Powder Wars (7 page)

On my second week a huge German seaman just refused point blank to hand over his dough to the barman. There was no messing round in these situations – it was rule by rod of fear, literally. I hit him over the head with a baseball bat. Had a good run up as well, to be fair. But the baton just snapped like a chopstick over his skull and he was just left standing there. He picked me up and threw me across the room. But that was all civilian stuff. Silly stuff. I was too busy plotting and scheming to be bothered by sailors kicking off and that.

It wasn't long before I started letting in all the bad lads. I turned the Oslo into a den for meets, where the lads could come and sit down and have a meeting about this and that, without having to worry about the busies and none of that. There were a few places like that around town. Useful places, where the boys could come and do business. For instance there was the Jokers Club on Edge Lane near Littlewoods. It was 24 hours on the trot. There were card schools in there and all the gangsters would go there to discuss work. Not to have a good time and show off and that, but to organise things, to get all their ducks in a row before doing something.

There was another place called the Lucky Club. It was a seamen's club and if you were English you needed a letter from God to get in. But that was the point, Billy Grimwood could go in there and put together a blag and no one would understand nothing. The seaman would be halfway to the Pacific the next day. No witnesses to meetings, no surveillance, fuck all. So that was my template for the Oslo, know where I'm going? That's what I desired most.

For security I brought in my best mate Mick Cairns on the doors. I met him when I was 17, fighting on a ferry as it happens. He had hands like shovels. He could hangle violence. One night some gangsters chopped him up with a sword, hacked right down his spine and cut his back to ribbons. It would have killed most men, but he survived. He was also a good earner as well and if he had a good score, he'd kick some back to me – just good manners and that.

Not long after he started in the Oslo he came in with a huge haul of jewellery. He got £26K in cash there and then. He couldn't fit it all in a bag so we put it in a pillowcase. I told him to buy a house with it. A nice semi-detached was only about £2,000 then, so I figured he could have bought a mansion. The soft cunt spent it within a couple of weeks. Mainly on his family, to be fair, but he did like his drink too, Mick did.

We used to do little one-offs on our own. Stealing wagons and that, on the side. We served a bit of time in Walton for having a lorry load of sewing-machines off, but as well as muscle you needed to be Kofi Annan to keep everyone happy in the underworld. It was very diplomatical. There was a lot strife.

I noticed that one crew were coming in quite a lot. Tommy Cabana, Georgie Lawton and Poppy Hayes. They used to rob together; they were a crew. They were armed robbers, but they used to do snatches as well and other things. A few sneaks here and there. So after they started coming in the Oslo I'd go out robbing with them as well. They'd put me onto things, put some work my way. A bit of tribute, if you will. That's the way it worked.

Cabana was their car man, their get-away driver. Lawton was a big feller who could handle himself. He had a big neck, looked a bit like Arnie, in all fairness. Poppy had been driven near-insane by too much bird too young, staying in his cell for five stretches and refusing to come out, all of that. But they were fucking hard work, these fellers, totally uncontrollable. In fairness, some of it was half comical.

One night Poppy ran in the Oslo with nothing on and ran round. I told him to leave it out. The sailors did not want to see that kind of carry on, thinking it was a fruit bar and that. He looked half-cake, knowmean? Running around with his cock out and that. But he kept on coming in on his own and standing around and talking to people with fuck all on. The lads were chocca with it, to be fair. They'd be planning to go over the wall on some big caper or whatever and he'd be standing there bollocko in the meeting. I could never understand that kind of behaviour, but then they would do mad things, fucking stupid things, which would cause untold, and bring the heat on – literally.

They came into the Oslo looking for a bloke called Charley Krout. They were edgy and maniacal, knowmean? I got onto it straightaway, knowing there was going to be grief and to be honest I was looking for an easy night. Ritchie had called to say there was a Hole In The Wall job on and he wanted to come down and have a word. There were a few other bits and bobs that needed sorting. Suddenly Poppy Hayes gets hold of Charley and sets him on fire, there and then, in the bar. Poured lighter fuel on him and put a flame to it. Whoosh! Could not believe it, la.

