Finders Keepers Finders Weepers

I wouldn’t exactly say there’s an art to this, but there’s definitely a process. What you’re looking for, first and foremost is someone unlikely to be carrying a weapon, or anything that could be used as one. Next up is how much money they’re likely to have. Can’t always tell, but chances are good that if they look like they’re worth knocking over, they are. Make sure you know the area, any rat runs and exits, especially ones you can’t get a car down and avoid anywhere busy: any street with lots of people is gonna have at least one who can see tomorrow’s headline being ‘Local hero thwarts mugger.’ After that it’s all up to whether you’ve got the balls to go through with it. For me, not an issue. It won’t win me many friends, but I like it. When someone’s in front of you, especially someone who thinks they’re better than you, but you know that you’re prepared to go that much further than them because they’re soft and weak and you’re not, it’s a good feeling. It must be how those big balls CEOs feel all the time. It doesn’t matter that they fancy themselves and think they’re a bit tasty. It doesn’t matter what they’ve always thought they would do in this situation. From the moment I step out in front of them, I’m in total control. Some boxer once said: “everyone’s got a plan until they get hit in the face.” He’d be good at this, whoever he was.

You never know what you’re going to get either. Specially these days, people tend not to have cash, although contactless cards are a total gift. Course, sometimes you gotta put the pin in - that happened to Jonesy in a Tesco’s with like £90 worth of stuff and us all outside laughing our arses off - but phones are a pain in the arse unless you know a bloke who can wipe them, or deprogram them or whatever the fuck it is that they do. I’d be laughing if I could do it, and it can be learned, but it ain’t exactly the sort of thing you can take a BTEC in, and if you can’t do it or get it to someone who can quick enough, they’ll be tracking that fucker and you’ll be in nick before you know it. Jewellery is always good, because it’s easy to hide and easy to shift, the problem being you never get value for it. Do you know how to accurately value a diamond ring? I don’t. It was a ring that did for my mate Billy Shaw. It may sound like I’m off my nut, but I swear what I’m about to tell you is God’s truth.

++++

Me and Billy used to work as a pair sometimes, sometimes with a couple of others, and the best beat we had was around the university buildings. You don’t get softer and fatter than those old uni professors. Plus, they can be really funny. There was this one old guy with those little half glasses that you only wear if you’re a professor, who acted like what was happening to him was something he could look at through his little glasses and then write some very professory book about. He said something about us being product of a broken society or some shit, and Billy went “nah, mate. We just want your wallet, innit?” I swear, in the end Billy just punched him in the face to shut him up. Anyway, the ring was another time. We were up on the balcony looking for likely targets when we saw this fella. How he’d got this deep into our manor without being jumped was a puzzle, but as soon as we saw him, he was our mark. It looked like he was drunk, or on something. The whole time we watched, he didn’t take three steps in a straight line. Every few steps he’d stop. We looked at each other, sprinted down the piss smelling stairs and onto the estate. Billy overtook him and I stayed behind him. Billy pulled his mask over his nose and mouth and turned to face him. He said:

“Alright, mate? I was thinking you could help me out.”

It was like the bloke didn’t even hear him. He carried on with his zigzag steps, until Billy raised a hand and planted it on his chest, stopping him in his tracks. The bloke looked at the hand on his chest and then along the arm and up, until he was looking Billy in the eyes, but he had that far off look, like he wasn’t really seeing. Definitely on something.

“What?”

“Wallet, money, watch. Now.” The guy just stared. Billy rolled his eyes. “Shit. He’s off with the fairies, bruv.” He reached for the guys inside jacket pocket, and the man jumps like he’s been electrocuted. He turned to run, and I stuck out a foot and sent him sprawling.

“Where you going, mate?” I kicked him in the ribs and he curled up like bacon thrown into a pan of hot fat amidst the dead leaves and empty crisp packets. Billy hauls him back to his feet and starts going through the guy’s pockets.

“Fuck. Nothing. Hold up, what’s this? He holds up the guy’s unresisting arm by the wrist. There’s one ring on the index finger of his right hand. On the back of his hand was this weird…tattoo, I guess, but I’d never seen one like that before. I couldn’t make out what it was of, exactly, but they must’ve used some new kind of ink, cos it glowed greenly like neon. I turned my attention back to the ring.

“Dunno. Worth something?” Like I said, I don’t know a valuable ring from a hole in the ground. Not the sort of stuff they teach you in school, even though it would have been more useful than knowing what an oxbow lake is. I don’t know that either, but I know there ain’t any oxbow lakes in Hackney.

