The fat man reclined on one arm, shielding his eyes against the Spanish sun. He nodded at the new arrival and motioned towards a plastic chair on the terrace by the glistening pool. There was no sound from the direction of the house and the pool area was an oasis of calm.
“You found it then?” said the fat man.
“Obviously.”
The fat man fixed the eyes of his companion, waiting until he took the offered chair. “Don’t get lippy, son. Bad for your health. I want you to find me someone to do a job for an old friend. A special job.”
“You want someone killed?”
“Not as thick as you look. Yeah, I want someone killed. That’s the job in a nutshell. Put me in touch with the best guy out there. I need him to find someone. When he finds him, kill him. Simple as that. Can you find me the best out there to do a job like that? You come highly recommended, son. Are you as good as they say you are? Can you get me a guy to do that? I want the best around, I’ll pay his price, tell him that. Do you have someone in mind?”
The other man nodded. “You want the best, I’ll get you the best. Only thing is…”
“What? You’re thinking I should go over there and bang a few heads together, find the little fucker myself? That it?”
“No, that’s not it. The man I have in mind, he’ll do the job, if the price is right. But he works to his own rules. If he takes the job, you won’t have any say in how he wants to do it. Will that be a problem?”
The fat man smiled. “No problem at all. Put me in touch with this geezer. I’ll tell him what I know, then all he has to do is find a man for a good friend of mine. Find him and then kill the fucker. Job done.”
“And that’s it?”
The fat man laughed, hard-eyed, with a complete absence of mirth. “Oh yeah. And one more thing. He needs to die nasty, as bad as it gets. That’s important. Got it now? Got the fucking message? Now fuck off and get me the guy I need to do the job.”
The other man rose to his feet. He nodded once but didn’t speak, then walked away towards the house. The fat man looked over his shoulder until the other man was out of his sight. He had led a South London gang for almost two decades. A difficult and dangerous job and no less dangerous after his retirement. Every leader expected to be challenged. A gang boss was just the same as a stag or a mountain gorilla in that respect. The head of the herd only keeps the job by force of personality and regular demonstrations of his continued fitness to lead. Retirement to a Spanish villa with a sizeable nest-egg stashed away was rare indeed in modern times. The perks of being the top man were too great. Retirement, after a career in drug trafficking wasn’t really an option. The top man knew too much and would always be a potential threat to whoever took his place. Retirement usually only came after death or a long spell of imprisonment. The sun beat down remorselessly from a cloudless sky but the fat man’s expression was as bleak as a Siberian winter.
oo er. I always wondered about people I met in Greece whether they were retired banks robbers or something. They always turned out to be very respectable. Lucky for me really I suppose. This took me back to those days – not so long ago but feels like a million years now.