The Guv'nor

by Lenny McLean

  A year later he was found dead with a bullet in his head. I’ve got to be a bit careful with this one because a lot of people were pulled in over his killing. I had a problem with him and some reckoned I had him straightened but, on my Val’s life, I never did. If I tell somebody a grudge is finished, it’s finished. I stand by my word and don’t sneak up on anyone. Apart from that, I’m a fist-fighter, I don’t need guns to hide behind. He was on drugs – he was taking liberties all round. He got what he asked for.

  That was before the fight. After I’d fucked off Quinn, I said to York, ‘You can close your mouth now.’ He was wondering what he’d let himself in for, and had probably never seen anybody blow up like I’d just done in his whole life. ‘It’s too late to change your mind now, old son … see you in the ring.’

  Like I said, the big fella got his about five minutes after. So I’m back in the dressing room and, with no door on, I can see him being carried in, still spark out. The next thing I know, some bloke’s on my ear’ole.

  ‘Hello, Mr McLean. My name’s Jack Iandoli. Bernie Cole’s given me your address but I knew you were fighting here tonight so I thought I’d come and have a word.’

  I said, ‘What do you want, a challenge? Who you fronting for?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘what I want to put to you is … have you ever considered having a film made about your life?’

  I gave him the old cross-eye. ‘If you’re taking the piss you’ll be the third one to get a bollocking tonight.’ Anyway, he assured me he was on the level and would I at least think about it. I was ready for home and my Horlicks so I said, ‘Gimme a bell sometime and we’ll have a talk.’

  When he came out with it, at first I thought he was a nutter. Who’d want to pay tuppence-ha’penny or whatever to see a film about me? Two minutes and the punters would be asleep. After a bit, though, my nut starts to tick over. Perhaps it’s not so stupid. I’ve been pretty busy most of my life.

  I’m the toughest minder money can buy, an unbeatable street-fighter, and everybody knows I’m the Guv’nor. Now that would make a blinding title. I can just see it over the local Odeon: Lenny McLean – The Guv’nor.

  When the fella gave me a ring a bit later, I was ready for the camera to start rolling. It wasn’t as easy as that though. First, a film script. I said to Jack, ‘Remember, I’m no writer – fighting’s my game, so I don’t know what you expect.’

  ‘No, Len, leave all that to me. You give me the facts, I’m a brilliant writer, I’ll do the script.’

  I thought, ‘I don’t know about writing but I know you ain’t fucking modest.’

  So we got together. He stuck a tape-recorder on the table and away I went. I told him all about the fights – this one, that one. How I got started, all about the different people involved – Kenny Mac, Ritchie, Frank Warren, and on and on. When I told him about the American fight he nearly came off the chair. ‘Oh yes, great – oh yes, super angle.’ I suppose it was – I never gave it a thought at the time.

  For the first couple of weeks after he’d gone off to put it together, I couldn’t wait to see what he’d made of it. Then a month went by and it started to go out of my head. If I’m doing something, I want it now, otherwise I’ll park it up. I gave him a few rings, but he told me he was still cracking away. So I thought, ‘Oh bollocks, I’ll get back to work.’

  Giving you a few clues about my life over the years might give the impression that I get up in the morning and start fighting people until I go to bed. What I’m leaving out is the ordinary parts, the good parts that make life worthwhile: my two smashing kids growing up; their first little steps; taking them to the zoo; watching them in Christmas Nativity plays at school; teaching them to ride a bike. All these things make a happy life. And, of course, there was Val and me. The older we got, the closer we became. Again, it’s the little things that make life happy.

  Going to shows or out to dinner with good people, or just sitting indoors watching telly and having a cuddle, all that is miles and miles away from how I brought bread into the house. I lived in two worlds – one by choice and the other by necessity, because that’s all I knew. So my life wasn’t all violence, but sometimes it seemed like it. It’s like waiting for a bus. You stand in the pissing rain for two hours, then four turn up nose to tail.

  It must have been the silly season down the club because there was no end of aggro. Usually the job’s nice and steady. All I’ve got to do is sit in the back drinking coffee. The word’s out that Lenny’s minding the place and that keeps everything nice.

