Griffin (Holborn)

Billy Batts Goodfellas

I got wind that the little f****r drinks in here, so's I'm staking the joint out with a couple of trusted friends. The tree of us - Me, Paulie the Knife and Johnny Daydream - are standing in a badly lit corner, keepin' us eyes on the door.

The plan goes something like this. We knows that Tommy comes in here, two or three times a week. Strippers and lager is a heady cocktail for a shoe-shining piece of s**t like Tommy. My sources tell me that sometimes he comes in alone and sometimes he's with friends. If he's alone, we whack him; if he's with Jimmy and that little f**k Henry, we'll sneak out the back door real quiet. Leave it for another day.

Let me explain why I'm a little sore about how things turned out. I'm a made man right - I got a f****n' right to bust a man's balls a bit.

I've known the f**k since he was a kid, so's the other night I roughs him up a little, reminds him of the time he shined shoes for me. Big deal; I'd just got outta the joint.

I'm busting the kid's balls a bit, and he seems pissed wit' me; so I push the issue a little further. The kid goes f****n' crazy: tries to attack me.

What am I a schmuck? He can count himself lucky I didn't waste him there and then.

Later in the evening, the situation gets even worse. Tommy, Jimmy and Henry come back, sneakin' up on me like rats, when I'm well-oiled and when there's no one around. Then they kick and punch me 'til I'm f****n writhing on the floor, like an eel in a fishin' net.

Finally, those punks dump me in the trunk of a car - all wrapped in carpet - set to bury me in the woods.

Only I ain't dead yet, am I. The car stops and I starts poundin' on the trunk - BAM, BAM, BAM. Nothing happens for what seems like forever. Maybe I drifted off. Finally, the doors slam and the engine starts up again.

Anyways, a little while later we're on the move; I wake up and starts poundin' again. The trunk opens and that mother-f*****g, shoe-shining p***k Tommy goes for me again, this time laying into my heart with a f*****g 12-inch kitchen knife.

Well, I'm as dead as a dodo in seconds this time. And me, a made man. Boy that f**k really dug his own grave, even before he'd had a chance to dig mine.

In the world of the wise-guy, it's an eye for an eye. Here in The Griffin where the tarts swan around the joint wearin' nothin' but a grin and a pint pot full of coins, it's an eyeful for a pound. No wonder Tommy likes it, the cheap punk.

Anyway, if my sources are right, he'll be back tonight. And we'll be waiting. He won't be makin' it home to get his f****n' shine-box anytime soon.

Billy Batt's rating for The Griffin  - 6 / 10

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