'f.u.c.king right, but it was only when they got there they found the thirty million quid's worth of gold bars. Had to send out for a Transit to carry the stuff out in.'

'I make them right. I mean who's going to turn their noses up at that?'

'No one, that's why they swagged the f.u.c.king lot.'

'Proper.'

'That's why the men in the grey suits had the right hump with it. The whisper was that if they had just taken the cash the security firm would have swallowed it, but it was so big they had to smack some a.r.s.es.'

'In case the ma.s.ses start getting ideas, eh, Billy?'

'f.u.c.king right. c.u.n.ts stopped us peasants carrying arms back in the Middle Ages. What's up with your hooter, Jimmy?'

'Hollywood cold, mate.'

'Unavoidable, anytime of the year,' I say. 'Fancy a livener?'

'Does the Pope s.h.i.+t in the woods?'

Carving up the requisite couple of big fat hairy ones, which we hoover up off the gla.s.s table in Jimmy's kitchen, we walk through to the front room where the first thing I see is Jimmy's two-year-old boy, sitting on the carpet as naked as Adam and playing happily with a mountain of creased and smelly wonga, piled high in a scruffy pyramid stretching halfway to the ceiling.

'f.u.c.king h.e.l.l,' I say, taking in the sight in front of me.

'Over a mil there,' says Jimmy. 'And look at me chavvie, rolling around in it. Loves the stuff he does.'

'Just like his old man, eh?'

'Yeah, c'mon, let's make tracks.'

Buzzing like bees in a field of flowers sees us taking the lift down to the underground car park and climbing into my latest motor, a candy-apple red, convertible Range Rover with a white leather Rolls Royce interior and full walnut dashboard.

'Proper set of wheels, Billy.'

'Sweet, ain't they? Made for an Arab Sheikh, Jimmy,' I add, pressing down a b.u.t.ton that allows the top to roll slowly back. 'Bought it from Micksy Martin two weeks ago and he's just been tugged over the gold bullion job. Last thing I need at the moment is this wrapped round my b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, so I'm getting rid of it. But it's proper tackle though. Look, it's even got a retractable bar for a falcon.'

'You got a falcon, Billy?'

'I ain't even got a f.u.c.king budgie, but it looks the b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, don't it?'

'Adds a bit of cla.s.s.'

So off we go, and I'm spinning one of the lairiest motors ever seen on an English road through the dilapidated streets of east London, feeling like Charlie Large Spuds but probably looking like a right c.u.n.t. After dropping Jimmy off outside a snooker club at the back of the Angel, I double park two wheels on the pavement right outside a trendy coffee shop, large it in and order myself a Grande, double choc-chip mocha, extra hot, with skimmed milk and just a tiny splash of vanilla, then sit down in the window to enjoy it, while Joe and Josephine Public cast hushed looks at me out of the corner of their eyes, as though I just got here by s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p instead of a Sheik's s.h.a.g-mobile. Fifteen minutes later Jimmy returns and we're just about to climb back into the car, when out of the blue someone starts taking pot shots at Jimmy. Well f.u.c.k that, we both pull out yoggers and start returning fire at this black dude with saucer eyes, who's standing bold as bra.s.s on the other side of the road and letting shots go indiscriminately. While bullets whizz, ping, and ricochet past our heads, Sat.u.r.day shoppers start screaming and diving for cover behind cars and market stalls. And for about thirty seconds, the Angel has morphed into Dodge City. But after emptying his chamber in a panic, the schwartzer comes to his senses and has it straight on his toes through the antiques market, leaving me and Jimmy standing there with our smoking yoggers in our hands, feeling like a couple of foreskins at a kosher wedding.

