Serious People (23 page)

Billy looked shocked.

The Mexican stood up. “You don’t fucking buy it off us—you fucking deal for us—and you must pay for the privilege.”

Billy looked down at his empty glass, trying to hide his shock at this unexpected turn in the proceedings. “Is this what O’Neil does?”

“You seem to think O’Neil and Payne run London?” the Mexican said, walking towards the door. “
I let them run fucking London
.”

For a moment there was an icy silence running through the bar.

“Right, OK, you’ve got a deal!” Billy shouted back.

“I need the money by end of week; call me when you got it,” the Mexican said, coolly, and the door to the bar closed behind him.

John watched the Mexican give his backup in the Range Rovers a signal and then as he got in one of the cars; within seconds they were gone.

John jumped up. “Where the hell are we going to find that money!”

Billy put his head in his hands. “Let me think.”

“Billy, these are heavy-duty people. It's too late to back out now—we need to find the money!” John screamed at his brother.

Nick started to laugh hysterically. John turned to look at his youngest brother in horror; his eyes were watering, his laughter was so overpowering. He had no idea that Billy had just signed their death warrants by promising amounts of money they couldn’t dream of getting hold of.

“We get the money from O’Neil; it’s the next stage of the plan. We kill him, take everything he has,” Billy said. “Of course step one is that we’ve got to get rid of Mickey the Bag. But don’t worry, I got a plan for that too. I’m about to get another chess piece on my table. That will bring O’Neil to his knees.”

John slumped into the seat opposite Billy, unable to find the energy to argue with his brother. He turned to look at his uncle, who could see the defeat in John’s eyes.

“Have you gone mad? What are you talking about with all this chess piece stuff? You will need a bloody army to kill Mickey the Bag. It's not like you could just walk up to him and just whack him,” John said, putting his head in his hands.

“You under estimate me brother; and you wonder why I can’t yet bring you into the circle of trust? But believe me, brother, things are in motion.” 

John looked at Billy; he was calmness personified. Yet none of this made sense. Had the meeting and the sheer amount of the money involved finally driven Billy over the edge? He may well have killed Robert Payne, but they had gained no power with it. Even if O’Neil wasn’t the man he used to be, he still had an army of people on the streets at his disposal, let alone Mickey the bloody Bag. John wondered again if he should make his escape, run now and keep running, start his new life. He could work it so that his brothers wouldn’t find him. He could still turn his back on the Blakes.

But just as he felt he was finally deciding to go—to leave for good—he saw that familiar image in his mind once more. Billy and Nick looking over the dead remains of their Ma. Two little boys—broken forever. He couldn’t leave them, even now. Maybe Billy did have a plan; a plan that might just let John get out this world for good.

Charlie pulled his Mercedes four by four into the hospital’s car park. Today was the first day he’d chosen to drive the four by four; when he was on his own his normal preference was towards his Jaguar, since he’d invested such a vast amount of money in the sporty two-seater. But he felt safer in the larger car—more secure—more able to shut out the rest of the world when he was inside it. He knew this was weak and it sickened him; needs must though. He had to step back to step forward.

He parked the car near the entrance and looked across at the modern building that housed the private hospital. Jackie was inside, tucked up in her room, probably asleep with all that mass of wires attached to her, preserving her health. Charlie could feel the colour drain from his face at the thought of his wife attached to all those wires and those beeping machines.

Most days now, he had started making a conscious effort to try not to focus his attention on his wife’s current predicament; instead let his mind slip deliberately into thinking that Jackie was at home while he was out and about doing the company business. This sometimes helped him to continue his normal life.

Today though, Charlie had not been able to pull off this mental conjuring trick. He had spent most of the day waiting for his phone to ring, hoping for a call telling him Robert had been found, that he was fine and that he’d just been out on a wild few days and misplaced his phone. This would not be completely out of Payne’s character—to have had a wild night which led into a few more. To make this real in his mind, he had had to put to the back of his mind, the memory of Payne, and the way he had assured him he would look after the business for the next few weeks, so Charlie could concentrate on Jackie.

Robert was dead—Robert was fucking dead!

