CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
By noon the following day I was in front of Sammy the Sharks 'office' on Main Street, otherwise known as the Darklow Cash for Gold shop. His henchman Rafa wasn't there but I recognized baseball bat wielding henchman number two.
He had his back to me as I walked in and the tattoo on the back of his neck was right there to be seen, just as it was the night before when he was smashing our home to bits. The same as Rafa's, the same as Derek Reilly’s.
An eye, right on the back of his neck, surrounded by a thick spider web, low down, towards the big bony vertebra at the top of his spine and stretching around to his throat. Filthy, trashy, boring. God how I hated the sight of it and of him and of all his foul-mouthed kind.
"Hey!" I said it as loud and brassy as I could, still strengthened by the courage my family had imbued me with. I was trying, on some level, to be less mediocre than I would usually be.
The thug didn't move.
"I'd like to see the boss please." I said a bit more quietly.
He turned around slowly. It was a warm day and he had on a vanity t-shirt; a couple of sizes too small in order to show off all his predictable tats and steroid pecs. His arms looked like they had a disease with the amount of ink on them.
"I'm the boss mate. What you got?"
I wanted to see the boss because I still didn't have near enough to pay off the debt. In the intervening hours we had brought all our jewellery, except our engagement and wedding rings, to another cash for gold place out of town. We figured that Sammy and his boys were unlikely to give us a fair price. We raised 25 hundred Euro that way. We sold our car for €1000 at the local second hand dealership. We took cash advances on our credit cards giving us another €2000. I borrowed money from my sister and two close friends coming to €7000.
Marianne couldn't raise anything. Not from her family, friends, nothing. She was becoming more of a mystery to me and she still refused to disclose the reasons why our bank account was so short of money.
We could have sold a few things from the living room and raised several thousand, but of course Sammy's henchmen had destroyed everything. So in total I had exactly €16500 Euro plus the €475 I held back yesterday and we made up the odd €25 with bits and pieces of change around the house. We had €17000. Taking away the €3000 already paid, this meant we were now only short €16000. Pension funds to be cashed in, which would take at least a week, plus some prize bonds, would come to just under 10k. Let's call it ten thousand to keep things simple. This meant we were only €6000 short.
There was hope.
That would be in the real world of debt of course, not in this fantasy world of twisted, evil, leg-breaking and furniture smashing debt.
"It's Will Small's debt. I'm Dennis. His father." And proud of it you thug. "I've got everything." Henchman two raised his eyebrows, surprised, as though he hadn't really expected us to be able to pay it off. "
Oh yeah. I remember you. Last night, init? You really got all the bread?"
My voice was shaking. We were so close to getting back to normal again, if these scumbags would just take this money we could say goodbye to their disgusting world forever and get back to our normal, decent lives.
"What's your name?" I asked him, wondering where my courage, or stupidity was coming from.
He smiled.
"Give me everything you have, Dennis. Now. Or I will break your fucking legs right here, right now before I take my fag break. Init?"
Another smile.
"You can break my legs right now, before you take your fag break," maybe I had nothing to lose any more? "and then tell your boss how you just lost him his 36 grand." More smiles. From him of course. "Or you can take me to your boss right now. I'll hand him over his money, he'll be happy, you'll be happy and most importantly of all, I will be happy."
I nearly soiled my pants, but those words really had come out.
The big idiot rolled his eyes and then laughed.
"Ha ha. What is the fucking world coming to, I ask you. This job ain't what it used to be. And you mate? You are fucking unbelievable."
He gave me a menacing stare like a dog wanting to bite someone. "Wait here Small." He went into the back of the shop, leaving me alone.
I tried to relax but there was a horrible dull pounding, like heavy road works, that was setting me on edge. I glanced out the window to see what it was, but I didn't see anything. Then I realized it was the sound of my heart pounding with fear. My eyes were beginning to sting. My breathing began to close in and the room started to turn.
Great. All I needed was to pass out in front of Sammy and his hard men
My thoughts were getting confused. I was struggling to follow them in my head. We were so close to getting it all back again, our lives, with just a few bits of broken furniture to clean up.
Weren't we?
As for the money? Well it was just money, wasn't it? We would eventually save it up all over again, pay back our friends and family.
The question was though, would the heavy come back with his boss, with a baseball bat, or with both? Either way it wouldn't be easy.
Time stretched out. Every heart beat made it harder to breathe.
I could still have turned and run.
But then it was too late. He was back. Alone. No Sammy the Shark. He was holding an extended telescopic baton in his right hand.
"OK mate. You come with me. I can't fucking wait to see this."
