Hosstory - Gangsters of FileyHosstory - Gangsters of Filey
Ah, Try again. Thought it would help putting part 1 on first !
PART 1
Chapter One
Tush took another gulp from his half empty glass, and with the back of his hand he wiped the froth and a slight morose and evil scowl from his face.
"Who ses I'm effin deaf?" he growled at Leo in a low and irritated tone.
"It was Spiv. He read it in this magazine." Leo quickly replied. "He told me that it said thirty percent of middle aged men start to go deaf when they're middle aged." He added with an approving look on his face to try and drum up some of Tush's enthusiasm.
"Has that buffoon been reading those woman's magazines again?" Tush asked unenthusiastically as he glared back. "I told him and you the last time that they were bad for the both of you and for business." he retorted. "What was that last gem of information he gave you? If you try to walk blindfold in a straight line, you'll end up walking in an effin big circle."
"It's true." Leo replied. "That's why people that are lost in the desert eventually collapse and die. They walk round and round until they drop. I tried it with that ned from Scarborough a couple of weeks ago." He explained, trying his best to gain Tush's approval.
"The reason that he walked in an effin circle was you cut his left foot off. He didn't manage to walk in a straight line because he had one leg longer than the other, and the poor sod hobbled round and round until he collapsed and near bled to death." Tush pointed out.
Leo sat there in silence pondering on what Tush had just told him. Thinking about it in retrospect, Tush had a point and there had been rather a lot of blood where the bloke had dropped.
"Then there was that other one, what was it?" Tush came back. "Yes; he'd said that some prat who'd got hit on the head with an apple had said that it was gravity that had caused it to hit him, and that the apple had the same pull on him as he did on it." Tush hissed, then paused from what he was saying and waited for Leo to acknowledge the fact or even murmur the slightest fraction of a comment.
For his own safety, he did neither.
"That prat Spiv tried to prove that scientific point by dropping a piano on that git from Muston to see if the piano pulled him towards it and the poor sod left the ground before it hit him." He explained contemptuously. "We lost business and money because of that little experiment. Why? The bloke stayed on the ground and was instantly turned to paste by the weight of the effin piano." He said as he gave
Leo one of his Spiv despising looks.
"But it's Spiv, he reads a lot. He says it keeps his mind active."
Tush shook his head and quietly took another mouth full of beer. He could see that it was going to be a long one of those nights and he tried to think of someone who hadn't come across so he could take it out on them.
There was some truth in what Leo had said. Their partner Spiv did read a great deal. In fact he had read the bible, both old and new testaments several times over and had absorbed a magnitude of knowledge from its psalms. This had become for a time ‘bad for business' as Leo had nearly caught religion after listening to, and taking too seriously what Spiv had said to him about plagues and smiting and the like. For a time he'd believed that all he had to do was hold a staff over some water and a plague of locusts would descend on his worst enemy and eat him out of house and home and he'd starve to death. This had come to light early one Sunday morning when Tush, after several hours of searching had eventually found Leo on Brig End. There he was stood at near high tide with a garden cane held straight out in his hand blurting something about their archrival Wrelton and locusts. Tush, to prevent them both from being swept away and drown, had had to kick the religion out of Leo and drag him chanting and cursing up Carr Naze and home. Spiv in the meantime had been sat in front of a nice warm fire, his slippers on and a large book in one hand. There in a passing thought he had wondered if the other two were out enjoying themselves but had very quickly become engrossed in the pages of his book. His relaxing read had been cut surprisingly short when Tush and Leo had both burst into the room, soaking wet and Leo covered in blood mumbling something or other about plagues. Before either of the two could stop him he'd pulled a large first aid book from the bookcase and diagnosed Leo as having scarlet fever with sever haemophilia and to both their surprise, with one swift move of his hand had grabbed a bible and began to administer Leo his last rites.
Spiv had read most great works and this had had an impression on his very active mind. In fact to Tush and Leo, it was sometimes darn right bloody annoying and in certain cases very, very, violent and bad for business what he did to put to practice what he had read.
