[pervipete]

Pete couldn’t sleep, he tried, he tossed and he turned, even falling back on an old remedy from his childhood and drinking some warmed up milk, but still sleep would not come, so after checking his clock for what felt like the fiftieth time, and still seeing it was only a few minutes since his last check he gave up, quickly threw on some jeans and a shirt and padded barefoot to the kitchen to make a coffee, trying to calm himself with the mundane task of grinding the beans, boiling the kettle to pour into the filter machine before combining the elements, leaving him the long, boring wait as the water soaked through the grounds and dripped into the jug, he looked up at the kitchen clock, “fuck three am” then looked at the machine “c’mon c’mon you little fucker” as if it was a living breathing entity, being deliberately obtuse and obstinate in taking its own time, the intent to make his life as difficult as possible, remembering the old saying about watched pots not boiling he wandered back into the living room and switched on the TV, surfing through the channels, but even going through all two hundred all he could find was adverts, repeats and depressing news, bored with this he wandered back into the kitchen to check on the progress of the coffee, seeing that there was plenty in the jug he grabbed and mug and poured himself one, swearing as some liquid dripped from the spout to sizzle on the hot plate, before padding back through the flat to open the French windows and step into the balcony, pausing momentarily to let the cool, early spring air hit his body before quietly carrying on forward to stand at the balustrade, resting his elbows on the rail and cupping the mug in his hands, he let the warmth soak into his skin while he took in the view of the river, watching a small container boat manoeuvre into the nearby port, looking to his right he could see the River Wharf Shopping Centre, faintly illuminated by the lights of the casino ship ‘Les Sept Mers’ glittering in its windows, the tall central tower of the onetime ferry terminal highlighted by a couple of low powered spotlights.

For the first time that night he smiled as he remembered the place as it once was , not as it is now, a place for young professional people to sip cappuccinos’ while sitting outside in the sun, talking about, well whatever it was professional people talked about, before heading off to buy clothes and furniture from the new hot designer, seeing instead the place as it looked when he was a kid, that time a couple of decades ago when the wharves and quays were full of ships coming from around the world, the crews speaking in a dozen different languages, Polish, Russian, Romanian, some from countries now lost to history. But no matter the origin of the crew, or what their dialect was, they all knew the same few English words, mainly variations on Levi and pussy, with video and stereo running close behind, and no matter what the need was, some cheap booze, American fags or jeans, a woman to alleviate the affects of a long sea voyage with only a dozen other hairy men for company, his old man would fulfil the need somehow, all for their wages and some goods liberated from the hold.

He smiled to himself as he remembered the hard men who worked on the docks, all nicknamed for their personalities, Batman, who would never leave a ship with robbing, Diesel, a scouser named for his tendency to pick something up in the hold and cry out, “these a’ do for me ma” or “these a’ do for me pa”, Van Gogh who constantly cried, “I got one ‘ere”, all, like his dad and his cohorts trying to avoid the attention of the port police, old fashioned coppers all, who thought a great way to punish the youths they caught was a smack to their ear and to send them on their way as a form of deterrence, ‘yep, that worked’ Pete laughed to himself as he remembered the double smackings he received as a kid, firstly from the coppers themselves, then, like some many of his friends, from his old man, though unlike his friends, his was not so much for whatever misdemeanour that brought punishment upon him, more for the fact that he got caught in the first place, shaking his head he brought himself back to the here and now, and the job that Barnes, his, for want of a better term, employer, though it was more of a loose sub-contract affair, and his dad’s ex partner in crime, had given him earlier in the day.

Thinking no time like the present, Pete went back inside to grab his mobile from the table where he had thrown it earlier that night and started to run through the contacts until he found the one he needed and shooting him a quick email to set up a meet, Pete then settled down on the sofa to try and watch something on the TV again and despite the caffeine, he found himself slowly dozing off only to wake with his phone chirping the arrival of the reply.

