Like fuck it was gonna happen like that. They’re gonna think that there was some kinda dispute among all these volatile nutcases, who could fall out over a perceived dirty look, and this geezer, Kilburn Jerry, got topped or it was a party game gone wrong. Morty was somehow roped into getting rid of the mangled, headless body but someone fucked up by being just too fuckin untogether and Morty got nicked big-time. He was charged with disposing of a body unlawfully or accessory after the fact and was given eight years, of which he served five and a quarter. The crown actually accepted that the guy had killed himself and the guys who had been originally charged with ‘murder due to joint venture’ were getting acquitted at the Old Bailey while Morty was being weighed off. All the time Morty kept schtum and did his time. Name, rank and serial number was all they ever got out of him and this earns the respect of his peers, both inside and out, both now and then. I can see why he don’t entertain any nut-nuts.
Clarkie is the youngest child in one of those fuckin huge families that you just don’t get anymore, not since the arrival of the pill anyway. If this business had an elite officer corps then Clarkie would be a product of it. The Clark family are still a major force in this part of town, in any part of town come to that. The Old Man Clark and the elder brothers have given up robbing banks, mainly cos they can’t get out the front door to put a bet on without the Robbery Squad ready-eyeing them there and back. A couple of them got fitted up very tight last time out so they’ve moved on to less obvious undertakings to provide the corn. Anyways, all that hitting the high street banks with the jolly old sawn-off went out with sideboards and radiograms, three-piece whistles with twenty-four-inch lionels, although it still goes on, of course, but it’s very much a desperate pursuit these days, very much the preserve of crackheads and junkies. It’s not the giggle it once was.
Clarkie spent his early childhood years being shunted around the country from nick to nick, from Parkhurst up to Durham, to see the Old Man or one of the older brothers, cos the Prison Service kept them on the move, dispersed around the country, otherwise they might have caused a whole lotta grief if they were to get too comfortable for too long in one place, but I reckon the Clark family still gave the Home Office a hard time. They always made the kangas earn their shillings. The Junior Clark must have taken all this in and decided that a career on the pavement with a shooter was not for him, too risky, too much like hard work if you’re captured, so he fired his dough and his lot in with me, Morty and Terry. He decided on a career in commerce if you like. I think Old Man Clark musta hada word with Jimmy Price cos one day me and Morty suddenly had junior partners by virtue of a decree handed down by King James. It was diplomatic to cut them a deal cos otherwise they would have ended up as serious rivals for our bitta business. It stuck in the throat to start with but in the end it made a lotta sense.
When I go it’ll be Clarkie who’ll be doing what I do now, brokering the stuff, working with the contacts I’ve made, keeping track of the money, working out who’s owned what, keeping a healthy float stashed, making sure the gear’s up to scratch and when we cut it we don’t completely tear the arse outta it. So far I’ve only hinted that I’m on my way out but my mind’s made up. I’ll let these geezers know when the time is right.
If Clarkie’s next in line for my job and I work things out with him then Terry works more closely with Morty on the security side of things. He can be a hothead can Terry but Morty’s taken him under his wing and will eventually round the rough edges offa him cos you can’t have guys around you who are forever going ballistic. If people keep losing their temper and ironing people out all the time it starts to lose its mystique, it’s no surprise anymore, the threat’s gone, but Terry’s young and he’ll learn. Down in the lower levels of this swindle you need your bashers, people respond, but in our neck of the woods you gotta have a drop more savvy, a bit more brainpower to oil the wheels and get the job done. You have to threaten diplomatically. The thing with Morty and Terry is neither of them is all that big, not small either, but you can sense something about them. It’s a I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude like you’d have to kill the fuckers to stop them coming at you and I guess you would an all. They’re like those cartoon characters that keep coming on towards you even after they’ve been blown up, had boulders dropped from heights on their heads, had dynamite strapped to them and been fired outta cannons and all that shit that by rights shoulda seen them off. It’s in the eyes, there’s a certain crazy little twinkle, it’s in the walk, there’s a kinda strut that just lets the other guy know that you’re not to be fucked with, it’s not an over-the-top plastic-gangsters bowl either. It’s in the way these two talk to people, they let other guys know that there’s a limit on how far they can have a laugh and a joke and you better keep your wits about you and not cross over that invisible line or you’ll wake up in hospital regretting it. As the Roman general said, ‘To keep the peace you must plan for war.’