Spiv, well, he was the brain of the business him being a brainy bastard. Spiv took care of the business's finances due to the fact he had small feet that were no good for kicking seven bells out of anyone or anything. In his spare time, which he had an excess of, him being a manic insomniac, he read a great deal. In fact that's all he did both day and night was read. Spiv read as much in a month as your average bookworm would ever manage to read in a whole lifetime, but it was what he read, and the way he liked to share the things he had read with Leo that totally let him down. Spiv could be classed as someone with one of the rarest of social afflictions, readaholism. It was not that he liked to read, or even that he could go without taking a read. It was just that he couldn't say no. He told others that he just read to be sociable, but he knew that they probably wouldn't believe him and that he was just leading himself on so he read. He'd joined readaholics anonymous, but sat there alone he'd soon found that he was the only one who had turned up for the meeting, and after telling himself his problems he'd felt worse than ever and he needed a large read to calm himself down.
He'd seen several psychiatrists, all of who had asked him to wait in their well furnished waiting rooms where on the tables before him always were piles upon piles of magazines for him to get his eyes on. By the time he'd been placed on their couch for his expensive consultation he'd been as high as a kite and didn't care two Filey fishermen's boots about what they had to say or anything in the whole world.
Leo, on the other hand, being the more gullible of the three took what Spiv told him as gospel and he was always quoting snippets Spiv had passed on to him or was always having a go at seeing if the things he'd been told worked.
During the week, in the daytime hours Leo had a job. He had a job as a painter. He painted houses for a living, both inside and out for which his employer paid him but a miserable some of money which would not have kept a person of Leo's age or stature with the firm. It wasn't what he did that kept him in the job he was in, he didn't particularly like painting, in fact he hated it with a despise that if put to use would have stripped paint from any surface with no problem at all. No. Why he painted was the fascination he had and had always had to the way that the paint preferred to be on the surface he was applying it to rather than on the brush he was using to apply it. No matter what the colour. This fascination had kept him going all through his career from when he'd left school to the present day. He didn't know why, it just did. His workmate Paul, when Leo had often told him of this observation had said that Leo always had a point but he thought, that with no disrespect, he was still stark raving mad and should paint faster so they could get home for tea. Leo always in his wisdom ignored this but did paint faster to see more paint stick. Leo as always would agree and paint and watch. It was fascinating.
Tush. Well, he was just Tush. Always had been. Always would be. He was the leader and he at least had his head screwed on right. It had been done one afternoon at school in one of the woodwork classes as Tush had tried to prove to the rest of the class that the owl was not the only effin creature that could look behind it without turning round. There he had fastened his head in one of the bench vices and slowly began to twist his body round and round. There was a cracking and a grinding noise from the area of his neck but Tush, without a cry or even any verbal sound at all had completed not one, but two and a half revolutions before his stunt had been cut suddenly short by the return of the woodwork teacher.
"Oosh Boy. What do you think you're doing?" the man bellowed as he looked over the rim of his spectacles. "That's a stupid thing to do. How many times have I told you, you must have your apron on at all times when working at a bench. Don't you ever listen?"
Sure enough, Tush had forgotten to put on his woodwork apron and for that one moments forgetfulness he was issued a hundred lines to be returned the following morning. This had taught him a lesson. Never get caught and this had stuck with him and been his guideline for the rest of his life.
The lines however had not bothered him in the slightest. He'd had lines before and they'd never bothered him in the slightest then. By this time in his schooling he knew that if he received a punishment excersise, all that he had to do was grab a Pilkinton at break time and force the work onto it. There, the lines would be done by the next day and Tush knew that if the Pilkinton ever thought the slightest thought of complaining to the teachers, he would get a good kicking at the back of the bike shed at the soonest opportunity. He knew that writing identification would be of no problem either as in woodwork, he or Pilkinton had ever written a single word for the teacher to compare with.