All around us is pandemonium and it don't take us long to realise that Joe Public's not only pointing the finger in our direction, he's dialling 999 with the other. We're in s.h.i.+t street here, and the motor I'm driving ain't exactly inconspicuous. But with no time to ponder such nonsense I tell Jimmy to jump in, and in the spit of a tinker's cuss I've got the motor started, the throttle down hard on the floor, and I'm tearing down the pavement with my hooter blaring and scattering terrified pedestrians in all directions. Hooking a left, I end up skidding the wrong way up a one-way street and on through a pedestrian thoroughfare. Shoving my yogger into Jimmy's hands I yell for him to jump out, and in a spit he disappears speedily down the steps of a nearby underground station. With the ironware now safely out of the motor I try to regain my breathing, whilst at the same time slowing down my motor and beginning to drive as normally as my shattered nerves will allow. In a few anxious minutes I arrive at my pal's car lot up on the Caledonian Road, where I know I can dump the motor, no questions asked.

My pal's a diamond. He'd already heard the gunfire, put two and two together and sussed out I was involved. After taking the motor without hesitation he slams it into the rear of his garage before pulling the shutters tight down, then escorting me through a small maze of back alleys to hide out in the bas.e.m.e.nt of his pal's p.o.r.n cinema, till the heat dies down. Sitting at the back of the cinema nursing a cold beer and with the screams of Old Bill sirens outside beginning to fade, my body and brain begins to calm. After about an hour of sitting through some top quality hardcore p.o.r.n, as well as having to tell a couple of c.o.c.ksuckers to f.u.c.k off, a mush comes in with his fat c.u.n.t missus in tow, orders her to strip and lay down in front of the screen before inviting men to s.p.u.n.k over her. Deeming it impolite to refuse a freebie, I stroll down to the front and shoot my bolt over the s.h.i.+tc.u.n.t's mooey, zip up and f.u.c.k off.

TWO WEEKS LATER and Danny's had a whisper. He won't rocker on the blower so our firm meets up at a cafe in Canning Town.

'I met with Wallah this morning,' he says, 'and he reckons that there's a load of the bullion job gold bricked up in a chimney stack in a farmhouse down in Kent.'

'How the f.u.c.k does Wallah know that?' says Stevie.

'Said he helped put it there,' says Danny.

'And why would he want to tell us?' I say.

'Because Ronnie Olive put him on a promise, and now he's f.u.c.ked him off.'

'It ain't Ronnie Olive's gold,' says Frankie. 'It's Micksy Martin's. He done the f.u.c.king robbery.'

'Well it don't matter to us whose f.u.c.king gold it is,' says Danny, starting to blow steam. 'Wallah's one hundred per cent, and if those silly south London c.u.n.ts are stupid enough to get a bricklayer to pug it up inside a chimney, then it's our f.u.c.king job to go and nick it. What do you think, Billy?'

'It's like the f.u.c.king Yukon over there,' I say. 'Every c.u.n.t under the sun seems to have some of the stuff pugged up somewhere. Remember that Range Rover I bought off of Micksy Martin a couple of months back? Well, I pa.s.sed it on through a car dealer pal of mine who sold it to a bubble who's got a fish and chip shop in Edmonton. Anyways, this bubble was on his way back from Billingsgate in it one morning, loaded up with f.u.c.king cod and saveloys, or whatever the f.u.c.k he'd been buying, and the heavy mob flopped on him and nicked him. Held him incommunicado for four f.u.c.king days then let him go, but kept the car. Now as you know, some moody spade shot at me and Jimmy Tarrant over at the Angel, and I was driving the car then. But I don't know if Old Bill's pulled the bubble in because of that shooting or because the car belonged to Micksy Martin. When I asked my pal to slip over and see the bubble, it turns out that down to the stress of being pulled in, the poor f.u.c.ker's had a heart attack and is in a bad f.u.c.king way. Whatever we do, we got to tread lightly.'

'Where the f.u.c.k is Ronnie Olive?' says Frankie. 'c.u.n.t ain't been about.'

'Got his f.u.c.king head up his a.r.s.e,' I say.

'f.u.c.king ostrich!' growls Frankie.

'Yeah, he's s.h.i.+tting himself, ain't he?' I say. 'I mean let's be truthful, how can you trust a villain that ain't ever done a day's bird in his life.'

