The heroin they were shifting to their UVF cronies could just as easily end up in the Catholic Falls Road as the Protestant enclaves of Ballymena or the Shankill. Same applied to the cocaine that big Eddie supplied in Glasgow. He had told Jimmy he didn’t give a toss who was snorting, any more than he cared about the punters who were making the crack cocaine that was upping the demand for coke. It was all money. Supply and demand. Just as long as nobody was late with their payment.
His mind had kept replaying the latest job – and howEddie had calmly shot the two guys through the head. He’d never seen anyone do that before. Afterwards, they’d come to Eddie’s house and stripped off the clothes they were wearing, giving them to his wife who he told to burn them in the diesel drum in the back garden. Then they’d got changed into clothes Eddie had bought for them, before going to a bar and getting drunk. Mitch had been high on the adrenalin kick that he got from violence. Jimmy tried his best to join in but was finding it hard to lift himself out of the downer he’d been on since Wendy disappeared. Late in the night, Eddie had insisted they go on to a club, where Mitch and he disappeared with two women. Jimmy eventually made his way home on his own. Eddie had given them two grand each, and they didn’t ask where the rest of the wedge that was in the bag went. Jimmy had a feeling that the package that they’d just delivered to be taken to the Belfast bosses didn’t contain much more than the heroin, plus the money that had been paid for the contract. He didn’t ask and he didn’t care. It was business, and he could deal with that.
He thought he might take his father on the Rangers matches to Eindhoven and Spain. It would be good for the old man. Since Jimmy’s mother died last year, his da hadn’t been out much, and the grief hanging over the house like a blanket was as raw and oppressive as the day his ma dropped down dead in the kitchen from a massive coronary. He missed her just as much as his father, though they’d not once had a conversation about her since her death.
Sometimes Jimmy still missed her so much it hurt. In darker moments, he tried not to dwell on how his father had often dismissed her as a half-breed. She’d been raised as a Catholic in Glasgow, but turned her coat when she fell for the big, brawny Belfast man who’d crossed the water to work in the Clydeside shipyards. His ma always hated the fact that he was filling their son’s head with Rangers and the Orange Walk, telling him Catholics were thick, lazy bastards. His da took him to Belfast every twelfth of July to see the Orange Walk, so he could see for himself what he came from.
Most of the time, as he was growing up, his mother had been silent and accepting. Only once did she make the mistake of taking him to a Catholic church when he was six years old. She was spotted coming out by the wife of one of her man’s workmates, who shopped her. When they got home, his father slapped her hard on the face. She knew what he was when he married her, he told her as he stood over her. She could walk away now, but she would never see her boy again. Jimmy had never forgotten the look in her eyes or the sound of the slap on her face. She never spoke about religion again to him, but he knew she hated his eagerness to follow in his father’s footsteps.
But much as he loved his mother, she was just wrong, Jimmy told himself. You were either a Billy or a Tim in Glasgow. It was as simple as that. You stuck to your own people, because the other side hated you as much as youhated them. You joined a flute band and proudly marched, parading what you were. He remembered as a boy, the band practices in his local Orange hall, and always at the end of it a few of the older lads stayed behind for training. It was all kept hush-hush, but he later learned it was UVF weapons training. He dreamed of the day he would be one of these lads. This was about
His mind had kept replaying the latest job – and howEddie had calmly shot the two guys through the head. He’d never seen anyone do that before. Afterwards, they’d come to Eddie’s house and stripped off the clothes they were wearing, giving them to his wife who he told to burn them in the diesel drum in the back garden. Then they’d got changed into clothes Eddie had bought for them, before going to a bar and getting drunk. Mitch had been high on the adrenalin kick that he got from violence. Jimmy tried his best to join in but was finding it hard to lift himself out of the downer he’d been on since Wendy disappeared. Late in the night, Eddie had insisted they go on to a club, where Mitch and he disappeared with two women. Jimmy eventually made his way home on his own. Eddie had given them two grand each, and they didn’t ask where the rest of the wedge that was in the bag went. Jimmy had a feeling that the package that they’d just delivered to be taken to the Belfast bosses didn’t contain much more than the heroin, plus the money that had been paid for the contract. He didn’t ask and he didn’t care. It was business, and he could deal with that.
He thought he might take his father on the Rangers matches to Eindhoven and Spain. It would be good for the old man. Since Jimmy’s mother died last year, his da hadn’t been out much, and the grief hanging over the house like a blanket was as raw and oppressive as the day his ma dropped down dead in the kitchen from a massive coronary. He missed her just as much as his father, though they’d not once had a conversation about her since her death.
Sometimes Jimmy still missed her so much it hurt. In darker moments, he tried not to dwell on how his father had often dismissed her as a half-breed. She’d been raised as a Catholic in Glasgow, but turned her coat when she fell for the big, brawny Belfast man who’d crossed the water to work in the Clydeside shipyards. His ma always hated the fact that he was filling their son’s head with Rangers and the Orange Walk, telling him Catholics were thick, lazy bastards. His da took him to Belfast every twelfth of July to see the Orange Walk, so he could see for himself what he came from.
Most of the time, as he was growing up, his mother had been silent and accepting. Only once did she make the mistake of taking him to a Catholic church when he was six years old. She was spotted coming out by the wife of one of her man’s workmates, who shopped her. When they got home, his father slapped her hard on the face. She knew what he was when he married her, he told her as he stood over her. She could walk away now, but she would never see her boy again. Jimmy had never forgotten the look in her eyes or the sound of the slap on her face. She never spoke about religion again to him, but he knew she hated his eagerness to follow in his father’s footsteps.
But much as he loved his mother, she was just wrong, Jimmy told himself. You were either a Billy or a Tim in Glasgow. It was as simple as that. You stuck to your own people, because the other side hated you as much as youhated them. You joined a flute band and proudly marched, parading what you were. He remembered as a boy, the band practices in his local Orange hall, and always at the end of it a few of the older lads stayed behind for training. It was all kept hush-hush, but he later learned it was UVF weapons training. He dreamed of the day he would be one of these lads. This was about
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