The Make

He’d ruined his best jacket.

That realization, the silly thought that the man had ruined his best jacket with that fucking knife, galvanized George. He swung the scaffolding pole round in an arc. It hit his opponent’s head with a solid clunk.

The man seemed to freeze there on his knees. Then a slow dark line bloomed along his hairline and cascaded down over his face. His eyes turned up in his head. The hand holding the knife released the blade, which clattered on to the cobbles. His mouth remained open until blackish blood poured into it, staining his pearly-whites a dingy scarlet in the cold light of the streetlamp. Almost in slow motion, like a dynamited building, he lurched sideways and collapsed.

Suddenly, there was silence.

George knelt there, gasping for breath. He stared at the man. Not a movement. Nothing. George sank back and threw the scaffolding pole aside. It hit the wall at the side of the alley with a metallic thonk, then clattered down on to the cobbles.

Maybe he was going to be sick. He felt sick. He was built like a brick shithouse but he was not a violent man. Tonight, he had surprised himself.

Then the man on the ground groaned.

All George’s senses sprang to their feet and started dancing a panicky fandango.

The fucker wasn’t dead, anyway. And George didn’t want to be here when he came round. No way.

George stumbled to his feet. The alley spun around him. He had to sit down again quickly. He slumped against the wall of the building beside the alley. The girl was three feet away, and still crying.

‘S’all right,’ panted George. ‘S’all right.’

He scrambled to his feet again. This time, he managed to stay up.

‘Hey,’ he said to the girl, trying to keep his voice gentle because she was huddled there, arms over her head, scared out of her skin. Poor little bitch. ‘Hey, come on, let’s get out of here.’

He reached down, touched one thin arm.

She flinched. Looked up. George saw a curiously an drogynous face, tear-streaked, staring up at him; big wide eyes beneath thick, strongly defined brows, a neat nose with flaring nostrils, a pouting sweet mouth, a well-defined jawline.

‘Come on,’ he said again. ‘Let’s move, right?’

He clasped the arm, feeling the silken skin, the long stretch of muscles underneath, and he thought, wait a minute, and then the girl got to her feet, and he saw the shoulders, the hips, the . . . well fuck me, thought George.

He hadn’t rescued a girl at all.

It was a boy.

* * *

The boy sat in the back of the taxi that George had flagged down, hugging himself, his teeth clattering together like casta-nets. George kept glancing at him, wondering what the hell he was going to do now. The words ‘where can I drop you?’ had been met with silence. So George had given the driver his own address.

The boy was in shock. That much was obvious. He couldn’t just leave the kid out on the streets at this hour of the night. Look at what had been happening in that alley.

Yeah, look at that, George.

George thought about it. Something was off here, something was wrong.

He glanced again at the boy. Big, blond, overlong thatch of hair. Elfin face. The boy was tall and long and thin. Not like him. He’d been heavy, solid, robust, just about forever. The boy had only been wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, no coat. It was perishing out there, bitterly cold.

‘What’s your name?’ George asked, and he saw the cab driver’s eyes flick to the rear-view mirror, saw the judgement in them. He obviously thought that this was a pick-up, a meeting of two strangers heading home for some hot and impersonal sex.

The boy didn’t answer. He was shuddering, although it was warm enough in the cab. George took his jacket off and thrust it towards him. He flinched back. How old was he? wondered George. Fourteen, fifteen, around there?

‘Go on. Put it on, mate. You’re cold.’

After a moment’s hesitation, the boy grasped the jacket and slipped it on. It was miles too big for him. He looked lost in it.

Poor little sod, thought George.

‘You can stay the night at mine,’ said George. ‘If you want. It’s not a problem.’

The boy looked at him with limpid blue eyes. Slowly, he nodded.

What is he, deaf and dumb? Or just demented? Hell, what am I inviting in here?

He caught the look from the taxi driver again.

Pair of queers, said the look.

But it wasn’t like that. Not at all.

Chapter 7

Harry’s booking was a divorce party in a pub. There was a three-tier cake set up on the buffet table, red and white balloons suspended on either side of it. On top of the cake was a prone, headless, bloodstained groom, and an upright, rather pleased-looking bride, all in white, holding a shotgun to her shoulder. There was an inscription, too. Happy Divorce, Laura! The minute Harry saw the cake, he thought oh shit, because he knew what he was in for.

