'Smas.h.i.+ng! The thing is, Billy, I know Tina's as thick as s.h.i.+t, and she does drive me f.u.c.king nuts a lot of the time. But, she is the mother of me kids. And more important than that, there ain't ever been no other man on the planet who can say he's ever f.u.c.ked her. You see, Billy, the trouble with most birds today is they don't know when to keep their mouths or their legs shut. And after they've been f.u.c.ked up hill and down dale by every sc.u.mbag on the manor, they then have the f.u.c.king audacity to wanna go strolling down the aisle togged up like f.u.c.king virgins. I mean I don't need to tell you that a good woman's hard to find.'

'Rare as rocking horse s.h.i.+t in our game.'

'Yeah, well what you gotta do is find one outside the circle and train them. Put the fear of f.u.c.king Christ into them, because once they fear you, they'll respect you.'

'That's all very well, Danny,' I say. 'But how do you know when you meet a bird, that she's going to be of made of the right material?'

'f.u.c.king easy. First time you get them in the sack, you tell them to bend over and let you f.u.c.k them from behind, and if they say yes, you know they're a s.h.i.+tc.u.n.t. So you s.p.u.n.k all over them and tell them to f.u.c.k them off.'

And there you have it, the gospel according to a man that never made it past Chicken Licken. We pull up outside Danny's house and without saying another word he climbs out of the car, almost slamming the door off of its hinges, like he always does, before starting up his front path without even so much as a goodnight or go f.u.c.k yourself. But I tell a lie, because halfway towards his front door, he does the unexpected and stops. He then walks back to the motor just as I'm getting ready to pull away. So I'm thinking this is nice, he's come back to thank me for helping to protect Tina's honour back in the club.

'f.u.c.k, something I had to tell you, Billy,' he half-shouts, tapping on the window for me to wind it down, which I do. 'I didn't wanna say anything in front of Stevie and Frankie, but I've just had a trade for Pomfritter's gaff.'

'What, his mansion?' I say, my jaw dropping as if someone has just hit me in the face with a stale wet kipper.

'Yeah,' he says. 'f.u.c.k, mate, you look shocked.'

'Bit of a bolt out of the blue that's all, Danny.'

'Not really. It's been on the boil for some time now. I'm moving in next week. Come over for dinner, but keep it under your hat, mate. I don't want the world and his f.u.c.king friend to know.' And while that bit of breaking news rivets me to my car seat, without any further ado, Danny turns casually as you like and disappears into his house, leaving me to drive off dumbstruck, but thinking. Why all the secrets, what's going on between him and Perry Pomfritter? And why does a man that can't even read and write suddenly want to make himself the lord of the manor? But I get no further in my internal inquires, because my mobile buzzes angrily, interrupting my train of thought and informing me there's a message left earlier by Delroy on my voicemail, saying he needs to see me. And so, after parking up the Pomfritter scenario in a mental lay-by, I decide to track Delroy down to see what the problem is. Two fat hairy lines and a couple of pills later, I'm gunning my motor and heading back down towards the heartbeat of the city.

BRICK LANE, WHITECHAPEL. Another p.i.s.s-hole part of my home town, and one that sits merely a spit away under the corpulent shadow of the city's stockbroking skysc.r.a.pers and investment banks, yet still aches with post-World War II poverty, with many of its inhabitants barely hovering above subsistence level and forced to live in depressing tenement blocks, and where National Health hospitals are so underfunded that personally I would rather die on the pavement like a run-over mongrel, than be dragged down one of their c.o.c.kroach-infested corridors on a trolley with squealing wheels, only to be hacked to bits by an underpaid and overworked junior doctor, in one of its distressing, Orwellian operating theatres. This area is a top-f.u.c.king-notch, Dr Jekyll and Mr Snide neighbourhood. Everything round here is either two-bob tat or discount cack, and it serves as another prescient reminder to me that I'm suffering badly from those inner-city blues. In fact, the only half decent thing around here is the twenty-four hour bagel shop at the top end of the lane. Hit them at the right time and they'll serve you up a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel to rival anything you can get in the West End. After parking up my motor behind a plot of wasteland s.h.i.+elded by a corrugated iron fence, I neck another couple of pills, and with my head already spinning, start to make my way gingerly along a rat run of unlit narrow side streets that lead to Bugsy's Blues, a bas.e.m.e.nt shebeen run by Bugsy, a Somalian ex-pro fighter and armed robber, and all round proper gentleman.