'I don't trust that monkey-eyed little c.u.n.t neither,' says Stevie.

'None of us trust him,' says Danny.

'I have one rule of thumb,' says Stevie, knowingly. 'Never trust a man that wears driving gloves.'

'What the f.u.c.k's driving gloves do with it?' screams Danny, and to be truthful, Stevie's lost me on that point as well.

'Anyway, f.u.c.k Ronnie Olive and his driving gloves,' screams Danny once more, before calming down a bit. 'We're heavier than him. We're heavier than all the other London firms put together. No one can touch us! We're even bigger than the f.u.c.king Kray twins were, don't forget that. We've topped more c.u.n.ts than those f.u.c.king mummy's boys ever did. And we've earned more dough in the last five years than them poofter c.u.n.ts did in their whole f.u.c.king careers. And now all we're talking about is driving a truck over to a deserted farmhouse, smas.h.i.+ng down a couple of walls and walking out with a million sovs. And if you f.u.c.king w.a.n.kers ain't got the a.r.s.ehole to do it, best say so.'

Danny's trumped us and he knows it. If you want to call a gangster's bluff just throw aspersions on his bottle and he'll bite harder than a barracuda. But it ain't the work that's the worry, as me, Stevie and Frankie well know. There's a bad feeling throughout our whole community that the bullion job gold is cursed. Already loads of mushes have ended up f.u.c.ked down to that little turnout. Either eating plenty of porridge, or brains blown out, and you can mark my words there's going to be a lot more crooked fingers burnt. And crooked fingers that get burnt sometimes turn to pointing at their former partners in crime.

Nevertheless, against our better judgement, we're set to rob the gold late that night, but then some bad news. Wallah's had his nut blown off and what's left of his body's been dumped in the boot of a car in Epping Forest. And it ain't even a very nice car. We decide to sit tight and the following morning a newsflash tells us that Old Bill's raided the farmhouse, but the gold's already gone. The whole mess is starting to stink to high heaven, but at least me, Stevie and Frankie were proved right. An apology from Danny would be nice, but you got as much chance of that as getting alimony out of a Rolling Stone.

But as they say, when one door closes, another opens, and out of the blue I get a call from the Mason brothers from Blackpool. They've been trying to get hold of Ronnie Olive and Smoothie, but to avail. I tell them that they're both on the missing but that I'll put the word out. There could be a little tickle on the cards here, so me and Danny hit south London straight away. After a few wild goose chases we track Smoothie down and find him piped out of his skull in a rat-infested crack den in Brixton. The gaff is sickening and stinks like a shed full of dead pigeons, and we both have to hold our breath as we enter. After walking warily through a claustrophobic hallway littered with a carpet of beer can ring pulls, we find ourselves in a filthy, squalid room, lit by a single bare light bulb and inhabited by half a dozen s.k.a.n.ky junkies, crashed out on a stinky, p.i.s.sy old mattress, talking s.h.i.+t.

Smoothie's so f.u.c.ked he don't even recognise us but that's how it is when you get on the charlie pipe. It's goodnight Vienna. I don't care how big or brave you are or how clever you think you are. For every suck you take on the pipe, it takes two back. Sooner rather than later, all that'll be left of you is a skint skeleton with no pals outside your little circle of sc.u.m. Without a word we turn round and walk straight back out again.

'Why don't we call on the gear and just f.u.c.k 'em?' says Danny. 'I mean the state of that f.u.c.king half-chat animal back in there. We can't do business with filth like that.'

'Whatever,' I say.

'And Ronnie Olive won't be back for a while, not with the robbery squad up his bottle. Let's f.u.c.k them northerners for their bit of gear and blame it on that junkie c.u.n.t in there. If he hollers, we'll bury him.'

'But why f.u.c.k the two brothers?' I say. 'If we keep them sweet we can carry on trading.'

