They all gaped at Jack Lorne and if he’d had the camera with him he’d have taken a picture, every one of them caught with their mouths slack open.
"You have to be totally fucking kidding," was all Tam Bowie could finally say.
A long silence stretched out as what he had told them began to sink in.
Mac's Bar had been fairly quiet when they got there, still pumped from the nearness of the action with Ferguson's gorillas. Jack thumbed a few coins into the box and Tam and Jed groaned when the music started and the heavy Hendrix base came thumping out. It was good music for a slow come-down.
"Where do you get your taste retro-man?"
"What, you prefer the spice bimbos? Lady Gaga? These old guys could play."
Old dead Jimi came out with it. ...everything just don't seem the same. Jack let an ice cold sip trickle down his throat. Nothing was the same, nor would it be from here on in, win or lose.
Acting funny but I don't know why.
Neil leant in, faking a tight guitar, put a smacker right on Jed's cheek.
" 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy."
"Bugger off you. I told you a million times, it's kiss the sky."
Everybody laughed, and it eased the tension. Jack asked Frank behind the bar if they could use the upstairs room, but it turned out the domino team had it for the night.
"Jimmy Gillespie's boat's up on the stacks," Tam said. "He's away on holiday and he wants us to keep an eye on it."
They trooped out into the mellow evening sunlight and followed the river towpath downstream. Franky Hennigan and Tig Graham sat on their usual bench and when they passed by, Franky got up and did a drunken little shuffle-dance, snapping his fingers.
"Well boys, you wouldn't have any loose change, would you?" Franky and Tig had both worked in Aitkenbar and gone the way of so many who'd got a big taste for what they had rolled in barrels.
Tam dug into his pocket. Jack and Ed managed a handful of coins between them and gave it to Tam.
"But you have to promise me, you're not going to waste this on anything stupid like food."
"No problemo senors," Franky drawled a fake Mexican accent. He threw a pantomime salute. "You have the word of an officer and a gentleman."
Gillespie's boat had seen plenty of better summers, and it would take another year to get it back into the water, but it was big and spacious, up on the blocks right at the end of the sandy point opposite the towering castle rock where the river fed into the Clyde. It was better inside than out, and the six of them were round the table. Neil fanned out the cards for shoot pontoon and they'd rattled the money down, watching it change from hand to hand, as the sun sank lower to turn the slow waters of the incoming tide deep red on the estuary.
Jack had known Cullen and Foley would come at them again and if they didn't, Ferguson would send somebody else and despite himself he muttered a curse at Donny letting his mouth do the thinking, even though he knew it had always been the same since the pair of them had started school. Donny's mouth spoke for somebody two foot taller and a whole lot tougher. It was like a half-developed tourette syndrome, shooting off when they needed it holstered. Ferguson might have forgotten the slight, even though that was unlikely, but he couldn't let a couple of boys from Drymains give his minders a doing. That was definitely something he didn't want spread around in the gossip, and if it had gained currency, then he'd have to convert it back, with commission.
Jack was ahead on the five he'd slapped on the table, but he kept the fifty still in his hip pocket, knowing it had been money earned by stealth, no luck or insider knowledge required A part of his mind was on Cullen and Foley and Ferguson, wondering where they would turn up next, knowing they would, and if it had been any other time, he'd have watched his back, waited for the hit and taken it with a fight, but the time was all wrong and the last thing he needed was a mess of bruises on his face. The walk along the towpath from Mac's bar had been full of talk of might-have-been and could-have-done, though Tam said little and Ed Kane even less. Tam had got his black belt in Tae Kwon Do and could have given them a run if he'd really wanted to, but it was better to scare them off than get down to it. Two could become six too easily and you could start a street war that would bring all the nutters from Corriehill down on River Street and have a real rammy that would do nobody any good.
Donny was all pumped up, his face matching his ginger hair, talking big and they all slapped him down for it. Ed Kane had heard about the first set-to and Jack was glad he'd been right solid with them. Since the first night in Mac's bar he'd realised just how handy Ed could be. He had that calm sort of understated toughness that doesn't need a lot of talk.
