Serious People (19 page)

“Quarter of a mill, and that’s without my interest,” O’Neil replied.

“Really?” Mickey said, unable to hide his glee.

“Yeah, he’s got a real problem with the horses and—you know something—he wasn’t even afraid when he found out I owned the debt. He actually wanted to take me for dinner and take photos,” O’Neil said.

“Yeah, I’ve seen those in his office, in pride of place on the wall. We should be charging him protection money the way that he makes use of those photos,” Mickey replied.

“He’s a complete fag you know?” O’Neil said.

“It figures. These people normally are,” Mickey nodded.

O’Neil smiled in agreement, then sat up and looked Mickey square in the eyes. Here it comes, Mickey thought, the reason Charlie’s here.

“Have you seen Robert today?” O’Neil asked, his face full of worry.

Mickey saw that O’Neil was concerned; why else would he have come over in the middle of the night to talk with him in person instead of phoning to ask about Robert?

“Not since yesterday morning,” Mickey said, not wanting to commit to more of an answer until he heard why Charlie was concerned.

“I haven’t heard from him since Sunday. I think something might be up,” O’Neil said, his face full of concern.

Mickey was unsure what to say. This was news to him. He wasn’t sure if Charlie was testing him out? Was there something going on? If there was, Mickey had no idea what it was. He knew from his own experience as the interrogator that, if you had nothing to hide, it was best to always say everything, to ensure there was no misunderstanding.

“He did say he was going to Vegas at the weekend, to watch a fight. Maybe he decided to take an earlier flight?” Mickey said, offering all he knew, and hoping it was the missing link that Charlie needed.

“What, before Jackie’s party?” O’Neil asked.

“He can be quite spontaneous sometimes; perhaps he hasn’t been able to call you yet or is with one of his girls?” Mickey said.

O’Neil stood up and looked at his watch. “You could be right Mickey but tell me if you hear from him.”

“Sure, I will. Do you need me to make some calls?” Mickey said.

“No, I better go, it’s getting late,” O’Neil said, looking at an expensive Rolex watch. “Why the blue hair?”

Mickey self-consciously ran his hand through his hair. “I used some of Dawn’s hair dye shampoo stuff by mistake in the shower,” he lied.

“That’s strong fucking stuff.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve had to go and buy a new hat, thanks to that stupid bitch’s shampoo,” Mickey said, annoyed.

O’Neil walked towards the door but stopped suddenly. “Oh, I almost forgot,” he said, putting his hand in the pocket and taking out a large wad of twenty-pound notes. “This is for you and Dawn.”

Mickey took the money. Although he had never become comfortable taking large amounts of cash as a bonus for unspoken deeds, it was by now a significant part of how he got paid. His job wasn’t the type which involved a steady bank giro and he regularly went a few weeks before seeing any cash. Then out of the blue, like today, he gets handed a wad of money. He wasn't comfortable with it though. He was never completely sure if he should say thank you to Charlie or just deliver a satisfied nod.

Mickey looked at the money. He was by no means an expert at estimating wads of money, but if this was all in twenties—he guessed there was about ten grand there. A lot of cash, and for no obvious reason.

“Thanks,” Mickey said, thinking it too large an amount of money not to be grateful for.

“Don’t be stupid Mick, you’ve earned it,” O’Neil said, starting to walk out of Mickey’s lounge. “And you badly need to replace that hair dye of Dawn’s you used.”

Mickey waited until he heard the front door close before counting the money. He counted fifteen thousand pounds of twenty-pound notes; this was the most money he had seen in his hands for a long time.

Mickey should have been happy; he could now surprise Dawn with an expensive holiday or a nice bit of jewellery. She deserved something good. But he couldn’t get O’Neil’s concerned face out of his mind. Had Charlie and Robert had some kind of dispute? Was Charlie trying to suss out which way Mickey was going to jump? Or was Robert on the run, because of some unknown threat? But surely if someone had made a threat against Robert’s life, then Charlie would know about it and not be wondering where he was.

It had been years since there had been any turf war or disputes with rival outfits; Charlie O’Neil’s name was now more than enough to hold the seat of power in London. But Mickey now wondered whether he might be seeing the start of one?

