‘Hey Syl… I mean, Alex!’ Mark blushed. ‘How’s it going?’ Wearing his usual vest, jeans and worker boots, Mark wandered over. His hands were covered in oil and as usual he was wiping them with an oily rag. Alex wondered if Mark actually possessed a shirt.
‘What did you call me?’ Alex asked.
‘Syl,’ Mark laughed. ‘That’s what her indoors calls you. She thinks you look like Sylvester Stallone.’
‘Is that before or after he gets beaten up in the boxing ring?’ Alex laughed, smiling at the compliment.
‘I don’t think it matters, but that’s what they all call you behind your back.’
‘Oh yeah, well, it’s better than some I’ve had. What’s your nickname?’
‘What do you mean, apart from loud, fat bastard who’s useless at fixing cars? No idea mate. I don’t think I want to know. You going to wash that car of yours? Be careful; once you take the dirt off it might fall apart. The dirt is the only thing holding it together. I’m selling that Range Rover down my drive if you’re interested.’
Alex knew the Range Rover he was talking about and he knew it didn’t work. For days he’d seen Mark under the bonnet trying to get it started. It was falling apart and even the tyres weren’t the right ones for the car. Even if Alex wanted to, he knew the police would never allow him to register it. ‘Nah, I like my old rust bucket, it suits me,’ he lied. Alex winced inside as he remembered his old red, E-type jaguar. Now that was a car.
‘Tell you what though, if it helps. Some people pay me instead of their car insurance. As a mechanic I’m insured to drive a lot of cars. If the insurance money is a problem I can do it for around five hundred pounds if you’re interested?’ Alex couldn’t believe his ears. People actually went through his insurance to save paying a proper company? Shit! he thought to himself. Are there any more surprises in this neighbourhood? Maggie is deluded that these are normal people living boring lives, he mused. Maybe that’s because she wants to be.
‘I’ll think about it Mark, thanks, but I doubt this old heap is worth five hundred pounds.’ Mark was now looking at the Polish woman’s house, totally oblivious to what Alex was saying.
‘Do you remember Magda throwing a wobbly over her electric bill the other day?’
Recalling the hysterics, Alex nodded. ‘Sure, it was a mix up or something, wasn’t it? Didn’t she owe thousands of pounds?’ Alex recalled Magda waving her electricity bill in the air before them.
‘Yeah, well, Percy’s meter is going backwards and he’s had a cheque for a refund. They’re sending someone out to take a look, but in the meantime, Percy comes to my house saying he doesn’t have a bank account and would I take the cheque and I give him the cash. Can you imagine someone who doesn’t have a bank account?’ Amazed at the prospect, Mark scratched his shaved head.
‘How does he get his pension then?’ Knowing what he knew about Percy, the lack of bank account intrigued Alex. Most informers were paid one way or another, so how come Percy didn’t have a bank account?
‘Who cares? I charged him for exchanging his cheque though,’ Mark laughed, then furtively looked up and down the road and then scratched his head again. ‘I think it’s got something to do with the Liverpudlians; have you seen them? Flash cars, Rolexes. Real bruisers,’ he whispered. ‘But why on earth would they mix with Percy?’
Before Alex could answer, Mark walked down the side of his driveway to his back garden before reappearing with his infamous power washer. Winking at Alex, he started it up and handed him the hose. The noise was almost deafening, and Alex looked down at himself and saw that he was soaking wet as the water gushed out at full speed.
Mark stood closer to him while he sprayed his car. ‘That’s better. No one can hear us now. The Liverpudlians are gypsies, although now they are known as travellers or something. Into drugs and stuff, really hot stuff by all accounts. Percy works for them. Not sure what he’s doing for them, but they are using him good and proper – weird really. Keep an eye on Percy, he’s a dark horse. Not as stupid as he makes out.’
