by V E Rooney
Anyway, so Jimmy is out of prison, he’s back in Liverpool and he’s trying to get pally with all the main men in town, scouting out potential suppliers, sniffing around for a way in. He’s desperate for a piece of the action. But he’s already got a reputation as a head-case, a troublemaker, and people are swerving him. All his attempts at trying to break into the heroin business in Liverpool come to nothing.
It’s not just because he’s the proverbial loose cannon who is well-known to the authorities by now. It’s because all over town, Jimmy’s habit of roughing up women is not endearing him to people. I’m not just talking about slapping his girlfriends around and putting them in hospital with broken jaws and cracked ribs. Even some of the prostitutes don’t want his money. He has a fondness for, you know, slap and tickle of the worst kind. Rough stuff. Real nasty, stomach-churning stuff. The only prozzies who will go with him are the ones who are strung out on the smack themselves and who have no choice if they want to feed their kids. Word gets around town very quickly that he is cutting them with knives, razors, burning them with ciggies. There are even rumours that he likes them young. Under-age schoolgirls.
I know it sounds mad, but you’ve got to remember that most of the men in the business, no matter how notorious they are for dishing out violence themselves, cannot abide the thought of hurting women and children. They can be old-fashioned like that. Actually, that’s the wrong phrase. There’s nothing old-fashioned about it at all. It’s basic human decency. Most of the men have families of their own and they cherish their women and kids because they know that there but for the grace of God, they could end up in jail or dead. Even the players like Sean, the ones who are footloose with no interest in settling down or having families themselves…well, crews are like families. Everyone looks after each other. Sometimes they’re the only families some crims have ever known.
And there’s this criminal code, you see. You don’t hurt innocent people, you only dish out physical pain to other crims. Leave the civilians alone. Especially women and kids. So our Jimmy has the unenviable infamy of being one of the nastiest bastards around. When even hardened crims who have seen their fair share of thuggery are turning their noses up at Jimmy, when the roughest prozzies in town, the ones who have seen and done everything, are warning the street girls to stay away from him, you know you’ve got a right psycho here.
Even though nobody in Liverpool will touch the cunt with an electrified cattle prod, Jimmy knows that if he can just get enough money together and make the right connections, he can start bringing in heroin through the docks and sell it on. The jammy bastard’s got a cousin working at the docks unloading the shipping containers, so he’s already got an inside man he can tap up to help him. Well, you know, that’s how a lot of crims in Liverpool – robbers, smugglers and dealers - got started after World War II onwards. They had mates and relatives working at the docks, in the port, and security was piss-poor. Whole containers filled with contraband were getting lifted and driven out through the gates, right under the noses of the Police and Customs.
Anyway, Jimmy makes a few calls to some of his old prison pals and he gets put in touch with this Bulgarian lad down in London. I don’t know this Bulgarian’s name. Jimmy goes to London and meets up with some Turkish associates of the Bulgarian, and you know that the Turks are the main suppliers of heroin, right? Well, when Jimmy and the Turks get together, it’s a fucking match made in heaven, isn’t it? The Turks have access to heroin not just in their own back yard but coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan into Turkey. They’ve got well-established smuggling routes over land and sea, through the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and from there into Western Europe.
The Turks are dying to get their product across the UK because so far, they’ve not had much success in establishing links with the Liverpool gangs. It’s mostly the London-based gangs they’re doing business with, because there’s a large Turkish and Kurdish community in London round places like Hackney and Haringey and the Turks have plenty of connections in place there. So most of their heroin stays in the southeast and around London. But the Turks want to go nationwide, you see, but they’re locked out of the north because heroin there is coming from old, established gangs who don’t take kindly to foreign newcomers turning up.
So you can imagine how happy the Turks are when Jimmy turns up on their doorstep. Here’s this hard case Liverpool crim who is giving them cast-iron guarantees that he can get their product through the port of Liverpool and from there into Manchester, Leeds and so on. But Jimmy hasn’t got the cash to do a bulk order. He’s a got a bit tucked away and he can pool a bit of money from his contacts but not enough to bring in the kind of quantities he’s thinking about. All he needs from the Turks is some up-front credit to get started so he can get the product in and start selling.