''Cos we don't know them from a bar of f.u.c.king soap. Say it comes on top and they gra.s.s us, then we got to go to work and top the c.u.n.ts. You always want to make things f.u.c.king difficult. We f.u.c.k and move on.'

A few hours later, me and Danny are pulling into Heston Services on the M1 with two low ranking but schtummo pals bottling us in a motor behind, having just called on the puff deal from the two brothers. The drugs have been left in a Transit van parked up outside the main cafeteria. After spotting the van we park up our own motor and walk over to a nearby phone booth, where we make a couple of snide calls in order to keep a look out for Old Bill, on the off chance they're following the load. There's no visible sign of action and so I take a stroll to the gents, still keeping my eyes peeled. Still not a f.u.c.king sausage! Everything seems hunky-dory. You may think we're paranoid but we like to think of it as extreme awareness. After sitting down to some tea and toast and plotting up by the main cafeteria window for a further twenty minutes or so, we're convinced the load's sweet. Using a mobile to make a call I bell our two pals in tow. One gets into the Transit and drives off, followed at a discreet distance by the driver in the other car. It's the following man's job to act as a decoy, just in case the Transit with the drugs gets a tug on the way back home.

It works like this: Old Bill doing a routine check decides to pull over the Transit. The follower in the car then accelerates, driving dangerously past Old Bill. Old Bill forgets about the Transit and tears off after the decoy, the decoy gets nicked for dangerous driving, and the drugs get home, scot-free. In the event, nothing happens and the journey home is sweet as a nut, which means me and Danny have just earned ourselves two hundred grand apiece for two hours graft. And from that we've pulled out a good sized drink for Stevie and Frankie, just so they're involved in the swindle.

SAt.u.r.dAY THREE DAYS later and I'm driving across Tower Bridge on my way to see Danny when my mobile rings. It's the Mason brothers, panicking to f.u.c.k and wondering what's happened about their dough. After winding down my window I toss my phone into the Thames and forget about them. Tina, Danny's missus, is cooking breakfast when I arrive and I give the kitchen window a friendly tap as I pa.s.s by on my way through to the back garden. She looks up and gives me a golden smile, but I can tell that deep behind the mask she wishes she hadn't got herself involved in the gangster lifestyle. A lifestyle lived with too much make-up on her face and too much time on her hands, as well as having to be dolled up to the nines twenty-four seven, just to keep Danny happy, and he still ain't happy. It must be nigh on f.u.c.king impossible to be shackled to a man who genuinely believes he s.h.i.+ts wonders and p.i.s.ses miracles. And even if she did pluck up the bottle to leave she'd have to get right off the plot. No one round here is going to go out with an ex-missus of Danny's. They'd be paralysed with fear. Sorry girl, you're stuck with it and it ain't going to get no easier.

In the porch next to the kitchen their two kids, Danny Junior and Danielle, are playing with the family dog, a bull terrier b.i.t.c.h called Jesse. You'll mostly find that gangsters pa.s.s their own first name down to their kids as if it's some kind of worthwhile legacy. Really all it does is perpetuates feuds. For instance, if Danny kills some kid's old man, then when the kid grows up he's going to want vengeance. Only thing being, by that time Danny'll either be waltzing with the Zimmer or else pus.h.i.+ng up daisies. So who's going to carry the can? Anyone bearing the family name. It's the mark of Cain, believe me. But you can't tell Danny anything, he knows it all already.

Danny's at the bottom of his tiny walled-in garden f.u.c.king about in front of his pigeon loft.

'Just in f.u.c.king time!' He calls out to me as I approach, and with him grinning like a nutrock while holding up a wicker box.

'What for?' I say.

'f.u.c.king neighbour's cat. Been driving my birds f.u.c.king nuts for the last six months. Caught it in this trap last night.' Peering inside I can see the poor thing sitting there in a terrible state. Don't get me wrong I ain't no lover of cats. In fact, I ain't really no lover of anything. But cats remind me of Old Bill, because they quietly creep about keeping eyes on everything. I mean it's an unwritten rule that if you run over a dog, you stop and get out, but if you run over a cat, you just keep driving.

