Vince Noir chewed thoughtfully on a cigarette and flicked it idly into a nearby drain. He hated evenings like this. They were quiet, boring and beyond all, completely uneventful. He stroked at the knife in his back pocket and willed some unsuspecting victim to cross his path. He was feeling fairly murderous this evening.

He waited for what felt like hours but eventually the boredom got too much. He left his usual haunt in the dark, dank alley to search a new prey. His heavy black boots crunched the gravel below his feet and he pulled his leather jacket tighter around his shoulders. He knew he was a walking cliché but he enjoyed walking around like this. He loved the thrill of being painfully obvious and knowing that people in London were so self obsessed that even if they looked directly at him, they'd never see him; not really.

Not far away, Howard Moon was late with the rent for a third and final time and as the small bin bag of belongings hit the damp pavement next to him, he knew that this time he really was homeless. Howard muttered something indistinguishable under his breath. He pushed himself laboriously to his feet and scowled so hard that his eyes seemed to vanish into his skull. Then he began to walk. He didn't know where he was going exactly. He had no friends to speak off. He had a few colleagues but he knew they'd be less than generous to his plight. He thought about sleeping in his car but the idea of snoring away like a homeless man in a brand new Porsche was too weird, even for him. Maybe he could just walk and think tonight. Leave the morning for making new plans. As he walked Howard kicked idly at a an old coke can, taking comfort from the noise of it as it broke the deadly silence. He never liked the quiet, it seemed to crush and suffocate him.

From his hiding place in the alley, Vince heard the tinny sound of can on floor getting louder and louder. He crouched down, knife in hand, ready to pounce. He waited. He heard the low grumble and a faint sound of rustling as his prey approached. Then the can came into his vision and he leapt from the darkness like a jaguar, waving his knife and shouting;

"Give me your money."

Howard didn't take time to mess about. He grabbed his aggressor's outstretched arm and bashed it against the wall until his grip loosened enough so that his weapon fell to the floor. Then, he bent the arm right behind his back, twisting it until Vince was squealing like the little street-dwelling rat he was. And then, the squealing stopped and Vince Noir found himself temple to barrel with a pistol.

"Why don't you," Howard hissed loudly in his victims ear, "give me your money?"

"D'you think I'd be mugging people if I had money, you nonce?"

Howard didn't take kindly to being made to seem foolish, so he twisted the arm even more and once again Vince was begging for release but Howard wasn't good at mercy. He never had been. He kept pushing and kept pushing waiting for the snap. But which would snap first? The victim or the arm. He kept pushing and twisting. He knew a few more seconds and he'd have broken this kids arm.

"Stop!" Vince suddenly screamed. "Stop, I'll do anything. Please!"

And Howard stopped. That was all he'd needed to hear. He let go of the kid, watching as he fell heavily to the cold pavement and then giving him a kick for good measure. The kid spat back at him and it took all of Howard's self control not to put a cap in his skull right there. But he was supposed to be keeping a low profile, so instead he glared at this weird cliché of a mugger and said;

"You got a place?"

"Yeah."

"Right, you let me stay for a few days and we'll forget you ever tried to mug me, deal?"

"Get fucked. I ain't letting you in my place no way."

Howard leant down and grabbed a handful of the long black hair and yanked it up very hard, exposing the kids neck. He placed Vince's own knife against it and whispered;

"Maybe you'd like to reconsider that offer."

"No." Vince spat angrily. Howard smacked the defiant kid in the temple with the knife handle and then chucked the kid's old weapon away down the alley, opting instead to point the gun at him.

"Now." he said calmly, as Vince pressed fingers to his temple alarmed to find it was bleeding from the hit. "Take me to your flat, or I shoot you."

For a second, Howard had thought this kid was going to push him again but he didn't. He just got to his feet and muttered something about it being 'this way' and staggering off down the alley.

"Smart move." Howard praised, pocketing his gun, grabbing his bag and following the kid down the alley.

Vince was furious with himself. He could hear that the nutter with the gun was close behind. He thought about running away. It had worked plenty of times in the past. But he was sick of always running away, that's why he'd got himself a knife. Anyway, what was he point of running from a man with a gun. No matter how quick he was, he'd never outpace a bullet.

The kid seemed to lead Howard down every back alley and along every side street in London, avoiding beggars, suspicious streams of fluid and vermin until eventually he grunted; "We're here."

Howard looked up. 'Here' seemed to be a side door to a pleasant Chinese restaurant, which Howard knew well.

"I live upstairs." Vince explained, as he fished a key out of his jacket pocket.

As soon as the door was open Howard was hit by a barrier of noise.

"Vince Noir!" screamed a short Chinese man with jet black hair and a terrifying scowl as he rounded the corner and spotted the kid. Vince thought Howard well at least his name's not as daft as his outfit.

"Yes Mr Lee."

"Where you been? Why you no do shift? I dock money from your wages. Now, you owe me money."

"What!?" squeaked Vince, losing all his calm, sullen coolness, which he'd been portraying since the failed mugging, and replacing it with a kind of panicky, childlike nervousness. Howard smirked at Vince's fumbled protests.

