In the Dark (9 page)

When she went back into the kitchen her dad gave her the frozen muffins in a plastic bag, and she said she hoped that the woman across the road knew what a bloody good thing she was on to. He blushed, but looked pleased all the same.

‘I'm not sure she's that interested, tell you the truth.'

‘Course she is,' Helen said. ‘Or she wouldn't let you park in her slot.'

‘I suppose not.'

‘I'm telling you.' She sat and stirred her tea, and watched him. Thinking about what she'd said, and loving him just a little bit more because he didn't get her stupid joke.

 
Snooker wasn't Easy's game any more than golf was. He thought pool was OK, though, simpler and faster, and he played a few frames with SnapZ and Mikey at the end of the hall, killing time while he waited for Wave to finish his business.

Mikey and SnapZ were the two Easy hung with most after Theo, but he didn't think either of them was likely to win
Mastermind
. SnapZ was into his music, fancied himself as some sort of drummer. He was always slapping out beats on tabletops, wired-up and yapping when, to Easy's mind, he ought to be keeping quiet.

‘How can I concentrate on my shot, man?' Easy stood up from the table and spread his arms. ‘You always twitching and clicking your fucking fingers like a mental case.'

SnapZ sniffed and stepped back, jammed his thumbs into the pockets of low-slung Levi's.

Mikey laughed, said ‘mental case' and laughed again, his voice high with a slight lisp. He was the tallest of them, and most of the time his height disguised the weight he was carrying, but in the hot weather even a baggy T-shirt couldn't hide what Easy described as a ‘pretty fair set of titties'. Easy and SnapZ liked to sneak up on him and cop a handful, and though Mikey was usually laughing as he lashed out, Easy didn't think he found it that funny.

Easy bent down to take his shot, missed a long pot and said, ‘You put me off.'

Mikey and SnapZ both laughed.

The Cue Up snooker club sat between a travel agent's and a plumber's merchants on the main road behind Lewisham bus station. Twenty-four full-sized tables on the first floor, with a small lounge area on the second alongside offices and storerooms. There was a bar at one end near the stairs, dividing half a dozen pool tables from a selection of fruit machines and video shoot-'em-ups. Food and drink were theoretically available, though service was erratic and rarely came with a smile.

The place could get busy in the evenings, but was quiet enough on a Wednesday lunchtime. Lights were on above four of the tables. Aside from those few playing snooker or pool, there were only the cleaner, the hatchet-faced woman behind the bar, and the old man who hung around all day poncing cigarettes and eating toast with brown sauce, pumping whatever money he'd saved on food into the fruit machines.

Easy lost a tenner to SnapZ when he fouled the black, but won it back off Mikey, who played every shot way too hard, as if the silly fucker was breaking. All the time, moving around the table, Easy kept one eye on the stairs, looking to see if Wave was coming down.

He was halfway through a frame with SnapZ when he heard Wave's voice, low and fast-talking, like a ragga bass-line. He handed his cue to Mikey and told him to finish the game.

Wave appeared at the bottom of the stairs, talking to a white man in a tasty grey suit. He nodded when the man leaned in close to whisper something, shook his hand before the man jogged away down the stairs towards the exit. From a triangle or two above, Easy thought, watching the man go. Maybe higher. It was like he'd told Theo that time: plenty of the money up there going into white men's pockets.

Easy watched as Wave strolled across to the bar. He was joined by Asif, a huge Asian guy who Easy and his mates on the crew called As If. He had been knocking around with Wave for the last couple of months; had been hanging back a few steps while Wave and the white man were talking and saying their goodbyes.

Wave bought bottles of Stella for himself and his shadow and moved towards an empty table at the far end of the hall.

Easy gave it a few minutes, bought two more bottles, and followed, weaving his way through the grid of tables, casual and full of himself, bobbing his head like there was a tune going through it.

While As If was lining up a shot, Easy put a bottle down next to the one Wave had already set on the table. ‘Got you another one in,' he said.

Wave nodded and watched As If miss a red. He walked to the table and missed one of his own.

‘Who's winning?' Easy asked.

‘Been two minutes, man,' Wave said. ‘Nobody potted nothing.'

While Wave was at the table, As If stepped close and eyed Easy up and down. Easy was wearing red and white today, same plain cap as always and there was no way he was going to let As If pass comment. He looked at him like he could smell something and spread his arms wide. ‘What?' As If said nothing. ‘Look at
you
, head to toe in cheap shit. High & Mighty started doing a discount range, then?' As If shrugged and moved to take another shot.

They played on for ten minutes. Easy said, ‘Bad luck, man' a couple of times and ‘Shot' when Wave sank a red that was sitting over the pocket. He sucked in a breath when a pink rattled in the jaws.

‘What d'you want?' Wave asked eventually.

‘You know my bredren, T?' Wave waited. ‘Doing lookout, running and all that right now.'

‘Skinny sort with fluff on his chin?'

Easy nodded. ‘He's about ready to move up, for definite.'

‘You reckon.' Wave put down his beer, went back to the game.

‘I swear.' Easy's eye was caught by the wooden triangle hanging from the end of the table. ‘He's sound, man, you know? No foolishness in him. He works hard and he's sharp too, sharp as anything.'

‘I'll get back to you.'

‘Safe.' Easy bounced on the balls of his feet. ‘Just saying, you know, he'll step up fast if he has to, no danger.'

‘I
said
.'

‘I can vouch for him, man.'

Wave looked back over his shoulder. ‘So, put it in writing.'

Easy swallowed, tried to laugh it up. ‘Are you high?'

Wave turned back to the shot. ‘Put this testimony of yours down for me, so I can study it properly when I have some time. You thinking of promoting somebody, you do things properly. You get the
references
, check me?'