Bugsy's Blues is a rat trap, a fire trap, and a deathtrap, all rolled into one. But it's open all night, every night, which makes it an ideal place for a wastrel like me to s.p.u.n.k yet more of his crazy criminal life and dough away. Just as I'm negotiating the last unlit alleyway that leads to Bugsy's, a rasping methylated voice from somewhere in the dark up ahead causes me to stop dead and my heart to trampoline into my mouth.

'Got any spare change, guv?' it says, and instinctively I pull out my gun from its holster and click off the safety catch, thinking that some sc.u.mbag mugger is just about to bite off more than he can chew. Only trouble being, I can't see f.u.c.k all in front of me due to the absence of any street lighting.

'Just a couple of quid for a man down on his luck,' rasps the voice again as my eyes, gradually accustoming themselves to the dark, begin to focus on a what appears to be no more than a cabbage-patch head peeking out from the open end of a filthy dirty and half-rotted cardboard box, perched on the top of a set of steps at the entrance to a derelict building. Dropping my gun arm down by my side and relaxing a tad, I step forward, rifling around in my trouser pocket with my other hand as I do so, and pulling out the first note I come to which happens to be a tenner. No, I ain't no member of the Sally Army, I always give to tramps if they ask. But only to the proper ones like this raggedy old bundle of a bad-luck story in front of me. I don't give nothing but a sneer to those dreadlocked dirtbags that sit in gentrified high streets, shamefaced, and with emaciated mongrels on bits of string, because they're normally middle-cla.s.s dropout ponces who think the world owes them a living, and who'll one day will get fed up with life on the streets and skulk back to mummy and daddy to ponce a top job in the family business. Old-school tramps are different cla.s.s. Like me, they're all fully paid up members of the s.h.i.+rking cla.s.s. They know what they are and don't try to dress up their scrounging in the pretext of political statements. I look at this way. They've got pitiful lives with nothing to live for except the bottle, so the more times you stop and hand them over a bit of dough, the more booze they buy, and consequently the quicker they drink themselves to death. They're happy, and by turns so should society be. It certainly clears up the streets a lot quicker than if we give them nothing but hugs and kisses, because then they'd live to be a hundred, which means that London would be even more be choc-a-block with parasites on the ponce than it is now. I see my charitable endeavours as a form of benevolent euthanasia.

But as I stretch forward proffering my tenner gift, I can't help but think that there's something awfully familiar about the owner of the gnarled up old claw that's making its way towards the note that I'm holding out, so I move in to take a closer look.

'I f.u.c.king know you,' I say. 'I'd recognise you anywhere, you Gonzo-faced c.u.n.t. You're the toffee apple man from round my flats when I was a chavvie.' The toffee apple man used to turn up like clockwork every Sat.u.r.day morning on his old baker's bike, with its front wicker basket chock-full of candy-glazed toffee apples. He'd pull up in front of our flats and ring his bell, and wherever we kids were we'd stop what we were doing and leggit towards him as fast as we could. First up, he'd always roll up the sleeve on his right arm and flash us his tattoo of a beehived fifties broad in a bathing suit. Then he'd ball his hand into a fist and knead his fingers together which would cause the broad to belly dance. Normally we never had any dough to buy what he was selling, so we had a special deal going on with him. For free toffee apples, we'd get our mate Alan Duffy's younger sister Alice to do a handstand against the wall, so that her dress would fall over her head. The toffee apple man would then treat us to free toffee apples while treating himself to a game of pocket billiards as he nonced over Alice's bald little banana split, as it sucked a tiny groove out of her navy blue knickers. After stuffing the offered note angrily back into my pocket, I grab the toffee apple man by the few willowy tufts of hair he's got left on his head and shove my gun in his mooey, crunching out his front teeth as I do so. Then ignoring his pathetic protestations, I drag him roughly out of his cardboard nest and pistol whip him half-unconscious, noting while I do so that he don't weigh no more than a bag of shopping and stinks of stale p.i.s.s and booze.

