Cocaine

by Donald Phillips

Chapter 12

  London, England, November 1997

  The man behind the desk put the phone down and flipped the intercom switch.

  "Terence, could you get yourself in here please".

  He released the switch and folding his hands behind his head stared up at the ceiling. After a few moments the door to the office opened and a stocky man walked in. At five feet eight inches he was not tall, but compensated for any lack of height in the way he carried himself and by the width of his shoulders. He walked like a professional boxer, with that certain jauntiness that tells other men that here is someone who can look after himself. He wore a light grey, hand tailored suit with a cream silk shirt and highly polished black shoes on his small feet. His tie was pink. He had a full head of tight curly blonde hair, very blue eyes and a baby-faced complexion, a tougher and stronger version of Wayne Doolan. If you looked carefully at the eyes you would see small signs that would disturb you if you found yourself at odds with him for any reason. For to the trained eye there was violence to be seen in Terry Beck's eyes and willingness, even eagerness to cause pain to others given the slightest excuse. He reached out and pulling a chair back, sat down and waited. At thirty-eight years of age he had learnt the art of patience.

  The man behind the desk continued to stare at the ceiling. He was almost the exact opposite to Terry Beck. Fifty-eight years old and balding, so that his black hair only formed a fringe around his skull, his eyebrows, ears and nostrils, sprouted an abundance of coarse black hair while his skin was a sallow yellow. At six feet three inches tall he was as thin as a whip although all his features were large and course. Big ears set low down on his head, a large Arabic nose and teeth that would not have looked out of place on a horse, were all there. However, the feature that most people remembered was his eyes. They were dark brown, but in anything but the best of lights appeared black and expressionless and they looked out at the world through stainless steel spectacles with small circular rims. They were strangely dead eyes. His hands, with their strong fingers and long yellowing nails, looked like claws and the overall effect was of a large and dangerous vulture. He wore an expensive dark blue suit, white shirt and royal blue tie. A heavy gold wristwatch was his only jewellery.

  The man's name was Thomas Jensen, although no one had ever been heard to call him anything other than Mr Jensen. Officially he was the Managing Director and owner of a chain of estate agencies, all purchased over the last fifteen years and all operating as totally individual companies. They were dotted around most of the UK's major cities, London, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow and Cardiff etc, and although they sold houses occasionally, they specialised in the rental business. That business would have given him a good living, but Jensen had an extremely profitable little sideline as he also organised for the Cartel the import and distribution of ninety percent of the hard drugs to enter Britain.

  Each of his estate agencies had its own manager, fully involved with Mr Jensen's little sideline and working on a payment by results system, for they were his distribution centres. At any one time each of them would have several empty properties waiting to be let that could be used as a one time only distribution centre as each load of drugs came in. As long as their results were acceptable Jensen's contact with them was restricted mainly to fax or telephone and they worked hard to keep it like that, as personal visit was not something any of them looked forward to. They had been known to be fatal.

  The whole system was beautifully simple. The drugs only came in from the continent every two months. This increased the loss if a shipment should be discovered, but the actual chances of detection were much slighter than with a smaller, regular supply, where the pattern of operation might soon be detected. So far the current system had defied the efforts of the Customs and Police to uncover it for over four years.

  The drugs always came in on articulated lorries that had been specially adapted to provide a concealed storage space. The Aluminium flooring panels were hollow and could hold some one hundred kilos of Crack Cocaine and occasionally, Heroin. A large German company that made daily deliveries of fruit and vegetables from all around the Mediterranean to the whole of Northern Europe owned the lorries and it had depots in Portugal, Spain, France, England and Germany, all with storage and maintenance facilities. If you had been able to trace the ownership of the Company, which is doubtful, you would have eventually found it to be a subsidiary of a giant East German food group, run and still entirely owned by one Gunther Hass. Just as in the unlikely event you had been able to trace the origin of the money that had put Thomas Jensen in business, you would have eventually discovered Henri Parsouel.

