Magpie had a fur coat on. It was the most expensive thing she had ever worn. It was more expensive than every item of clothing she had worn in fifteen years of life put together. It was worth three hundred pounds, which made it at least two hundred and ninety seven pounds more expensive than everything she had ever worn, and she was wearing it even though it made her so hot she just wanted to curl up and sleep.
Maybe that was what she could do with it. It wasn’t something she could ever wear outside, but it would make an incredible blanket. She could sleep in a corner of this room, probably, if she wanted to. Maybe.
Magpie was one of the Forty Elephants, though there were actually eighty-three of them, or seventeen depending on how they were counted and who was counting, and she had been one for exactly eleven days. She’d helped with two smash and grabs, and her fur coat was her haul from the last one, yesterday. The first one she’d taken part in, she’d been a lookout, but the second one she’d actually helped raid. They’d hit Selfridges in Oxford Street, and whilst the other women seemed to know exactly what they wanted, Magpie had gone in without a plan and come out with this fur coat.
It had been exhilarating, running through the store, whooping with sheer glee, seeing the terror on the faces of the assistants and shoppers. They’d pushed over clothes rails, dismembered mannequins, and smashed display cases. She’d had to smash a case and strip the coat from a mannequin inside it, and she’d pocketed the little card that said the coat was on loan from Paquin, one of the most elite Parisian couture houses, and was not for sale. But the card also included the price that Selfridges was not selling it at.
There were parts of the country where a person could buy a house for less than what this coat cost, or so Kitty said.
It was so soft she would have believed someone who told her it was made of puppies, but apparently it was made of seals. She’d seen photos of seals in magazines, and had seen them in person one time at London Zoo, but she had had no idea they were so soft.
They were in an apartment in the Hayles Building in Elliot Row, which was apparently the Forty Elephants’ party place. It was where they came after a raid or other operation, to drink, take drugs, fuck, dance, and generally go wild, and this party had been going on since last night. Some of the girls were out cold, some were as high as airships, but most were standing in little groups of threes and fours, gossiping. Something about the Boys thinking they’d been betrayed.
Most of the Forty seemed amused that the Boys were worried, especially the girls that were single. Some of the ones with boyfriends in the other gang were worried about their relationships. Some of the girls here liked each other, and Magpie hadn’t even known that was a thing people could do.
She sat in a chair in her fur coat and watched the others carefully. She was too new, she didn’t know the factions in this group yet, she didn’t know how this would play out. She only really knew three of the Forty at all. Kitty, who had known Magpie’s older cousin Craig, before he died in the war fighting the Spanish, had been the one to recruit her into the gang. She had a smart mouth that got her in trouble and a smart mind that got her back out of it. She could have been a doctor or a lawyer or a scientist if her parents had been rich and if those were careers women could have. Instead, the whip-thin waspish woman was one of Diamond Annie’s main lieutenants, and the smartest elephant. Anyone could plan a smash and grab, but all of their more complicated plans came from Kitty Hargreaves.
Then there was Diamond Annie, the leader, who had been the one to receive Magpie’s oath. She was the tallest woman Magpie had ever seen, and as broad across the shoulders as a man. She had a wide waist and large breasts but little fat anywhere else. Her hands were huge, and she wore a diamond ring on every finger.
Kitty and Annie were in the centre of the room, with Maggie Hill, Annie’s number two and the gang’s enforcer. Magpie didn’t know Maggie and didn’t want to. The stories about her she’d heard on the streets were terrifying. She had a habit of blinding people who’d annoyed her, and Maggie Hill was easily annoyed.
Still, Magpie was relatively safe now. The only person who could control Maggie was Annie, and Annie didn’t let Maggie cripple any of the Forty. She’d still give them a few kicks if they pissed her off, though.
“You aint swelterin’ in that, Magpie?” Charlie Cassidy asked, dropping into a seat beside her.
“It’s the first king a’eva ‘alf-inched, I might never whip it off.” Magpie looked over at the third member of the gang that she actually knew, and her best friend for most of her life. Charlie Cassidy was boyish, and not in the way flappers were, with their slim figures and short cut hair. Charlie’s head was shaved bald, her pudgy face had never felt makeup, and she exclusively wore baggy male clothing that draped over her short, fat form. It was the kind of thing that would get her arrested for indecency, if she wasn’t caught shoplifting first. It also really suited her, she always looked good.
“So long as foreva is less than two ‘ours it’ll be cushty; just don’t do it a mischief or get it mucky, yeah? Drops the value for fences.”
“Fences?”
Charlie grinned. She was missing her left front tooth, and another was broken. It gave her mouth a lopsided look. “You didn’t reckon we was keepin’ them, didja? What use we got for sherbet floats?”
“I reckoned on kippin’ in it. It’s proper warm, it is.”
“When you get your slice, you can buy some Ned gear. An’ a nuncle Ned.”
“A Ned would be nice.” She hadn’t had a bed since her ma had died, three years earlier. When she could beg enough, she had a two penny hangover, sitting on a bench in a Salvation Army shelter and leaning against a rope so she didn’t fall over, surrounded by the destitute, the drunk, and sailors. When she couldn’t afford that, there were some rooftops she knew where she could nap for a few hours. It was fine on warm, dry nights, but begging was harder when it rained, so she mostly slept on roofs when it was wet and cold.
She’d been offered beds, but those offers came with other things, and she hadn’t wanted to do that. If the Forty hadn’t taken her in, it might have ended up being her fate, but now she had a different destiny. “You think a fence can shift this?” she asked, handing the display card to Charlie.
