Grimms46

Jaz quickly shakes off hangover the next morning with a quick blow job. He pulls his cock out of Karen’s mouth before he comes and his jizz squirts on her nose and underneath her bruised cheek. Angela is feigning sleep at the foot of their bed. He turns over and naps for a while. When he gets up his girlfriend is puttering about in the kitchen and Angela is watching telly, with the sound down. He quickly gets dressed for his meeting with Dougie and Del.

The Irish boys are already in the snooker club when he arrives. It’s not far from the Atlantis on Kilbowie Road, a dark hall scooped out of basements of the tenement buildings with about twenty full-sized, twelve-foot, slate-bed snooker tables. A popular story was that families had sheltered from the Luftwaffe here during the Clydebank Blitz and the club was still using the same snooker tables and pre-war chipped ivory balls. It stinks like the Lascaux cave, a history project modelled on mould and damp, and the wee guy in charge is only about five-feet tall and ancient. Jaz carrying  the rain in his denim jacket and bedraggled gazes over wee man’s head that has stepped out of the dark to meet him. He spots them playing in one of the back tables. Some underage kids are whooping and laughing having a contest on the two front tables near the door. The club doesn’t sell booze, Jaz buys a Coke from the old guy for himself and walks down the dark line of empty table carrying another two cans for Doug and Del, a fag wedged in his mouth.  He sticks the cans up near the wooden scoreboard, inlaid with slick brass rails and markers to keep the score.

Doug and Del play in shirt sleeves and are evenly matched. But Jaz sipping his Coke smiles to himself in the darkness about how seriously they take a daft game. They play the gentlemen, playing to the rules, standing out of the eye line beside Jaz when their opponent takes a shot.

Del whacks the tip of his cue off the end of side of the table. ‘Fuck it,’ he says and in the dim light Jaz sees he’s raging after missing an easy red ball in the middle bag. He trudges towards the scoreboard.  

Dougie chortles, which makes his opponent purple faced, and then he takes up the challenge. He peers short-sightedly with a desperate intensity down his cue, and plays like he’s just worked out his arms and legs are connected by jerks of his head.  He pots the red, sinks a pink, red and black and then flukes another red and roars, ‘Yessss’.

Del pushed the tabs along the board and marks Dougie fifteen ahead. His shoulders slump and he shakes his head. ‘You play?’ he asks Jaz, but he’s not looking at him. He’s on the balls of his feet willing his opponent to miss.

‘Nah,’ Jaz says.

Dougie misses his pot, but accidently snookers his opponent.

‘Fucker,’ Del says, leaning sideways, tilting his head, checking the angles on the baize against the white ball touching the blue ball six feet away.  Cue in hand he goes to have a closer look, picking up the rest from the bulk end of the table in passing and taking it with him.

Dougie slaps Jaz on the shoulder and sparks his can of Coke in celebration. ‘You did well, there. And there was more than expected.’ Dougie’s eyes flicker away from the light on the table to Jaz, who takes a second to work out he’s no longer talking about snooker. He kicks a red Adidas bag, wedged underneath a stool. ‘Your cut’s £1250. It’s all there. But don’t do anything stupid and be running about like a fuckin’ eejit flashin’ the cash.’

‘Nah, I willnae,’ Jaz says.

Del using the rest lines up his shot, the white ball misses the red ball on the balk cushion by a foot.

‘Yes,’ Dougie shouts. ‘Play again,’ he tells Dell, before turning back towards Jaz. ‘We need to go home for a bit of business. Have you got the guns stashes in a safe place?’ He turns and gives Jaz his full attention for the first time.

Jaz takes a swig of his can and burbs, ‘Aye.’

‘Grand.’

Del misses again. ‘Play again.’ Dougie starts laughing.

‘That money we appropriated will go towards buying arms,’ he tells Jaz. ‘The thing is those Republican cunts are pulling all kinds of stunts and even gettin’ fuckin’ arms shipped in from Libya and America and we’re left wae the dregs. Every gun we’ve got is precious. And we might need to use it on more than one job.’

Del misses again. ‘This is fuckin’ shite.’ He stomps around the side of the table, snatches up the white ball, and looks over at Dougie. ‘Suppose I need to play again?’

Dougie nods, reaches across and marks another four on the scoreboard.

‘When time you goin’?’ Jaz asks him.

‘The night, ferry from Larne.’ He turns his head and scrutinises Jaz. ‘In fact, it might be a good idea if you came wae us. A wee holiday. A couple of the boys have heard about you and are keen to meet yeh.’

‘Eh, I’ve no’ got a passport.’

‘No’ got a passport. You’re fuckin’ good, you are.’ He slaps his shoulder again, laughs and wags his index finger at Jaz and pauses to watch Del playing another shot. ‘In fact, gie me a minute and I’ll make a phone call.’ He dodges around Del’s outstretched cue and heads towards the gloom. A phone box hangs on the wall across from the midget’s hut, where they keep the racks of balls, and have a counter and till, but Jaz has never seen anyone using it and doesn’t know if it works.

Del plays his shot and puts the rest back in the rack and comes to stand beside Jaz. ‘You seen that, didn’t yeh. I clipped the red.’

‘Aye,’ Jaz says, although he hadn’t been watching. He’s been looking through the gloom and trying to pick out Dougie.

Del leans his cue against the pillar and reaches for his packet of fags. ‘Where’s Dougie away tae?’

‘Make a phone call.’

Del strikes a match and lights an Embassy. ‘You want wan?’

‘Nah, I’ll stick to my ain.’ Jaz searches through his pocket and light up a Woodbine.  ‘Whit are you goin’ to dae with your cut of the loot?’ He squints sideways, looking at Del.

‘The usual, wine, women and song,’ Del snorts. ‘Get my hole. That’s the first thing. Your birds a tidy wee thing.’

‘You no’ married?’

‘Nah, like to play the field. That’s how we need to go back somebody’s been fuckin’ about wae Dougie’s wee sister and we need to get it sorted.’

Jaz shrugs. ‘Whit age is she?’

‘Twenty.’

‘Fuck sake, I’m sure she can take care of herself then.’

They watch Dougie hurrying along through the gloom, slapping the edge of each snooker table he passes. His head turns and he checks out how the balls are spread on the green baize.

‘You hit it?’ he asks Del.

‘Aye,’ Del says. ‘you can ask him if you don’t believe me.’

Dougie picks up the cue he’s left propped against the side of the pillar. ‘Millions wouldnae,’ he jokes. He turns and smiles at Jaz. ‘Sorry mate, cannae take yeh, this time, but definitely next time.’

‘Aye,’ says Jaz, ‘great. Don’t dae anythin’ I wouldnae’.

He waves a finger in the air, conducting Del, nodding towards Jaz. ‘Give him that wee package.’

Del has a quick look about him before he hunkers down and pulls out another bag. He unzips it and pulls out a package covered with cloth. Standing up he slips it into Jaz’s midriff and leaves him clutching it.

‘Put them with the other guns,’ says Dougie. And then he frowns, ‘you have got them in a safe place, haven’t yeh?’

‘Oh, aye,’ Jaz crouches down and put them in the Adidas bag with the money. ‘Safe as houses.’ He knew he’d need to move the guns from the smelly cupboard sooner rather than later.