The Take (8 page)

Now Jackie was at home with her sister, pale and wan, determined to diet and also determined to give Freddie another baby, a son.

She knew he wanted a son so badly that if she produced one she would be safe. Safer than she was now anyway.

He was virile, he was a slag and he would give a baby out to anyone who opened her legs and was pleasing on the eye. And that was something she could not take. The only thing she had going for her was that she was the mother of his children and he loved those kids. A boy would be the icing on the cake, and she was willing to use whatever she could to keep him beside her.

Maggie smiled as she placed another mug of tea beside her sister. 'Can I get you anything, mate?'

Jackie grinned, happy they were back on an even keel once more. 'Light me a fag would you, babe, and then maybe make me a salad sandwich, eh?'

Maggie nodded. She had not long made her a stack of bacon rolls. 'Still on your diet, then!'

They laughed together, they knew each other better than anyone would ever know them and they were once more happy with that situation.

The upset and row was forgotten.

Until the next time.

Freddie looked around the house in Ilford and could not believe his eyes.

Wall-to-wall birds, all shapes, all sizes and all for the taking. Black ones, blonde ones, Chinese ones, even Asian ones. He felt as if he had died and woken up in pussy heaven.

They sat about the large lounge in various states of undress, leaving nothing to the imagination. And they were all looking at him expectantly, all watching him warily, all waiting to see who he put the moves on first. As usual his reputation with the ladies had preceded him. And the best thing was he didn't even have to buy them a drink.

Well, their question was easily answered: the tall blonde with the cheap home perm but a pair of Bristols that looked so large they should have had their own passports. She had nice teeth, too. He was funny like that, could never knob a bird with, as he put it, rusty railings. He was always telling anyone who would listen that personal hygiene of the North and South was a requisite for his amours.

As he grinned at Stephanie Treacher and she beamed back, he felt
the
first stirring of interest inside his pants.

Then a tall woman with short blond hair, piercing green eyes and a deep husky voice walked into the room. 'You must be Freddie?'

He looked her over as he did all women, and said jauntily, 'And you are?'

She smiled then, a wide, white-toothed, even smile that he was quick to notice didn't reach her eyes.

'Your boss, darling. I am Ozzy's sister Patricia. Follow me through to the office.' As she walked out of the door he noticed the girls were all smiling at him, not
with
him but
at
him. He had heard about this woman but he had never seen her before, and she had the same rep as a lot of the men he dealt with. Fair but hard was the general consensus.

It suddenly occurred to him that she really was his boss.

Pat, as she was known, had a long lean body, almost boyish, and incredibly long legs. She also walked with shoulders back and the air of someone who knew what they were about. As he followed her he glanced around the room at all the girls, and the look told them they could wait.

Stephanie raised her eyebrows in a friendly fashion and he winked at her. Confident she was on his list of things to do, she went back to filing her nails. She had scratched a customer earlier and he had not been best pleased. As a school teacher the man was worried about his wife's reaction to a scratch that ran the length of his back, a scratch he would never had experienced if he had not grabbed her by the hair and nearly choked her with his idea of oral sex.

The men that came into this place had watched one too many films, and
Deep Throat
had a lot to answer for. The men really thought that all women could swallow that much cock without gagging. And she
had
been gasping for breath, had been nearly collapsing with agony, and he had acted as if she had deliberately caused
him
trouble.

Consequently she now felt that if she could pass an afternoon with Freddie Jackson now and again, then it might make the job a bit more bearable.

Chapter Four

'All right, Ozzy?'

Jimmy felt the iron grip of Ozzy. No matter how often he shook this man's hand he was always amazed at the sheer strength inside it.

Ozzy grinned, or at least his crinkled-up face expressed the fact he was smiling, but it was so hard to tell. He had to be one of the ugliest cons ever from his bald head, that was scarred from his youthful career of bare-knuckle boxing, to his overweight body that was solid as a rock despite making him look sluggish and heavy.

But it was his voice that Jimmy loved, it was deep brown, like syrup, and it was a voice that was made for a good-looking singer, or a man of refinement. Not the lump of meat that sat in front of him.

Jimmy loved Ozzy and he'd got the impression over the last year that even if the feeling was not exactly mutual, the man liked him. They got on like a house on fire. He sometimes gave him requests to Patricia which even Freddie didn't know about. Ozzy's sister was everything to him, and Jimmy liked her and respected her a lot. As Ozzy said, she thought like a man, and that was high praise indeed from someone of his calibre.

Jimmy enjoyed the prison visits. From the first time he had walked through the security clearance and stepped into the SSB visiting unit in Parkhurst he had felt as if he had come home. The prison fear was gone from him now.

He knew he could hack this environment if he had to. He
didn't
want to, but knowing that if it all came on top he could hold his own without fear made his life so much easier, as well as being a constant reminder to Jimmy of how life could change dramatically, overnight, in their chosen profession.

Ozzy had two Kit Kats and two mugs of tea delivered to their table. He was the only inmate afforded this luxury and the POs turned a blind eye, understanding his need to be treated with respect. It made his life easier and it definitely made theirs easier. So it was a small price to pay.

Most of them were crunching extra wages from him anyway, whether it was for a bottle of Scotch to mellow out his Saturday nights or a few ounces of coke to mellow out his evenings while he plotted and planned his empire. He also made sure there was enough smack in the prison to keep many of the lifers higher than a Jumbo jet while they pissed away valuable years of their life.

Seeing the respect made Jimmy feel fortunate, made him feel a part of the big picture. He was unconsciously modelling himself on Ozzy. He liked the way the man never shouted to make himself heard. Liked the way he smiled and joked his way through trouble, and so sorted things easily and amicably.

