Blagger Extract.

I've been planning and working on a couple of new books recently, one is a crime fiction novel provisionally entitled 'Missing' and the other is a semi autobiographical novella called 'I'm Rivelino' - Class eh? Anyway, as a result of this a number of other things have gone on the back burner and could probably do with an airing. So with that in mind here's an extract from Blagger, an early, and still ongoing, project. Let me know what you think.

Blagger

They think they know me in this boozer. Think they know all about me. Wankers. Look at him selling Lynx from a carrier bag. One fifty a tin, that’s proper big time that is son. The cunt’s made about fifteen quid and he’s swaggering about like some fucking celebrity gangster. It’s not like he’s even a snotty nosed kid either, the fucker’s about thirty and scratches a living by nicking tat out of them cheap shops, you know the kind where the workers are on minimum wage and care more about their health than they do the company’s profits. Here’s another one, his sidekick, this boozer’s full of wannabe’s tonight. He’s pulling out his snide watches and giving it all the ‘I know a man who knows a man bollocks’, the twat’s walking over to me now, smug grin on his blotchy, junk food face.

“Come on Davey, live a bit dangerously, tenner apiece and I’ll even get Dodge to hoy in a free can of deodorant.”

I just smile back at him and shake my head, looking all model citizen and respectable as I turn back to my pint, hearing him mutter under his breath as his sweaty, charva frame moves away from me. Another one who thinks I’m a law abiding, salt of the earth, couple of pints at the weekend type. They know fuck all.

After last orders I normally go back to my council house on my own, I don’t go for a drink at anyone else’s and they don’t get invited to mine. Normally I’m about a tenner down on cards to some of the older lads, I don’t mind they’re good blokes. Sometimes I get a chinkys on the way home, sometimes I plead poverty and just get a bag of chips. Proper grey man me, none of this touting gear round pubs for twenty bar here and there, sticking your chest out and playing it hard. No visible tattoos, nice sensible short back and sides, no bling and no designer gear. What I do have though is an offshore bank account with seven hundred grand in it and about forty grand in cash under the bed. I work in a steel factory and everyone on this estate knows it. I live within my supposed means and record wise I’m as clean as a fucking whistle. What this means is that I’ll only ever get caught if I’m actually pulled in the act and that’ll never happen.

Taking a large gulp from my second pint of the weekend I revise the days events. The van pulled up and the guard was straight out and into the bank, first mistake mate. Company procedure is to wait in the van for five minutes and assess the area. As the company in question give them far too much to do and then bollock them when they don’t do it then it’s no surprise they all cut corners. He came back out, no helmet on, enjoying the sunshine, breaking all the rules. My hand slowly let out the clutch and the bike moved forward, he couldn’t even hear it, too busy thinking about the baguette he’d bought half an hour ago from Greggs. Smiling to myself as the lager hits my throat again I recall how he half turned and started to bend down at the hatch as I got closer, full throttle now. The engine whined as I pushed it hard into third. He noticed a noise and started to turn but by then I was on him. He tried to push the case in the slot but it was too late. I booted him over as the bike slewed to a halt, engine still running. Grabbed the case, rammed my hand round the throttle and I was off. Piece of piss.

The bizzies found the bike two miles away, they might find a nicked Peugeot ten miles north of Newcastle in a couple of days, I bet you no-one noticed the crappy Escort Van parked down the road from it though. The one I’ve just sold on Ebay for five hundred quid. Thirty grand in the case, minus the five hundred quid loss I took on the van for a quick sale plus sundries like petrol, equals a profit of roughly twenty nine and a bit thousand. Stuff it into the hiding place, show my face in here and then get to bed; I’ve an early shift tomorrow.

That’s the beauty of my chosen profession, I work alone; no one can grass me up; no one can get pissed and mouthy about me; no one can suddenly start spending money that they didn’t have yesterday. The only risks I take are when I’m doing the job and I’m very careful, preparation is everything with me. At the end of the day I’m a professional blagger and a fucking good one at that. That’s why I even make an effort to drink in here regular, blend in, be part of the scenery, I fucking hate them plastic gangsters that get in though. That Lynx selling muppet’s been a bit familiar lately as well, I can’t work out why, I think he might suspect I’m not what I seem but he can’t prove it so he just digs away. Well you keep digging son, I say fuck all me.

Then, suddenly, he’s in my face, a bit of an audience behind him.
“Davey, how come you never buy any gear off me? Everyone else in this bar takes a bit of hoisty of me, they all appreciate the bargains but you never do.”

He’s obviously had a few pints more than he’s capable of and he’s getting brave, maybe the coke’s kicked in and he just feels the need to talk, whatever it is the cunt’s voice is getting louder and he’s drawing attention to me. Not what I want. This needs stopping.

“I mean anyone would think you were some kind of undercover bizzy or one of those professional witnesses or something. You know the kind who can’t break the law or it fucks the case up.”

Shite. Too late to nip in the bud now, there’s a buzz round the bar and a couple of his gobshite mates have left the pool table and walked over, still holding their cues. I can’t have this. Instant death on this estate if I don’t deal with what he’s just said.

“I can see your point,” I say, “It must look suspicious to a charlie’d up, paranoid wanker like you. The reason I don’t buy your gear is because it’s shit and you’re a tu’penny ha’penny thief who thinks he’s a gangster. You want to remember your name’s Gray not Kray.”

The cunt is nonplussed no-one’s ever spoken to him like that before, even his tattoos look confused, he’s not gonna like the next bit then.

“As for being a bizzy and not doing owt illegal, how does this grab you?”

I welt my pint glass against the bar and ram it in his fat charva face, the blood sprays his two useless mates and they’re on their toes. Next thing I know the bar’s full of people applauding and I’m getting free pints all night, turns out they hate the cunt an all. Despite my desire to be low key I have to say I enjoy it but I know that was just the start. He was put into an ambulance telling everyone exactly what him and that Dodge prick would do to me. I’d best ring work tomorrow and ask for a few days holiday; tell them I’ve got a bereavement and I need to plan the funeral.