The Life (3 page)

Michael Lanson, or Micky L as he liked to be known, was trussed up like a chicken, and he was seriously regretting opening his big trap. He had heard the Baileys were a law unto themselves but he had not really understood the seriousness of their outfit until he had been abducted off the street two hours previously.

He worked for his uncle, a man called Jed Lanson, and he had believed he was invincible because of that. Jed was an old-time Face; he had his creds, and no one, until now, had ever had the nerve to take him on. It seemed that Daniel and Peter Bailey were the exceptions to the rule.

Peter Bailey sat quietly, sipping on a glass of white rum, watching his brother with interest. Peter understood the logic of his brother’s methods even if he didn’t follow them himself. It was why they were such a good team – they each had different strengths. Peter liked to do things quietly, with the minimum of fuss. He liked privacy. But he was also known to be a man who would seriously harm anyone who crossed him. Long and slow was Peter Bailey’s retribution. It was rumoured he enjoyed the
whole gamut of emotions his victims were put through, from fear, pain and agony, to begging for their lives to be finally ended. But there was never any evidence; the person would disappear, and all that would be left of their ordeal would be rumours.

Daniel, on the other hand, was happy to take out anybody who crossed him with as much melodrama as possible. He believed that if you were going to take someone out you should do it in such a way as to make it a lesson of sorts. Make sure that people understood what would happen to them if
they
pushed it too far. Daniel knew the value of a decent reputation. It kept mouths shut, and kept the ‘hoi polloi’, as he called them, in their place. He believed that reputation was everything; there was time enough for the down low when you were properly established – until then you had to build your rep and you had to make it a good one. The brothers were in their thirties now, and this was the time to take what they wanted. No more fucking about, working for other people, being taken for cunts left, right and centre. It was time to take what was rightfully theirs.

Daniel and Peter were starting with the Lansons. Micky’s uncle was a seriously big fish, in a very, very small pond. So small, in fact, that it was easy for the Baileys to walk in and take it away from him. Jed Lanson didn’t have an eye to the future: he still thought he was hard enough to keep a hold of what he had created. But the fact that this boy – his own nephew – was confident enough to mug him off, spoke volumes to the Baileys. It was time for Jed to disappear. First, though, the kind of disrespect Micky L had shown his uncle had to be dealt with. It was a diabolical fucking liberty and, to the Bailey brothers, it was tantamount to fucking mutiny.

Daniel picked up a ball-peen hammer and, motioning to his men with his chin, he said angrily, ‘Hold his fucking hand out.
I’m going to teach him a lesson about loyalty he won’t forget in a hurry. You should have known that family is worth more than strangers, boy. You mugged off your uncle, your mother’s brother, your own flesh and blood. You’re a fucking Judas, in every sense of the word.’

Daniel watched as his men did his bidding without hesitation. Micky fought them with all his might. A ball-peen hammer had that effect on people. It was a legal weapon you could put in your boot without worrying about a tug from the Old Bill, unlike a shotgun or a machete, both of which could lead to a serious nicking. A hammer, on the other hand, was like a screwdriver or a chisel – a legal tool for legal business – even though it could inflict serious and personal damage in the right hands. In
his
hands anyway.

Micky was sweating with fear, and Daniel grinned at him, before taunting him, ‘You thought you could take us for cunts, did you? Call my brother a fucking coon, and me a coon’s asswipe, and you really thought we would let that go?’

He brought the hammer down on the boy’s hand, as it was held on the concrete floor. Everyone heard the crunch as the bones were shattered, the blood splattering everywhere.

The pain was excruciating, and Micky, feeling the bile rising in his stomach, knew he was going to black out. He finally understood the enormity of what was going on, just as Daniel Bailey had intended. He had been seriously harmed, and he could die in this stinking factory, on this stinking floor.

Daniel shook his head at what he perceived to be the sheer skulduggery of the man before him. ‘Fucking look at him, will you? Fainted, like a fucking little girl. Hold his head up, boys. When he finally decides to rejoin us, I’m gonna take the wanker’s teeth out. He won’t be fucking smiling at anyone for a few years.’

