The Villain (A.K.A - The Shark - Gus)
After Shelly had left, I walked up to my room. I needed to be alone to go over the thoughts in my head. I had a lot to think about. I had a lot to do.
I unlocked the door and sat down on my bed. Jimmy had three days left to pay up. It was time to take precautions.
I reached for my phone and dialled the number that I'd contacted many times before. It started to ring. After what could only have been the third ring, the phone on the other end of the line was answered.
'Hello.' I heard the familiar female voice speak.
'Hello, Mrs. Faulkner, I need to hire one of your men again.' I went straight to the point. I heard laughter down the end of the phone.
'Ah, Mr. Dia, a blemish or a dispatch?' I heard her ask. She spoke in code, you could never be too careful, you never knew if there was someone listening in to the conversation.
'Dispatch.' I said sternly. Usually, Mrs Faulkner and I would have had a hearty conversation, but I wasn't in the mood for it today.
Mrs. Faulkner, or Alice as her friends and family would call her, was an old woman who was highly experienced in a thing called life. She knew the ins and outs of a hard life and had made profits from the misfortune of others. She was the leader of an agency of thugs-for-hire, though its real name was far more sophisticated and cunning than that.
We'd never met face to face. It was for the best of both of us. We had to remain hidden to avoid detection from the police. Not that they would do anything against us. Yet all they needed was hard proof and we'd be jailed for a very long time. If we met, either in private or public, it would jeopardise our freedom.
She passed me on to Tucker. I'd worked with his younger brother many times before. The youngest Tucker, Tatum, would carry out my usual, but rather unpleasant, business. I never wanted to get my own hands dirty. It would, again, jeopardise my freedom. Tatum Tucker would go around fulfilling the consequences that I'd promised to my clients. He'd break legs, tear limb from limb and bust noses, but there was one thing that he didn't do. He didn't kill, or 'dispatch' as Alice Faulkner liked to call it.
That was why I was talking with his brother, Layton Tucker.
'Good evening Tucker.' I said. I had worked with him once or twice before.
The relationship between the client and the thug was a formal one, nearly everyone addressed the client as 'sir' or 'mr. so-and-so'. The Tuckers were an exception to this. Their work was so satisfactory that no one complained about their state of politeness, and if anyone did, it would never be carried.
'It certainly is Dia, what can I do you for?' Tucker didn't call me by my first name, though I'm certain he would if he knew what it was.
'Well, there's this lad that might not be able to meet a payment. I need ya to keep an eye on him. Ya know, just in case he decides to run.'
'You want me to watch a kid? Surely you could've gotten Tatum to do this?' He asked.
'I could of, but I haven't. Ya see the thing is, if he doesn't pay me in three days...' I started, but Tucker cut me off.
'You want me to kill him.' Tucker stated.
I laughed. 'Yeah.'
'So who is this lad?' Tucker asked.
'His name's James Hansen Dia...'
One Half of the Comedy Duo (A.K.A - The Sarcastic One - Shelly)
I sat on the bus on the way over to Terrance's flat. I couldn't wait to tell him what I'd done. I was practically saving Jimmy's life. My hand held on tightly to the bag with the money in it; I didn't want to lose it.
The bus arrived at the stop just outside of the flat. I exited the vehicle and thanked the driver.
I knocked on the front door and waited. Five minutes passed and no answer came, thinking that maybe they hadn't heard me, I knocked again.
After about ten minutes of waiting outside with no reply, I assumed that maybe they weren't in. Either that or they were ignoring me. I tried to find out by cupping my hands against the window and peering at the inners of the flat.
I gasped.
Nothing was left inside the flat apart from the basic pieces of furniture. The TV had gone along with the PlayStation, the kettle was missing and so was the biscuit tin. The cupboards hung open and were completely void of all plates and cups. They couldn't have left! I was supposed to save them!
Okay, so maybe they had had one massive clear out?
I walked into the foyer and asked the shabby man at the desk where the people were who lived in flat #03.
'They moved out, love. D'ya wanna take a lookie?' Was the reply.
