The Job: Part Twelve

~ beetleypete

This is the twelfth part of a fiction serial, in 780 words. It may contain some swear-words.

Teddy turns up unexpectedly.

Once Gloria had left for work that Sunday morning, Alan got the jiffy bag from the spare room, and checked over the .22. He stripped it, reassembled it, then loaded 10 rounds into the magazine. The long-barrelled Ruger was a very nice pistol, and even with the silencer attached, it still fitted inside the padded jiffy bag. He went back into the bedroom and hid it under his empty case in the small wardrobe. That reminded him that he would have to buy more clothes soon.

It was getting colder in London.

Alan Gill had always used firearms during his relatively short career as an armed robber. They made a lot of noise, and stopped most people wanting to even consider fighting back, or resisting. He favoured revolvers, as they retained the cartridges in the cylinder. Automatic pistols ejected the spent cartridges, and that meant leaving evidence behind, or having to scrabble around to find them. Even weapons that were supplied as untraceable might well have been used in other robberies. So if you got nicked, you could be sure the cops would fit you up with every other crime where the same weapon had been used.

Trouble was, ballistics was getting more accurate every year. That made it harder to be a criminal, no doubt.

During that time, Alan had only ever shot three people deliberately. The first had been a cash-in-transit security guard. The man thought to have a go, by grabbing Alan from behind as they threw the cash boxes into a stolen car. Without hesitation, Alan fired his Bulldog .45 into the man’s right foot, straight through his boot. No chance of killing him, but he definitely released his grip.

The second time, they had been jumped by armed detectives as they came out of a bank with bags full of cash. The nervous young detective had followed procedure, shouting “Halt! Armed police! Drop your weapon!” Alan hadn’t dropped the .38 S&W. He shot the cop in the thigh instead, and they made good their escape.

Following the bank job, they knew they had been grassed. So Alan shot the man who grassed them. And this time, it was fatal.

Lawrence Toomey was known as Larry The Limp. He had been a crappy cat-burglar in Northern Ireland, just about earning a living. Then one day, he burgled the house of a widow in the countryside near Londonderry. She came home from the shops to find a strange man in her house with a calico bag full of her jewellery. Larry thought he might as well rape her while he was there, so threatened her with his crowbar, and told her to strip. But she was made of stern stuff. She spat in his face, fought back like a crazy person, and Larry legged it back to his car parked in a lane nearby.

He had to drive past her house to get away, and she spotted the car. Not many bright red mark four Cortinas in Londonderry back then.

Larry had made a huge mistake. The widow was the wife of an IRA man who had been shot by the British Army while on active service for the cause. She made a phone call. They found him trying to sell some of her Cameo brooches to a fence on the Dungiven Road. In a remote lock-up, he was kneecapped. One shot in the back of each knee, then dumped on the main road. Once he got out of hospital, he did the sensible thing, and left for London. The right knee never healed properly, and left him with a permanent limp.

Nobody in the Irish community in Kilburn or Cricklewood would tolerate him, so he went east, and ended up in Islington. One night, he got Teddy Henderson drunk on cheap brandy, and learned about a bank job that was happening. Better to tell the cops and get a reward, rather than keep trying to burgle basement flats in Barnsbury.

Someone told Alan Larry had been seen talking to Teddy in a pub, and Teddy was drunk as a sack. That was enough for Alan.

The Irishman was easy to find. When Alan knocked on the door of his flat in Laycock Green that night he looked nervous, but let him in. Seeing the old Webley come out of Alan’s coat, he started to plead his case. But it was far too late.

One shot, through the top of his head. He was done. The pistol went into the canal that night, never to be found.

Gloria’s doorbell sounded. It was Teddy Henderson, with a geezer who looked like Arnie, in ‘Terminator’.

32 thoughts on “The Job: Part Twelve”

  5. (1) The Ruger was loosely named after Freddy K. Rueger, who lived on Elm Street.
    (2) I was playing a board game, and had to scrabble around to find the tiles that had fallen off the table. Do you know the name of the game, or must I spell it out for you?
    (3) Did you hear about the bootlegger? Teddy shot him in the leg, and Alan shot a hole in his boot. “We asked for cheap Brandy and a decent Cognac, not your stinkin’ Moonshine!”
    (4a) Alan shot the detective in the thigh. Next time, aim high.
    (4b) Alan shot the man who grassed them, and now he’s pushing up daisies.
    (5a) Larry The Limp was a crappy pussycat-burglar. So was Gary The Gimp. They both fell in love with a hairy streetwalker named Cherry The Chimp.
    (5b) Cherry The Chimp walked the streets of Laycock Green. She preferred to take inexperienced johns to bed.
    (6) Larry told the widow in Londonderry to strip, and she replied, “Sure, I’ll strip your .22. I’ll even reassemble it for you!”
    (7) Seeing the old Webley come out of Alan’s coat, Larry complained, “What a Boering way to die!”

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