No, Mickey thought. Robert has gone on a bender with one of his girls. And Charlie’s just not himself because of what is going on with Jackie. 

This all made sense; there was nothing out of the ordinary about it when you looked at things like that. Mickey’s mind cooled a little; there was no chance that Charlie and Robert had fallen out; and as for the thought of someone actually taking out Robert, that was just ridiculous.

He looked down at the money and started to think of ways he could surprise Dawn.

Was Mickey part of this? Did he know something? He’d watched his enforcer’s face, every part of it, when he had handed him the cash. He was looking for any reaction—any out of place question.

What the hell was going on? No Robert. Mickey doesn’t know shit… Or does he?

Charlie sat in his roofless Jaguar with a cold wind blowing into his face. It was not the car to be sat in late at night, with the temperature dropping fast. It was times like these that his car did seem like an expensive toy. It reminded him of Robert trying to talk him out of this particular purchase.

Robert had kept banging on about how on earth you could spend half a million quid on a remade old Jag? On top of it all, it make it a hell of a lot easier for someone to take a shot at you—cause it’s got no bloody roof! 

Charlie smiled for a moment at the memory and then wondered where his friend was. He had hoped Mickey would have known something and the realisation that he didn’t worried him more. Charlie had always met his challenges head-on and the only scenario that made him nervous was not being in control, not knowing what was going on. He was always comfortable that the one person who might know more than him was Robert. But that was fine—he trusted Robert more than anyone and he was also the one person that had more fire in his belly than he had himself.

“Robert, why don’t we just retire? How much money have we made? We could get a place somewhere hot and just live like kings ‘til the end of our days,” Charlie had said, half asleep on a sun lounger.

It was a couple years ago; they were having a short-break in Dubai… Charlie, Jackie, Robert and some sort he was with at the time. They were sat on the hotel veranda. Jackie and Robert’s sort had long since disappeared to bed and the place was practically empty apart from the two men.

“Charlie, that ain’t the game we’re in,” Robert had said, seeming to withhold a sigh. “With the game we’re in you’ve got to keep going forward.”

And at this point, Robert had stopped, sat up, and looked square on at his friend, with so much intensity that it entirely woke him up from the half-slumber that he was in.

“There’s only two ways you get out of this thing,” Robert continued. “One is face down, bleeding out from a bullet. Or as an old man on your deathbed, still running the crews and dishing the orders with your last breath,”

“I don’t think like that, Robert. No one can touch us; if they did we’d put them in their graves. We can do what we want,” Charlie replied.

“Yeah? I wonder if that’s what Peszki thought or the Solanskis? There’s always someone hungry, ready to slit your throat, just like we were. You just need the clever ideas and the name—the name’s the hardest thing. And that’s what you do Charlie, don’t forget it. You lose the name, then those clever ideas don’t mean shit—you can’t sustain nothing. We’re serious fucking people, Charlie. But you only stay serious people by being serious people—you see?”

“You need a fucking holiday my friend,” Charlie smiled, closing his eyes again. “You need to chill out sometimes!”

Robert looked like he wanted to argue the point, but instead a smile broke on his face and he laughed.

Charlie O’Neil looked back at Mickey’s house; he looked up at the third bedroom window, which for a short time had been their baby’s room, the baby Mickey had lost in the course of working for him.

Charlie knew people envied the money and success his crew enjoyed. He and Robert had amassed personal fortunes and even Mickey was far better off than his average looking home would make you think. These people didn’t know though, the price they all paid for it; they weren’t the men they had once been anymore—they were all broken in their own ways.

Robert had no real life. His existence was all about controlling everything, limiting the risks, managing the opposition and the police; he spent every moment thinking about their next move. Charlie knew that this was why he never got married, never opened himself to that additional exposure. He’d come close a few times—he talked it through with Charlie, looked at the likely cost of divorce or even just of having someone hanging around that could be used against him by someone just as vicious as they were. No, Robert’s wasn’t a life—not a full one.

As for Mickey, he wore his scars more visually. He couldn’t go anywhere without his bag, the bag that, in his mind, could get him out of any hole. The mere sight of it struck fear into any crew; Mickey had become the criminal’s version of the bogey man—cross him and he’d rip you into two with one of his utensils. Charlie himself wasn’t even sure what Mickey had in there, he’d never even seen the bag opened. The urban legend was that no one lived to tell the tale if they saw inside. He and Robert had spent hours trying to guess what was in there but both had ultimately just subscribed to the same story that whatever it was it came from the Polak’s brother’s garage. They never asked Mickey the question; that’s was respect was, proper tightness.