A quick shufti up and down the alley tells me the place is still deserted, although I can just about make out the ba.s.s of Bugsy's sound system blasting its way up through the pavement. It's at that moment I decide to rid the earth of this bit of filth at my feet. One less piece of pestilence littering the planet, the better in my mind. And because I'm standing deep in the heart of Jack the Ripper territory, I reckon it's only right I enter into the spirit of things by skinning the tattoo off of the slag's arm before I put a bullet in his skull. A sort of keepsake for old times' sake if you like. s.h.i.+t, I've got the wrong man! A quick inspection of both forearms reveals no ink work whatsoever. What the f.u.c.k's happening to me? My memory recall is warping by the minute. I could have sworn this was my man. But then if I think of it rationally he'd have to be over a hundred years old by now, sucking stewed prunes and being pushed along in a wheelchair. And this old c.u.n.t in front of me, despite being as rotten as a pear, don't seem a day over sixty. Shaking my head I stash my gun and fold up my skinning knife, before giving the tramp a gentle tap with the inside of my shoe, just to make sure he ain't kicked the bucket. Because if he has, I'll set him alight, just so it looks like he's got p.i.s.sed and immolated himself. But in the event my worry is unfounded, for the second I make contact with him he rolls his eyes, moans something I can't understand then gives out a little cough. It makes me feel a whole heap better, as I don't want the death of an innocent man weighing down on my already overburdened conscience. So by way of recompense I pull out a couple of hundred quid and stuff it in his top pocket then walk quickly away. It ain't a fortune, but it's fair play for what I've put him through, plus it'll get him a few more bottles nearer the almighty. And come tomorrow morning he won't remember a thing anyway.

'Come back here you little c.u.n.t!' I hear him shout, just as I disappear round a nearby corner. 'I ain't afraid of you, I used to go to Sat.u.r.day morning pictures with the Kray twins.'

Two more corners and thank f.u.c.k I'm out of earshot, and after squeezing behind some loosened slats in a wooden fence and then jumping down a flight of concrete steps, the steel doors of Bugsy's Blues loom large in front of me. After knocking loudly twice they ease slowly open to reveal the doormen, two f.u.c.k-off big Jamaican brothers, Alfie and Tony Banbury from south London, who I call the Brothers Grim. Although not to their faces.

'What's up, Dreads?' I say, stepping inside the doors to bask in the warm glow of their West Indian welcome.

'Yes, Iah,' says Alfie, grinning and crus.h.i.+ng my hand in one of his pitch-black shovels.

'Long time we na see you, Rudie,' beams Tony, stepping forward to trap me in a bear hug that nearly crushes me, before lifting me at least a foot of the floor, and all the while I'm thinking, these are two big f.u.c.king devil dogs. After lowering me back gently to the ground, Tony releases me and takes a step back to admire the cut of my cloth. 'Awoah, slick, sah! D'man always crisp.'

'As a cracker,' says Alfie, as I nod self-deprecatingly and give the brothers much respect in return for their appreciation of my couture, because they themselves know more than a little bit about dressing to kill.

'Heard you two fell out with Tommy Jitterbug?' I say, straightening my clothes back up and breathing awkwardly through my winded chest.

'p.u.s.s.y-claat stixman,' says Tony, kissing his teeth. ''Im a deal wid pure fock'ries, so I and I place 'im under som 'eavy, 'eavy discipline.'

'Seen bredder,' says Alfie. ''Im t'ink we's comedian, so we lef' 'im in st.i.tches. T'ree 'ondred and t'irty-six to be precise, Rudie.'

'Good f.u.c.king job!' I tell them. 'That c.u.n.t was never no f.u.c.king good to anyone, not even his mum.'

And that's it, down to a little bit of decorum combined with a small measure of detente, it's open sesame. The Brothers Grim part happily to one side and in I bowl in like the c.o.c.k of the walk, although to be truthful it don't take too much hard work to b.u.t.ter up these two Neanderthals. Definitely not the cleverest two pairs of legs walking the planet. But it don't matter, they're good people to keep sweet. Well handy for certain bits of graft. So much f.u.c.king a.r.s.ehole it's frightening. No brains you see. Means they'll walk straight in where any sensible man would fear to tread. Jesus f.u.c.king Christ, I forgot how dark this hole is. Can't see s.h.i.+t for sugar in front of me. Like a blind man I start the slow laborious process of negotiating my descent down a precarious set of kamikaze-steep steps, putting one foot slowly in front of the other and with my left hand outstretched using the wall as a guide. The stairs drop so abruptly and unevenly, that if I didn't know better I'd have my life on it I was descending straight to h.e.l.l. After a few stop-starts and near stumbles, I eventually reach the bas.e.m.e.nt and once again have to feel my way along, this time through a small dark pa.s.sage before emerging into the unlicensed belly of the beast.

