Serious People (9 page)

John was both surprised and disappointed at the ease with which he and his brothers had got to be standing in Robert Payne’s hallway.

They’d given it a good few minutes after Mickey and his giant accomplice had driven away. Billy had said they should scale one of the walls, which John had argued was a ridiculous idea as Payne was bound to have vicious dogs patrolling the grounds. But after they got over the wall, there had been nothing—no security at all. Just a short walk through Payne's well-kept garden to reach the house. An open window on the ground floor had meant there was no need for any further clever plans to get them inside.

It was ridiculous; it was if they were walking into a trap. John’s mind started to whirl. What if Payne knew, if he’d worked it out what they were up to? Maybe Zebbie had gone to him already? Yet before he knew it, he was looking around, taking in the impressive interior of the mansion. The house had expensive marble flooring that seemed to cover the whole of the ground floor, and John couldn’t help but think he must be getting old when his mind went straight to imagining the sheer cost of an installation like that.

One of the tasks that Emma had set him on moving into her house was to rip up all the carpets and put down wooden flooring. To meet this challenge, he and his Uncle Roy had started visiting do-it-yourself stores to price the materials up. He had been shocked at the expense involved. There was no doubt that this guy had serious money.

“What’s your problem?” Billy said, smacking John’s shoulder with the baseball bat he was now armed with.

“This flooring, how much does this stuff cost?” John said, still unconsciously shaking his head.

“I’ll tell you what; I’ll buy you some for your place after we set ourselves up in this business,” Billy smiled. But the smile was in sharp contrast to his eyes, which were darkening.

“Yeah, Emma would love this stuff,” John heard himself say.

“Well, let’s get this fucking done then brother,” Billy said, now holding his baseball bat in two hands. “This is the day the world starts to turn around for the Blakes.”

Nick pulled out his knife and grinned; his eyes looking more soulless than ever. Then the next few moments seemed to move into fast-forward for John. Before he knew what was going on, Billy had kicked open the large double doors into what must be the lounge area. Nick screamed at the top of his voice as he charged through the doors. This was shortly followed by the sound of a loud thud of a body hitting the floor. John’s heart skipped a beat; had his brothers just brought down the body of the famous Robert Payne? The man whom he had been brought up hearing amazing stories about from his Aunt Mary.

Aunt Mary seemed to use most evening meals as an excuse to tell a tale she had heard in the bar about Charlie O’Neil and Robert Payne. John thought there was something inherently Irish about the way in which the old woman felt such a strong a connection to Charlie O’Neil. She shared tales of all his glories as if they reflected some kind of joint achievement for all her countrymen that were on that same boat to England that she and the boys’ Ma had been, along with a few hundred other Irish people travelling away from the homeland.

All the brothers had been taught the ins and outs of how Payne and O’Neil had run their business and how they had cloaked it with a trade in logistic and haulage. Mary always took great pride whenever she saw one of their large trucks go past them on the street, with the
O’Neil & Payne
insignia painted on its side.

John, on the other hand, was never completely convinced of this link. He remembered his Uncle Roy, after weeks of being pestered by Aunt Mary, had applied for a job at O’Neil and Payne’s haulage company. But had not been given it. Of course, Mary had thought this was only another example of Roy’s failings—that he was not a real man, but a complete failure. She knew Charlie O’Neil would have been desperate to give him a job.

John remembered that evening well. He had been fifteen years old at the time and was close to his Uncle Roy; in hindsight it was probably just that they both shared having some humanity in their souls. He could still hear in his mind the scolding his Aunt Mary had been giving his uncle for not getting the job. John wondered if that was when he started hating his Aunt.

John walked into the lounge to see Nick strapping the great Robert Payne, who was dressed in just a dressing gown, to what looked like a dining room chair.

“What the hell are you doing in my house? How the hell do you think you’re going to get away with this?” Robert screamed at the brothers.

“Get away with this?” Billy looked perplexed for a moment.

