweet shop to buy a bag of
Liquorice Allsorts
and
Mint Imperials
, which they would share between themselves throughout the trip.
Howard was surprised at the rate in which they had shopped. When he shopped with his wife every shop and every item had to be mulled over. He would find himself stuck in one shop for over an hour as she rummaged through and debated each item. When he shopped alone he had a list: he drove to the shops that stocked the things on his list, bought all his items and drove back home. He wasn’t one for lingering around and, luckily for him, his daughter had the same attitude.
He smiled at her as a line of mayonnaise trickled down her chin before being vanquished by the sleeve of her jacket; she grinned as she pushed the last piece of the burger into her mouth.
22
Johnny Phillips and Michael Richards returned to their seats. The four men continued to play pool on the expansive table in front of them. Harry Allcross, Phillips’s fake new friend, stretched his body over the table to reach a long shot on the black.
His eyes stumbled awkwardly over the penetrating gaze of Phillips and he smiled with great difficulty. Phillips, his eyes twinkling with a sadistic sourness, returned the smile.
“If you stay here any longer he’s going to leave,” Richards quietly warned.
Phillips nodded. He mumbled an acknowledging reply, drained the contents of his pint and belched loudly and satisfyingly. “Well, I better get going,” he said loudly, raising his voice so the pool players could hear him. He stood up, noting a smile of relief from Harry Allcross.
“My phone is fully charged,” Richards said, his mouth hanging secretly over the rim of his pint glass. “Don’t be too long.”
Phillips nodded a silent reply and walked away from the table. He passed the pool table and exchanged a brief goodbye with his new friend before leaving.
Richards watched the game unfold. Harry Allcross, seemingly shaken by the events, had missed his shot on the black, now one of the youngsters was smiling down his cue, lining up an easy pot to the centre pocket.
He took a small sip from his pint glass and walked over to the table. The black ball rolled into the centre pocket as he placed his lager down on the mahogany rim.
They all looked at him curiously.
“Mind if I join you guys?” he quizzed politely. “I have a few hours to kill here, either that or I go back to my nagging girlfriend and listen to her whine on for the rest of the afternoon,” his smile was returned.
“No problem mate,” one of them said.
“Here,” Harry handed Richards a cue. “See if you can beat Lee here,” he motioned towards the youngster. “It’s about time
someone
did.”
Richards took the cue and laid it against the table. He dug his hand inside his pocket and pulled out the £20 note. “You rack them up and I’ll go get the drinks,” he said, motioning towards the youngster who held the other cue. “What’s everyone having?”
23
An afternoon chill flushed Darren Morris’s cheeks, bringing with it a light wind which toyed with his loosely hanging jacket. He shifted his feet uncomfortably and zipped up the jacket, blocking out the cold and the nuisance wind.
James Roach stood by his side, his posture firm and strong. He gazed out upon the inactive park with assassin’s eyes. Morris rested his back against a damaged, graffiti-covered wall and observed his colleague.
They had both been in the game for the same length of time; both had made their first hits and taken their first lives within days of each other. They had been partners from the beginning, and had been terrorising the inner city gangs and law enforcement agencies for over fifteen years. They were also the same age and had relatively similar upbringings, yet Morris had never considered Roach to be a friend.
They were pushed together by Sanders. A loose cannon and a deadly efficient machine, combined to create a force feared by many local gangs.
Roach straightened up and turned to his partner. “You okay?” he asked, noticing Morris’s stare.
“Fine.”
They had a good agreement. They knew a lot about each other, but rarely entered into personal conversation. Morris didn’t have any social manner; his ability to make friends had withered away over the years, he didn’t like company and despised the human race.
Roach turned to Morris again and ushered his eyes in the direction of the park entrance.
Morris woke from his trance and looked at the opening where a short concrete perimeter wall opened, serving as the entrance to the park.
Two youths strutted their way; both wore baseball caps, the peaks of which were tipped downwards to disguise their faces as they plodded along.
“Reckon this is our guy?” Roach quizzed.
Morris mumbled an inaudible reply and straightened up. He felt his stomach stiffen and he rubbed it gently.
After arranging to pick up the drugs, he had ordered two bacon sandwiches. The barmaid had said they were not serving dinner but the owner would make him something from the breakfast menu.
They had been burnt to a crisp and arrived late. Morris munched them down regardless, chewing through the charred bacon with the hunger of a man who hadn’t eaten for days.
The meat and grease still hadn’t settled on his stomach.
“I told you not to eat so fast,” Roach said, acknowledging his friend’s discomfort and watching as the two boys turned away and walked off towards a basketball court.
Morris smiled and gave an apathetic shrug.
Someone called out from behind them, a half-shout half-whisper which served the purpose of neither. Behind the wall, walking across the road with a confident gait, was a stocky teenager. He wore a baggy ‘NYC’ hooded sweatshirt and extremely loose fitting
Levi
jeans. The hood on the sweatshirt was pulled over his head and shadowed half his face.
