Nameless Read Free Page B

know you been doing things on my patch without my permission,’ said Tranter.
    ‘Permission? I don’t need your permission for fuck-all,’ returned Charlie. ‘Listen, you cunt, why not sort this out? Your boys and mine, back of the Palais tomorrow night. Let’s see who’s the real big man, shall we?’
    Tranter stared at Charlie, veiling his surprise. So the kid had balls. He’d be wearing them for a neck ornament shortly, but you had to admire his gumption.
    ‘Let him go,’ he said to his heavies.
    They let Charlie go. He stood there, panting, wondering what next. A knife in the guts? He didn’t know. He was a marked man now, he knew that. Curiously, that didn’t make him afraid – all he felt now was excitement. He was fired up, ready for a ruck. Joe was still being restrained, but he was watching, ready to wrestle himself free if he could, and jump whichever way was necessary.
    ‘Back of the Palais?’ Tranter was smiling a little through the blood. It gave him a shark-like look. He couldn’t believe a small-time chancer like Charlie Darke had been foolish enough to cross him.
    Charlie couldn’t believe it himself. The impulse had just come over him and whoosh , there he was, up to his arse in it. As per usual.
    ‘Back of the Palais it is,’ said Tranter.

4
     
    The following evening, Charlie Darke was out the back of the Palais with his mates and they were ready. Tranter always came here with his hangers-on and his muscle, Charlie knew it. He’d been watching the cunt and he had been brooding over what his dad had told him. He’d seen Tranter about, the smooth bastard, touching people for money because they were scared of him. Well, Charlie wasn’t scared. And tonight he was going to prove it.
    ‘All right, Joe?’ he asked his younger brother, who was very quiet – quieter than normal, and that was saying something.
    ‘Yeah. Still think this is fucking stupid though.’
    Charlie gave his brother a half-smile. Joe would always err on the side of caution; his first reaction to any new experience was ‘no’ rather than ‘yes’. Really, they couldn’t be less alike. Charlie was impulsive and fiery, Joe so relaxed he was practically horizontal.
    They didn’t even look alike. Charlie was tall, thin, quicksilver in his movements and very good-looking with his dark curly hair and arresting blue eyes. Joe was blockish, square, slow-moving, a little dull with his brown eyes and straight dark hair – but he had a certain sensual charm.
    ‘Shit, here we go,’ muttered Charlie, seeing other shapes coming out now from the back of the big, quiet building.
    The clear moonlight glinted on all the bike chains, cudgels and flick knives.
    Charlie’s boys formed up closer, Joe and Charlie at the centre front. Charlie’s eyes were searching for Micky Tranter in his expensive hat and coat, but of course he wasn’t there; Tranter rarely did his own dirty work, he was big enough now to pay others to do it for him.
    He was making a point, deliberately insulting Charlie. Suddenly, Charlie felt like the small fry he was, kicking against the big boys.
    And now here they were, all Tranter’s toughs and the Darke mob, the same mob – Chewy, Ben, Stevie and all the others – who had been following Charlie and his little brother Joe around since their schooldays. The Darke boys were hard nuts, everyone knew that. All through school they had ruled the roost, Charlie flying into rages and cracking heads, Joe giving solid backup. Separately, they were safe, but together they were bloody dangerous, a lethal team. Charlie might be impulsive to the point of actual craziness, but Joe’s more thoughtful demeanour usually kept both of them out of the worst scrapes.
    It wasn’t going to keep them out of this one.
    Joe didn’t know which way this was going to go. The numbers were fairly even – there were about twenty on each side. But Tranter’s boys were experienced fighters. And although the Darke boys had youth on