The Crime Trade

26

Robert ‘Pretty Boy’ Panner was none too pleased with the way Dora Hayes was acting. She was getting way too fucking lippy, telling him she didn’t need him now that she’d found a better job, working for those bastard Kosovans from the Hallfield estate. She’d told Panner that they let her keep more of her money, looked after her better and had unlimited access to crack and smack, both of which Dora liked to indulge in. She now operated at the southern end of the Bishops Bridge Road on the other side of Paddington station to the patch off Praed Street where she’d earned money for Panner, and the way the bitch was acting was making it very difficult for him. How was he meant to keep his other girls in line when one of them was so fucking out of order and, worse still, getting away with it? It seemed he was losing them all over the place at the moment. Dora had already set the bastards on him as a warning, and he’d been lucky to escape relatively unscathed the previous day. The next time, she said, they’d kill him. She was living with one of the greasy bastards now. It made him sick the way they took the piss. You help the bastards out by liberating their country and they repay you by coming en masse to yours, taking over your business and acting like they owned the fucking place. Well, they were going to get a shock tonight. Pretty Boy Panner didn’t like people stealing his business, and he didn’t sit back and take it like a bitch either. He got payback.

He parked his battered old BMW 3 Series, a poor man’s pimpmobile, over on Gloucester Terrace, just down the road from Royal Oak station and only a few hundred yards from Dora’s new patch. He hadn’t seen her on his drive down the Bishops Bridge Road, and hoped that she was somewhere with a trick and therefore back soon. He didn’t fancy waiting around half the night. He’d come here the previous evening, keen to get things sorted before the rebellion spread to the other two girls he looked after, but she hadn’t been working. Tonight had better be his lucky night. If it wasn’t, he’d cut the bitch to pieces when he finally caught up with her.

The evening was cool and dry, a result of the clear skies. It was even possible to see the odd star among the dull orange glow of the city’s lights, but Panner wasn’t interested in star-gazing. He was here for one reason, and one reason only. Payback. Justice. And to sort out his livelihood. Even though that was three.

He moved on to the street proper, keeping to the shadows, knowing that he was taking a big risk showing himself on the street with the Old Bill after him, but knowing too that he couldn’t just sit back and do nothing. It was 11.15 and traffic was sparse. He spotted a couple of skinny bitches in halter tops and mini-skirts outside the building across the road, but didn’t recognize either of them. He kept walking and watching, playing with the razor in his pocket, thinking about what he was going to do to the bitch when he got his hands on her. Make her squeal a bit, and beg for mercy. Let her see the blade, give her a few seconds to ponder what was about to happen, then slash, cut that acned fucking face right across, and listen to her scream. You take my fucking livelihood, I take yours. That’s the law of the street. An eye for an eye.

When he got up to Westbourne Terrace, he turned round and walked slowly back the way he’d come. A car — it looked like a Jaguar — pulled up alongside the two bitches. There was a bit of banter as they talked cash, then one of them got in and the Jag pulled away, heading over the Bishops Bridge.

He kept walking up to the bridge, then turned round again. Another car was coming towards him in the opposite direction. A silver Lexus. Sweet. It pulled to a halt, double-parked, about thirty or forty yards away, and the passenger door opened.

A bitch in a fake fur coat and red micro-dress got out. It was a bitch he knew well. It was Dora. A smile like the devil’s slithered across Panner’s face and he felt himself go hard. She was laughing now and saying her goodbyes, a wad of cash in her hand. She’d done well here. A trick who liked to pay. He bet she’d be feeling real good now, well pleased with herself. Totally unsuspecting. Stupid bitch. Stupid fucking double-crossing bitch. He was going to enjoy this.

The trick’s car pulled away, the driver oblivious to Panner’s presence as he turned right towards Paddington station, the remnants of a smile on his face. Dora, meanwhile, stood on the pavement, putting the money in her red handbag, giving the occasional suspicious glance in the direction of the bitch on the other side of the street, the one whose mate had got in the Jag.

He was twenty yards away and closing. Walking casually but trying to keep in the shadows of the doorways to avoid attracting her attention. The razor slid out of his pocket, and he opened it, his forefinger stroking the blade. It had a beautiful carved bone handle and was his pride and joy, taken from the unconscious body of a pimp he’d had a run-in with years before. He carried it everywhere, loving the way the blade shone in the darkness, revelling in the fear it infected the girls with whenever he held it up for them to see. And Dora was about to taste the pain it could inflict, the price for being stupid and selfish enough to defy him.

Fifteen yards, ten yards, nearer and nearer. He quickened his pace, the thrill of the hunt making him want to laugh out loud.

Then the skinny bitch across the street screamed a warning and Dora looked up and saw him, her eyes bulging as they caught sight of the blade.

Panner lifted the razor and charged.

With a scream of her own, she turned and ran, only just managing to keep her balance in her heels. She dodged between two cars and stumbled into the road, swinging her handbag round and catching him in the face as he caught up with her. The blow threw him off kilter, and hurt too. It was harder than he’d thought a little crack whore like her capable of. He lashed out with the razor but she was already running again, making for the other side of the street and what she probably thought was safety.

But her heels let her down. She stumbled in them, trying to run too fast, and her legs went from under her. She fell forwards, landing hard on the tarmac, screaming for help with all the power her lungs could muster.

Too late, bitch. Too fucking late. Shouldn’t have been so busy counting the money like a greedy, selfish whore.

As she tried to scramble to her feet, he grabbed her by her long hair and pulled her roughly upwards, turning her round so she was facing him. She lashed out desperately, catching him in the shin, and he reflexively let go, yelping in pain. She started running again, but he was on her before she could get two paces, and this time he yanked her back with such force that her head ended up tight against his chest.

‘Please!’ he heard her cry out. Panner liked that, the terror in her voice. It made it so much better.

Her hand went up to protect the side of her face closest to the razor, and the blade sliced into the fingers as it tried to find the tender flesh of her cheek and mouth and do some real damage. She screamed, this time in pain as the blood poured onto the palm of her hand, and tried to move her head, knowing full well what was going to come next. Even amid the animal fear, she was vividly aware of the implications disfigurement would have on her career and her living situation. Ahmet wouldn’t go near her, her daughter would cringe when she looked at the deep, ugly slashes, there for the rest of her life as a testimony to her foolishness for thinking she could ever escape him. The tears were stinging her eyes. She couldn’t move. His grip was like iron. She shut them tight and clenched her teeth, waiting for the worst. For the final painful humiliation her life had always been coming to.

But it didn’t happen.

Instead, from somewhere behind her Dora heard the sound of footsteps and an angry female shout. ‘Leave her alone, you fucking bastard!’ There was the tight hiss of aerosol being sprayed, and then it was Panner’s turn to cry out.

‘You bitch, what you done? My eyes! My muthafucking eyes!’

He let go of Dora and she pulled away, looking down at the blood pumping steadily through the deep cuts on all four of her fingers and splattering loudly on the ground. Panner still had the razor but his hands were pressed against his eyes and he was dancing round in circles, yelling and cussing. Her rescuer, a working girl she knew only as Saph, and who’d been across the road earlier, now kneed him hard in the groin, and he fell to his knees.

‘Ohmigod, he’s hurt me. The bastard’s cut my hand!’

A car was coming down the street. They saw the blue lights on the roof and both recognized what it represented.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Saph, grabbing Dora by her good arm, and whistling as she saw the extent of the bleeding. ‘I’ll get you down to St Mary’s. You’re going to be all right.’

They ran into the darkness, leaving Panner incapacitated in the middle of the road.

The cop car stopped in front of him and two officers got out.