Laura Dixon, fashion designer, may have looked demure, dark-haired and solemn in her photo, but in the flesh she was nothing like that. She was wearing a skin-tight sheath of pink satin and four-inch-high gladiator sandals. Her skinny arms and legs and her over-made-up face were all dyed orange. Above her dress, the top halves of two over-inflated pale fake boobs were exposed. As Harry arrived at her front door in Lambeth, neatly suited and booted, and announced himself, a chorus of shrieks went up and a bevy of semi-clad women descended upon him like he was a prize boar in a pig sale or some fucking thing.

‘Ain’t he gorgeous?’ said one.

‘Fuck me, just look at the arse on that,’ said another, circling him.

He was pinched, prodded, and then the limo arrived and he was somehow swept along on a bevvied wave of oestrogen. In the car, they drank champagne, leered at him and squeezed his thighs. He kept smiling but he was glad when they arrived at the venue, until he saw the cake and understood that he was the token male at this shindig, and all men were bastards, up to and including him.

Oh happy days, he thought glumly.

They’d started the evening drunk, and as it progressed the twenty-strong group of women grew rowdier still. After the cake had been cut and the food consumed, an oiled and muscled male stripper came on to hoots and catcalls, and Harry – so glad that he’d been paid up front; that was always the deal and thank god for it – grabbed his chance to slip away to the Gents. From there, he was planning to slip away home, but when he turned from the urinal to wash his hands, Laura was standing there, watching him with a predatory glint in her eye. The thump and grind of the stripper’s music – it was Relax, Frankie Goes to Hollywood – was a distant, heavy, background beat.

‘Hi,’ he said, smiling brightly because that was what he was paid to do, after all.

‘Hi yourself,’ she said, and without another word she popped both enormous white tits out of the top of her dress, and launched herself at him.

Harry got back late to the flat. He let himself in, worn out, shagged out, quite literally, wanting only a shower and then bed, to find George sitting in the lounge with a good-looking blond teenager.

‘Oh!’ he said in surprise.

George looked up and said: ‘Hiya Harry. We’ve had a spot of bother.’

Harry would remember that later. George, master of the huge understatement. A spot of bother.

‘Who’s this?’ asked Harry.

‘This is Alfie,’ said George.

‘Right. Hi, Alfie.’ Harry was bewildered. The boy was too young to be one of George’s stable of loud, fun-filled mates. And . . . ‘Holy shit, what happened to that?’ he demanded, alarmed.

Alfie was still wrapped up in George’s jacket, and Harry could see that the arm had been slashed right through.

‘It’s nothing, we’re both fine,’ said George.

‘That’s not nothing. That’s your best jacket, you paid a lot for that jacket,’ said Harry. ‘What is that – a tear, or did someone swipe you with a razor?’

‘A knife,’ sighed George. ‘It was a knife.’

‘Fuck me, George, what happened?’

While Alfie sat silent, staring at the floor, George outlined the events of the evening.

‘You hit him with a scaffolding pole? Was he all right?’ asked Harry, flopping down on the sofa beside Alfie, who flinched.

George gave Harry a look that said are you kidding me? ‘I told you. The bastard was waving a knife around, threatening this poor kid. I didn’t . . . I couldn’t just walk away and leave them to it, could I? So I, yes, I admit it, I did hit the guy with the pole, and what I didn’t do, Harry, was hang around and wait for him to come round. He was okay when I left him, that’s all I can say. I didn’t stick around to enquire after his health and give him the chance to have another go, all right?’

‘So why’d you bring him back here?’ asked Harry, getting irritable. He was tired. He’d had a stressful evening. The last thing he wanted was to hear about George’s troubles.

‘What else could I do?’ asked George, glancing at the boy. Poor little sod. ‘He’s told me his name, but that’s all. He was shit-scared, Harry, I’m telling you. He’s in shock maybe. I couldn’t just let it go. You wouldn’t have. Would you?’

‘I think I would.’ Someone waving a knife around? Oh yes, he’d have let it go all right. He didn’t fancy being a dead hero.

‘No you wouldn’t. Look, Alfie can stay the night on the sofa bed, I’ll sort him out with a pillow and we’ve got a spare quilt, it’s no biggie.’

Harry looked at Alfie. He was almost effeminate in his beauty. He certainly didn’t look like any sort of threat. They weren’t going to get shot or shagged in their beds by this little squirt, that was for sure.

‘Okay,’ he sighed, and stood up. ‘I’m turning in.’