Pete stretched as he stood up and checked the time, eight am, fours sleep, that will have to do he thought to himself as he headed to his bedroom stripping off as he walked, climbing in the shower he let the water run cold for a while, letting the sharp sting shock his body to wakefulness before gradually bringing the temperature up to a better, more comfortable level, the hot water running down his muscled chest, as he spread the shower gel he noticed a slight softening of his stomach muscles, “getting old Bannerman old chap” he spoke to the mirror opposite the cubicle, he stepped out and cast a critical eye, though not a complete poseur, he still prided himself on having a physique at forty three similar to the one he had a couple of decades ago when he first joined the Para’s, and anyway, in his profession, being built like the proverbial brick shit house has its benefits, drying off as he wandered back into his bedroom and grabbing a charcoal grey Boss suit from the wardrobe, coupling with a white TM Lewin shirt and black, highly polished Oxford shoes he was more than ready to face whatever the day would bring for him, especially as he considered the issues of getting into bed, both metaphorically and literally with Eastern European interests, the whole thing, taking the firm from big fish in small pond to small fish in a Pacific Ocean sized one left him feeling a little uneasy, Pete knew from dealings with them at the end of the Cold War how slippery Russians could be, how quickly they managed to find someone else to carry the can when it all went pear shaped on them. He just shook his head figuring he would have to just work out a way to try and prevent this from happening, though how, God only knows, these blackish thoughts took him outside and down to his car, pausing as he caught his reflection in the full length glass of the door, Billy Gibbons popping unbidden into his mind to remind that girls go nuts over a well dress man, crossing the car park where his BMW M5 sat low and menacing, its black paint seemly drawing in and absorbed the early morning sun, he climbed in and started the engine, the V10 starting with a roar, soon settling down to a low tuned growl as he pulled away and headed towards the Mere, where Barnes should by now be sitting in his office, casting an eye over all he owned.

He drove in via back streets and side roads for the most, which meant that he mercifully missed the tail end of the commuter traffic heading into the offices and business units that had grown up around the sprawling shopping complex, its tower omnipresent to people driving along the main road that connected the three old Hazelton ports, two ports now closed and in the throes of being redeveloped, some of the older units partially knocked down to be replaced by new homes, the building still happening despite the recession, though the workers were cheaper ones brought in from Europe. Pete paused the journey to stop off at the Angel Cafe, smiling and greeting the matronly looking woman behind the counter as she prepared his usual, a black Americano and a BLT to go, before pulling into the entrance to the shops and sweeping his car to park on the old quay near the chains that stopped the casino from floating away, noting that Barnes’ Bentley was not there, he decided to stay in the car to finish his breakfast, with the added benefit of enjoying the view of the display girls changing a shops window display.

He smiled as he watched the two girls, contrasting in body shape as they were, his attention was first drawn to the youngest looking, yet more impressively built one, a girl whose figure would make Munroe herself green with envy, her large, no he thought, quite massive, breasts threatening with every bend of the waist to any moment spill out of the neckline of her yellow top, one of whose loose shoulders kept sliding part way down the top of her arm, giving rise, in more ways than one, to Pete’s hope of the view ahead of him getting even better, it was obvious from the way that these large mounds pushed forward, like two balloons straining to be released into the air, that her bra was skimpy and quite likely to be, by either accident or design, a least one size too small for her. He sighed sadly for a moment as she stood and turned away from him, hiding her assets from his gaze, his sadness was short lived as she bent forward and her white trousers stretched erotically across her bum, causing it to highlight in shape and colour the contrast of the tanned cheeks of her arse with her black and skimpy, thong like knickers, then the Gods smiled on him as she squatted on her haunches to deal with a lower shelf, the whole movement pushing the waist of her trousers down a little, leaving enough gap to show the top inch or so of her arse cheeks, and what wonderfully firm looking cheeks they were he thought, she quickly got up and spun around and, Gods be praised, she bent forward to quickly and it happened, her boobs bounced out, jiggling and bouncing for the world to see, and the distance was not quite far enough to hide the showing of the top half of beautiful, glorious, dark brownish red nipple to anyone viewing as she stood up, for a moment it seemed as if she was totally oblivious to the view she was giving Pete and the few people walking past, quickly she must have realised as she spun on her heels to face away from the pavement, the muscles in her shoulders moving and working as she scoped her prodigious flesh back in. This view over, at least for now, Pete turned his attention as he ate and drank to her colleague, a taller, slimmer girl with a coffee coloured complexion. Her chest was not as impressive as yellow, though she pushed out then front of her blouse nicely, and in any other company it would still have been a nice pair of boobs, but next to yellow, they were always going to be overshadowed he mused, then smiling as she shook her head at yellow then bent down to her task, the fabric of her jeans stretching tightly across her bum, the whole display by them causing a stirring in his loins, for two pins, he thought, he would wander over there and help himself, at least to the large breasted one, who breasts would bounce erotically above him as she rode him, he mused idly as he drained the last of his coffee and sandwich before stepping out into the air. The slamming of his car door caused both girls to look up, both reacting as if they had read his thoughts of the last few moments, the bustier turned back to face outwards and must have realised that she had had an audience to her accidentally flashing the world and quickly turned away, presumably in embarrassment, while her partner just looked at him, her gaze challengingly holding his, he just smiled wolfishly, nodded and turned away, throwing his cup and bag into a nearby bin and heading up the gangplank to the Mere, nodding to the security guard as he entered the former car ferries interior, his footsteps muffled by the deep carpet as he walked along, nodding a greeting to the staff cleaning and preparing the casino ready for a fresh nights gambling, heading firstly to the cage, the strong room deep in the bowels of the ship, where all the cash and chips were taken at the end of the night and where now, where this early in the morning the cashiers would be found, trying to reconcile the previous nights takings with the paperwork from the tills, all under the steely, hawk like gaze of Abigail, the pit boss and head of all things money on board. Pete poked his head around the door and greeted her, she replied without once taking her eyes of the cashiers, Pete smiled at the fearful way they moved and counted, in fact the fear could be felt like some kind of heavy blanket, smothering any joy the people in the room had, even Pete, who in his life had faced more than his far share of action, Republican Guard, IRA and few likely lads had all tried, and failed to make Mrs Bannerman one child less, yet here and now, he was feeling the start of a heavy and oppressive apprehension press down on him so he retreated back to his office, wondering if Angela was in fact a dementor in disguise and whether he should brush up on his patronus spells, the cheerful thought would keep him going until he reached his own little sanctuary up on what used to be the boat deck, sadly this was not to be. Before he reached the door he found himself face to face with Suzanne, who loftily thought herself Barnes’ personal assistant, her face was full of contempt for him, while he just looked back bored “hi Su” he had to suppress a smile at the look of distaste, she was a Suzanne not a Su, but she would not dare to challenge this to his face, “you after something?”