‘You’re letting him get out of here? Seriously?’ One of the crew voiced what they were all thinking, incredulous.

‘’Course I’m letting him out! This ponce is the reason his uncle is going to come after us.’ He pointed to the man on the floor. ‘
This
is the reason his uncle is going to get his fucking ugly big head caved in, the treacherous bastard that he is too.’ Daniel walked back to where his brother was sitting. ‘Like fucking nuns these days – a bit of pain and they faint like virgins on a stag night.’

Peter Bailey laughed. ‘He’s not the first person to call me a coon, and you know it.’

Daniel shrugged. ‘It always bothered me more than it did you, Peter, even when we was kids. But if he insults
you
he insults
me
and, more to the point, he insults
our
mother. But you’re right – this time it’s just another excuse for having a go. Fucking wanker. Thinks he can short-change us? I don’t fucking think so.’

Peter nodded. ‘A fucking liberty all right.’

‘Well, bruv, we’ve worked long and hard for this, and tonight we’ll take it. Be like the fucking black and white minstrels just took over East London. After all, that’s what they are calling us, according to that ponce anyway.’

Peter smiled, showing his expensive white teeth. ‘I always liked them myself. Remember when we were kids and we used to tap dance on the lino copying them? After tonight we will tap dance all over the Smoke.’

‘Fucking right we will, Peter, we’ve fucking earned it.’

‘Well, after this little lot, we’d better be prepared because this is not going to go down too well.’

Daniel laughed. ‘I should hope not, or this was all in vain! Fuck them! Me and you, bruv, are on the up.’

A groan from the floor interrupted their conversation, as
Micky came round. Daniel knew he was in terrible pain and bewildered as to why this had happened to him, but he said delightedly and in an exaggerated pseudo-posh voice, ‘Oh, Peter, I do believe our guest is finally back with us. Where’s my fucking manners?’

He walked slowly back to where Micky was being held upright on his knees by his men and, looking into the young man’s eyes, he said jovially, ‘I hope you’ve got a good dentist, son, you’re going to fucking need one,’ before taking out the boy’s jaw, and the majority of his teeth, with one swipe of the hammer. Then, throwing the hammer on to a nearby bench, he said offhandedly, ‘Drop him off at his uncle’s pub, right outside the public bar. We don’t want people thinking that we don’t look after our guests, do we?’

Lena Bailey was always worrying about something – it was part of her everyday life. But tonight was different. She knew in her heart that something was going to happen – what that was to be, she had no idea. Daniel was keeping very quiet, but then she never asked him about his business dealings.

Trying to put her worries out of her mind, Lena turned to her mother-in-law and smiled. ‘Theresa, that smells fantastic. You’re too good to us.’

Theresa Bailey was still a good-looking woman, with traces of her youthful beauty in her eyes and her smile. She was in her early fifties, but with her make-up on, and in the right light, she could still pass for early forties. Peter and Daniel were so proud of her. Her boys both adored her, she was everything to them, and so she should be. She had borne them against the odds, and she had brought them up against even harder odds. Never having married, they had her maiden name; neither of their fathers had stayed around long after the births.

Theresa shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Ah, I was always the good cook. My mother, God rest her soul, she taught me feck-all about life, but she taught me good, basic Irish cookery.’

They both laughed at that.

‘Leave it to cool, it will be gorgeous tomorrow. And it will feed your whole fecking bunch for two days!’

She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall; Lena could tell
that her mother-in-law was as worried as she was, otherwise she would already be down the pub. She liked her nights there – she had good friends, played bingo, and enjoyed her life such as it was. She had given birth to her two sons in the forties, one by a Jamaican soldier, the other by an East-End wide boy. She had brought them up on her own, and she had made a life of sorts. She had never gone back to Ireland, her homeland, knowing that she would have had no welcome there considering the circumstances she was in. But she was still a devout Catholic, and she loved both her sons with a vengeance.

