Warhol's Prophecy

Expectation

PAUL DOOLAN PUT down the copy of Mayfair and sat up as he heard the key turn in his cell door.

Muffled voices outside, then David Layton stepped in. The door slammed behind him.

For long seconds the two men looked at each other, then Layton suddenly punched the air, his teeth gritted in a triumphant snarl.

‘Yes!’ he shouted.

‘You got it?’ Doolan said, also grinning.

‘Cunts approved it, didn’t they? I’m out of here in three weeks.’

He sat down at the small table and pulled his tobacco tin from his overalls. He flipped it open and began making a roll-up.

‘Parole?’ mused Doolan. ‘You lucky bastard.’ He rolled over onto his side on the top bunk and looked down at his companion. ‘What are you going to do when you get out?’

Layton shrugged. ‘I haven’t thought about it,’ he confessed. ‘You know you don’t think about the future inside, do you?’

‘I think about getting out of here all the time.’

‘Well, if you hadn’t got caught for that fucking Securicor van job you wouldn’t be in here now, would you?’

‘It wasn’t my fault. I told them I’d never handled a shooter before.’

‘Good job you hadn’t. Otherwise you might have killed that fucking guard instead of just shooting the cunt in the leg.’

‘Yeah, well, next time I’ll get it right.’

Layton lit his roll-up and sucked on it.

‘Have you seen Brycey since you did the job on Morton?’ Doolan wanted to know.

‘One of his boys had a word with me. They said he was pleased: said I did a good job. One of them works in the infirmary where they took Morton. He saw the damage. They said I could see Brycey when I got out, see about a job with his firm.’

‘Are you going to do that?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t want to work for somebody. I’d rather be on my own: nobody breathing down my neck.’

‘You want to go straight?’ Doolan chuckled.

Layton merely spat a piece of tobacco in the direction of his cell-mate.

‘By the way,’ he said after a moment, ‘they’ve put me on kitchen duties until I get out.’

Doolan’s smile faded.

‘You jammy cunt,’ he said disdainfully.

‘They said my behaviour here has been excellent.’

‘It’s a good job they didn’t know about what happened to Morton.’

Layton smiled crookedly.

‘Yeah, well they don’t know and they’re not going to find out, are they?’ he hissed, glaring at his cellmate.

‘You think I’d grass you up?’ Doolan said, offended by the implication.

‘No, I know you’ve got too much sense for that.’

‘Anyway, it won’t be that fucking easy working in the kitchen. That bastard Gorton runs it. Scotch cunt. You’d better watch him.’

Layton drew slowly on his roll-up.