Work wasn’t special, but it was regular and it paid. For some reason Marty Jones liked to use BB on a lot of jobs. The awkward ones. The ones Marty had a special interest in. That word again. When Marty got interested in something it was because of money, nothing else.
“His name’s Jason Clark,” Marty said to him.
They were in the office of Heavenly, the surely ironically named nightclub Marty’s brother was manager of. The place was a stain, a place where they turned the lights down low so you wouldn’t see how far you’d fallen. Seemed to make plenty of money though, mostly from its after-hours activities.
“Don’t know him,” BB said.
He took a look around the pokey little office. Hadn’t been in there before. Place was tiny, you could bounce a man off one wall and watch him fall against the other three. No wonder Marty’s twin brother Adam always looked so damn miserable. Working out of this dump. Living in his brother’s shadow. You’d almost feel sorry for him until you realised he’d brought it on himself. There were issues between the two of them as well, BB knew that. Mikey Summers, another hardman, had told him not to mention Adam to Marty. The two didn’t see much of each other any more, but Marty still liked using his twin’s office for meetings.
“Nah, he ain’t in the business,” Marty said of Clark. Just the two of them in the office. “Ran up debt. Gambling, I think. Maybe not just gambling, I don’t know. Daft bastard’s got a big house and a fancy car as well. Stuff he could sell to pay off this debt but he doesn’t want to. Find him; remind him what he owes and what a good idea paying would be.”
“What does he owe?”
“Seventy four grand and change. Round it up to seventy five to cover the emotional trauma he’s caused me by not paying.”
“You want me to try and get any of it?”
“Nah,” Marty said with a shrug. “He’ll only have buttons on him. Just make sure he knows how dangerous the debt is, that’s all.”
This was where you had to apply measured judgement to a battlefield. Even BB was surprised to find out that he was pretty good at that. You had to decide how much of a reminder a person needed. Some of them just needed a little roughing up, a slightly less than gentle reminder. Some of them needed a right kicking. This guy, with his big house and car and gambling debts, probably only needed a nudge toward payment. If he was smart enough to be rich then he was smart enough to understand the warning. People with drug debts, those were the ones you had to get properly rough with.
Jason Clark worked for a window fitting company that his uncle had set up. A family business, all of the family making decent money from it. A trim little wife and two outgoing, gap-toothed daughters under the age of ten that most people would have considered annoyingly delightful. Should have been enough for Clark, but it wasn’t. It was a job he had no choice but to take and a wife who just happened to be two months pregnant when they realised they simply had to get married. It was boring.
BB’s first challenge was to pick the location. Work or home meant spreading news of Clark’s debts. That didn’t seem necessary. This was a first warning to a guy that had the means to pay. You take it soft. Chances were neither branch of his family knew about the debt. People were amazingly good at hiding the black hole in their finances, BB knew that. The lengths some people went to, Jesus, they were creative geniuses. People with addictions and massive debts holding down jobs and outwardly respectable lives. If they put the same effort into making money as they did into hiding their losses they’d have no problem.
So not home and not work. His family find out and that makes him bitter, less willing to pay. You have to make the guy want to pay the money. That’s the thing a lot of people didn’t get but BB did. That was instinct, you see. He could understand what went through a person’s mind when he kicked the shite out of them.
It was more work, protecting Clark’s family from the expensive truth. It meant sitting outside the industrial unit the window business operated from and waiting for him. Meant following him as he made his way home at the end of another soul crushing day. Meant following him into the pub he took a little detour to.
The place was bright, not without its charms. BB bought a pint and watched Clark knock back two whiskies in the sort of unseemly quick time usually reserved for big screen private detectives. Didn’t look like he was enjoying them. Just looked like he was trying to numb himself for the next part of his day. After two quick hits he got up from the bar and walked toward the toilets. BB followed, at just enough of a distance for no one to notice, or care if they did.
Clark wasn’t using the toilets. He was standing in front of the mirror, shoving two extra strong mints into his mouth and crunching them both hard. He glanced at BB, put the packet back into his pocket and turned on the tap to wash his hands and maybe splash a little water on his face.
There was nobody else there, which always helps. BB didn’t give any warning either. He wasn’t going to hammer this guy too hard, but you still need to shock him. You still need to leave him certain that paying the debt is the only smart thing to do. He moved behind Clark and swung his knee up into his lower back, sending Clark jerking forward hard against the sink. He almost fell over, but BB caught him, held him up. Punched him hard in the stomach, and a second time to be sure the first had company. Held him up like a doll and leaned in to his ear.
“You owe a lot of money Jason, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Clark said. It was somewhere between a sob and a stammer. Far enough gone to be upset but not striding into hysteria territory yet.
“Seventy five grand’s a lot of money, isn’t it?” Get them into the habit of agreeing with you, something Conn Griffiths, another Marty hardman, had taught him.
“Yes.”
“You’ll pay it quickly now, won’t you?”
“I will, I promise I will. Please, I promise.”
BB shoved him back, put a few feet between them. Clark looked shocked, crushed. Looked like a man who would do anything to get BB off his back, which was the plan. He didn’t look like he needed another punch. His shirt had come untucked from his trousers.
“Tidy yourself up before you go home,” BB said to him casually. He turned and walked out of the toilets, out of the pub.
Good job, well done. The guy was a little roughed up and he’d do what Marty wanted from now on. BB hadn’t done him any real damage either. His family didn't need to find out, if they didn’t already know. Might have a few bruises on the back and stomach, but he could wear a t-shirt to bed and hide them from the wife, provided she wasn’t in the habit of ripping his clothes off him. He didn’t look like a man whose wife was. No marks on the face either. BB had let him off the hook on that one.
A Note from the Publisher: Duty calls for BB, but we promise you'll see Heather next week. Please vote for this story if you're enjoying the read!
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BB & Heather
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