  The Spanish and Portuguese drivers the company employed were totally unaware of the extra cargo they carried and once they had made their delivery, they were on their way back home the following morning with a different trailer, usually carrying bags of fertiliser. The original trailers were unloaded and taken into a special maintenance bay, where under the pretext of routine maintenance they would be relieved of their illicit cargoes. After retrieval the drugs were taken straight to a London distribution centre. These varied, but they were always empty flats or houses supplied by one of Mr Jensen's four estate agents in that city. The goods were always delivered and sold in individual kilo packs. Any Pusher who couldn't afford to take a kilo at a time was not considered worth dealing with and any further split required could take place at street level between the small fry.

  The Pushers were not part of the Organisation. Most were freelances whose only contact with the Organisation was as clients. They ran their own turf battles to establish their trading areas, battles that did not involve the Organisation in any way. They were simply given a telephone number that was changed for each major delivery, through which they could place their order. The stuff was sold to them Cash On Delivery and woe betide anyone foolish enough to try to avoid paying or substituting funny money. Terry Beck was the Organisation's debt collector and he was a bad man to cross, besides which he really enjoyed the chance of a little rough stuff.

  Freelance pushers meant that Jensen did not have to worry about distribution at street level, the high-risk part of the distribution. Therefore, the drugs were never in the company's possession for more than forty-eight hours. After this all the risk lay with the pushers and Jensen & Co went back to being respectable Estate Agents. The only difficult part for the Jensen Organisation was the distribution to the pushers. Wholesaler to retailers as it were. Because of the way it was organised this part of the operation required a constant stream of people.

  The Organisation itself never had more than seventy people on its books at any one time to which it was giving legal employment. All but five worked in the various Estate Agencies with the vast majority of them being blissfully unaware of the use to which their companies were being put. The other five worked at the head office. Two were clerks engaged in the legitimate business of the company.

  Then there were Thomas Jensen, Terry Beck and another enforcer, Jimmy Ebbs. Ebbs was a gorilla of a man who followed Terry Beck around like a pet dog and was sufficiently frightening to make most people pay up immediately. He had lost an eye to a broken bottle during a public house brawl at some time and the scar ran from his forehead to his chin, crossing the now empty eye socket and the corner of his mouth on Its journey. Ebbs was not a naturally evil man, but his IQ was insufficient to get him any other sort of employment and he was eternally grateful to Terry for looking out for him. So when Terry said bash, he bashed. He also was completely unaware of the real nature of the business Terry was engaged in. This ensured the highest degree of security possible, and any other muscle needed was brought in when needed on a one off basis. The real headaches were with finding new distribution manpower and they had been forced to develop a couple of ways around it.

  The first was the ex-convicts grapevine. It was known in most of the country's prisons that if you wanted to earn some quick readies when you got out, Davey Cropp could put a bit of bu
siness your way that paid very well and quickly. This took care of the bulk of the distribution to other areas of the country from London and all of these were one-time deliveries where the carrier was not used again. Local distribution was different as known drug addicts carried this out. They made all the local drops and were usually used more than once as their services were cheap and they were kept at a sufficient distance from the organisation that their arrest or discovery was not a serious problem. This method might seem to be unnecessarily risky as addicts are notoriously unreliable. However, in this case the risks were not so great as it might at first seem. All the company's carriers were young and attractive single girls, all aged between eighteen and twenty-five and all living on their own. There were good reasons for this.

  Firstly, they had all rejected living at home, and usually along with that, what they considered to be the old fashioned and restrictive standards of their parents in favour of independence. Secondly, they were at that age where most young girls are desperately keen for someone to think they are rather special. Thirdly, they could usually be impressed by the attentions of an older man providing they were not too old and were good looking and financially sound. They were also more trusting under the right circumstances. Like after making love, when they were offered Cocaine and told that it was not really addictive, or that Heroin could be controlled by anyone with a modicum of willpower. But most importantly of all they were more physically vulnerable. The threat of permanent scars on their pretty young faces was usually enough to bring them swiftly into line. Finally, all men, even policemen, are always reluctant to think badly of a pretty young girl, which meant they had little chance of being stopped on suspicion. Pimps have used these methods for years to force young and vulnerable young women into prostitution. The organisation was merely using the same methods to supply a different market.

