The Face (Harry Tyler Book 1) (12 page)

“Don’t be fucking sorry. I said, who are yer?”

“Just a geezer making a living.”

“So why don’t you fuck off down to Forest Gate or wherever and do yer business that end?” Harry took a step back. Had he misjudged things? This was starting to look messy. Pyro Joe loomed up beside him. “No one knows you up here,” he growled.

“Look, mate,” said Harry. “I’m only trying to do a bit of business. I don’t want ag.”

“So you’re shagging Lesley, then?” That was The Dog.

“Could be. I wasn’t planning on marrying it, though.”

“See it’s a fact that all them cunts over the other side of the river are fucking wrong ’uns,” Doug went on.

Harry’s back went up. “How’s that, then?” he said.

“West Ham mugs. They’re all shitters and runners and fucking grasses.”

Harry bit into his bottom lip and mustered his self-control. “Mate,” he said finally. “I ain’t here to talk politics, all right. I don’t want trouble. I’m just here to deal.”

“Well, you can fuck off, SHITTER!” Dougie exploded. The “shitter” was slurred.

Pissed again, thought Harry. Probably had half a gram up his bugle tonight. Was this down to Les? Unlikely. This animal was too thick, too self-absorbed, to care. Maybe it was just mindless hatred of anyone who wasn’t from the manor coupled with a large pinch of jealousy that this outsider was pushing straight up the ladder. Everyone on the Baker crew was kith and kin, either directly or by historical friendship. It was the secret of their success. Dads knew dads, mums had been to school with sisters. Family had done bird with family, from borstals to the Scrubs. Faced by an outsider, all the defences were up. All the metaphorical guns were loaded and aimed. Harry knew the one great certainty was that no one thought he was Old Bill. It had never even been suggested. But where did he go from here? He couldn’t bottle it. Once Harry Tyler walked out the door he would never walk back in. He couldn’t afford to lose face. He could have taken Dougie, no problem, and would have loved to, the dickless resentful psychopath had the sort of face that was crying out to be filled in. But Dougie, Joey and Rhino … Maybe it was worth taking a kicking if he could lay Dougie out first. By the looks of it the operation was fucked …

The Dog shook his head and started to speak again. “We don’t know who you are,” he repeated. “You come round my manor, spending like Harry fucking Splattercash, like you’re Billy Big Potatoes …”

Harry could almost taste the tension in the air.

Dougie reached into the pocket of his leather jacket that was slung haphazardly across the bar. Harry watched for the
tell-tale
glint of a steel blade. He could hardly believe his eyes when his twisted tormentor pulled out a fat, but plainly dead, black rat instead.

“Recently found brown bread in Ron’s cellar,” Dougie said, grinning excitedly. Pyro Joe smirked. He’d seen The Dog do this trick with dead mice and birds, even a handful of wriggling maggots.

“Now open wide,” Dougie instructed, “cos you are gonna chew on this beauty.”

Harry stepped back. “Fuck off, Doug,” he said simply.

Joey growled.

“You don’t understand,” said Dougie, stepping forward. “You ain’t going nowhere till you’ve had a nice few mouthfuls of cold rodent supper. Think of it not so much as an initiation test as a gift from yer old mate Dougie The Dog.”

Harry stepped towards the bar and picked up an empty bottle of Becks.

“Now, now, Harry,” said Doug. “Don’t play rough.”

“That’s enough.” It was Johnny Too. “Dougie, leave it alone. Harry, come and sit over here.”

The Dog meekly obeyed his master’s voice. The threat was over as quickly as it had begun. Harry wondered if it had been the reverse swindle of the Old Bill’s good-cop, bad-cop routine. And if so, had he passed whatever test it was? He picked up his pint and moved to where Johnny Baker was now sitting. To his right, sitting quietly but watching everything, were the two unknown faces. He had a strange feeling about them. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but they just didn’t add up. Harry knew he didn’t know the men. He had as much faith in his
total-recall
memory as he did in his chameleon-like ability to get into character and stay in it. So who were the two guys? He felt them looking him up and down. He wasn’t comfortable about them but he didn’t feel threatened. As he sat opposite Johnny Too, he put his suspicions on the back burner and got down to business.

“Ron’s spoken to you, Johnny?”

“Yeah, it’s the parcel from up Brum way.”

“Yeah.”

“How quick can it go?”

“Now. It’s alight down that end.”

“How much you looking for?”

“Two quid a bottle.”

“How many cases?”

