THE DOMINO BOYS (a psychological thriller) by D. M. Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page A

you pulled the other day, with the smashed glass. You wouldn’t have used it, of course. I know you. You’re as weak as witch piss.’
    ‘You don’t know anything about me.’
    ‘Really?’ He came closer, put his mouth near Alfie’s ear and whispered, ‘I know why you drag the retard around with you. Want me to tell you in front of your actor friends here? No? Then get rid of them.’
    Alfie swallowed, but his mouth was dry. ‘Can you leave us alone a minute, please?’ he asked the clearly anxious script holders.
    ‘Shall we call the police?’ said the woman, instinctively rolling her script into a flimsy baton.
    ‘No, no, there isn’t a problem. Give me ten minutes, eh?’ Alfie waited till the pair went off the stage. ‘You leave Dickie out of this,’ he said.
    ‘Or what? You’ll glass me?’ He gave a chuckle. He put his hands behind his back, sauntered over to the painted canvas set, ran a finger over the rough material. ‘What I want is to renew acquaintances that my father let lapse, after making some kind of sanctimonious, deathbed pact with the God he was hoping to see – doubtful, given his black heart, of course. I suppose I can forgive his newfound, misplaced piety, given the bastard was about to kick the bucket. But I say why let a good opportunity go to waste? Also, thing is, I don’t take too kindly to being humiliated in front of others, so the good old Domino Boys go straight up my list of acquaintances to renew. Starting with you.’
    ‘Is that a threat?’
    He grinned. ‘God, how astute of you!’ He nodded at Dickie, who was sitting quiet but fretful on his chair, staring at them. ‘Let me take you back a good many years. Cast your mind back to when you were aged about nine or ten, shall we? Yes, I know it’s a long time ago now, you being so ancient, but bear with me.’
    ‘What’s this got to do with anything, Donnie?’ he asked, but inside he was like a jelly cube melting in hot water.
    ‘My father asked you if you wanted to be in his gang, didn’t he? What was it called now? Ah, yes, the Slag Gang. See, no finesse there with my father, no imagination. He was a bully, right? Beat you up many times. But when he asked you to be in his gang you thought, if you can’t beat them, join them. So he takes you out down by the slag heaps – is any of this coming back to you, Alfie?’
    Alfie Parker’s breathing became quicker. Yes, it was all coming back to him. In truth it had never left him.
     
     
    It was a bright summer’s day, bang in the middle of the seemingly endless school holidays. There were four of them – Mickey Craddick, two of his sidekicks, and Alfie. They’d hung about town for an hour or two, watched the pitmen coming off their shift, their faces black with coal as they trooped to the pit baths, sat by a stream by the slag heaps and hunted for sticklebacks, then decided to mount the largest of the heaps known to everyone as Black Dolly, for reasons nobody ever knew. Nobody was allowed up there because it was dangerous, and there were signs everywhere warning them they’d die, which made kids want to go there all the more. Up there on the plateau-like top of that black, blasted wasteland they came across Dickie Sugden. He’d been bird-nesting, and carried a small cloth bag with a couple of blackbird eggs in it to add to his collection.
    ‘If you want to be in this gang,’ said Mickey to Alfie, ‘then you’ve got to be initiated.’
    Alfie didn’t know what initiated meant, but he nodded in agreement all the same. ‘Sure, Mickey, anything you say,’ he said eagerly. It had been an uneasy few hours with them, because right away he knew he didn’t fit in with the Slag Gang and didn’t want to be part of any gang with Mickey Craddick in it, but he’d gone so far he couldn’t back out just yet, not without inviting a beating.
    Mickey picked up a long piece of wood, indicated for others to do the same. Dickie Sugden had seen them and was staring at them