The Face (Harry Tyler Book 1) (19 page)

“Sorry, girls. This ain’t right. I can’t do this to Johnny.”

“He’ll never know,” said Geri.

“No, he’s a mate. It ain’t right. I’m going home.” He got up. “I’ll pick you up at eleven-thirty, OK, Geri? Shall I get you from home first, Les?”

“No, no, darling,” said Geri. “She’s staying.”

“Fine. See you at half-eleven then.”

Harry drank his drink and walked over to open the door. He glanced back to wave but the women were too busy kissing to notice him. He watched Geri slip the straps off her shoulders before walking out. Strap up! His erection was so hard it was almost painful. Harry pulled out his mobile and dialled Elaine’s number. No way was he going to waste it. The packing could wait till tomorrow.

By 6.30 am, Johnny Too had finished his run across Streatham Common. He hadn’t slept well, but that wasn’t unusual the night before big business. It was a cold, misty morning but that just served to heighten Johnny’s senses. This was going to be good. He jogged back to a safe house in Streatham Vale and let himself in to the large Victorian semi. Pyro Joe and Dougie The Dog were getting stuck into a fry-up. Three automatic handguns lay on the kitchen table in the living room. Rhino, dressed top to toe in black, was putting a sawn-off
pump-action
shotgun, with a looped rope through the stock, over his shoulder. He had a .38 revolver in an underarm shoulder holster under his left armpit. Four two-way radios and several mobile phones were on the small coffee table. Johnny Too trusted Rhino with his life. He knew he’d take a slug for him, he was a proper soldier.

John Boy Saunders sat beside him reading yesterday’s
Sun
. Johnny waved hi and went through to the kitchen.

“Any word, Joe?”

“The ferry ain’t even in Dover yet, John. Ease up, have some bacon and eggs.”

Rhino and John Boy joined them.

“Where’s the party tonight, then?” asked Rhino.

“Over Essex way,” said John. “Little pub in Aveley, safe as houses.”

Doug grabbed John Boy’s paper. “It’s fucking yesterday’s,” he moaned.

“The shops ain’t open yet.”

“What’s in it?” asked Rhino.

“Stuff about French cows having mad cow disease.”

“Ha-ha-ha,” laughed Johnny Too. “La BSE nouveau.”

“Fucking serves them cunts right,” said Pyro Joe. “Burning our beef.”

“Oh, look,” said Doug. “It’s Bjork’s birthday today.”

“Shouldn’t that be her birthday?” joked Rhino.

“What’s her kid called?” asked John Boy.

“Dunno,” said Doug. “Moon Unit?”

“No, you prat, that’s Zappa’s kid,” said Johnny Too.

“Dougie, stop scratching your cock,” barked Joey.

“Cant, I’ve got Hermes.”

“You mean herpes,” Joey said.

“No, I’m a carrier.”

“That’s it, fuck you,” Joey snapped. “I’m gonna watch
Big Breakfast
.”

“Good call, Joe,” said Johnny Too. “Let’s have a good butcher’s at Denise’s tits.”

Joey turned on the TV, which came on with GMTV’s Lorraine Kelly instead.

“Fuck me, the Paisley Pig!” yelled Rhino. “Turn that over!”

“Yeah,” said Dougie. “I wouldn’t fuck her with yours, Rhino. Her vibrator has to wear a blindfold.”

Pyro jabbed at the remote. Nothing happened.

“The battery’s gone,” he grumbled.

“Get that beast off the screen,” shouted John.

Dougie The Dog stepped forward and shot the TV set.

“Dougie!” snapped Joe.

“You fucking wanker,” Johnny Too said simply.

“You’re becoming a liability, Doug,” Joe growled.

The Dog shrugged. “Chill out, fellas,” he said. “I’ll put Mike Osman on the radio.”

“Clear up this fucking mess first,” fumed Pyro Joe.

“Shoot anything else and I’ll shoot you,” said John.

Even Dougie realised he was serious.

Bang on 8 am, a white Ford transit pulled up outside, driven by young Mickey Fenn. The van had been stolen three months before and had been plated to a straight transit sitting on a car lot, owned by a Baker associate down in Croydon. Mickey, also wearing all-black clothes with black leather gloves, rang the doorbell once. Doug let him in and they bashed clenched right fists. For Mickey Fenn this was it, the day he became one of The Firm, the day he became a man.

Johnny Too was going through his ritual of wrapping surgical tape around his fingertips before pulling on his gloves. Johnny nodded a welcome to Mickey. “Kitted up, son?” he asked. Fenn patted his left chest area. “Yeah, the 9 mil.” Johnny nodded and said “Let’s go.”