Theresa often said that life was for the people who were prepared to live it, and she had lived her life, and she didn’t regret a second. She had two handsome sons, and they had provided her with enough grandchildren to keep her busy into her old age. Lena often wondered who Theresa was trying to convince – herself or her sons. It had not been an easy life for her, and she respected her mother-in-law for the way she had brought the two of them up, and the wonderful way she had stood by them. Not an easy life in those days, or these days, if they were honest. Theresa had been sixteen and eighteen respectively when she had given birth to her sons. Her sister, who had begged for her to come over to England and help her out after marrying an English soldier, had thrown her out after the first one had arrived, and stopped talking to her altogether after the second. But she had never really let anyone know that she cared what they thought. Lena knew from things Theresa said that it had hurt, deep down, but she had too much pride to let other people’s narrowmindedness ruin her days. Consequently, she had worked her fingers to the bone, and given her two sons the best she could afford. Now, they tried to repay her by making sure she wanted for nothing.

Both Lena and Peter’s wife Ria adored her. Ria, like Theresa
herself, had faced prejudice to be with her Peter, but she had won the battle and married him anyway, although her father had never accepted it. He had seen her marriage to a black man as a foolishness which could only bring trouble. Ria’s mother had come around eventually, and visited her on the sly as often as she could. Even so, she would still be loath to acknowledge her son-in-law in the street, or her grandchildren for that matter. Ria had understood her mother’s prejudice in her own way. It was the way of the world. But to the Bailey family, colour meant nothing, and any prejudice they encountered just made them all stronger and tighter.

Lena’s husband Daniel had always looked up to his elder brother, had always been close to him – they were like twins in many respects. It hurt Daniel more when people were racially prejudiced than it ever hurt Peter. Peter felt that it was their problem not his; Daniel felt it was a slur on them all, the whole family. He took it as a personal insult to him and his mother, and Daniel Bailey did not like people insulting him or his. Theresa always said that Daniel would be his own worst enemy. Peter rose above people’s pettiness, whereas Daniel let himself be dragged down to their level.

Lena could see Theresa’s logic but, as Daniel’s wife, she also knew how much he loved his brother, and how people’s words could wound him. He idolised Peter, and Peter idolised him. True, they were as different as chalk and cheese personality-wise. But together they were a formidable team.

‘You feel it too, don’t you, Lena? It’s like one of those humid and stormy summer days when you could cut the air with a knife. Something’s going on with the boys and, as always, we will be the last to know what it is.’

Lena nodded. She wondered sometimes if her mother-in-law was fey; she often knew exactly what you were thinking. Unlike
her mother-in-law, though, Lena preferred not to know too much about her husband’s business dealings – as far as she was concerned, ignorance was bliss.

Jed Lanson looked at his nephew, a boy he had never really found it in his heart to like. He was too much like his mother. Jed’s sister Adelaide was a miserable fucking bitch and, like her son, she took the piss at every opportunity. All animosity aside, though,
this
was a fucking liberty, and it was something not to be taken lightly. Jed was an acknowledged Face; this was clearly the work of someone who wanted to challenge him. And he had a good idea who that might be.

The fucking Baileys. The trouble was, deep down, he liked them, respected them inasmuch as they were decent men. Peter, certainly, was a man of his word, and he was also a good earner. Daniel, on the other hand, was a hothead; it was Daniel who would have done this, he was the drama merchant. Jed had used that very quality many times himself, and paid Daniel Bailey handsomely because of it. He was like the BBC. All drama, but no real substance. But he knew that Daniel and Peter wanted a bit more, and why wouldn’t they?

If his idiot of a nephew had not felt the urge to berate them, humiliate them and, in short, fucking aggravate them, Jed would have offered them an in sooner rather than later. Now it would have to be a fucking lesson – he would have to make sure that everyone knew he would not countenance any kind of insubordination. He would have to go after two of his best earners over this useless boy, who couldn’t find a golden fiver
without a detailed map and a candle shoved up his arse! It was so unfair. But Micky was family, and if Jed swallowed this he would lose all face.

‘Sling him in a motor and get him to hospital. He’s had a battering, but he’ll get over it. If the Baileys wanted him dead, I think we can safely assume that would be the case.’