The Graft (17 page)

‘Oh, piss off.’

Tyrell was annoyed.

‘You know more than you are letting on, Jude, but I’ll find out the score in the end.’

‘Go home to your family, Tyrell, I don’t need all this now. I can’t cope with any more today, I need a breather.’

Her voice was harsh and he knew she was telling the truth as she saw it. The two young men who remained would be company enough for her. He wondered briefly which of the three boys scored for her and guessed rightly that it was probably the one who had just had it on his toes.

So much for the earlier dramatics.

He walked from the flat quickly. It was only when he was outside that he realised he didn’t have any money left for a cab and couldn’t remember where he had left his car.

 
Gary Proctor was looking over the warehouse with interest. It would be well worth the money and the commitment required to turn it into a grafting place. They needed somewhere to keep all the equipment they used for the raves and the private parties. This was ideal. It was well equipped, had a blinding alarm system and was also centrally placed for the people who would ultimately use it.

He phoned Nick to OK the purchase and was not surprised to find that his phone was turned off as usual. Gary left a message for him to ring back and then rolled himself a joint as he glanced around once more at the enormous space, picturing its potential.

Nick was a pain lately, but everyone hoped that now he could draw a line under things and they could all get back down to business.

A young man with dyed blond hair and a lisp asked him if he was finished yet. Gary smiled lazily as he told him to come inside and shut the door. The boy was nervous and had every reason to be. Gary Proctor knew his own rep and he knew it worked for him.

This boy was driving him for the day so he felt he had the right to ask a favour of him. After all, he was going to pay him a hefty wedge and they were alone, so why not take advantage of it?

‘Want a puff?’

‘What is it, black?’

‘Nah, scuff. Me mate brings it over from Amsterdam.’

The boy shook his head vigorously.

‘Don’t touch it.’

‘Really, what do you touch?’

The boy shrugged, his slim athletic body shown off to best advantage in the tight-fitting T-shirt and jeans he wore.

‘Skunk, Es, a bit of coke now and again . . . mushrooms.’

He was bragging in that inane way seventeen year olds inevitably did when talking to anyone over thirty.

Gary toyed with the idea of telling him that he had grown his own mushrooms years before and that he was responsible for most of the Es that hit the clubs in the south east. Especially his own clubs. He took a cut from every dealer in there, plus selling them the gear in the first place.

Instead he smiled at the boy.

‘You think you could do a good set for me tonight?’

The boy nodded eagerly.

‘Yeah, man. Fuck! I mean, ’course I could.’

‘Come here then.’

The boy edged towards him, slowly picking up the nuance in his voice.

‘Come on, son, you ain’t silly, are you? You know what I want.’

Gary knew that if Nick found out about this he would kill him, but he was past caring. Anyway the boy would be too scared to say anything, he would make sure of that. The kid’s name was Jerome and he wanted to be a DJ. Gary had just offered him a spot in one of the clubs he managed. He might act as if the clubs were his, sometimes even thought they were the amount of time he put in seeing to them all, but in fact they were Nick Leary’s. Gary chose to forget that for the moment.

Jerome wasn’t queer, Gary would lay money on it. Which, unfortunately for him, was the boy’s chief attraction. Gary lazily unbuttoned his trousers, watching the boy’s eyes. He saw the pupils dilate as Jerome realised what was expected of him.

Gary laughed in anticipation. This was the bit he really liked, the bit that turned him on.

‘Get your laughing gear around that.’

The boy was stepping backwards now, shaking his head and waving him away with his hands as if Gary had just offered him a sandwich and he was trying to say he was full up.

‘Leave it out, man, I ain’t into all that queer shit.’

Gary grinned once more. He had two gold teeth. They glinted in the harsh sunlight coming through the roof panels. He was a big-set man, barrel-chested, with short legs that were now planted firmly on the ground.

‘Get over here now, boy. I ain’t in the mood for no girly shite. Get your mouth round that.’

‘You can fuck off, Gary, I ain’t going near it.’

The boy turned to leave and Gary struck him a blinding blow to the side of his head. He punched him three more times, each harder than the last, then when Jerome was on the floor, dragged him to his knees by his hair.

‘You have two choices, son. You can do this with your teeth still intact or with them scattered round this floor, but either way, son, you are doing it. Do you get my drift?’

The boy was crying now, sobbing.

Gary, however, was laughing his head off. He liked it like this, liked the fear, it added to his excitement. Unfortunately for Jerome he decided there and then that he would not be doing the favour for anything.

So Gary had to be far more persuasive than usual.

 
Lance Walker was lying on a cold floor and he was trussed up like a chicken. His head was throbbing and his mouth was dry. He knew he had been taken and the knowledge annoyed him.

His arms were burning with pain from being tied tightly behind his back for so long, and he knew that even if he were untied he would not be able to use them. He looked around him and in the dimness he could make out machinery, but what sort he couldn’t tell.

The place stank of mildew and he guessed rightly that he was in a basement. It was so quiet though, he knew he was in an empty property. The place had the neglected feel of a disused house and he wondered briefly whether he would walk out of there. Somehow he very much doubted it.

His personality did not make him fearful often, but now he was uneasy at the thought of being at someone else’s mercy. People were usually at
his
mercy and he knew that the irony of his situation would please a lot of his contemporaries.

‘You are awake at last then?’

The voice made him jump and he turned over with difficulty to see Nick walking out of the shadows, a cigarette in his hand and a smile on his face. ‘You fucking piece of shit, Leary. Let me up and fight me like a man. But you ain’t a fucking man, are you?’

The words were delivered with enough hatred to start an average war.