The lad who I had on the door, Mick, ran over and was trying to put the flames out with his bare hands. Poppy and them were just laughing and wanting to do it again, finish him off as punishment. Mick was like: ‘What did you do that for, you silly cunts?' But then all three of them turned on Mick, and set him on fire, trying to properly human torch him with the lighter fluid and that. Could not believe what was going on myself, but luckily I was able to put it out with my hands and jacket and that. By that time I was fuming, la. Again literally. Had had enough. With Ritchie coming down and that. Did not pure need it, knowmean? I waded into these three clowns and it kicked off big time. There was a bit of a go-around in the bar, but me and Mick battered all three of them and threw them out.

Later that night it kicked off again. They waited for us to finish and tried to ambush us. This tit-for-tat thing went on for months. Boring to be honest, but what could you do with dickheads like these? They wouldn't let it go. If they seen me they attacked me on sight. Like Kato, la, off've the
Pink Panther
and that. No messing, there was always a big to do in the middle of the street; they just wouldn't let it go.

Two weeks later I was coming back from a Hole In The Wall job with my wagon full of swag. Sees Georgie Lawton driving his big American car round, sees red and tried to reverse over it. Then I jumped out and kicked fuck out of him. I hit him in the body with a metal bar, swinging at him with everything. Then when he went down I booted fuck out of his head. Smashed his skull. Left him for near-dead. But didn't kill him.

That happened a lot with villains. One day you'd be doing a bit of work together and the next you would be fighting. Way it goes. It was bad for business, in my book, but fellers like these lived and breathed violence. They were unpredictable. Even the big firms.

We were doing a lot of business with the Bennett family on the docks. Making a lot of money, to be fair. But one part of their family decided to go to war with the doormen in town, trying to take over and that. Their tactic was simple: drive-by shootings. Just drive by in a car and shoot up the door. No back answers. They were psychopaths. Then on the side, one of them declares his own one-man war against us at the Oslo and a few other clubs. Just because one them knocked him back one night. One night he shot up the door at the Oslo. He was a fitness fanatic who trained like he was in the SAS. He used to run down the Dock Road with a haversack full of bricks. He pulled up in a car on his own, wound the window down and blew the doors off. It was time to get armed. If this one tried it again I wanted to slot him there and then at the wheel of his jalopy.

A lad called Joey Duvall had started coming in the Oslo. I'd OK'd it. No sweat, he was. He just used to sit in the corner and play crib. He was an armed robber and gunrunner, a big hitter, in all fairness, and he'd started to do a lot of business in the Oslo. After the shootings, he told me come and see him at his flat in Picton Road the next morning. Joey pulled a load of guns out from under his bed and said: ‘You might need one of these. Take your pick.'

There were loads – revolvers, automatics, Magnums, Berettas – you name it. I settled for a .38, a silver one with pearl hangles [handles]. Better it was. Nice and small, but flash enough to be noticed. Which is important, by the way. Saves you having to use it half the time, knowmean, if folk know you've got one. Goes without saying that he didn't want nothing for it. Currying brownie points with yours truly, he was, Joey, buying himself a bit of a pass and that. Is right.

‘Any food [bullets] for this or what?' I asked. Joey gave me couple handfuls of ammo which I put in my kecks pocket: ‘Nice one.'

When I got back to the Oslo I put the gun on top of a little shelf above the door. It was one of those high doors of an old bank. All kind seemed to be coming in the Oslo. Later that day Paul Conteh popped in to see Joey Duvall. He was John Conteh's older brother. John Conteh was the world light heavyweight boxing champion at the time. Paul was an armed robber. They used to sit and plan armed robberies.

The Fitzgibbons family were coming back in. Even though I'd had murder with them I'd met a couple of them in prison on remand for something or other and we'd made up, but they were always kicking fuck out of people in there for no reason. I could never understand that.

On the first night they were allowed back in I found them kicking fuck out of someone on the door. I dragged one of these Fitzys into the toilet along with the feller they were twatting and stood between them. I couldn't work this Fitzy out. He talked with an American accent. You do get a lot of eccentrics in the underworld, in all fairness, but you'd get that in those days especially. People would go to the States on the boats or what have you and come back thinking they're Steve McQueen, knowmean?