The joint is jumping and ba.s.s bins pumping. Against a backdrop of a single blue neon light, silhouetted brothers and sisters of the night, dripping in hoisted gold, are entwined as one, writhing like hungry pythons squeezing the last breath from their prey, as they grind each other sensually, lost in the scattergun percussion of primeval drumbeats and thunderous ba.s.slines that threaten to rip my stomach from its lining and burst open my eardrums. I stand for a moment to soak up the ambience and find myself almost knocked sideways by the overpowering mix of sweat, s.e.x, pure-breed Jamaican Sensi and red-stripe. The smell of not belonging. Continuing on my journey I then have to hold my hands to my ears as I pa.s.s one the bins responsible for pumping out the murderous ba.s.s, when all of a sudden some joker from the depths of the blackness lobs an ice cube at the back of my head. The ice cold of the cube causes me to s.h.i.+ver as it falls down between the collar of my s.h.i.+rt and my neck, and for the second time in ten minutes I pull out my gun, then spin round ready to blow off a liberty-taking kneecap, only to find Delroy standing a couple of feet in front of me grinning like a catamite with a ten-inch c.o.c.k up his a.r.s.e.

'Good job I recognised those f.u.c.king teeth,' I growl at him, 'or you'd be hopping home, you silly c.u.n.t.'

'Told you they were practical, didn't I?' he says laughing. 'Anyway, how the f.u.c.k did you know I'd be here?'

''Cos it's a f.u.c.king p.i.s.s-hole and full of drugs and lowlifes.'

'f.u.c.king right.'

'Do they do c.o.c.ktails here?'

'Course they f.u.c.king do, Billy. What do you want? Speedball? Or the big thing at the moment is a waggon-wheel. It's a combination of-'

'No, you f.u.c.king doughnut, I got me own drugs, you know that. I wanna drink. Long Island iced tea. Killer zombie. Car bomb, something like that.'

'See what I can do.'

And with that Delroy disappears, leaving me rocking to the killer riddim of Sir c.o.xone's sound system, whilst checking out some of the fine brown frames getting down with the groove.

'Babycham or Special Brew?' says Delroy, returning and holding out two drinks in front of him.

'Oh, very salubrious. Gnat's p.i.s.s or elephant's p.i.s.s. I'll take the elephant's p.i.s.s,' I say, s.n.a.t.c.hing the Special Brew from him before clanking back the ring pull and taking a few loud glugs. 'And by the way, what d'ya need to speak to me about?'

'The Spud Murphy load is on its way right now,' he tells me. 'Right this very moment it's coming through Amster-'

'Schtummo, you f.u.c.king loppo!' I growl at him angrily. 'We'll talk later, in case these walls have got ears as well as rising f.u.c.king damp.'

'Sweet,' he says, as the pair of us then consequently spend the next few hours getting absolutely hammered, in fact, getting f.u.c.ked up beyond all recognition. And at this very moment I'm hanging for dear life onto a cubicle wall in the toilet, after having just cut up a couple of lines. Only trouble being, I'm shaking so much I can't even steady my hand to sniff up the goods.

'Woah, slow down,' I say to myself. 'You're sweating like a donkey and your head's spinning like a top. You'll end up bringing on a f.u.c.king embolism. Do you really need to take anymore f.u.c.king drugs?'

To which there's only one reply: 'Course I f.u.c.king do!'

But I do need to take five first, and so I flop down to recuperate and ponder the meaning of life on the toilet seat, only to find my introspection interrupted by a strange slurping noise coming from the cubicle next door. By sheer good fortune there's a small round hole, the circ.u.mference of a small coin, at my eye level. So naturally I can't resist a peek. And the sight that confronts me is a thousand times better than what the butler saw. For there's this sharp-looking black dude sitting on top of the toilet cistern lovingly smoking a joint, while at the same time having got this ream white chick sitting on the toilet seat below him, lovingly smoking his cigar. And I don't care what those hairy-legged feminists say, a women getting down on her knees or whatever to suck a man's c.o.c.k is living proof of the supreme dominance of the male member over the female of the species. But now the only trouble is that, what with this impromptu live p.o.r.no show, I'm sitting here on the khazi stroking a stonking b.o.n.e.r through my strides. And as a stiff p.r.i.c.k waits for no man, I just have to pull down my trousers and whip it out.

