‘Cigarette machine,’ Junior tutted. ‘That’s so low rent! And you’re living at the Zoo? What’s that place like?’
‘Major shithole,’ James shrugged. ‘Only got there last night and we’ve already got a war with two tossers who tried to rob us.’
‘What were they, girl guides or brownies?’ Junior snickered.
‘They were huge, as a matter of fact,’ James said. ‘So what about you? Are you still boxing?’
‘Nah. I went to this kickboxing place for a while, but then I got sent down.’
‘What about your folks? Is your dad OK in prison?’
‘I go visit every month, but he’s miserable. I mean, you’re locked up twenty-four seven so what can you expect?’
‘And your brother and sisters?’ James asked.
‘Ringo’s at university, giving our mum an orgasm every time he gets top grades. April’s at school. She’s no fun any more; all she’s interested in is GCSEs and straight-laced boyfriends. And my little sister Erin got a scholarship to some fancy boarding school. Turns out she’s a genius.’
‘So is April still shaggable?’ James teased.
‘You’d better keep your hands off my twin this time,’ Junior grinned. ‘Not that she’ll go anywhere near you. She was completely pissed off when you blanked her letters.’
‘You never know with birds though,’ James grinned back. ‘I might take another shot.’
‘No chance,’ Junior said. ‘So anyway, I’ve got some beers, a little bit of coke and a big bag of weed. So how about we catch up on old times, while ingesting massive quantities of booze and drugs?’
James had read Junior’s file and knew that he had a drug problem, but the reality was still a shock.
‘I’ll take you up on a few beers,’ James said, ‘but the other stuff’s not really my cup of tea.’
Junior looked offended. ‘Oh well, more for me then.’
‘Haven’t you got to go to school?’
‘Nah,’ Junior said. ‘Well, yeah actually, but I hate it. I’ll just tell ’em I was sick or something. GCSEs are such toss anyway. I messed up all my coursework and … Oh, who gives a shit?’
James wanted to get Bruce involved in the mission as quickly as possible. ‘Listen,’ he said, as the cab took a corner slightly too fast. ‘We just moved into the Zoo and my cousin’s all on his lonesome. Do you mind if I call up and invite him over?’
‘Course not,’ Junior said. ‘The more the merrier.’
*
Keith Moore had been in prison for more than two years, but his ex-wife Julie lived comfortably off the carefully laundered proceeds of his extinct drug empire. She’d recently moved into a seven-bedroom detached house with three acres and an indoor pool. She drove a convertible Mercedes and her life revolved around hair, nails, tanning and the gym.
‘Junior!’ she screamed, as she dumped her car keys and tennis racket on the kitchen cabinet and caught a nose full of burnt plastic. ‘Junior, get your arse down here right now.’
Julie looked in horror at orange juice spilled over the floor and dirty plates piled up in the sink. The worst of the smell came from an oven dish with a pizza welded to it. It would have been the boys’ lunch if Junior had been sober enough to strip off the polystyrene base before putting it in the oven.
Julie headed out of the kitchen and yelled again as she ran up the stairs. Junior’s bedroom door was open. Radiohead pounded at full blast and marijuana smoke curled into the corridor. The music was so loud that James and Bruce didn’t hear her storming up the stairs.
‘Who the hell are you two?’ Julie screamed, as she grabbed the remote for Junior’s hi-fi and turned off the music.
James had downed three beers and felt light-headed. ‘Hey Mrs Moore,’ he said, smiling dopily. ‘Long time no see.’
‘Yo,’ Bruce giggled as he rolled off the bed. ‘Junior never told us that his mum was so fit.’
‘I’ll give you fit in a minute,’ Julie growled. ‘Where’s my son?’
James pointed drunkenly towards the en-suite bathroom. ‘Shitting,’ he explained.
‘Junior, get the hell out of there,’ Julie shouted, as she stepped over dirty clothes, dirty books and beer cans before opening the window as wide as it would go. ‘What have I told you about smoking in the new house?’
It was a couple of minutes before Junior emerged, looking completely out of it with his hair tangled and his T-shirt on back to front.
‘Hello, Mum,’ Junior said, trying to sound sensible. ‘How was your charity lunch thingy?’
‘Whatthebloodyhellisthis?’ Julie squealed, as she grabbed her son by his shoulder and cracked him around the back of the head.
‘Oww,’ Junior moaned. ‘Mind your rings.’
‘How was the parole office?’ she demanded.
‘Cool,’ Junior said, pointing at James. ‘Remember James from before Dad got busted? He was there too.’
‘Do you really think I care about that, Junior? You’ve ruined that oven dish. The whole house stinks and you clearly haven’t been to school.’
‘I couldn’t go to school,’ Junior slurred. ‘I met James. It was like … like historical or something.’