Chapter Two
The three of them in their spare time, what spare time they had, were into collecting. They didn't collect stamps, nor did they collect rare coins, or even unique train serial numbers. No. In their spare time the three of them collected money, and if the person who they were collecting it from didn't have it, they gave them a painful reminder and then collect a sure promise as to when it would be paid. One of their so called clients had in fact tried to give them absolutely free his whole set of train serial numbers collected over a lifetime instead of the money he owed, and Spiv had nearly taken them on account of what he had once read about each number being unique to its own train, but Tush, as always had pulled the reigns tight, so to speak, and before he'd gone blue due to the tightness of the thongs, Ness had given them an exact time and place as to when and where the money was going to be paid.
Chapter Three
"Say cheese Chapman you snivelling git." Leo yelled as he pointed his brand new multi-angled lensed, 35mm camera at the blood-covered body lolled in the chair before them.
"Why do you want to take an effin picture of someone we've just kicked the crap out of?" Tush asked wearily. "He didn't pay, so we kicked seven bells of shit out of him. It's as simple as that. He's no effin different so why do you want to photograph him after we've done?"
"Well Spiv read that photo's are a good reminder of the times you've had." Leo replied as he pointed the camera in the dazed and blood covered Chapman's direction. "He says that when you're older you can always look back and laugh with your children and grandchildren at the pictures of things that you got up to."
Tush knew that by what Leo had just said that Spiv had been telling him things. Not only had he been conveying his learning's, but by what Leo had at this moment in his hand, some of it had obviously stuck. He also knew that the only way to get them all out of here on time would be to let Leo take his picture.
"Alright. I'll hold his head up and you take the picture, but for effin gods sake, don't get my face in it as well."
Tush held their customers' head up by the hair and Leo pressed the shutter release. There was a flash and a pop and it was done.
They both knew that they were pushed for time, for where they were at the moment governed how much reminding they could administer to their client and then there clients removal and final freedom.
Where they actually were was in a small discussed room near to the top of the steeple tower, and the time was fast approaching midnight, the time when they had to and must leave.
The timing of their exit was so critical. It was governed solely by the clocks twelve-midnight chimes along with the number of descending steps leading to the exit door below. Each one of these steps, thirteen in all, was made of wood. They were old, and creaky, and each one when hit with something equally as hard as it made a loud echoing noise that could be heard by anyone passing in the street below. Little did the people of Filey know that their towns communal timepieces twelve hour chime masked more sinister and violent goings on.
The light of the small room was extinguished and with almost surgical precision Chapman was dragged towards the top of the old wooden stairway. There the two waited in total silence as they had done so many times before, each tightly clasping one of their unconscious customers ankles, each waiting and knowing what he should do. There they stood as always, both as usual with an anticipation that could have stopped a clock, although this was the last thing that they would have wanted to happen, for it was the bell of the steeple clock that they were waiting for, and it was this that would allow them to make their escape.
After a wait of what seemed like a lifetime for the two, the hour of twelve finally came and the clock began to strike out its arrival. Once it chimed, and as it did so the two stepped a single step down the stairway. As they did so the pressure of their weight made the step creak noisily and each gave a tug at the leg they were holding dragged Chapman behind them. His head landed on the following step where it bumped and rested waiting to be moved again.
The clock struck two and Tush and Leo dragged Chapman a further step down, the loud sound of the bell drowning out any creaking or noise that Chapmen's head made as it hit the hard wooden surface of the following step.
The bell sounded again, and again, and again. Each time the two moving in perfect harmony without thinking or even counting as they had done so many times before.
Just as they were ready to descend to the seventh step, the clock stopped. There was a deathly silence and Tush and Leo stood there anticipatively, each with his foot suspended in mid air waiting for the next chime and to move.
No sound came and slowly they turned and looked at each other in the limited amount of light that shone through a small arched window above them. Each of them dared not to move, hoping that the other would suddenly some way make the bell ring, but no, there was total and utter quiet, a quiet that both Tush and Leo could hear their own hearts beating and the breathing of their unconscious victim behind.
Suddenly the silence was broken but it was not the sound of the clock bell. The two near jumped out of their skins and the both of them almost took the next step forward.