Jack tapped and got a three and ran it all through to a five card trick, took two notes from Tam and on the next hand turned up an ace and a face. Tam handed over the pack. Jack began dealing and taking the bets, getting a run of high cards as the notes piled up at his corner, but he was working on automatic. Pontoon takes no brain. Working the odds was just maths. His mind was elsewhere.
Ed Kane said nothing about seeing him in the distillery and that was a plus point too. He'd been a class behind them in primary and his girlfriend Donna worked in the hairdressers down on Castle Street. She sometimes cut about with Linda, and the pair of them sang in the Starlights chorus.
"So what's the next move?" Jed Coogan asked. "I hear you're jumping a ship."
"I'm still thinking about it." Big Lars had welcomed him aboard and shown him round, while a crane had lifted the big propeller from the water. The shipwrights at Scotts yard would straighten out a big crumple on the vane. He'd half expected to see Ilse and Ingrid and had quickly looked over his shoulder to make sure Kate had driven off. The prospect of being out in the dirty little supply ship in a howling and heaving North Sea did nothing at all for him. It was no prospect.
But they'd sat down and got talking and big Lars had finally got the Absolut from his cabinet and they'd chewed the fat for a couple of hours and then arranged another meeting to get things really sorted. He had a couple of days to get things going, but he had to broach it here and now. This dry dock was the first port.
"I've been to the Australia office," Neil said. "The chance of finding something around here's less than damn all."
"Somebody should shoot that prick Sproat," Jed said, and they all nodded. "He's selling every one of us down the river. It's all the same with those rich bastards. They come up on daddy's money and never get their hands dirty and think they can just buy and sell folk."
"I'd like to see him signing on the dole. Trying to get money out of those snooty bitches."
"Hey, my cousin works in the Jobcentre," Donny protested.
"Yeah, and she's the snootiest of them all, spawney-eyed bitch."
Donny shrugged. "You've got a point, right enough."
"You're right Jed," Jack stepped in to the little silence. "Sproat needs a come-uppance. I heard what he told you all at the meeting. It was thanks for all your hard graft and now get lost and let me make more money."
"That was about the size of it."
"He's a fucking charmer, that Sproat," Donny observed. "A regular Don Coyote."
Jack turned for a second look, decided it wasn't worth the correction.
Tam got out a little nut of hash and rolled one long doobie. The air thickened into a sweet mist. Jack took a couple of deep draws, because he could still think clearly on hash, while his mouth and his brain got completely out of step on beer.
"So what are you going to do about it?" he asked nobody in particular.
"What can we do?"
"You could help yourselves and really screw Sproat, that's what you could do."
He let that float with the smoke.
"Aye, brilliant. What do we do? Let the tyres down on his Beamer?"
"Everybody's got a weakness. You just have to find out what it is. It's not that hard to find out what Sproat's weakness is."
"Listen to mister open-bloody-university here. Is that the kind of stuff they teach you in business management?"
"Business is just like anything else. You find out what people need. You find a way of giving it to them, or keeping it from them. It's all about knowing what to do and when."
He looked round the table. "I'll tell you what business really is. It's a way of stealing money from people without having to beat them up. It's just legalised robbery."
"Thanks for the lesson, Jake. But is there a point in there somewhere?" Tam drew on the joint and held it in.
"First of all you have to realise what the score is," Jack said. He deliberately slowed the dealing down to a stop. "And the score is, we've all been screwed arsewards, all except Tam, and he'd enjoy that anyway. Look at the unions, talking about setting up pickets and begging the MP for some help. He's in Sproat's pocket anyway. So what will they achieve?"
"Nothing," Ed said flatly.
"Exactly. Sproat called you in and kicked your stupid and everybody said yes boss, Same as ever. It's in the blood. People here all work for somebody else and they take what's going. It's about time we did something for ourselves."
"Like what, set up in business?"
"Something like that. No. Exactly that."
