Beezer shrugged. He didn’t like Harlan any more than Nula did. Cold-eyed little bastard. He didn’t like the blokes Harlan kept around him either. That Nipper, who looked like he would happily rip your guts out and laugh while he did it. And the other one who seemed to have paired up with Nipper these days, Ludo, the black one who was all polished and elegant, decked out in gold chains, always grinning like a shark.

‘Come on,’ persisted Harlan. ‘Dad wants me to learn the business and that’s what I intend to do, OK?’

So they sat in the suite of the hotel and Beezer started explaining first the furniture business and then – more importantly – the drugs trade to Harlan. After all, this was what Charlie had told him to do.

‘We cover a big area,’ said Beezer. ‘We cook the crack in the offices—’

‘How many?’

‘Six. So far. Then the rocks go out to up to fifty dealers, kids and such, from each of the sites.’

‘Kids?’

‘Schoolkids.’

‘Right.’

‘The junkies know to go to them to score. In a week, we can do up to four hundred transactions from each site. That’s . . .’

Harlan squinted, working it out. ‘That’s two thousand four hundred hits,’ he said. ‘What, they don’t work weekends?’

‘Yeah they do.’ Beezer sat back in the couch and knocked back a half tumbler of whisky. ‘Seven days a week they work, in balaclavas so they don’t show their faces, and they wear bulletproof vests in case of attack from rival gangs. You do get a bit of that. Then we have to step in, sort it out.’

‘So what’s the take?’

‘About twenty grand a week per site. Over a cool million a year per office, anyway.’

‘Six mill per annum then. Not bad.’

‘Trouble is, some of the little scrotes think they can get away with doing a bit on the side for other gangs, and we don’t like that. We deter it, strongly. In fact,’ Beezer drained his glass and stood up, ‘I was about to pay one a visit.’

‘Lead on,’ said Harlan.

‘Nah, you don’t want to see this, do you,’ said Beezer.

‘I said lead on,’ said Harlan, putting steel in his voice.

Beezer looked at him. Charlie was his boss, had been for the whole of his life, and Harlan was Charlie’s son. You couldn’t say no to the son of Charlie Stone, any more than you would say no to Charlie himself.

‘All right then,’ said Beezer. ‘On we go.’

72