[b]The Oyster Gentleman’s Club
Bow, London[/b]


Charlie pulled the car to the side of the street and turned it off. He and Red climbed out and walked to the car's boot. Fireworks were going off from somewhere close by. Two men rushed down the sidewalk, each one waving English flags as they drunkenly sang "God Save The Queen." Charlie and Red were used to seeing the sight by now. The drive over from Peckham took twice as long thanks to the celebration in the streets. Red opened the boot and took the bag out, slinging it over his shoulder.

“Don’t lose your head in there," he said. "You know what the Twins are like, Albie especially. They’ll take any opportunity to fill some poor sap with holes – even if England have just won the World Cup and that sap comes bearing gifts.”

Charlie stuck an unlit cigarette in his mouth and scowled. “Alright. You don’t need to tell me twice. Let's go.”

They walked up to the entrance of the club. A gorilla in a tux stopped and frisked them. After making sure they were free of weapons, another man in a tux led them inside. Though not a gorilla, he was distinctly Cro-Magnon in his features. He popped a pair of hairy knuckles as Red and Charlie followed him across plush red carpet.

To their left, a half filled room of men sat at ornate tables and watched a woman dance on stage to "Paint it Black." She was curvy and topless, a pair of star-shaped pasties covering her nipples as she swayed to the song. Charlie chalked up the low attendance to the game.

They followed the caveman to the backroom. It was set up like a miniature version of the main room. A mini stage with a pole sat on the far end of the room. On the other end was a large table. Sitting at the table were the underworld kings of South London. Alan and Albie Binney, twin reflections of each other. Only Albie's glasses helped tell the two men apart. Their older brother Frank sat at his own table by himself, watching but not speaking. Albie smiled brightly at the sight of Red and Charlie. Alan, for his part, was engrossed in a plate of steak and vegetables. 

“Well, well, well," said Albie. "If it isn’t the infamous Red Turner and his hired gun. Come to share in the revelries, have you boys?”

“We’ve come to pay our respects, Mr. Binney,” said Charlie.

“Shame. It’s always all business, all the time with your lot, Turner. That’s your problem. A man needs friends in this world, y’know? What’s the saying, Alan?”

“No man is an island,” Alan grunted, his mouth full of meat. 

“That’s right. No man is an island. I thought you of all people would understand that.”

“Here,” said Red, passing the bag to the caveman who tilted it on the Binney Twins' table, stacks of cash spilling out.

Alan paused from his food to admire the money. “This is quite the haul.”

“It’s all there,” said Red.

Albie motioned towards his older brother. “Frank, come make sure our associates here aren’t trying to pull a fast one on us, would you?”

Frank stayed where he was. He made eye contact with Red and nodded. “He’s telling the truth, Alan.”

Alan pushed his plate away and looked up at Red and Charlie. “Congratulations on a job well done, gentlemen. See to it that motor you borrowed doesn’t end up out on the road again. Take it back to the geezer. He’ll know what to do with it.”

Albie broke in with a complete non-sequitur as he looked at Charlie, a soft smile on his lips. 

“Turner ever tell you how he got his nickname, boy?”

“I suppose it’s on account of his hair,” said Charlie.

Albie laughed and turned his gaze to Red. “That’s cute. No, no, old Turner being a ginger has nothing to do with it, hard as that is to believe. There’s more to it than that.”

Frank stood up and started towards his brothers. “Let’s get some more girls over here and leave the past in the past, shal-”

“You shut that mouth of yours, Frank," said Albie, murderous anger in his eyes. "Or so help me God, I’ll shut it for you.”

“You heard my brother,” Alan sighed, rubbing his now full stomach. “Don’t leave the boy in suspense, Albie.”

Albie nodded his thanks to Alan. His anger had left as quickly as it had come. And why wouldn't it? He was back holding court, every eye int he room on his as he told the tale.

“Before my brother and I became the all-singing, all-dancing kings of East London that you see before you, we used to work for a fella named Donoghue. I’ll forgive you if you’ve never heard of the cunt, because he didn’t go about his business with quite the same panache as my brother and I. This must have been about a decade or so back – things were done a lot quieter back then, y’see.”

“A lot quieter,” Alan said as he picked his teeth.

Albie's face flashed annoyance at the interruption. He glanced over at his brother to make sure he was done before he pressed on. “Anyway, whatever old Donoghue asked of us, we did. Some wog is pushing drugs near a school, we make it so that wog never uses his hands again. Some unlucky bastard happens to shag one of Donoghue’s birds, we make it so that he never shags anyone again. You get the deal. Well, back then your mate here worked under a different name. What was it, Alan? Frank Turner or something like that?”

