Old Age and Treachery by Alan Griffiths

Snowy screamed like a stuck pig when I sliced his ear clean off.

He’d already told me where he’d stashed Fast Eddie’s loot. In between coughing up claret and spitting broken teeth.

The ear thing was just plain malice.

Needless to say he blamed the double cross on Juni and her expensive tastes.

I cracked him with a good left to shut him up and that gave me the few seconds I needed to slit his flabby throat.

Things like this happen when gangsters fall out.

Snowy and me, we’d been pals for the last twenty years. We’d worked together on more jobs than I cared to remember. I trusted him and never once had reason to suspect him of treachery.

That was until he shacked up with Juni.

He met her while he was lying low following a little post office tickle we had pulled off together. Snowy had flown to the Med for a bit of sun, sea and sex. He returned to Blighty with Juni; all blonde hair, plastic tits, and suntanned curves. With about as much class as a market stall Rolex.

She was several years younger than him but there’s nothing like a gangster’s rep to turn a young girl’s head. And, as Snowy was fond of telling me, she sure gave good head.

Fast Eddie ran an illegal, cash heavy, betting operation. This blag was to be Snowy’s last hurrah before heading off with Juni for the Costa del Sol.

After a heist like this one I was planning on a long holiday as well.

Maybe Eddie was going soft because security was light and the staff as meek and mild as a flock of sheep. Snowy let off a round from his sawn-off into the ceiling to focus their attention. With them bound and gagged we ransacked the place. There were piles of money waiting to be laundered clean through Eddie’s legit car businesses. An added bonus was a stockpile of hijacked whisky. Eddie and his boys had been busy.

Snowy was as happy as Larry and whooping with joy like a rollover lottery winner. I’d never seen the old boy so gee’d-up. Problem was we had too much stuff to carry and the stolen hooch was too good an opportunity to pass on.

We decided to split up. I drove off with the booze in the van. Snowy hotwired a motor and took off with the bags of cash.

Only he wasn’t at the lock up when I arrived. Neither was the swag. Eddie’s boys were and packing enough hardware in their fists to start and finish a small war.

I’d been lucky to walk away but had left some serious blood on the floor in doing so. The fall out would be white hot and I needed Fast Eddie’s moolah to get away and consider an early retirement.

Snowy’s bloodstained trouser pocket started to buzz, his mobile then broke into a shrill ringing tone. I yanked it free. Juni flashed on the blue green display.

“Hey Juni,” I said nonchalantly. “How’s tricks?”

“Priest?”

“The one and only.”

“Wasn’t expecting you to answer,” she said. “Thought you and my boy Snowy were being busy.”

I took a flyer on her not knowing the details. “Na, we had to can that bitta business.”

“Shame,” she said. “That’s gonna be costly.”

“Easy come, easy go,” I chuckled, all friendly. “We spent the afternoon drinking.”

“Where’s Snowy?”

“Away with the fairies.”

“Come again.”

“I slipped a few Voddy Mickey Finns into his pints of Guinness.”

“Naughty,” she said, relaxing and getting into it.

“So how about you come over here Honey” I said. “We can play around while the old bugger sleeps it off?”

I’d been giving Juni a bone for a while now. Keep your enemies close and all that.

Hell, as I said, these things happen when old villains fall out.

“I’m just parking downstairs lover boy.” Her laugh was dirty and with all the subtlety of a freshly castrated bull let loose in a china shop.

I clicked the moby off and threw it against the wall opposite. “Bitch!” I kinda lost it then for a bit and in my rage sliced off Snowy’s remaining ear as well as his fat tongue. I slung all three pieces of shredded gristle and flesh into the microwave.

Set it going.

To calm myself I poured a large measure of Famous Grouse from a bottle I found in one of the cupboards. Savouring the smooth whisky burn I fired up a Silk Cut. Sucked hard and started to think fast.

Given time and money maybe I could square things with Fast Eddie but Plod would soon be sniffing around and there was Juni with her loose liposuction enhanced lips....

I heard keys rattling and the apartment’s front door began to slowly open. A small hand appeared, between the jamb and the door, holding tiny lacy knickers. A girly giggle and the panties dropped to the floor.

Juni’s mockney cockney voice began to sing. “Ready or not, here I come, you can't hide, gonna find you …”

I’d have preferred Johnny Cash.

As I picked up the bloody blade from the work surface the microwave started to ping, ping, ping.

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BIO: Alan Griffiths is a rookie writer, from London, England. He has a keen interest in reading and writing Crime Fiction, particularly Noir and Pulp. His short fiction can been found on A Twist of Noir, Pulp Pusher, Powder Burn Flash, Thrillers, Killers n Chillers and Six Sentences.