“Maybe. Better than nothing.” Billy started trying to take the ring off and the bloke came alive.

“No! You can’t have it! He started giggling madly. “Hahahaha! Oh, no! You can’t have my ring! I’m not allowed to give it away. Hahahaha!!!” I could see that this geezer was absolutely off his chump, and i didn’t think it was drugs or booze anymore, he was proper howl-at-the-moon insane, but if there’s one thing guaranteed to wind up someone mugging you, it’s sarcasm, and if Billy saw that this guy was bananas, he didn’t care. He started whaling on the bloke, busting him in the face, in the gut, all over. It was like watching a guy at the gym with a punchbag. And all the time, the bloke just laughed, blood spraying from his lip, his nose, doubling up from the force of the blows but never once trying to dodge or block. Eventually, his knees went, and he crumpled to the floor, still laughing weakly, the bloody bubbles bursting of his lips with his ragged breath. Billy stood over him like a prizefighter, breathing heavily, lifted the guy’s right arm and wiggled the ring off his finger. When Billy let got of the arm, it fell limply and hit the ground with a slap, like raw steak on a slab. As we walked away the slumped shape rolled painfully onto its back and said:

“Wait!”

We wouldn’t have, normally, but I think we both felt that there was something different from the norm about this guy, and for my part, I wanted to know what he was going to say, and Billy must’ve been the same, cos we stopped, and turned to face him again. He might not have felt the beating at the time, but he was feeling it now. His breathing was strained, Billy must’ve popped a couple of his ribs. Both eyes were swollen to the point where he could barely have been able to see anything, and when the words came, it was obvious that the effort was causing no small amount of pain.

“Three…days. You have…three days…” His face was a mess, but I swear he was smiling. “You can’t give it away. You can’t…” he paused, coughed and spat blood on the pavement before continuing. “… lose it. It can only be … taken…from you. If you still have it in three days, he will come to claim what is his.” He laughed, coughed, laughed again. Then he suddenly stopped laughing, and his voice dropped so low we could only just hear him. For the first time since we’d spotted him, there was something like fear in his voice. “Beware the crooked man. God help you.”

We split up after, on general principles. If something goes across the police scanner telling the rozzers to look for two white males in dark hoodies in such and such a place, it’s better to not be two white males in that neighbourhood. Something told me this space cadet wasn’t going to be going to the police, though. He was freaky. Most people are all like “please, take my money, don’t hurt me,” or something and just want to get out of there quickly with as little damage as possible, but him? It was like he was glad. I know there’s those pervs who get their kicks from pain, but this wasn’t like that. You just don’t see someone laugh it off a beating like that. I mean, what’s going on in someone’s life where getting the shit kicked out of them is a good thing?

++++

A few of the lads hang out in this scabby boozer called the Agincourt. It’s sort of a cross between a job centre and market. If you need someone for something, or need to get rid of something, or find something, you can either get it in the Aggy, or find someone who can. I was in a couple of days after me and Billy robbed the space cadet, playing a bit of pool with Jimmy Randall, waiting to see if the night would throw anything interesting my way when Billy stumbled in. He walked straight past me without even looking, got to the bar and ordered a vodka, which he downed as soon as it hit the bar, then ordered another. He was shook. I went over to join him.

“Alright, Billy?”

He looked at me like I was a Martian, like he’d never seen me before, then a light went on and he reached out and touched my face.

“Shawn? Is it you?”

“Who else? What’s up? Catch your bird with the Alsatian again?” Running joke. He didn’t seem to notice, just picked up his second drink and it went the same way as the first. He looked round, like he was looking for someone.

“Take a look outside for me? Just stick your head out the door, tell me if you see anyone?”

“Filth?”

“Just tell me if anyone’s there!”

I did, looked up and down the street, and went back in.

“No-one.”

He relaxed for the first time since he’d walked in the door.

“Jesus, Shawn. Jesus, I’m fucked!”

“What are you going on about? Law after you?”

“No. Not the law. Christ, I wish it was.”

“Oh, no, Billy, not DJ?”

“Worse.”

“Than Donnie Jackson? You have got to be shitting me.” Donnie Jackson is an old school villain who has got fingers in everything from here to the river, and if you pull something big, you’d better have cleared it with him first, or you’re liable to find yourself dangling by your ankles from the balcony of one of the high rises, and if you haven’t got a decent explanation, any problems you might be having quickly get solved, at the rate of several metres per second. “What have you gone and done?”

Billy shuddered, and without answering, opened his clenched fist to reveal the ring. He’d been gripping it so tightly that it sat in a groove pressed into the flesh of his palm. He closed his fingers round it again.

