The Devil

by Graham Johnson

  Once he realised that he wasn’t going to be physically hurt, his reaction was one of overwhelming relief. If we were that way inclined, we could have fucking messed around with him: raped him; sexually tortured him with a broom handle. I’ve seen it done – not for a turn on, though, just for effect. But Dominic wanted to be away from us in one piece. He knew he’d embarrassed himself. There was no reason for him to keep up any bravado in front of us. His whole demeanour said, ‘You’ve seen me for what I am. I’m a yellow coward. You have robbed me of my wealth and dignity. Before you I stand humiliated.’

  ‘You won’t tell anyone that I shit my kecks, will you?’ he begged us, sobbing.

  Our reply was, ‘Don’t make any problems for us, and this is the end of the matter. You’ve been taxed. It’s part of your game. Put it down to experience, and get on with your life. It’s nothing personal. It’s just about money.’

  That was true. It was never anything personal, as I never ever taxed anybody that I knew. It was always strangers, always people I didn’t know. Also, I always taxed white geezers. Now, readers, the cautionary tale to come out of all this is simple: don’t get involved with drugs, because it’s a horrible, nasty fucking world, full of nasty, horrible fucking people – like me.

  By that point, I had learned that taxing was all about raising enough money to fund bigger and better drug deals. For instance, we got £68,000 from Kevin. To buy two kilograms of coke you needed £60,000. You might sell one kilogram straight away for £33,000, making a quick three grand on the deal. Then you ounce one out or keep an ounce for yourself and find someone who sells ounces for you.

  Friday was pay day. You bombed round everywhere and got your kitty back together again. Class A drugs – it’s all cash. I’ve seen bin bags full of £20 notes. You could select one in three £20 notes in Merseyside, subject it to analysis and you’d find traces of cocaine on it. The thing about Charlie – and I’ve had lots of cocaine – is that it really heightens sexual pleasure. It’s a sex drug – and that’s the key to its selling power, if truth be known. The downside is that Charlie can also give you a bit of a floppy dick. However, you can always trust the market to throw up a solution, and it has done so in the form of Viagra. So, you get the nice rush off the cocaine, a fucking big hard-on off the Viagra and you’re banging away all night. That’s what the nation is awash with now – shagging round the clock.

  There is a well-known gangster called Dave Courtney, and he has actually given that recipe out on a TV travel programme. I don’t know which one it was, but you won’t get those kinds of tips off Judith Chalmers.

  10

  DEFY BEELZEBUB

  In the tax business, everything is political and interlinked. Being on the ball 24 hours a day like the prime minister is critical, as illustrated by the following scenario. Andrew and I were a little bit at loggerheads, because he had started dealing drugs with Curtis Warren and Peter Lair – but they wouldn’t let me on the firm because they feared I would turn on them. Curtis Warren had been doing a number on Andrew’s head for a while, trying to lure him away from me. To divide and rule.

  One night, Curtis came into The Grafton and used his favourite line on Andrew: ‘Are you still taking all the lumps, whilst Stephen’s taking all the money?’

  Curtis feared my intelligence more than my physical prowess. He knew that I was a very intelligent guy, which is why he wanted to weaken me by turning Andrew against me.

  Other than that, things seemed to be going pretty well. I’d even got myself a new lieutenant called Robin. This was the same Robin I’d rescued the coke for in the ‘Case of the Missing Kilo’. He’d fallen on hard times and now drove me around in a silver Mercedes. Any time we were going to sort out some serious problems, he was the guy who’d carry the tools. Andrew, Aldous Pellow and I usually travelled point in one car, whilst he drove behind in a separate vehicle with the guns. To get him back on his feet, I made him a partner in my drug deals. I was selling Class As, and he was selling Class Bs, but we pooled the profits.

  It was a good deal for him: I was splitting thousands with him to give him a little leg up, and he was splitting hundreds with me. But, as students of The 48 Laws of Power will know, gratitude is a burden.

  Soon, I found out that Robin had been chipping me on the weed. He was actually making £250 on a kilo but was telling me that he was only making £200 and pocketing the extra £50. Now, people may say, ‘Well, it’s only £50,’ but, as businessmen like Philip Green and Bernie Ecclestone will tell you, if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves. Robin’s scam had me down by £5,000.