He looked up and down for a moment, Suzanne, was a former working girl who now possessed a lofty position, and used it to look down upon anyone who was still stuck at the bottom, little did she know that Barnes once drunkenly confessed to Pete that is was sympathy and loyalty to her that was the reason behind her promotion once she was ‘past it’ for earning on her back, and looking at her Pete could see why, it was not so much that she was fighting a losing battle against aging, more like she should realise that the war had been lost and that she should be negotiating a peace with some kind of honour, her clothing, blouses too tight, skirts too short, though Pete did realise that her legs were still surprisingly good for her age, which was like finding four treaded tires on a car in the breakers, so that he could understand, and a heels a little high, in fact the seventy year old tried to dress and look thirty five but, with her age ravaged face and lack of weight just ended up looking like an eighty year old man in drag, not a look to engender much in the way of sexual desire, well unless you were Rooney, and this was probably why Mary, Barnes’ long suffering wife approved of her appointment.

“Do you want something or is this a social call?”

“Mr Barnes called, he asked me to ask you to meet him at the Le Café Français about eleven?”

“The frog coffee?” Pete looked at his watch, more to annoy than to check the time, he was already aware that is was still only quarter past nine, he waited, seemingly ignoring the woman in front of him, “’kay, thanks” and with that he stepped past her to finish heading to his office, figuring that he would have time to get a little work done before he would have to met the boss, and anyway he had already figured on being fashionably late.

Luckily, his position meant that paperwork was almost non-existent, only a few messages about people who were behind with loan or insurance repayments, all Pete really had to do was go through the names and decide on how they will be incentivized to restart paying, some a few threats would be enough, a few would need anything from a light slapping around or bricks through windows to maybe something a little bit more physical, the trick is to find a way that would scare them into paying but not to terrify them so much that they would have nothing to lose and head for the old bill, it was a balancing act, one Pete had proved adept at.

Once he had sent some coded emails out to the collectors Blackberry’s, he turned to sorting out Barnes’ new sideline, replying to the email from his contact, a corrupt and decadent stage hypnotist and hypnotherapist, an old school friend by the name of Martin Phillips, and one to his brother Patrick, or Pat to his family, who used to be accomplished blackmailer, emails and messages sent Pete glanced at the clock on his desk, still not yet ten, plenty of time to cross the street and go and find the boss, he idly wondered if the window display was still going on.

He got up and stepped out from his office onto the deck, the anti-slip covering spongy under his feet and stood at the rail, his eyes sweeping out to the river itself, watching as a container ship was manoeuvred into the still working port on the opposite side of Port Bay, wondering how long it would survive the opening of a newer, deeper, port further downriver and closer to the estuary, feeling, well, feeling a little melancholy, there had been ports on the is part of the river since far before his birth, he had grown up on them, and yet, now, would he get to see the end of them. And how would that affect some of Barnes’ other businesses, loans should be ok, so should drugs, but if the smaller shops closed, well that would hit insurance income, especially if they were replaced by the big chains, who were not so disposed to pay to insure that their windows would not be put in by a brick, maybe Barnes was right, the old criminal world is closing, especially for the Brits, it’s all Eastern Europeans and Asians, and they just up the extreme factor a little, more pain, more drugs and crews shipped in from the Continent. How the fuck could you compete with that?

“Fuck it Peter old son” he whispered to the air “you need to get fucking laid, this down bullshit’ll send you straight to the fucking funny farm”, a couple of deep breaths and some rolling of the neck later he turned on his heel and headed back inside, leaving the melancholy thoughts out there on the deck with the early spring sunshine.

