'It's the stink that I'm worried about not the ulcer. People will sniff it sooner or later.'
'This place smells as sweet as roses.'
'Yeah, they're growing everywhere, just look at 'em.'
Micky jumped off the crates and sauntered over to his friend. 'You worry too mu- ' A loud hissing noise made him jump. Lenny strode forward and smashed the palm of his hand on the top of the jar. The liquid inside bubbled as Lenny swore loudly.
'Yeah? And you was saying?' Lenny looked murderously into Micky's anxious face.
'Nothing important.' Micky grinned nervously as he edged his way to the door. 'I can see you're busy, so I'll leave you to it. Get out from under your feet.'
'That's right, do your usual disappearing act,' Lenny shouted after him. 'Why should I expect any different?'
'Oh come on,' Micky half laughed. 'I always do me bit.' He was fed up with holding a candle to the devil lately. Lenny's moods were always on the downward spiral and he was getting sick of it. 'Who got out of bed the wrong side today?' he demanded, sending caution to the wind.
'I'd still be in bed if I had any sense.' Lenny stalked him to the door. 'Gina's giving me grief like there was no tomorrow. I'm never there when she wants me and when I am, I'm too flaming tired to perform.'
Micky clicked his two fingers as if this was a joke. 'That's the penalty you pay for bedding a doll like Gina. Someone wants to tell her how lucky she is - on to a good thing with you Lenny, old son. She can't have the proverbial cake and eat it, can she?'
At this Lenny's swarthy face turned white. Micky stepped back as the big man tore off his apron and thrust it into Micky's arms. 'So that's what you think is it, you selfish sod? Well, you try running this shit hole single-handed and see how your bits of skirt like it. See if you don't start crawling up the walls along with the ruddy bugs. I'm taking a holiday.'
Lenny disappeared along the dark and crumbling passage, his big frame knocking the brick dust to the floor as he went.
At a loss for words, Micky stared after him. Then realizing he was alone he yelled at the top of his voice, 'But I don't have a clue how it works!'
Lenny's voice echoed back. 'Then you'd better hurry up and find out, hadn't you? Look in the book and read the instructions, same as I did.'
Micky stood in panic and gazed around him. The place felt as if a bomb was about to go off. The bottles were hissing and groaning and liquid was trickling. Cautiously he moved towards the sticky, bottle laden table that acted as Lenny's desk. It was smothered in piles of forged labels. A book lay open that contained lines of strange hieroglyphics. He turned the grubby, greasy pages as though they were tainted with poison, which going on what had happened to the victims who'd fallen foul of some Lenny's contaminated hooch, it probably was.
The writing became a blur. Micky was seriously worried. His lucrative business was a non-starter if he didn't get Lenny back. There was no one else to cook this lot up. His brother Sean and his fancy man wouldn't have a clue. At a push he supposed he could try nailing the bubbly down himself, but it just wasn't in his nature. Not down here, in this pit, all by himself.
Micky sat down on the broken wooden stool and looked miserably around him at what was virtually a laboratory. An unsafe one at that. Danger bubbled in every corner. He'd seen an exploding tank of meths fire Lenny across twelve feet of ground like a ball from a cannon. But if he wanted the revenue from the bottle parties, he'd just have to make it himself. He comforted himself it wouldn't be for long. As soon as Lenny got his oats he'd come crawling back. Gina would want her wedge and there was only one place Lenny could earn it.
Picking up the book again, Micky opened it at the first page. He had to laugh. Written in Lenny's careful handwriting was a list of weird sounding ingredients amongst them methylated spirit.
Under the heading, "Emergency mix only".
Bella was flushed with excitement as they climbed into Percy's car parked in a side road off Leicester Square. They were all talking about the film they had just seen called Brighton Rock. It was a love story and tragedy combined and Bella had been enthralled by it.
'That Pinkie was horrible,' Dolly was saying to Percy as he started the car's engine and switched on its lights. 'I don't know how Rose, who was after all, the heroine, could have been so daft as to fall for him. I'd have seen through him straight away. He was an out-and-out villain and murderer.'
'Good job I've got a clean slate then,' Percy observed with chuckle. 'I've been a good boy all my life.'
'Yeah, I'll bet,' Ray shouted sarcastically from the back of the car.
'It's true,' Percy said indignantly. 'I've been saving myself for a good, honest girl, I'll have you know.'
'So where is she, then?'
'Ray Taylor!' Dolly turned round to swipe her brother with a glove. 'You've got the cheek of the devil, you have.'
'Well, I think Rose was naïve not daft,' Bella said quietly as she sat between Terry and Ray. Both men wore suits for the occasion though Terry's was the same one he always wore and looked as though it had been squashed in a mangle. Whilst Ray had put on a light grey suit and polka dot tie. 'Most of all she was in love.'
Ray snaked an arm around the back seat behind her. 'Yeah? So what's that supposed to mean? She had eyes