His heart started to bang in his chest, so much so that for a moment he thought it would launch from his body into the windscreen. But it was only a brief moment—soon he started to calm. Keep it together Charlie. Should he call Leroy? Check for an update? No—that was weak, and weak was not what Charlie O’Neil did.

O’Neil looked down at the steering wheel and focussed; he had to be strong. He could never walk into the hospital not feeling strong. He knew that, inevitably, as soon as he saw Jackie looking so frail in her hospital bed again, his strength would be halved. This would be followed by the urge to drop to his knees and cry.

Could he trust Leroy? He was, of course, one of his only true friends and one of the only people in the world he would ask to look out for Robert Payne. Although he couldn’t help but think about what had apparently happened in Granby Street, Liverpool, a few years ago.

Charlie had quelled all talk of it at the time, not allowing any of the boys to so much as mention it. But behind the closed doors of the office, though, Robert had asked him for his real feelings on it—as he’d heard from a solid source that the rumours were true. Charlie had replied, based on the most solid of all sources, Leroy’s word, that the whole story was rubbish. He wouldn’t hear a word said about his mate and this was the end of it.

Now years later, his mind started to drift back to those rumours.

Leroy had taken some of his boys up to Liverpool, to deal with a bunch of scousers who had stolen his share of a job a week or so before. It had apparently been a straight-forward job on an electrical wholesaler. Leroy's gang had gone in with the scousers because Leroy’s gang were local to the warehouse, and the scouse gang had the insider who’d set the whole thing up.

The job had gone good, without any issue, and the two gangs had agreed to a meet later that night to split the hardware between them. True to form though, the scousers never showed. And this meant no money for Leroy and his boys.

There is nothing less acceptable in the criminal world than taking a serious risk with your freedom and getting nothing in your pocket for it. This meant there was nothing else to be done but for Leroy, and his boys, to go up to Liverpool to sort out both ownership of the hardware and the insult the other crew had delivered to them.

The story that did the rounds was that Leroy and his boys had turned up to a derelict warehouse near Granby Street, which the scouse crew used, only to be completely outnumbered. After first trying to deal with the dispute verbally, it soon descended into a brawl, where they got a real beating.

This much of the story was not up for debate; as all parties seemed to agree on a similar version. The rumour that had developed, though, was how, soon after it had become clear his gang was completely outnumbered, instead of staying to fight, Leroy had fled to his car. He had left his boys there to take the beating on their own.

Charlie was sure this couldn’t be true; Leroy would always have stayed to face up to anyone who had challenged him. The man was infamous for talking up the jail time he’d accrued throughout his life as a trophy. A big part of his famed character was that he didn’t give a shit about the consequences, and that was the attitude he led his life by. So there was no way that the rumour could have been true.

But what if it was? Was Leroy softer than Charlie thought?

And if the rumour was true, Charlie wondered, what would happen if Leroy uncovered that a rival gang was making a play for his and Robert Payne’s empire? Would he turn and run again and disown any relationship he had with him?  

No, Charlie thought. This was not the man whom he knew. He looked at the building in front of him and gripped the steering wheel tightly, trying to hide from his conscious mind that his hands were starting to tremble.

He looked into the interior mirror and didn’t like the look of the aging man who stared back; he didn’t like the fear in the man’s eyes, or the beard that had formed and the streaks of grey which covered it.

O’Neil started his car, reversed it out the parking space and let his tyres squeal into life as he sped away from the hospital.

He didn’t have the strength for the hospital today.

John stood with his brothers huddled in a darkened street corner looking across at the Irish Club, which was owned by Mickey the Bag; all three were dressed in hooded track suit jackets, these designed to assist any cloaked exit that might be required.

“Look at this…” Billy said.

He removed a gun from his pocket and grinned.

“Shit Billy, that’s a gun!” John cried out.

“No shit Sherlock” Billy replied.

John was horrified. He had sweaty palms before this; the thought of walking into Mickey the Bag’s bar filled him with dread, and he was trying to forget they were there to kill the guy. But now, confronted with a gun in Billy’s hands, the reality of their situation was clear.

It wasn’t that he had an issue with guns; he’d seen firearms many times before as an inevitable result of the circles that he and his brothers moved in. What terrified him the most was the finality of firing a weapon matched with Billy’s psychotic temper; there was little chance, now that Billy had a gun in his hands, that he would manage to avoid pulling the trigger on someone. 