I have to sometimes take a risk and let certain people know a bit more about our business than I would like, cos if guys don’t know what you got for sale then how the fuck are they gonna be able to punt for it, and this means using a great deal of discretion. We can’t advertise. I can really only entertain people who are somehow connected, who come to us quoted, that’s to say someone has vouched for them, says they ain’t undercover gathers or agent provocateurs, says they can pay their bills, ain’t gonna be skanking anybody, gonna be talking to everyone with a bitta respect and ain’t gonna be generally fuck-arsing around, calling stuff on, ordering gear, and then changing their minds at the last minute. We need to know that they mean business and, like the very best working girls, a policy of ‘discretion assured’ goes without saying. Like any business we’re looking for the no-fuss repeat business.
How did I get here? A combination of rapid promotion through the ranks and having greatness thrust upon me. I got into the business by accident. I didn’t leave school wanting to be a coke dealer, nobody did in those days, not like today where all these kids want to be in on the swindle. Everybody wants to be a drugsman. I reckon it must look very inviting, like piss-easy money, which it is when all goes well. Ten years ago when I started there wasn’t the supply or the demand. A drop of charlie was still for pop stars and a birthday treat, something special, something worthy of comment. Nowadays it ain’t even a fuckin luxury anymore to a lot of folk, it’s more along the lines of a necessity. I’m sure they don’t even notice they’re tooting half the time. Sure, you always had your hardcore of cokeheads, like you always had your hardcore of smackheads and a few who couldn’t make up their minds which camp they were in, but it wasn’t so firmly entrenched in the heartland as it is now, it’s everywhere you fuckin look, for fuck sake. There’s guys I know who ten years ago were venomously anti-drugs. They would stand at the ramp in naff wine bars delivering speeches along the lines of ‘I wouldn’t touch that shit, it’s fuckin poison and people who deal it are evil, scumbag, lowlife cunts, bloodsuckers.’ Now these very same guys do all their shillings on charlie, in cold blood, fuck the consequences, grafting all week just to get charged up or maybe serving up a few grams to pals to pay for it. It’s like someone’s done a public relations job on dealers as well. They’ve gone from parasites to the guys everyone wants to know. If you know a good charlie dealer, it’s like having the correct connections, like a tricky accountant or a crafty mortgage broker. It puts you in the swindle. All those guys who serve up in gram deals, good gram deals mind, not with all the active ingredient chopped out, live like fuckin princes, get to go to all the best parties on one big freebie, cos everyone wants to be their bestest friend. No party’s complete without the bugle. I’ve watched nineteen-year-old kids from scuzzy council estates tell pop stars and other household names to fuckin get in line and talk to them nice or they ain’t getting nuffin, fuck all, not a fuckin sniff bullseye, and the celebrity punters have jumped to attention, apologised to the kid and waited on them to be served.
That’s how I started, on the shop fl
oor, serving up to whoever wanted the toot, a gram at a time, no shit no tick, don’t try and find me, I’ll find you, I’ll be about. I had my round and I got a good reputation very quick so people would always wait until I showed up to be served. It’s like selling anything else, washing machines, blow jobs, handmade shoes – if you don’t take the piss people’ll always come back. Then I was one of the first guys to have a pager. On Friday afternoon and evening the fuckin thing used to light up like a fuckin toaster, every two minutes, beep, beep, fuckin beep, the fuckin thing would be going off. The fuckin thing got red hot. In the end I got so I resented making money. Well, that’s not true. What I got to resent was being at the beck and call of all these fuckers who, when I was nineteen and thought I knew it all, came across as real up-their-own-arse types but looking back they were okay, just okay. I hated being talked to like I was some kinda Joey, a fuckin delivery boy. I had stumbled upon the kinda yuppie come trendy come music biz come fashion crowd in the re-emerging Soho and they were all seriously wedged up and dying to get stuck into the product. I would take their readies just as quick as they were willing to part with it and I never got a moment’s grief. It was cash on delivery every time. They thought I was cute with a capital Kay, cherub-faced, turning up with the candy and then disappearing back into the night. I started to tell this crowd, who all seemed to know one another anyway, that in future I would only sort them out if the order was anything over quarter of an ounce, seven grams. The idea being that they club together, I do one drop and they do my distribution for me. If they wanted only a couple of grams they were to page another number cos I’d set up a couple of pals with pagers and little franchises of their own. We dealt on reputation and I still do.