“You the guy from the pub?” he asked, hopping over the wall and walking up to them.
“Yes, you Steiner?” Morris questioned.
The youngster nodded.
“Follow me old man,” he walked away from the wall, towards a dense woodland area.
Roach looked across at Morris and smiled at the anger flaring in his eyes.
“My mate told me what you looked like, brief description an all,” the youngster said as they ducked their way into the wooded area, into the cool shade and out of sight. “He didn’t say you were bringing a boyfriend though,” he chided cockily.
Morris smiled meekly. “You got the pills?”
“Sure I got ‘em,” he tapped a bulge in his pocket. “You got the cash?”
“How much?”
“Fifty.”
“Very cheap,” Morris said. “They’re good pills as well, you must have a good supplier.”
The youngster merely shrugged, a look of impatience on his face.
“Where do they come from?” Morris wondered. “The main dealer in the city gets his stuff from up north. Fucking shit gear if you ask me, rip-off prices too, but I’ve heard good things about these.”
“Specially shipped from abroad, you’ll not get better E’s than these,” he replied with a smug grin.
“You know the guy who ships them?”
“If I did I wouldn’t tell you would I? Now are you gonna give me the cash or what?”
Morris smiled and nodded. “James,” he said softly. “Give the kid the cash would you?”
Roach nodded assuredly and moved towards the teenager. His hand was in his pocket and Steiner watched with anticipation as he withdrew it. The teenager didn’t even get the chance to see that the man in front of him had been reaching for a pair of knuckle dusters and not a bundle of notes, before a fist clattered into his face.
Steiner recoiled; his jaw clicked and locked in place as his body stumbled sideways. Roach reached out with his left arm and stopped the youngster from falling, before driving his fist into his stomach.
He coughed violently and repeatedly. Blood trickled from each explosion of wind, he gagged an assortment of muffled, curdled obscenities through his pained mouth.
Morris bent over to meet his eyes -- the teenager was practically on his knees. “Where do you get the gear from?” he asked politely.
“Just take it,” he yelped. He tried to reach into his pocket for the bag of pills but Roach stopped him, grasping his wrist tightly.
“We don’t want your filthy fucking drugs,” Morris explained. “We want to know where you get them from.”
Steiner’s eyes shifted uncomfortably. “Why?” he cried.
“So we can cut out the middle man, go directly to the supplier, buy wholesale,” Morris said with a smile. “Does it really matter why? What you
should
be asking is
‘or what’
because if you don’t tell us where you get the gear then my big friend here is going to remove your appendages one by one.” Morris straightened and removed a lock-back Smith & Wesson knife from his pocket. He flicked it open and aimed at the teenager’s groin, “And guess where he’s going to start.”
He let out a gurgle of fear and tried to utter a reply but his words were rapid and clouded with a fearful stammer.
“We haven’t got all day kid, hurry up,” Roach said, holding the youngster’s head tightly in both of his hands.
“Pearce,” the youngster stammered. “Wayne Pearce.”
“That’s a start,” Morris uttered. “Where’s he live?”
“I don’t know, please, I really don’t--”
Morris raised the knife to his left eye. He stuck the tip of the blade in the soft flesh below his eyebrow, drawing blood from the small wound. He then slowly ran the knife point over his eye.
“I’ll ask you again,” he said, his arm surprisingly steady as he held the knife in front of the constantly blinking eye. “Where does he live?”
Roach looked down to see a large wet patch spreading over Steiner’s groin. The urine dripped past his baggy jeans, over his legs and shoes before darkening the dry ground.
“Walker Street,” he muttered, stumbling on each syllable. “Number thirty-two.”
Morris smiled and withdrew the knife. “Is he the one who ships them into the country?”
“I don’t think so, he’s a big time dealer but he’s a heavy user…he’s too fucked up to be that smart,” the teenager replied in a calmer voice.
Morris smiled and nodded at his partner. Roach twisted Steiner’s head like a bottle cap. His neck snapped instantly and he fell limp onto the floor, his face in the pool of drying urine.
“Looks like we can forget about the other name on Sanders’s list,” Morris said as they left the scene. “We’ll check out this Pearce guy, he sounds promising.”
24
Morris and Roach clambered back in the silver Ford Mondeo parked in the supermarket car park. Morris eyed the transit van as he passed, instinctively glancing its way. No one had tried to gain access to it; no one was hovering around.
Car crime was big in the area. There were more unemployed people than employed and there had been a significant increase of commercial vehicles, like the transit van, being broken into. The crimes were committed by kids who didn’t know how to drive and would struggle to reach the pedals if they did; the vans were never stolen, but everything inside was.
In their eyes vans could be holding computer gear, wholesale goods or other expensive items, therefore breaking into them and stealing their contents would be just as profitable as ram-raiding a store.
Morris pondered the scenario of youngsters breaking into the van beside him to discover its far less than desirable contents. He could picture their horrified faces as they saw the crumpled, blood-soaked body staring back at them amidst a cargo of paint brushes and cans.