So it’s 1985 by now. The Turks decide to give him a trial, to see if he can live up to his word. It’s a really small shipment, eight kilos worth around £160,000 wholesale, which comes in on a container ship from Yugoslavia. Jimmy has no trouble getting that into the back of a van at the docks and and then, with the help of some old prison mates who are now free, he stamps on it. Eight kilos quickly becomes 10 kilos. Then, each kilo is is split into four lots of 250 grams each, and each lot of 250 grams is then divided into nine ounces, because there are 28 grams per ounce, right?
Those nine ounces are stepped on again, so now he’s got 12 ounces he can sell at between £700 and £900 per ounce. At this point in the process, each kilo is now worth around £38,000 to £40,000. So that’s 10 kilos worth between £310,000 and £330,000 in total. Jimmy has nearly doubled his money already just by cutting it down and mixing in baking soda, sugar, fucking talcum powder and what have you.
With each ounce worth £700 to £900, it can be split down again into 28 grams, which in those days would sell on the street for between £50 and £60 per gram, which now gives Jimmy around £1,300 to £1,500 per ounce, so he’s doubled his money again, yeah? When he splits each of those 28 grams down into 10 units of 0.1 grams at £10 each? His 10 kilos of product now have a street value of anywhere between £1.3 million and £1.5 million. The rule of thumb with drugs and especially heroin is that with every stamp and subsequent split into smaller measures, you’re making bigger profit margins the smaller the measure gets. So now you can see why he was so desperate to make friends with the Turks, yeah?
Jimmy has no problem shifting the gear at those prices on the street. Not only is he selling it cheaper than the other dealers, because he’s known as Mr. Psycho, he has no trouble persuading the smaller dealers around to start getting their smack from him otherwise they’ll be quadraplegic in no time. He’s got his mates and enforcers going all over the northwest doing the same thing and within a couple of months, he’s locked down the heroin market for himself and he’s sold out of stock. Well, the Turks are fucking made up, aren’t they? They can’t believe their luck. He’s Golden Bollocks to them.
The Turks have loads of couriers based in London and they are going backwards and forwards between Liverpool and London several times a month to pick up the cash from Jimmy, bring it back to London and wash it through their networks of travel agents, rental agencies, foreign exchange bureaus and what have you before other couriers take it out of the country and back to Turkey.
Jimmy starts upping the quantities of his orders, and the Turks are only too happy to up his credit. He’s travelling to Turkey every month to meet the main men over there and organise shipments. Pretty soon he’s organising deals for 40 kilos, 60 kilos and he’s making so much money that he starts to build up his own little property empire. He’s throwing his money around like he’s allergic to it and can’t get rid of it quickly enough.
He’s strutting around Liverpool and making sure to let everyone know that he’s one of the main men now, and people had better start showing him some fucking respect. He’s got the bought and paid-for women on each arm, he’s got a fleet of super cars, the posh apartment on the waterfro
nt, the works. He’s turning up at pubs and clubs owned by rival crews and goading the bouncers into a punch-up, waving wads of cash in their faces, asking where their bollocks have gone, and telling them to kiss his arse and lick his boots good and proper.
He opens his own security company and starts supplying his own bouncers to a few pubs and clubs. Small time at first, mostly round Bootle and Scotland Road area. Well away from Sean’s patch on the south side. And if the owners and licencees rebuff his approaches? They can either accept his kind offer or find their premises burned to the ground. And he means it. And this is when Jimmy and Sean come into contact for the first time. It’s 1987. Sean is running security at a pub in Tuebrook. And Tuebrook happens to be the area where Jimmy was born and dragged up. Sean fills me in on his first encounter with Jimmy.