There had of course been people down the years who had tried to find out what was in Mickey’s bag, the most memorable being some mouthy kid, who was once part of their collection team; he had bragged to the boys that he’d find out once and for all what Mickey was carrying around. He’d somehow caught Mickey off guard one night and grabbed his bag. But before he could even think about unzipping it, Mickey was on top of him, throwing endless right and left hooks. His fists were red raw by the time Charlie had pulled him off the kid. The kid was eating through a straw for six months. No one asked about his bag again.

Mickey was as broken as any of them.

Charlie had always thought of himself as the least tarnished of them all. He had a home life, after all, and a beautiful wife with whom he could be someone else. He could separate Charlie O’Neil ‘The Devil’ from Charlie O’Neil the man. Karma had caught up with him though. He too was broken now—more broken than any of them.

He could trust them all though; they could all trust each other. They were a crew and that was something. The world would have to be pretty far gone for him not to be able to trust Mickey Dunne or Robert Payne.

Mickey pushed his hat down over his face, with his mind set on trying to sleep through Seamus’ awful music. As Seamus was driving, he had thought there’d be a good opportunity to sleep off the early start to their day, with the added benefit of being able to avoid Seamus’ monotonous conversation. But he hadn’t taken into account his young assistant’s love for such bad music.

Amidst his dismay at having to suffer such long journey in a car with Seamus, he was also concerned. All in all, it seemed a bad time to be leaving London, however briefly. He’d never seen Charlie look so concerned as he did last night. If something was going down, he shouldn’t be stuck on some wild goose chase looking for an old rock band—he should be by Charlie’s side.

Mickey had tried Robert’s mobile after Charlie had left last night and after ringing a few times it went to voicemail. This was nothing out of the blue and was consistent with Mickey’s previous thoughts about Robert being shacked up with some bird; but then he tried him again the next morning before he left the house and still no joy. This wasn’t like Robert—two missed calls from Mickey. He couldn’t remember a time Robert hadn’t called him back after he’d missed one call from him, let alone two.

They had been on the road for an hour. Mickey had insisted on leaving early, mainly so he could try to get back to London in time to see what Max Fame had done with his day. But a small part of his mind also wanted him to be free in case Robert called. An early return to London was looking unlikely though as soon as they hit the M1. A three lane virtual car park was all the eye could see. It was only six o’clock in the morning—what the hell were so many cars doing on the road at this time of day!

Seamus lowered the volume of his stereo and Mickey sighed; another attempt at conversation was coming.

“Max Fame is a pretty cool guy,” Seamus started. “I mean how many guys do we know that drive a Ferrari?”

Mickey feigned being asleep and didn’t reply. Monotonous conversation was bad enough, but hero-worshipping of Fame was too much.

Seamus continuing undeterred. “You know, I reckon, if you asked him nicely he might even listen to you sing a bit Mick, and assess if you’ve got what it takes.”

“For fuck sake!” Mickey said, angrily knocking his hat into the air.

“What Mick? What?” Seamus replied.

“What makes you think I want to be a fucking singer?” Mickey said, glaring.

“Well, you’re always going on about it,” Seamus replied defensively.

“I’m always going on about it?” Mickey replied, bemused. “Right—I’m going to say this slowly—in the hope that even a giant moron like you should be able to understand. I do not want to be a pop star.”

“So you’re like a Pavarotti or something?” Seamus asked.

“Jesus Christ,” Mickey said, shaking his head. “I might as well be talking to the fucking air freshener.”

“Sorry Mick. I’m just saying Max Fame is a talented guy,” Seamus said, oblivious to his boss’ annoyance.

“You’ve really been sucked in by that fraud, haven’t you?” Mickey said.

“What do you mean?” Seamus replied.

“Jesus! He is a complete fake! He just sucks in young talent and uses it until there’s nothing left,” Mickey said.

“No—some acts just run their course. That's what Maxie says,” Seamus replied.

