'Where are the boys?'
Annie was rinsing her smalls now and her hands were numb, the water was so cold. She shrugged once more.
'They went out this morning just after you, and I ain't seen them since.'
Then she turned to her daughter and shouted at her, 'Put some orange juice with that, will you; at least pretend you ain't got a drink problem.'
Lil laughed once more.
'If this was the only problem I had, Mother, how fucking easy life would be.'
The years had not been kind to Lenny Brewster and he knew that. He looked like he felt; over the hill and short of breath. As he wheezed with laughter at his own joke, the young girl with him wished he would just crash and burn so she could go home and have a cuppa and a ham sandwich like normal people. Lenny wasn't going to let that happen though and she knew it. He wanted his money's worth and she was going to have to make sure he felt he had been more than amply compensated for his initial outlay. He was a fucking mean bastard, and not only with money, he was mean in every other way as well. He wouldn't give a bogie to a dying man, he'd sell it to him.
Still, she had managed to get a car out of him; lease-hire mind, so once he outed her it would have to go back, but it was a start anyway.
The men in the pub with him were all ready for the usual day's drinking. Lenny was a cunt but he was willing to bankroll his cronies and make a day of it.
'Jackie Mills was in earlier and he reckons he has sold all his debts on.'
Lenny opened his arms in a gesture of disinterest. 'So what. Jackie Mills couldn't fucking pull in a family allowance book without my help. It's about time he realised he wasn't up to the job any more.'
He motioned to the barman for more drinks. 'Who's he sold them to? Fucking Jimmy Brick?'
Lenny looked at his old mate, Trevor Highgate, and saw he was nervous about answering. That meant he had to deliver some bad news. It had to be bad news, otherwise they would all be putting in their ten-pence worth. Lenny stared around him at his little posse of mates and, burping loudly, he held a hand to his heavy stomach while exhaling noisily. 'My guts are fucking killing me.'
He took a few deep breaths then and, grimacing in pain, he snapped, 'Well, come on then. Spit it out for fuck sakes. Who's the lucky man who is going to be the hero of the hour collecting fucking pension books and giros?'
Lenny was annoyed. Like Jackie Mills and his fucking debts were of any interest to him.
'It seems young Pat Brodie and his brother, Lance, have bought him out, like. I expect they want to raise their game, eh?' Trevor relaxed then. He had delivered the news and Lenny had not lost that phenomenal temper of his.
'The Brodie boys? You mean he has sold out to a pair of fucking kids? Better keep an eye on your pocket money; next thing you know they'll be round your house half-inching your racing bikes.'
He was laughing then and that was all the more worrying because the men around him knew he was making a mistake if he thought the Brodie brothers were beneath his radar and of no consequence. They were big lads now and they were their father's sons.
And the fact Lenny had given their mother two more children to worry about should have told him they were not kids any more.
'Good fucking luck to them, they deserve a bit of good luck. Young Patrick is home from clink then, I take it?'
Everyone nodded, pleased he had taken the news so well. But they were all wondering why he didn't know the boy had been released. If anyone should have known, it was him, considering the circumstances.
'Bad business that. The boy was fucking well within his rights but you know what the courts are like…'
Lenny shrugged. 'I couldn't help him, he had already fucked up by hammering an Old Bill. Once that happens…'
They all grinned at the memory; it had been a nine-day wonder at the time and Pat had made a rep for himself overnight. He had taken out a filth with three punches and it had taken a paddy wagon full of them to take him in. He was a handful all right and so was that Lance, but young Patrick was the one they watched out for. He had the same presence and the same demeanour as his father before him.
'Bad business all round. I wish I could have helped him more…'
But the fact of the matter was Lenny could have helped him but he had not even tried. He was half-brother to the children Lenny had with Lil and that was what had caused the initial spate of whispering. Lenny had lost a lot of his kudos over the boy's sentence; he had not even had a decent brief on his side. People thought he should have made himself busy and stopped the whole thing before it had even gone to trial. He could do that but he had chosen not to. People were not impressed and Lenny knew that as well as they did. He had taken a few hard knocks over it.
He'd lost a lot of his street credibility into the bargain. This was a man who could orchestrate a deal for fucking murderers and drug dealers, who bought prison sentences for hard cash, brokered with judges and barristers and weighed out the police and the Flying Squad. Sixty grand guaranteed a five-year sentence instead of a fifteen and these deals were only done through him. And yet he had tried to bullshit everyone that he couldn't help out young Patrick Brodie on a fucking GBH. His liaison with Lil had stopped overnight and that alone had caused suspicion. There was something fishy about it and, as a wise man had said many moons before, even dogs had the sense not to shit in their own beds.
Spider was in his local drinking Guinness and watching the cricket. It was a lovely day and he was relaxing with his eldest son. Spider's real name was Eustace and he had passed this name on to his oldest boy.
He was called Spider because he had been a Spiderman fanatic as a boy; he still had all the Marvel comics he had collected and had even added to them over the years. They were worth a small fortune now, to the right person of course. He would rather be called Spider than Eustace any day of the week. But it was the name of his father and his father's father before him so it had been Eustace for his firstborn as well.
His son was a big lad with a handsome profile and the smooth, burnished skin of a real Jamaican. He'd had the look of a fighter from birth; Pat Brodie had remarked that he looked like he would be capable of a row. As his maternal grandfather had been a boxer called Micky McMurray, known to all as Mac, Spider had given the nickname to his son. It had stuck and over the years it had been bastardised to Mackie as well as Mac, and it was now the name he answered to.
The lad was a good kid; he was big enough to make people think twice about fighting with him and he was intelligent enough to think twice before starting a fight himself. Spider was proud of him, as he was proud of all his children.
The door of the pub banged open and Spider saw two young men looking around. They both had dark hair and deep-blue eyes and, jumping up from his seat, he shouted across the crowded bar. 'Hey, Brodies, over here.'
Pat Junior rushed to him and they embraced for long moments. As Spider felt the strength of the boy and his happiness at his welcome, he forced down the urge to weep. These children had played on his mind over the years. Everything that their father had been, and everything he had worked for, had been taken from them in a single night. Pat Junior was like his father's clone; it was like looking at his old friend once more. He even had the same mannerisms.