“Breaking into my home and tying me to a bloody chair!” Robert screamed back.

“Hold on, calm down Robert,” Billy said sitting down on the expensive white sofa. “We’re here to negotiate with you.”

“Really? Why tie me up then? Why the weapons?” Robert said, seeming to calm a little.

Billy glanced at his bat, as if he had forgotten he still had it. “Well let’s call it a bit of collateral for our discussion. I’m none too sure that you would entertain a productive conversation with us if we hadn’t come with some equipment?”

“Really! Well I might agree with you on that while you’re holding a knife to my throat. But what makes you think that, after you’ve untied me and put that knife away, I’ll stick by any agreement I now make with you?” Robert said, negotiating.

“Well let’s just say, that’s my challenge.”

Payne seemed to nod as if in acceptance of a reasonable answer. John sat down on the sofa next to Billy; to say that he felt surprised by how well this was going would be an understatement. Billy seemed to be handling this with far more control then John had though he was capable of. But he still thought this was a terrible idea though; his palms were soaked with sweat.

John tried to think of the best-case scenario that could develop from this point. As much as he racked his brain, he couldn’t think of any that involved Robert Payne still being alive at the end of this.

“I want you to set up a meeting between us and your Mexican friends,” Billy began, aggressively pointing his baseball bat towards Payne.

“Why would I do that?” Payne laughed.

“I’ll tell you why you’re going to do that. You need a new partner. O’Neil’s finished; you know it and we know it. Everyone on the street knows it,” Billy said, his eyes darkening with his mood.

“You disrespectful prick! You so much as hope, let alone expect me to turn on Charlie for you clowns!” Robert said, still smiling despite his situation.

John quickly turned to Billy, concerned that his temper would start to break. But to his surprise he saw a smile on his brother’s face, as if he had planned for this answer.

“Robert, there’s no need for this to blow up,” he said, continuing to display his new found remarkable calmness, his eyes growing lighter.

In a strange way, this scared John more. He hoped Billy wasn’t about to match wits with Payne. In a sense, for the first time he wished his brother’s temper would take over, that he’d kill Payne, then perhaps take everything in the house of any worth and then get the hell out of there.

“We just need you to arrange the meet with your man in Juarezie, nice and simple…” Billy started.

Payne roared with laughter; Billy’s eyes darkened.

“I wonder how you know about that?” Robert looked square on at John.

He was a dead man. If Robert Payne was still breathing after the Blakes had left, John knew he was a dead man; Payne knew exactly where Billy had got this information.

“I though you were clever kid,” Robert said, still focusing on John. “I thought you had something inside you better than these other scroats.”

“Yeah, well you fucked up there,” Billy snapped, the anger was clear. “I’m the brains in this family; if there was someone to develop you chose the wrong fucking brother. Now the only way you fucking walk out of here is tell me everything about Juarezie.”

“What? You think, if I give you their cell number, that’s it—they’ll deal with you? That’s not how business works; business is about brands. You got to have a brand to be taken seriously and that takes years, kid. You’re fucking mental!”

“Yeah, well I suggest you give me all the details you got for Juarezie…”

Billy was cut short by Payne’s laughter. This guy had serious balls. Here he was, surrounded by three guys tooled up, in a situation where it was far easier for us to kill him to get a safe route out than keep him alive, and here he was laughing.

It was real laughter, not a fake laugh someone might cackle as a bit of a fuck you to someone; no he actually found this funny.

“It’s Juarez, you fucking head case,” Payne said with a smile. “And you, I was wrong about you,” he added, addressing John. “You’re clearly as short sighted and dim witted as your brothers.”

John looked down; he couldn’t hold Payne’s stare. This guy wouldn’t stop at just killing him; he’d kill Emma too. John’s heart started to pound.

“What did you just say?” Billy snapped.