"With what?" Donny asked. "I've got damn all. I'm between a rock and the deep blue sea."
"Look," Jack said, putting the cards down on the table, face up. He had a king and an ace and nobody could beat him. Good symbolism. He let them all see them and then quickly scooped up the dead hands.
"Two hundred years. That's how long the distillery's been going and in all that time folk have been busting their balls for Sproat's people. They do all the work, and he gets all the cash and he's the only one living up Kirkhill and driving a big shiny car. He's got a boat you could sail the world on. Holidays in Hawaii. What's he done for it? He was born, that's what. But that's the old way. Now he's selling up to make more money, because there's just not enough in a wee malt and grain business that's too labour intensive, not when you pay eighty percent in excise. I got on the internet and had a look. It's easy. Aitkenbar's been run down for the past three years. Sproat hasn't been out searching the markets because he's a total airhead. But he's smart enough to sell when the builders are killing each other for empty land. They're paying twenty three pounds a square foot, and he'll make enough to clear himself and put up a kitty and with the last big blend he's free and clear and we're all in the shit. He's crippling Andy Kerr because he needs that land, and that puts another forty on the dole and the whole town goes down the stank. And don't forget those poor boys up at Dunvegan. They're all back to cutting peats and eating porridge and shagging mountain sheep."
Jack stopped for breath. Tam was curious.
"You can find that all out on your computer?"
Jack nodded. "If you know where to look, except for the sheep thing. Anyway, that's business, they're all at it. It's business, and it's the way it works."
"They're all a bunch of crooks."
"Sure they are, but it's all legal. You see that wall Kate Delaney and the kids are painting? All those firms that just pulled out of the town and set up in Taiwan or Korea. That's business. Money talks, and everybody else gets their marching orders. "
"So what are you saying?" Ed Kane eyed Jack through the smoke.
"It's time to take a stand. Make something of ourselves."
"Yeah," Neil went into grizzly old cowboy mode. "I was born here, an I was raised here, and dad gum it, I am gonna die here, an' no sidewindin bushwackin, hornswaglin, cracker croaker is gonna ruin me bison cutter."
"Fat man," Jed said, "You're purely talking out of your ass."
"No," Jack contradicted. "He's got a point. We were all born and raised here, and some prick is ruining it for everybody. So it's about time we took back our bison cutter."
"How? Go on strike?" Donny asked a stupid question.
"Get real. That's what the Dunvegan boys want, and it'll do no good. You can't strike at a moving target, and Sproat is moving. You can only hit him if he sits still. So what you have to do is stop him dead in his tracks"
"How?" Ed leaned forward. He knew a moment was coming. Jack recognised that in him.
"I've been doing some checking. This big last batch is something special. Sproat wants to market it all over the world, and it's worth a fortune. My Uncle Sandy says God helps those who helps themselves, and it's time we helped ourselves."
"Helped ourselves to what?" Ed was staying with it. Donny scratched his head, waiting for Jack to get right to the point.
"See that last batch of whisky? It's a quarter of a century old. Just think about that. Our grandfathers made it. Our fathers and uncles stacked the barrels, turned the barley, did all the sweating. There's near enough thirty thousand gallons of it, all sitting there in the bond and in a couple of weeks time, they're going to roll it out, mix it up and bottle it and after that it'll be gone."
"Yeah, we know that," Neil said. His broad cheeks turned concave as he sucked in on the joint. "What's that got to do with us?"
"Our families made the stuff. I reckon we've as good a claim to it as anybody."
"You won't buy much with what you get in redundo," Jed said.
"I told you. God helps those who help themselves, and we should help ourselves."
"To what?"
"I reckon we can take those thirty thousand gallons right from under Sproat's nose. I got a plan."
He reached into his cotton jacket and drew out a sheaf of blue paper.
"I got all the plans."
The silence stretched as if time had expanded. For a long time, nobody spoke, and Jack just waited until what he had said percolated through.
"You have to be totally fucking kidding." Tam finally said.
"Fuck me gently," Jed agreed.