‘Going to school is a condition of your release. Do you want to get locked up again?’
‘Might as well,’ Junior grinned. ‘At least I wouldn’t be getting all this earache off you.’
Julie cracked her son around the head again before turning towards James and Bruce. ‘And I don’t know what gutter he dragged you in from, but I want you out.’
James and Bruce stumbled up and started looking around for their coats.
‘I’ll see you tonight at the football club,’ Junior mumbled. ‘You can meet some of my muckers.’
‘What about your curfew?’ Julie interrupted. ‘You might be too big for me to stop you getting out of the house, Junior, but I can call the parole office.’
‘Play a different record, Mum. That one’s so boring …’
‘Don’t you think I’m bluffing. I’ll ring that parole office and tell them everything.’
But Junior shook his head, knowing that his mum would never grass him up. ‘I’m fifteen years old,’ he shouted. ‘Get out of my face, you dumb bitch.’
James was shocked. If he’d called his mum a bitch when she was alive she’d have bounced him off every wall in the house.
‘Oh that’s nice,’ Julie said, looking hurt. ‘I’m the one who feeds you and puts clothes on your back. I’m the one who bails you out. The one who visits you in prison and—’
‘Yeah you work so hard,’ Junior sneered. ‘You haven’t had a job since you married Dad twenty years ago.’
‘I’ve raised four kids,’ Julie screamed, close to tears. ‘Three of ’em are just fine, so how’s it my fault that your life’s messed up?’
James was embarrassed and he pointed a thumb towards the door. ‘We’ll be going then.’
Julie continued yelling at her son as James and Bruce headed down the stairs.
‘Did you see the way Junior was smoking that joint?’ Bruce whispered.
James nodded. ‘Just breathing the smoke was making my eyes water, but he was sucking it down like lemonade.’
‘Seems like a nice guy though.’
‘Yeah,’ James nodded. ‘I really got on with him last time and he was always a bit crazy, but now he’s gone completely off the rails …’
24. TALENT
‘I play sometimes,’ Junior explained as he led James and Bruce along a damp path towards a floodlit football pitch. ‘But to be honest, I’m a bit out of shape.’
It was seven at night and James had sobered up, but the beers had left him with a headache.
‘I’m not surprised you’re out of shape,’ James grinned. ‘The amount you smoked and drank today, it’s a miracle you can walk.’
‘These are nice guys you’re gonna be meeting,’ Junior explained. ‘They put a lot of money my way, but don’t mess with them. Especially Sasha.’
‘Who’s Sasha?’ Bruce asked innocently.
‘Serious gangster,’ Junior said. ‘I’m OK with him because he goes back to my dad and the old days, but he’s ruthless. He was in a country pub one time and this dude he bumped into called him a clumsy wanker. Sasha had two of his boys drag him outside. They tied him to the bumper of a transit van and drove five miles before cutting what was left of him loose.’
‘Shit,’ James gasped. He’d read many similar stories about Sasha Thompson and the Mad Dogs, but this particular anecdote hadn’t appeared in the mission briefing.
As they got closer, James saw that five teams were training in yellow kits. They ranged from under-elevens through to adults, all with Thompson Exhaust Centres as their shirt sponsors. Sasha Thompson himself sat on a bench wearing football boots and a tight fitting tracksuit tucked into yellow socks. Every so often he’d cup his hands around his mouth and yell at one of the players.
‘Jonesy you tit, you’re supposed to be marking him!’
Sasha was forty-six years old. He’d given up playing football a couple of years earlier because of a dodgy knee, but he kept in shape by running and lifting weights and he looked hard. His eyes lit up when he saw Junior.
‘Mr Moore, how nice of you to join us,’ Sasha said fruitily. ‘Can I have a word?’
Junior looked anxiously at James and Bruce. ‘You’d better stay back.’
But as Junior started jogging, Sasha yelled out: ‘And bring your two little friends.’
So Junior arrived first and a couple of Sasha’s flunkies shifted over to make space on the bench. James and Bruce stopped a couple of metres in front of Sasha, their trainers sinking into the mud along the touchline.
‘I had a call from your mum,’ Sasha said seriously. ‘She’s really upset. Are these two little yobbos the ones who were round your house causing mayhem earlier?’
‘Yeah,’ Junior nodded, with a touch of fear in his voice.
‘Your ma was crying when she spoke to me,’ Sasha said. ‘What did you call her?’
‘Um …’
‘She says that you messed up at the parole office. She says you missed school and called her a bitch. Is all that true?’
Junior shrugged. ‘Pretty much.’
‘Did you smoke a joint in the house?’
James could see that Junior was scared of Sasha. ‘Yeah,’ he admitted meekly.