'Had a call from the two brothers up north,' I say to Danny, but he ain't listening. All he's interested in this morning is this poxy cat and his poxy pigeons, so I decide to drop the matter till later, and watch intently as Danny forces the basket into a barrel full of rainwater.

Sensing its demise the cat goes f.u.c.king garrity, howling and hissing and clawing at the roof of the basket, but to no avail. Then there's just a few bubbles, then nothing. After about a minute Danny pulls the basket out, drags the drowned cat out by its tail and lobs it back over the neighbour's fence.

'Won't be back over here in a hurry,' he smirks, a point on which I have to agree. 'I got one of your uncle's birds here,' he then says, as we stroll back to the loft for him to open it up and let them out for their morning exercise.

'Sweet.' I say, feigning interest.

'Yeah, that little red hen roosting there,' he says, pointing at a pigeon that looks like any other pointless f.u.c.king flying rat I've had to dodge being shat on by. But my old uncle was a legend in the pigeon world. He's dead now, and I'm named after him, although he was always called by his nickname, Deaffy. He got that moniker because when he was a chavvie, his ears got clogged up with wax and back then there weren't no NHS. Like everyone else from working cla.s.s stock they were all potless. So, his old man syringed them for him using a bicycle pump. Perforated both drums he did and left the poor little f.u.c.ker deaf for life. And as if that weren't bad enough, when Deaffy was six, his little sister fell into the family's tin bath while his old man and old girl were outside in the street chatting. Deaffy ran outside to tell them, but of course, now being as deaf as a beetle, no one had thought to teach him to speak, so he couldn't explain to the family what was happening. By the time he managed to drag them back into the house, his little sister had been scalded to death in the bath's boiling water.

He hardly ever left the house after that, but he became fascinated with pigeons and started to race them. Before long he was smacking the a.r.s.e of the whole of the pigeon world, and all from the little loft in the family's tiny little back courtyard on the Isle of Dogs. He's the only man to have won the Tom Long trophy twice, which is the World Cup of the pigeon game. Danny and all his pigeon cronies bow down to Deaffy's legacy, but as much as I respect my old uncle, pigeon racing leaves me as cold as a corpse. Tina serves up breakfast and we all sit down and tuck in, until a scream from one of Danny's kids sees me almost choking on a fried slice.

'Daddy, the dog's got one of your birds!'

All h.e.l.l breaks loose as Danny ups from the table and in front of us all, proceeds to steam into the family pet like a football thug. Under a sickening barrage of kicks and punches, the dog spews out the bird in a burst of blood and feathers, then stands stoically to take the almightiest one-sided beating I've ever seen inflicted on a dumb animal outside of a Don King boxing promotion.

'You f.u.c.king dog-c.u.n.t!' screams Danny again and again, his face twisted with rage, as kick follows punch and the family pet is reduced to a b.l.o.o.d.y, busted mess, as Danny carries on flailing like a demented windmill, while frothing at the mouth like a rabid wolf. But even the most rabid lunatic can't go on forever, and as fatigue sets in, the beating begins to subside, though Danny's still bellowing blue murder under his labouring breaths.

The dog, obviously not as stupid as it would seem, seizes its chance and limps away to a quiet corner to lick its wounds in battered silence. And I'm ashamed to say that none of us in the garden have said a word. We all know better than to try and stop Danny when he loses it. But then showing more courage and compa.s.sion than yours truly, Tina and Danny's two kids run sobbing towards their dog to offer it a cuddle, or something. Some small token of love and humanity.

'Leave that f.u.c.king thing alone and get back inside!' screams Danny, reaching down and s.n.a.t.c.hing the half-dead pigeon from the ground. After angrily ringing its neck he tosses it into the next-door neighbour's garden to lay alongside their drowned cat, and with this episode setting me to thinking, that no matter how many Christmas presents he buys his kids, they ain't going to forget this Bill Sykes of a performance in a hurry.

