man with a wind-tanned complexion, dark brown hair with slices of grey running through it and intense green eyes. He was undoubtedly very handsome. The prospect of something stronger than her lukewarm coffee was also tempting, but she declined the offer.
‘My name’s Vaughn by the way.’
‘Casey.’
She gave him a small smile and Vaughn was knocked sideways by her beauty.
‘Did you manage to get in safely the other night?’
Vaughn Sadler watched as a blank expression came over her face. It was still niggling away at him – he was positive he knew Casey from somewhere, but hopefully it’d come to him.
He could tell she had no idea what he was talking about and he contemplated explaining how he’d helped her pick up her keys, but quickly he decided against it, in case the boy Alfie had given a seeing to had opened his mouth and talked to the hospital. That was of course if he was still alive.
If the filth were sniffing around, it would be foolhardy of Vaughn to admit he’d been anywhere near the building. He didn’t want to get fingered for something he didn’t do; and if he did get collared, it wasn’t as if he’d squeal on Alfie. With his form, they’d throw the book at him before you could say Jack The Hat McVitie.
‘Let me get you another coffee then.’ Casey nodded and wished she hadn’t given up smoking.
Whispers Comedy Club was starting to get busy by the time Casey and Vaughn had arrived. They’d talked for over an hour, with neither one of them divulging anything personal.
‘Tell me about yourself; I’m intrigued why a young lady like you is on her own.’
‘There’s nothing really to tell; and I’m not that young. What about you?’
‘Oh, I lead a very dull life.’
It was apparent to both of them that they were each hiding things but neither said anything, and neither pushed any further.
Alfie watched Vaughn chatting away from the stool at the bar; he recognised she was the woman who’d been looking at the board outside the club the other day. He never forgot a face; especially one that had distracted him from his show-night nerves. She was laughing, obviously enjoying the attention of his friend, and for some reason it fucked him off no end that Vaughn had beaten him to it. Not that he minded having his cast-offs – he slept with hookers most nights, so second-hand pussy wasn’t a problem for him – but it rankled his ego.
On the way across to join them, Alfie grabbed a bottle of cheap house red from behind the bar; if her pussy was already taken for tonight, he wasn’t going to bother breaking open a bottle of the expensive stuff, though from what Alfie could make out, so far she’d stuck to drinking water.
‘Vaughn!’ Alfie slapped Vaughn hard on his back, a little harder than usual; something which wasn’t missed by his friend.
‘Alfie; let me introduce my new friend, Casey. Casey, this is the friend I was telling you about who owns the club.’
Alfie smiled tightly as Vaughn quickly turned his attention back to Casey.
She waved as way of a greeting and Alfie sat down to join them to watch the show. It was gong night at Whispers, the most popular night of the week, and Alfie could feel the whole club buzzing with anticipation. Would-be comedians, old timers and members of the public had three minutes each to get on stage and keep the crowd laughing. Members of the audience were given red cards on entering the club, and if for any reason they found the person on stage unfunny or just took a dislike to them, they could lift up their card; three red cards in the air and the master of ceremonies would bang the gong, much to the crowd’s amusement.
Since he’d been running gong night, Alfie had seen very few people actually get through the three minutes, and the drunker the crowd got, the less chance anyone had of getting to the end; unless of course they were him. Not one card had ever gone up when he took to the stage on gong night – no one dared.
‘So are we going to get you up on stage tonight, Casey?’
‘I think I’d need something stronger than spring water if I was going up there.’
Casey smiled at Alfie, who gave her a discreet wink: another indiscretion which didn’t go unnoticed by Vaughn. The lights went down and the spot went up as the master of ceremonies amused the crowd with his opening set.
‘Ladies and gentlemen put your hands together for our first victim … I mean contestant.’
From the left hand of the stage, Casey watched a nervous looking man walk towards the mike; before he’d had the chance to even get there, three red cards went up one by one, much to the hilarity of the crowd. The master of ceremonies loudly rang the gong, to the annoyance of the comedian as he turned to leave the stage with the sound system playing ‘Hit the Road Jack’.
Casey roared with laughter, enjoying the atmosphere of the club along with everyone else. As the next anxious contestant walked on the stage, a loud commotion was heard at the back of the club, and pandemonium quickly spread through the audience. The clubbers started to scream and run towards the emergency exit as a handful of men came charging in, brandishing various weapons. A slap to the side of Casey’s head sent her flying backwards off her chair. She stood up to run but her path was blocked by a small fat man, who grabbed her and tried to drag her towards the back room – but his grip wasn’t tight enough and he let go, giving Casey the opportunity to run through a door marked ‘Staff Only’.
The tallest of the men jumped on top of Alfie and yelled angrily as another grabbed hold of his hair, bringing down a cosh and smashing it into his face; it took Vaughn only a nanosecond and a resigned sigh to get into action.
‘Lock the fucking doors!’ Vaughn boomed out his order, simultaneously smashing the bottle of red on the side of the table, and lunged across to the man who was holding a dazed Alfie in a neck lock.
Vaughn drove the jagged bottle into the man’s face, not as hard as he could, unwilling to do more than was necessary. The man fell to the floor, releasing Alfie as he dropped on his knees.
Vaughn stepped back, not wanting to continue with the violence now all Alfie’s men had run to step in to get things under control. Managing to recover, Alfie bellowed loudly as his foot pounded a dark-haired man on the floor.
‘You motherfucking cunt. Who sent you?’
The man didn’t answer and Alfie bent down, grabbing hold of the man’s arm and twisting it round as the bone threatened to snap at the shoulder.
‘You’ve got some brass fucking neck coming into my fucking club. Who sent you?’
‘Bellingham.’
‘Bellingham?’
‘Jake’s uncle, he’s a face from East Ham – he heard what you did to his nephew.’
Alfie would’ve laughed if his face hadn’t been hurting so much and his front veneer wasn’t broken. He’d been shitting himself when the men came in; he’d thought it was the Russians after the mess-up with the heroin last month, or even the Davidson brothers from Stratford, who were fucked off with him over the fake credit cards he’d been selling on their turf. But Jake’s uncle? It was fucking
