Animal Kingdom by Stephen Sewell Read Free Book Online

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.
    â€˜The stock market, mate,’ Baz continued, like a broken record. ‘There’s a resources boom.’ Blah-blah-blah.
    Resources boom. What chance did any of them have of cashing in on that? Not a snowflake’s. 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.
    â€˜I’ll get you started,’ Baz was saying. ‘I’ll set up an account and you’re away.’
    Who was he kidding? Pope was sure all Baz was trying to do was blow him off. This was Baz’s Dear Pope letter. But Pope wasn’t going to let himself get blown off, because this was his life, the only life he knew.
    â€˜I don’t have a computer,’ he said.
    â€˜Don’t need a computer,’ 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 wasn’t working. Pope and Baz were a team, they were magic—no-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 they’d 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 hadn’t gone so well, but so what? It was swings and roundabouts. You’d just got to be grown-up and adult about it and expect that every now and then things weren’t necessarily going to go the way you wanted. They hadn’t meant to cripple that guy; nobody asked him to be a hero. It was just life. And, anyhow, his worries were over now. He’d get compo payments and insurance. He’d be set.
    â€˜Well, I don’t know what I’m gonna do,’ Pope said, looking to play the guilt card.
    â€˜Well, neither do I is what I’m saying,’ Baz said quickly, trying to head that one off. Guilt wasn’t something he responded well to. ‘But every day’s a new day is what I’m also saying.’
    Every day’s a new day. She really had him pussy-whipped.
    â€˜What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’ Pope said, sick of messing around, and wanting to get a straight answer out of him.
    It didn’t mean shit, and Baz knew it. They were mates and some bitch was telling him he couldn’t come out to play any more. It meant it was over, that’s what it meant.
    Looking at him, Baz shrugged. ‘It’s been a nice ride,’ he said, ‘and now it’s time to get off.’
    So that was it.
    The two men just looked at one another. Pope didn’t know whether to hit Baz or cry. In the end he didn’t do either, and, grabbing a packet of nappies, Baz turned and started heading off.
    Baz was pretty upset as well. They’d 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 he’d let him go. You don’t get that close to a lot of people, but that’s 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 didn’t want to go out to work one more time not knowing if he’d come home again. He wanted to watch his kid grow up and get married.
    And, looking