So now picture this! Yours truly with his strides round his ankles and his left eye bang up against the spyhole, watching the brother getting blown, whilst simultaneously bas.h.i.+ng the granny out of Mr Sloppy-head like a right f.u.c.king nonce case. In the event I get so fired up at the free show I end up shooting my bolt all over the floor in less than a minute. And as is the want with men when they've come their load, reality kicks in and I quickly stand up and pull up my strides before attempting to wipe my gooey e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n into the floor with the sole of my shoe, but succeeding in only spreading it into a scruffy, snotty pool across the tiled floor. Terrified of being caught noncing by the next person to walk in as I walk out, and who's bound to see the floor covered in fresh Harry Monk, I grab a couple of handfuls of toilet tissue from the roll on the wall and stoop down to mop up the mess, before tossing the gummed-up paper into the toilet bowl and pulling the chain.

While watching the paper being sucked away into the cistern along with my guilt, I alternately check the front of my strides in case of any stray stains. Happy to find myself clean I dress myself to the left, sniff up the two big fat hairy ones I'd previously carved up and then bowl out of the khazi like b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in my mouth, to make my way back into the blues. However, that sweet little version excursion has convinced me it's time to do the Dustin. And so, after grabbing hold of Delroy and bidding farewell to the Brothers Grim, the pair of us stumble out into the horror of an early London morning, with me clutching a Special Brew and Delroy sipping like a tart on a bottle of Babycham. And as we emerge blinking into the grey, drizzly morning's light to pick our way through the litter-strewn pavement, I'm nonetheless pleased to see it's still way too early for the morning traffic to have started, and the whole street's as empty as a p.i.s.shead's pockets. But the drabness of the surroundings saddles me with an instant onset of depression and gets me to wis.h.i.+ng I was back basking in the sun and splendour of Miami. But that's by the by, because even this cold, slate-grey morning is way too bright for my tired, drug-addled eyes, and so to ease the ache and throw a favourable tint on the proceedings I slap on a pair of wrap-around Armani shades, and things look a whole heap better straight away.

The pair of us then makes our way back to my motor, pa.s.sing the wacky baccy back and forth like a pair of penniless hippies on the trail to Kathmandu.

'So like I was going to say earlier,' Delroy says to me, taking in a large toke then pa.s.sing the joint over to me, 'the Spud Murphy load's on its way through Amsterdam now.'

'Sweet,' I say, sucking down a large lungful of Sensi. 'And you're keeping on top of it?'

'f.u.c.k, yeah. I'm in contact with Mutton-eye every day.'

'Good. And what you've got to do, and I can't stress this enough, is that when me and my firm moves in to take the load, both you and Mutton-eye have got to lay low for the few days after, 'cos if any s.h.i.+t's going to hit the fan, it'll happen then. You got that?'

'Yeah, no problem, Billy. You still thinking of pinging?'

'Nah, gonna stay around. Just for the gold watch.'

'I knew you wouldn't go.'

'Never mind about me. Just f.u.c.king remember what I'm telling you, OK?' At which Delroy nods, and I really hope for his sake that he understands the importance of laying doggo, because if things go boss-eyed and our firm has to go to work wicked, ten to a dozen it'll be the piggies in the middle, Delroy and Mutton-eye, that will be the first casualties of war.

After a short walk, interspersed by deep druggy reflection and more toking, we reach my car where we stop to clink what's left of our drinks in a toast to the Spud Murphy coup, after which I turn to have a much needed p.i.s.s against the rear tyre of my motor. When a hushed tutting and clucking, emanating from the near distance causes us both to look up to see a gaggle of early morning workers waiting at a bus stop across the way, and goggling us while making disapproving noises in our direction.

'Who the f.u.c.k are they tutting?' I say to Delroy in a low growl.

'f.u.c.k 'em, they're only mugs,' he says, finis.h.i.+ng his Babycham and tossing the bottle over a nearby wall, where it can be heard shattering into tiny pieces.

