Paulie vomited loudly, the bile and beer spraying out of his mouth then running into the gutter with his blood.
'You owed Jackie Mills two hundred quid. Well, I have bought the debt off him for a oner so you now owe me three hundred quid and I want it. Don't you dare fuck me about. If I don't get my poke I will come looking for you again and next time I will not be so reasonable…' The sentence was left unfinished, the threat had been taken on board.
He lit a cigarette slowly and, dropping the match on to the man's hair, he smiled. 'You've got three days.' Whistling happily, the young men got into the car and drove away.
Annie Diamond was washing her underwear in the sink when she heard her daughter arrive back from the school.
'How'd it go?'
Lil walked into the kitchen and sighed. 'How do you think? He's been outed, expelled.'
Annie shrugged, her thin arms were plunged into a bowl of soapy water and a cigarette was dangling from her lips. Lil took the cigarette from her mother's mouth and puffed on it deeply.
'Look on the bright side, Lil. He can get a little job, bring in a few bob.'
'I suppose so, but I wish life wasn't always so fucking hard.'
Annie didn't answer her. In the last few years they had all learnt about hardship. In fact she didn't know how Lil had coped with it all. Especially with the boys; they had changed overnight.
'Did Lenny send any money round?'
Annie nodded. 'It's on the mantle, only a oner though. He is as tight as a duck's crack, him. Even the Queen comes to the opening of his wallet.'
Lil laughed then, a laugh she didn't think she had in her. She poured herself a large vodka and she knew her mother was silently chastising her for it. But she didn't give a toss, Annie Diamond was the least of her worries at the moment. Shamus had disappeared as usual and she swore under her breath. He was a little fucker and she hoped Patrick Junior would have a word with him and sort him out, now that he was finally home. Lance just seemed to make Shamus worse, but then he was good with the girls. For all his fuckery, he was good to his sisters. Especially Kathleen. She pushed Kathy from her mind, she had enough on her plate without thinking about her and all.
'Where are the boys?'
Annie was rinsing her smalls now and her hands were numb, the water was so cold. She shrugged once more.
'They went out this morning just after you, and I ain't seen them since.'
Then she turned to her daughter and shouted at her, 'Put some orange juice with that, will you; at least pretend you ain't got a drink problem.'
Lil laughed once more.
'If this was the only problem I had, Mother, how fucking easy life would be.'
The years had not been kind to Lenny Brewster and he knew that. He looked like he felt; over the hill and short of breath. As he wheezed with laughter at his own joke, the young girl with him wished he would just crash and burn so she could go home and have a cuppa and a ham sandwich like normal people. Lenny wasn't going to let that happen though and she knew it. He wanted his money's worth and she was going to have to make sure he felt he had been more than amply compensated for his initial outlay. He was a fucking mean bastard, and not only with money, he was mean in every other way as well. He wouldn't give a bogie to a dying man, he'd sell it to him.
Still, she had managed to get a car out of him; lease-hire mind, so once he outed her it would have to go back, but it was a start anyway.
The men in the pub with him were all ready for the usual day's drinking. Lenny was a cunt but he was willing to bankroll his cronies and make a day of it.
'Jackie Mills was in earlier and he reckons he has sold all his debts on.'
Lenny opened his arms in a gesture of disinterest. 'So what. Jackie Mills couldn't fucking pull in a family allowance book without my help. It's about time he realised he wasn't up to the job any more.'
He motioned to the barman for more drinks. 'Who's he sold them to? Fucking Jimmy Brick?'
Lenny looked at his old mate, Trevor Highgate, and saw he was nervous about answering. That meant he had to deliver some bad news. It had to be bad news, otherwise they would all be putting in their ten-pence worth. Lenny stared around him at his little posse of mates and, burping loudly, he held a hand to his heavy stomach while exhaling noisily. 'My guts are fucking killing me.'
He took a few deep breaths then and, grimacing in pain, he snapped, 'Well, come on then. Spit it out for fuck sakes. Who's the lucky man who is going to be the hero of the hour collecting fucking pension books and giros?'
Lenny was annoyed. Like Jackie Mills and his fucking debts were of any interest to him.
'It seems young Pat Brodie and his brother, Lance, have bought him out, like. I expect they want to raise their game, eh?' Trevor relaxed then. He had delivered the news and Lenny had not lost that phenomenal temper of his.
'The Brodie boys? You mean he has sold out to a pair of fucking kids? Better keep an eye on your pocket money; next thing you know they'll be round your house half-inching your racing bikes.'
He was laughing then and that was all the more worrying because the men around him knew he was making a mistake if he thought the Brodie brothers were beneath his radar and of no consequence. They were big lads now and they were their father's sons.
And the fact Lenny had given their mother two more children to worry about should have told him they were not kids any more.
'Good fucking luck to them, they deserve a bit of good luck. Young Patrick is home from clink then, I take it?'
Everyone nodded, pleased he had taken the news so well. But they were all wondering why he didn't know the boy had been released. If anyone should have known, it was him, considering the circumstances.
'Bad business that. The boy was fucking well within his rights but you know what the courts are like…'
Lenny shrugged. 'I couldn't help him, he had already fucked up by hammering an Old Bill. Once that happens…'
They all grinned at the memory; it had been a nine-day wonder at the time and Pat had made a rep for himself overnight. He had taken out a filth with three punches and it had taken a paddy wagon full of them to take him in. He was a handful all right and so was that Lance, but young Patrick was the one they watched out for. He had the same presence and the same demeanour as his father before him.
'Bad business all round. I wish I could have helped him more…'
But the fact of the matter was Lenny could have helped him but he had not even tried. He was half-brother to the children Lenny had with Lil and that was what had caused the initial spate of whispering. Lenny had lost a lot of his kudos over the boy's sentence; he had not even had a decent brief on his side. People thought he should have made himself busy and stopped the whole thing before it had even gone to trial. He could do that but he had chosen not to. People were not impressed and Lenny knew that as well as they did. He had taken a few hard knocks over it.
He'd lost a lot of his street credibility into the bargain. This was a man who could orchestrate a deal for fucking murderers and drug dealers, who bought prison sentences for hard cash, brokered with judges and barristers and weighed out the police and the Flying Squad. Sixty grand guaranteed a five-year sentence instead of a fifteen and these deals were only done through him. And yet he had tried to bullshit everyone that he couldn't help out young Patrick Brodie on a fucking GBH. His liaison with Lil had stopped overnight and that alone had caused suspicion. There was something fishy about it and, as a wise man had said many moons before, even dogs had the sense not to shit in their own beds.