Alex remembered he had noticed a ‘flash car’ as Mark described it, cruising around the neighbourhood. It had stood out like a sore thumb and had immediately raised his suspicions. He remembered that car from somewhere but couldn’t place it. From then on, he’d looked for it daily, expecting the knock on the door from his enemies. But something nagged his mind about that car and now Mark had mentioned the Liverpudlians… Yes, he knew these men. In a roundabout way, he’d had dealings with them. They were drug dealers, Mark was right about that, and trying hard to think back, as Mark talked on, Alex vaguely remembered having to go to Liverpool once to collect money that was owed by these men. They had owed two hundred grand and it had been Alex’s job to collect it or shoot the boss and teach them a lesson if they didn’t pay. When he had arrived, it was that car that had been parked outside. Now it all came flooding back to him.
There had been a couple of men leaving the building and as he had walked in, he’d seen that the safe door on the wall was ajar. Once he had introduced himself and explained why he was there, there had been a bit of a scuffle and an exchange of insults, including someone calling him a Spanish prick! Alex had realised that he had more or less walked into an ambush and Alex now realised that the tip-off had probably come from Matteo. He didn’t have the guts to kill Alex himself, but was more than happy for someone else to do it.
After frisking him and taking his gun from the inside of his leather jacket, they had laid it on the desk before him. Alex had noticed that the leader of the three had two front gold teeth, which had made Alex smile – he’d obviously already had them knocked out by someone. Alex, trained in martial arts, had lashed out at the other men, but had taken a beating. During this, the man with the gold teeth had looked at him like dirt and walked out, leaving his men to finish him off. But Alex had managed to grab his gun and firing it at one of the men, had killed him. The other man had fled, fearing for his own life. Breathing heavily, and with his nose bleeding, Alex had opened the safe door and taken out wads of cash that were owed to him and after firing more shots into the air, he had left the building. And it had been that very car that had started up its engine and attempted to run him over as Alex had run to his own car. Fortunately, Alex had seen it coming and to avoid impact had jumped onto the bonnet, doing a body roll onto the floor as the car drove away.
As Alex thought about that day, his mission now was to see the driver of the car and see if it was the same man with the gold teeth. He had vowed to pay that bastard back one day, and here he was driving down his street.
Above the blast of water while he wrestled with the hose, Alex glanced at Mark and wondered just how much Mark knew about Percy and if he was testing him. ‘What has Percy got that they want? He’s not exactly a mastermind, is he?’
‘Maybe not, but something’s going on, that’s for sure. Why do they always go to his blue bins and drop off and pick up cardboard? He is touting drugs for them, I’m sure of that.’
Alex looked him square in the face. ‘Is that where you get yours from?’ He could have bitten his tongue as soon as the comment left his mouth. He didn’t want to offend Mark; he’d been a good friend and it was nice to have grown-up male company again.
‘Nah Alex, I get mine from my brother-in-law. There is another guy I know but getting hold of him is a pain. You text him, are you working tonight and if he answers he does and if not well, you don’t get anything, do you.’ Mark laughed. ‘Not exactly reliable. Olivia uses speed as part of her slimming routine. Apparently it kills your appetite.’ Sweeping away the splashes of spray from his face and head, Mark shrugged. ‘I’ll fill it full of car cleaner now you’ve got the shit off it.’ Again, Mark walked away, returning minutes later with a bottle of car wash. He proceeded to put it in the power washer. Now, it not only sprayed water, but soapy water and lots of it!
Hearing a noise drown out Mark’s chatter, Alex looked up and saw a helicopter above them. Frowning, he watched it hover above the rooftops and then fly away. That had been the second time he had seen it. The previous time had been while Maggie had been asleep the other night, and he’d heard the noise and got out of bed. Just like now, it seemed to hover above them and then disappear.
‘That helicopter has been flying around a lot lately. It’s bloody noisy and puts me off when me and Olivia are in the midst of passion. The hospital’s not far away, so I presume it’s one of those air ambulances. It seems to fly off in that direction.’ They both looked up at the sky, which was now empty. Again, Alex’s curiosity rose. There had been no logo on the side of the helicopter to indicate it was an air ambulance. No, he thought to himself, there was more to this than met the eye. It was none of the emergency services as far as Alex was concerned because it was unmarked. A fleeting thought crossed his mind and he wondered if it was an unmarked police helicopter keeping an eye on him. It was a possibility, but he felt it was a bit over the top. The plot thickened as far as Alex was concerned. There were more mysteries in this place than an Agatha Christie novel, he thought to himself. Only time would tell.
