The Drop

offered.
    ‘Know fighters do you?’ asked Kinane, knowing I didn’t.
    ‘Nope,’ I admitted, ‘but even I can see he was knocking seven shades of shite out of that bag.
    ‘That lad will be a British champion one day,’ he told me as if it was an undisputed fact.
    We sat on stained office chairs that must have been bought from a liquidation sale or sold off by the police from their retrieved stolen goods stock. The place was a dump, and I could tell in his face Kinane knew this and was bothered by it now that I was here.
    ‘I take it you are still working for the old cunt.’
    If anybody else had said that I would have had Finney break their arm on principle, but Kinane was a special case, so I confirmed I was still working for the “old cunt”, ‘you know I am.’
    He nodded slowly, ‘so what brings you here? None of my business has anything to do with him. I’m legit. I train fighters, they box and sometimes they go on doors.’
    ‘Bobby knows how you make your living,’ I told him and I decided against telling Kinane that Bobby permitted him to earn that living, even though we both knew this was true. I could see no point in riling Kinane. Not when I needed his help. ‘He knows about your fighters and your doormen,’ I told him, ‘he also knows about the coke deals, the Es and the protection your boys have been offering the heroin dealers on the Sunnydale estate.’
    Kinane looked a little pissed-off at this last nugget of information but it was my job to know these things. ‘Bobby’s got nowt to do with those high rises,’ he told me, ‘never has done.’
    ‘Which is why it doesn’t trouble him,’ I have had many a long discussion with Bobby about the potential gold mine in the Sunnydale estates, the most inaccurately named collection of high rises in Newcastle, provoking images of country fields and sunshine that are in stark contrast to its burned out cars, derelict flats and a dealer on every corner, but he has a real downer on the idea. He doesn’t like heroin. He thinks it’s risky and could end up putting him inside for life, which I understand and he doesn’t want to deal to the kids on those estates, which is noble enough. My argument is there’s always someone dealing there anyway, always has been, always will be, so it might as well be us. That way, it’s organised, there’s less anarchy, you know the purity level of the product on the streets and you don’t get users OD’ing all the time because someone didn’t know how to cut it right. There’d be no stupid feuds between rival dealers either, because they’d all be working for us and the income was about as regular as it gets. Anyway, he won’t have it.
    ‘Then why are you here?’
    ‘Cartwright.’
    ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘people are talking about that.’
    ‘I’m sure they are,’
    ‘I did wonder if that was why you came,’ then he frowned, ‘Bobby doesn’t think that I… ?’
    ‘No, no, of course not,’ I lied. Bobby clearly did wonder if Kinane might be behind his problems and with some justification. They’d had a big tear-up, over lord knows what, about four, maybe five years ago now. To be honest I can barely remember the details myself after all this time but the hurt and the hate was still fresh on both sides. At the end of it all, Kinane was banished from the inner sanctum of our firm in disgrace, like Lancelot being kicked out of court by King Arthur for shagging Guinevere. Only he stuck around, stayed in the city and eked out a living in Newcastle. He could have made a big name in any other city in the country but he was one of those blokes who wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he didn’t live here.
    ‘I’m getting round everybody,’ I told him, ‘so I thought I may as well come and see a man who knows. You always knew everything that went on in this city Joe. We worked together often enough for me to realise that.’
    ‘When you were a snot-nosed kid you mean?’
    ‘When I was a snot-nosed kid,’ I agreed, not rising to it.
    ‘Well,’ he concluded, ‘you’re not a kid any more, one of Bobby’s main men, so I hear. I have heard that much.’
    ‘And what have you heard about Cartwright?’
    ‘Nowt, but I’d be surprised if he’s done a bunk. I’m assuming he’s not the only thing that’s gone missing or you wouldn’t be half so bothered.’ He’d obviously heard there was money involved but didn’t want to admit it. My silence told him everything he needed to