A Tiger in Eden by Chris Flynn Read Free Book Online Page A

Marseille for us, I says, aye the very one Big Jim says, drop him a line Billy, here I’ll have to go but give us a ring next month, you all right for money and that.
    I told him I was and said cheerio then went and treated myself to a Mars Bar at the wee shop sure they’re like hen’s teeth and they charge you a fortune for them ‘cos they know all the westerners are dying for a hit of chocolate and it’s not like you can run round to the Spar when you’re on some fucking aul island in the middle of the Andaman Sea.
    Olly was this mad French cunt who was an officer in their army and he done us loads of favours, I’membered him so I did, he was all right even though he was a Fenian, so were all the French but when it came to making money he was a smart one and didn’t mind doing business with us Prods. He was in charge of transport or something and always had these wee convoys of trucks scooting about Europe and knew everyone so he did. If we wanted to get drugs or guns or anything dodgy in the slightest from A to B he was our man.
    He was only a young lad like twenty or something, he was doing his national service, most of the young ones get it over with and then fuck off out of it but he stayed on and signed up for a couple more years ‘cos hewas making so much money and didn’t have to pay for nothing, he had his own digs on some army base down near Lyon. I jawed on the phone with him a couple a times sure his English was brilliant so it was and he was dead funny I’membered.
    Why he was down my way, whatever that meant ‘cos for all I knew he could be thousands of miles away in the Philippines or something, I could only imagine. He was probably on the run like me I was thinking and it might be all right meeting up with him ‘cos sure he always had something going on at least I’d be guaranteed a fucking good time and some company with someone who knew the score, like.
    It was a bit awkward getting in touch with the fucker sure I had to leave a couple of messages and run back and forth to the phone every day for a week but eventually I got a hold of him and he was chuffed to hear from me, turns out he was in sort of the same predicament I was. He’d done a runner from France with eighty grand in his aul skyrocket and was just knocking around like a beach bum trying to make it last ‘cos he was feared to go back. Sure enough he’d been in the Philippines for ages but now he was next door to me down in Malaysia.
    He said he’d been running a bit of resin in Penang but he didn’t trust no one and sure it was the death penalty if you got caught so someone shopping you to the peelers was pretty fucking serious and he was dead paranoid.
    I told him I was bored as fuck and he says, let’s meet in the middle and check into the cheapest place you canfind on Langkawi I hear it’s nice there, plenty of rich women, except he says it in his French accent so instead of the and there he says ze and zere, you get the picture.
    I was glad to be on the move actually so I caught the bus down to Satun pronto like. The ferry over to Langkawi was a bit fancy and there was loads of aul couples on it, I was thinking what the fuck does Olly want to meet up here for but I assumed he was taking the back door out of Penang probably to avoid paying someone, it wouldn’t of surprised me with that cunt.
    There was only one cheap joint on Langkawi, sure it was all resorts and that not the sort of place for the likes of me who was used to aul fleapits and shacks half falling into the sea. It wasn’t even that cheap, to be honest I baulked a bit at handing the money over, I know I’ve got loads but you never know when you need a bit of stake money for a wee job or when you have to buy your way out of a fucking tight corner. The room was no great shakes but there was a lounge for hanging out in, it was all right actually ‘cos the only people staying there were your real independent traveller types, sure you could tell straightaway