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and would pay the management a percentage of their fees.
    Sid and Alex were put to work on three more of Johnny’s establishments. The two boys worked hard, and Johnny gave them a ‘tenner’ a week. He had to admit the kids really put their backs into the painting, and they were always ready and willing to do anything he asked. Alex was particularly good, and one day when he helped to cash up the evening’s takings, Johnny was amazed at how fast the boy could handle figures. ‘Eh, son, how old are you?’
    Alex lied and said he was eighteen, and Johnny gave him an extra couple of quid, saying he might be useful when it came to doing the books. The following week he took Alex with him on his Friday round-up, and was very impressed. The boy was as sharp as a tack with money, even suggesting a couple of ways for Johnny to make extra cash. For instance, he and Sid could make up a few sandwiches, deliver them to the brothels, and they could charge a ridiculous amount to the girls and their clients.
    So Sid and Alex added a string to their bow, and business was good enough to buy them new suits and shoes, and flash ties and fedoras like their idol, Johnny.
    One of Johnny’s bouncers at the Angel club had taken Alex under his wing, and they would work out at the local gym. Alex’s skinny body filled out with weight training, and his personality changed with it. He liked the look of his body now, the frame tight and muscular.
    He and Sid had been up to the West End to ‘kit themselves up’, as Sid put it. They had visited all the menswear stores, and had even been down Jermyn Street. Sid couldn’t believe the way Alex lingered outside one of the posh tailors in Jermyn Street. ‘Do us a favour, yer don’t want nuffink like that! I mean, it’s like old-fashioned, ain’t it? An’ look at the price, just look what they got a nerve askin’ fer a ordinary suit what you wouldn’t be seen dead in.’
    Alex liked the suit, liked the plain styling of it. But his money wouldn’t run to the navy pin-stripe. He recognized the difference in the cloth, never mind the cut, when they paraded in front of Tooley’s Menswear’s window and saw a brown suit. He wished he had stuck to the dark blue, but Sid had been so persuasive, insisting the brown suited him. ‘Well, what yer fink? Couple o’ smarties, eh?’
    ‘I should ’ave got the blue.’
    ‘Bleedin’ hell, I never known a man go on more about ’is gear than you, Alex. The brown’s very nice, an’ yer can’t see yerself from the back. It’s a lovely cut, an’ the Slim Jim tie’s fantastic.’
    Unlike Sid, he had chosen plain shirts, one white and one cream. He alternated them, inspecting them each time they came back from the laundry. Sid had offered him a pair of cufflinks, the sort Johnny would wear. They were theatrical masks with red chips of glass for eyes. Sid thought they were real class, but Alex refused them. Instead he bought a pair from Woolworth’s. They were plain rolled gold, and he was very careful not to get them wet in case they went green.
    Sid watched Alex as he carefully tied a tea towel around his waist and rolled up his shirtsleeves before cutting the sandwiches for the club. He sliced the bread carefully. ‘You just gonna look at me workin’ then, Sid? Ain’t you got the butter ready yet?’
    Sid set to work, managing to get margarine on his sleeve as he slapped it on the bread. Alex had finished cutting bread and while he waited for Sid, he combed his hair and studied his face in the mirror.
    ‘Alex, what was you in Oakwood fer? Was it thievin’ like the rest of us? Yer never tell me when I ask, but what was yer in fer?’
    Alex had learned fast how to impress. ‘Murder – I killed a bloke. Now, you got those sandwiches ready?’
    Sid’s jaw dropped and he hurriedly packed up the food. ‘Christ, if old man Taylor snuffed it, you’d better stay well clear of the cops. Won’t be no reform school next time fer you, Alex, you’ll do