‘Good evening?’ asked George, belatedly remembering that Harry had been out with a client tonight too. He felt like an age had passed since he had last seen Harry, but it was just a few hours ago.

‘Oh, mega. Lucky I wasn’t gang-raped by a pack of rampant females. Then our girl attacked me in the Gents.’

‘Classy.’

‘I thought the same. I’ll square you up with the cash tomorrow, okay? Night, Alfie. Night, George,’ said Harry, and went yawning off to his bed.

Chapter 8

Deano Drax was furious. All his boys knew it, and that made them nervous. You never wanted Deano to be that way, because then he was likely to kick your bollocks out from under you, just for the fun of it.

Lefty Umbabwe wished he had some of the other boys here with him, but he didn’t. It was Tuesday – three days after the night-time fight in the alley – and he was alone with Deano in Deano’s country house, in the big sitting room with the inglenook fireplace and the blackened oak beams overhead. There was an Aga in the kitchen and a swimming pool out the back. It was a choice house, expensive; but then it would be. Deano owned Shakers in Soho, and he also controlled a huge proportion of the drug action on the streets. He wasn’t about to live like a pauper with all that loot passing through his hands on a regular basis.

Lefty stood on the rug in front of the roaring log fire. His head still hurt. It had throbbed like a bastard ever since that fucker had whacked him with the scaffolding pole on Saturday night. The cut was stapled now, and he’d been checked over in A & E. They’d kept him in overnight, fearing concussion, but he’d checked himself out early next morning – didn’t want no questions being asked. He’d live. Although . . . not for long, by the looks of it. Not with Deano sitting there staring at him like he was nothing but a useless pile of shit. Not with Deano’s favourite bitch on the missing list.

‘So what’s the story, Lefty? Hm? What’s the tale?’ asked Deano.

Deano had a small, fast-paced voice, husky and low, but then he didn’t have to shout because his very presence was bloody terrifying. He was sitting there, his huge bulk jammed into an ornately carved chair that looked like a throne. And Lefty thought that was fitting, sort of, because Deano was king of all he surveyed. The last thing anyone in their right mind would want to do was upset him.

And Lefty had upset him.

It wasn’t a very cheering thought, but he knew he had screwed up badly. He’d been supposedly keeping an eye on the boy – a service he’d often performed for Deano, with other less well-favoured boys – but this boy, who had been Deano’s big pash for months, had given him the slip.

Alfie was a stunning kid, Lefty had to admit that; and if he was a bender maybe he’d even like to get stuck in there too. Lefty had been pleased as punch with himself for sourcing such a peach for Deano’s delectation. Maybe at seventeen Alfie was a little – okay, a lot – older than Deano’s usual prey, but the beauty of it was that Alfie looked so much younger than his actual years. He could pass for fourteen, easy. Alfie had been everywhere with Deano over the past months, cosied up to him, sitting in a drug-induced haze on his lap – frankly, it had turned everyone’s stomach, but what could you do? This was Deano.

Lefty, for a brief, shining time, had been flavour of the month, the golden one. Now he was the crap one, the one who’d let Deano down, and he was in the shit up to his neck. For Deano, Alfie was it – the big obsession; and his anger at Alfie’s loss was making him ultra-pissed off with everyone in general and Lefty in particular. It was strange to realize that even a bastard nonce like Deano – a monster, really – had feelings, too.

Anyway, Alfie had nicked Lefty’s Oyster card and legged it. Maybe he hadn’t liked the idea of being shafted by this fat fuck, but that was beside the point. Whether the kid liked it or lumped it was not Lefty’s business. He had to keep the boy there, at Deano’s disposal.

He’d never forget chasing Alfie all through the tube system, catching teasing glimpses of him, then losing sight of him again, then spotting him once more. Then he’d lost him for real, and he thought, That’s it, I’m screwed. But no. He’d caught sight of the blond head weaving and bobbing along, half running, half stumbling through the concourse and up the escalator of Canary Wharf station, under its big, curved-glass canopy.

Alfie had staggered out of the station and run away to hide in an alley. He’d already spotted Lefty hot on his heels; he knew he shouldn’t have run off like that. Lefty was hopping mad with the boy, a madness further fuelled by his fear of Deano. When he cornered Alfie at last, Lefty was out of breath and wheezing like a bastard – Jesus, he had to try and cut down on the cans – and he’d whipped out the knife to show the little runt who was boss around here. But he’d found him. And at that point Lefty felt the situation was not beyond rescuing. He gave the boy a little glimpse of the blade, made him quiver, threw a great big scare into the youngster, which was good, stop him doing the same fucking thing all over again.