Although he knew they would just side-step the body and steal the brushes.
A gust of wind shot through the lines of cars, kicking up the distinctive smell of putrid flesh and coppery blood. He shrugged it off and climbed into the car.
“Do you think we should give Sanders a call?” Roach asked inside the vehicle.
“He told us to sort the job out, we’ll call him after we’ve done it.”
“He told us to check the names on the list,” Roach corrected. “We’ve already found what could be the middle man. If we give him a call maybe Sanders will know who the guy is.”
Morris nodded and conceded. He knew Roach was right, if there was a change in anyone’s’ plans Sanders expected to be told about it, and there was a decent chance he
did
know the guy they were after. Morris pulled out his mobile phone and jabbed out the number; he knew it by heart, he had to -- Sanders didn’t give his number out to many people and wanted no one storing it.
Sanders answered on the second ring.
“Darren,” he said with little enthusiasm. “What can I do you for?” Morris noted a tired rattle in his boss’s voice.
“We checked out the list and found the first kid on there. Joseph Steiner,” Morris said, getting straight to the point.
“Any luck?”
“He gave us a name to his supplier. Neither Steiner nor his supplier ship the goods into the country, but we’re getting closer.”
“I’m impressed, you guys work fast.”
Morris ignored the compliment. “You ever hear of a junkie-come-seller by the name of Pearce?” he quizzed.
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Sanders replied firmly. “Why?”
“That’s where Steiner is getting his gear from; he gave us an address.”
“A name
and
an address…you boys really
do
work fast,” Sanders took a puff from his cigar, Morris could almost taste the smoke down the phone line. “Where’s this Steiner kid now?”
“Face to face with his own piss at the local park,” Morris relied sharply.
“I expect you didn’t leave any evidence?”
“None at all,” Morris said with little care. “So, do you want us to scrap the list and head for this Pearce guy?”
“Yes. The other kid on the list is a nobody like Steiner. We need to climb the chain,” Sanders said, making Morris wonder where the ‘
we’
fitted in. “You say you have his address?”
“Yes.”
“Head over there, stake it out if necessary, I want him sorted today. If he’s a junkie it shouldn’t take much doing, get as much information from him as you can.”
“We just finished on Steiner, what about your other boys?” Morris wondered. “Can’t you send them in?”
“Darren. Darren. Darren.” Sanders said, seemingly ashamed. “You and James are the best I have. The other idiots I have with me would fuck it up; I wouldn’t trust them as far as I can throw them. You two are the best in the business, that’s why I hired you.” He paused to blow another toxic wave of cigar smoke down the line. “Head over to this fucking junkie’s house, do what needs to be done and report back to me.”
Morris merely nodded as the line went dead. He sealed the phone and dropped it back inside his pocket.
“Another fucking job,” he muttered. “We don’t get paid enough for this shit.”
“Sanders watches our back, he pays us enough to keep us going,” Roach disagreed.
Morris turned to his colleague and shrugged. “We could be doing a lot better than this,” he pleaded. “If we worked for ourselves we’d be making fifty times more than we do now.”
“Sanders is a fucking gang lord,” Roach said defiantly. “It took him years to build up what he has.” He glanced across at his friend, “You like your job, you always have, so what’s your problem?”
Morris shrugged. “We need a hit of our own, something away from Sanders; something that can sort us out for life.”
“By cutting out the middleman?” Roach smiled.
“Yes. Something like that.”
Roach revved up the engine of the Ford. “Only there’s one slight problem,” he said as he reversed the car out of the small space. “Sanders is the middleman
and
the front man. If we cut him out of anything we do, he’ll cut us out of anything we
ever
want to do.” He rolled the car out of the space and picked up pace as he weaved through the car park, “And I plan to have kids someday.”
Morris smiled, but his mind continued to whir with ideas.
“What did he say anyway?” Roach wanted to know. “Are we to head straight for this Pearce guy?”
“Yes.”
“Thought as much. No rest for the wicked,” he remarked coldly.
25
Michael Richards had made new friends and they liked him. They talked to him like they had known him for years, sharing stories about their girlfriends, wives, habits and even their petty criminal endeavours.
He cringed internally at every word they spoke, hating them more by the second. When he eventually told them he was leaving he promised to return to the pub on another occasion to share a few drinks, he had also made plans to join them on a night out -- he would be doing neither.
He was relieved to be away from them, his eagerness unconsciously translated into a fast walking pace that was two strides short of a jog.
He found Phillips in another pub half a mile away. He was steadily sipping from a pint of shandy, idly staring out of the window.
After ordering a pint of
Coke
from a tall, inconspicuous bar tender, Richards trudged over to one of the seats by the window. He sat down opposite Johnny Phillips, whose eyes were drawn to the road outside -- flicking over each car that occasionally drifted by with a thought-filled twinkle in his eye.