Sasha grabbed Junior by the back of his neck and squeezed tight, making his head tilt back in spasm.
‘When he got sent down, your dad said you were trouble and asked me to keep an eye on you,’ Sasha growled. ‘I asked him how far I could go and he said, slap the piss out of him if you have to. But that’s not a place you want to go with me, is it Junior?’
‘No, boss,’ Junior croaked.
‘Buy your mother a bunch of flowers and count yourself lucky that Mr Ormondroyd at the parole office is an old friend of mine. He won’t be writing you up for bunking school.’
‘Thanks, Sasha,’ Junior said, half smiling as the hand slipped from around his neck.
Sasha looked up at James and Bruce. ‘And which hole in the ground did you two crawl out of?’ he asked nastily.
‘James is an old mate,’ Junior explained.
‘Did I ask you?’ Sasha snapped.
‘Junior brought us here,’ James explained. ‘We got moved back round this way after a spell living with our aunt in Scotland.’
‘All right,’ Sasha said, waving a hand in front of his face. ‘I didn’t ask for your bleedin’ life story. You upset Julie Moore who happens to be one of my oldest friends, so you’d better stay away from her, away from Junior and out of my face.’
James could feel the mission falling apart before his eyes. Sasha had taken an instant dislike to him and Bruce, which put his chances of infiltrating the Mad Dogs on a par with his chances of winning the lottery two weeks running.
‘Why are you still here?’ Sasha said, as he made a walking motion with his fingers. ‘Scoot before I get my boys to rearrange your heads with a crowbar.’
‘Come on, Sasha,’ Junior grovelled. ‘They’re mates of mine. They haven’t done nothing.’
‘Did I ask you, Junior?’ Sasha said again. ‘Maybe you’d be a better judge of character if you didn’t put so much shit up your nose.’
But Junior gave it one more shot as James and Bruce turned away. ‘Remember when Crazy Joe’s Ford Mustang got burned out?’ Junior asked. ‘That was James and his stepsister.’
This was like flipping a switch. Sasha’s face lit up and he even got off the bench. ‘Hey kid, where you going?’
James turned around and was surprised to see Sasha coming forward and reaching out to shake his hand. ‘You’re the dude that burned out Crazy Joe’s Mustang? That was the funniest goddamned thing that ever happened. I laughed so hard I almost pissed my pants. We all did, didn’t we?’
Sasha turned to look back at the hard men sitting on or standing around his bench. They all started nodding and laughing, and before James knew it, the most notorious members of Sasha’s crew were lining up to shake his hand.
‘Keith Moore took a bit of a shine to you, didn’t he?’ Sasha asked.
‘James was with me in Miami when Dad got busted,’ Junior said. ‘We might have got killed if James hadn’t broken out and called the cops.’
‘Sorry kid,’ Sasha said. ‘I didn’t realise you knew Keith. I just thought you were some dickhead Junior met at the parole office this morning.’
As the big men laughed and squeezed James’ hand, he remembered Kyle’s comment that he wouldn’t wish him luck because he was so jammy that he wouldn’t need it.
‘So are you football men?’ Sasha asked.
James shrugged. ‘I can kick a ball, but I’m pretty crap. My cousin here’s not bad.’
Sasha turned to Bruce. ‘What age are you?’
‘Fourteen,’ Bruce said.
‘What position?’
‘Midfield, or on the wing, but I’ll play anywhere except in goal.’
Sasha looked at his watch before pointing across the pitches. ‘The under-fifteens are over there. There’s about forty minutes of the session left if you want to take a shot. It’s slippery, so you’d better grab some spare boots from the clubhouse.’
Bruce preferred kicking people to kicking balls, but he reckoned getting into one of Sasha’s teams would be a big boost for the mission. ‘I don’t mind giving it a go,’ he shrugged. ‘I’ve got nothing else going on.’
‘What about you, James?’ Sasha asked as Bruce headed into the clubhouse to find some boots. ‘You look like a strong lad.’
‘I’ve seen him play and I wouldn’t get too excited,’ Junior said. ‘Besides, these are the proper teams, James. You should play in the Sunday league side with me, it’s total carnage and way more of a laugh.’
‘Sunday sounds good,’ James nodded. ‘I could handle that.’
Sasha looked disappointed. ‘It’s not serious football, but if your heart’s not in it …’
A few minutes later Bruce was over on the far side, trying out with the under-fifteens, Sasha was back on the bench yelling at the Mad Dogs’ first team, whilst James and Junior had moved twenty metres along the touchline to chat with a couple of Sasha’s associates. One was a twenty-eight-year-old named Savvas, the other a nineteen-year-old who was called David but everyone knew him as Wheels.
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 b
oys 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.