TRAPPED (13 page)

What made it worse was the fact he couldn’t even go out to get laid to relieve his tension. And by the way G
ypsy was pacing about, giving a goo
d impression of a Grenadier Guard, he didn’t hold out much hope of getting his dick sucked by her any time soon. He certainly w
asn’t stupid enough to ask wh
en she was in this sort of mood.

Gypsy poked him hard, knowing he wasn’t listening.

‘Christ’s sake Gyps, you’re starting to do me nut in. I don’t want to be worrying about this; I need to start thinking about what I’m going to do with Max Donaldson.’

‘Why do you have to mention that man’s name in this house, Frank? I told you a long time ago what to do with him. You didn’t listen then and look what bleedin’ happened. You got cut up the carkers and now you think you know what’s best about Lorna staying here. I’m telling you Frank, it’ll go arse over bleeding tit.’

‘Oh for God’s sake Gyps, turn it in or turn it down. Do you think listening to this tripe is helping me? Only just got out of hospital and I’m already getting grief. Would’ve done better to stay in there. Do yourself and
me
a favour and calm down.

‘
Calm down
? How can I when I’ve got Lorna living under the same hatch as me? I’m telling you, Frank, she’s like the witch of the North, South, East and bleeding West all rolled into one.’

Lorna Taylor stood on the other side of the walnut door, listening to her sister-in-law badmouth her, and smiled. From the very first time she’d laid her eyes on Gypsy she’d hated her – and she wasn’t going to stop now.

She was certain it’d been Gypsy stopping her from coming across to visit her brother again. Stopping Frankie from sending her a passport to travel on. Lady Muck had as good as made her a prisoner, forcing her to stay in Belgium all this time and Lorna was sure she knew the reason why – Gypsy was greedy and she didn’t want to share Frankie with anyone. She certainly didn’t want to share his money. She wanted it all to herself, to indulge in the luxury she’d become accustomed to without anyone trying to knock her off her ivory pedestal.

Lorna realised that she and Gypsy weren’t so many worlds apart. They were both East End girls with their childhoods being a replica of each other; poverty in their house and on every corner. Now, however, there was one big difference between them – Gypsy had it all and she had nothing. But Lorna knew that was soon going to change. If her sister-in-law thought she’d get rid of her as easily as she did the last time she was in for a shock. Lorna Taylor was here to stay.

She was owed; and owed big time. She wanted exactly what Frankie had and she was going to get it. It hadn’t just been her brother who’d been stuck in the kids’ home being battered by the workers like a fish in a chip shop. Yet it’d been only her who’d been returned from all those different foster homes because she wasn’t pretty enough, smart enough, or she didn’t give her new foster father good enough head.

All her life Lorna had been pushed about by men who thought she was something they wiped their feet on, but that was about to stop. She had no intention of going back to Belgium to her excuse of a boyfriend. She belonged here. Here with Frankie. Here with her nephew. Here
without
Gypsy. And whether Gypsy went of her own accord or whether she would have to get rid of her, one way or another, Lady Muck with her stupid pretentious voice was going to lose her crown very soon.

Lorna leant slightly nearer to the door, not wanting to miss a word of the argument between Gypsy and Frankie. As she moved her head to make her ear more comfortable on the hand carved panel, the door was opened and Gypsy appeared red-faced and glowering.

‘Oh! Not enough just to be under me roof Lorna; you want to be up in me business too. Flip me, where next? Wouldn’t surprise me if I woke up tomorrow morning to find you up me bleeding arse.’

‘Is everything alright? I’m sorry Frankie, I didn’t mean to interrupt, I just heard a few raised voices when I came to knock. I wasn’t wanting to disturb you. You know me, I don’t like to pry,’ she said sweetly.

Frankie smiled and waved at his sister to come into the room, slightly embarrassed that she might’ve heard what Gypsy had been saying.

‘Don’t worry about it, Lorn. I’m sorry you had to hear it babe, especially after you coming all this way to see me.’

Gypsy watched Lorna’s sickly smile. She knew she spelled trouble with the letters B.I.T.C.H. Gypsy had been brought up in the East End, she was streetwise. She could smell a rat when she saw one, and Lorna Taylor was one of the biggest ones she’d seen in a long time. Even the Pied Piper of Hamelin would have trouble with her.