So now I was shifting parcels I went to the Spanish guy I was getting my supply from and asked him for a better price cos I’m moving ninety per cent of the powder that moves through him and I think I deserve a bigger whack. He laughs at me and calls me a lippy little bastard, fucks me off with a real flippant take-it-or-leave-it attitude. Now I’m fucked. I’ve got two choices. I can wrap the operation up, spite myself with my own pride, or go back to the Spanish cunt and eat myself a great big shit sandwich and buy at his price until I can sort out something else, find another supplier, and that’s what I’d made up my mind to do. But out of the shadows appeared Mister Mortimer, the legendary pothouse of the parish, who had heard about my supply problems on the jungle telegraph.
I met Morty in a hotel bar in Knightsbridge. Mort likes a meet in a hotel bar, he still does. The lispy barman asked if I was old enough to drink alcohol, I got offended, Morty laughed, and the barkeep apologised saying, ‘I’ve got to ask, chuck, you understand.’ Morty told me to go back to the Span-yard wholesaler and the guy would be more sympathetic because he’d had a word and the guy wanted, wanted mind, to negotiate a fairer price. I musta asked Morty about ten times what he wanted outta the deal and every time he says he don’t want anything at this moment in time but in the future he may want something from me. I was young and I told Mortimer that if he wanted a fee to put the fix in to tell me now so I can make up my mind if it’s worth it or not. I didn’t like all this ‘One day I may ask you for a favour’ bollocks. I didn’t want to be beholden to any fucker no matter how much of a house-trained lunatic they were. I didn’t put it quite like that at the time. Morty was genuinely amused by my cocky attitude. He thought I had balls, he told me years later.
Mister Mortimer got up, shook my hand and walked out leaving me confused and I didn’t lay eyes on him for exactly another five years. I went back to the supplier who was really pleased to see me or at least made out he was. It was like something outta a Mafioso movie cos he’s givin it a large dose of the old ‘Shit, man, why didn’t you tell me you were an acquaintance of Mister Morty. I’m very, very sorry, man, about the misunderstanding, truly sorry I am, brother, all forgiven?’ routine. I drove his price down and fuckin down so he was fuckin robbing himself. He was sick and I could see it on his face no matter how hard he tried to disguise it. He wasn’t actually losing money but he musta been gutted that Morty decided to get busy cos I had made up my mind that I was gonna go in and pay the going rate. Years later I asked Mort what was it all about. He says he likes to see youngsters get ahead and he never liked the geezer, the Span-yard, always thought he was a slippery, smug cunt, halfa grass. Years later he came crawling to us to punt and I cut him a deal. I still didn’t like the guy but business is business. A while after that, three or four years ago in fact, I heard he got slung outta a fourth-floor apartment over in Dalston, landed on a railway track. I guess someone’s credit rating went outta the window so the Span-yard followed it out. The law found no drugs on the premises. Such is life.
Soon I’ve got five or six good pals working for me on a day-to-day basis. I supply them, pager and tackle, and point them in the right direction of where to unload it so we’re all making really fuckin good dough and times are truly good. We’ve got a Junior-Yuppie-Mafia thang going down, living the life, with JPG suits, Suzuki jeeps, Champagne and whistle all the way. I’ve got other guys starting to come to me for seriously large amounts and I’m running around all day sorting this shit out. The Span-yard got dropped out cos he couldn’t keep up and I eventually found what I’d been looking for, some guys out in leafy Highgate who could do the business big time, nicely low-key and nicely sensible. They wouldn’t touch the Naughty and neither would we. These guys didn’t blink as I called on more and more and more. It was just order, delivery, money, crash, see-you-next-time, I’ll be in touch.
