The Family Firm

Chapter 7

Freddie was satisfied as he watched Mickey McElroy and company swagger out of the warehouse, confident they'd made the deal of the century. No thanks to Archy, of course. Fred had, once again, handled business in the best way possible, and he felt like the dog's bollocks right about then. In his mind, he was single-handedly seeing to it that things in East End were tidied up to perfection, in the way that profited them the most.

Archy didn't seem too pleased, however, and said to Freddie once the others had left, 'Come here a moment, my old son.'

Freddie turned to him then, his cigar since extinguished, and ran a hand over his face before addressing him casually: 'All right, Arch?'

'Yeah, yeah...' said Archy, the worry lines deep in his face. It suddenly struck Freddie how old he looked right then. The ageing mobster had once been a powerhouse in his day, could have given them all a run for their money. And there was a lot that Fred had admired in the man, too. He had worked alongside the Krays and had been a valuable resource to them back in the 1960s as what he had dubbed a "collector". He'd done a good job cleaning up the city after they'd both gotten banged up too with the right amount of wit and brute strength. All in all, he was a man worthy of his salt, something Fred's father used to say.

But now, he was old. His heavy muscle was cloaked almost entirely with thick fat that hung off him like a disease, masking his once-good looks to the point where, by his own standards, he was nearly unrecognisable. It weighed down on his joints and made him slow, and there was a slight wheeze to his words, emphasising the difficulty it took to form them, even when stationary.

To Fred, it was obvious that the man was on his way out, and it should have been to everyone else, too. He was slow, he made mistakes, and the Bunch was in desperate need of fresh ideas and the vigour that a man like Freddie himself could provide.

Archy was looking at him through his yellow-tinted glasses, smoothing out the front of his business jacket as a force of habit. 'I'm letting you do this as a fucking favour to ya, you do know that, don't you boy?'

Freddie's brow darkened slightly. 'A favour?'

'Yeah, a favour. After all I done for ya, bringing you up proper like I did, more than that cunt of a father you've got. Taking care of ya when you was banged up, and after you got out. I'm trusting you with this deal even though I wouldn't trust that mick as far as I could throw him. But I'm trusting you won't balls it up neither because that reflects on me, you understand?'

Fred was staring at him. Oh, he understood all right. He understood clearer than he had ever before about Archy's "trust". Archy might not have realised it but he wore his motivations as clear as the day is long and Freddie knew the only thing he was trusting was for this to blow up in his face. He wanted Fred to fail, because he knew he was a threat. At the very least, this would be an excuse to demote him. At most, well, in the line of work they had chosen the ultimate risk was death. And Freddie, who had wanted this to go very civilly before now, realised that Archy had just raised the stakes. And while he wasn't certain if Archy knew that he knew, he would soon.

Freddie smiled that award-winning smile of his and nodded his head once, firmly. 'Thanks, Arch. You always did take good care of me. I won't let you down.'

The ingenuousness of his expression was suddenly unnerving, and Archy became incredibly aware that they were about to play a very, very dangerous game.

Suddenly, Freddie's brand-new Mercury mobile rang in his pocket, and he stepped aside casually to answer it. The moment he pressed it to his ear, however, he heard the soft cries of his sister Frankie on the other end, and his expression grew grim.

Frankie didn't often cry, and when she did it was almost always when she was drunk, which usually happened after her mother berated her over her life's decisions, or back when she had been with Donny, Junior's father. But there was a distinct sobriety to her voice as she sobbed quietly into the headset, which only exacerbated Fred's own fears.

'Franks, what's wrong, babe? Slow down, I can hardly hear ya.'

He listened to her as she quieted her cries and told him, 'It's Junior. He's gotten himself kicked outta school.'

Freddie sighed, the worst of his fears—that there had been a death in the family or something around those lines—rising from his chest and expelling through a breath. 'All right, love. Calm down, and I'll be right over. I'm gonna make things right as rain, don't you worry.'

After he was assured she would do as he said, he hung up his mobile and slipped it back into the pocket of his black business jacket. He glanced back inside the warehouse at the men milling about, all villains like him, chancers the lot of them, and then there was poor old Archy. And as he watched these men whom he could have easily called brothers in the past ten years or so, men he had begun to know as family, he was struck with the sudden gravity and reality that things were about to change drastically.

Archy was looking back at him, and he knew then that Archy knew it too.