Gypsy continued to stare at her sister-in-law. Her bulbous body pushed at the seams of the expensive red Valentino dress which Frankie had sent her one Christmas. Her Harry Winston diamond cluster earrings struggled to stay on her fatty lobes. Her Tiffany necklace – a present from Johnny – almost choked her as it struggled to clasp round her neck and her wrist had ownership of a yellow gold and diamond
Datejust
special edition Rolex watch. Another present from Frankie.

She could hear Lorna breathing heavily from the excess weight pressing onto her lungs and her large breasts hung heavily in an ill-fitting bra. Her face, unlike Frankie’s, was rotund and her green beady eyes lay too close to her sharp pointed nose.

Gypsy curled her nose up. Everything about Lorna offended her. As she looked at Frankie and his sister laughing
together it felt as if something very nasty had come home to
roost.

Gina Daniels was smiling as she looked at her nephew, Gary, on the other side of the room. He was beginning to make a name for himself and once he did, she’d have the name too.

Gina leaned back on the table, stretching out her puffy legs and feeling a twinge of cramp in her calf. She glanced around, noticing how much of a mess Gary’s flat was in, but the difference between his mess and other people’s was what it was messy
with
.

Lab burners, glass vials, measuring jugs, pans and packets of opened baking powder lay scattered about the room in disarray. Then of course there was the cocaine. The cocaine to make the crack.

Gone were the days of Gary having to buy a few rocks of ready-made crack, earning so little it didn’t even pay for a week’s grocery shopping. He was moving up in the world. Here he was with his own crack lab in his kitchen, and Gina Daniels couldn’t have been prouder.

‘Come over and help me. No good just bleedin’ sitting there Auntie Gina, you know I was never good at cooking.’

The joke was lost through the white mask Gary wore, guarding his lungs against potent crack fumes. He bent over the pan and watched the combination of water, baking soda and cocaine sizzle and bubble as it started to form white solid lumps. On occasion he’d put white candle wax in the mix to help the crack keep its off-white colour and to help it to form into small solid pieces. Today though, he could tell from the pungent smell – which managed to seep through, even with the mask on – that the coke was already cut with more than enough shit to risk adding anything more. He needed his clients to be able to smoke the stuff, not make a Madame Tussauds waxwork out of it.

He wanted to get the crack cooked and out on the streets. If people were going to take him seriously there needed to be a constant supply. That way no one would get it into their head that it was alright to muscle in on Gary’s turf and start serving up to his customers.

He wasn’t the biggest coke and crack dealer around by any means, but Gary Levitt reckoned he was the most ambitious.
He had a game plan to take over all the clubs in Soho and the West End and he wasn’t prepared to settle for anything less. To do that though, he needed to get a certain person on side. Unfortunately that person was none other than Max Donaldson.

Thinking about Max naturally brought Gary’s thoughts to Nicky. The roughing up he’d received the other day had sent him underground, no doubt worried about the money he owed. No one had seen him.

He needed teaching a lesson. Gary certainly didn’t want people to think he was being soft on Nicky because he was Max Donaldson’s son. He couldn’t have anyone thinking he was afraid to do what was necessary. Of course, in truth there was a part of him that
was
afraid. He’d have to think about how to handle the situation very carefully, especially if he wanted Max to give him the go ahead to start serving up in the clubs.

Pouring the mix into a muslin cloth to drain away the excess water, Gary suddenly felt tense.

‘What’s the matter Gal, you look bunged up?’

‘Have you seen that junkie mate of yours lately? I want a word with him.’

‘Nicky? I’m seeing him later in the cafe, got a little bit of business to sort out. Do you want me to give him a message?’

‘Yeah, tell him if I don’t have my money by the end of the week the only thing he’ll be banging on will be a fucking coffin lid.’

Gina walked along
Wardour Street
. The early summer sunshine was nowhere to be seen as a dark rain cloud came and stayed over the one square mile of Soho. She thought about the money Nicky owed Gary and it worried her. She liked to get what was owed to her. For two weeks running Nicky had short-changed her, pretending Johnny hadn’t paid the amount he usually did for Harley. She wasn’t stupid but Johnny was thinking Nicky would be more trustworthy than her when it came to money just because Maggie was his sister. She knew exactly what was going on. Unlike her nephew Gary, she didn’t have the ability to beat it out of someone, but what she did have though was more powerful than any clenched knuckle. She had information. Information she knew neither Johnny, Maggie or Nicky would want reaching either Max or Frankie’s ears.