  The organisation of all this rested in the large hands of Thomas Jensen. The same Thomas Jensen who had lived in a small bachelor flat in Maida Vale for the past twenty years and of whom his postman, milkman, window cleaner and daily cleaning lady would have said, if asked, that he was a real gent of the old school. Never forgot your Christmas box and always had time to say good morning, unlike some of the stuck up buggers who lived around here. This same Thomas Jensen, a real gent who's secret life made millionaires out of evil men and led thousands of young and innocent children along the path to addiction, now unfolded those large hands from behind his head and bringing his eyes down from the ceiling, met those of Terry Beck.

  "David Cropp just rang in on the secure line." His voice had a flat metallic hardness and his speech was precise without any definable accent. "He has just had a call from an ex-con who is being forced to leave his native city and needs to earn some money."

  Beck smiled.

  "Another mule, Mr Jensen?"

  Beck's accent wasn't overly powerful, but nobody would have mistaken him for anything other than a native Londoner.

  "We need a load taking up to Glasgow at the end of the month." He continued. "Clean is he? I mean, not been raping little girls or sticking knives in policemen? You know, something that will have every copper in the country looking for him."

  Jensen let him run on while he thought, his eyes back on the ceiling. Terry Beck was his assistant, personal enforcer and totally reliable right hand man, but he wasn't a brain and needed regular instructions to function efficiently.

  "Shut up a minute, Terence and listen." He held up his hand and Beck was immediately all attention. "From what Cropp tells me this one is not just some small time crook who has been stupid enough to draw the attention of the local constabulary. He's a little more than that. It seems that at one time he was running a very successful little business in Liverpool. So well in fact, that for seven or eight years the local CID was growing ulcers worrying about it.

  "Oh, I see," said Beck, who didn't, "what does he need us for then?"

  Thomas Jensen smiled a smile that didn't touch those cold black eyes.

  "He forgot the Inland Revenue, Terence and went down for not paying his dues, that's what happened. And that is why all of you have proper jobs my boy, as well as your other work."

  His lips pulled back on the large teeth in what may have been a smile.

  "From what Cropp tells me, this friend of his is now an undischarged bankrupt expected to find honest employment. As this does not suit him he has decided to leave the pleasures of Liverpool and try his luck in London. This of course means breaking the conditions of his release so it has had to be carried out without the law's permission."

  "You mean he's taken off on his toes?" said Beck.

  He had never really got the hang of Jensen's old-fashioned type of delivery and consequently checked frequently to make sure he really understood what he had said.

  "Precisely my dear Terry. However, it seems that he has been bright enough to get himself a new identity. I think we may be able to use him more constructively than as a one time delivery man." He stroked his long nose with the talons of his left hand. "I have arranged for Cropp to have him installed at Mother's and I am going to leave him there for a few days to see if he has the ability and sense to sit still. In the meantime, I would like you to arrange for someone to check out on his story and find out anything else about him you can. Also ring the Edinburgh City Council Accounts Department and see if they can tell you anything about a Mr Graham King. Tell them we are doing a credit check as he is looking to rent one of our properties for a while," he paused, "and I don't have to tell you not to ring from this office do I, Terence?"

  "Mr Jensen?"

  Beck got up looking hurt and started to leave the room. He knew when an interview was over.

  "Terence!"

  He halted and turned.

  "Yes, Mr Jensen?"

  Jensen's lips writhed across the large teeth again.

  "We will need to know that Wayne Doolan, that's his real name by the way, is made of the right material to join our little organisation. Perhaps you could put your mind to a few little questions to see what he is made of." He saw the interest. "Yes, I thought you might like that. Talk to Davey Cropp and then come and give me your ideas in the morning will you."

  He turned his attention back to the papers on his desk and Terry Beck left.