'Er, no thanks. Do you know where they've gone?' I asked.
'Hmm, ya know sweetheart, I might need something to jog my memory, I'm not really that sure...' The man held his hand out and I gathered that the lowlife scum expected payment of some sort. I fished around in my bag for some change that wasn't part of the £10,000 I was going to give to Jimmy. I pulled out a five pound note and shoved it into the man's hand. 'Oh, it's coming, it's coming...' I then gathered the greedy lowlife wanted more.
'£5 is all you're going to get, I'm not one of those uneducated lowlifes, like you. Now you can either keep the note and tell me where they've gone, or I can take the note and ask someone else.' I said sternly.
The man stuttered before he replied, 'Of course, love, they left barely twenty minutes ago. If you run, you might be able to catch them.'
'Where have they gone!?' I asked.
'Bus station, cupcake.' I ran out of the foyer and to the bus station which was only a five minute's jog away. I must have passed them on the way over without noticing. It was a strike of luck for me that the only bus that came round to these parts was the one that went to the school. It was hourly, so I knew that they'd still be waiting.
'Terrance! Jimmy!' I yelled when I caught sight of them. They looked at me in surprise. I guess the last thing they had expected was to see someone flying towards them who had supposedly set them up.
I caught up to them. 'Thank God you guys are still here!' I said.
'What do you want?' My celebrations were cut off by Jimmy's snide tone of voice.
'I...I, oh it's better if I just showed you.' I struggled to get the words out in my excitement. It was the first time that I'd get to tell someone about my daring actions and my successfulness. I realized that they were waiting for me to explain. 'Um, not here, I can't. Someone might see...' I said.
Terrance and Jimmy shared a look. An unspoken message passed between them before Terrance looked at me. 'Come on, I know a place we can talk.'
We walked into their old flat after paying off the fat man at the desk in the foyer. We sat on the uncomfortable sofa. They both looked at me with harsh and impatient expressions on their faces. They wanted me to continue.
'Well...' I started. I began to open my bag. I turned it upside down and shook it. All of the money inside cascaded onto the floor like some magical waterfall, 'you see...'
Terrance and Jimmy looked at one another, again sharing an unspoken message between them. They smiled.
'Wait.' Terrance said. 'What's this?' He wanted confirmation.
I told him what I'd done, that I'd screwed Gus over, I'd gone behind his back and stolen his own money. I explained that all Jimmy had to do was to give the money to Gus and walk away. Alive.
I watched in pure joy as their smiles grew wider.
'Shelly, I'm so sorry, I didn't...' I cut Terrance off.
'Don't, we'll never speak of it again.'
'Speak of what?' Joked Jimmy as he was gathering up the money from the floor and counting it out. I'd counted it out many times to make absolutely sure that it was the right amount. I was pretty sure that I'd made no mistake.
'How can we make up for this?' Terrance asked as he began to help Jimmy pile the money into the biscuit tin that they'd unpacked.
'You can live.' I said simply. It was all I could ask of them. It was beginning to look like my plan had worked. I was back in their good books. They didn't think that I was Gus' spy anymore.
Things were beginning to look up for them and it made me happy to see them smiling and laughing once more.
Jimmy looked up at me after I'd spoken. 'You can live a real life, a meaningful life,' I looked straight at Jimmy, 'a life not wasted.' I finished.
'Deal.' Jimmy said to me. He held out his hand for me to shake. I reached for it with my own hand and the tie was made. I had united our family once more. Maybe it wasn't the entire family, but it was a step forward.
We spent the whole night laughing and joking. Terrance and Jimmy unpacked their things after they payed a deposit on the flat. They'd received money from selling it, all they did was reinvest it.
It felt as though a huge weight had been lifted. The atmosphere felt lighter and more friendly. Even the old, gloomy, mustard-yellow stained kitchen counters seemed to brighten up and smile along with us. Life seemed sweeter somehow, and it was all because the death sentence over Jimmy's head had gone. Death was no longer holding out its arms to welcome him. Instead, its back was turned as life's embrace held him firmly.