CHERUB: Mad Dogs (20 page)

James had read their police files while he was preparing for the mission. Savvas came from a poor Turkish background. He’d trained as an accountant, but his career nosedived when he got a four-year stretch for heroin smuggling.

Wheels had been a teenage go-kart champion, but his parents weren’t rich enough to pay his way into single-seat racing, so he’d turned his talents into a career driving getaway vehicles. Despite a reputation as a drug user, gambler and complete head case, the only thing the cops had ever pinned on Wheels was a speeding ticket and a £75 fine for peeing in the street.

‘Can one of you boys put an earner my way?’ Junior asked. ‘I’m flat broke.’

Wheels and Savvas both sucked air through their teeth. Savvas pointed at Sasha. ‘I’ve got plenty of ways for you to make money, but not unless the big man gives the OK.’

‘Same here,’ Wheels said.

‘Come
on
,’ Junior begged. ‘Just give me a couple of grams of coke to sell or a bag of weed. There’s tons of little rich kids at my school who I can sell it to and they’re dickheads, so I can charge way over the odds.’

‘Speak to the man,’ Savvas said firmly. ‘He’s let you do stuff before.’

‘I know,’ Junior nodded. ‘But only little stuff and if I ask Sasha now he’s gonna rip my head off.’

‘What about me?’ James asked. ‘You got something for me?’

Savvas shook his head. ‘I don’t know you from Adam.’

‘Yes you do,’ Junior said. ‘He’s the guy who did Crazy Joe’s car.’

‘Yeah, two years ago,’ Savvas sneered. ‘No offence, James, but for all we know you grassed on half of Scotland while you were up there.’

In contrast, Wheels seemed keen to work with James. ‘I’ll take you out and show you a few tricks,’ he said. ‘I could do with a dogsbody and you look as if you can handle yourself.’

‘Seriously?’ James grinned.

‘What about me?’ Junior whined. ‘I need money
so
bad.’

‘Yeah right,’ Savvas snorted. ‘With your mum driving a seventy-grand Mercedes and a two-million trust fund.’

‘I don’t need money when I’m twenty-one,’ Junior spluttered. ‘I need money for this weekend.’

Junior’s argument was going around in circles and Savvas was losing patience. ‘So go and speak to Sasha. Nobody’s gonna go against what he says.’

‘You’re all tossers,’ Junior moaned, as a football sailed over their heads. ‘You all want me wrapped in cotton wool. I’m not a baby.’

Despite his claims to maturity, Junior flounced off like a five-year-old who’d had his sweets taken away. Then he turned back, annoyed that James hadn’t followed.

‘Are you coming or not?’ Junior asked.

This was an awkward moment. James had to balance his friendship with Junior with the fact that Wheels was offering him some action.

‘Coming where?’ James said.

Junior pointed towards a row of terraced houses at the far side of the playing fields. ‘I might as well go over to Sasha’s house and get warm.’

James looked eagerly at Wheels. ‘Were you serious about putting some money my way?’

‘If you’re up for it,’ Wheels grinned. ‘But there’s no rush. You go over to Sasha’s with the spoiled brat and I’ll catch up later.’

James was slightly mystified. ‘Does everyone go over there?’

Wheels nodded. ‘Sasha’s got a big ol’ basement and the crew always hangs out there after football.’

‘Right,’ James said. ‘Guess I’ll see you over there.’

But as he started walking towards Junior he heard Sasha shout Bruce’s name.

‘Jesus Harold Christ,’ Sasha yelled. ‘Will you look at that little fella run?’

James turned towards the pitch, where a practice game had started between the under-fifteens and under-seventeens. Bruce was the smallest kid on the pitch and wore boots two sizes too big for him, but he was running on goal with a beanpole defender and the keeper to beat.

On campus Bruce rarely played football, but the speed and co-ordination he showed fighting in the dojo translated beautifully on to the floodlit pitch. The ball seemed glued to his foot as he spun around and delicately chipped the ball into the air, then vaulted the defender’s clumsy tackle.

The keeper closed down the angle, but Bruce kept his cool. He tapped the ball on to his knee and then volleyed into the right-hand corner of the net.

Junior had seen the whole thing and came running back to James on the touchline. ‘Holy shit,’ Junior yelled. ‘Did you see that? Your cousin walked the entire defence.’

James had heard kids on campus begging Bruce to join their team, but it was only now that he actually saw why. Bruce stopped running and gave a casual shrug as his muddy team-mates steamed down the pitch to hug him.