'Let's get the f.u.c.k out of here,' he growls at me, dried saliva caked around his lips. And so, after grabbing a leather smother he drags the terrified dog along the ground behind him, leaving a trail of blood and s.h.i.+t in its wake. Reaching his pigeon van he throws the dog unceremoniously in the back, after which we climb in the front.

'Where we going?' I say, trying to increase the peace for the sake of the dog.

'The safe house,' he says. 'We'll have breakfast down there.'

The journey starts in silence, and I open my window a little way to grab some much needed fresh air.

'f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, mate,' says Danny. 'Do that window up, I'm freezing.' So I do the window up again, but finding the silence hard work I turn on the radio.

'f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, mate, I've got a headache, turn it off,' he then says, so I turn off the radio for the miserable c.u.n.t, thinking, what the f.u.c.k does this man want from life? I mean we've just carved up two hundred large between us, and because he's lost one poxy flying rat he's sulking like a chavvie that's just p.i.s.sed itself in a.s.sembly.

After a thirty minute journey sat in stone cold silence we reach Wanstead Flats, a secluded woodland area used by dog walkers and gay men looking for s.e.x. How come lesbians don't go cruising? Without saying a word Danny stops the van, pulls out the dog from the back and drags it into a nearby clump of trees, and you can bet your b.o.l.l.o.c.ks they ain't going on no teddy bear's picnic. There's a few seconds of silence, then a single, plaintive yelp fills the air, leaving Danny to emerge alone brandis.h.i.+ng a carving knife, which he tosses into a spread of bushes before climbing back into the van. Again I say nothing and again we drive in silence, while all that's going through my mind is, that f.u.c.king slag's just topped the family pet. Topped it for doing what comes naturally to any canine. Jesus f.u.c.king Christ! And I know it'll be me that has to tell his kids we took the dog to a farm to live happily ever after. It's all lies, the man's whole f.u.c.king existence. Lies for breakfast, lies for dinner and lies for tea. I really don't want to be around this dog-killing c.u.n.t at the moment. What I need is a break, and so I quietly resolve to sod off to the West Indies for a holiday. But first I've got an appointment with a pal about some deal he reckons he's got.

I'M SET TO meet Delroy at a pie and mash shop over in south London, and so, after getting to the safe house and eating breakfast over an uncomfortable silence, I make my excuses and get the f.u.c.k out of Danny's company. It's a five minute walk to Plaistow tube station, where I hail a cab to take me over the river. On reaching the Blue, a s.h.i.+thole shopping arcade in Bermondsey, I pay off the cabbie, give my eyes a chance, noting as I do that, as usual, it's packed with low-rent racklers, pus.h.i.+ng dirty-mouthed chavvies in smelly pushchairs. It's life, but not as I f.u.c.king want it. Strolling into Cooke's pie and mash shop I catch sight of Delroy, plonked at the furthest table with his back to the wall while demolis.h.i.+ng a plate of double bubble. That's two pies, two mash and a ladle of licker, which is a sort of parsley sauce for plebs. I've known Delroy for donkey's. He's a sort of best pal, if a man like me can have a best pal. We grew up together on the same rat-hole housing estate. He's two years younger than me but a million light years behind in the pecking order. Lovely bloke, but a chip on his shoulder about being second-generation black British. Reckons it's left him feeling confused. Not as confused as me. I've got a sack of spuds balanced evenly on mine. Like I always tell him whenever he breaks out the ol' violin. My old man's family are Dutch Yids, and the old girl's are rebel Paddies. And seeing as the Jews were house n.i.g.g.e.rs for the Germans, and the Irish, field n.i.g.g.e.rs for the English, then where does that leave a Fenian-Kike like me?

