Shafted Read online

  Already halfway through his latest bottle of Scotch despite it being only five in the afternoon, and in a foul mood because there was a noisy party going on in the apartment next door – to which, surprise, surprise – he hadn’t been invited, Larry bit Georgie’s head off when she told him he’d had an offer of a job.

  ‘What is it? And it’d better be good, ’cos I’m not just taking any old shit.’

  Sensing from his tone that he was spoiling for a fight – as he always seemed to be lately – Georgie sighed. Any other agent would have dumped him after the telethon scandal, but her instincts had prevented her from buying into the witch-hunt. Pain in the arse that he undoubtedly was when he was drunk, Larry had been a nice, sober young man when she’d met him, fresh off the cabaret circuit where he’d been muddling along playing host in a strip venue in Blackpool. She’d never for one minute believed that he was a paedophile and, sensing that the sweet, ambitious boy he’d once been still lurked behind the raging ego, she’d stuck in there, sure that when the rumours eventually fizzled and died and he got a grip on his drinking, some smart producer somewhere would remember his appeal to the female viewing population and give him a fresh start.

  And it had finally happened, but not in the way she’d hoped, and Georgie just knew that Larry was going to kick off when he heard what was actually being proposed. In fact, she was so sure he would turn it down flat that she’d spent a good ten minutes after speaking with the producer chewing her nails, wondering whether there was any point even telling him about it. But her conscience hadn’t allowed her to keep it from him, and there was always a chance, albeit slim, that he might just surprise her and jump at the chance to get back in front of the camera – like any sensible person would if they had been out of work for as long as he had.

  ‘Oi!’ Larry barked suddenly, snapping her out of her thoughts. ‘Spit it out, or I’m hanging up. I’ve got better things to do than sit here listening to you panting down my ear like a knackered old dog.’

  Gritting her teeth, Georgie said, ‘It’s such a joy speaking to you, too, Larry, and if we can forgo the insults for a moment, I’ll happily tell you. But before I do, I should point out that I’m not expecting you to like it. I do, however, expect you to be sensible enough to at least think it over before you say no, because the money is quite excellent for what it is.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Larry muttered, sounding thoroughly unimpressed. ‘And what is this marvellous thing you’ve got lined up for me, pray tell?’

  ‘It’s a game show,’ Georgie told him, adding quickly, ‘along the lines of a McIntyre sting,’ in the hopes that the mention of the heavyweight of undercover exposés might draw him in for long enough to hear her out. ‘The production company are US-based, and they assure me that they were doing this kind of thing over there long before McIntyre got into it, so there’s no problem with copyright, or—’

  ‘Bollocks to copyright,’ Larry interrupted. ‘Who are they, and what’s the deal?’

  Crossing her fingers, because he actually sounded interested, Georgie said, ‘They’re called Shock-Wave, and they’re over here filming a documentary series about the differences between US and UK police forces. It’s quite—’

  ‘They want me to front it?’ Larry cut in again, wondering why on earth she’d assumed that he wouldn’t like it. He’d had nothing for a year, and now he was being offered a whole series – and everyone loved those American cop shows. This could be the start of something huge!

  ‘Not exactly,’ Georgie said, bringing him back down to earth with a resounding thud.‘Apparently, the officer they’ve been liaising with for the series asked if they’d consider doing this as an offshoot to the main programme, and that’s what they want you for. Unfortunately, it’s only been commissioned for the States at the moment, but there’s always a chance it’ll be picked up over here if it’s a success. And they’re really keen to have you on board,’ she added, wanting to boost him back up before he completely switched off on the idea. ‘They delayed going back to the States just so they could work with you.’

  That last bit was a blatant lie, but Georgie crossed her fingers, praying that Larry wouldn’t question it too closely. He’d always believed that he could make it in the States given half a chance, and with any luck he’d be so flattered at the thought of an American company actually having heard of him that he wouldn’t dig too deeply.

  And Georgie wouldn’t disillusion him by telling him that they hadn’t actually heard of him. That it had in fact been the police inspector’s idea to have him as host, claiming that a well-known presenter with a history of falling foul of the law himself might be better suited to luring in the criminals they were targeting than the goody-goody presenter whom Shock-Wave had originally had in mind.