I needed the supply sorted cos in ’86 the business went into orbit. It was like being around when those guys invented gunpowder. Everything changed overnight. Guys who’d spent their whole lives being paranoid and uptight, going around chiwing other uptight guys with Stanley knives and sticking glasses in each other’s boats, suddenly wanted to kiss and hug you after a couple of ecstasy. Very straight, square birds were downing Es at a rate of knots and getting chopped, fucked, in khazis. People were begging to pay three ching to party in a field up by the M25. I was doing the catering and could name my price and get it. It was a seller’s market. Guys were making fortunes so everybody wanted in.
It soon became amateur hour and guys who worked very sensible, very meticulous for the last couple of years started getting outta their heads. They became shunters. I’d sit them down and try to remind them that what we were engaged in was called crime. All I’d get for my trouble was a loada gobbledegook about freedom and love. They all started going weird on me. You’d go to collect money, and they’d be dancing round the gaff, arms in the air, button music blasting out at maximum volume, every waif and stray of the parish plotted up, poncing and earwigging. You’d try and find a guy you was working with and he’d have disappeared down to Ibiza, said he was going for a couple of days, and was still AWOL two or three weeks later.
One thing that really put me ahead in those days and keeps me ahead now is the simple fact that I don’t really like drugs that much. I’m not a fan. I can take ’em or leave ’em. I see them as just another commodity to be bought and sold and the fact that they’re illegal makes it more risky and so the rewards are higher for the guys who are bold enough and brave enough and who manage to stay ahead. It obviously helps if you ain’t out of the old canister all the fuckin time. Some guys deal cos they’re chasing a habit, they deal so they ain’t a shunter, they plunder all the profits, they have a loada mackerels hanging round to make them feel good about it, to feel a bit superior, but the reality is that they’re simply a better class of mug punter and when the star burns out and the show’s over the entourage move on to the next up-and-coming guy. I’ve tried everything I’ve ever sold. I’ve never tried the brown but then I’ve never punted it either. It’s not a moral thing with me, it’s just I know for a fact that to get involved in smack in London is just too much pure aggravation and the guys I deal with have got enough going on already. They let the Turks, the Chinks and the Indians
take care of all that. I don’t try and justify it, I just crack on and do it. Anyone who get webbed up in the brown get seriously dropped out cos it’s a known fact that they’ll bubble you up when they’re chucking.
The papers at this time, ’88, ’89, are full of scare stories about the evils of drug use and the cozzers are chasing round like madmen trying to put a few bodies away to make the big example of, to pacify their governors in the Home Office, to get the tabloids off their backs cos they’re writing it from the point of view that the kids are being corrupted and nobody’s doing fuck all about it. The reality as ever is that the kids are fuckin mad for it, can’t get enough of it, they don’t see a problem. What happened next is still the stuff of rumour and legend. A lot of guys started getting fitted up or the law would use agent provocateurs to set up drug deals and then move in and nick as many people as possible for being involved just to keep the body count up. Contrary to common belief, the Other People only really did this when they needed the result really bad. If they got caught out by some clever Queen’s Counsel up the Bailey they could end up in the dock themselves. Scotland Yard had a squad within the Squad to target the whole rave scene, to make arrests, to go undercover, to gather information through grasses, mostly small-time dealers they’d managed to turn informant in exchange for a squeeze if they got nicked anywhere in London. These little toe-rags had a licence to go to work with immunity. Everything on this scene was an open secret anyway and there was an awful lot of loose talk, people knowing stuff they shouldn’t by rights know. I began to get very seriously worried about getting captured or fitted up. A DJ I know for a fact had fuck all to do with any dealing got a seven-year sentence simply cos he was, very foolishly, sat in a motor when a trade went down. I began to see signs, omens, and decided to leave town for a while. I cashed in my chips and went to look up some pals down in Oz.
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