“Maxie! Bloody, Maxie!” Mickey shouted back, almost spitting with anger. “Look at this poor bunch of bastards we’re trying to put back together, Wild n’ Weird. He just dumped them on the trash heap when he was done with them!”

“No, they just split up. It happens to loads of bands,” Seamus replied.

“Listen son, you are in a privileged position here with me—to learn your trade,” Mickey said. “People would kill for this kind of opportunity. However, instead, you seem to be more interested in some corrupt music agent.”

“Music Manager,” Seamus corrected.

Mickey could see he was not having the impact on Seamus that he had hoped he would. He had believed that, by reminding the giant imbecile of the purpose of their time together, he would get it. He should understand how his whole little mind should be engaged—solely—on watching Mickey and learning from his talents. 

“You know he’s a fag, don’t you?”

“What?” Seamus said, shocked.

“Yeah, takes it up the arse, like most of the pop people you like so much,” Mickey said, taking pleasure in Seamus’ horror.

“Nah,” Seamus stammered.

“You should think yourself lucky he hasn’t shown you his cock yet; the way you’ve been pandering after him,” Mickey said.

He was, of course, aware he sounded like a schoolboy; but he was still enjoying the visual lowering of Seamus’ opinion of Fame.

“He probably thinks you fancy him, think about that!”

Seamus didn’t reply and concentrated on the road; Mickey was feeling so smug that he reached over to the stereo and turned the music up louder.

“Now, I need to get some sleep,” Mickey said.

Mickey knew he should have felt bad for trying to change Seamus’ opinion of Fame by attacking his sexuality; but he didn’t, it was fair game—anything was fair game.

Mickey had begun to get annoyed at being lumbered with Seamus. The least he expected from the relationship was a bit of hero-worship coming his way; but there’s been none. Seamus had an apprenticeship with the great Mickey Dunne; he was a name, a proper name. Most young fellas would kill for the opportunity! This one, though, had shown a complete lack of appetite for learning anything that Mickey had to show him. Mickey had, at first, put this down to pure stupidity—until they had met Fame. Seamus had suddenly reacted in a different manner to Fame; he was acting as if everything the ageing agent said and did would be taken in like a sponge. Like this was the guy he was here to learn from.

This was not the way somebody was supposed to act when they were gifted with the opportunity to spend time with serious people. He could still remember vividly the day when he was first brought into the outfit by O’Neil and Payne.

At the time, he had been the head bouncer in a nightclub the two gangsters had an interest in and he’d always gone out of his way to make a good impression. He had achieved this largely by saying good evening to them, whenever they came in, asking to take their coats, and offering to get them a drink.

He knew who both men were; they had after all come from the same place. Their estate was once full of Irish families, most of whom had arrived around the time of the Second World War, almost becoming a mini Irish stronghold. It was of course poor, very poor. A mix of badly built terrace houses and blocks of flats. Only fit for us Paddies, Mickey could still hear his old man say.

It was different now, of course. The area still housed immigrant families but they were no longer Irish, more a range of different ethnic groups. Only the Irish Social Club served as proper testament to the glory days of the Irish colony. By Mickey’s early teens, there were a growing number of Asian and West Indian families that made up the neighbourhood. But instead of this diversifying Mickey’s circle of friends, it actually meant he just looked to an ever smaller group of Anglo-Irish kids. They were all held together by the local church and good old Father Declan.

Mickey had been too young to be in O’Neil’s circle, but Charlie was still a permanent fixture in Mickey and his mates’ teenage life. O’Neil was regularly spotted in a flashy car, driving around their local streets. Mickey and his mates all set their sights on emulating him in some way.

Mickey’s chance had come out of the blue, one night back in eighty-eight. Mickey had started his shift on the door, really irritated as he’d been five minutes late and in doing so missed O’Neil and Payne walking through the doors that night. 

It had been the first night in two months where he hadn’t taken the duo’s jackets, when they walked in and got them a beer each. They’d have noticed; the last few weeks were wasted. He was still cursing himself when one of the other fellas on the door gave him a message; O’Neil and Payne were wanting to have a chat with him upstairs. As he was on his way up to them, the thought did go through his mind that they might just want to pass on their concerns about his poor show that night, and he might be about to get his cards. Mickey knocked on the door once and stepped into the office, his heart in his mouth.