  ‘The money’s fantastic for a one-off,’ she repeated now. ‘But I do have to warn you that this might be because the project contains a certain element of risk.’

  ‘Risk?’ Larry lit a cigarette and sucked wetly on it. ‘So, what we talking here? Danger money?’

  ‘Only inasmuch as you’ll be dealing with criminals. It’s what they call a sting, you see: a fake show to lure in offenders that the police are finding it hard to get hold of by conventional means. But I’m assured there’s no danger of you being left alone with them. You’ll have the full protection of the company’s own security team, and if you saw the McIntyre shows you’ll know that the place will be crawling with police, so I really can’t see anything going wrong.’

  Amazed that she had thought he would give this the time of day, Larry said, ‘Fuck that! And fuck you, if this is the only shit you can come up with. What use is it to me if no one will even see it, you stupid bitch? And you think it’s all right to put me in danger, too! Christ, call yourself an agent? I’d get better service off a fucking chimp!’

  ‘I really wouldn’t advise you to dismiss it out of hand,’ Georgie told him calmly, refusing to rise to the insults. ‘There’s huge potential here if you look at the bigger picture.’

  ‘Potential for what?’ Larry snorted. ‘Getting myself fucking shot by some psycho crack-head carjacker?’

  ‘For getting yourself back on screen, and shaking off the scandal once and for all. And for showing that you’re still a serious prospect. Mclntyre hasn’t looked back since he—’

  Yelling ‘McIntyre’s a wanker!’ Larry slammed the phone down, livid that Georgie was lumping him into the same category as that loser. If she knew anything about Larry Logan, she’d know just how much he despised the jokers who sprang out of nowhere and got famous for shitting themselves in front of a hidden camera. Larry had achieved his status through hard work and actual talent, but these idiots had done nothing to justify their so-called fame in his opinion. And it wasn’t even them that the public wanted to see, anyway. It was the criminals whose worlds they could never otherwise infiltrate that they were lusting to watch. And, popular as that kind of show might be, there was no way Larry was reducing himself to taking part in a poxy one-off – no way, no how!

  Stewing over the indignity of being asked to demean himself with such a shite job, Larry drank and slept, drank and slept, hoping to drown the self-pitying voices in his head. Life sucked, but the worst was yet to come.

  Roused by the sound of heavy knocking on his front door a few days later, he opened his eyes and gazed groggily around the room, trying to remember where he was. It was dark but for the flickering static coming from the TV, which had lost its channel thanks to him lying on the remote, and it took several moments before he realised that he was on the couch in the lounge.

  Sitting up, Larry groaned when he felt the material of his jeans pressing cold and damp against his inner thighs. Shoving the jacket he’d been using as a blanket aside, he peered at the dark patch with a grimace of disgust. Great! He’d pissed himself – again.

  Dropping his feet to the floor, he cursed through gritted teeth when the empty bottle he’d been nursing rolled off the cushion and landed on his bar
e foot. Snatching it up, he hurled it across the room, where it landed and smashed on a pile of empties in the corner.

  Another burst of knocking jarred his head, followed by a man’s voice yelling, ‘Open up, Mr Logan . . . It’s the bailiffs.’

  Shocked out of his stupor, Larry jumped up and stumbled out into the hallway, wondering what the hell was going on. It was the middle of the night. Since when did bailiffs get permission to hassle people at night? And why were they here, anyway? He didn’t owe anybody anything.

  Reaching the front door just as the man knocked again, he leaned against it, and yelled, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘It’s Mike Flood from King and Johnson’s debt recovery agency,’ the man announced. ‘We’ve got an order to remove property.’

  ‘Why?’ Larry demanded indignantly. ‘I’ve paid for everything I’ve got.’

  Sighing wearily on his side of the door, Flood said, ‘Come on, now, sir. We went through all this last time we called.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Larry said confusedly. He had no recollection of any visits from anyone, let alone a bailiff.

