Billy Rags (26 page)

Ronnie emptied his glass and I stood up and took it from him and refilled it.

“Don't worry about Sheila,” I said. “She's been with me long enough to know the form.”

I gave Ronnie his glass and poured another for myself.

“Anyway,” I said as I sat down, “how's business?”

“Quite rosy at the minute,” Ronnie said. “Lots of prospects.”

“What, with Walter?”

“No, I'm not with his firm.”

“What about the clubs?”

“Just bunce. It suits me to let Walter think I'm one of the family.”

“So who are you with?”

“I'm with myself. Freelance. Sort of an agent. A promoter.”

“Promoting what?”

“Anything likely. Mainly van work. Done two in the last three months. I get a bit of intelligence, pull a few trusties together, do the job, back to the dress suit in the evening, Bob's your uncle. Don't see any of the fellers till the next time. Just supposing they're the same fellers, that is.”

“Sounds as though you're doing well,” I said.

“Never mind, Billy. Old Bill can't make up his mind. Whether it's me or whether I've really settled down like what it looks like. I mean, I'm on a sweet number with Walter. Why should I chance anything?”

“Clever,” I said. “So you're rolling in greengage.”

“Can't complain. Mind you, we go out tooled up, so that makes the odds better.”

“Heavy?”

“Why not. Doesn't matter whether it's a pea-shooter or a sten gun. You get done just the same way whatever you happen to be holding.”

“You're chancing getting what I got.”

“You got yours for different reasons, Billy. Everybody knows that.”

“Maybe.”

“So anyway,” Ronnie said, after a pause, “what've you got scheduled?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Not for a year at least.”

Ronnie didn't say anything.

“I've got to lie low, haven't I? And after that I've got to get out of it. Right out. There's no future for me on this island. Sure. I might last a long time. Three years, five years, maybe more. But one day they'd have me. And next time they'd throw away the key. I'd have no chance.”

Ronnie lit another cigarette.

“I suppose you haven't any choice.”

“Too right. I've got a life to live.”

“Where would you go?”

“Ireland, first. Then I'd fix things for South Africa.”

Ronnie nodded.

“It'll cost you,” he said.

“I know.”

“Can you manage it?”

“Right now, yes. In a year's time, I'm not sure. I've got to promote some bread in the meantime, that's for sure.”

“You can always come in on one of my tickles.”

I shook my head.

“Sheila wouldn't wear it.”

Ronnie grinned.

“Come on, Billy,” he said. “Do me a favour. Sheila wouldn't wear it? Since when has a bird decided things for you?”

“Listen,” I said. “I got out for Sheila. And for Timmy. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't be sitting here now. I'd have been to Liverpool and off.”

“All right, Billy,” Ronnie said. “All right.”

“Just so as you know.”

There was a short silence.

“So what
are
you going to do for bread?” Ronnie said.

“I was wondering if you could give me a hand. And don't get me wrong, I don't mean a loan.”

“And don't get me wrong either, Billy: I don't mind lending to you. If I've got it, I'll lend it, depending on who it is.”

“I know,” I said. “But no thanks. I already owe you.”

Ronnie shrugged.

“Then how?”

“At your tables.”

Ronnie thought about it. Eventually he said:

“How, exactly?”

“I give you some bread. You give the bread to a punter who's into you for something or other and your operator lets him win a couple. You knock ten per cent off the punter's account and take a few off the top for yourself and give the rest to me. Do it half a dozen times and I'd have the capital I'm looking for.”

Ronnie's tongue clicked against the back of his teeth.

“Don't get me wrong, Billy,” he said. “But there'd be problems.”

“It's done all the time,” I said.

“Yeah, I know. But not at one of Walter's places. Not unless Walter says so.”

“You run them, don't you?”

“Yeah, I run them. And there's plenty of other geezers as'd like to as well. All working for Walter. There wouldn't exactly be a shortage of grasses if I started pulling strokes like that. I'd rather give you the money. It's not me, you understand. It's not me I'm looking out for. It's Doreen and the kids. You know what Wally's like. He'd put his heavies straight on to them. They like that sort of thing.”

I didn't say anything.

“You know what I mean, don't you?” Ronnie said.

I took a drink.

“Well, don't you?”

I nodded.

“I'd do it if it wasn't Walter. I really would.”

I nodded again.

“I can lend you some. Let me lend it to you.”

“No,” I said. “I can't take your money. Besides . . .”

“Besides?”

“You couldn't lend me enough. I'd need at least a grand on top of what I've got. Maybe two.”

“Jesus. I thought you meant half a grand tops.”

“When I go I want to go right. And that's expensive.”

Ronnie didn't say anything.

“Well, as I said, I can help you out a bit. Just let me know if you change your mind. And of course, if you change your mind about going on a tickle. You'd certainly raise it that way.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

I took Ronnie's glass again and filled us both up.

“Anyway,” I said, “I've only been out five minutes. Plenty of time to fix something up.”

“Sure there is.”

“Didn't bring you here just to pull you for that. This is meant to be a celebration. Born Free and all that.”

“Yeah. Let's sink some.”

“We'll do that.”

Three o'clock on a warm Sunday afternoon.

I looked out of the window and down into the street. Bright sunlight lightened the shop windows and leftover drunks from the lunch time sessions stood in the shop doorways. Kids with nowhere to go slouched along the pavement. I turned away from the window and sat down in an armchair and picked a newspaper up off the floor. It was no use waiting by the window to watch for Sheila and Timmy coming back from the park. It was like standing by a stove waiting for a kettle to boil. Besides, they'd only been gone an hour. And the afternoon was warm and bright. Why should they hurry back?

