The rise and fall of a boy called Rave part 23

Love and Money

We pulled up in one of the better streets, in one of better suburbs in the town. We had been summoned, just me and Bob, by Duke to a party at his house. I had never really thought of Duke as living anywhere but looking around I was a little shocked at how up market the area was. I was making good money now, I could have afforded to move off the estate, but I couldn’t keep making money anywhere else. So I could see with a few steps up and a few more links between you and street level crime you could live in a place like this but still I wasn’t mentally set up to deal with it. Duke was a harden criminal you didn’t think of him living in a nice street when he worked in a strip club.

The where cars scattered around the street as we walked up it, hoods up even thou no one was watching, and counted the houses looking for the number that was scribbled on my hand. I was worried, any change in the norm worried me, I had no idea what was happening and I was walking into it with my boss. Bob never looked scared, he just didn’t have it in him, but I could feel the tension coming off him. People like us did not go to the home of people like Duke, he met us in back rooms or abandoned buildings not in the light.

The front door was open. We stuck out like sour thumbs, men is shirts and jackets, women in cocktail dresses, and us in heavy hoodies and jeans. I knew some of the men, clean names of the King’s more legitimate businesses, bent lawyers, high up heavies and Lts but the where other that I didn’t know some of which looked just as out of place as we were but they were at the other end of the spectrum, normal people. Most of the women were wives and girlfriends of the men but I could pick out the pros worked the room. I knew some of them, the better looking girls from the club, but others must have been of a higher price, they were here to keep the single guys entrained and maybe the married guys if their wives weren’t looking.

I stuck to the edge of the room working towards the back trying not to be noticed, Bob was not so carful. He strode through the party getting sideways glances and hostile stares from the people he pushed passed. I felt really uncomfortable, like when you fell someone behind you, I didn’t have the personal skill or the emotional intelligent to deal with it. In those days give me a back alley brawl over a cocktail party any day of the week.

“Mingle Rave” Bob said to me “I will go find Duke”

I saw King across the room and ducked into the kitchen not to be in the same room as him, he wouldn’t want to be in the same room as someone like me without a good reason. I don’t know how but I ended up making a man called Goodson, I made him feel very uncomfortable, spreading the misery. He was a crooked real-estate developer who I knew after Duke had introduced him so we could do some work for him.

Most of the town, hell most northern towns, where built on the cheap between 1850 and 1900 as places to store the workforce for the pits and mills. And then with the urban regeneration of the 50’s and 60’s resulted in a back lash with some nuts listing some really strange building. Now sometimes I can understand grade 1 listing on a building of real importance but on an old brick church that has no priest, no congregation, and no one to look after it what is the point. If it had been grade 2 someone could have done something with the inside but no. So these places had been left to rot, kids broke in because that is what kids do, and they became squats, dumping grounds or worse. That was where Mr Goodson had come in, he wanted to build on the sights and needed them gone, so my crew had picked up a few quid clearing the places and doing a little pyrotechnic remodelling so the building inspector, after being greased, would call them unsafe so they could be pulled down.

His wife, who was much too attractive to be married to him for anything other than his money, clearly had no idea why her man was being so painfully polite to the aggressive young man that was talking to him. She looked at me with a mixture of fascination and fear, the look women give snakes in the zoo, it pissed me off, but Goodson paid me money so I did my best to be nice. I was struck with the feeling that if I set fire to the building and killed all those inside the world would be a much better place but then I was one of them.

I let him go after I located Dukes alcohol, it was good stuff, whisky that was older than me if I was going to be forced to attend this thing I was going to enjoy it. I watched one of the pros work her way across the room towards me, a smile of genuine warmth on her face. Her name was Cassie or at least that was the name she danced under, she was one of King’s best girls working the peak hours at the club and had her own following of men that came just to watch her dance. She was impressive to say the least, her hips seemed to sway even when she was standing still, the only reason I didn’t think her breast where fake was because I didn’t know anyone that could have done such a good job. Her face went from innocent to sex kitten with her expression. The way she moved must have taken practise, each tiny action came with a full body movement that made the best of her assets.

Cassie was an estate girl and as I had been getting work at the club now that Cain was gone we had got to talking as I waited. She liked me. Most girls will tell you that they don’t like aggressive men, and they don’t, but on some level they want an alpha male, I was cut and bruised and angry and confident and the right girls seemed to eat it up.

“Alreet Ar’Rave” she said, the Ar was out of place, we weren’t kin, we weren’t close but she looked good and I wasn’t going to bring it up.

“Alreet Cass”

“I saw you talking to Goodson, now there is pick, do you think I should go tell his wife how quick he is” she had been drinking “do you think I should tell her how much he spends on me.”

“Shouldn’t you be working Cass?”

“I am here to keep people entertained, do I entertain you Rave.” She pushed up against me.

“While I would love to be entertained by you Cass I am not sure I could afford it.”

“I have seen the money you get in those envelops, plus what you make on the corner, I bet you could afford me”

“True but after I have paid of the gang and my crew, the rest goes on things like heating and food” and my ‘I have got to get the hell out of here’ box “so I really can’t be throwing money away on a girl as high class as you”

“Well I guess this is your lucky night because I am all paid up”

“What?”

“You think Duke wants his guessed digging around for cash, nay he paid me for the whole night, so I am free. I come on Rave, take me up stairs otherwise I am going to have to screw one of these old fucks.”

“Aye and I can really see Duke being happy with us going and fuck on his bed, I would like to keep my insides inside”

“We don’t have to use his bed, I think the guess rooms are in use but his daughter is walking around here somewhere as she has to sleep, come on are you really going to turn me down.” I don’t think anyone had ever turned her down and I wasn’t going to be the first so we went to find the kids room.