  Heart racing now, he leaned even harder against the door when it suddenly occurred to him that this must be one of those cons he’d heard about, where gangs of men tricked people into opening their doors by pretending to be policemen or utility-company workmen so that they could gain entrance without making noise or leaving evidence of a break-in. Then they’d beat the shit out of the occupants until they gave up their cash cards and PIN numbers.

  ‘Let’s not play games, Mr Logan,’ Flood said, his voice so close to Larry’s ear that Larry actually jumped. ‘You had your chance to resolve this last time we saw you, and I told you we’d be back in a month if you didn’t make the first payment on the instalment plan.’

  ‘I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,’ Larry protested, struggling to remember what he’d done last night, never mind a month ago.

  On the other side of the door Flood rolled his eyes at his partner, and said, ‘Told you he was too pissed to take in what we said last time. He hasn’t got a fucking clue who we are.’

  ‘Boot it in,’ Pete Baron grunted, cracking his knuckles loudly. ‘I can’t be doing with going through all that shit again. Whatever you say, it just goes in one ear and straight out the other. I hate fucking alkies!’

  Amused by his younger colleague’s lack of patience and compassion – qualities he would eventually have to acquire and embrace if he hoped to survive in this stressful line of work – Flood grinned and shook his head.

  ‘I wouldn’t go applying to work with the Samaritans any time soon, Bazza. You’re a right unsympathetic little bastard.’

  ‘And you’re a right soft twat,’ Baron shot back with a grin of his own, knowing full well that, polite and professional as Flood might be on the job, he was more than a match for any man if push came to shove.

  Giving Logan one last chance to get his head around the facts before they were forced to call in the law to help them execute the warrant, Flood gave another little rap on the door, and said,‘Come on, Mr Logan – the courts don’t pass these things on to us unless they’ve already given you ample opportunity to sort it out with them first. Now, I told you we’d be back, and we are, so why don’t you just let us get on with it, eh?’

  ‘I’ve called the police,’ Larry lied, shaking furiously, because he’d heard them talking quietly between themselves and was convinced that they were planning to rush him. ‘They’ll be here any minute.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ Flood replied calmly, his jacket making a swishing sound on the wood as he leaned against the door. ‘Makes it easier for us in the long run.’

  Confused by Flood’s lack of concern, Larry narrowed his eyes. Either the man was calling his bluff, or he genuinely wasn’t bothered if the police came. And, given that he didn’t seem in any hurry to leave, it was probably the latter, which meant that he probably was who he’d said he was. But Larry still couldn’t remember them calling round before.

  Just then, a door on the opposite side of the communal corridor opened. Larry panicked when he heard his neighbour – a well-known TV chef with a habit of gossiping about his fellow celebrities on his weekly show – asking the bailiffs if everything was all right. Scrabbling to open the door before they blurted out the shameful nature of their visit, he waved Flood and Baron inside.

  Gazing up at them when the door was shut he panicked all over again, because both men were absolutely huge and looked like thugs in their leather jackets and with their close-cropped hair. Now that he could see them, he did vaguely recognise them, but he still didn’t remember speaking to them, or coming to any sort of payment arrangements with them.

  ‘Glad you’ve decided to cooperate,’ Flood said, his polite tone at odds with his brutish appearance. ‘Never like having to force entry. But you haven’t got kids, if I remember right, so this shouldn’t be too difficult.’

  Resigned to getting this over and done with now that they were actually inside, Larry said, ‘I’m not being awkward, but have you got any ID? Only you can’t be too careful these days, can you?’

  Reaching into his pocket, Flood took out his official badge and showed it to him. Peering at it for a moment, Larry nodded. Then, blushing when he saw Flood’s gaze dip to the wet patch on the crotch of his jeans, he excused himself and rushed to his bedroom to change.

  Exchanging a smirk with Baron, Flood sauntered over to a heap of newspapers and unopened letters lying behind the front door. Using the toe of his boot to sift through them, he reached down and picked up several envelopes bearing the King & Johnson stamp. Showing them to Baron before placing them on the hall table, he said, ‘No wonder he didn’t expect us, eh?’

