The Make

again.

‘Who’s this you got him out lookin’ for?’ whined the dark-haired boy.

Deano smoothed a hand over the youngster’s hair. Suddenly he grabbed a handful. The boy let out a yelp of surprise. Deano yanked him off the desk by his hair and threw him to the floor. The bottle went flying, spraying beer and the scent of hops. The boy lay there, clutching his head, the brown liquid seeping in and staining his t-shirt. He stared up with eyes full of tears and fear at Deano, who hadn’t even moved out of his chair.

‘Now don’t you go getting jealous on me, babycakes,’ said Deano. He wagged a finger at the boy. ‘Papa don’t like that. And you don’t ever ask me about my business, you understand?’

The boy nodded, crying and gulping with shock and pain.

‘Now don’t cry, sweetness. Papa loves you,’ crooned Deano. ‘Come up here and sit on Papa’s lap . . .’

Outside in the club, Lefty picked his way between the rubber-encased women and crawling, chain-locked muscle men. He went over to the bar and asked Chippy for a whisky, then spotted Mona, gyrating on her podium in her thong, with her heavily augmented naked tits swinging about like twin pendulums. He grabbed his drink and went on over there.

‘Hi sweetie, is that make-up?’ asked a stoned-looking blonde wearing nothing but a transparent blue gauze, lurching up to him and fingering his head wound.

Lefty pushed her roughly aside. Pervs. He hated fucking pervs. Worst of all, he hated the perv who ran this place. He pushed his way through the aimlessly milling people, the music crashing in on his ears and roaring around his pounding head; it was deafening. He reached Mona’s podium and grabbed her leg.

‘If you can’t afford the goods, don’t handle ’em,’ she shouted. Then she looked down and saw who it was and her movements faltered to a halt. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake . . .’

‘What time you get off tonight, girl?’ Lefty demanded, swigging back the whisky, thinking that he was in hell here, deep in the bowels of hell, and he needed his next fix so bad, and what about his mum, his poor old mum over in Brixton? Had Deano meant that, could Deano target his mum if this didn’t work out?

Lefty thought that Deano probably could. And would. Lefty knew he was well and truly in the shit, and he couldn’t even warn his mum because if he told her what was going on in his life she would go mad, she would swipe him upside the head with her meaty fist and say, You no-good little asshole, you are exactly like your waster of a father, and he didn’t want to hear that from her. He loved his mum; it hurt when she was angry with him. He cringed at the thought, because maybe she was right, maybe he really was just as bad as dear old dad, who’d done a bunk way back when Lefty was ten. His dad had smoked ganja and never worked. Now . . . now Lefty sniffed butane and, although he worked, what he did wasn’t something to be proud of. He knew it. But it was his life; it was all he had. He didn’t want to have to go south of the river and tell his mum he’d brought trouble to her door, no way. Desperation gripped him now. He needed to get a result. And for that, he needed Mona.

‘I get off at twelve,’ hollered Mona.

Lefty rummaged in his pocket and came up with a twenty. He stuffed it roughly into Mona’s G-string. ‘We got work to do,’ said Lefty.

‘Fuck it,’ said Mona. ‘No, Lefty—’

‘You give me any more lip and I’ll fuck you,’ said Lefty. ‘Take you down the dungeon room and give you what-for.’

Mona stiffened and missed her step. She’d seen the dungeon room under the club. She hated going in there – although she had entertained a couple of punters down there in a dark corner, just cash- in-hand quickies, she was always in a rush to get straight out of there, as fast as she could. And Lefty meant it. She looked into his half-crazed eyes and she just knew he did.

‘Okay, okay,’ sighed Mona, and danced on.

Chapter 25

‘Pick a card,’ said George. ‘Any card.’

Alfie smiled and rolled his eyes. He was sprawled out on George’s bed while George sat at the computer, ostensibly taking escort bookings but in fact getting a little bored with that and shuffling a deck of cards instead.

George and his tricks.

But Alfie obediently selected a card.

‘Seven of hearts, right?’ said George.

‘How do you do that?’ It was the seven of hearts.

‘Years of practice, my boy,’ said George, flicking through the cards with eye-watering speed. ‘We’ll go down the caff in a sec, okay? I’ll tidy this little lot away and then we’ll get a fry-up down us. Yes?’

Alfie nodded happily. This was their ritual. Harry went out about his business in the mornings, while George caught up with the escort biz; then George and Alfie went off down the caff. Sometimes Harry joined them there, sometimes not. Alfie loved being here with George and Harry. ‘You going in to work tonight?’ he asked.

George nodded. Yeah, he’d better show willing, he supposed. ‘You be okay here on your own?’

He still didn’t like leaving Alfie in the flat alone. He was sort of afraid that one night he was going to come back and find that Alfie had fled back to wherever he had come from. Cleared out his stash and maybe Harry’s too – even though Alfie had never shown himself to be light-fingered, he would need money, of course he would – and gone. And if that happened, George would be very worried. Alfie needed support, needed his friends around him. At nights . . . oh and it broke George’s heart . . . sometimes at night Alfie had terrible nightmares, and he would wake crying and George would have to hug him, reassure him. If he wasn’t there to do that for Alfie, who would? Poor little bastard.

If Alfie went . . . well, George admitted to himself that he would in fact be more than worried. He would be very sad, too. He was getting used to having cheery, sweet little Alfie around the place, and he would miss him if he was gone.

‘Won’t Harry be here tonight?’ asked Alfie, cutting through his thoughts.

‘Nope. Harry’s got a job on.’

‘Escorting?’

‘You got it.’

‘Not the cougar again?’

‘I’m going to have to watch you,’ said George with a wink and a grin. ‘You’re getting good.’

‘What’s going on with those two?’

George shrugged. Jackie Sullivan had called on Harry’s services four times in the last two weeks. He had jokily asked Harry about it, said what was she, insatiable or something? But Harry was close-mouthed about it. Just said she needed an escort, she was a nice lady, she felt safe with him, was that okay? Did George have a problem with that? George said he had no problem at all, he just hoped that Harry wasn’t falling in love with the daft old mare.

‘Don’t call her that,’ snapped Harry, and blushed.

George took the hint and dropped it. Harry was all grown up, after all. And anyway, George had his own clients to contend with, plus he was trying to keep Lorcan sweet by pitching in to work on the odd occasion: no sense taking the piss too much.

George put the pack of cards in his pocket, answered a couple of emails, and switched off the computer.

‘Okay, boy, let’s get some meat down us,’ he said, and Alfie jumped off the bed like an excited pet poodle when its owner says ‘walkies’.

He loved being with George.

Harry was across town, having breakfast with Jackie Sullivan in her kitchen; croissants and good fresh strong black coffee. Several times a week now he popped in to see Jackie. It wasn’t work, and for God’s sake of course he wasn’t going to charge her for it, that wasn’t even mentioned. He just came to see her because . . . oh fuck it, he just liked to see her.

They were friends.