“A trailer-full. It’s all on the floor at the moment, and I ain’t got the wheels to move it. Well, not in one hit.”

“Where’s it now?”

“In a slaughter near Epping Forest.”

“Sold! Ron’s got your mobile number?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll get it off him. Rhino and Doug can sort it tomorrow. Got any problems with that?”

Harry hesitated. “Who’s weighing me out?”

“When it’s got, I’ll leave the readies behind the jump with Ron.”

Harry looked Johnny Too in the eye. “Has Dougie got a problem with me?”

“Only if I say so.”

The parcel went, the money arrived and not a single bottle surfaced for two months; then every pub was awash with cheap Scotch, every Asian off-licence from Bermondsey to Peckham and from New Cross to Kennington was doing the right customers good discounts on whisky, but no honest citizen ever walked into the local nick and mentioned that the liquor was being moved at £6 a bottle.

When Harry Tyler collected his cash from Slobberin’ Ron the tapes were rolling and Ron let slip a curious thing, something Harry replayed several times. Ron said simply, “They’re happy with you now, now you’ve been vetted.” It only made sense when Harry next spoke to DI Suckling – Harry’s car had been checked out by a couple of CID officers from an office not a million miles from the Ned Kelly. Bingo. That’s who the two faces in the bar had been. It amused Harry to learn that his name had also been run through the police computer. The inquisitive eyes had seen what they had wanted to see – one conviction three years earlier at Havering magistrates’ court for possession of one gram of a class A drug, fined £175 plus costs. The address on file was now the site of a new ASDA supermarket, while Harry’s wheels showed the address of what appeared to be an empty council flat in Beckton, east London. So, Johnny Too had clearly invested a few quid in research. He obviously saw the potential of this new trade route.

A couple of days after the whisky trade Harry took a call on the mobile.

“It’s Ron Sullivan,” said the voice. “Are you down your manor?”

“Just up the road, can be later. Why?”

“Me and Rhino will be down that way about two-ish, meet us for a beer?”

“What is it now? Eleven? Can you make it half three, I’ve got something on.”

“Yeah, round your place?”

“No, go to my local. It’s only ten minutes from me. It’s called the Trojan, just past the one-way system at Manor Park, opposite a big Nissan dealership on the right and a Shell garage. If you reach the Ford dealership on the right you’ve gone past it.”

Harry grinned as he ended the call. The flies were coming to the spider. He punched a number into his mobile and got busy.

At 3.15 pm, Johnny Too, Pyro Joe and Dougie The Dog strolled into the Trojan, a roomy free house full of customers. Johnny noted how cheap the Scotch was. As the three men reached the bar, the whole pub went quiet. “Welcome to Tombstone,” said Johnny under his breath. Dougie shifted from foot to foot. He looked decidedly ill at ease. A crew of six men, all lumps, glared at them from one corner. The three hounds playing darts stopped to look them over, their interest duplicated by the mob around the snooker table. Two black men further up the bar muttered to one another in a hostile manner. Their
close-cropped
heads, sharp clothes and mobile phones said drug dealers to those in the know.

Pyro Joe felt compelled to stare back at the first six.

“Not in here, Joe,” said Johnny softly but with authority. “What are you having?”

Cyril, the landlord, gave them a half smile and said, “Looks like rain.”

“It always does over this side,” grumbled Dougie.

“It’s not that bad,” said Cyril.

“Fucking is,” the Dog replied eloquently.

“Has Harry been in?” asked Johnny Too.

“Harry?” Cyril countered. “Harry who?”

“Harry, Harry Tyler,” said John. “You know Harry.”

“Harry Tyler?”

“Yeah, we’re mates. He told us to meet him here.” One of the watching six, a mountain of a man dressed like the Motorhead roadie time forgot, manky long hair, beard, jeans stuck on with old grease and an Anti-Nowhere League t-shirt that was white 15 years before, ambled up to them. Johnny clocked his massive tattooed arms. The guy looked strong enough to lift a family saloon above his head and change a tyre with his spare hand.

“Who you looking for, mate?” he growled.

“Harry Tyler,” said Johnny. “Know him?”

“And who wants him?”

“We fucking do,” snapped Dougie.

Johnny squeezed The Dog’s bicep to shut him up. “I do,” he said. “He asked us to meet him here.”

“He’s a mate, is he?”

Johnny nodded.

“Three pints here, Cyril,” said the big man, nodding at the South London trio. “Give him a ring on his moby, mate. It should be on.”