  After four days in his attic rooms Wayne Doolan was getting restless. Not only was he not a great television fan, but also the absence of any type of reading material or a radio told him that this isolation was deliberate. His only contact with another human being was the three times a day that Mother brought him his meals and collected any laundry he had and after the first day, when his questions had only been answered by the angelic smile and a helpless little shrug of the shoulders, he had given up asking her anything. He had heard his downstairs neighbour come home at five o'clock the last three evenings, but he or she had left again within the hour and not returned until well past eleven o'clock. He had resolved to give it a week and then just pick up his bag and leave if nothing had happened and to hell with London. He'd head across the channel and down into Spain where he knew a couple of the ex-pats hiding out on the Costa del Sol. But on the morning of the fifth day things changed.

  He awoke as normal at seven thirty. He was normally an early riser and besides, he still had the prison clock in his head. He went to the small cubicle in the corner of the bedroom where he shaved, showered and cleaned his teeth. He then did a few press-ups and having dressed walked into the lounge to wait breakfast, usually served at nine. In the doorway he stopped dead. Sitting in one of the armchairs was a stocky man with tight curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes. His glance took in the expensive dark blue suit and hand made shirt and shoes before coming back to the bright blue eyes. The man waved his right hand in a gesture for him to sit in the other armchair.

  Although he did not want to lose any credits that his patience over the last four days may have brought him, Doolan knew instinctively that if he was too compliant this man would walk
all over him. He stayed in the doorway and leaning back against the frame casually put his hands in his pockets and crossed one ankle over the other.

  "So there are people alive in the world still, apart from Mother. Good morning, and what can I do for you?"

  Terry Beck scowled at him.

  "Sit down, Doolan. You and I need to talk a few things over sunshine and I don't have all day."

  Doolan smiled pleasantly.

  "I'm afraid I don't know any Doolan, or you, for that matter, but if you are interested my name is King, Graham king," he inclined his head, "and you are?"

  Terry Beck stared hard at him and for a moment Doolan thought that he was about to explode. Then the frown vanished and he smiled.

  "Well done mate. I take my hat off to you. A lot would have blown it coming at them first thing in the morning unexpected like that, but you fielded it pretty well. Now come and sit down."

  Doolan never moved. He smiled at the other.

  "Look friend, you have me at a disadvantage. You just appear in my flat at eight o'clock in the morning and address me by the wrong name and as far as I know you could be anybody. A burglar, a nutter or even a copper, so why don't you tell me who you are and what you want"... he held up a hand. "No, from there please."

  Beck appeared to consider this for a few moments and then he nodded and sat back down in the armchair.

  "Fair enough."

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, relaxing his muscles visibly.

  "You rang one Davey Cropp and asked if he knew how you could earn some quick money. Well Davey works for me. He's got a proper job of course that the Probation Service found him, driving a van for Lambeth Council, but that's just for pocket money and to keep him nice and legal. I give him his real wages."

  Doolan nodded. "Yes, I can see the implications."

  Terry Beck beamed.

  "Yes, I heard you were a bright boy." He waved his hand around the room. "This is what you might call a safe house. Sorry Its been a bit boring my old son, but you see we had to keep you somewhere while we did some checking on you and the story you gave to old Davey." His eyes glittered. "After all, you could have been anybody couldn't you? Con man, nutter or even a copper's nark."

  He scowled.

  "Be very glad you weren't the last one because Mother has a bit of a temper sometimes."

  Doolan wondered if they were thinking of the same person.

  "Anyway, you checked out OK. It seems that the local law in Liverpool think that you've skipped the country with a large sum of money and that you probably left on the day you nicked it." He lifted his hands palms up. "Destinations offered range from the Costa del Sol to Australia and even South America." He pointed again to the other armchair. "Now sit down because we need to talk."

  The last was said in a normal voice but there was no doubting it was a command. Doolan left the doorway and lowered himself into the other armchair. Beck picked up the phone and dialled a single digit.

  "Mother, we're ready for breakfast now."

  He put the phone back down. Doolan raised his eyebrows.

  "I suppose the television is working on all pistons again as well?"

  Beck snorted.

  "The phone has been working normally all the time. Lucky for you that you didn't try to use it or you would have been back in the street in double quick time. Now let me see the passport and driving licence you nicked."

  Doolan fetched them from his holdall and handed them over. Beck picked up the driving licence first and examined it with professional competence.