Deano wanted him.

Deano would have him.

What the hell did he care? And then that bastard had whacked him with the pole, and it had been goodnight nurse. When he’d come round, both boy and bastard had fled the scene and he’d limped off to the nearest hospital to get stitched up.

‘You’re not sayin’ much, Lefty old son.’

Now Deano stood up. Lefty took a step back. Deano was so big that he seemed to fill up the entire low-ceilinged room with his bulk. Deano could intimidate without even trying. He was solid as a brick wall and his eyes showed about the same level of feeling. He had a shaven head as big and round as a bowling-ball and a ridiculously neat little goatee beard. Deano was a vicious bender, everyone knew that; he’d been worked over good and proper by his father at an early age, everyone knew that too. Everyone also knew that Deano had offed his own father as soon as he’d had the size and strength to do it. Whether or not being shafted by his own dear old dad had turned him, no one knew – and no one was going to ask either, that was for sure. Certainly not Lefty, anyway. Live and let live, that was Lefty’s motto. Just so long as the big creep wasn’t trying to stuff it up his arse, he didn’t give a shit.

‘I told you what happened, Deano. It’s the God’s honest truth,’ said Lefty. He could hear the pathetic whine in his own voice, but he couldn’t help it.

‘But you were meant to be keeping an eye on my boy,’ said Deano mildly, drawing closer.

Jesus, thought Lefty in a spasm of terror. His guts were going up and down like Tower Bridge.

‘I know that.’ Lefty held his hands out, palms down, in a gesture of suppression, saying, Hey let’s calm this down, shall we? And Deano looked calm, but then, he always did. Even when he was getting ready to rip someone’s throat out. ‘Listen, Deano. It’s not a big deal because I’ll find him, okay? I got the boys out looking already, and he can’t have gone far. We’ll get your boy back. No sweat.’

‘Oh, you’d better sweat, my friend,’ said Deano, looming ever closer. Now he was standing right in front of Lefty.

Lefty was sweating, he was sweating buckets. He could feel nervous perspiration popping out all over his body. Could feel his face wreathed in a shit-eating sort of grin, like a junior ape trying to placate a silverback. His heart was beating very fast. His wounded head was throbbing with every single beat.

‘Tell me again, Lefty.’

‘Nothing to tell, Deano. This bastard hit me with a pole. When I came round, Alfie was gone.’

‘This bastard, what was he like then?’

Lefty shrugged hopelessly. ‘Big. Thickset. Darkish hair. I don’t know.’

‘Only, you know those Bond films, the bit where Blofeld sits there stroking his cat?’ asked Deano.

‘I . . .’

‘And you know what he says, that bald, ugly, scar-faced bastard, you know what he’s telling his troops?’

‘I don’t . . .’

‘You don’t? Well I’ll tell you. It’s a gas, Lefty. One of the boys has fucked up some vital thing, and what Blofeld is saying is, This organisation does not tolerate failure,’ Deano grinned, displaying perfect white veneers. ‘Well, guess what, Lefty? This one don’t either.’

Deano reached out a casual hand, grasped Lefty’s testicles, and squeezed.

Lefty shrieked and went up on tiptoe. ‘Holy shit, Deano,’ he cried out.

‘That hurt?’ asked Deano, close in to Lefty and inflicting terrible, sick-making pain.

Lefty could only nod, his face twisted in anguish now.

‘Try this.’ Deano squeezed tighter. Lefty thought he was going to pass out from the agony of it. ‘Hurt?’ enquired Deano.

Lefty nodded.

‘Good.’ Deano released his grip and Lefty collapsed in a blubbering heap to his knees. Deano stared at the crumpled man for a long moment and then he casually drew back an elegantly shod foot and kicked him hard in the stomach.

Lefty sprawled back, gibbering no Deano, don’t, please don’t, no more and curling himself into a tight ball.

Deano shoved him hard with his toe. ‘Now you listen up, cunt. I want my boy Alfie back, you got that?’

Lefty was nodding frantically.

‘Or else I’m going to cut your freakin’ balls right off, you got me?’ Deano said. ‘And then I’m gonna stuff ’em down your stupid throat.’

