A SOHO TALE

A SOHO TALE

Georgie was still feeling the affects of the, almost full, bottle of scotch he had polished off earlier. He’d never been much of a drinker. Semi-staggering into the Maccy Ds in Shaftesbury Avenue, he shuffled into a booth next to a window and, wiping the condensation from the inside of the glass, stared dazedly out onto the street, the darkness beginning to close in on the pathetic looking pedestrians as they made their way home after yet another shitty day in a depressing, dead-end job somewhere. As muddled headed as he was, he half chuckled to himself. for, at the very least, he’d been able to make a decent living for himself without having to kiss some wanker’s arse to earn a pittance. Sort of anyway. He'd had people he’d had to answer to, of course, but, in the main, he was his own boss.

“Scuse me. Are you eating?’

Bleary eyed, he looked up into the eyes of a McDonalds’ worker, aged about ten years old.

“Fuck off!”

“It’s just we’re really busy and there’s a shortage of seats and if...”

Just at that moment, Georgie spotted a familiar face passing by his window and, jumping up, he pushed past the unfortunate employee and hustled past the muppets crowding into the store for their daily fix of junk food.

“Billy!” “Oi, Billy!”

He shouted after the man he had seen, who turned, took one look to see who was yelling out his name, then began to run as fast as he could, pushing passers by wildly to one side, his unbuttoned overcoat flapping manically.

“Billy!” “Fuck’s sake”.

Georgie attempted to run after the fleeing man but gave up almost immediately; instead crouching over and vomiting onto the pavement, to the disgust of those around him. Oblivious, he sat, head in hands on the wet kerb as the rush hour traffic crawled slowly by; rain drizzling down. After ten minutes or so, he actually began to feel a bit better; his head a lot clearer. He stood and, very carefully, made his way across the road, disappearing into one of the many side streets that riddled this part of Soho.

Standing in a doorway, out of the rain, was a burly bouncer. Georgie nodded in recognition, though he couldn’t recall the guy’s name. The doorman acknowledged him by name.

“Georgie”.

Passing through, he gingerly made his way down the narrow, rickety staircase and entered the dingy, dim drinking club where a stripper was going listlessly through the motions on a tiny stage in front of no more than a handful of lechers. Making his way to the bar, he ordered:

“Coke”.

“Jesus, Georgie. You don’t look too clever, mate. What ya been up to?”

Georgie looked at the middle-aged, balding man behind the bar, Brian, who did everything here: served alcohol, managed the gaff, skimmed what he could off the takings and, usually unsuccessfully, tried to get into the knickers of whatever unlucky girl had been sent down to strut her stuff.

“Seen Billy?”

“Nah, not since last week”.

“Cunt just blanked me”.

“Thought you two was thick as thieves? Here’s your coke. Want something in that?”

“Fuck it. Put a drop of rum in it, Bri. Got the takings?”

“It’s Monday. You don’t usually collect until Tuesday”.

“Well, I’m doing my rounds today, alright? Just get the dosh”.

Georgie swallowed the rum and coke in one go and, a moment later, Brian returned with a brown paper bag and, emptied out the contents on the counter. Georgie did a rough count.

“Three grand, give or take. Not bad for a scummy dive like this”.

“It could be a lot better if Clive and Fred would spend a bit doing it up. Don’t make no sense to me. You gotta speculate to accumulate, I say”.

Just then, two burly men came trundling down the staircase, stood watching the stage for a few minutes then sauntered over to the bar.

“Alright, Georgie? We was just over the Aviator. Saw Frank and Joey. They was asking if we’d seen ya”.

“That right?”

“Two scotches, Bri. Doubles. Bit dead in ‘ere, ain’t it?”

“Seen Billy?”

The two men looked at each other before shaking their heads-no.

“I’m off. See ya”.

Georgie, pocketing the cash, made his way to the staircase and, holding on to the railing, climbed unsteadily back up to the street before slipping the grateful doorman a score.

Less than a block away, he stepped inside a bookshop -the type that specialised in erotic literature.

“Alright, Georgie? What you doing here today?”

“Seen Billy?”

“Nah, he don’t come ‘round ‘ere”.

“Got the takings?”

“What, today, Georgie? You don’t usually come ‘til tomorrow”.

“I’m doing me rounds today. Just get the cash, mate”.

The man retreated into a back room, returning with an envelope which Georgie flicked through. Roughly five hundred quid.

“See ya”.