  "This might be useful if you ever got stuck for one. I mean, if you wanted to hire a car in a hurry in another name, this would do fine. But, Its got a Edinburgh address and your going to be living in London. If you got stopped on a routine check they could phone straight through to Swansea and in minutes they'll know from the number its nicked and then you would be. When it is reported stolen or lost they put its number on a special listing." He put the licence in his inside pocket. "Like I said, we can use it for a one off job."

  He picked up the passport.

  "Now this is better. If the owner reports it lost, and if he's going to Australia he will have to get a replacement, his new one will have a different number." He tapped it against the heel of his left hand. "However, the only time they really check passports, apart from making sure that its your mug inside it, is when they are looking for someone specific or a specific passport." He looked at Doolan. "Now what do you think the real Graham King is going to do when he finds it missing."

  Doolan considered a few moments before answering.

  "Well all his money is in Australia and he wants to join it, so he's got to have a passport." He paused for a moment. "But I don't think he's the sort of bloke that will want to go down to the police station and say that he got pissed and lost it. I reckon first of all he'll visit all the pubs we went to and ask if anyone has found it."

  He ran his fingers through his hair.

  "When that doesn't work he will have to go to the police, but I think he will say he was having a quiet drink in a pub and got talking to a stranger who nicked them when he went for a leak". He shrugged. "That's just my reading of his character of course and I'm biased because I never liked him."

  He grinned a cocky grin.

  "But don't think he will mention me, because he would have left the briefcase behind at least twice if I hadn't remembered it and I don't think he will give them the name of someone who might tell them he was pissed out of his skull when he lost it. I nicked these in the last pub we visited, by which time he was so bad I had to bribe a taxi driver to take him home and he didn't know I was just out of Prison on probation anyway."

  Beck nodded.

  "OK. Give him time to get a replacement and leave the country and I think you will probably be all right to use this identity for a couple of years." Beck sat back and scratched at his ear, his blue eyes looking directly into Doolan's. "Right then, how do you feel about drugs and I don't mean wacky Baccy, I mean the hard stuff. Cocaine, Heroin, Crack."

  His voice remained the same but his whole demeanour told Doolan that they were reaching the crux of the conversation. He answered carefully and surprisingly for him, honestly.

  "Personally I have never touched the shit and never would. I don't understand how anyone with half a brain could. But if your asking if I object to the stuff on moral grounds the answer is no. If people want to commit slow suicide then that's their affair. I've supplied tobacco and booze very profitably in the past and they can be considered addictive, drugs are just another commodity as far as I can see."

  Beck's attitude gave no indication of how this had been received.

  "Tell me Graham", the use of his stolen identity was not lost on Doolan, "if you were running a nice profitable little business and someone tried to muscle in on it, what would your reaction be."

  Doolan yawned. "Ask Davey Cropp."

  He didn't see Terry Beck put his foot under the bottom of his chair and the first thing he knew was when it crashed over backwards, taking him with it. His head hit the floor with a bump and the breath was driven from his lungs. He saw the red light of anger against his eyelids and went to roll over to get to his feet and crush this cocky shit. He never made it. As his arms took his weight they were kicked away and he crashed back down on his face. He saw the highly polished shoes about a foot from his face and he waited for the kick to come. It never happened, but the voice that reached him was hard and sounded anxious for him to give it the chance to prove how good it was at the rough stuff.

  "Now listen, Sonny. When I ask a question I expect an answer. Not an invitation to go and ask someone else the question. Savvy?"

  Doolan felt that careful as he had been, he had under estimated this man. Still, mustn't cave in completely. He lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender and looked up in time to see Doolan folding up the flick knife and slipping it back into his jacket pocket.

  "Look, I've been caged up in
here for four days with no one to talk to except Mother three times a day, and with the best will in the world you couldn't call that conversation. But all this time you've been checking me out." He shrugged. "Davey works for you, you told me so. I assumed that you already knew the answer and that it was a rhetorical question."

  Beck's anger began to fade. He lifted the chair upright and waved Doolan into it.