So he'd started talking in an American accent. I told him: ‘You're not a yank. You're just one of us, you little tosser. Remember I used to protect you when you were on remand. I don't want any messing about in my club.'

Afterwards Mick's like that: ‘Bad one, la. Do you know who that is? You're going to bring it ontop talking gangster to that lot.'

‘Mick,' I said. ‘Forget about them beauties now. There's a proper gangster in town now, knowmean?'

Mick's still looking a bit half thingy though. Arse had gone, to be fair.

To keep things under control I put Joey Duvall on the door. I didn't mind all his behaviour as long as it didn't interfere with business, knowmean? At least he provided somewhere for the boys to sit and talk and not be interrupted.

Paul Conteh's firm were planning a big job in the Oslo. There was four of them; Paul, two brothers George and John Brown and Michael Maloney. They were all from Kirby. I didn't rate them much, in all fairness. They were typical of the new breed of armed robbers coming up, chancers, if you will, but they were half-all-right fellers and they used to sit in the corner and play crib whilst scheming on their big job. No hassle, knowmean?

It was going to be a bit of a mini Great Train Robbery. The plan was that they were going to rob a mail train chocca with registered goodies from London at a remote railway station on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. They'd got the idea after John had lived with the postman in Cornwall for a few weeks. And for about three months they sat in Oslo planning it.

Good plan and that, lads. But not going to happen for youse clowns. I only let them sit in the Oslo 'cos Joey asked me. I also warned him to tell his mates to give the work to someone who could hangle it, but they wouldn't listen and one day in July they set off for Cornwall. About two days later I heard they'd been nicked by a roadblock. The pricks had got pissed before the job and held up the wrong train.

Dickheads or what? Paul got three years and the others got fours and fives. I told Joey to stop letting in beauts like that, but by then he had started to think he was bit of a boy and that hisself, which he half was, to be fair. He gave Mick Cairns, the other lad on the door, a good hiding, to show him who's boss. To be fair, Mick had had a few drinks and was easy to take advantage of. I was too busy out grafting to put Joey under manners for it, which I should have, mind you, but it's fucking murder getting on top of these office politics. It'd take up most of your working day to solve just a few of these fucking playground disputes. So I told Mick to let it go.

‘It doesn't make you any dough, all this palaver, does it? Let's get on with business,' I said to him.

The door was a bit tense for a few days after that, to be fair. Then to clear the air Mick and Joey Duvall decided to have a straightener, but in the khazi of all places. ‘Bit daft that,' I thought. Mick got his leg caught in a pipe. Duvall held him down and took a running jump onto his knee. Just snapped in half like a lolly ice stick. Then he pummelled fuck out his grid. Looked like a dead body, in fairness, Mick did, afterwards. Could not let that go, at all, by the way.

I gets the call informing me of this incident while I was in a meeting with Billy Grimwood. I'd been on the missing list for a few days – away on business with the Hole in the Wall crew. I'd just got back and Billy was filling me in on another bit of business. A big crew from London wanted to ‘invest' a lot of dough into a large slice of Liverpool nightlife. So Billy was putting together a meeting between a handful of the city's nightclub owners and this London firm's top boy, a feller called Johnny Nash, who was heading north on the rattler.

There was a strong possibility of a go-around, so me and Billy were sorting out the security arrangements, so as to offer maximum protection for this Londoner. Not that Johnny Nash needed it. Johnny was huge in London at the time, super-heavyweight, if you will and he could hangle himself. Billy just wanted to make sure that all went smoothly, knowmean? No hassle off've beauts and that.

So I could have done without all of this squabbling doormen carry on, but I knew I had to do Joey in good and proper for his troubles and I figured that I could drive down to the Oslo, twat Joey, and get back to Billy in time to finalise the arrangements. Mick turns up. He's out of ozzie already and ten hours into a bender, his head wrecked with all this. I bought him a bottle of Bacardi to keep him happy.