Chapman had awoke from his beaten slumber and let out a low loud groan that near frightened the two to death. Quickly, Tush turned and reaching back felt for the position of his head. With the grace of a ballet dancer he stomped his large steel toe capped boot on Chapman's face putting him with a dull moan back to the Land of Nod. There again they were in silence, not knowing what to do or how to do it.
Finally it was Leo who spoke.
"What do you think we ought to do?" he asked. Hoping that Tush would have some sort of plan for such a situation.
"How the effin hell should I know." Tush whispered. "This has never happened before has it?"
"How many steps do you think there are to the bottom?" Leo enquired.
"I've no idea. Figure it out." Tush hissed. "There are thirteen steps. There are twelve chimes."
"Does that include the top and the bottom step?" Leo asked truthfully not having any idea. "And is that going up or down?"
Tush thought, for once what Leo had just said was quite a relevant point, but on account of the situation they were in it wasn't very constructive. He didn't know, he'd never thought about it before.
"Don't ask effin stupid questions. Just figure it out and we'll figure out what to do to get out of here!" he rasped angrily.
"I know. But how many times has the clock chimed? I wasn't counting." Leo came back.
There again Tush had no answer. All he knew was as always they would stand at the top step and when the clock chimed, they would descend one step at a time.
He pulled his foot back and rested it on the step he was standing on. There was a loud creak that echoed round the tower walls and he hoped that there was no one passing outside to hear it.
"Spiv told me that he read this book about some bloke in a tower." Leo said after a long silence.
"What happened to him? How did he get out?" Tush asked hoping that Leo had remembered something that might help them escape.
"Spiv said he didn't. He died there." Leo said proudly.
In the dark Tush shook his head. If it would not have made so much noise he would have pounced on Leo and kicked the crap out of him there and then. But he restrained himself it would have to wait.
PART 2
Chapter One
The night wore on as in the darkness and silence of the church tower the two neds and their unfortunate victim sat and waited for something to happen. Occasionally the quiet was broken only when Chapman would awaken and groan in his agony, and as often as he did, Tush or Leo would with a single blow, restore the quiet again.
For several hours now they had been sat there. Tush waiting for Leo to speak, to say just one out of place word, and Leo, knowing this, for his own good remaining totally silent.
What was on Tush's mind now was that it would soon be daylight and they would be discovered, and if asked what they were doing half way up a steeple with a badly beaten, half dead man, Leo would open his mouth and something stupid and revealing would come out.
Chapter Two
Thinking this and how Leo always dropped them it, Tush remembered another of his first partners in the business. Nothing, he thought, could have been worse than then. They'd only just left school and were just starting out and had their whole lives before them. He was young and enthusiastic and had great thoughts of grandeur and wealth whizzing around in his head. Money was easily come by if you had the muscle and you knew how to use it.
Things had rapidly gone down hill though from the word go and that was all due to that one of his first partners.
Akker had taken a liking to going too far in getting people to pay up. Instead of threatening their customers into paying by putting a 'little' pressure on them, he'd killed most of them. In fact, he'd killed more customers before they had coughed up or even made their regular payments than was needed, and this was very bad for business. Tush very quickly had come to the conclusion that he was just a sadist and he was sure that Akker was into devil worship or something similar. The three sixes tattooed on the end of his nose, and the long robes Akker used to wear around the house as he wandered about chanting, gave the game away. And there was that once Tush had caught Akker trying to put a curse on Spiv for reading the bible.
A stroke of luck had come when Akker had taken a liking to frightening pensioners to death. On dark winters nights he would hide from an approaching pensioner and as his unsuspecting victim was almost upon him, Akker would jump out in front of them shouting as loud as he could. Most being old and weak would just collapse and die where they were. Some who were in better health would run and Akker would chase them chanting, until they too would drop and croak.
That late and eventful winters night, on the dimly lit footpaths of West Avenue, down by the old church wall; Akker had seen a potential victim. She was old and feeble, and from how she hobbled along he was sure that he would not have much trouble in sending her to meet her maker.
He had hidden and waited behind one of the stone gate pillars of the church wall, and as the old dear had approached he'd quickly jumped out, shouting and screaming as loud as he could. The old woman had as quickly drawn a steel saucepan from under her coat and had hit Akker square in the face with it. Bleeding and stunned, Akker had staggered out into the road and had disappeared down an open manhole.
