Blagger
Andy Rivers
They think they know me in this boozer. Think they know all about me. Wankers. Look at him selling Lynx from a carrier bag. One-fifty a tin, that’s proper big time that is son. The cunt’s made about fifteen quid and he’s swaggering about like some fucking celebrity gangster. It’s not like he’s even a snotty nosed kid either, the fucker’s about thirty and scratches a living by nicking tat out of them cheap shops, you know the kind where the workers are on minimum wage and care more about their health than they do the company’s profits. Here’s another one, his sidekick, this boozer’s full of wannabe’s tonight. He’s pulling out his snide watches and giving it all the ‘I know a man who knows a man bollocks’, the twat’s walking over to me now, smug grin on his blotchy, junk food ravaged face.
‘Come on Davey, live a bit dangerously, tenner apiece and I’ll even get Dobby to hoy in a free can of deodorant.’
I just smile back at him and shake my head, looking all model citizen and respectable as I turn back to my pint, hearing him mutter under his breath as his sweaty, charva frame moves away from me. Another one who thinks I’m a law abiding, salt of the earth, couple of pints at the weekend type. They know fuck all.
After last orders I normally go back to my council house on my own, I don’t go for a drink at anyone else’s and they don’t get invited to mine. Normally I’m about a tenner down on cards to some of the older lads, I don’t mind they’re good blokes. Sometimes I get a chinese on the way home, sometimes I plead poverty and just get a bag of chips. Proper grey man me, none of this touting gear round pubs for twenty bar here and there, sticking your chest out and playing it hard. No visible tattoos, nice sensible short back and sides, no bling and no designer gear. What I do have though is an offshore bank account with seven hundred grand in it and about forty large in cash under the bed. I work in a steel factory and everyone on this estate knows it. I live within my supposed means and record wise I’m as clean as a fucking whistle. What this boils down to is that I’ll only ever get caught if I’m actually pulled in the act and that’ll never happen.
Taking a large gulp from my second pint of the weekend I revise the day’s events. The van pulled up and the guard was straight out and into the bank, first mistake mate. Company procedure is to wait in the van for five minutes and assess the area. As the company in question give them far too much to do and then bollock them when they don’t do it then it’s no surprise they all cut corners. He came back out, no helmet on, enjoying the sunshine, breaking all the rules. My hand slowly let out the clutch and the bike moved forward, he couldn’t even hear it, too busy thinking about the baguette he’d bought half an hour ago from Greggs. Smiling to myself as the lager hits my throat again I recall how he half turned and started to bend down at the hatch as I got closer, full throttle now. The engine whined as I pushed it hard into third. He noticed a noise and started to turn but by then I was on him. He tried to push the case in the slot but it was too late. I booted him over as the bike slewed to a halt, engine still running. Grabbed the case, rammed my hand round the throttle and I was off. Piece of piss.
The bizzies found the bike two miles away, they might find a nicked Peugeot ten miles north of Newcastle in a couple of days, I bet you no-one noticed the crappy Escort Van parked down the road from it though. The one I’ve just sold on Ebay for five hundred quid. Thirty grand in the case, minus the loss I took on the van for a quick sale plus sundries like petrol, equals a profit of roughly twenty-nine and a bit thousand. Stuff it into the hiding place, show my face in here and then get to bed; I’ve an early shift tomorrow.
That’s the beauty of my chosen profession, I work alone; no one can grass me up; no one can get pissed and mouthy about me; no one can suddenly start spending money that they didn’t have yesterday. The only risks I take are when I’m doing the job and I’m very careful, preparation is everything with me. At the end of the day I’m a professional blagger and a fucking good one at that. That’s why I even make an effort to drink in here regular, blend in, be part of the scenery. I fucking hate them plastic gangsters that get in though. That Lynx selling muppet’s been a bit familiar lately as well, I can’t work out why, I think he might suspect I’m not what I seem but he can’t prove it so he just digs away. Well you keep at it son, I say fuck all me.
Then, suddenly, he’s in my face, a bit of an audience behind him.
‘Davey, how come you never buy any gear off me? Everyone else in this bar takes a bit of hoisty of me, they all appreciate the bargains but you never do.’