"I boss, you give me money." Mr Lee insisted. "And you bring man home. I tell you, you no do that. You no bring men home. Now you owe me more money."

"I don't have any money. That's where I've been to get you money."

"Where you get money from?"

"The… bank." Vince blushed, all to aware of the stranger's poorly stifled laugh from behind him.

"You lie! You lie!" Mr Lee shouted, leaping almost comically high as he pointed furiously at Vince. "You out being a bad boy again. You very, very bad boy, Vince Noir."

Howard snorted loudly. Vince went bright red and, to Howard utmost surprise, hissed something in what could only have been Chinese. Mr Lee responded in a similarly angry tone. They shared this foreign, heated discussion until eventually Vince, stormed up the stairs. Howard stood dumbstruck until Vince turned and hissed;

"You coming."

--

Howard followed Vince up the narrow stairway and into a tiny attic-like space. It reminded Howard of his place when he'd started out; no bed, no carpet, no food, no money, just yourself and your gun, or in the kids case, knife. Howard had never been a fan of knives. There was something much more sinister and personal about plunging a knife through someone that pulling the trigger of a gun didn't have. Maybe this kid was tougher than he thought.

"This it?" Howard asked, as Vince flung his boots wildly into the darkest corner, which dislodged a rather mangy, flee-ridden cat. The kid didn't answer, he just stroked the cat lazily and said softly;

"His name's Naboo. He's just like me, homeless, abandoned by his whore of a mother… I guess that's why we get on so well. It's just us, init Naboo? We don't need no one else." The cat purred in what looked scarily like understanding. Howard stared, wondering just how messed up this kid actually was. Vince suddenly looked Howard right in the eye and said;

"What's your name?"

"Howard."

"Howard…?"

"Moon."

"Right."

Then, after deciding Vince clearly had nothing else to contribute Howard said; "So where do you sleep?"

"Sofa"

"And where do I sleep?"

Vince shrugged; and then, "Floor?"

"I don't think so. I'll have the sofa, you can have the floor."

"But this is my flat!" Vince scowled, getting right in Howard's face.

"And this is my gun." Howard reminded him, digging the barrel right into Vince's far too skinny stomach.

"Do it." Vince grinned, raising an eyebrow daringly. Howard was tempted for a second but it quickly passed and he let the gun drop to his side.

"Right," Vince whispered, with a smirk. "I'm gonna go downstairs and get us some food."

--

"What d'you think you are, the karate kid?" Howard scorned as he watched Vince, sat cross-legged on the floor, chasing a fly across the air with his chopsticks. Then, with a snap he caught the fly and dropped it for Naboo to lap up. Vince grinned;

"I don't know about the karate kid. I never liked that wax on, wax off rubbish. But when you grow up with chopsticks in your hands, you learn to use them." He made a rather menacing stabbing action in the direction of Howard's eyes. Howard just yawned, he wasn't going to be psyched out my this wannabe gangster again.

"So what about you?" asked the kid, dropping his chopsticks and squeezing onto the tiny sofa next to Howard. "You mug people?"

"Muggings. I haven't mugged someone since I was 15."

"Well I ain't gonna do it forever." the kid pouted, "I've got a bank job next week."

"Bank job? Nah, you're too distractible. You'd be half way through a heist and then you'd start trying to catch a fly with some chop sticks."

"Fuck you." Vince scowled. "I can be a big time con artist."

"No, you're still the not-so-artful Dodger." Howard chuckled.

"And you're still the not-so funny dickhead." Howard didn't say anything, he just scowled at the kid until he went back to stroking the filthy cat, whispering something that sounded disturbingly like;

"I love you fluffykins."

After a few moments the kid, without averting his attention from Naboo, he said; "So, you don't mug? You don't do banks? What do you do?"

"I organise. I plan. I play the game, you're just my pawns."

"And yet your homeless and having to threaten a 22 year old to get a roof over your head."

"22?" Howard scoffed.

"20"

Howard shot Vince a look of total disbelief.

"Fine. I'm 18." Vince admitted, moodily. "But I ain't no kid! And you're still in my home."

Howard shook his head and said quietly, "Not for long. You think I'm slumming it in this hellhole for long, when I've got more money that you can even dream about, you've got another thing coming."

"If you've got so much money, why are you homeless?"

"I don't want to draw attention to myself."

"You walk round with a gun in your pocket. You want the attention."

"I walk round with a gun in my pocket in case I get mugged by a little shit-head like you."

"If you hate me so much, get out of my home." Vince screamed in Howard's face. Next second, he was being hauled to his feet by the enraged older man and was quickly slamming into a wall a sharp pain searing through his spine. Vince winced and dropped to the floor, curling up into a ball.

Howard was surprised at how quiet the kid went. He'd been expected some great big argument or at least a punch to be thrown but there was nothing. Just Vince, hugging his knees close to his chest with Naboo nuzzling against his side. Howard realised with a sudden, sickening jolt that Vince was clearly used to being treated like this and he began to wonder by who. He wouldn't have to wait long before he found out.

No, i don't have any idea where it's going... lol.

Thanks for reading!!
Sisi...xxx