Shrinking the baton he tucked it into his overcoat and then wrapped one big paw around my left bicep. He brought me through the shop to the back door, dragging me like a school child and shoved me into the back seat of a shabby looking 2002 Mercedes C class. Not exactly flash. More of an aul fellah's car really. I wasn't alone in there. My co-passenger was a skinny, ratty guy wearing a black shirt and black pants. His hair, balding at the top, was oiled and brushed into the memory of a 1980s hairstyle. He had a tattoo as well. A tear drop under his right eye. On his left hand he had a gold pinky ring the size of a chicken nugget. One of the scumbags who robbed my son of his pawned and borrowed money?
"I'm Dennis." I said and extended my hand to him.
He punched me in the face.
I cowered away from him. I still wasn't used to this kind of treatment, despite Garda Thicke's manhandling, despite my experience of Rafa and his duffing up techniques.
We drove out to the countryside and then up into the hills of county Wickford. There was complete silence. Neither of them spoke. Except for one phone call. The balding grease monkey beside me answered his mobile in yet another thick cockney accent.
"Yeah. It's me. No. Just here with a mook and Jermaine."
"Jermaine?" I heard myself say. "Nice name." Nerves or courage, I couldn't tell the difference any more. Jermaine looked fiercely into the rear view mirror.
"Ma and Da were fans of the Jackson 5?"
The cockney monkey next to me realized his balls up.
"Fuck. Gotta go."
At least now I had a couple of names if this thing ever did become legal. I guess something in me just wouldn't let go. Something in me still believed the law would sort these guys out in the long run.
Jermaine hadn't reacted to my use of his name so I decided to press it a little further.
"Nice tattoo there Jermaine," I referred to the spider web/Egyptian eye tattoo on the back of his neck, "does it mean something?"
He didn't answer or move, but ratzo rizzo to my left punched me hard in the face again, this time his chicken nugget ring caught me right between the eyes and left me dazed and bleeding.
"Shut up and put your head between your legs."
He shoved me forward and leaned down hard on my neck leaving me no way to track where we were going. We had been headed west, but soon I was completely lost.
When he finally let me back up for air we were in the middle of Wickford nowhere. Mountains, forest, none of it I recognized. The road was just a country lane and as we got out of the car Jermaine pulled out a pistol and stuck it first up my left nostril and then into the back of my neck.
Theatrics. Effective ones.
"Walk."
He opened a gate into a field in which there was nothing but a hill of grass with a path leading down to it.
"Please don't kill me." I think I said. I’m not really sure. I think one of them hit me again, but also not sure about that. All I could think of was my family. I couldn't leave them like this. Not yet. They still needed me. Christ, the kids were only 15 years of age.
At the same time another part of me was relieved in a sick and terrified way that it would soon all be over. They would bury me and then my worries would be ended. I wouldn't even have to tell their scumbag boss that I was only carrying seventeen thousand Euro, thus leaving him a good few 'monkeys' short of a tree. Once they gave me the order to turn around or kneel down or whatever the hell it would be I was going to leave it all behind; the coping-class, over-educated, underpaid, obeying every law, paying every tax only to be treated like an idiot by your boss, your government, your police force and even your own damn family, wife and kids.
God I love them.
There would be nothing left to lose.
Freedom.
I made up my mind. Once they gave the order I was going to go mental on these two idiots.
"Shut up you fucking tart." Jermaine gave me a whip of his pistol.
"You're here to pay in full, init? You've been a good boy so far, now keep going."
I stumbled down the path and as it rounded the knoll I could see that it wasn't just a hill but some kind of hobbit-like eco-house disguised as a hillock. On one side it was a rolling green mound for the cows and on the other side all glass and metal and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Sammy's HQ. The Shark was conducting his main business from here, lost in the Irish countryside, hidden under a layer of lush green local pasture.
They shoved me inside, across the hall, up a narrow spiral staircase and through a doorway into a darkened room. Thick floor to ceiling length curtains blocked out any external light.
It took me a minute or two to compose myself and look around.
A burly figure in the shadows across the room stood over a washbasin. There was an expensive looking desk, some high quality chairs and artwork on the walls. It was an office.
The shadowy figure was turned a little sideways from me. He was wearing a wife-beater vest with Flash Harry pin-stripe pants and city trader suspenders hanging down from his waist. As my eyes adapted to the shadows I could make out Italian mob hair as well. The thug, and I was assuming this was Sammy the Shark, would have cut a ruggedly stylish figure except for the filthy looking street tattoos all over his arms and creeping up the visible side of his face to the left temple.
He was drying off the back of his thick muscular neck and his freshly shaven chin.
As he turned I followed the spread of tattoos up the back of his neck and under his greased and shiny black hair.
There was an enormous flat screen telly on the other side of the room. The sound was turned down but images of Amazonian Indians smoking jungle grass and skinning an animal filled the room with an eerie glow.
