Thriller

Thriller by Steven

"I love being a crim," said Mike 'scally' Moran. "My teacher said I'd never amount to anything, and here I am planning which blags to heist with my underworld mates. It's great!"

"You said it," replied Harry 'fingers' Fingers. "Beats police work any day. I mean, I'm only guessing about that, but I expect it does."

"Do you think we're far enough down?" inquired Yuletide 'nutter' Gobbs anxiously. "For the underworld, I mean. If we dug a bit we could go lower."

"The underworld is a state of mind," said Doc 'only blow the knees off' Chopper.

"Yeah, but where is it?" complained Yuletide. "There should be a sign or something. 'You are now entering the underworld. You don't have to be bad to work here but it helps.' That sort of thing."

Doc laughed in the grating, whistling, knock-kneed rasp he'd practised for months. "Let's get planning," he suggested, "before any of us gets funny ideas and has to sleep at the fish counter in a concrete snorkel for a two-for-one offer they can't refuse."

"I love the menacing way you said that," sighed Mike. "I can see why you're the boss, you get all the best lines."

"Could you speak up a bit?" said Harry. "If there happened to be a police van outside, and if Constable 'takes bribes' Riley and Sergeant 'only fit for traffic duty' Plank were sort of listening in, I don't think they'd hear you very well. They aren't, of course, but if they were, they wouldn't."

"Shut up everybody," snarled Doc. "With you lot it's a bit like trying to plan a burglary when everybody keeps talking. Exactly like that, in fact. Now, this here is the van," he held up a toy fire engine, "and we're sort of inside it. That's Yuletide waving through the window. Somebody with the nickname 'wheels' is driving." He pushed the fire engine across the table. "There we go, see? Wheeeee! When it stops we rob a bank. Any questions?"

"A whole bank?" gasped Mike. "How will we get it home? Couldn't we just rob the money?"

"I infer from what you say that you don't know the difference between 'rob' and 'steal'," sniffed Doc. "You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but it would be helpful in avoiding misunderstandings if you could learn to speak English."

"But I'm a lovable, pearly cockney, bless yer apples and stairs," protested Mike. "Every heist has a cute cockney to cockney it all up. Do yer mother proud on the dog and phone. Gorblimey, there's a canary on me barra down the Old Kent Road."

"Oh, anyone can do Cockney," sneered Harry. "Plain clothes policemen who infiltrate criminal gangs have to do Geordie, Scouse, Chinese, just about anything that crosses their transom, or so I've heard."

"I can do prisoner," boasted Yuletide. "Do yer own bird, not somebody else's. Twos-up on yer snout. I got a bender. 'Bird' means time, like a caged bird, see? And snout's a roll-up in some dialects and tobacco in others, and a bender's a ..."

"I'm sure this is all very interesting, and in other circumstances I'd be fascinated to hear more." Doc was grinning like the toilet duck that became a toilet swan. "But in the present juxtaposition of fate and cruelty I'd rather like to slice somebody with a razor. Anybody up for it?"

So ended another happy day at the crime factory. In keeping with their chosen profession, they stole one another's legs and walked lopsidedly home. The caretaker of the underworld sighed as he pressed his uniform trousers. He missed the Krays tragically but it didn't do to say so.