Jakes Dilemma ( Part 6)

Jake left the arches and took a slow walk home, the side of his head and face still stinging from the slap. He was not so sure now that he should have given that money to Mum and Dad, if anything went wrong it would look like he was very much involved. Difficult to persuade people that you were being blackmailed when you were splashing out cash and buying Chinese for everyone!

In his mind he’d now given all three of the men names. There was “squashed nose” of course, for obvious reasons, bald, big round face like a bowling ball, well over six foot but still the smallest of the three. Then there was the “Karate Kid”, he was the one that had knocked out Jake with some kind of punch to the back of the head and also the one that had just given him a slap. He was bigger than squashed nose, rugged face, lots of scars around his eyes and cheeks, definitely some kind of ex-boxer or cage fighter. Then there was “Quiet Man”, this guy had never spoken directly to Jake, he was the biggest of the lot, over twenty stone, six foot seven, cropped grey hair, he normally drove the Bentley. He looked like he could also be the most vicious. He was the one that squashed nose had said would break his Dads legs!

Every time he’d met them they wore black suits, coloured shirts, no tie. Very smart blokes actually, but definitely not the sort of people that you would want to be on the wrong side of!

Jake got home, had his tea, watched television in his room and was in bed before ten o’clock.

He woke up and decided to get to work early again, have a mug of tea with Steve in the café and see if he could find out anything else about Saturday night. Sure enough at ten to seven Stevie was in his usual seat in the corner of the café reading the Sun.

“Morning mate, buy you a tea?”

“Cheers Jake, early again? Got to stop meeting like this, people will think we’re a couple of queer boys!”

They both laughed and Jake ordered two teas.

“Any more news on tomorrow night?”

“Funny you should ask, but that little bird in accounts phoned me last night for a bit of phone sex, you know, both talk dirty, both get our rocks off and all that, always happy to oblige in that department!”

Normally Jake would have asked him more about it, eager to get all the sordid details but not today.

“Did she say anything about the job?”

“Fuck me Jake; don’t you want to know about the dirty talk?”

“Oh, yeh course, go on!”

Stevie then went into great detail about he told her what he was going to do to her and she told him what she wanted to do to him, Jake was sure he was making it up, he’d seen the little bird in accounts and she looked like butter wouldn’t melt!

“You are a dirty bastard Stevie, anyway, so, any news about the job then?”

“Well, after we’d both got our breath back she said that the rich Russian bloke was coming in as well, Mister Miller himself was going to be there to give him a tour of the business, show him how we make these lovely fittings that he wants, says she overheard old Mister Miller telling him to be at the warehouse at ten thirty”

“So we better be on our best behaviour then, what with some bloody toffee nosed foreign bloke about and the top man himself Mister Miller, did she mention what the Russian bloke was called?”

“She said it was something like Ivan Gregorvich, something like that anyway”

They finished their teas and made their way to the warehouse.

Stevie felt a bit relieved, it wasn’t much, but at least he had something to tell the three giants tonight. Maybe he wouldn’t get another slap! He also thought that if they knew the Russian was coming as well, they might call the whole thing off, they might change their plans. It was obvious that they were planning to steal the gold but this might be a complication in their plans. For the first time in three days he felt a bit easier about things.

At five thirty, he switched off his machine and headed towards the arches. He was pleased with himself, he’d done his bit again, found out some good information and was hoping for a good outcome.

He opened the steel door of the arch and walked in. As expected the three of them were there. Black suits, open necked shirts, two of them smiling but not the “quiet man”, he looked as he always did, as though he was about to bite some ones nose off!

Squashed nose pushed the dirty swivel chair in his direction.

“Hello Jake, take a seat, let’s have a chat about tomorrow night”

Jake sat down.

“I’ve got some news for you, not sure if it will affect anything but thought you should know anyway!”

This time “Karate Kid” made his way over to Jake and squatted beside him.

“That’s good Jake, the more info the better!”

Jake continued.

“Well, it seems that there’s some Russian bloke coming in as well, he’s the guy that’s ordered all these fittings, our boss is giving him a tour of the factory, I think he’s called Ivan Gregorvich or something, don’t know if that changes anything?”

Karate Kid stood up and looked at the other two.

Then the three of them started laughing, even Quiet man, they thought something was hilarious!

Then squashed nose came over to Jake, still with a big smile on his face.

“Jake, you really are good at this you know; you should come and work for us full time!”

Karate Kid once again squatted beside Jake.

“Of course we fucking know he’s coming, that’s the whole fucking point!”