Jack shuffled the cards and dealt another round. Neil, who had held his breath for more than thirty seconds let it all out slowly. Ed Kane said nothing at all. He just waited.
"Are you serious?" Tam Bowie ran his fingers through his hair.
"Sure I'm serious."
"That's why you were done up like Clark Kent?"
Jack nodded. Ed got it in one. Nobody picked up the cards now. They just lay unturned..
"I need another joint," Jed said.
"I need a drink," Donny said.
"I'm agog."
"I'm even agogger than you," Jed told Neil.
"See you? You always have to be the agoggest," Neil came back.
Jack paused, mouth open, did a sharp double take at Neil and then just exploded with laughter. It broke the moment.
"So you're serious then?" Tam said.
"You think you can really heist a whole decant?" Ed steered them right back to it, needing to hear it again. Jack could almost hear his brain working.
"It's possible."
"How are you going to do that?
"With some serious planning, a bit of hard graft, and split second timing. But I think it can be done. Supply and demand. This time they've got the supply and we've got the demand."
"Then what?" Tam finished rolling the third and passed it to Jed who sucked it like a condemned man facing rifles.
"You work it out. You get thirty thousand gallons. Multiply by six and you get bottles."
"How many is that?" Donny asked.
"More than a hundred thou," Ed Kane broke in. Jack nodded approval.
"Hundred and eighty. But then it's double strength, so when you dilute it, water it down, you get three sixty." He paused for effect. "Thousand bottles. Nearly half a mil."
"Jeez."
"Supply and demand. You get the right market and you can flog them at a five-spot apiece."
"That's more than a million." Ed was faster than any of them.
"One point eight."
"Jeez!"
"Million?" Donny's face was a picture of incredulity.
"Million. One million, eight hundred thousand. Minimum. Sterling. All profit. No tax."
"You're going to walk in there and lift thirty thousand gallons of hooch?"
"That's the plan."
"And then what?"
"Then we get rich."
"Jesus holy fucking Christ. You're serious, right?" Tam gave a little disbelieving laugh.
"Sure I'm serious." Jack held up the translucent blueprint. "I can't say where I got these. But this is the plan we need. All it needs is some nerve and organisation and we can pull it off."
"Don't be daft man," Donny came in. "The customs would be all over you like a rash. And the cops along with them. Thirty thousand gallons? Where would you put it?"
"You came out with the stuff in a tube, didn't you? When we went golfing?"
"Sure, stuck down my leg."
Jed came in: "You get thirty K gallons and you'll need the biggest colostomy bag in the history of the universe."
Everybody laughed.
"Or the biggest pair of incontinence pants."
"Ye of little faith," Jack said. He knew he had their attention now. Everybody was thinking, despite the hash. "If you can conceive it and believe it, you can achieve it."
"Big words for a milkman. They teach you that in business?"
He nodded. "Plenty more where that came from. I've read all the greats. Graham Bell, Ford. Hammer. Edison. One thing they tell you is that if you don't do it for yourself, nobody's going to do it for you. We can look for four leaf clovers trying to get lucky and miss a big chance""
"Carpy Dime," Tam said. Jack patted him on the shoulder.
"Dead right, Thomas. Seize the moment. And the harder you work at it, the luckier you get."
"That would be a real sickener for Sproat," Jed put in.
"Believe it. I've spent a while working it out. He needs the big batch for cash flow, and he'll be wrapping it in cling film and ribbon and selling bottles at a bullseye a throw. You take off excise and the overhead he's still talking about three mil, all skimmed. But he has to dump the distillery in the harbour to reclaim the land or pay another three mil in landfill tax, so there might be a way to screw that plan."
"Anything to put it to that bastard."
Everybody agreed with that sentiment.
Ed leant forward, wiping the cards away with his bare arms. The lowering sun beamed in the little porthole, making the dust sparkle across the cabin in a translucent tube.
"Thirty thou is a whole lot of hooch. So how are you going to do it?"
"What's this you, white man? I told you I got a plan. What I need to know first is, are we all in? It has to be all of us or none of us, and you have to think of what you can lose. Especially you Tam, seeing as you're in work."
