Not Much Doing
I know something’s up as soon as I get in there. I see two blokes thumbing through some magazines and Mick’s behind the counter smoking a fag and doing a crossword. Just like usual. Except it isn’t like usual. Because the door to the backroom is locked which means trouble because if the door to the backroom is locked it means no one can get in to get the hardcore, which is what they come for, most of them, and where the money is. So I look at Mick and I say “Quiet, today?” and I glance towards the locked door so he knows what I’m getting at.
And Mick says, “So, so,” not giving anything away.
And I say, “Had any gentlemen in, today, Mick?” by which I mean, the plod.
And Mick says, “Not so far. Be in around tea time, probably. Three. Half-past.”
“Oh?” I say, “Shame. I’m busy this afternoon. Going fishing,” which is my code word for saying ‘going to see a man about a dog’, “You need any help? Cleaning up or anything?”
“It’s OK,” he says, “It’s all under control.”
By that he means that they’ve already cleared it, the hardcore, Irish Jim and Big Ivan probably. Stacked t up somewhere safe, out of the way, until the plod has been and gone. This happens about every two months usually. Only recently it’s been happening more often. Can’t be more than three weeks since the last time. It’s a racket, really. Mick always gets the tip-off and the plod never find anything. Usually what happens is that they send one or two of the plain clothes mob around, they have a quiet word with Mick, they have a flip through a few mags and they take a few of the choicest ones for themselves under the pretence that they’re seizing them or something, the dirty buggers - and then, off they go. All very friendly like. Mick knows most of them by their first names. Not sure what the financial arrangements are; all I know is that Mick is always in a piss-awful mood afterwards, which is why I decide to clear off out of it. Besides which, as I said, I had an appointment anyway. I only came in to drop off some merchandise to Mick but, as he was expecting visitors, I decided it’d be better to wait until some other time.
ON the way out I glance over at the magazines the two punters are thumbing through. Soft stuff. British, which is another way of saying boring as shit. You know what they say, anything at a jauntier angle than Cornwall is porn. So the boys in the British mags are droopy as hell. I’ve never been to Cornwall myself. If them mags are anything to go by, I probably won’t neither.
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