  I was relaxing with a nice lemonade in the back of the club when one of the other minders came over to tell me I was wanted out front. When I got to the door there was this big black guy fronting a little mob of brothers. He was done up like some African chief – funny hat like Tommy Cooper’s stuck on his head, and a full-length afghan, bright enough to knock your eyes out. I can see trouble written right across his mug.

  ‘You McLean, the Guv’nor?’ he says.

  I know what he means but I keep calm. ‘Yeah, I’m Lenny McLean, but I only work here, I’m not the governor.’

  He gives his mates a look and a wink. ‘I’m Cool Ken from Peckham and I could do with a job on your door.’

  ‘Sorry, pal,’ I said, ‘we’re all fixed up. Leave your name at reception and we’ll get back to you if we get any vacancies.’ He knows he doesn’t want work, I know he doesn’t want work, but we’re both going through it.

  He finished by saying, ‘How about if I had your job?’

  I said, ‘That’s it, you black c**t, I reckon you’ve come here to make a name for yourself in front of your firm of wankers, so let’s go to work.’

  Crash – right hand, over he went. Quick left and he’s spark out. The brothers didn’t know whether to join in or run away. I ran at the five of them and gave them a growl, and they all shot out the door. There’s loyalty. I returned to Cool Ken. He was still out, but I hadn’t finished with him. Anyone comes looking for a reputation, I’ve got to hurt them. So while he was unconscious I hit him six or seven times in the face. Now just in case you’re thinking I’m a bit of vicious bastard, remember, this guy was bigger than me and thought he could take me out. He made a mistake and paid the price. When he woke up he’d think twice about trying the same stunt again.

  This fella’s mates had disappeared, so I said to one of my blokes, ‘Get rid of him … I’m going to finish my lemonade.’ Five minutes later he came back for a word. His tie was all over the place and his shirt was hanging out, so I thought the mob had come back and had a go. I said, ‘What’s up, pal?’

  He said, ‘Len, I can’t lift him. He’s about 19 stone.’

  ‘Use your loaf, roll the c**t and make sure you bang his head on every step.’ So he was rolled round the back and parked up. I don’t know if he lived or died, and I never heard from that little lot again.

  A bit later, I got the hump with another black geezer. Nothing to do with the colour of his skin, because as far as I’m concerned there’s only two kinds of people, polite or troublemakers. Black, white or yellow. One lot has an easy ride, the others get a fucking good hiding.

  I took on this bloke as a minder down the club. After a bit, I began to wish I hadn’t because he was a right surly bastard; no matter how you spoke to him, back would come a bit of lip. I can be as reasonable as the next man but his manners were giving me the hump. Then he caught me on a wrong day, gave me some old backchat, and I downed him. When he came to I gave him the choice: bugger off or work on the back door. That’s a right come down; you don’t see anybody all night and it’s bloody boring. This geezer, called Gwami, needed the work so he swallowed it, but then I started hearing whispers that he was doing a bit of dealing with drugs. Nothing definite, but I couldn’t take any chances because one of our jobs was to keep that sort of shit out of the club.

  A lot of people think that minders or bouncers are a load of gorillas waiting to bash up anybody who looks at them cross-eyed. Parents should
realise that we are hired to look after their kids when they’re out having a good time at a club. The people we’re belting are the ones who might pull a knife on other customers or cause a ruck and spoil the night out for the other punters. One of our biggest problems is making sure that these youngsters don’t get mixed up with druggies. So I only needed that whisper about Gwami and I booted him out the door. Before he went, I told him, ‘You’re a mug being mixed up in that game and one day somebody’s going to cut your throat for what you’re doing.’

  I’m no fortune teller, but while I was working on this book, I read in the papers that Gwami (though now I think that was a nickname) was shot dead. Unfortunately, at the same time a special constable was killed as well and that was bad news. If drugs weren’t involved then both those men would still be alive today and their families would have been saved all that grief.