Nick laughed, he had to admire the man. He was tied up and helpless yet he still had the front to mouth him off.

‘You never learn, do you, Lance? Anyone else would have the nous to try to placate the man who had drugged and trussed them up like a kipper. You was a thicko at school and you’re still a fucking Dumbo all these years later. Now where’s my money?’

Lance stared up at Nick and his eyes burned with hatred.

‘Everyone lost their money, Nick, you know that. We all lost out, the puff was delivered and dropped into the sea and the fucking bastard plod were waiting for us. You were there, you know what happened.’

Nick dropped his cigarette by the man’s head and watched as the smoke curled upwards. He put it out gently with his shoe and then lit another one. Then he said in a quiet voice, ’All I know is, Lance, we all paid you a fucking hefty wedge and then like a crowd of cunts we waited by the sea in pissing fucking rain for the drop and as we saw the bales being dumped over the edge of the boat we all got out of our nice warm motors to collect and the next thing we knew fucking plod was all over the place.’

Lance shrugged with difficulty.

‘It happens. You know the score, we’ve all been there before and no doubt we’ll all be there again. It’s the nature of drug dealing, unfortunately it’s illegal, and the filth do tend to try and stop the bigger operations. Annoying, true, but also a fact of our fucking lives. You can’t win every time, Nick.’

Nick knelt down and said loudly now, ‘I have it on good authority, that the puff that was dumped over the side of the boat was in fact straw, and that filth had been alerted days before. When they finally stopped chasing us and looked in the plastic sacks they realised that we had
all
been had over. Now, I wonder who could have set that up? You, by any chance?’

‘Who told you that load of old pony?’ The man’s voice was high with indignation and also with a trace of fear.

Nick grinned once more and Lance knew it was over.

‘Wouldn’t you like to know? Now, for the last time, where the
fuck
is my money?’

Lance’s biggest problem was the fact he would happily cut off his own nose to spite his face. Any other man would have tried to placate the person who was willing and happy to remove him from the earth. Not Lance. It had now become a battle of wits and instead of putting his hands up to the capture he closed his eyes and said in a slow guttural voice, ‘Bollocks to you and bollocks to your fucking money. You think you are so hard, don’t you, but I know all about you, Leary,
everything
. You would do well to remember that.’

Nick did laugh then and it was loud, heavy laughter. Lance knew that no matter how much he screamed no one was going to hear him.

He wondered once more where he was but knew that Nick was not going to tell him. Standing over the man, Nick brought his foot down with all the force he could muster on to Lance’s face, then he ground the heel of his shoe into the man’s bloody and bleeding nose.

‘You are really fucking me off, Lance, now for the last fucking time, where is my poke?’

 
Tammy was shopping in Brentwood. She was wearing clothes that cost enough to fund a year’s missionary work in a Third World country, and she was starving. Only not for food. Her favourite sustenance came from young men.

She punched Costas’s number into her mobile and when she got no answer just stopped herself from leaving a message. She wasn’t stupid. She never left messages or texts, nothing that could put her in the frame should it all fall out of bed with her current squeeze.

The first time she had almost been blackmailed it had hit her hard. She had believed it was her sparkling personality and humungous breasts that had been the attraction. It had never occurred to her that it was also her seemingly inexhaustible credit cards. So now she didn’t buy many presents for her amours, and then only if they serviced her according to her wants and not theirs.

But it had been a learning curve and Tammy was always open to new experiences. It was, she thought, part of her charm.

If only she could get her husband out of her head for longer than five minutes at a time, she would be all right.

She walked inside a small boutique, her eye having been caught by a black Fendi radio bag. As she examined it and caressed the luxury of the leather she decided to treat herself. At only six hundred quid, she reasoned, it was in fact a snip.

She handed it to the pretty assistant and smiled.

‘I’ll take it, sweetheart.’

The assistant, a tall blonde in her twenties, smiled back happily as she began the elaborate packaging of the handbag. It was like a work of art when she had finished and Tammy happily passed her one of her gold cards. She sat on the suede chair awaiting her credit card slip, planning the outfit she would wear to show the bag off to its best advantage and who to invite to the bag’s debut outing. She always treated her purchases as if they were life-changing events - which for Tammy they often were.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Leary, but the card has been declined.’

Tammy stared at the girl for long moments, before she said quietly, ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The card. It’s been declined.’

The girl was more embarrassed than she was and for some reason this made it all the worse for Tammy. She had shopped here regularly for years but this would be her last visit, she was convinced of that already.

‘There must be some mistake, love, try it again.’

‘I did, Mrs Leary, and it was declined a second time. Maybe another card?’

The girl was still smiling but it was forced.

Five credit cards later Tammy was walking from the shop empty-handed. Her face was still burning from the humiliation as she climbed behind the wheel of her Mercedes sports.

She would kill Nick. If it was the last thing she ever did she would kill that bastard stone dead.

 
Sally was sitting with the boys watching a video when Tyrell arrived home. She did not acknowledge his presence and neither did the boys other than by quick smiles in his direction when he came into the lounge. They had always picked up on atmospheres and Sally, love her, could cause atmospheres that would not look out of place on the moon.

This was a lovely room, and after his night at Jude’s Tyrell appreciated it more than ever before. It was painted pale green with white woodwork and a cherrywood floor. To his mind it was beautiful. Sally had a way with rooms. She made them all light and airy, but today it was the smell he liked most - the smell of cleanliness and pot pourri, something that had annoyed him in the past, reminding him a bit too much of his mother’s house. Today, though, this room was everything he wanted from a home. It was funny but Sonny Boy had loved this house too. Had always boasted to his friends about his dad’s home. It was the only place the boy had ever really relaxed in.