He’s obviously had a few pints more than he’s capable of and he’s getting brave, maybe the coke’s kicked in and he just feels the need to talk, whatever it is the cunt’s voice is getting louder and he’s drawing attention to me. Not what I want. This needs stopping.
‘Anyone would think you were some kind of undercover bizzy or one of those professional witnesses or something. You know the kind who can’t break the law or it fucks the case up.’
Shite. Too late to nip in the bud now, there’s a buzz round the bar and a couple of his gobshite mates have left the pool table and walked over, still holding their cues. I can’t have this. Instant death on this estate if I don’t deal with what he’s just said.
‘I can see your point,’ I say, ‘It must look suspicious to a charlied up, paranoid wanker like you. The reason I don’t buy your gear is because it’s shit and you’re a two-bob thief who thinks he’s a gangster. You want to remember son your name’s Gray not Kray.’
The cunt is nonplussed no-one’s ever spoken to him like that before, even his tattoos look confused, he’s not gonna like the next bit then.
‘As for being a bizzy and not doing owt illegal, how does this grab you?’
I welt my pint glass against the bar and ram it in his fat charva face, the blood sprays his two useless mates and they’re on their toes. Next thing I know the bar’s full of people applauding and I’m getting free pints all night, turns out they hate the cunt an all. Despite my desire to be low key I have to say I enjoy it but I know that was just the start. He was put into an ambulance telling everyone exactly what him and that Dobby prick would do to me. I’d best ring work tomorrow and ask for a few days holiday; tell them I’ve got a bereavement and I need to plan the funeral.
**********
I’m on top of the wall breathing softly. The glint of the cars that are parked in this quiet street remind me that it’s a full moon and I don’t hang about. A little hop and I’m on the other side, crouched in the bushes. The building rises up in front of me like some kind of gothic vampire haunt. It looks very different in the dark, I can picture Ozzy Osbourne running out in his pyjamas chasing that fucking dog and shouting ‘Shhhaarrronnn.’
A rabbit is playing on the lawn between me and the building, it scampers forward a couple of yards and immediately the whole garden is bathed in bright, white light so I crouch further into the bushes looking for a way past. His brothers and sisters provide this by skipping round the perimeter to the side of the building and showing me where the light sensor doesn’t reach. Making a mental note never to eat rabbit stew I follow them.
The side door is a piece of piss, one fucking Yale lock – are they for real? A quick fumble with my trusty blade and I’m in. Padding up the stairs to where I want to be I see a shadow cross the windowed door at the top and crouch back against the wall, I’m not keen on advertising my presence just yet. Once I’m certain it’s gone I jog up the rest of the stairs silently and very carefully push open the door and look up and down the corridor – there she is.
About twenty yards ahead of me is the stout woman I’ve come to see, she looks fat from the back, big calves poking out of the bottom of her A line skirt and fleshy arms protruding from her potato shaped body, obviously plays a lot of bingo. Controlling my breathing so it’s barely audible I creep up behind her, I’ve got something for this particular bird and no one else can know I’m here.
She starts to turn so I clamp my hand round her mouth and drag her backwards into a storeroom. She’s gasping and panicking, struggling to free herself until I spin her round and she looks into my eyes, relaxing instantly. Smiling at her I remove my hand.
‘Sorry about that Mrs Jessup but I knew you’d scream.’
She smiles back, unworried now, no thoughts of rape and murder in her mind. She knows what’s coming when I visit.
‘No problem Mr. Turnbull.’ Holding out her hand, ‘Have you got anything for me then?’
All business this old stick she never changes at all, I hand her the holdall with the cash in and nod towards the corridor again. She smiles, adjusts her dishevelled blouse and heads for the door with me tucked in behind.
‘Incidentally,’ I whisper, ‘you need to put another lock on the side door.’
It takes about thirty seconds to get to room fifteen, the warm, carpeted floor masking our footsteps and the dim nightlights shading our progress. The residents of this particularly exclusive nursing home like their comfort, that’s why I chose it for my mam. It wasn’t easy finding somewhere good enough for her, somewhere I could trust that she wouldn’t be abused but when I did, well it was a no brainer. There’s not a nursing home manager in the world that makes any kind of decent money so when I targeted the lonely and unloved Mrs Jessup I knew I was on a winner.