"Screw that. The site's going to be worked out by September and then it's back on the scratch again. Anyway, I'm a plumber and that's like a doctor. Everybody shits and gets sick. I'll pick up bits and pieces. But that's all."
"You do house calls Tam? I think I'm going to fart."
"Jesus, Donny, not another one." Neil slipped the catch on the port and swung it inward, bringing with it a warm smell of cut grass and drying seaweed from the estuary. Gulls mewed in the distant still air.
"It's six or none," Jack said, pressing it. "That's the way it has to be, and we have to keep it really tight. First rule of good business: A closed mouth gathers no feet.
"I can't see how you'd get away with it." Jed was shaking his head.
"How we'd get away with it, man. You remember what Donny said down at the golf course before he gave Ferguson the verbals? When he was washing the crap off in the ditch? How much was it went into the stream Don?"
"Three barrels, so Billy Butler said."
Ed agreed. "Three hogsheads broke open, about two hundred gallons. A drop in a bucket compared to what you're thinking about. . . "
Jack held his hand up. Ed went silent.
"Six bottles to the gallon, double strength, Say twelve bottles at forty percent. Times two hundred," Jack was motoring now.
"At least a thousand," Donny said, screwing his eyes in concentration.
"There's three kinds of people," Tam said. "Those who can count, and those who can't."
Donny sat for a moment, working that one out. Everybody laughed again and Jack waded on.
"It's nearly two and a half, and we're talking quality stuff, not your average blend. Say twenty a bottle, with tax. Fifty grand down the Swanee and what did they do about it?"
"Damn all."
"That's right. It was an accident, so nobody got fired. Sproat was worried he'd have the environment people down his throat and crawling all over the place because it went into the burn and probably right into the river. Christ knows how many salmon parr died of drink. And what did they do?"
"Fuck all," Ed said.
"Dead right. And there must be a reason for that. Okay, customs have to wear it, because it's still in bond, and they lose eighty percent, but Sproat's still down what, fifteen grand? And still not a dicky bird. They just let it go. Sproat hushed it up. Why?" He looked at Donny.
"How should I know?"
"Either he doesn't want people poking around the place, or he doesn't want anything to queer the big deal."
"No way he'd going to sit still for thirty thousand gallons taking a walk," Ed said. "A couple of barrels, okay. But not a whole bottling decant getting nicked."
"What makes you think it'll be nicked?" Jack smiled for the first time that night. He'd been concentrating the whole while, happy enough to see them getting brave on hash just for the moment, needing to win them across.
"Anyway, I have to know if you're in, simple as that."
"I'm game," said Tam. "A million notes? Jeez, I can quit doing the lottery."
"It's no game. We do this, we do it right, and we stick to the plan. It's going to take a lot of work and a bit of risk, but I reckon if we do it right, we'll get away with it. Like I said, our people have worked for it all down the years and Sproat's selling the town out and taking the dairy with it. Nobody's got that sort of right."
He was pressing triggers now and he knew it.
"Too true," Donny said. "You got a plan Jack, I'm up for it."
"Me too," said Jed. "I got bugger all else to lose."
"Investments can go down as well as up," Jack said, now serious. "You can lose your shirt on this if we screw it. More than your shirt. "
Neil scratched his head. "Christ knows how you're going to do it."
"One point eight million," Ed said. "You're talking big numbers. How can you work that?"
"I can't say until we're all in, and then it's hands to the pumps. It's six or nothing, and if we don't have everybody, then I'll go do my own thing, go my own way. I just think it's time we did something for ourselves and to hell with the rest of them. Where are we going to get jobs with four hundred guys chasing every opening? You want to stack shelves at whatever they build on Aitkenbar once it's cleared?"
He was thinking of his Uncle talking after he cuffed the old guy at chess.
You're a Lorne on your father's side, a Bruce on your mother's. Don't let these creeps rule you. You get out and take what's yours.