Charlie’s bushy eyebrows rose so high they looked like a fringe. “Wow, strike me down. You got a real gin rafter. Maggie will give you a hidin if you do that a mischief.”
“Uhh.”
“Just stay planted and you’ll be sound as a pound. Most fences can’t touch a gin rafter like this, but we gots a real dab hand.”
“Who’s she gonna sell it to, her maj?”
“Nah. This…there’s likely only one in alla England. No nobs gonna touch it, cos all’e’um will know ‘twas stolen, yeah? Nah, only one buyer for this.”
“Who?”
“Selfridges. They can’t let the French know the sherbet float got nicked, yeah? Cos then they’d never get nice fancy stuff loaned to their store again. So they buy it back in perfect condition and pretend they never lost it in the first place.”
“Really?”
“No,” a voice behind them said. They both glanced back at a slender woman in a fashionable dress. Her hair was cut in a bob. ”So, you’re the new girl,” she said, looking Magpie over.
“Lillian Goldstein, Marguerite Pierre, but she goes by Magpie,” Charlie introduced them to one another. “The papers call Lillian the Bobcut Bandit.”
“Stop fillin’ the new girl’s ‘ead with shit, Charlie, Selfridges wouldn’t dare buy it,” Lillian said. “They won’t touch stolen goods, and they know we’d just steal it back next week; they’d never stop ‘avin’ to buy it once they started. Besides, it’ll be insured. No, this’ll go to a brothel madam, some gangster’s girlfriend, or someone just about to leave the country. They’ll spend about thirty pounds on a three hundred pound coat, and once the fence takes a cut, and the gang gets a cut, you’ll get ten pounds in your ‘and.”
“Ten pounds!”
“Don’t spend it all on drugs, you’ll die. Get yourself some lodgings with some of the money, splurge a little on clothes, keep a pound to go wild with, it’s more than you’ll need as new as you are. Got a man?”
“No.”
“Good, because a man would take eight pounds from you and leave you with two, and then spend it all on ‘ores and drink.” She sighed and wandered off.
“I don’t think all men would do that,” Charlie said quietly. “I think she just likes shitty men.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea why any women like any men at all, so don’t ask me.”
“What’s the thing with the Boys?”
“Oh, that,” Charlie scowled. “Someone stirring shit. Attacked the Birmingham Boys when Wag was with them. Maybe the same mug did something to the Sabinis. Lots of both sides in the nick right now. Someone trying to start a war between gangs, and she told Wag she was one of us, and the fool believed her.”
“We’re at war with the Elephant Boys?”
“Nah, they’re just being idiots. Sooner or later they’ll remember we’re their girlfriends and sisters and ma’s.” She nodded towards the oldest woman in the room, Jenny Kane. “Both her sons are in the Boys.”
“That’s aetheric.”
“Nah it ain’t. Her daughter’s aetheric, gal’s an actual nurse at a ‘ospital ‘n’ everythin’.”
“’ow?”
“Joined the army during the war. They was right desperate for nurses, takin’ everyone, trained her right up.”
There was a commotion by the door to the flat, and then several men walked in. They wore flat caps they didn’t bother taking off, wool or corduroy trousers belted at the waist, heavy boots and cheap cotton shirts, and the one that led them had bloodshot eyes.
“Damn it,” Charlie muttered. “More shitty men.”
“Who is that?”
“Elephant Boys. One at the front is Brett MacDonald, brother to the bosses, and Diamond Annie’s fellow. And he’s pished as a fart.”
He had a slight stagger as he walked, but he strolled straight to Annie as if they were the only two people in the room. Annie laid a hand against Maggie’s arm, and stepped forward to meet him.
“Is what I ‘eard true?” he demanded.
“’ow the ‘ell should I know?” she replied. “I got no idea what you ‘eard, do I?”
“You been carrying on with Darby Sabini?”
She laughed, which was probably the worst response she could have made. His face reddened, and he lunged at her. Almost lazily, she threw out a punch and it caught him on the jaw and he went down hard, the diamond rings she wore tearing open the skin.
The other Boys readied for a fight, but Kitty was standing before them, with a smile almost as wide as her arms. “That’s just a lover’s quarrel, and none of your or my business, gentlemen.”
“She can’t treat ‘im like that,” one snarled.
“Why not? He likes it!”
That froze them, confusion on their faces.
“C’mon, have you never seen those two go at it? They throw a dozen punches each as foreplay. He wouldn’t keep coming back if he wasn’t into it, would he?”
Annie was already helping Brett to his feet. “You really think I’d be interested in a little weasel like Sabini, Brett? When I got a real man right ‘ere for me?”
“Someone said you was cucking me, said it right to Wag’s face.”
“Then you should know me enough to laugh it off and cut the balls from the fucker when you catch them.”
“Wasn’t a guy.”
“Then cut the tits from the fucker. Come on, we’ll talk.” She led him off to one of the bedrooms.
“They’re not gonna talk,” Charlie said.
“Yeah, I got that,” Magpie replied.
“Just making sure. You have some strange blind spots, like not knowing queers exist.”
“I was just surprised, alright?”
“Uh huh, sure. Surprised.”
Previous Chapter: Chapter Thirty-three
Next Chapter: Chapter Thirty-five
Editor’s Note
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
From: The London Eye Editorial Board
Subject: Language
Date: June 17, 1922
Confused? You might need The Hildy Johnson Cockney Slang Dictionary. It explains all the Cockney slang in this, and other, chapters.
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