‘Genius,’ Sasha was yelling, as he jumped in the air. ‘That kid is pure genius.’

Most members of the Mad Dogs Football Club were regular guys who showered in the clubhouse after training and went home to their families. But the club was also the core of Sasha’s criminal gang, and the crew that went on to his basement consisted of a dozen hardcore criminals aged from their late twenties up to around fifty and a similar number of hangers-on: youngsters like Wheels and Junior who saw the gang as a way of having fun and making easy money.

Sasha had lived in the same row of four-storey houses his whole life. His elderly mother owned number forty-three, while Sasha lived next door with his wife and daughter. The basements of the two houses had been knocked together to make a gloomy hang-out with a nicotine-stained ceiling.

Whilst Junior and the younger lads held pool cues and drank supermarket-brand lager, Sasha, Wheels and the older gang members downed spirits and battled over the green felt of a poker table. To begin with it was low stakes, with the players coming and going and everyone talking, puffing cigars and telling stories as bottles of spirits drained away. But by eleven the casual players had drifted home and things started getting serious.

Sasha lost a couple of hundred pounds when Wheels beat him with three queens and he yelled at the kids around the pool tables to shut up and stop distracting him. Most of the youngsters took this as a cue to leave, including Junior.

‘You don’t wanna be here when one of those guys starts losing big,’ Junior explained. ‘I’ve seen Sasha stick a guy’s head through a wall just for looking at him funny.’

Bruce was tired and wanted to go back to the Zoo, but James couldn’t leave until he’d spoken to Wheels.

‘Scuse me,’ James said nervously, as he approached the big shots at the table and crouched down beside Wheels. ‘I’m gonna get going, but you said about putting some business my way; so maybe I could give you my mobile number or something?’

Wheels was a pup compared to the others around the table, but he had the biggest pile of cash. ‘I’m out,’ Wheels said dramatically as he pushed back his chair, stood up and began gathering his money.

‘Yeah, best to quit while you’re ahead,’ Sasha said. ‘Go back to playing with the little kiddies.’

Wheels smiled as he straightened his pile of money so that it would fit in his pocket. ‘I’ll be back on Friday,’ he said casually. ‘I want to win all your money a bit at a time, ’cos I know how upset you gents would get if I won it all in one go.’

James smiled as the men around the table laughed. But Sasha looked at Wheels seriously. ‘Are you taking James out for a ride?’

Wheels nodded. ‘If that’s OK with you, boss.’

‘He worked for Keith so I guess we can trust him,’ Sasha shrugged; then he pointed at Junior and Bruce. ‘But you’re not planning on bringing these two along, are you?’

The way Sasha said
are you
made it clear that he meant
don’t even think about it
. James knew that Sasha was looking out for Junior, but he couldn’t understand the concern for Bruce.

‘Here,’ Sasha said, grabbing a £20 note off the poker table and waving it at Junior. ‘It’s late, so grab a car from the mini-cab office on the corner, and you can drop my man Bruce off at the Zoo along the way.’

Bruce looked towards Wheels. ‘Can’t I go with them?’

Sasha shook his head. ‘You’re the new star of Mad Dogs’ under-fifteens. I want those nimble feet tucked up in bed and fit for the match on Thursday night.’

Bruce was pissed off. He’d put on a show on the football pitch to attract Sasha’s attention, but he was supposed to get involved in the criminal side of the gang and it seemed footballing talent was no help on that score.

‘Here,’ Sasha said, reaching out to hand Bruce three tenners. ‘I expect you could do with a bit of pocket money.’

‘Cheers,’ Bruce smiled.

Junior and Bruce said their goodbyes and James followed Wheels up the basement steps a few minutes later. At the top they passed Sasha’s sixteen-year-old daughter Lois, her curvy figure clad in a towelling gown.

‘Hey, Wheels,’ Lois said warmly, before turning towards James. ‘I haven’t seen you before.’

‘This is James Beckett,’ Wheels said uneasily. ‘He’s a mate of Junior’s.’

‘How’s it going?’ Lois asked.

‘Not bad,’ James said, as he studied her freshly painted nails and unfeasibly perfect teeth. It seemed Sasha had forked out for some expensive dental work.

‘We’ve really gotta split, Lois,’ Wheels said. ‘See you around, yeah?’

Wheels sighed with relief as they stepped out on to the front doorstep.