The van went straight to the Plough Way warehouse. Shutters up, van in, shutters down. The warehouse was empty. It had been hired on a false company account six-month lease and could easily accommodate an artic. On the far side of the warehouse were two cars, a series 5 BMW and a Volvo Estate. Both vehicles had been bought for cash at an auction “up North” eight months before and were now registered to separate addresses in Kent that were no longer used as mailing addresses. A pile of newly made-up cardboard boxes sat at the rear wall.

The Baker mob left the transit. To the side of them was an orange-coloured fork-lift truck.

Rhino started it up and drove it over to the two cars and parked it.

9.30 am, bingo! One of the mobiles rang. Johnny Too answered it. “Yes … No …Yes…OK.”

The others stood in expectant silence. Johnny hung up and punched the air. “YES!” he exclaimed. “It’s there! It’s cleared the docks.”

A cheer went up.

“How long?” asked Joey.

“Here at two o’clock,” said Johnny. “Ring the others.”

A few miles away, Harry Tyler was showering. He had been woken earlier than he’d have liked by a phone call from Geraldine. There had been a change of plans, she’d said. It was Lesley’s mum’s birthday so she was going to treat her to lunch in South Ken and could Harry pick them up earlier for shopping and wait to take them back later in the afternoon? Why not?

Pyro Joe made two calls and said the same sentence each time: “It’s me, we’re going to the races on Saturday.” End of conversation. These calls triggered six others to sweep the entire area for half a mile around the warehouse. Only two roads approached the entry. Every car, every van, every house and shop window en route would be checked every 15 minutes for the next five hours. The manor was a fever of activity. The sweepers had set up their own observation posts on friendly flats on the approach. Every innocent walk or drive through from the local police was enough to start hearts pounding.

Johnny Too put two-way radios and disposable mobile phones in every vehicle, while Pyro Joe moaned continuously about being hot in his bulletproof vest.

“You’re turning into fucking Victor Meldrew,” snapped Johnny.

“He’s dead,” said Joey.

“You better watch yer back then.”

“Boys, boys,” said Rhino. “C’mon. Calm down, take it easy. The waiting is killing us all, but think of what’s coming.”

Harry was outside Geri’s at 10.30 am and the women were in their first shop by 11. It was impossible to park in Knightsbridge, so he kept on circling Harrod’s until they came out… at a quarter to one.

“Fucking hell, Les,” he moaned.

“I’ll make it up to you, darling.”

“You will, won’tcha?” he snapped.

“Well, if she doesn’t I will,” said Geraldine.

“Maybe we both will,” said Lesley. “If you don’t run away this time.”

She kissed him on the lips. He drove in silence to Sloane Square station where Lesley’s mother was waiting.

“Right,” said Lesley. “I’ll take Mum to lunch. We won’t be long, she’ll have to get back to work. Where am I meeting you?”

“The Gore Hotel at three,” said Harry. “How can you forget, Les? It’s your own surname.”

“Silly me. OK, see ya later, lover.”

“Which one of us was she talking to then?” Harry asked Geraldine.

“Both of us, I think.”

“So where to now, ma’am? More shops?”

“Oh I think we deserve a drink, don’t you, Harry?” she said mischievously. “Let’s go straight to the Gore.”

In the warehouse, the Baker mob had been amusing themselves for the last two minutes watching Dougie The Dog psyching himself up by pulling aggressive faces in the reflection of the BMW window. In the end, they could hold their laughter in no more.

“You doing all right there, Doug?” roared Joey.
“He thinks he’s David Beckham on the fucking cat-walk,” laughed Johnny Too. “He’ll be wearing a sarong next.”

“Fucking leave it out, John,” Doug said feebly.

“Your missus ain’t posh, though, is she, Doug?” teased John.

“No,” said Joe. “But I bet she takes it up the arse.”

Everyone except The Dog laughed uproariously. Pyro Joe led them through an impromptu outburst of the terrace ditty “Does she take it, does she take it, does she take it up the arse?”

“Great footballer, but fucking hell they don’t half squander their wedge,” said Mickey Fenn.

“Squander, what d’you mean squander?” roared Johnny Too. “Just cos they got in a hundred Gucci sandbags for the floods.”

“I am fucking hungry,” moaned Dougie, anxious to change the subject. “Can’t we send out for some nosh?”

“You’re always fucking hungry, man,” said Rhino. “You’d eat a fucking horse.”