  I hate drugs and anybody mixed up with them. So when I got a call from the ex-wife of a cousin of mine I was over there at 100mph. Ian and me had lost touch with each other years ago, in the same way I lost touch with most of my pals from the younger days. He went his way and I went mine. As far as I know, he got in with a few people, did a bit of this and that, and ended up being a pretty tasty con man, one of the best. Unlike me and a lot of the others, he never did a day’s bird, though he did get a few pulls here and there from other villains, but by sticking my name up, he got out of bother without getting me involved.

  He had a few bob stashed away, but he wasn’t one of those yuppie prats, though he did like to be a bit flash. The same as a lot of those people, he had a little dabble in small drugs, then bigger and ended up on heroin. That’s when he started to come apart. He had a big house in Chelmsford, money in the bank, a nice Porsche to run about in, then bang, it’s all gone. He lost the lot – wife, kids, house, every tanner, and he went from twelve stone down to eight.

  His ex-wife still cared about him, though, and while she told me all this she was crying and begging me to help him. She said, ‘I know who started him on that horrible stuff and the same man is still supplying him. Please stop him, Len, I don’t want to see him die.’

  I had to explain that Ian was a serious drug addict who couldn’t help himself. It didn’t matter how many dealers I took out, he’d find another one to supply him, then another one. I just wanted her to understand that no matter what I did, it wouldn’t help. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to have a little word with the slag.

  I went to his place, and by the time I got there I was steamed right up thinking about the laughs Ian and me used to have. These dealers are no mugs when it comes to looking after themselves, so I knew he’d have about ten locks on his door, and wouldn’t open it unless he was sure who’s there. So I parked up and waited for somebody to knock for me.

  I sat there for about an hour, then I saw this hippie type going up his path. I walked down the road really casual, then as I saw the door open, I made a dive through the gate. I barged the buyer out of the way so hard he went over the wall into the next door garden, and forced my way in. This no-value git made a dive for the stairs, but I got him by the ankle and dragged him down, banging his face on about half-a-dozen steps.

  The fully grown man was screaming like a baby and kicking like a donkey. He broke away, ran upstairs and into the bedroom. What he intended to do I’ve no idea; he might’ve had a gun or a knife or something, but as I burst into the room, he headed for the window. Three steps and I caught him, grabbed his hair, and slammed his face into the glass. Then I got him by the arse and held him over the sill.

  There was no point in making a speech; these c**ts don’t listen to anything. All I said was, ‘If you sell one more tiny piece of shit to my cousin Ian, I’m going to come back and throw you out of this fucking window. I’ve been asked to talk to you and this is how I talk.’ His face is running blood and his chest and stomach must be sliced up lying across the broken glass. I’m really wild – this bastard’s been dealing his shit gear to kids the same age as my Kelly and Jamie, and they’ve probably ended up like Ian. If it happened to mine, it would be the end of my life. That man was lucky I didn’t throw him down on to the concrete there and then, but I don’t want to be lifed off for a slag like that.

  As for Ian, I didn’t think what I did would help him. And it didn’t directly, but ages later I spoke to his ex-wife and she told me he’d got himself into a clinic. It seemed that being there for him had given him the heart to have a go at getting himself together. He wanted to show me that he still had the guts and spirit he had in the old days. He never said as much to me, in fact he’s never been in touch. Perhaps he’s waiting for the day when he can walk through my door, clean as a whistle and full of his old self.

  CHAPTER TEN

  About this time, Jack Iandoli came back to me with the film script. I don’t know anything about this game, but it looked the business, all bound up and printed out. I said, ‘Now what do we do?’

  He said, ‘We’ve got to get a few people interested … get an agent.’

  ‘Crack away then, Jack,’ I said, ‘sooner the better.’

  We both put ourselves about but it was hard work. Time was going by and nothing was getting off the ground. Then I met a woman by the name of Sheena Perkins. She seemed a bit of a go-getter and was in the film business. She looked at the script and said, ‘It’s a good idea but it’s not laid down right.’ So away goes Jack, makes the changes she wants, and brings it back. He had been up every night for weeks, bent over his typewriter, and she said, ‘No, it’s not good enough.’