My lads are on the door. It’s a quiet place, only got busy at the weekends. It’s not one of the places you’d expect to see crews hanging about in. It’s just your average, working man’s boozer. But tonight, it’s a private party for some kid’s holy communion and my lads are there to make sure no uninvited scallies pile in. And I’m in the area so I drop by to have a chinwag with the lads.
Then, this fucking white and gold American Cadillac pulls up outside. Left-hand drive, American reg plate, tail fins and everything. So I’m thinking, maybe it’s a special hired car for the kids, treat them to a ride in a Caddy, you know.
But then one of my lads is going, “Fucking hell, it’s Jimmy Powell’s car. Fucking head-case.” Straight away I’m thinking, who the fuck is this wanker driving round in a thing like that? His driver gets out, opens the rear door.
And then Jimmy steps out, carrying on like he’s the fucking Godfather. The fucking fat twat is in this shiny pin-stripe silver suit, like in those old gangster films, and he’s even got one of those poncey fur collar overcoats thrown over his shoulders, cigar hanging out his gob, gold chains jangling all over the place. Then his two dolly birds step out the back of the Caddy. Fucking dog-rough, girl. Tits bursting out their tops and skirts so short you could see the minge. Fishnet stockings, the works. They couldn’t have been older than 16 and they’re hanging off this 40-year-old piece of shit. Tell you the truth, girl, I was disgusted. It was sickening.
So he’s fronting up my lads on the door. “Evening, lads, how’s business, how about you stand aside and let me in.”
So my lads are like, “Sorry, mate, private party tonight.”
So then he gets all huffy. “Don’t you fucking tell me where I can and can’t go, move out my fucking way.”
So I step forward and stop him coming in. I look him straight in the eye and I say, “Sorry, lad. It’s not fancy dress tonight either.” Well, his fucking face drops, doesn’t it. He does not like that one bit. So he fronts me.
“What did you fucking say?”
“You have come as Liberace, haven’t you?”
Oh, should’ve seen his face, girl. He went purple at that. So then I say, “And there’s no way you’re coming in here, not with those two. If they’re over 18, I’m a fucking pensioner. So get back in your wanker wagon and fuck off.”
Well, he shakes off the girls and he squares up to me. “Do you know who I am, half-breed?”
So I say, “What’s the matter, mate? You got fucking Alzheimer’s?” And then I nod at the girls. “These your nurses? In case you shit your pants and need your arse wiping?”
I swear down, girl, I thought his eyes would pop out his fucking head. He can’t believe it. I can see he wants to swing at me but he knows I’m not backing down and he’s outnumbered, even with his dickhead driver bringing up the rear. So it’s Mexican stand-off time. He knows he’s not getting past me and I know I’m not backing off him.
So after a bit, he does this sneer, looks me up and down and says, “I hope you enjoyed that. Because when I catch up with you, I’ll make you fucking regret you ever opened your big mouth to me, you fucking coon.”
My lads want to pile on him after that but I just give him this smile and say, “Well, you’d best start running, you fat fuck. I’ll wait for you while you get your breath back, eh? Now get fucked, you cunt.” So he drives off and then the lads fill me in on what a cunt he is and what he’s done to people. Honestly, girl, some of the things…I don’t even want to tell you, you’d be sick.
So a few days later, I’m hearing all kinds of things from various people, how Jimmy Powell is gonna string me up by my bollocks for making a cunt out of him, how I’d better leave the city if I know what’s good for me. And I’m pissing myself laughing. The stupid bastard thinks I’m a bog-standard bouncer and he’s gonna make me run off with my tail between my legs, and he doesn’t even realise how much of a fucking joke he is to everyone.
Even some of the lads from rival crews are coming up to me when I’m out in town, saying things like, “Look mate, I know he’s a prick but he’s serious, he’s after you. Mind out.” I’m not even bothered. I’d take great pleasure in crippling that cunt myself.
