Savage Night - Allan Guthrie [11]
After ten minutes or so Tommy's phone rang.
"Done?" Smith asked.
"Done."
"Order a taxi and clear off."
Tommy said, "I'll walk."
"You'll get a taxi."
"What's the harm in walking?" Tommy felt his fellow drinkers' eyes on him and lowered his voice. "The rain's off. I could use some fresh air."
"Do what you're told. Get a taxi. And get the fuck out of there. Go home. Put your feet up. Watch some TV with your mum and Jordan."
Tommy clenched his teeth.
"You've a fine pair of sons," Smith said. "Don't do anything to endanger them. Okay?"
Tommy grunted.
"I asked you a question."
"Okay. O-fucking-kay."
"And don't even think about going back to the bus station."
"Why would I do that?"
"Exactly. Just behave and everything'll be fine."
The taxi arrived within minutes. Older driver than last time, bald guy, slightly camp, not American, didn't appear to be an ex-porn star or to have a stash under his seat and he wasn't listening to Michael Bolton.
Tommy gave him directions. Then called Phil again. "Smith's on his way to pick up the key."
"Cool." Phil belched. "Looking forward to it."
***
FORTY MINUTES LATER, Tommy was in his own car again, trying to talk into his phone whilst changing gears. An earpiece would have been helpful, but he couldn't bring himself to use one. When he was nine, a build up of fluid led to him going deaf in his left ear. Had to have an operation where they inserted a plastic tube into his ear drum. Cured the problem, but since then he'd always hated the idea of sticking anything in his ears.
He said to his brother, "Where the hell did you find an empty flat at such short notice?"
"You don't need to know."
"Is it one of mine?" Tommy owned quite a few suitable properties, but the last thing he'd have wanted was to use one of his own for something like this.
"Don't be dense."
"Okay. Good."
Phil was right. Tommy didn't need to know, and he was dense, and he was annoyed with himself for asking. Phil had his own life now, they both did, and it was bad enough that Tommy had dragged him into this without making it worse by behaving like an arsehole.
Phil had done okay. He could be a twat a lot of the time, but he came through in a crisis.
Tommy wasn't sure why he was so surprised. Maybe he'd forgotten how much he used to rely on his big brother.
Until five years ago, Tommy operated much of the UK distribution channels for a ring of rogue tobacco company employees. Only they weren't that rogue, from what Tommy could gather.
He was never in direct contact, handling only the return side of things, but he knew enough to suspect that the tobacco companies were aware of what was going on. They wanted to keep the prices down, keep taxes to a minimum, keep people smoking. Smuggling helped.
Container fraud accounted for around a third of the cigarettes smoked in Britain.
What happens: you export the cigarettes to business partners in Andorra or Montenegro, for, say £100K for a container of 10 million cigarettes. Because they're exported, no duty is paid on them. Perfectly legal, so the tobacco companies aren't losing out.
Then you smuggle them back into the country and sell them for a million. Everybody gets a cut of the money the government otherwise would have had, and it's still cheaper for the customer.
Tommy was good at the job, made a lot of money and didn't get caught. Phil used to help. He was customer-facing. Straight-talking, no frills. Particularly good at getting debts settled.
Anyway, Tommy had invested most of his money in the property market and some success there had enabled him to steer away from the tobacco business. No point being a criminal if you could make more money being straight. Apart from which, customs were cracking down harder all the time, making the job tougher, the risk greater and the reward less certain.
Phil should have made money too. Tommy paid him well enough. But he'd pissed