“Here, Rhino,” said Pyro Joe. “Remember that time you got done for threatening behaviour to a police horse at Millwall, West Ham?”

“Yeah,” said Rhino. “Then Dougie took her out.”

“Who?” said Doug.

“The horse. Right dirty mare, weren’t she?”

“Fuck off.”

“Here,” said Pyro Joe. “Did I tell you about the old trunter he pulled while you was in Amsterdam?”

“Don’t, Joe,” pleaded Dougie.

“Yeah, some old barmaid tart in a pub down Streatham. Ugly as a bucket of arseholes she was. He was plastered of course. The next day he said she had a fanny like a bill-poster’s bucket.”

“What is this, pick on Dougie day?” The Dog whined.

“What else have we got to do?” Joe shrugged.

“We could send out for KFC.”

“Doug,” said Johnny Too. “Shut the fuck up.”

In the bar of the Gore, Harry Tyler bought Geraldine a large glass of Chablis and sat down nursing a bottle of Bud Lite. She reached over and stroked the inside of his thigh.

“I liked what I felt last night,” she said in a low whisper.

“I liked what I was looking at.”

“So you want to see some more?”

“How much are the rooms here?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

At 1.30 pm a mobile rang. Johnny Too didn’t let it ring twice. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah… OK.” He killed the call, and punched both fists into the air. “Yes,” he said. “It’s twenty minutes away. It’s just passed Ronnie on Blackheath, nothing up its arse.”

“Fucking lovely job,” said Pyro Joe.

“John, now can I get a McDonald’s or something?” said Dougie. “I’m gonna pass out if I don’t eat soon.”

“Go on then, you silly bastard, but you’d better be fucking quick.”

Dougie started towards the exit door.

“Dougie, you plank,” shouted Johnny. “Leave the fucking tools.”

At 1.45 pm, Harry Tyler had just come explosively inside Johnny Too’s moll. Geraldine had orgasmed twice.

“So, how do I compare to Johnny?” he panted.

“The weird thing is, you feel absolutely identical,” said Geraldine. “But you’re a bit rougher.”

She snuggled into him. “Will there be any more where that came from?”

“You try and stop me,” said Harry, who was already thinking ahead. Lesley was due in 90 minutes. Maybe he would nail them both in one go after all.

At 1.57 pm, Dougie The Dog left the Yellow Submarine fish shop, three minutes from the warehouse, wolfing down chips. Three black youths approached him.

“You got some money, mon?” asked the tallest kid.

“Fuck off, cunt,” snarled Doug.

“Don’t dis’ my brother,” said a second, burlier youth, producing a switchblade knife.

“You don’t understand,” said Dougie. “Don’t you know who I am.”

“No, but I know what you am, raasclat,” said the first youth. “Now hand over your fucking money, guy.”

Dougie flattened him with one punch, and grabbed the second youth by his knife hand. He couldn’t do anything to stop the third kid from smashing him round the head with his portable CD player. Two of the Baker sweepers chased them away but Dougie The Dog was out cold.

At 2.03 pm, a mobile phone rang out in a Rotherhithe warehouse. Johnny Too snatched it up like a lunatic. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, yes, OK.” He turned to the others. “It’s coming up Plough Way,” he shouted. “Get the shutter ready.”

Two minutes later there was a distinctive rumble followed by the sound of airbrakes punching like a steam geyser outside the shutter. The lumbering giant came to a halt. All they could hear now was the engine ticking over. Johnny Too was feeling a nervous sickness in his stomach muscles. A mobile rang. “Yes,” said Johnny. “Dougie’s what? No, fuck him, get off the line.” Another mobile rang. Johnny snatched it. “Yes, OK, yes,” he said.

He turned to Pyro Joe. “It’s clean, nothing up its backside. Open up.”

The shutters rolled up. Johnny went out and spoke to the driver.

“Everything cool?” he asked.

The driver nodded. “Hurry up and get it off,” he said.

“Back it in to the warehouse.”

As the beast roared back to life, Harry Tyler’s beast did likewise. He made Geraldine go on all fours and took her roughly from behind, doggy fashion. She came, he faked it, but she was so wet she couldn’t tell. Harry decided he wanted to preserve some of his libido for Lesley.

As the tailgate of the artic came down and the gates swung open, Rhino had already crossed the warehouse with the
fork-lift
and it sat there nudging forward impatiently, begging to be loaded. Johnny Too jumped on the tailgate. “Where’s Dougie?” asked Joe.