From her poky flat to her shitty old Morris car I knew she’d jump at the cash and from then on in it was just a case of how much. Two and a half grand a month in cash buys my mam the cosiest, safest room in the cosiest and safest home in the North East, for her part Mrs Jessup now drives a newish Focus and is buying a nice big house; everyone’s a winner.
**********
I’d heard on the grapevine that Dobby and that Gray cunt had bought a shit load of jellies today, obviously planning some blissed-out recuperation of his sliced up face. I’d also heard they were coming for me at the weekend and made a big show of not giving a fuck. This was so that when they died I wouldn’t be associated with it, not given the way they were going to go. I let everyone in the pub think I was an honest man who could have a bar room brawl if the occasion demanded it, not the kind of single minded, determined and cold blooded murderer that would go round to a scummy charvas house at two in the morning when he was out of his box to do him and his mate in.
Climbing up the drainpipe to his first-floor maisonette I listened intently for sounds of babies or pit bulls coming from inside, hearing nothing I heaved myself over the balcony and landed by the glass doors. Sitting there just listening I could hear the banging of a stereo playing some kind of rap shit, can’t make out the words just bass thumping out regular and steady, the neighbours’ll probably want me decorated when I off these pricks. Looking through the glass I can see one of them sprawled out across a beanbag but the other one’s nowhere in sight so I decide to give it a couple of minutes in case he’s at the toilet.
Looking out from the balcony over the estate I can see the rain driving in over the rooftops and the anger builds in me. These cunts are keeping me here. They’ve set my plan back by a couple of months now, they saw to that by interfering in my life. The bizzies marked my card when they interviewed me the day after I glassed Lynx man in there. They told me that he grassed me straight up for doing him but that none of the regulars would testify against me. The cunt was all matey with me; like he was doing me a favour and that he was pleased to see the bastard get his comeuppance.
The thing is I’m on their fucking radar now, before it happened they would have said ‘Dave who?’ Now they know who I am and where I drink and that’s how blaggers get caught. It just takes one person to give any kind of description, one copper to have a vague recollection of a bloke in a pub and they’re right up your arse.
No, I’ve got to leave the jobs for a few months now until the local plod have seen so many other faces that they forget mine.
Like I said though that sets my plan back and keeps me living in this shithole and it’s all because of them cunts in there. Looking back in at his prone figure I can’t help but see the irony of the situation, he accuses me of being a grass, in public, like I’m the lowest of the low and when I glass him he proceeds to sing my name the first chance he gets. The hypocrisy is fucking breathtaking when you think about it; the cunt should be a politician.
Right, enough time’s passed; his mate must be spark out upstairs. I gently break the lock and slide the glass door open, he’s got his back to me and doesn’t move a muscle so I’m sliding the gear out of my bag as I approach him. I’ve got a small, weighted rounders bat in one hand just in case he’s got any fight in him and a length of rubber flex in the other. The cunt’s staring straight at me as I step into his line of sight. I push the bat up to his face to see what happens but he just gurgles something unintelligible and smiles dreamily, the fucker’s away with mixer. Time for work.
Moving quickly I wrap the flex around his left bicep and pull it tight, patting his arm as I do so, then using my free hand I pull one of the syringes out of my inside pocket and push it straight into the biggest exposed vein. His face registers a slight flicker of pain and he stares at me while I hesitate over the plunger. Do I really want to do this? Fucking right I do, this cunt messed with me and my plan and he has to pay.
I push the plunger down and watch him for a second as the one hundred percent pure heroin I bought in London this morning from Fin the Greek makes its way to the pleasure centres of the brain. His expression changes from one of pure contentment to a vacant shell, as first he is stimulated and then overwhelmed by the smack. There’s probably worse ways to go actually. Scatter some junkie paraphernalia around the house and start to make my way upstairs, I’m tempted to turn this fucking music off, what is it? Fucking Black Grape? What’s that all about then? Fuck it, I go upstairs to find his mate and to plant the rest of the kilo in the airing cupboard.
Job Done.
