‘What’s wrong?’’ Layla frowns.
I block the thoughts immediately. ‘Nothing.’
Her eyes narrow suspiciously. ‘Did he force you to become a criminal, BJ?’ she demands.
I let my facial muscles relax. ‘Of course not. I desperately wanted to follow in my father’s and my uncles’ footsteps. I guess I was impressed by their big, flashy cars and their jacked-up pick-up trucks.’
‘So how old were you when you joined them?’
‘Eleven.’
Her eyes become saucers. ‘Eleven? I was still playing with my dolls when I was eleven.’
Seems so long ago and yet the day I accompanied them on my first job is as vivid as if it happened yesterday.
‘You were just a kid. What did they make you do?’
I laugh at her belligerent expression. ‘Relax. All I had to do was stand casually outside the gates of an industrial site and hoot twice like an owl if anyone, especially the pigs happened along while my father and two of my uncles filled their truck with scrap metal.’
‘I still think you were far too young to be involved in something like that,’ she says, her voice full of disapproval. In her world fathers protected their sons.
Strange, even after all these years I still feel the burning need to defend my father. ‘The truth is, Layla, it felt fucking great. From that first time I was hooked on the mix of adrenaline and excitement that pumped through my body.’
‘What did you guys do with the scrap metal?’
‘Dropped it off at my uncle’s yard.’
‘And after?’
‘Afterwards, we drove to the local pub. It was a winter’s night and I sat in the beer garden and froze my ass off while my father went in and bought me my first pint of ale. It was fucking terrible, but I drank it all up. I can still remember putting my hands into my armpits and in a drunken haze soaking up their tall tales.
‘So the little gangster learned quickly?’ she says sadly, dropping her head.
I put my finger under her chin and lift it up. ‘Why so sad? My father and uncles prepared me well for a life in the underbelly of society. They taught me to see the world the way it really is. As a sort of jungle where the human race can be divided into three categories: gazelles, lions, and hyenas.’
She looks at me curiously.
‘The gazelle is the food of both the lions and hyenas. However, contrary to perceived wisdom, it is not the hyena that steals from the lion, but the lion that will snatch from the mouth of the hyena its hard-won kill. In every place where the lion dominates, the hyena must hunt in packs and use its cunning—or perish all together.
‘Am I a gazelle in your world, BJ?’
I shake my head slowly.
‘What am I then? Explain the inhabitants of your jungle to me, BJ.’
‘The lions are the captains of industry, the bankers, the politicians, the landowners. They wear the mask of nobility. Normal society is represented by the gazelle. They register their births, work all their lives to pay countless taxes, obey even the most idiotic laws, and exist purely to fatten the predator lions. But we Gypsies, you and me, are different. We are the hyenas. Meekness and slavery are not for us. We have, and always will, survive and prosper on our own terms, using our specific talents and wits.’
‘Now, you sound like Jake. He is always going on about greedy bankers and lying politicians too.’
‘That’s because he sees through the illusion. And that’s why we, Gypsies, have travelled incessantly through the centuries never stopping long enough to put roots. We did it so no one could count us, corral us, educate us, tame us, or enslave us.’
She frowns. ‘But your father sent you to school?’
‘My father was a very shrewd man. He understood the changing times meant we would soon be forced to play their game, anyway. He decided that I would be the first one of us who would have two educations, ours and theirs. So by the time I left school I could read and write as well as the next boy, but my true specialty was numbers. I excelled at them. I didn’t even have to try. They just came naturally.’
She smiles for the first time. ‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. I was so fucking good I could walk into a scrap yard and in less than thirty seconds, I would have picked out everything of value. I knew where it was going and exactly what it all was worth.’
‘You make it sound easy.’
‘It was. Money poured in. By the time I was eighteen I got my first shiny new car. A glorious Aston Martin. Paid for in cash.’ Those were the days when no one frowned on you for paying in cash. Even now I can feel that rush of pride and possession I felt when I drove that beauty off the forecourt.