  ‘Lazy bastard wants to try cleaning up once in a while and he’d have known,’ Baron grunted, wandering into the lounge and peering around in disgust. ‘He hasn’t lifted a finger since last time we were here. It smells like a fucking toilet.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s his business, not ours,’ Flood said, sliding his hand across the wall and flicking the light switch, only to find that the bulb had blown. ‘We’re not here to judge,’ he went on, picking a careful path through the debris to the window. ‘So let’s just do what we’ve got to do and leave the man in peace.’

  Having changed his wet jeans for a fresh pair, Larry slinked back into the lounge like a dog with its tail between its legs. Flood had opened the blinds so that he and Baron could see what they were doing and, confused by the bright daylight streaming through the windows, Larry glanced at the clock. Having thought it was the middle of the night, he was shocked to see that it was actually nine in the morning. He’d been living in virtual darkness for months, drifting from day to night in a fug of Scotch and bad TV and, now that he could see the filthy hovel that his once-pristine apartment had become, he was so ashamed he could have crawled under a rock and died right then and there.

  ‘You know those letters we sent telling you we were coming?’ Flood said over his shoulder just then, as he concentrated on removing the screws from the panel securing the flat-screen TV to the wall. ‘We just found them in the hall. There’s a fair few, so you might want to look through the rest when you get a chance – make sure you haven’t got any more nasty surprises like this lined up.’

  Grunting a grudging thanks, because he really didn’t see what business it was of theirs if he chose not to open his mail, Larry was further irritated when the other thug pointed out the heap of broken glass in the corner, saying, ‘You want to clear that up before someone gets hurt, mate. Must have been a hell of a party, though, eh?’

  ‘Yes, it was actually,’ he lied, running a hand through his hair. Recoiling at the stench from his underarms, he folded his arms tightly. ‘So, what happens now?’

  ‘Remember we made a list of assets last time we came?’ Flood replied – pretty sure that Larry didn’t remember, because he’d been so off his head at the time. ‘Well, now we remove them.’ Paus
ing, he turned to look at Larry. ‘Unless you’d rather settle up? Only it’ll have to be in full, I’m afraid, because you’ve already forfeited the right to instalments. Better than losing all your stuff, though, eh?’

  Backed into a corner, Larry sighed and flapped his hands. ‘Don’t suppose I’ve got much choice, have I? It’ll have to be a card, though, because I don’t carry cash,’ he added pointedly, letting Flood’s dodgy-looking mate know that he’d be wasting his time if he had any thoughts about trying to rip Larry off.

  Assuring him that cards were fine, Flood took a small card-reading machine out of his pocket and asked if it would be debit or credit.

  ‘Debit,’ Larry muttered, lifting cushions and sifting through the clothes that were scattered all over the furniture in a bid to locate his wallet. ‘How much is it?’

  ‘Three thousand, six hundred and twenty,’ Flood told him, giving a small sympathetic shrug as he added, ‘Sounds a lot, but these things tend to grow like wildfire if you leave them.’

  ‘What?’ Larry squawked, finding the wallet and turning back to Flood. ‘Am I paying the electricity bill for the whole fucking block, or something?’

  ‘This isn’t an electric bill,’ Flood told him patiently. ‘It’s council tax.’

  ‘You’re joking.’ Larry frowned, suddenly sure that they had got him mixed up with someone else. ‘How come? I pay it by direct debit.’

  ‘Apparently not,’ Flood said, shrugging. ‘You’d have had letters telling you that there was a problem, so you could have sorted it out before it got to this. And you’re welcome to appeal, but our order still stands, I’m afraid. You’ll either have to pay, or we’ll have to take goods. Your choice.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll appeal, all right,’ Larry muttered, incensed that the authorities were allowed to raid people’s homes like this when it was obviously their mistake. ‘I still don’t see why it’s so much, though. The council tax is never three grand.’

  ‘No, but they lump the court costs on top of that. Then you’ve got late-payment fees, plus admin charges. And then the bailiff’s fees get whacked on, and every visit we have to make adds a couple of ton.’ Pausing, Flood gave another little shrug. ‘Just the way it works, sir.’