  On the quiet, she said to me, ‘I’ve got to be brutally honest with you, Lenny. While the idea for the script and the facts from your life are a very saleable item, the actual script in its present form is not.’ She must have clocked the look on my face. ‘But don’t worry, if we can raise the necessary finance to pay a professional script-writer, there is no question of the film not being made.’

  Jack wasn’t happy when I marked his card, but it’s a tough world. On the other hand, I had to agree with Sheena, because since Jack and me had first met, I’d found out that he’d never written or published anything before. Still, I had to be fair with the man, he had come up with the idea in the first place, so I calmed him down and told him he was still aboard.

  A pal of mine, along with a few others, stuck a few quid in the pot. Well, a bit more than a few quid, because it took the best part of £100,000 for Sheena to hire the top-notch writer Brian Clemens. We didn’t have to ask this bloke if he’d ever had anything published; everybody knew he was well connected in the writing business and his name was on loads of really good stuff, like The Avengers and Highlander films, with another high-profile writer by the name of Stephen Lister, so I reckoned we’d got ourselves a good result.

  It might have been a lot of dough, but it turned out to be money well spent. The script was absolutely brilliant. They must have slung Jack’s script out of the window, because it wasn’t like the same story at all. That old saying about getting what you pay for never seemed more true.

  So it looks like we’re well on the way now. Sheena didn’t hang about; she got stuck into checking out locations, tying up deals all over the place, and even started casting. Once the word leaked out, I discovered that everybody wanted to be an actor, even though casting wasn’t down to me.

  I wasn’t surprised when this young fella come up to me in the gym where we were both training, and said, ‘You know I’m an actor, Len?’

  I didn’t know this young Craig Fairbrass very well, but he was a nephew of George and Alan Dixon, so he had to be good stuff. I said, ‘Leave it out, son, the only part you’ve got is running a take-away bar down the market.’

  ‘No, honestly, Len, I’m working on a film called Queen and Country with Denzil Washington at the moment, but I’d love a part in your film.’

  So I had a closer look at him and, yeah, he was a strong-looking bloke. I know he’d done a bit of boxing and on top of that he was a good-looking ba
stard, like I was at his age.

  I took him down to Pinewood and stuck him up for an audition with all the other young blokes who were looking for the part. Ray Winstone was there, and he’s been in loads of films. Glen Murphy – a bit of a boxer and looked good – was there, as well as a lot of others who’ve been in films and on TV. Craig hasn’t got a big name, so he was a bit shy about getting himself up front, and all the others were giving him the shoulder. I couldn’t blame the other lads, there could only be one Lenny and it’s a tough old game. So I shoved him up the front. Sheena clocked him over the heads of all the others, pointed at him and said, ‘That’s Lenny McLean,’ and he got the part. It was nothing to do with me – he got it on his own merit. All I did was give him a push.

  Then, instead of steaming ahead, all of a sudden the film went flat because the money was a problem. Loads of people want to have a slice of the cake, but aren’t too quick at dipping in the pocket. After a while, it seemed like it had never happened and everybody started to lose heart. I didn’t though, because I knew it was a winner.

  A bit of aggravation cropped up around that time, putting the film out of my head for a while. There’s a load of money in the film game once it’s at the box office, but until then you don’t get a tanner, so I was still ducking and diving, taking on the minding and working at a little club round the corner.

  One evening, we were getting close to shutting up for the night when there was a bunch of lads making a bit of a ruck. They were all well pissed, but not causing any trouble – just making a load of noise singing and larking about, so I left them alone. After a bit it was getting late, so I went over and told them to drink up and be on their way. I was polite and reasonable.

  Then I got the usual ‘Fuck offs’, and the beer started talking. I made a grab at the biggest one, because if you get him down the rest usually bottle out, then one of the others pulled a knife out. I knocked it out of his hand, got him by the throat, and belted and belted him. I didn’t notice that one of his mates had picked the knife up until he stuck the bastard five inches into the top of my leg. I went down and the slags have had it away. My pal came down from upstairs, pulled the knife out, and we were both covered in blood. He took me to the hospital, they cleaned me up, gave me some stitches and a couple of injections, and I went home.