'All the more reason they wanna learn to keep their f.u.c.king mouths shut,' I say, only now I'm starting to walk over in their direction, 'cos one thing I f.u.c.king hate is straight-goers that think they can stick their hairy hooters into my business. And as I make my way across the road, somewhere deep inside my head I can hear Delroy calling me back, but it ain't registering, because all that's embedded in my thought process is the tut-tut-tutting.

But it's funny, because as I'm getting nearer to the mugs, the disapproval miraculously dries up into a deafening silence. So now I'm standing five feet in front of these c.u.n.ts, spliff smouldering in one hand and a can of Special Brew in the other, and the extreme vexation in my eyes masked only by my Armani wrap-arounds.

'So who's the mackerel with the big mouth?' I shout, tilting back my sungla.s.ses so that they're now resting on the top of my head, just so as I can see the bottle going in their eyes, and they can see the anger brewing in mine. It's then that I get my first good look at them.

Five handed they are, made up out of a motley crew of a couple of cor-blimey builders nursing hangovers, a pair of premium doughnuts in scruffy suits who've done f.u.c.k all with their lives, and a rank bit of old scrag-end mutton dressed as lamb, with c.o.c.ksucker lipstick smudged skew-whiff all over her too-thin lips. At the posing of my question all remains silent and still, apart from some very uneasy shuffling of badly shod feet, some twitching of a.r.s.ehole, and a serious avoiding of any eye contact.

'All gone f.u.c.king quiet now, ain't it?' I shout once more, as the veins on my neck begin to bulge, my mouth starts to foam and my shouting morphs into a screaming rant.

'Look at yers, you sorry f.u.c.king excuses for human beings. Don't any of you ever, ever think you've got the f.u.c.king right to tut me. Do you know who I am? I'm Billy Abrahams. That's right, you've all f.u.c.king heard of me, but I ain't f.u.c.king heard of any of you. Me and my firm runs this f.u.c.king town, but by the looks of you lot, you ain't even capable of running a f.u.c.king bath. Look over there, that's my motor parked up. Gave fifty grand for it, readies. Twenty-eight years old and already a millionaire, while you lot, the mediocracy in all its morning f.u.c.king glory are still skivvying on your knees for f.u.c.king s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.tons. Take a good look at me you f.u.c.king mugs, I'm a working cla.s.s revolutionary. What have any of you lot ever revolutionised against? f.u.c.k all! 'Cos you're the little people. Don't do nothing except gripe about the weather or your poxy bus running five minutes f.u.c.king late. I've crossed the f.u.c.king Rubicon to the dark side. And you lot? You lot s.h.i.+t yourselves just crossing the f.u.c.king road. Now say something. Please, step forward, the bravest out the bunch and I'll f.u.c.king ruin him. I'll f.u.c.king ruin the lot of you.'

'Billy!' shouts out Delroy from across the road, but still his voice ain't registering. 'Billy!' he shouts again. 'There's a f.u.c.king bus coming, you're gonna get run down!'

With Delroy's warning finally sinking in, but with me still staring straight ahead, I start to walk slowly backwards with both my arms raised in a crucifix position, while taking alternate swigs of booze and sucks of spliff. But ain't no one at the bus stop got the b.o.l.l.o.c.ks to look at me. As I reach my car the bus pulls into the stop and the tutterers scamper on board defeated, but I ain't finished with them yet.

'I f.u.c.king hate you people!' I scream after them. 'Go on, get on your poxy bus and save up for your two week package tours, you f.u.c.king lemmings. Holidays, what do you lot know about holidays? Every day of my life is a f.u.c.king holiday.' But still the anger inside me ain't been sated. I need to hurt flesh, pound skin and bone till it's bruised and bloodied, only now there ain't none going spare. So instead I run after the bus and throw my can of Special Brew at it as hard as I can. It strikes a back window spraying booze everywhere.

'f.u.c.k me, Billy,' shouts Delroy, panicking and looking round like we've just robbed a bank or something. 'What the f.u.c.k's got into you, man?'

'What's got into me?' I scream, walking back over to Delroy and getting right in his face. 'I'll tell you what's got into me. Danny thinks he's the Pope but I know he's the Antichrist. Me mum and dad hate me guts and Jesus wants me for a f.u.c.king sunbeam. And if you, or any other c.u.n.t walking the planet ever calls me a nancy boy, I'll put a f.u.c.king bullet hole right through the middle of your hearts!'