Avoiding Mark’s gaze, Alex carried on spraying his car. Alex’s cynical side rose to the surface. Was Mark testing him? And if so, what did he want from him? Or was he just a giant idiot, who liked to look as though he was in the know and impress his friends, to make him feel important.
Looking up, Alex saw Deana just about to cross the road. Seeing his wet appearance, she looked him up and down, and walked in a big circle around him. ‘I didn’t realise it was raining. I’d have taken my coat,’ she scoffed, and as per usual, strutted passed them both laughing.
‘You have your hands full there Alex. Christ, I’ve never seen a young girl fight like her before. I was amazed.’ Alex stopped pressing the lever on the power washer and turned to Mark. A frown crossed his brows. ‘What do you mean fighting? Who was she fighting with?’
‘I was driving, and I saw her jumping in the air with karate kicks or something. She looked like a ninja warrior. Didn’t she tell you? Oh shit, have I dropped her in it? I thought you’d know.’ Mark squirmed, and his face looked troubled.
Brushing it off nonchalantly, Alex smiled. ‘Oh yeah course, she took lessons when she was younger. Just another phase kids go through. But why was she fighting in the street?’
‘Dunno Alex, but let her know if I ever piss her off, she should give me the chance to apologise first. She is one mad, angry woman!’ Mark laughed.
Alex’s mind wandered as Mark continued to talk the hind legs off a donkey. He remembered teaching Deana to fight when she was just a young girl, first it was kickboxing, then judo and she had taken to it like a duck to water, even to the point where she had entered tournaments and won. It all seemed a world away now, but obviously Deana had kept it up. He wanted his children to be able to protect themselves, knowing the world he came from. They had to be tough to survive. Dante had taken his lead from Deana, but he preferred boxing to Deana’s high kicks, although you wouldn’t think it to look at him. Most people described Dante as geeky, with a shy persona and horn-rimmed glasses. It was a good disguise for what was inside.
Alex still worked out, too. He knew there would be trouble to come, and he wanted to be in shape and ready for it. Letting his mind roam into the past, he saw himself in his sharp suits alongside Paul Pereira and the other mafia families. His gut feeling told him that it wouldn’t be too long before Paul and his spies would track him down. He’d given the police enough information about gangsters they already knew about, and police inspectors that were on the payroll. Sooner or later the police would have enough ammunition to walk into the courtroom and imprison them all for a very long time and the last name they would all remember would be Silva. Half of him wanted it over and done with, even if that meant they shot him. He thought about how happy Maggie was these days. At least if he was dead, she could carry on – hopefully. There were no guarantees though.
He loved seeing her happy, but they had been moved around a lot lately for their own safety and her getting so attached to this place unnerved him. How would she feel if the detectives that looked after them suddenly turned up and said they had to move again? Maggie was busy making a home for them here and he hated the idea of them leaving like thieves in the night, in the back of an unmarked police car to God knew where. It would break her heart and she would finally resent and hate him and that was the one thing he feared most of all. She was his heart and soul; his reason for turning on his fellow criminals. Losing Maggie would break him. He hadn’t wanted to get attached to this place or the people, but strangely enough fate had stepped in and he’d been swamped with friends. Sighing to himself, he knew they wouldn’t be friends for long once they found out he’d been lying to them and just what kind of a man he was.
‘Hey Alex, wake up mate, you’re miles away. You’ve nearly washed the colour off that car of yours and I’ve got a water meter. You need a drink?’ Playfully, Mark slapped him on the back and went inside his house with the intention of appearing again with a couple of bottles of beer.
Shrugging, Alex looked at the now dripping car. ‘Wing it Silva, you always have in the past. Don’t stop now…’ he said to himself.
9 UNRAVELLED MYSTERY
While the restaurant and its waitresses, including Deana, were running around with plates of food, and the eighties music in the bar blared out, Alex had felt stifled by it all. This wasn’t his life, this was someone else’s life he was living and to be honest, sometimes it bored him. He missed the excitement of his former life; the buzz and adrenalin that had soared through him while he was on a job had made him feel alive. Mr Suburbia, he was not. He wasn’t a chameleon like Maggie and found it hard to adapt, although he was giving it his best shot.