“That loon from the other day?”

“No. Not him.”

“Who, then? You’re not making any sense!”

“Well, that’s alright then, cos none of this makes any sense. You remember what he said after we jumped him?”

“Yeah, some crazy bollocks.”

“I met him. The crooked man.”

I laughed, but then I caught sight of the expression on his face, and stopped short. He sank another vodka, and continued.

“I was in Blackmore House, gone to see Davey Pike about moving this ring. The lift was out, as per, so I was halfway down the stairs when all the lights went out.”

“So? The electrics are always on the Fritz in them blocks.”

“Not like this…it was him.”

“The crooked man?” I went to laugh again, but stopped myself. Billy didn’t look like he was in fooling mood.

“Yeah. I’d stopped by a window, was going for my phone, get the torch on, when there was a thump on the glass. I’m twelve floors up, so I’m thinking it’s a bird…” he rubbed his shaved scalp, like he was trying to rub out the vision in his brain, “…it was him. Twelve floors up, outside, standing on nothing. He was standing on nothing…I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak…he just floated there, staring straight at me through the glass.”

“Fuck off, Billy. It ain’t Halloween. I ain’t buying this crap.” He carried on like I hadn’t said anything.

“I dunno how long I stood there, but then a light flickered and it was like I woke up. I bombed it down the stairs away from him. I got four floors down and saw through the glass that he was there, still floating, still staring. I wanted to run again, but then I thought if he could keep up with me so easy, what was the point? I just leant against the wall, and slid down it. Then the lights all came back on and he was gone.”

“That…”

“I know how it sounds. And then there’s this.” He turned his hand over. On it, there was a bright green …symbol. It was exactly like the one the bloke we robbed the ring from had. I was getting really bad vibes by now, but I still said:

“When did you get that done?”

“Don’t be a dick. It just appeared on my hand as soon as he vanished. And no, it doesn’t come off.”

A question I didn’t want to ask formed.

“Billy? What happens after three days?”

He stared at me, not blinking, then said simply:

“He’s going to kill me. And I think that’s only for starters.”

++++

He’d come to the Aggy to see Big Phil and get a piece to defend himself with, but Phil wasn’t about, so we went to look for him at his lockup. I still wasn’t sure if I believed it then, but Billy wasn’t the type to scare easy, and if I didn’t believe it, I knew he did. We found Phil, told him what we wanted and went back to the Aggy to wait for the gun.

“Can I crash at yours tonight?” Billy was distractedly scratching at the hand with the symbol on it.

“Mate, I dunno… Angie’s been giving me grief lately and…”

“Shawn, please?! I’m not fucking around!”

The look on his face meant I didn’t really have a choice.

++++

We got the gun and went back to mine. Billy checked and rechecked that it was loaded, obsessive, like. When we got to the door of my flat, I said:

“Not a word about any of this to Angie, right?” He nodded, and we went in. Angie was not pleased to see Billy - she’d been trying to get me to take a regular job, and she knew Billy

was pulling me the other way, but she didn’t say anything when we walked in. I left Billy in front of the tv with Angie while I went to fetch some drinks, but I hadn’t been gone 10 seconds before I heard shouting. I went back into them to find Billy caught halfway through checking the gun for the hundredth time, and Angie in a rage.

“Get that fucking thing out of my flat!” she yelled, and turning to me, “how could you let him bring a gun here? I put up with a lot of shit from you, Shawn, but you know I draw the line at guns!”

“But Angie, you don’t understand…” started Billy “…it’s not what you think…” Angie’s eyes were fire as she spat:

“No. Guns. It goes, or you go. Now.”

Billy looked from her to the gun, stood up and left without a word.

“Billy, wait!” I shouted after him.

“If you follow him, don’t bother coming back,” said Angie.

“Angie, he’s in trouble. I have to help him. He’d help me.”

“Help you into trouble, you mean.”

“Babe, I need to. Let me go, and I swear I’ll get that job in the warehouse tomorrow.”

“Promise?”

“Swear down.”

“No more thieving?”

“On my mother’s life.”

She thought for a moment, then nodded in the direction of the door.

“Be careful.”

++++

By the time I got out, Billy was nowhere in sight. I rang his phone, but all I got was this weird static. I searched round the estate for a couple of hours, asked everyone I saw if they’d seen him; nothing. I didn’t know what I’d do if I found him before the crooked man did, and I didn’t know what the crooked man would do if he found him first, but Billy was convinced: “He’s going to kill me. And that’s only for starters.”but it’s been three days nearly to the hour, now, and it looks like the streetlights on the estate tonight are glowing green…