blazing and some blonde sucking on their cock. That was the way they were going to go. Why was Baz trying to convince himself otherwise? He had as much hope of turning himself into George Soros as Pope did of turning himself into a fairy.
âThe stock market, mate,â Baz continued, like a broken record. âThereâs a resources boom.â Blah-blah-blah.
Resources boom. What chance did any of them have of cashing in on that? Not a snowflakeâs. It was all insider trading and rorting the market. You just had to watch the news. You needed to be rich to get rich. If there was anything Pope knew, he knew that.
âIâll get you started,â Baz was saying. âIâll set up an account and youâre away.â
Who was he kidding? Pope was sure all Baz was trying to do was blow him off. This was Bazâs Dear Pope letter. But Pope wasnât going to let himself get blown off, because this was his life, the only life he knew.
âI donât have a computer,â he said.
âDonât need a computer,â Baz answered, looking as bright and cheerful as any fresh-faced career guidance counsellor trying to lay some bullshit on some council-estate kid destined to be a shelf stacker the rest of his life.
But it wasnât working. Pope and Baz were a team, they were magicâno-one could do what they did. They had what it took: brains and balls. Baz was the brains, always cool, always with his planning right down to the last detail. Pope had the grit; nothing fazed him. One time theyâd opened a strong box and there was a bloody snake curled up inside and Pope had just grabbed it by the tail and flicked it out. He could stare down ten well-armed men with a brick in one hand and a lump of pipe in the other. And, all right, the last job hadnât gone so well, but so what? It was swings and roundabouts. Youâd just got to be grown-up and adult about it and expect that every now and then things werenât necessarily going to go the way you wanted. They hadnât meant to cripple that guy; nobody asked him to be a hero. It was just life. And, anyhow, his worries were over now. Heâd get compo payments and insurance. Heâd be set.
âWell, I donât know what Iâm gonna do,â Pope said, looking to play the guilt card.
âWell, neither do I is what Iâm saying,â Baz said quickly, trying to head that one off. Guilt wasnât something he responded well to. âBut every dayâs a new day is what Iâm also saying.â
Every dayâs a new day. She really had him pussy-whipped.
âWhat the fuckâs that supposed to mean?â Pope said, sick of messing around, and wanting to get a straight answer out of him.
It didnât mean shit, and Baz knew it. They were mates and some bitch was telling him he couldnât come out to play any more. It meant it was over, thatâs what it meant.
Looking at him, Baz shrugged. âItâs been a nice ride,â he said, âand now itâs time to get off.â
So that was it.
The two men just looked at one another. Pope didnât know whether to hit Baz or cry. In the end he didnât do either, and, grabbing a packet of nappies, Baz turned and started heading off.
Baz was pretty upset as well. Theyâd known each other for a long time, maybe twenty years. Pope had helped him out lots of times, even saved his life once, when some overpumped security guy went into a roid rage on him and had to be smacked across the back of the head a couple of times before heâd let him go. You donât get that close to a lot of people, but thatâs how close Baz had got to Pope, and now he was telling him it was over.
Still, stepping out into the parking lot, Baz felt a weight lifting from his chest. He didnât want to go out to work one more time not knowing if heâd come home again. He wanted to watch his kid grow up and get married.
And, looking
Learning to Kill: Stories