Straightaway I realized that getting out of the Whiskey-a-Go-Go Gentleman’s Club with James was going to be a whole lot harder than getting in alone, even though you’d think it’d be just a matter of going out the laundry door, back up the hallway, out into the alley and off to start looking for Mum. But James said that if I didn’t mind we needed to take a little detour first.

I know that some pedos and ax murderers only pretend to be good people so they can get your trust so they can trick you and all that, but I just had a feeling that anyone who looked and sounded as cool as James couldn’t be a bad guy. Also when the thought of pedos and ax murderers came into my head I remembered that I’d actually called him. So like, if he was one, he’d have to be the luckiest bad guy in the world, wouldn’t he?

Anyhow, it turned out the reason James was in that tumble dryer was because he was having a wee spot of bother with a guy called Slim McGinty the Robbing Bastard. Slim’s shonky blackjack dealers at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go had been swindling James’s dad’s pension money out of him every week for three months because he had a liking for cheap brandy, which then made him get a liking for gambling. Which made him lose all reason, James said, which made him gamble his pension money, which meant he couldn’t pay his mooring fees because of money troubles, which meant he was in danger of losing his houseboat. Which actually was his house and not just some old boat.

Every time James said Slim McGinty’s name he shook his head and then he’d say the robbing you-know-what. And he definitely did sound like one, because James had heard from a guy who knew a guy who talked to a guy that worked at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go that Slim’s dealers were paid to cheat at blackjack. So I reckon it was totally unfair that James’s dad had lost all his money to a bunch of cheats, and one never knows, maybe if the dealers hadn’t been shonky he could have been a millionaire and looking to upgrade to a yacht instead of wondering how he was going to pay for his moorings after losing all his pension to Slim McGinty. The Robbing Bastard.

Anyhow, James reckoned he just did what any good son would do, which was to come to the gentleman’s club to politely ask Slim for some of his dad’s money back. Not even all of it, just the last two hundred pounds that he’d lost the night before. Just the last straw is what he called it. But when James showed up at the club pretending to be a customer and then snuck upstairs to the office to have a wee chat with Slim, he reckons he didnae get a very nice welcome.

Slim didn’t just threaten to beat James up for even asking, when James said he was going to the police if he didn’t at least give some of the money back, he called two massive bouncers into his office and they took the keys to James’s moped and tied him up and put him in the tumble dryer. Because Slim didn’t have time to deal with him due to he was running late to get to his mum’s ninetieth birthday party.