TEN DAYS LATER and I'm seated round an eighteenth century baroque dining table in the kitchen of Danny's new home, but it feels very disturbing to be ensconced in the luxury and opulence of a million-pound pile with its owner still stinking of the streets of Canning Town. On the plus side, I've calmed down somewhat regarding my shameful performance outside of Bugsy's Blues. Shouting and screaming in the street like that was totally out of character for me, and I'm still trying to work out what happened. I think I might have slipped myself a Mickey Finn! But all things being equal I've smoothed it over with Delroy and he's sweet. I've also come to the conclusion that I don't much care anymore about Danny stepping into Perry Pomfritter's shoes.

Give a greedy c.u.n.t enough rope and he'll hang himself. But that ain't stopped it being a dog's stroke, because Danny's the one out of our firm always banging on about not bringing it on top with Old Bill by being too lairy and ostentatious. Well how does he think Old Bill's going to react when they find out he's living it large in a rock star's country mansion and ain't never filed a tax return in his life?

It's not like they ain't already got the raving hump with our little firm over what we've been up to these last few years anyway. But what kills them the most is they know how Danny keeps on taking the p.i.s.s out of the cozzer he burnt with acid. Not only did the pig have to retire from the force, but year by year the acid is slowly melting the man away, and eventually it'll kill him. It's my belief anyway that Perry Pomfritter's pulled a blinder by pa.s.sing Danny a poisoned chalice before slipping right of the back door without even stopping to turn the lights off. Look at it this way. Pomfritter's got untold grief with the taxman. He's copping cash for the deal and has fled to Spain. And who pops up in his place? Danny f.u.c.king Large Spuds! New lord of the manor. Talk about out of the frying pan into the fryer. And here's the rub. Danny's council house material, always has been always will be. Silk dress, no drawers. After all, this is a man that thought Art Deco was an American actor. And with a gaff like this, it's not just paying for it, it's the upkeep. And Danny hates paying bills. He's already had a Canning Town sparky over to hot-wire the electricity so he don't have to pay for heating up the indoor swimming pool. Tina's been crying non-stop because she's left all her friends behind in Canning Town. But does Danny care? Nope, he couldn't give a flying f.u.c.k.

And not only is it a b.a.s.t.a.r.d to get to, but it's a deathtrap for a man with as many enemies as Danny. He road-runs twice a week and all around here it's just country lanes. He ain't stupid and I've already told him myself it would take nothing to plot him up in a car and run him down. Or even to just plot him up and blow him away. But what do I get for my trouble? Ridicule.

'No-one's got the f.u.c.king a.r.s.ehole to try and top me, Billy.' Well suit yourself Danny-boy, because from now on I ain't saying a d.i.c.ky bird. But I tell you this for nothing. If he does cop for one in the nut, this here's one man that won't be whooping a war dance on his behalf.

With her eyes still blood-red from an earlier bout of sobbing, Tina nonetheless has served up dinner with a smile and graciousness born out of fear and constant humiliation. She can't cook to save her life, bless her. But it don't matter, because tonight's repast has been delivered from the nearest kebab shop, five miles away. And I'm currently tucking into a lamb s.h.i.+sh with a double helping of fries, lovingly presented on an original, nineteenth century bone china plate boasting a beautifully crafted and hand-painted oriental garden scene, that compliments beautifully the whalebone handled, solid silver cutlery, circa the same era. Alas, the wine is a disappointment. For although it's French and of a fine vintage with a slightly heady bouquet, and has been served up in the finest Waterford crystal, it's been left standing at room temperature all afternoon and has tiny particles of cork floating in it. Someone really should have should have pulled Tina to one side and shown her how to open a bottle of premium white wine and then gone on to whisper that it's supposed to be served chilled. But I always feel ignorance can be forgiven when its intentions are well meaning, and besides, even the tiniest spark of a complaint from me would result in the poor woman getting a severe b.o.l.l.o.c.king from Danny.

'My boy's coming on at football, Billy,' says Danny to me, after calling both his chavvies to the table. 'Got high hopes of him turning pro. Son, tell Billy why daddy don't go to see West Ham play no more.'

'Too many f.u.c.king n.i.g.g.e.rs in the team,' says Danny Junior, smiling through a gap in the front of his milk teeth. The statement of which causes Danny to laugh heartily and bang his fists down hard on the dinner table.