“Come in Mickey,” Payne said, offering him a seat.

Mickey nodded, taking a seat in front of the desk that the two gangsters were sat behind; he pushed his quiffed hair backwards confidently, trying to hide his anxiety.

“Do you know what we do Mickey?” Payne asked, as O’Neil sat passively next to him, seeming to be weighing Mickey up.

Mickey was not entirely sure of the best way to answer this. He could have said, well yeah, you knock over post offices and get people to pay you protection money, don’t you? He decided this might not be the brightest answer, and thought a degree of generalisation might be best.

“You fellas run this club. And I’m not really sure what else. But it seems to me—you make a shit load of money.”

O’Neil smiled at Payne, seemingly pleased at the young man’s respectful reaction. Mickey moved nervously in his seat, concerned he might have come across as cocky.

“OK, I have a question for you Mickey Dunne,” O’Neil said. “You’re right. We own this club, but we don’t run it. We don’t really get involved in the detail of things like that and, because of that, I don’t understand how you ended up as the head bouncer?”

“Sorry Mr. O’Neil. Am I not doing a good job?”

Sweat appeared on Mickey’s palms, was he about to get his cards?

“No Mickey, I’m not saying that,” O’Neil replied, in surprisingly soft words.

Mickey looked between O’Neil and Payne; Payne now seemed to be the one quietly studying him.

“If that was the case, we’d be having a very different chat,” O’Neil said, the softness leaving his voice with a sinister glare. “What I mean is, down at that door you’re surrounded by older guys, bigger guys. I mean, you’re not small, but you’re not big like some of the other gorillas we have down there. So I asked around; I thought you must be some kind of martial arts expert or something, but you’re not. So, back to my original question; how do you do it? How do you keep those big bastards down there in check?”

“Sometimes, it’s not just about who can hit the hardest. I find it is more about learning what people react to,” Mickey replied, hoping to impress them.

“Jesus Charlie, I think we’ve got a bloody psychologist on our door!” Payne laughed.

O’Neil didn’t laugh; he stared at Mickey, obviously intrigued by the answer he had given. “What do you mean, give me an example.”

“OK, well; if you’ve got some scroat causing trouble downstairs, you could take him outside and give him a slap. I mean, this will probably keep him in check for the short-term and that can be effective enough. Or, you could tell him that you know where he lives and that, if he doesn’t sort himself out, you’ll go round there with a baseball bat and beat him to a pulp in front of his mum.”

Payne had stopped laughing and looked at O'Neil, who nodded back to him. “You’re from the old neighbourhood, aren’t you Mick?” Payne asked.

“Grainger Road, it’s not like it used to be down there anymore,” Mickey replied.

“What? It’s not a shit hole no more?” Payne retorted smiling.

Mickey looked down at his hands, suddenly strangely embarrassed by his address and unsure now of what to say.

“We’re looking for people to help us with this thing. They need to be trustworthy, know when to keep their mouth shut and when to do some thinking of their own,” O’Neil said.

“It’d be an honour to work for you both,” Mickey replied.

“OK, I’ve heard enough. You work for us now Mickey Dunne,” Charlie O’Neil said, holding out his hand for Mickey to shake.

Mickey looked at it for a moment, not able to fully absorb the information that Charlie O’Neil was offering him a proper job in his firm; he jumped forward and shook his hand firmly.

The next two years that followed brought with them a total of sixteen bank robberies and more money than Mickey had ever seen. Payne insisted on taking the main part of each of the gang’s share and invest it into property. Payne, even back then, was a clever bastard; the man had more connections than you could imagine. In any case, the men who made up the bank robbery gang were all rich by the end of their employment in that role, thanks to Payne. Most of them were giving real thought to going straight and working as property developers for the rest of their days, given the size of each of their housing empires. 

This all changed though with the house market crash; maybe it was bad luck or maybe it was that their untrained minds had been unable to quickly react to the pending doom in relation to their respective fortunes. They were all wiped out.

This led to a new motivation from the gang; they’d tasted money and they wanted it back. It sparked the darkest period of turf warfares and violence the streets of London had seen in years. When it ended, Payne and O‘Neil were the undisputed kings of the underworld and Mickey Dunne one of the most feared gangsters of his time.