Wear Iron//Thomas Shelby

twenty three

Tommy and I are at Ada's. It made sense since the derby is today. He's been sitting at a desk writing a letter for the past fifteen minutes.

"Tommy, did you want any tea?" I ask.

Tommy doesn't acknowledge me.

Ada places a teacup down in front of Tommy. "Did you one anyway, you ignorant git."

"Ada, sit down here for a minute," Tommy tells her. She sits down in the chair across from her brother. "Ada, if anything happens to me today..." He stops to lick the envelope and seal it. "I need you to post this letter. The stamp's already on. Don't ask any questions. It's... to do with insurance."

"Look, Tommy? Whatever it is you're involved in, just tell us,' Ava tells him. Tommy doesn't say anything. "God, you never let anybody in. We love you, Tom."

James walks into the room.

"What are you doing up at six o'clock in the morning?" Ada asks him.

"Ready?" Tommy asks.

"What the bloody hell's going on?" Ada questions.

"Little errand," James tells her.

"What errand?" Ada asks.

"He just has to stand there, Ada," I tell her.

"Stand where?" Ada asks.

"Let's go. Come on," Tommy tells James.

"James, what's going on?" Ada asks.

Tommy and I walk towards the front door with James trailing behind.

"Don't listen to him, James, he'll get you killed!" Ada shouts. "What errand?"

"For the cause, Ada," James tells her as he walks out the door. "The good old cause."

We walk down the street towards Alfie Solomons bakery.

"For the next ten minutes, you don't do or say anything I haven't told you.," Tommy warns. "All right?" James doesn't say anything. "All right?"

"Yeah," James assures.

"Hello, Ollie," Tommy greets as he walks past.

"Hang on..." Ollie protests. "Just you and her, yeah? He stays out here."

Tommy turns to James. "You stay here."

Ollie leads Tommy and I to Alfie's office. We sit on one side of the desk as Alfie sits on the other feet up and newspaper in hand. The telephone on his desk wrings.

Alfie doesn't look up from his paper. "That'll probably be for you, won't it?"

Tommy picks up the phone. "Hello? Arthur. You're out?"

Tommy hangs up the telephone before sitting back down in his chair.

"Right, so that'll be your side of the street swept up, won't it?" Alfie says. "Where's mine? What you got for me?"

Tommy hands Alfie a paper. "Signed by the Minister of the Empire himself."

"Yeah?" Alfie asks as he reads the license.

"Yeah," Tommy tells him. "Which means that you can put your rum in our shipments and no-one at Poplar Docks will lift a canvas."

"You know what? I'm not even going to have my lawyer look at that," Alfie tells us.

"No. No, it is all legal," Tommy assures.

"You know what, mate? I trust you," Alfie says. "That is that. Done. So, whisky." Alfie reaches down to pick up a bottle and place it on the desk. "There is one thing, though, however, that we do need to discuss."