So a few weeks after the Tuebrook thingy, I’m in the Casablanca with some of the lads and we’re all having a fine time because we’ve got contracts coming in from all over the place. I’m pretty much running security for half the places in town. But I keep it quiet, you know? I don’t go round bragging about it, you know me, I like to keep things off the radar.
So we’re in the Casa, and then one of the Casa regulars, this bird Sheila, she comes running in, saying that Jimmy’s just been dropped off outside and he’s on his way in. So I’m like, well, this should be fun.
In he walks, in all his fucking finery again, more dolly birds trailing after him, couple of his lads behind him, he’s all puffed up. And then he spots me as he’s walking over to the bar. Fucking stops dead in his tracks when he sees me. So I just raise my glass to him and carry on drinking with the lads.
The whole gaff goes dead quiet because they’re expecting it to kick off big time. He doesn’t know whether to come over to me or pretend like he hasn’t seen me. He stands there like a prick for a few seconds and then he goes to the bar. I can see him in the mirror behind the bar, he can’t stop staring at me. His crew are all whispering to him so I can tell something’s brewing. But I’m dead calm. I’m the one in control and he’s the one stewing because he knows I’ve seen him and now I think he’s an even bigger cunt than he was before.
Next thing, one of the bar staff comes over with a big fuck-off bottle of champagne, saying, ‘compliments of Mr Powell and would you be so kind as to join him for a drink.’ So for a split second I’m like, maybe the cunt is mellowing in his old age. Maybe his lads have talked some sense into him. Stranger things have happened. So me and my lads get up and walk over to see what’s what. Jimmy steps forward.
“Sean, is it?”
“Aye.”
“Listen, lad. About the other week. Think you and I got off on the wrong foot, didn’t we?”
I don’t say anything, I’m just staring at him.
“Seeing as we’re in the same line of work, looks like we’re gonna be seeing each other around. How’s about we shake hands and put it behind us?” And he gets this shit-eating grin spreading across his face and sticks his hand out.
Thing is, girl, I’m still smarting about those half-breed and coon remarks. And there’s no sorry, no apology from him. He just expects me to bow down just because he bought a cheap bottle of bubbly, to show everyone that he’s the big man. Fuck that.
So I go, “I’m not touching your hand, I know where it’s been.”
One of his lads goes, “Come on, Sean, don’t be like that.”
So I go to Jimmy, “You expect me to shake your hand? I’ve a good mind to get that bottle and ram it down your fucking throat, you racist, kiddy-fiddling piece of shit.”
So then his mask falls off properly, doesn’t it? He’s spitting at me. “You fucking cunt. I could fucking buy and sell you ten times over, Sambo. You are a fucking dead man.”
By this time, my lads and his l
ads have stepped between us and are holding us apart. The Casa’s bar staff are screaming at us to take it outside. Just then some of the Casa drinkers come over and stand beside me and my lads. Jimmy really is an unpopular cunt. He gets the message that he’s on the losing side, loses his bollocks and his lads pull him away. He’s still spitting insults at me as his lads drag him out.
After that, I didn’t see him again for a while. He was going backwards and forwards to London, to Turkey…building up his own business.
So now it’s 1989. Jimmy’s cornered the heroin market and the cheeky cunt is even taxing smaller dealers around Liverpool and the northwest. He’s wise enough to know that he doesn’t tax any of the big dealers with connections in case they come after him, so he goes after the small-time independent operators, people he knows will be intimidated by him. Obviously some of the bigger crims around are not happy with this but no one wants to take him on because they know it could blow up their own businesses. Plus nobody wants to make an enemy of the Turks he’s dealing with. Everyone knows he’s protected. So the twat thinks he’s untouchable.
He puts together another heroin shipment, this time for only 50 kilos as the Turks have a bit of a supply problem their end. The shipment is coming in through Liverpool docks, same as before. Only this time, the busies are on the case and they swoop on the shipment just as one of Jimmy’s lads is driving it through the gates. Which was a bit stupid, in my opinion. The busies could’ve tailed it and waited for it to be delivered to the main man himself, but I guess they were impatient.