He used violence as a last resort, and it worked for him because when he did use it, the violence was so extreme the repercussions were felt for many years afterwards. He would cripple or maim, and anyone on the receiving end knew that they deserved it. But the reputation he gathered each time was what made him the legend he was.

When the violence finally arrived, it was far more than should have been expected. It never really fitted the alleged crime, it just shocked even the most hardened of cons in its savagery.

Never lose your temper in public. That was Ozzy's best advice, and he had been repeating it to Jimmy now for twelve long months. His education was nearly complete. Ozzy asked for, and more importantly respected, his opinions.

As they sat together now, Jimmy could feel the respect of all the lags and their families around him. He drove a new BMW and he dressed properly, and he was also learning how to play the crook's most dangerous game: how to keep out of stir.

And he had the best teacher in the world sitting right in front of him.

Patricia O'Malley was a little bit annoyed with herself. Ozzy would go ape shit if he knew, but even that fact could not disguise the thrill of what she had allowed to happen.

Freddie Jackson was scum, he was the lowest common denominator, but she had felt the sexuality off him from the first time she had laid eyes on him. It had been years since she had felt that much excitement over a man.

She liked deep down and dirty sex, always had, ever since she had lost her virginity to a bank robber at fourteen. The next day he had copped a fifteen and she had copped off with her games teacher, another older man who had been kind enough to show her what her mother and every other woman was missing.

He had shown her how much sex could be enjoyed without love of any kind — she thought like a man in that respect. She liked sex for what it was, a good feeling, a release of tension. Nothing more, nothing less. She couldn't understand how women fucked up their whole lives over it, wasted it on one man.

And she had dropped to her knees for a man she could crush without a second's thought if he upset her, and who would now think he had one over on her. Freddie Jackson was all she hated in men, and he was also all that she loved. She would enjoy bringing him down, enjoy making him sweat. If he was stupid enough to believe that a roll in the hay was going to bring him any favours from her then he was in for a big shock. He wasn't the first man to think that, and she knew he would
not
be the last.

When Freddie walked in a few minutes later she was ready for him.

He entered the room like he owned the place, like it was already his through last night's sexual activity. His smile told her he thought he was on the ball, on top of everything. He was thrilled with himself, thought because he had made her moan he was now her boss. He was washed and dressed better than usual, she would give him that much. He had made an effort.

'How are you today?'

Even his words were like a drawn sword.

She pulled herself up to her full height, five feet seven inches, and she grinned at him sarcastically. 'You talking to me, you fucking prick?'

She dripped ice, and she looked him over as though she had not seen him naked and panting only hours earlier. She could see the pupils of his eyes widen with the shock of her words.

Pat was determined to keep this as a business arrangement, and to keep him under her heel just in case she felt like another roll with him at a later date. The main thing with people like Freddie Jackson was never to give them an inch. She would have to watch him like a hawk.

As Ozzy was always saying, you learned only by experience. And he was passing all his considerable experience on to a young lad who he sensed had an aptitude for greatness. For the first time in his life Ozzy loved someone, really loved someone, and it was not in a sexual way. Sex had never been very high on his agenda anyway. Which was exactly the reason why he found it so easy to be banged up. He wasn't much for female company, never had been really, yet he wasn't gay, and if he had been he was hard enough to swallow his knob over it. He was far too respected to let his sexuality get in his way.

He had just never had the libido of the men he had known over the years. As they had got older the women had got younger, with no logic as far as he was concerned. Ninety-eight per cent of sex was in the head, whoever you were banging at the time.

After all his years inside, and all his years alone, he saw this young lad as the son he could never have. Had never wanted until now, when he was looking his fifties square in the eye and the knowledge he might not be around for the duration had hit him on the chin. He wanted to leave his empire to someone who would appreciate it, keep his name alive and maybe father enough sons to deal it out to on his death. He saw himself in Jimmy, though obviously the boy was a much better-looking version.

Ozzy had learned very early that good-looking people got more out of life, they didn't have to try as hard as their uglier counterparts. And this boy was handsome, but he was unaware of just how attractive he was. It could only be a good thing, because at the end of the day good-looking men always squandered what the good God had given them. Beautiful women used their bodies, that was accepted since women were only good looking for a short time and without a personality they were forgotten in seconds. Once the stretchmarks and the hanging belly took hold they were no more than memories. A good-looking man could have fifteen kids and no one would be any the wiser. It was this fact that told him God was indeed a man. A female God would have given women stretchier skin and the sense to understand business.

Women walked away from their lives the minute they fell in love. A man could love a woman but she would never be his be all and end all, though a clever man might let her
think
she was, of course. But nature would always out. The mother of the main children must be taken care of at all costs and a man had to know that any children he was bringing up were his own. No cuckoos in the fucking nest to grow and betray you at some point. You had to be careful. Women could lie to your face and smile while they did it, every sensible man knew that.

Now Ozzy was happy to be passing all his wisdom on to this nice little fellow with the handsome face and the mind of an accountant. A young man who was quick to learn and who could fight his way out of a German prisoner-of-war camp.

Freddie was a good front man, Ozzy respected that, but Freddie would always need to be led by the balls. This Jimmy, he would lead and no one would ever realise what he was doing. It was the difference between a detached residence and a council flat, it was that clear to Ozzy. Freddie for all his big talk would always be just a tad below the average lifer, but this lad was going places.

'How is Freddie getting on with the houses?'

'He's doing marvels.'

The fact the boy was so loyal to a man who could barely count without taking his socks off made him all the more endearing to Ozzy.

'That's not what I heard.'

Jimmy grinned. 'Look, honestly, I keep me eye out, he is a good investment. Everyone listens to him. He is as mad as a brush, but he keeps things running smoothly.'