Alfie was his, and some fucker had dared to snatch him away. When Deano caught up with this arsehole – and he would – he promised himself that this cunt and anyone associated with him was going to suffer. His family, his friends, anyone.

‘Now get your useless arse outta my house, you tosser,’ he told Lefty.

Lefty crawled to his feet and, limping, left the room. Everything hurt. And what hurt even worse was the panicky knowledge that he didn’t have a clue where to start looking for the boy. Not a fucking clue.

Chapter 9

‘Shall I tell you what I’d do, Lefty?’

Gordon was built like a tank and he was sitting, over-spilling his cheap plastic seat, in a café in the Mile End Road with his colleague Lefty Umbabwe. Lefty looked like death; his dark skin was greyish with strain, his head stapled up like Frankenstein’s monster. He’d come in limping, and Gordon had said, hey, wassup? Trying not to laugh, and failing. He’d never seen such a mess as Lefty in his entire life.

‘What would you do?’ asked Lefty, drinking tea and wishing it was whisky. His bollocks ached. His head ached. His mind whirled with desperation. He needed another whiff from his butane can, but he couldn’t do that here in the café; he’d get them both chucked out. ‘Come on man. Really. I’d like some help here.’

Lefty had poured out the whole tale of woe to Gordon. How he’d lost track of Deano’s boy, during the honeymoon period. Deano wasn’t sick of the sight of the kid yet, which was what always happened in the end with Deano and his grand amours.

What always happened was this: Deano’s people picked the kids off the streets, because the streets of London were paved with gold, everyone knew that, and they all headed here. The stupid kids thought they were going to make their fortune, join a band, become a star; it was all going to happen for them in London town.

Sadly, it didn’t work like that. It worked like this: the kids found themselves cold and hungry on the streets and, if they were lucky, they went back home with their tails between their legs. If they were unlucky, they fell prey to loitering paedos like Deano, who drugged them up and used them for their own amusement for a few weeks; then, when the nonces grew weary of their charms, they farmed the kids out at a handsome profit to their fancy bender friends.

‘I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d throw myself in the bleeding river,’ said Gordon, and burst into peals of laughter.

Lefty stared at Gordon. ‘Hey, you think this is funny?’ He jumped to his feet. It hurt. He winced. Gordon caught the wince and that made him laugh even more.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Gordon, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. ‘But Christ, Lefty, what a fucking to-do. What the hell happened? You’ve played babysitter lots of times before, why’d you balls it up now?’

Lefty slumped back into his seat. ‘I got the dose wrong. Thought the boy was well under, but he gave me the slip. Ran out of the club, legged it. It was night-time, black as your frigging hat too. I had a bad time tracking the little cunt down, then this bastard butts in – and before I knew it he whacks me and then Alfie’s gone.’

‘Well, my friend, now it’s official: you’re in the shit.’ Gordon worked for Deano too, as a bouncer on the door of Deano’s fetish club Shakers. He knew Deano from way back. Knew what a twisted git he was, and he knew Deano would make Lefty pay hard for this.

‘I know that.’ Lefty stared at Gordon, who was tucking into a big fry-up.

‘You should have used your loaf in the first place, checked the dose, and you wouldn’t be in this bind.’

‘Yeah. I know.’

‘Fact is, Lefty, you’re lucky you can find your dick to take a piss these days, the amount of stuff you keep sniffing. Something like this was just bound to happen.’

Gordon was right and Lefty knew it. Lefty couldn’t face food. He still felt dizzy and a bit nauseous from that blow to the head. And he needed his fix. Deano had given him this week to find the boy, or else his arse was well and truly cooked and he didn’t have a clue where to even start.

‘Yeah, so come on. Where would you start looking?’ he pleaded.

Gordon speared a sausage, bit off a hunk and chewed thoughtfully, his eyes resting all the while on Lefty.

‘Right,’ he said at last, swigging down a mouthful of tea, ‘here’s what I’d do. Go back to where you found him at around the same time of day. Start asking the cabbies, the night-bus drivers. Nearest tube station, talk to station staff, any buskers, anyone. You got a picture of this boy Alfie?’

Lefty shook his head.

‘No matter. Just describe him. Take one of the girls with you, though: don’t do it alone.’

‘Why?’

‘People see a big black bastard asking around about a cute white boy, they might get antsy. Take Mona, she’s got a sweet face. You know?’