Tony thought they had had no phone in his father's day, but he let that pass. He said: 'Yeah. He was so careful, he died a pauper.'
'But an honest one.'
'Was he?'
'You know bloody well he was, and never let me hear you say no different.'
'I don't like you to swear, Mum.'
'You shouldn't provoke me.'
Tony ate silently and finished quickly. He emptied his teacup and began to unwrap a cigar.
His mother picked up his cup. 'More tea?'
He looked at his watch. 'No, thanks. I've got a couple of things to do.' He set fire to the cigar and stood up. 'That's set me up lovely, that breakfast.'
She narrowed her eyes. 'Are you having a tickle?'
This annoyed him. He blew smoke into the air. 'Who needs to know?'
'It's your life. Go on, then. I'll see you later. Mind you look after yourself.'
He looked at her a moment longer. Although she gave in to him, she was a strong woman. She had led the family since the old man went: mending marriages, borrowing from one son to lend to another, giving advice, using her disapproval as a powerful sanction. She had resisted all efforts to move her from Quill Street to a nice little bungalow in Bournemouth, suspecting-rightly-that the old house and its memories were a potent symbol of her authority. Once, there had been queenly arrogance in her high-bridged nose and pointed chin; now, she was regal but resigned, like an abdicated monarch, knowing she was wise to release the reins of power, but regretting it all the same. Tony realized that this was why she needed him: he was king now, and having him to live with her kept her close to the throne. He loved her for needing him. No one else needed him.
She stood up. 'Well, are you going?'
'Yes.' He realized he had been lost in thought. He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed briefly. He never kissed her. 'Ta-ta, Mum.' He picked up his coat, patted the dog, and went out.
The interior of the Rolls was hot. He pressed the button that lowered the window before settling himself in the leather seat and pulling away.
He took pleasure in the car as he threaded it through the narrow East End streets. Its shameless luxury, in contrast with the mean streets and undignified old houses, told the story of Tony Cox's life. People looked at the car-housewives, paperboys, workingmen, villains-and said to each other: 'There's Tony Cox. He did well.'
He flicked cigar ash through the open window. He had done well. He had bought his first car for six pounds when he was sixteen years old. The blank Ministry of Transport certificate had cost him thirty shillings on the black market. He filled in the blanks and resold the car for eighty pounds.
Before long he had a used car lot, which he gradually turned into a legitimate business. Then he sold it, with the stock, for five thousand pounds, and went into the long-firm racket.
He used the five thousand to open a bank account, giving as a reference the name of the man who had bought the car lot. He told the bank manager his real name, but gave a false address-the same false address he had given the purchaser of the car business.
He took a lease on a warehouse, paying three months' rent in advance. He bought small quantities of radio, television, and hi-fi equipment from manufacturers and resold it to shops in London. He paid suppliers on the dot, and his bank account was busy. Within a couple of months he was making a small loss, and had a reputation for credit-worthiness.
At that point he made a series of very large orders. Small manufacturers to whom he had promptly paid a couple of bills of five hundred pounds each were glad to supply him with three or four thousand pounds' worth of goods on the same credit terms: he looked like he was becoming a good customer.
With a warehouse full of expensive electronic gadgetry for which he had paid nothing, he held a sale. Record players, color television sets, digital clocks, tape decks, amplifiers, and radios went for knockdown prices, sometimes as little as half their retail value. In two days the warehouse was empty and Tony Cox had three thousand pounds in cash in two suitcases. He locked the warehouse and went home.
He shivered in the front seat of the warm car as he remembered. He would never take risks like those again. Suppose one of the suppliers had got wind of the sale? Suppose the bank manager had seen Tony in a pub a few days later?
He still did the occasional long firm, but these days he used front men, who took long holidays in Spain as soon as the ax fell. And nobody saw Tony's face.
However, his business interests had diversified. He owned property in Central London, which he let to young ladies at extremely high rents; he ran nightclubs; he even managed a couple of pop groups. Some of his projects were legitimate, some criminal; some were a mixture, and others were on the nebulous borderline between the two, where the law is unsure of itself but respectable businessmen with reputations to worry about fear to tread.
The Old Bill knew about him, of course. There were so many grasses about nowadays that nobody could become a respected villain without his name going into a file at Scotland Yard. But getting evidence was the problem, especially with a few detectives around who were prepared to warn Tony in advance of a raid. The money he spent in that direction was never skimped. Every August there were three or four police families in Benidorm on Tony's money.
Not that he trusted them. They were useful, but they were all telling themselves that one day they would repay their debt of loyalty by turning him in. A bent copper was still, ultimately, a copper. So all transactions were cash; no books were kept, except in Tony's head; all jobs were done by his cronies on verbal instructions.
Increasingly, he played even safer by simply acting as a banker. A draftsman would get some inside information and dream up a plan; then he would recruit a villain to organize the equipment and manpower. The two of them would then come to Tony and tell him the plan. If he liked it, he would lend them the money for bribes, guns, motorcars, explosives, and anything else they needed. When they had done the job they would repay the loan five or six times over out of the proceeds.
Today's job was not so simple. He was draftsman as well as banker for this one. It meant he had to be extra careful.
He stopped the car in a backstreet and got out. Here the houses were larger-they had been built for foremen and craftsmen rather than dockers and laborers-but they were no more sound than the hovels of Quill Street. The concrete facings were cracking, the wooden window frames were rotten, and the front gardens were smaller than the trunk of Tony's car. Only about half of them were lived in: the rest were warehouses, offices, or shops.
The door Tony knocked on bore the sign BILLIARDS AND SNOOKER with most of the AND missing. It was opened immediately and he stepped inside.
He shook hands with Walter Burden, then followed him upstairs. A road accident had left Walter with a limp and a stammer, depriving him of his job as a docker. Tony had given him the managership of the billiards hall, knowing that the gesture-which cost Tony nothing-would be rewarded by increased respect among East Enders and undying loyalty on Walter's part.
Walter said: 'Want a cup of tea, Tony?'
'No, thanks, Walter. I just had my breakfast.' He looked around the first-floor hall with a proprietorial air. The tables were covered, the linoleum floor swept, the cues racked neatly. 'You keep the place nice.'
'Only doing my job, Tone. You looked after me, see.'
'Yeah.' Cox went to the window and looked down on the street. A blue Morris 1100 was parked a few yards away on the opposite side of the road. There were two people in it. Tony felt curiously satisfied: he had been right to take precaution. 'Where's the phone, Walter?'
'In the office.' Walter opened a door, ushered Tony in, and closed it, staying outside.
The office was tidy and clean. Tony sat at the desk and dialed a number.
A voice said: 'Yeah?'
'Pick me up,' Tony said.
'Five minutes.'
Tony hung up. His cigar had gone out. When things made him nervous, he let his smoke go out. He relit it with a gold Dunhill, then went out.
He showed himself at the window again. 'All right, mate, I'm off,' he said to Walter. 'If one of the young