Payne looked at Billy. It was like he was looking into his brother's soul to decide what he was capable of. It was remarkable—Payne seemed to think he was the one in control. If he had any idea who he was dealing with he’d be begging by now.

“I said; it’s Juarez, you fucking Philistine.”

Billy dropped his bat, leapt from the sofa and unleashed a barrage of punches to Payne’s face; John could feel the situation moving quickly. He could see vividly in his mind the consequence of his brother's actions seeping into his world. Before he thought the only way out was by killing Payne. Now, as he watched this scenario develop, he wasn’t so sure. He jumped up and quickly pulled Billy away from Payne.

“Billy, Billy, we’re here to negotiate with him,” John said, looking back at Payne, at a face now immersed in blood.

Billy pushed John away and wiped his face to clear his mind. His eyes were black. John knew this look very well.

“Focus Billy, we can’t screw this up,” John said. “Mr. Payne…” John started, but was interrupted by laughter coming from his youngest brother Nick.

Nick had just been watching the situation develop—so far—but was now audaciously thrusting his knife into thin air and approaching Payne, manically trying to intimidate him.

“Nick, stop,” Billy said turning to his younger brother, who halted instantly on his command. “Mr. Payne, I lost my cool, but I bet you can understand how that can happen, you know when you’re passionate about something. I’m just here to negotiate. I’m sure you lose your cool from time to time.”

Payne didn’t say anything and just stared back.

John could feel the situation continue to spiral. “Mr. Payne, set up the meeting, and we’re gone. No one needs to get hurt.” 

Payne smiled and looked at the three brothers in turn. “Ok, ok, so let’s negotiate, I’m a business man. Untie me. I’ll get Mickey to come down and then we’ll have a proper chat about your ambitions and what we can do to help.”

“We’re taking over Payne!” Billy shrieked, no sign of control or measure left. “O’Neil’s finished; he’s done, fucked! I’m trying to give you a chance here, to come with us, and build something new…”

“Interesting, I like to vet people I work with. So why don’t you fuck off,” Payne glared back.

The situation was broken down beyond repair. John could feel it. It almost didn’t matter that, on hearing Payne’s last retort, Nick dived on top of him, knocking the seat to the ground and sinking a knife into his thigh.  John felt like he was going into shock, as if it was all some bad dream. A ball had started to roll down hill and it couldn’t be stopped. The most terrifying thing to him was that killing Robert might now have become the only way he could get out of this situation and back to Emma safely. And the only way to keep her safe.

But John quickly snapped out of these thoughts; some kind of instinctive humanity flooded his mind, causing him to push his dangerous younger brother off Payne. His brother glared at him, but John ignored it and put Robert’s seat on all four legs again. Blood started to rush out of the fresh wound on Payne’s leg; but he displayed no pain. He just gave a steely look toward Nick, that carried an unsaid message of future retribution.

“Mr. Payne, that wound will kill you if it goes untreated. You'll bleed to death,” John said, crouching in front of the injured gangster. “You’re a clever man; you know you’ll do well to live through this. Listen to me; all we want is for you to arrange the meet. If you do that, we’ll let you go, providing you disappear, never to come back,” he added, turning to Billy and giving him a look to ensure his temporary silence. “This is your only way to get out of here. Do you agree?”

Payne looked at John and started to laugh again. John could not hide the defeat on his face and all but fell to the floor when Billy pushed him to one side, so he could continue his interviewing style.

“Get out of the way John.”

“Nick, do him again,” Billy said.

Nick did not need to be asked twice. He thrust his knife into Payne’s thigh again. This time Payne screamed in agony.

“We’re taking over, you stupid prick!” Billy shouted, almost thrusting his head into Payne’s face.

Payne grimaced for a moment in pain but then began to laugh again. Billy stepped back; even Nick looked unsure how to react to this. The man had a near fatal stab wound to his thigh and he was laughing. It was only now that John started to believe some of the stories his Aunt had told about this man, but they were now right in the middle one.