I found an item in the paper I hadn't already read but after the first couple of paragraphs I lost interest. I got up out of my chair and turned on the television. The station was showing an old movie with Greer Garson and Ronald Colman. I stood five minutes of it and then I switched over to the other side. Football. That was better. I settled down to enjoy it but the commentator began saying there were only a few minutes to go, they were in the dying seconds of the game and all that crap. Then the whistle went and the adverts came on. I stood up again and switched the set off.

In any case, watching television on a Sunday afternoon had reminded me of the nick. That dead period between dinner and tea, the time when the thoughts of outside were hard to keep out of your mind.

I went over to the window again. A bus rolled by, almost empty up top. One of the passengers was a blank-faced man in his fifties with a check scarf round his neck and the collar of his mac turned up. We stared into each other's eyes as the bus jolted by. He probably wouldn't have changed his expression if he'd known who he was looking at.

But at least he was going somewhere. I wondered where someone like him was going on a warm Sunday at three o'clock in the afternoon.

Ronnie phoned up one Wednesday evening and asked if he could come round and discuss something with me.

He got there about half an hour after he'd phoned.

“I've been hearing things I think you ought to know about,” he said.

I got him a drink and sat him down.

“What things?” I said.

“To do with Walter.”

“Oh yes?”

“He's after getting you sent back.”

I smiled.

“What else would he be doing? You know Walter.”

“Sure, but he's really coming it strong. He's got Tobin working on it.”

“Tobin!” Sheila said. “Jesus.”

“Tobin's still on the force then,” I said.

“He was lucky. It worked out perfect for him, Walter going down when he did. Now Tobin gets his cake and eats it. He's still on the payroll and the geezer that foots the bill is inside on a thirty stretch.”

“And now he's being paid to turn me over.”

“Right,” Ronnie said. “He's appearing nightly. He's been through every grass south of the Shell building. He's even put pressure on a couple of geezers who are paying in a century apiece each into West End Central so you can tell how dedicated he is.”

“Who were the geezers?”

“Maurice and Alec.”

“How did they react?”

“They gave him the elbow and reminded him about a couple of deals they could drop him in over, no trouble. But that's beside the point. He's working at it. I thought you should know in the light of any movements you or Sheila might be thinking of making.”

“Has he been to see you?” I said.

“Yeah, he's had a word with me.”

“Has he any idea of what you laid on for me?”

“If he had I wouldn't be here now. And Walter wouldn't care, either. He'd trample me to death to get at you. But nobody knows anything. I arranged everything by remote control.”

After Ronnie had gone Sheila said:

“What do you think? Move on now or sit it out?”

“Sit it out. Tobin won't get anywhere because nobody but Ronnie knows anything. If we move we give him the kind of chance he's looking for.”

Sheila came and sat on the floor by my chair and leant against my legs.

“So now it's both of us,” she said. “I'll have to do my shopping next door, once a week.”

“I expected this would happen,” I said, just to make her feel better. “I'm only surprised it didn't happen sooner.”

The next day I awoke at half past five. My eyes snapped open and my brain was working straight away, as if I'd been awake for hours.

I lay in bed, listening. I was listening even before I was fully aware of what I was doing. A reflex. Ronnie's message must have really stirred me up.

I could hear nothing out of the ordinary. The fridge was humming away in the kitchen. A bus rattled by outside. The ticking of the alarm. Next to me, Sheila's breathing. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I got out of bed and went into the living room and over to the window that looked out on to the street. I parted the curtains ever so slightly.

The street was empty.

No big removal van was parked twenty-five yards down the road. That was the way they always did it. They always came in a big removal van, or something like it. They'd sit inside and talk into their handsets until it was time to move and then they'd pile out and surround their objectives. And they always made their move before eight o'clock. Nobody had ever been picked up after eight in the morning. If you got past eight o'clock you could fairly bank on being safe for at least the rest of the day.

I went into the kitchen and lit the gas and filled the kettle and put it on the stove to boil. I stood by the stove and looked at my reflection. I saw the kitchen door swing open. Sheila was standing there. I turned to face her.

“Just making a cup of tea.”

She nodded and pushed a strand of hair from her eyes. Then she sat down at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette. The kettle boiled and I poured the hot water into the tea pot. When the tea had mashed I poured us two cups and took them over to the table and sat down. I lit one of Sheila's cigarettes and looked at the clock on the cooker. It was five past six. I wondered if Tobin was at home, tucked up in his bed. And if he was, I wondered what he was dreaming about.

“It's no good,” I said. “I've got to get out.”

“Billy, you mustn't. Not yet. Not with Tobin on the lookout.”

“That was a month ago. In any case, he can't be everywhere at once.”

“But knowing our luck . . .”

“Our luck,” I said. “Listen, living this way I may as well be back in Aston.”

“Up there you'd have me and Timmy, would you?”

“Look, Sheil, you know what I mean. I'm going out of my skull. It's been two months. Over two months. I just have to go out. Even if it's only for an hour.”

Sheila sat down and lit a cigarette.

“Where do you want go?” she said.

“I don't know. Anywhere.”

“Round here?”

“Well you don't think I'd hop on a bus and make straight for the Skinners Arms do you?”

“I don't know what you'd do.”

I knelt down next to her.

“Look, all I want to do is go out for an hour. Just walk around a bit. I'd be careful. You know that.”

She didn't say anything.

“I mean, you've been out.”

“Yes, I've been out, but if I'm nicked it's not exactly the same. is it? I'd be out in six months. I mean, you do see the difference, don't you?”

“There's no need for that . . .”

“Yes there is. There is if you're thinking of going out. Risking it all just for an hour outside.”

“Sheila, you don't know what it's like . . .”

“I do, Billy. I do. I know how you must feel. But you've got to stick it out. Just for another month or so. Then when Tobin's eased off, well, maybe then. But not now. You know I'm right.”