As she continued to walk Gina suddenly caught a glimpse of Nicky at the top of the street and immediately broke out into a half-hearted jog, amusing the group of builders standing outside the amusement arcade on the corner of Winette Street with her feeble efforts.

‘Nicky! Nicky!’

Finally, Nicky turned around, giving Gina a quick smile whilst his eyes darted back and forth.

‘Nicky, I hope you weren’t trying to ignore me? We had an arrangement to meet in the cafe, remember?’

‘Listen, can we make it later? I have to be somewhere.’

‘This ain’t got anything to do with the money you owe is it? Not trying to hide away?’

‘No.’

Nicky blushed.

‘Why am I getting the feeling you’re not quite telling me the truth?’

Nicky didn’t answer; he found it was always best to do that. Let the other person say what they needed to say and hope they’d be satisfied with that. Gina pulled Nicky into the quiet of St. Anne’s court as she continued to walk towards Lola’s Cafe.

‘Anyway, I’ve got a message for you; Gary says he wants his money and if you ain’t got it, then there’ll be ructions.’

This time Nicky swallowed hard.

‘Why are you looking worried, Nick? Don’t tell me you ain’t got his dough?’

‘It’s fine. I told him I’ll sort it and I will.’

‘Well then you ain’t got anything to worry about. Come on, you can buy me a bacon sandwich, I’m starving.’

Nicky sat opposite Gina Daniels in
Lola’s Cafe
and felt sick. He pushed the toast on the plate away from him. It seemed every week he needed to keep making a new notch on his belt to stop his trousers falling down. The cocaine had
taken his craving
for food away. It’d taken his craving for everything away – everything but the coke.

He looked at Gina with her knock-off cream Burberry coat done up to the top button and saw she was happy to eat for the both of them. She hungrily grabbed his unwanted toast, stuffing a piece in her mouth and squirreling the other piece onto the blue chipped sideplate.

‘Maggie wants to talk to me.’

‘Well then, talk. I don’t know what you’re worried about Nicky; we’ve got her eating out of our hands like a dog. I don’t think Johnny’s bothered. He hasn’t come to visit Harley in almost nine months, plus he certainly won’t want people knowing about her. As for Maggie, well any nonsense from her and I’ll just tell her I won’t look after Harley. That’ll soon shut her up.’

Nicky glared at Gina. He disliked her and always had done but no more so now in the way she was talking about his sister. Then he supposed he was no better. He and Gina were two of a kind when it came to money – albeit for different reasons.

He didn’t like the situation he’d found himself in but what could he do? He loved Maggie and never wanted to do anything to hurt her, but he was in debt up to his eyeballs to Gary and he was starting to owe Gina money after spending her cut of the cash Johnny gave him on coke. Not to mention the odd person here and there from in and around Soho. He needed at least a couple of hundred a day to feed his habit but that was nearly impossible to find.

‘Perhaps Johnny isn’t bothered about Harley – but he will be about his money. What happens when he does find out? He won’t be too chuffed when he realises the money went on designer clothes instead of his daughter.’

‘Don’t try to lay the blame on my bleedin’ doorstep. I’ve got enough dust sitting on it without you adding more. I don’t seem to remember you worrying about your niece when you were sticking the money up your nose.’

Nicky stared at Gina. He was feeling hot and anxious and the steamy cafe on Bateman Street wasn’t helping. He looked around, seeing a throng of workmen having a laugh with the waitress. He saw a well-dressed couple deep in conversation in the far corner and there was Lola leaning against the greasy counter, seemingly oblivious to the dirty plates piling up behind her as she sang along to the tune being played on the radio. All content in their own worlds. Nicky Donaldson would’ve happily exchanged his life with any one of them.

‘I’m not saying it’s all you Gina, but what part of the money did you
actually
spend on Harley?’

Gina turned her head and sniffed loudly. Nicky grabbed her hand hard, making her yelp and bringing them a quick glance of attention from the builders.