"Fuckit," Ed Kane said. "I can't be rolling barrels all my life. You really think it can be done?"
"No. I'm just pissing into the wind. Listen, why do you think I bust my arse trying to get these plans? They guy who had them's dead and nobody knows I've got a copy. That's our key to a million eight."
"Okay." Ed stretched out his hand. Jack gave it a grip. "I'll come along for the ride."
"Some ride," Tam said. "So what do we do now?"
"First of all, nothing gets beyond here," Jack gestured to the walls. "Not one word. This stays between us all. I reckon I can make it work, but one word outside and we're all screwed, and I'm talking banged up in the Bar-L. They don't like rip offs and especially they don't take ripping off her majesty's customs and excise too well. They've got more power than the cops and nobody asks questions about what they do."
"Dead right. The cops can't shove a finger up your bum."
"Ain't that a shame," Neil half sang.
"Customs can do what they want, so we have to make them look the other way. I don't want to get into it all, but I've thought it all out. That's why we need six. And I need some money, so you all have to chip in."
"I knew there would be a catch," Donny said, all sarcastic. "How much?"
"A ton apiece, for starters."
"A hundred? You kidding?"
"It's a drop in the ocean. Look on it as an investment."
Donny was still mulish. "That's a whack."
"Come on, you took sixty from Dangerous Dan on the first race. And all it cost was a tin of Chum for Fannyboz. Look, if we do this we do it right and we do it prepared. You can't just walk in and take it and then wonder what you're going to do with it. We need cover and that's why I need to buy some stuff."
"Like what?"
"Paper. Cards. I need a whole set of mobiles. Your brother can fix us up Neil, right"
Neil shrugged agreement. "Depends how soon."
"Five days, no more. I need a printer for the computer, full colour - they're cheap and we might as well buy new. I might need a good suit, and a coat, for a touch of class. A briefcase. We have to get a van, nothing big. Borrow if we can, buy if we must. And Tam, we need your bike."
"You can borrow it, but not for keeps."
"I don't want to borrow it. I want you on it."
Tam furrowed his brows. It was all going pretty fast and he didn't quite understand it all yet.
"I need to get into somebody's house."
"Come on," Jed said. "I'm not stealing from people."
Jack grinned, remembering his grandfather again. Stealing might be acceptable if it was from the big boys, but not from the common man.
"I'm not stealing. I just have to get in. Don't worry, there's nobody home. It's just for a drop."
"I'll get you in," Ed said quietly. "Once I've seen the locks."
"Good man. What else? Jed. I might need to speak to your bird. We'll tell her it's union stuff."
"Jees. We can't bring her into it."
"She won't know. Anyway, she's out of a job as well in six weeks. We'll pay her if we have to. She works in Sproat's office, am I right?"
Jed agreed, but he still looked uncomfortable about it.
"That's about it for now. Donny and Jed, I need you to whip up the union men, get them to start a protest, bring the Dunvegan men into it. Me, I have to get some art-work done, but I think I can get that for nothing."
"What's that for?" Donny looked as puzzled as the rest. They were itching to know the details, but Jack knew he had to play it tight.
"Two rules of good business. Don't tell everything you know."
"What's the second?"
Jack tapped his nose. Ed Kane got it right away and laughed.
"But what's the second rule," Donny wanted to know and this time everybody laughed.
"When do you need the cash?"
"Yesterday would be good."
"Can I pay it up?"
"Piss off, Neil. Friday at the latest."
"Christ, you sound just like Ferguson."
"Yeah, that's another thing. Keep an eye out for him and his muscle. You especially Donny. That loony could screw the whole thing up. We don't want any broken bones and I don't want anybody in jail for breach. They'll come back for another go, so don't wander down any dark alleys, right?"
He sat back, knowing he had their full and undivided attention.
"You know all that stuff that's been lying in barrels since we were kids? It loses two percent year on year. That's it half gone in twenty five, and they don't even miss it. So we're just taking the other half."
He couldn't keep the smile off his face.
"The angels have had their share. It's high time we had ours."
That was how it all started.