“Near enough,” Alan called back. “I think it was Fred.”

“That’s the one!" Albie slammed his open palm on the table so hard that Charlie nearly flinched at it. "Old Freddy boy ran with a different crew back then – a slightly bigger one if memory serves. They pulled jobs all across London. They were professionals, too, never a single body on them. For his faults, I’ve always said that Red was a clever bastard. But see, kid, back then your mate was a little too clever for his own good. He was like that fella that flew too close to the Sun. He had’ta come crashing down to Earth at some point.

“Turner here made the mistake of trying to take a slice of old man Donoghue’s pie. Four robberies all at the same time at four different locations across East London – all done between nine of them. It was impressive, wasn’t it, Alan?”

“Real impressive.”

A playful grin slipped on to Albie's face as he spoke. “What he didn’t realise, of course, was that he had a grass in his team. Irish kid named Kinnear that was two hundred grand in the hole to Donoghue and didn’t like the sound of splitting the take nineways. Who could blame the poor sod? If I was two hundred grand in the hole to someone, I’d of done the same. Then again, I’d never end up two hundred grand in the hole to someone to begin with.”

Everyone in the room chuckled in agreement. Everyone that was, Charlie noticed, but Red. Red hadn't spoken, his jaw clenched and his eyes fixated on Albie Binney.

“Where was I?" Albie asked, before he nodded. "Yeah, Kinnear puts Donoghue on to Turner’s plan in the hopes the old man will write off his debt. Instead of going after the bastards before the deed is done, Donoghue lets it go ahead. He let’s Turner and his boys think they’ve struck gold for twenty-four hours before unleashing the forces of hell on the fuckers. Alan and I got four of the bastards personally. Who got the other three?”

Alan looked up and tried to remember. “I think Sparkie got the two Barrie boys. Not sure who got the other one.”

Albie shrugged, the murders too inconsequential for him to even remember. “Who the fuck cares? Anyway, that stupid mick Kinnear goes running to the Sweeney with his tail tucked between his legs. Must of figured Donoghue would go after him next. Silly move, that. The old man was many things, but he weren’t spiteful. Old Bill put Kinnear under police protection – reckon he thought he’d be given a new name and packaged off somewhere – but things were different then. Lots of unpaid overtime slips around, if you know what I mean?”

Alan looked at Charlie. “We caught up with your fearless leader in a safehouse in Rotherhithe. Guess he thought he’d be safe across the river in Richardson territory.”

Albie let out a soft chuckle. “Put the beating of a lifetime on him, too. Don’t get me wrong, kid, Red’s not a bad looking fellow, I’ll give him that much, but if you’d have seen him back then you’d of sworn he was an actor or something. Not sure you could say the same after we were done with him. I’ve never seen a nose look so broken before. Even slashed that pretty mouth of his up like it was a piece of pork. It was downright disgusting, wasn’t it, Alan?”

Alan belched and said, “Absolutely disgusting.”

"We really should be going," Red said through clenched teeth. "Still work to do. C'mon."

Red motioned for them to leave. But Charlie stayed right where he was, transfixed on the Binney Twins. They were everything Charlie wanted to be. More than just big shots, they were kingpins. If the Binneys snapped their fingers, both Red and Charlie would be dead and nobody would do a damn thing about it. Not since the kings of old had an individual held so much power. And Charlie wanted it.

“Why didn’t you kill him?” asked Charlie.

Albie furrowed his brow. “What?”

“Why’d you go to all that trouble if you weren’t going to kill him?” Charlie asked.

The twins traded looks, both of them smiling at each other before Albie looked back at Charlie. “Let’s just say he was more useful to Donoghue alive than he was dead,” Albie grinned. “A walking reminder as to what happens to you if you try to steal from the man in charge. That’s where the nickname comes from, y’see.”

“Caught red-handed,” said Alan.

Albie slipped his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Christ, that feels like a long time ago. When was that, Alan? ‘58? ‘59? It must have been around then because we did the old man not long afterwards.”

“‘56,” Red said coolly. “It was 1956.”

“He speaks,” Albie said with a laugh. “Have a drink with us,” Albie poured a glass of Scotch into a glass and offering it to Red with a cutting smile. “I insist.”

“Until next time, gentlemen.”

Red took Charlie's arm in his hand and led him out of there. He almost had to drag Charlie away. Finally, he followed behind Red and looked back just once at the Binneys, holding court and enveloped in power, before the door closed behind them.