Exiting the shop, Georgie walked across the road and entered a pub-the George and Dragon. The small saloon was tightly packed with punters and giving off an air of damp pungency. Making his way to the bar, Georgie ordered himself a rum and coke, downed it quickly and called for another. Looking around him, Georgie recognised nobody -all just normal punters, not a face among them. A seat became available in a corner by the bar and a man, dressed in a pinstriped suit under his raincoat, made to take it but Georgie gave the man a look which was all it took for the man to shrink away into the gathering. He needed to sit and think; try to gather his thoughts. Everything was such a blur. He could clearly remember hitting the bar in Leicester Square and getting on the scotch. It made him sick to think of it. Scotch was a killer, no doubt about it-especially for a man who prided himself on his fitness and rarely drank. Yet here he was knocking back rum and cokes like no-one’s business. He searched his pockets and pulled out his mobile but his fumbling fingers dropped it and, blearily, he crouched down to retrieve it. Just at that moment, two men entered the pub and scanned the saloon before exiting as Georgie, unaware, resurfaced. But, looking across the bar, he saw the same two men re-enter via the public bar and scan the

crowded room. Frank and Joey. Momentarily, Georgie’s heart skipped a beat and his blood ran cold. He watched as they exited the next door room of the public house, then he stood and ordered another rum and coke, leaning on the bar, trying desperately to gather his thoughts. They were obviously looking for him. That meant they’d been sent by the twins, Clive and Fred. No, not Fred. Never Fred. Couldn’t be Fred. Had to be Clive that sent them.

Instinctively, he knew that he was in trouble. He needed a shooter. Had to get home to his gaff and get tooled up. No more fucking about. He waited ten minutes, then pushed through the crowd and out of the saloon into the street. Looking back as the doors swung shut, he saw the publican reaching for the phone on the back bar. Darkness had well and truly descended, though the drizzle had abated, and the street lights were on. In the distance, he could see Shaftesbury Avenue lit up like a Christmas tree as the theatre lights illuminated the thoroughfare. Keeping to the side streets, the cold air clearing his head somewhat, he made his way carefully to Archer Street. His flat was two doors up from Charlie Chesters Casino, above an all night convenience store. The street was brighter than adjoining streets with the signs of the casino, plus those of the Golden Horseshoe Casino across the road, casting light upon the narrow street. Pulling the collars of his tweed coat up around his ears, he walked gingerly to his front door, eyes peeled in all directions. inserted his key and made one last check of the street before pushing open the door and ascending the stairs, key in hand, only to discover that he had no need for it; the door to his flat had been kicked in. Anger overtook any vestige of fear and he barged his way into his small apartment. The place had been ransacked. Not a single thing left unturned -except, please God, his secret hiding place. Lifting back the carpet in a corner of his bedroom, he prised up the floorboard and, breathing a sigh of relief, retrieved a small cash box in which was secreted a wad

of large notes, five grand, his emergency stash, but, most importantly, his gun -a Glock 19. Stuffing everything in his pockets, he rose and swiftly exited, almost certainly for the last time, the flat that had been his home for more than ten years, ever since he had joined the firm and made his way up the ranks to become a trusted right hand man to Clive and Fred. He could handle himself well, was fearless, knew how to use a gun and had done some very bad things in their service. Known and feared throughout London, he had made a good life for himself and had been duly rewarded. But, now, it was all over. He had to get away -far away -before they caught up with him. He’d wanted out of this life of violence for some time and, clearly, the hour had arrived

though his alcohol induced fuzziness wouldn’t allow his brain to comprehend fully what had caused this change -from hunter to hunted.

As he approached the Windmill Club, he spotted a vaguely familiar acquaintance, a guy he had worked out with occasionally. Instinctively, he raised his hand in greeting but the man, looking as if he had spotted a bearer of the bubonic plague, turned tail and rushed inside the club.

“What the fuck?”

A vague memory momentarily flitted through his brain but, just as quickly, disappeared. For whatever reason, his survival instincts were telling him to reach Piccadilly Circus, disappear into the underground, catch the tube to Victoria and grab a mainline train to somewhere nobody would ever find him and, as he strode on, picking up the pace and trying desperately to remember, indistinct flashes from earlier that day started to creep back into his brain; the swoop by the Flying Squad, his interrogation, the evidence presented against him, the threat of facing thirty years behind bars.

As he speedily but guardedly walked down Wardour Street, he knew that he would have to run the gauntlet of the brighter lights of Shaftesbury Avenue and, then, Piccadilly, before he could

disappear finally into the subway. With his head tucked low into his coat and his hand on the Glock in his right hand pocket, he steeled himself and walked out into the noise and glare of the busy street. He could hear the newspaper vendor’s voice above the roar of the traffic: “Standard. Evening Standard”.

Doing his best to avoid contact with the bustling strangers all around him, he could glimpse Eros just a couple of hundred yards ahead; almost there, when, suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder and spinning around quickly, he saw his best pal, Billy, facing him with a look of utter contempt and hatred scrunching his normally handsome face into a snarl. Peripherally, he was aware of Frank and Joey just behind Billy.

“Bill...”

“You cunt! You fucking piece of shit. You fucking grass” Billy spat as he thrust his own gun into Georgie’s stomach and fired three times.

Falling to the ground, the world spinning all around him, Georgie could hear Billy’s footsteps retreating, could feel the bullets, hot as hell, coursing through his intestines en route to his vital organs and, turning his head, he saw the sign of the newspaper vendor’s stand and the headlines,

echoed by the vendor’s cries:

“Infamous gangsters Clive and Fred Hill arrested. Charged with seven counts of murder. Insider informer spills the beans”.