But while Danny's busy filling his boy's nut full of poison, what he ain't told him is that three months ago the coach in the youth system of the local football academy dropped him from the first team for not being good enough. So me and Stevie had to sit the man in the back of a motor and explain to him all the reasons why Danny Junior had to be reinstated. Actually what we did is give him the choice of what I call the bag or the bullet. It's simple, you get a choice. A bag of dough in the hand or a bullet in the head. So far we've never had anybody choose the bullet in the head.

'Yeah,' says Danny, continuing. 'My boy's gonna put some white blood back into the Hammers. And tell Billy, son. If a n.i.g.g.e.r turned up at the door and asked to take your sister out, what would daddy do?'

'f.u.c.king life,' says Danny Junior with a twisted smile, which tells me he already understands the implications of his words. And Danny's sitting there with a smile across his face as if to say, 'That's my boy.' Like they say, give me the boy at seven and I'll give you the man. So what chance has the kid got in this day and age, if he's being pumped full of that kind of filth and bile. After what in the event turns out to be a most unsatisfactory meal, all of us decamp from the kitchen to the mansion's main drawing room, whose decor is a disconcerting mix of opium den opulence and funeral parlour chintz. After flopping down in one of the oversized, salmon pink leather sofas, Danny orders Tina to stick on his favourite film, the Walt Disney cla.s.sic Bambi. A film I personally find a tad twee, being much more of a Jungle Book and Aristocats man. I mean where else but in those two masterpieces would you get forties scat cats like Satchmo, Louis Prima and Phil Harris putting down tracks that can make a grown gangster like yours truly sing along to like a love struck schoolboy.

Immediately on lighting up my customary after dinner cigar, Danny remonstrates loudly for me to put it out, telling me that his million pound mansion ain't insured. Like I just said, silk dress, no drawers!

'This Spud Murphy coup coming up, Billy. Reckon it'll be sweet?' he then says to me as the opening credits of Bambi start scrolling down the screen of his giant-sized TV.

'Double sweet, why?' I say, p.i.s.sed off about not being able to have a smoke.

'Need all the dough I can get, mate, to pay off this f.u.c.king gaff.'

'Don't worry, it's in the bag.'

'That little schwartzer, your pal who set this all up?'

'Delroy?'

'Yeah, do we have to pay him?'

'I'm f.u.c.king his sister, Danny. I can't f.u.c.k him as well.'

'Fair enough, but I don't know why you f.u.c.k black birds. There's plenty of good white sorts out there. Plus, I've heard they right chuck up in the c.u.n.t department as well.'

Not even bothering to dignify Danny's ridiculous f.u.c.king remark, I just sit there watching Bambi while rolling my unlit cigar around in my mouth. When out of the corner of my eye I can see Danny beginning to fume, and all because I've told him he can't f.u.c.k Delroy out his share of the Spud Murphy coup.

'There's dust on that f.u.c.king chandelier,' he growls, turning to Tina and causing the poor, downtrodden kick-donkey's mooey to turn ashen white. She jumps up from her chair and makes her way quickly to the underneath of a stupidly large and ornate chandelier, nicked a week ago from a storage unit at the American emba.s.sy in London, and that now claims pride of place in the centre of the drawing room's ceiling.

'I can't see anything, love,' she says, inspecting the mult.i.tudes of s.h.i.+mmering gla.s.s ta.s.sels.

'There, look you f.u.c.king mong!' screams Danny, pointing up at the chandelier with the forefinger of his right hand, the same hand that has beaten Tina senseless on many occasions.

'It's a tiny little bit, love. It's hard to get the duster in between those ta.s.sels.'

'Well go and get a f.u.c.king toothbrush out of the bathroom and use that, you f.u.c.king div. On my life, you ain't half a f.u.c.king div. I mean how do you expect to me to watch me favourite film, when all I can see out the corner of me eyes is f.u.c.king dust?'

Poor Tina and the kids, I'm thinking. Right at this moment, I bet she'd rather be married to a man with his a.r.s.e hanging out of his strides, than be living in the lap of luxury with this monster. But of course, she does as she's told and scuttles off to the bathroom, only to return red-faced and embarra.s.sed and carrying her own personal toothbrush. After pulling a chair up to the chandelier, she then sets about getting rid of a few tiny particles of dust, almost invisible the naked eye.