The verdict had been death by misadventure and that had been the end of that, and business had begun to thrive again.
Chapter Three
Tush's thoughts returned to the situation that he was in and what he could do about it. He had narrowed his options to the fact that he had three choices. The first being they sat here until dawn and they both legged it, leaving Chapman to be found by whoever. The second, he belted Leo over the head and he ran screaming murder from the church and afterwards said he had heard the two fighting. And the third. Well, he hadn't though of that one yet, but how things were looking at the moment, choice number two seemed to be the most viable.
From out of the darkness came a sound. It sounded like that of a cheerful jingle made by a mobile phone.
Tush heard a scuffle from the direction of Leo and the noise suddenly get louder. In the near pitch-blackness, Tush saw the palm of Leo's hand illuminate by the many lights of the keypad of a mobile phone.
"Hello." Leo said.
Tush sat there in contemptuous astonishment. He at this point was lost for words. Here they had been sat in near total freezing blackness all night, unable to escape and with next to no chance of anyone rescuing them until they were eventually discovered and reported to God knows who, and the idiot next to him all the time had a mobile phone in his pocket.
"Ah Spiv." Leo said cheerfully. "I though you might call."
"We're in the church. We've got a customer and we're sat here waiting for the clock to start up again." He explained.
"Well, we were just about to leave and the clock stopped, so we were stuck half way down the stairs."
"Tush. Yes he's here. Do you want to speak to him?"
"It's Spiv." Leo said as he handed the phone to Tush.
Tush by now was quietly fuming. Reaching out, he snatched the phone and began to pour out his total loathing of Leo into it
Seconds later he switched off the device and slowly handed it back. If there had been just a little more light, and Leo had made just the slightest of sounds, Tush would have known where his head was to hit him. Leo would also have seen that Tush at present had one of his murderous leers across the whole of his face, and the person he was for murdering was him.
"Spiv was phoning to find out where we were." Leo said enthusiastically after he was sure Tush had calmed down. "I think he'll come and get us. What did he say?"
Tush glared through the dark. He was cold. He was tired. And at this moment he was still seething.
"Shut it you effin cretin." He hissed. "Just sit there quiet and do as you're told. When I say move. Move. Spiv will be here in five minutes and when he arrives, shift the customer down and into the car, and if you say a word, just one effin word, you're dead!"
Leo, for his own health knew that Tush was not pleased about something, and he knew that it was wise to follow his instructions to the letter, for his own sake.
Five minutes later they heard the sound of a car in the street below. They heard the engine being switched off and the sound of the opening and closing of a car door. Then, there was silence. There they sat in total quiet, both listening as hard as they could to try and make out what was happening.
The car they had heard they were sure was Spiv, but what was happening now? He should have been with them by now.
For what seemed like an eternity they waited and listened. Eventually from the rear of the building they could make out the sound of a door being unlatched and opened.
"Tush?" Spiv whispered. "Tush? Are you there?"
"Of course we're effin here, you moron. Where else would we be?"
"Is Leo there as well?"
Tush refused to answer.
"Get the customer and shift." He hissed at Leo.
Leo immediately grabbed Chapmans legs and holding them tight, he began to follow the rest of Chapmans body and Tush down the stairs.
As each placed their full weight on a step, it gave out its own loud and distinctive creek as if shouting to the rest of the stairway and the whole world that it was in pure agony.
"I hope that bookworm made sure the coast was clear?" Tush thought to himself as he listened to each one creek.
Tush had nothing to fear. It was four O'clock in the morning and Spiv had read many spy and detective novels to give him some idea of what he must do. Before parking at the rear of the chapel, he'd spent several minutes driving up and down Chapel Street and Union Street to see that the coast was clear. As he had arrived and left the car, he'd spent half an hour making sure that there was not a single person looking from the rear windows of the houses of Chapel Street. The coast being clear, only then had he attempted his rescue.