‘You got a problem with her?’ James asked.

‘Let’s just say that a psychotic gangster and a hot teenage daughter is a dangerous combination.’

‘She’s got a great rack though,’ James smirked, as they headed towards Wheels’ car.

‘Don’t even think about her,’ Wheels said, shaking his head. ‘She’s been around with a few guys from sixth-form college, but Sasha’s made it clear that she’s not for the likes of us.’

James was disappointed as Wheels stopped walking beside an anonymous Vauxhall hatchback. He’d been expecting a hot rod.

‘Flash cars attract attention,’ Wheels explained as they climbed inside. ‘Besides, it’s what you do behind the wheel that counts. So where do you want to go?’

James was confused. ‘I thought you had a plan or something.’

Wheels looked over his shoulder into the oncoming traffic before pulling away from the kerb. It was less than thirty metres to the junction with a main road.

‘I was about your age when Sasha took me under his wing,’ Wheels explained, as they cruised past a line of shops. It was midnight and everywhere except the convenience stores and take-aways had their shutters down. ‘Sasha taught me that the streets are paved with money.’

James smiled.

‘It’s true,’ Wheels grinned, as he pointed at a shopfront. ‘Fried chicken joint, even on a Monday you can bet that there’s two hundred quid sitting behind the counter. Maybe three times that on a Friday or Saturday … That’s a nice BMW over there, roll it on to a low-loader and drive off and you can sell it to a used-parts dealer for a couple of grand. What’s more, if you dress up like a wheel clamper you can haul it away in broad daylight and nobody will bat an eyelid.

‘British Telecom,’ Wheels smiled, pointing at a grey van as they turned another corner. ‘If you try robbing a van, never go for some anonymous white number. Chances are the owner’s self-employed and he takes all of his gear out at night. But the guys who work for telephone, electric and gas companies are employees. Nothing belongs to them so they don’t care what gets nicked: copper pipe, electrical equipment, tools, even laptops sometimes.’

‘So that’s all you do,’ James said, obviously disappointed. ‘You rob gear out of vans?’

Wheels tutted. ‘No you dickhead, I’m trying to make a point, which is that money is lying around everywhere if you look for it.’

James shrugged. ‘Point taken.’

Wheels continued, ‘The second thing Sasha taught me is that you have to mix it up. You know on the TV news when you read about a spate of robberies, or a spate of muggings?’

James nodded.

‘No smart criminal ever gets involved in a spate of anything. Cops can’t catch everyone, so they go for the crooks who make their lives easy. When you do the same thing ten times, chances are the civilians are gonna be behind their net curtains looking for you and the police will be on your tail.’

‘So you pull lots of different scams?’ James asked.

‘Exactly,’ Wheels said. ‘That’s why Sasha Thompson’s been so good for so long. One week he’s selling cocaine, the next week he’s robbing a bank or stealing air-conditioning units off a building site and shipping them to Dubai.

‘And Sasha’s third golden rule is to never get too big for your boots. You know in the movies how crooks always talk about doing one big score and then retiring?’

‘Yeah, always,’ James nodded.

‘That’s the last thing you should ever do. If you steal a hundred grand, it’ll get in the local paper and you’ll have the local CID on your back for a day or two. But if you steal ten million, you’re gonna be in the papers, on the TV news and they’ll put the best cops in the country on your back.’

‘What about drugs?’ James asked. ‘Sasha’s an old mate of Junior’s dad so I assumed he was mainly into dealing.’

‘Sure he’s into drugs,’ Wheels nodded. ‘Making ’em, selling ’em or ripping off dealers. No crook can ignore drugs because that’s where all the money is. But first and foremost, Sasha and the whole Mad Dogs crew are old-school thieves.

‘Your chum Keith Moore’s the
classic
example of someone who got too big for his boots. In the end he had everyone from the local cops to M15 and the FBI on his back. When you’re drawing that much heat, sooner or later you’re going to slip up and get nailed.’

James nodded. He’d read the police files on Sasha Thompson and the thing that stood out over a thirty-year criminal career was his ability to stay out of trouble while those around him got busted. When Keith Moore was sent to prison, many had expected Sasha to step into his shoes and take control of the drug trade. Now James understood why he hadn’t.

But James knew Sasha had two weaknesses. Firstly, staying small makes it hard to stop ambitious upstarts like Major Dee from taking away your business. Second, Wheels’ delight in showing how clever he was would surely be a big help with the mission.