Free Born Different by Faye Aitken-Smith Page A

for
having a little party tomorrow? Celebrate your last exam and
another little event we are attending to today children?” Johnny
swaggered up to Gabe and slipped something in his pocket that Gabe
saw was cash.
    “What’s that
for Johnny?”
    “Well, do you
want to be let into a little secret?” Johnny threw out a line.
    “No, no
really,” Gabe answered truthfully.
    “Well we’re in
this together now mate and if we pull it off it’s gonna be happy
times ahead for a little while. A little something to get you all
through the summer partying rather than McJobbing it.”
    “Tell him
Johnny, Gabe don’t know what’s good for him half the time. Tell
him.” Dave was impossible to ignore or defy.
    Frank was
hopping around with a grin that kept appearing then disappearing.
“It’s win-win Gabe. Please say yes.” Frank said fearfully earnest
as ever.
    And so Johnny
explained the plans. Gabe knew to take anything Johnny said with a
huge pinch of salt but this is what he told them.
    Johnny was
involved in some money laundering. There were three businesses in
the city that ran the money from drug dealing and contraband, and
fuck knows what else, through their books. Johnny had got in on it
all. He was now playing with the big boys. It was the easiest money
Johnny had ever come by but he was pissing off a few people. The
wrong people. Johnny shot off a list of names, the men that he was
having crap off of. Some of the names were familiar, too familiar.
Big business names in the city, some even on the council. Fathers
of kids that Gabe knew of, even a few names that Gabe recognised to
be people in his year at school. Sons and heirs to all this
bullshit. Gabe knew some of them as the crowd that Grace hung out
with. The Beautiful ones. And, most obviously and importantly, Gabe
heard the name, ‘Alistair’.
    Johnny had set
his sights on upsetting Alistair, only the man that Gabe had seen
with his arm around Grace that morning. Now if Gabe was into
coincidences, he might have just seen this as a sign, an opening
for him to act out his revenge. Was this how life worked? Was this
part of the game? It felt right. The thought of upsetting Alistair
felt very good and tempting indeed. But, Gabe sensed, due to the
build-up and the cash involved, this wasn’t going to be a case of
simply spray painting ‘wanker’ on the side of his car.
    “So what we’re
going to do is take their takings, what they got last night. I know
where it is, I just need you guys to help me. One to drive. One to
look out. And one to help me, give me a leg up and help me carry
the gear out. We got to do this one kids, alright? Dave’s got a
van, Gabe can drive it, Frank can wait up the road on look out and
Dave can come with me. That way, worse way out, me and Dave take
the fall ok? All for one and all that.”
    Gabe shook his
head, “I don’t know Johnny.”
    “Come on Gabe!
All those fellas that sniff round Grace, probably sniffing her
panties and catching a feel of those pretty little titties. You
don’t want a bit of that mate? It’s time eh, time we did something
to address the balance don’t you think?”
    And Gabe wanted
to say, “But you don’t even like Grace!” because they hated Grace
and her friends and all they stood for, or rather, for all that
they had. It always wound him up, the way they went on about how
horrible Grace was, when they didn’t even know her. They knew that
he liked her, liked her a lot, however much they tried to put him
off her. But he also knew that they were only doing it for his
sake, they knew the score...that Grace was impossibly out of Gabe’s
league. They were just trying to soften the blow. Being cruel to be
kind.
    Gabe could
really do with the money though. He was broke and his mum was
broke. He needed money for everything. Especially now that
everything was changing and this was going to be his last time
after all wasn’t it? Was it better to just do one big risky haul
now, rather than dozens of