Web Site Story

'Eight hundred.'

'Done,' said Derek, offering his hand for a shake.

Leo gave it a smack. 'What all dis for anyhow?' he asked, taking up his Lion of Judah Zippo and offering fire to his splifF. 'Yo setting up a museum, or someting?'

'Yes,' said Derek, nodding his head. 'That's exactly it. A sort of folk museum, here in Brentford.'

Leo nodded his dreads in time to Derek's noddings and drew deeply on his ganga rollie. 'Damn biggun,' said he. 'Need five miles of perimeter fence. Where yo think I get dat?'

Derek shrugged. 'I'm not asking any questions,' he said, giving his nose a significant tap. 'Where you get it is of no concern to me. I'll pay cash.'

'I see,' said Leo, blowing smoke of de 'erb all over Derek. 'What de significance of that nose tap, by de way?'

Derek rolled his eyes. Leo offered him a puff. 'No, thanks,' said Derek. 'But do you think you can get all the things on this list?'

'Babylon,' said Leo, leaning close and grinning golden teeth. 'If it can be got, I can got it. Got me? But I'll want sometin' down on account.'

'On account of what?' said Derek.

'On account of I don't trust yo and I get damn all without the money up front.'

‘I’ll give you one thousand to be getting on with,' said Derek.

'Two thousand,' said Leo.

'Fifteen hundred.'

'Seventeen fifty.'

'All right,' said Derek. 'But I want all this stuff fast. Like by the weekend.'

'Haile Selassie!' went Leo. 'By the weekend? Includin' dis? One feral tomcat?'

'Two thousand up front then,' said Derek, pulling paper money slowly and carefully from his inside pocket. 'But I want it all by the weekend.'

Leo watched the money keep on coming. Certain thoughts entered into his old grey head, but he kept these thoughts very much to himself.

'We gotta deal,' said Leo, pocketing the loot and smacking Derek's hand once more. 'All cash and no questions asked.'

'No questions asked at all,' said Derek.

'No questions you wish to ask me?' asked Mr Pokey as he watched Kelly tucking into her surf and turf.

It was a rather de luxe surf and turf, consisting as it did of a fourteen-ounce T-bone steak, twelve Biscay Bay long-tailed langoustines, double tomatoes, grilled mushrooms, baked beans, curly fries, garlic bread, and a side order of cheesy nachos.

'No,' said Kelly, filling her face.

Mr Pokey leaned close to Kelly. 'You don't really need to ask anything, do you?' he said. 'You know everything.'

Kelly dipped a curly fry into a ramekin of crad pate dip and popped it into her mouth.

'You are a very attractive woman,' said Mr Pokey.

Kelly turned her eyes in his direction.

'Yet your file shows that you have had no long-term relationships. You have no present partner, you have…'

Mr Pokey paused. Kelly was staring at him. Very hard.

'Oh I see,' said Mr Pokey. 'Of course. I only have limited access to your file.'

'Let me make this clear,' said Kelly. 'Ours is to be a strictly professional relationship. You will tell me what I need to know, when I need to know it. Do I make myself understood?'

'Of course,' said Mr Pokey, drawing back in his chair.

'Good,' said Kelly, slicing steak and feeding it into her mouth.

'You're a very cool customer,' said Mr Pokey and leaning forward once more, he spoke in a low and confidential tone. 'You know how things are,' he said. '.We live in a state of perpetual fear at Mute Corp, never knowing who will be next. Who will be chosen? Every time I touch the keypad, or move the mouse, I know that it could be me next. We all know that. You know that. It can take you whenever it wants to. Anything that you touch could have a Mute-chip in it. Anything. Terrifying thought isn't it? But that's how we live when we know, isn't it? We know that once it has entered into us, we belong to it, and it can infect anyone we touch. Our loved ones. Our children. As it chooses. As it wishes. And that's why we worship it, isn't it? To beg it to spare us. And the fear never stops. Fear is part of the package. It keeps us on the straight and narrow path, doesn't it?'

Kelly wiped her garlic bread about her plate and then she munched upon it. 'I have to make a call,' she said. 'And then I have to go. Thank you for the lunch.'

'You wouldn't fancy a pudding?'

'I do fancy the pudding. But I have too much to do. I will see you tomorrow.'

'Oh,' said Mr Pokey. 'Goodbye then.'

'Goodbye.' Kelly smiled, rose from the table and vanished into the lunchtime cityfolk crowd.

'Cool, very cool indeed,' said Mr Pokey.

In a cubicle in the women's toilet, Kelly felt anything but cool. She leaned over the toilet bowl and was violently sick.

Derek might have been rather sick too, if he'd known just what lay in store for him over the next few days. But content in the inaccurate knowledge that he had just pulled off the beginnings of a major financial coup and was already ahead by at least five thousand pounds, and it was still only lunchtime on his very first day at this game, he smiled a very broad smile and ordered himself a double rum to follow the single he'd just downed to seal the deal with Leo.

Derek now sat all alone in the Shrunken Head. Lunchtime business here was definitely falling off. Perhaps the God-fearing Brentonians had all given up drinking now and were kneeling in their homes, hands clasped in prayer, awaiting their turns to be Raptured.

'Whatever,' said Derek. 'Well I've done my bit for the Company, today. I think I'll take the afternoon off.'

And with that said he left the bar and wandered out into the sunshine.

It was another blissful afternoon. There was no getting away from that. Odd things were occurring and big trouble might lie in store when the locals got wind of Mute Corp's plans for the borough. But the old currant bun really was shining down like a good'n and on such an afternoon as this and in such a place as this, to wit, Brentford, jewel of the suburbs, who truly could worry about what lay ahead?

You couldn't, could you? It was all too beautiful.

Derek took great draughts of healthy Brentford air up his hooter, thrust out his chest, rubbed his palms together, patted his dosh-filled pocket and grinned a foolish grin. Blissful. That's what it was.

The streets slept in the sunlight. There was no-one about. Siesta time. Shop awnings down, that cat slept as usual upon the window sill of the Flying Swan. Shimmering heat haze rising from the tarmac in the distance along the Baling Road. The smell of baking bread issuing from an open kitchen window.

Blissful.

Derek took a big step forward into the blissfulness.

And then he stopped himself short.

He was going to play his part in screwing up all this. In doing something dreadful to this blissful borough. He was going to sell it out. Sell it out to line his own pockets. That wasn't nice was it? That really wasn't