Grimms48

Rab cashes his Giro the next day and agrees to meet Jaz and the Tash back in the pub. Jaz sits waiting, nursing a warm pint, the Tash beside him sucking down one cigarette after another. The red Adidas bag with two Starr pistols and a Berretta, Jaz picked out for himself, is at his feet, kicked under the table. He’s brought nylon stockings to use as masks. He wasn’t sure about wire-cutters, he improvised bringing a pair of pliers and an axe. Neither Del or Dougie told him how to disable the alarm, but he imagines it can’t be that difficult.

‘Where is that cunt?’ Jaz asks.

‘Probably smoking that dope,’ the Tash says. ‘The cunts addicted tae it. He’ll end up a junkie, selling his arse.’ His foot taps a jig under the table and he squints sideways through a mouthful of snaking smoke at his brother. ‘Whit dae you want to dae?’

His nervousness is contagious and makes Jaz wary. ‘Whit dae you want to dae?’

‘It’s up to you,’ the Tash says.

‘No, it’s up to you.’

‘Alright then, let’s fuckin’ dae it then?’

Jaz takes a drink and spits it back into the glass. ‘Pish water,’ he pronounces with a fake laugh, picking up the bag. The Tash’s pint remains untouched, his hands shaking when he tries to take a final mouthful.

Neither of them speaks as they fall into step on the way up Duntocher Road. Both of them are dressed in denim jacket and denim flared trousers and sannies. When they get to the steps at Shakespeare Avenue they take a breather and have a fag. Jaz unzips the bag and checks there’s nobody about before slipping a gun in his inside jacket pocket and stuffs a pair of nylons in his inside pocket.  He hands the Tash a Starr pistol and a pair of tan tights.

‘Whit happens if somebody makes a grab for yeh?’ the Tash asks, he almost drops the pistol.

‘Fuckin’ shoot them,’ is Jaz’s terse reply. The closer they get to the post office the more confident he gets.

‘Whit happens if somebody knows us?’

‘You shoot them.’ He scrutinizes his brother with eyes blank as postage stamps. ‘You want to dae the job or no’? I’ll dae it myself.’

‘I wiz just thinkin’ we should have a getaway car,’ the Tash mutters. ‘You said you had one for the last job.’

Jaz shrugs and talks in a monotone voice. ‘We’ve already went through all that. That was for a bank. This is a post office.  We go in and dae the job, come oot the back door, up through the back lanes and end up here. Cross the road up through the park and we’ll be hame in jig time before the police even get to leave the station.’ He picks up the bag and starts walking up the bend of the hill. A Panda Police car in its blue and white livery sweeps down from Parkhall shops towards them. With one hand Jaz reaches inside his pocket for his gun. He turns and the look on his brother’s face, tells him he’s going to bolt and he does turn to run, but the Police car sweeps past him, paying him no heed. The Tash stops as quickly as he started, puts the heel of his hand against the red brick of the wall, bent over, boaking up.

Jaz leaves his brother and walking into the wind at a fair pace is sweating when he reaches the post office. He’s on his own and that’s just the way he likes it. He strides past Birell’s the sweet shop and disappears around the corner, steps into the lane at the back. Reconnoitring,  he stands on the  crumbling wall of the dump and peers down at the back entrances to the shops and post office. There’s no alarm as far as he can see, and even if there is he’s need a ladder to get up at it. He takes his time and when he comes back around the corner, slows, and lets a woman pulling a tartan trolley pass him on the pavement. He looks through the door of the post office. An stocky old women in a red hat is the last in the queue. He comes quickly through the door, pulling the nylon over his face, locking it by simply shutting the door and putting the Yale snib on. He turns the open side to close. A guy younger than Jaz is getting his money passed through the wicket, but when he sees the pistols he cowers down, holding his hands up. Jaz vaults up and onto the counter, looks down at those in the queue, a pistol in each hand.

‘Any cunt move and I’ll shoot you,’ he says, quietly. He passes the Adidas bag to postmaster. ‘Fill this up with high denomination notes. Any fuckin’ about and I’ll shoot you. Press any alarm buttons and I’ll shoot you. Look at me the wrang way and I’ll shoot yeh. Got it!’

The postmaster a middle-aged man with squarish specs and a half smile on his face, opens a box and piles notes into it. A wee girl holding onto her mother’s skirt was peering up at him. Somebody comes to the door and tries to push it open. He bangs on the door to get in.  When that doesn’t work, he puts his face up against the glass and peers in. The old woman in the hat starts sobbing. ‘Oh my God,’ she says. ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’

Jaz jumps down on the other side of the counter and sticks a gun in the postmaster’s eye. He picks up the bag and warns those in the queue, ‘I’m gonnae take this cunt wae me, anybody says anythin’ out of turn and I’ll fuckin’ kill him.’ He marches him through to the back of the post office.

‘Open that back door,’ he tells him. A key sits in the lock and the door opens outwards onto the lane.

A light rain falls but after been inside it feels refreshing. ‘I’m gonnae play a wee game now,’ Jaz says. ‘See that bin there.’ He switches the bag with the money in it to his other hand and indicates with the barrel of a gun an industrial-sized bin outside the general store. ‘Let’s see how quickly you can get into it. And let me be very clear about this, if you poke you’re head out, I’ll kill you.’ He boots the postmaster on the arse. ‘Go,’ he shouts.

Jaz bangs on the metal bin as he passes. Then he’s running, the bag weighing him down, but he’s never felt more alive.