But give the man his due, he's a trier. Gets in there in the thick of it with the worst of them. But every big deal he's tried to put together has always fallen on its a.r.s.e. That's why he's moved back in with his mum and dad, into the same poxy tower block where he grew up. I mean as things go I suppose it weren't too bad back then, until Thatcher came into power. She pulled the plug on us and left us all to rot like meat in a broken fridge. And they wonder why council estates breed maggots. When that Gorgon-headed old c.u.n.t dies, I'm going to volunteer to be part of her twenty one gun salute. Only, I'll be firing my shots into the old s.h.i.+tter's coffin, not over the top of it. Let's have it right, this country's a f.u.c.king joke! We've still got the chinless-c.u.n.t descendants of robber barons running us, and they still own the land they stole off us back in the bronze ages. Yet round here the people that died for them in wars, so that they could keep their spoils, are just about clinging onto a semblance of life, that ain't even a life. No matter how hard those poor c.u.n.ts work, they ain't never got f.u.c.k all in their skyrockets, plus they're stuck in high rise prisons with lifts awash with p.i.s.s. They should condemn these estates, not the people that have to live in them.

I've told Delroy on numerous occasions he's got to move out and upmarket if he wants to make the grade, but he's still fencing cack weed and cut-to-f.u.c.k c.o.ke to the sc.u.m that infests the neighbourhood. Like a little while back I went round to see him, and some s.k.a.n.ky little s.h.i.+tter, wearing two bob's worth of market tat, started trying to give me an earful in front of her mates. I grabbed her by her home-made demi-perm and told her straight, 'You wanna talk like a man, I'll knock you out like a f.u.c.king man.' Violence is the only thing some people understand.

'All right, Billy?' says Delroy, looking up as I approach his table.

'Need to swap round, mate,' I tell him, motioning for him to change seats, so I can sit facing the door and keep an eye on the street outside. For in this game trouble can come from nowhere, and a man like me can't afford to drop his guard, not even for a second. After a couple of grumbles he does as he's told, then carries on eating.

'Late night, Billy?' he says.

'Early morning,' I snap back, while helping myself to a mouthful of his Pepsi.

'You going to order anything?'

'Nah, and close your f.u.c.king mouth while you're eating. I don't wanna watch you chewing the f.u.c.king cud.'

'f.u.c.k you!'

'What's this deal you got going?'

'Sweet as a f.u.c.king nut,' he says, like I ain't heard it all before.

'Well, keep your voice down then,' I say. 'You've only gotta tell me, not the whole f.u.c.king cafe.'

'Watch this,' he says, downing his cutlery and shuffling the condiments about on the table to ill.u.s.trate some cod strategy he's obviously been losing sleep over. 'Lorry comes in, and we... er, you and your firm take it. Job done, piece of p.i.s.s. Two to three mil.'

'Yeah, well watch this you p.r.i.c.k,' I spit back angrily, s.n.a.t.c.hing the condiments away from him and sliding them sharply back across the table. 'That's me and my firm being carted off to the Old Bill shop to get weighed off with twenty stretches. You know full f.u.c.king well we don't work the pavement anymore. Only c.u.n.ts do armed robberies these days. You know what, if we was to listen to mugs like you, we'd end up doing more f.u.c.king porridge than the three bears. Thanks but no thanks, and thanks for wasting my f.u.c.king time too.'

'f.u.c.king wrong again,' he says, spitting small globules of food out of his mouth. 'You're jumping the gun. You're always jumping the f.u.c.king gun where I'm concerned. Think I'm a loser, don't you? That I only get offered s.h.i.+t bits of graft. Well, you're f.u.c.king wrong. This bit of graft is pure genius. So sweet it's untrue. I've already done me f.u.c.king homework. No matter what you think I always knew I'd crack it one day. Believe me, Billy, cream floats to the top.'

'So do dead men if you don't slit their stomachs,' I tell him.

'Do you wanna know about this deal or not?'

'I'm all ears.'

'Well then, Dumbo, pay f.u.c.king attention.'

I must admit I'm mildly intrigued. I've never seen Delroy so fired up, so I decide to stay and let him run through his stuff.

'I got a call from Bunny Roach, remember him?' he says.

'Used to live in our block?'