I swear I'll kill all of you.
My fear still had the better of me. Fear equals hatred, equals violence. A little courage would be all I needed. Step out of the mediocre. Save your children.
The big man turned an eye towards me as he toweled his chin.
"Mr. Shark." I tried to say the words but nothing came out.
He slowly turned all the way around to take a look at the cocky punter who had demanded his attention. There were tattoos all over the rest of his face as well. His skin looked like tree bark it was so covered in lines, webs and spirals.
Not great for job interviews I thought.
No accounting for taste really is there? Bloody facial tattoos, uniform of the self-selected social outcast. Nevertheless, even I could see that these weren't your regular weekend warrior, football dad tattoos. Even I had to admit that there was something terrifyingly impressive about this art which put shivers down my spine beyond physical control.
He took a good long look at me.
"This it?" He asked.
Jermaine nodded.
"Fuck me." He seemed exasperated, disappointed
"Well?" He said, directing himself to me.
My stomach heaved.
"Mr. Shark."
My voice was a whisper.
"You wot?"
"Mr. Shark." I managed it a bit louder.
"Look mate. You got my fucking money or ain't you?"
"Yes," I struggled with the wads of cash in my coat pocket, "it's everything we have sir."
"Everything you have? What the fuck does that mean?"
"€17000 sir," he didn't move, "plus the €3000 we gave you yesterday, plus the €10000 that we will have by the end of next week. That comes to €30000 sir. Only €6000 outstanding."
He held up an index finger.
"If you would be so... umph."
Jermaine smacked the back of my head.
"Thank you Jermaine. Now please forgive me Mr. Small, I must be hard of hearing. I thought you said you was all of €6000 short. That must be a mistake because if it weren't there would be no reason for you to stand there in front of me and of course, no reason for me not to have my boys skin you alive right here and now, in front of me, while I eat my fucking breakfast. Do you understand?" I didn't. My mind had stopped working again. Breakfast? It was the afternoon. "Now please do clarify Mr. Small."
This had to be a game they played. A sick game, but a game nonetheless and one I couldn't escape from. I was about to give him €17000 in cash for God's sake. Who would say no to that?
"There's nothing else to give sir. If you could wait just another two months or so then I'm sure we can pay a bit at a time until we figure out a way of clearing the balance in full."
Sammy drummed his fingers on the desk and gave me the occasional look.
"Listen mate, you ain't fucking Europol or Interpol or some fucking thing, are you? Taking the fucking piss?"
I shook my head vigorously.
"We are just hard-working, honest, decent people sir. My son made a very foolish mistake which we will be happy to rectify on his behalf. If you will just give us the time sir... please."
I could smell my own sweat, fear, weakness and of course, adrenaline.
His fingers began drumming the desk again.
"It would have been a bit more sir, except that your associates destroyed a Bechstein model 8...."
"You wot?" He shouted.
"A Bechstein...."
"Are you making a complaint about my workmen?"
I looked nervously to Jermaine.
"Not a complaint really...."
"Did you hear me say the fucking complaints department were open?"
"No sir."
"Then shut up."
The tattoos were dense on his neck and face, running all the way down his arms to the knuckles on both hands. His cheeks had tattoos, most of it ethnic, tribal. Very authentic looking. To my mind anyway. I was beginning to think that maybe he might actually be some kind of crazy tribal Mafia warrior psychopath lost over here in Ireland. I wasn't an expert, but some of them looked a bit like the Thai or Cambodian body art I had seen on the internet during my little bit of investigation into tattoo crime. It all looked like very specific art, with meaning, but none of it made any sense to me. The more I could see of his face the more unreal it looked, the more petrified I became.
He stared at me for a long time then reached slowly into the top drawer of his custom made Parnian desk. I recognized that alright, not because I ever had a chance of owning one but because I had insured a few of these luxury items in my time and knew that some of them went to six figures.
Sammy the Shark must have been doing well for himself. Could a small time, local thug like him really afford this kind of quality out here in the wilds of Wickford?
He took out a stylish handgun and placed it carefully down on the desk in front of him. It wasn't just any gun. It was a Swiss made Hammerli Lenzburg 208 Jubilee special edition pistol with gold inlay and carved walnut grips. I had insured a couple of these too and I have a good memory for detail. This one alone looked to be worth a good two to three thousand insurable Euro.
After calculating the price I remembered that in addition to their value as collectors' items that the Hammerli Lenzburg could also put a hole in my head the size of an egg or shatter a knee-cap into irreparable splinters.
I looked down at the weapon and then back to his mask-like face, his cold, vicious eyes and I couldn't take it any more I dropped to my knees and began to cry like a baby, choking.
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