It was five minutes past eleven when Pete walked into Le Café Français, the small cafe, an attempt to introduce an air of Parisian pavement cafe society to River Wharf, that opened onto a terrace overlooking the quay around the Mere. Looking around he quickly spotted Barnes sitting with a young couple at a table in the corner, an empty cup and plate next to his elbow, his two minders sitting at another table nearby, their eyes scanning the room, the young male with Barnes leaned forward and spoke into his ear, whatever the comment was it caused him to turn and face in Pete’s direction, he looked at his watch with a slow and somewhat deliberate movement, slightly exaggerating the effort needed and then, shaking his head, his heavily brycreamed silver hair not moving at all as Pete got nearer “you’re late” he greeted tersely as he stood, his hands brushing a few crumbs from the front of his hand made navy suit trousers, his air that of someone not used to being made to wait by those in his employ, even if it was only a few minutes. Pete just smiled and shrugged in reply, not bothering to respond further, knowing that the older man’s comments was down more to general grumpiness than any anger.

As he approached even closer the girl at the other table jumped up and threw her arms around him, crying “dad” with a loud degree of excitement at seeing him. He hugged her back “Monnie” was all he managed to say as the breath was being squeezed out of him before allowing her to drag him the last few feet, Mike, the young man at them table just got up and nodded at him “usual” and without waiting for a reply went to the counter to get some more drinks, Americano again for Pete, Cappuccino’s for Monique and the two minders, and a cup of tea for a Barnes, who quickly shook the new arrivals hand before sitting back down, making small talk about the weather until Mike returned, a waitress carrying a tray full of cups in tow, waiting until the waitress had finished and retreated back to the counter before changing the subject to business matters.

“Ok Pete, did you get in touch with Martin and Pat?”

Pete nodded “yeah, Martin has a weekend event other at the Monarch” as he spoke he sub-consciously nodded his head in the general direction of the Monarch Hotel, an old converted country house a mile or so outside the town “and I’m meeting Pat later at the Railwayman’s, so I’ll get his take on all this...” he vainly groped for the right term “...this stuff then.”

“Pete you still got a cob on about it?”

“Just concerned guv, how much effort and cash went into keeping this area free of the bastards and now...”

“I hear you but times they are a changing. Our way of crime is nearly over, soon it’ll all be either Eastern European’s or coon street gangs and neither have time for the old codes, no honour amongst thieves for those cu...” he quickly remembered Monique, Pete’s sort of daughter sitting there and changed his wording “...buggers. Nah, with all these foreigners flooding in we’ll be pushed out anyway, better to work with than against.”

“I get that guv but I just don’t trust them, if it goes sideways its gonna be us holding the bag and this, this is all so random and so different from what we do. Hell drugs , fucking and porn I get, demanding money with a little bit of bite I get. This? This is so far out of my comfort zone my head is spinning like a fucking top. Who’s going to run this anyway?”

Barnes looked at him long and hard, weighing his next words up “anyone else Pete and I’d think they were running scared on me. Now I know ya steady son, and I get that you’re concerned, but this is a done deal, so get used to it. Now as to who’s running it, well considering what they want I think Mike is best” Pete nodded “and he’s going to need help setting it up so” he swallowed hard, not sure how to finish what he said, worried about Pete’s reaction to the news “Monnie will be helping him set everything up.” Pete just looked at them, poleaxed and confused by what he had just heard. Monnie? Monnie was going to help? He looked at the girl for a moment before standing up.

“Monnie come with me” his voice cracking a little with a barely suppressed combination of concern and anger, before turning and walking over to the other corner of the empty terrace, without bothering to check if she was following and waited, listening to her footsteps as her high heels clicked on the wooden flooring, turning to face her when she stood close to him, for a moment he just looked at her, a million things running through his mind, a million concerns chasing them, “so, you’re involved.”

“Please don’t get angry or upset, I know what I’m doing, fuck it, I did worse when I was on the streets.”

“Yeah, but this is different to turning a few tricks to get food and rent, this is more serious. And you don’t need to do this, we’ve, me and Mike are trying to protect you from this bullshit cause your better than this.”

She stepped closer, “it’s ok, I’ll be safe, I know you won’t let harm come to me, just let me do this” and so the discussion went on, back and forth, Pete protesting, Monique batting the objections aside. In the end Pete realised that he was not going to dissuade her from the course, that it was something she determined to do., so reluctantly he just nodded “the first sign of trouble we get you out of it.” She nodded “ok boss” and for a brief moment the look she gave him was that of the young woman that, with Mikes help, he had rescued from the street, and despite his concern he had to smile back at her before taking her arm and heading back to the rejoin Mike and Barnes.