Read Online Playing Around by Gilda O'Neill - Free Book Online Page B

blue Formica table dipping a Marie biscuit into her tea. ‘Morning, Sarah. Nice out again,’ she said, pulling out the chair next to her. ‘Another cup before you go, Val?’
    The woman who had opened the door shook her head. ‘No thanks, Doris. I’m working this morning and I don’t want to have to find a lav when I’ve got me drawers full of gear.’
    The three women laughed at the vision of Val being caught short with her hoister’s drawers, the specially designed shoplifter’s underwear, stuffed full of swag.
    ‘You’d better spend a penny before you go,’ Doris said good-naturedly. ‘Give the street door a good slam after you.’
    ‘Will do. Bye, Sarah. Bye, Doris. I’ll be round later.’
    Doris raised her hand in a little wave. ‘See you, love. Mind how you go.’
    ‘Now, you’ll have a cup won’t you, Sal?’
    ‘Please.’ Sarah dipped into her apron pocket and pulled out the crocheted flying helmet that had so humiliated her poor little Angie. ‘You ain’t got these in a bigger size have you, Doris?’
    ‘I told you they were knock-off copies for little ones.’
    ‘I know, I just thought it might do her. She’s been a bit … you know.’
    ‘Sal.’ She hesitated, knowing how touchy her old friend Sarah could be about her family. ‘Have you thought about going round to see your Violet about her?’
    Sarah looked levelly at her neighbour. ‘No business of your own to worry about, Doris?’
    Mikey Tilson bashed on the door of the Canvas Club with the flat of his hand, and kept bashing until Jeff let him in. ‘I want a word with you.’
    Jeff had been expecting this particular visit. He stood well back and let Mikey in at arm’s length. With his sore nose still bothering him, he was buggered if he was going to put himself in the range of any more slammed doors.
    He ushered Mikey through, with a lift of his chin. ‘Drink?’
    Mikey settled himself at the bar. The Canvas Club was surprisingly stylish for a discothèque, even in the harsh reality of natural daylight. Unlike most similar clubs, that were little more than matt-black-painted spaces with tiny makeshift stages, this one had been decorated to an exceptionally high standard. It had imported, mosaic-style mirror tiles on the walls, a properly sprung dance floor, professional-grade sound systems, two bars with high stools and plenty of sofas and low tables. Before she had grown bored with it, Sonia had made the Canvas one of her projects and, for once, she had been right about spending so much money. The club raked in a weekly fortune. But the takings were suddenly down five per cent, and Mikey had the hump. It meant he wasn’t able to rake his usual cream off the top – the cream that he had been emboldened to scoop since he had started seeing Sonia – without it all looking like it had gone boss-eyed, when it so obviously hadn’t.
    Mikey missed that cream; it had kept him in the manner to which he had recently become very agreeably accustomed. And Sonia wasn’t a cheap hobby either.
    ‘What’s going on here? Eh?’ He picked up the large vodka and ice that Jeff had pushed across the bar to him. ‘I’ve been collecting five per cent less every night this week . How am I mean to rake me bit of bunce off that?’ He tossed back almost the whole glassful, and continued with barely a pause. ‘Have you been opening that big, ugly gob of yours? Or have you got yourself some little scheme going with one of your black bastard mates? I know how you lot stick together.’
    Jeff pulled himself up to his full six foot three. He would take crap from David Fuller, he was his guvnor and he treated him a lot more fairly than anyone else he’d ever worked for. But being expected to take crap, especially crap like that, from a stupid prick like Mikey Tilson who kept his brains in his underpants?
    ‘Do you want to think again about what you just said, Tilson?’ Slowly, he took the long serrated knife from under the bar that, in a raid,