“Why the hell have you got a gun?”

“We’re here to whack Mickey the Bag?” Billy replied. “What the hell do you expect us to do to him? Should we ask him if he minds jumping off a roof for us?”

On hearing this Nick started to laugh hysterically, and the blood drained from John’s face. John had hoped that Mickey would have bowed down to a threat, or maybe even have wanted to come in with them, to be part of the new firm. Sadly, now even he knew that hope was stupid; they were now stuck in the middle of the plan. There was no going back now and the only way forward involved Mickey the Bag not being around to eliminate them.

“I thought maybe Nick could just stick him down an alley or something?” John said.

“No that’s what a coward does John; we’re here to make a statement,” Billy replied.

It was too dark for John to see his brother’s eyes, but he could almost sense their darkness; the excitement was clear in Billy’s voice—regardless of any plan he
wanted
this. John wasn’t sure if Billy wanted it for the notoriety, or just because he took a sick pleasure in violence. And he wasn’t even sure any more which motivation was worse.

“We’ll whack him right in his place, in front of all his friends—and then everyone will know we’re taking over. Charlie O’Neil will know we’re taking over and, more importantly, the street will know he’s finished.”

“But bullets can be traced by the police, Billy,” John replied. “And the gun, what will you do with the gun…?”

“Not these bullets brother,” Billy smiled. “Not this gun.”

Where the hell did Billy get the gun from? And what made him so confident he could get away with using it? Not even Billy was that arrogant usually. John started to wonder if he was missing some element of the full picture; was it really just him and his brothers in this alone?

The brothers watched Mickey accompanied by his heavy, get out of the same car they’d seen them in a world ago outside Payne’s mansion. The gangster stopped to look at his reflection in the window of the car and then re-sculpt his hair into its Elvis like quiff. Mickey was old school—almost the stereotypical east end gangster. It was almost guaranteed he wouldn’t have a gun on him. Mickey the Bag with his theory guns were for mugs and that the game should be all about fearsome reputations and, in Mickey’s case, a bag of torturous weapons. The irony was that walking into Mickey’s place and shooting him through the eyeballs was probably the best tactic; he wouldn’t be expecting it. It would almost be easy.

The brothers didn’t make a move towards the bar until they’d watched Mickey and the heavy make their entrance; they left it a good few minutes before strolling inside. They then walked into the bar as coolly as they could.

The bar was full, wall to wall, with second and third generation paddies. Their parents or grandparents would have once lived locally, but now they probably had to travel a bit for a pint in the club that they no doubt considered part of their heritage. John wished Blake’s Bar could inspire any of the same kind of loyalty.

“There he is,” Billy hissed

The three brothers had secured a table in the corner of the bar, strategically placed in the darkest recess of the venue, under a broken light bulb. The shadowy corner helped to cover their faces and allow them to blend into the crowd. John followed Billy’s gaze to the bar, where he could see Mickey, slouched across the counter, talking to the barman. He could also now see the heavy more clearly. He was a brute of a man and, if going up against Mickey Dunne wasn’t bad enough, the thought of any kind of fight involving him was unthinkable. For the first time John was pleased Billy had the gun.

“Just remember, he’s got his bag with him,” John whispered.

“What do you think he’s going to do? Throw a fucking hammer at us?” Billy snapped back.

Nick started to laugh, causing people on the nearby tables looked across. Billy jabbed his younger brother’s arm to quieten him and glared back at the onlookers, who quickly turned away again.

Now they were here, John was more than nervous about Billy’s plan. The table they were sat at was fantastic in terms of being out of the way; but there was no quick getaway from it. The only way out was directly past the bar and the giant that was accompanying Mickey.

“I think we try and grab him on his walk back home,” John said hopefully.

Billy removed the gun from the inside of his hoodie and held it under the table in both hands. He was smiling; his eyes darkening. “Calm down brother, Mickey the Bag, is gonna say hello to my little friend.”

John’s heart had started to race. It felt like he was on a plane racing up the runway about to take off. He was terrified of flying but, at this stage it was far too late to escape from the cabin; all he could do was grip his seat and hope for the best.