Nearing the bottom of the stair case, the two neds were suddenly blinded by the beam of a high power flashlight shining straight in their faces.
There, to make sure it was Tush and Leo, Spiv had shone it in their faces and at the moment was continuing to do so and continuing to totally blinded them both.
In sudden shock and not knowing what was happening, the two had stumbled and gone tumbling down the remainder of the steps to the very bottom. There in a heap they had lain, all three now groaning with Spiv shinning the light in their faces even more.
"Turn that effin light off before I ram it where it normally doesn't shine." Tush hissed angrily.
Spiv complied and shone the light away. He knew also when Tush was not in a good mood, and he knew by the state he was in at the moment, now was such a time.
Helped by Spiv they staggered to the car dragging the still unconscious Chapman with them. What they had to do now was deliver their customer to the usual drop off point.
The steps of the Buccaneer Bar were not far away, and as usual before they dropped their client off they sprinkled him with copious helpings of meths. This was insurance. It insured that when found it would seem totally natural for Chapman to be where he was and in the condition that he was, beaten insensible, and smelling of meths.
This they did and headed home.
Chapter Four
Tush now was looking for someone to blame for the nights happenings. He opened a can of beer and poured it slowly into a large glass. Putting the glass to his mouth, he took a large mouthful. For a while he swilled the beer about in his mouth while looking from Leo to Spiv and back again. He put his head back and swallowed the beer in one gulp, quickly taking another mouthful to replace it. By the look on his face, they knew he was looking for someone to blame, and by the look on each others faces, they were hoping it wasn't them.
He first tried narrowing it down. It definitely wasn't his fault, he was the one that had been so badly done to.
Leo. Yes Leo he thought as he glared in Leos direction. Leo looked back and he went as white as a sheet. He knew the look Tush was giving him and he knew what it meant.
Well no, Tush thought. Leo was with him all the time so he was nearly as badly done to. But he did have that phone. But he had told him to be quiet.
Tush looked away and Leo breathed a sigh of relief.
Chapman. If it wasn't for Chapman not paying on time they would not have been there in the first place. But if it wasn't Chapman that they had there, there were plenty more bad payers that would have been. Anyway, the customer's always right. No it wasn't Chapman, he thought.
Spiv, he thought as his gaze focussed on Spiv.
As did Leo, Spiv went white and cold. His breath stopped dead and he waited for an outcome.
If Spiv had have phoned earlier they would have been out of there quicker. But if Spiv had not have phoned, they wouldn't have got out at all. No. Not Spiv.
Spiv breathed again.
Sitting there pondering and occasionally gulping his beer the answer suddenly it hit him. He threw the glass he was holding in his hand to the wall, smashing it into a thousand tiny pieces.
The other two jumped and quickly looked in Tush's direction expecting the next object that came to Tush's hand, to come their way.
"The clock!" Tush yelled. "The effin clock. If that thing hadn't have stopped when it did, we'd have been away and gone smack on midnight."
Of course it was no use trying to take revenge on a clock. A clock was just a bunch of cogs and wheels and a couple of hands. No. What Tush wanted now was the next best thing. He wanted the clock-smith who'd serviced the clock last. He'd obviously not done his job right and that's why it had failed.
"Get me the name of the clock-smith who fixed that clock last!" he yelled at the other two. "I want his nuts and his hands on a plate!"
"But the chances of getting the guy who serviced the clock last are near on impossible." Spiv replied nervously. "The church goes only for cash in hand payments. No paperwork, no signatures, no names."
"Then if you can't get me that particular Smith. I want a Smith. There's effin millions of them. You should know that. You've obviously seen an effin phone book."
"But they're not all clock-smiths." Spiv pointed out.
"A Smiths, a Smith. They're spelled the effin same. S.M.I.T.H. SMITH. Get me an effin Smith. I want one and I want it now." Tush screamed.
It was early in the morning and both were tired, but Tush was in one of his demanding moods, and they knew what Tush demanded. Tush got.
There were Smiths in Filey and both Leo and Spiv knew where they lived. It was just a case of collecting one in the usual way and returning with it to Tush. After that, it was his problem.
End.