He rejoined his drinking buddies.

“Do you do food, mate?” Dougie The Dog asked Cyril.

Just then the public bar door swung open and in bounced Harry, big smile on his face and looking good.

“Johnny, Joe, Doug … I was expecting Rhino and Ron. Good to see ya. What y’having?”

“Come on, H,” said Cyril. “Keeping these fellas waiting. He’s always late, he’ll be late for his own funeral he will.”

“Yeah,” Harry replied. “I won’t be late for yours, though, you old bastard.”

The man mountain walked over, and smiled displaying a mouth full of broken teeth.

“All right, H?” he said.

“Geezer!” Harry smiled. “How’s it hanging? Johnny, this is Pete, Pete, Johnny.”

The entire atmosphere in the pub had changed with Harry Tyler’s arrival. The place started buzzing again. This was good times. Johnny noticed how much calmer and self-assured Harry seemed on his own turf.

“Oi, Cyril,” Harry yelled. “Where’s Carol?”

“She’ll be down in a mo, H. She’s on the phone. I think it’s superglued to her earhole.”

“Cyril’s other half,” Harry said to Johnny. “Nicely put together. Late forties but well turned out. The sort you might have gone over the side for ten years ago but not that beautiful that you wouldn’t have gone home after a shag.”

At that moment, the landlady came down the stairs and into the bar. As soon as she saw Harry it was hugs, kisses and banter all round. Insults flew, none intended to hurt, and jokes were told. Within the space of an hour, some 30 people had drifted in and out of the bar and Harry Tyler was clearly the man. If people didn’t come up and shake his hand, they nodded and smiled. Within what seemed like minutes, Carol had rustled up a spread of sandwiches and chicken legs on the house. What better to tempt fast-drinking punters with fat wallets to linger longer?

“Don’t get this in the Ned,” said Dougie as he bit into two sandwiches at once.

“I’ll stick a score behind the bar tonight and get Ron to lay it on, you greedy sod,” said Johnny. “You mind you don’t get claret and blue poisoning.” Dougie scowled but didn’t stop eating.

Harry pulled Johnny Too aside. “What brings you down this end, John?” he asked.

“We were out for a drive, that’s all.”

Harry raised an “Oh-yeah?” eyebrow. This was no accidental meeting. This was the look-see, and Harry felt honoured that the top man had come to check him out for himself. Johnny Too hadn’t missed a trick. He had clocked the clandestine chat H had been engaged in with the two dealers. He had noted the large wedge of notes subtly transfer from Harry to the taller black man and how they had got up, shaken hands and left smiling. Yeah, there was now no vestige of doubt in Johnny Baker’s mind. Harry Tyler was proper.

“You still here, H?’ Carol joked.

“Yes, darling. And I’ve heard all about you buying yerself crotchless drawers.” He paused to draw in the maximum audience. “It’s not for sex,” he said. “It’s just to get a better grip on the broomstick.”

This got a roar of approval from every man in earshot.

“Bastard!” said Carol, smiling. “I’ll get you back.”

The crack sparked off an orgy of joke-telling, the funniest and sickest gag of the day coming, surprisingly, from Pyro Joe who claimed it was a true story from his time fighting as a mercenary in Croatia.

“Fella I was with, Dagenham Dave, slipped out on a recce and came back three hours later claiming he’d had the best sex of his life in a dug-out not a hundred yards away. He said he’d come across this Serbian girl and that he’d fucked her every which way, on top, underneath, side to side and up the arse. I asked him if he’d got a gobble. ‘No, he said, no gobble.’ Why not? I said. ‘I couldn’t, he replied. ‘She didn’t have a head!’”

“That is sick,” said Carol. But the blokes were on the floor.

“Was Joe in Croatia, Johnny?” asked Harry.

“Was he fuck.”

“Listen, mate, I’ve got to go and service Lesley. Any chance of a lift back when you go, only I’m well over the limit.”

“Not a problem. Now OK?”

“Sweet.”

The four men drove off towards Mile End, dropping down to the Commercial Road for the Rotherhithe Tunnel. Dougie was driving, dreaming of sweeter smells south of the river. He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he didn’t have a clue about the police motorcycle behind him until the blue lights came on.

Easy Rider poked his head through the window of Doug’s Sierra and recoiled at his brandy breath. “You were over the limit, sir, but I have reason to believe you have been drinking. Blow in this, sir.”

Johnny Too was the only reason The Dog didn’t go for it, that and the two patrol cars that pulled up five yards behind.