  "I can't spell rhetorical and I make a point of not using words I can't spell, so don't you try to give me a load of bullshit. You just answer the fucking questions."

  Doolan nodded. He concentrated.

  "Four, or perhaps five years ago, I was well set up in Liverpool as the local Mr Fixit. If you wanted to get rid of something or get hold of something, I was your man, for a fee of course. Then one day I got a visit from two blokes who told me that from now on I would need insurance to operate. It was all very simple. I gave them twenty percent of everything I received and in return they made sure that nobody else bothered me or broke my legs."

  He shook his head and smiled in remembrance

  "In some ways it was amusing. You see no one else was going to bother me anyway. As far as the rest of the criminal fraternity were concerned I was probably the safest man in Liverpool. They needed me and I knew where all the bodies were buried. Basher Davis though, was a different kettle of fish. He'd run a union protection service among the Dockers for years, all on non-violent policy of weekly payments. Non-violent that is as long as you paid. Anyway, with the decline of the Dockers as a political force and in the introduction of containers, his paying public had dwindled to the stage where he was looking around for new sources of income. To his simple mind I must have looked the ideal victim. No large organisation to back me up, a yearly income of around fifty thousand, untaxed and at only five feet seven and ten stone I must have looked like a pushover."

  Beck's face now showed keen anticipation.

  "What happened then? How did you sort him out?"

  Doolan smiled as he told him.

  "Very simply really. I became my own customer."

  He grinned at the other's puzzled expression.

  "Think about it. I had been fixing things for people for years in Liverpool. I knew all the villains".

  He shrugged.

  "I rang a bloke who had come to me regularly to get rid of some Irish Punts in exchange for Sterling or US dollars. They were usually still in their Bank of Ireland wrappers, but I didn't ask questions as Its all business. Still, I had a pretty shrewd idea that he would know some very hard men. So I told him I had a customer who was being bothered and that he was prepared to pay ten thousand to have the flies swatted. He asked only for the names and half the money in advance. Two weeks later the two blokes that had visited me were in intensive care after a large lorry ran their car into the side of a warehouse. Next day Basher Davis had a fatal accident at the docks when a large and heavy packing case fell on him." He shrugged again. "I paid them the rest of the money and end of problem."

  Terry Beck nodded, a new respect in his eyes. "And the prison incident?"

  Doolan looked at him in surprise.

  "You haven't been in Prison have you?"

  The other gave a smug grin and a shake of his head. Doolan explained the facts of prison life to him.

  "Well believe it or not there is a distinct shortage of women in there and like in all walks of life there are a percentage of gays, except in there they are usually harder than average. By the same token some supposedly straight blokes who have been there for a few years, get aching balls and decide that a nice looking young man might make a good substitute after all. This big fat Jock thought so about me. I disagreed and told him so with a Stanley knife Davey Cropp got me from the craft shop. Lost two months remission on my sentence, all served in the trouble makers block, but I didn't get bothered again."

  Terry stood up and put his hand out.

  "Terry Beck."

  Doolan also stood and took it with some relief.

  "Look, from now on your Graham king. In about three months, provided your namesake has actually left for down under, you are going to assume his identity. We will set you up in a flat and we will move say fifty thousand into a bank account so that you can play the part of a lucky bastard who's just had a lot of money left to him. All right? And if you play the game with us that will just about be your first six months salary."

  Doolan's surprise showed clearly on his face.

  "Yeah, That's right. And then you will sign on as a mature student at the local Art College” He ignored the look of surprise on Doolan's face and continued. "In the meantime, until I or someone else calls for you, you will stay here. I'll get the tele fixed and a radio sent in, but don't use the phone. I'll also send in a young lady who will cut your hair in a different style and measure you up for some different clothes. We can't make you look like the real Graham King, but we can make sure that you don't look so much like Wayne Doolan anymore."

  He got more serious.

  "After that you will spend some time with me learning how the drugs business works, cos when you sign on for that art course your starting your new job and with your previous experience I will expect you to be good at it." He paused for breath. "Welcome aboard, Graham."

  And for the next eighteen months that is who he became.