‘No problem,' Easy said.

‘And I get to wave it in your face if your skinny friend fucks up. Make you eat it.'

‘Not going to happen, man.'

From the other end of the hall there was a shout from Mikey, laughter from SnapZ. Wave told Easy to go across and get his friends to keep the noise down. Just before he did as he was told, he caught a look from As If, a raise of the eyebrows he didn't like one bit. He'd give the Paki fucker a slap when he got half a chance.

Heading back towards the pool tables, thinking, thinking, thinking.

He was solid with Theo, no doubt about that, but he wasn't doing this just for him; not really. He was looking out for himself, too. He wanted people to know that he could see the big picture, that he could be relied on when it came to reading the people in the crew. Who could be trusted and who wasn't worth pissing on. He needed Wave to see
his
potential as someone who could oversee things a bit more. To think about moving
him
up.

Now he'd opened his mouth, got himself ‘testimony' or whatever to write.
And I get to wave it in your face if your skinny friend fucks up
. . .

Things could
definitely
have gone better.

He started bawling Mikey and SnapZ out when he was only halfway across the hall.

NINE

Babies never stopped wanting stuff, Theo reckoned, except when they were asleep, which was never when you needed them to be. They cried, you fed them. They cried, you changed their dirty arses. They cried just to piss you off sometimes, that's how it seemed . . .

Then the clever little buggers looked up at you, or you smelled the tops of their heads, and it didn't matter so much.

Javine had gone out around seven. He'd only had the baby for three hours but he felt as if he'd already run a marathon. He'd tried to keep on top of things, tidying as he went along, getting everything straight so that Javine wouldn't come back to a mess. So that there wouldn't be a row. He'd been determined not to screw it up, had followed the instructions Javine had scribbled down for him at every stage.

He'd felt wiped out before eight and he didn't know when Javine was coming back. He'd wanted to ask while she was getting ready, but thought he'd better not push it. He'd managed to nod off for a few minutes in front of the TV, with the baby happy enough in his bouncy chair, but that hadn't lasted very long.

Feeding him had been fun, as it went. Theo had enjoyed the snuffling and the slurping, the little fingers that clutched at the neck of his T-shirt. The getting the wind up part had been funny as well, if only to begin with. He'd laughed out loud at the little belch, said, ‘Yeah, get it out, man,' then done some serious telling off when he'd seen the trail of milky sick down his favourite shirt.

The doorbell rang five minutes after he'd got the baby off.

Theo jumped up and ran to the door, trying to get there before the bell went again, but the crying started as he reached for the latch.

Easy. Grinning, with beers rattling in a plastic bag. Theo turned away, leaving the door open.

When he came back into the living room five minutes later, the baby grumbling against his shoulder, Easy was settled on the sofa with a can open, watching
Men & Motors
. He nodded towards the TV. ‘There's some rubbish on with strippers after this.' He looked up and watched Theo standing there, rubbing the baby's back, shushing him. ‘This is ridiculous, man, you doing this shit.'

Theo shrugged. ‘Javine never gets to go out.'

‘What about a babysitter?'

‘It's five quid an hour,' Theo said.

‘You should be able to go out if you want to, man.' Easy sat back, shaking his head. ‘That's
basic
. Check your bredren, do a bit of business if you need to.'

‘Can't afford it.'

‘You need more dosh coming in to start with,' Easy said. ‘You need to find something else, you get me?'

‘Maybe I should take up babysitting.'

The baby seemed happy enough against his chest, so Theo lowered himself down next to Easy, reached across to take a beer. Easy leaned over to rub the baby's arm.

‘What's his name?'

Theo looked at him. ‘You
know
what his name is, man.'

‘I can't remember everything.'

‘His name's Benjamin,' Theo said. ‘Benjamin Steadman Shirley.' Benjamin after Javine's father and Steadman after his own. Shirley even though he and Javine were not married.

Easy nodded. ‘He's nice, man.'

‘Yeah.' Easy had said it like he was looking at the features on a new mobile phone or the picture on a plasma screen.

They watched TV for a while and talked about all sorts, then Easy started to nudge their conversation towards business. He made Theo laugh, moaning about one of the runners. ‘It's taking him five minutes to get the money where it needs to be. It should be taking two, maximum. It's like he's got a wooden leg, man, I swear.' Then he told Theo about the meeting with Wave earlier in the week. How well it had gone. ‘He thinks it's a good idea, you know, what we talked about.'

‘Which is what?'

‘You sliding up a little. What d'you think?'

‘What did he say exactly?'

‘What I said. If
I
think it's a good idea,
he
thinks it's a good idea. I told him you could be trusted, you work your arse off, all that.'

‘Cheers, man.' Theo stroked his son's head, watched the strippers do a job on
Men & Motors
. ‘How much more you reckon I'll be bringing in a week?'

Easy crushed his empty beer can and reached for another. ‘More, that's all that matters, yeah? All this is
detail
, man. We just got to make it happen first, you get me?' He dug into his pocket, pulled out a piece of paper and showed Theo what he'd written about him - the testimony that Wave had demanded. While Theo read it, Easy sat there squirming as if it were a love letter.

Theo was sensitive to his friend's embarrassment and blew him a kiss. ‘You're a sweet boy.'

‘Fuck you.'

Theo decided not to bring up the fact that it was barely legible, or mention the spelling mistakes in every sentence, guessing that Wave wouldn't care too much anyway. He passed back the piece of paper. ‘No, honest. I appreciate it, for real.'

‘You better not let me down, man,' Easy said.

‘You know I won't. You said it in there.'

‘You got to prove yourself, you get me? Pass the test, yeah?'

Theo laughed. ‘What's this? Secret oaths and shit? Initiation or whatever?'

‘Just proving you can step up, that's all.'