  As well as the dough, this hurt me personally. The French philosophy on friendship is simple: friendship is like a clean piece of blotting paper with no marks on it – brilliantly white and unblemished. However, if you blot your copybook, even with a little black mark by chipping me, I will get revenge. I will cover the sheet completely and turn it into a sheet of black carbon paper. And just remember, when it comes on top and I’m standing in your bedroom at the witching hour sporting the Devil’s horns and a sacrificial pentacle, that it was you who opened the floodgates. I didn’t start it. Second, if you’re doing me out of what’s mine, I won’t moan and I won’t cry, but I will plot and scheme to get you back – behind your back, so you don’t know when it’s coming. This is something that I always tell anybody at the start of a business relationship or a new friendship – just so that they know the rules.

  The following morning, I got up and went to Granby Street. Peter Lair walked up to me very purposefully and, completely out of the blue, said, ‘Was that your weed last night?’ I’d not long been up, so I was a little slow, but I quickly regained my street wisdom, realising that whatever he was talking about could be an earner.

  ‘Yeah, it was my weed,’ I replied, not having a fucking clue what he was on about. However, he knew by my delayed reaction that it wasn’t mine. That just goes to show what a fraction of a second can mean on the street.

  Apparently, the night before, Lair had robbed 150 kilograms of weed off a young guy called Nazim. Curtis had had something to do with it as well, and they must have done it after I’d seen them at the club. During the taxation process, Nazim had told them that it was my weed in a bid to scare them off, or at least to cause them to have second thoughts. Me being me, and them being them, if I had said yes that morning – ‘Yes, that’s my weed and you better give it back’ – it would’ve been returned, no two ways about it. This was because we had a mutual, grudging respect. Even though the weed had fuck all to do with me, if I had been on the ball I could have convinced them that it was mine and got myself 150 kilograms for nothing. However, I was a bit slow on that chilly ghetto morning, and Lair had got one over me.

  Nonetheless, this little scenario ended up putting me in touch with Nazim, who was always backwards and forwards between England and Holland. He told me that he could bring us over some Class A – some cocaine – from Holland, score it for 16 grand a kilo and split it into ounces when it landed here, selling each one for a grand – that’s 35 grand for a kilo. As a result, we’d make 19 grand profit on a kilo.

  I said to Nazim, ‘That sounds all right. Let me get some partners to put together a parcel, and I’ll be back.’

  This was a good opportunity for me to bury the hatchet with Curtis and Lair. I thought that if I offered them a split of the profits of any deal I put together, we could be mates and they would let me join their firm. But as students of history will know – appeasement always leads to more war.

  Enter the scene, Harry Sheen. Harry Sheen was an old-time wheeler-dealer who loved to make money any which way. Robin had told me that he was looking to invest a bit of graft, so, later that day, I met up with him and he introduced me to Harry. Remember, I was keeping my eye on Robin, because he’d been chipping me on the weed, but I had a little plan in mind. To be honest, I was gutted about Robin’s betrayal, because I’d got close to him. When a mutual friend called Jimmy Fizz
confirmed my suspicions, it was even worse. I knew I had to settle the score; at the end of the day, business is business and progress is progress.

  We decided to put together a kitty of 100 grand – 50 from Harry, 25 from me and 25 from Robin – and do a little tester with Nazim. Immediately, Harry started to play the role of godfather, telling me how it was all going to go. Already, I was thinking, ‘When this thing lands, I’m taking it all. Robin’s been fucking me.’ While Robin and Harry were playing the big-time Charlies, I was thinking, ‘You think I’m a dickhead, but I’m going to show you what I’m all about.’

  Ringmaster Harry decreed he would take 50 per cent, Robin would get 25 per cent and I would get 25 per cent. Even though I was the one that would be turning the merchandise into money – because I was good at selling it – he was still getting the lion’s share. Listen to the deal that this fucker thought he could make me wear: it was my contacts that were bringing the gear over, I was putting up half the money, I was liquidating the parcel into gear and Harry wanted to give me 25 per cent, while all he was doing was sitting on his arse or taking his dogs for a walk. I thought, ‘Yeah, right.’

  Before long, the parcel arrived, secreted in a tyre. It got delivered to Nazim as per the plan. Then we switched to the secret phase two of the op. I called Andrew John in to tax Nazim, snaffling all the gear before it was handed over to Harry.

  Phase three was down to me. I went to see Harry and said, ‘Look, Nazim’s been kidnapped again, and the money’s gone missing. I’m not suffering a monetary loss. I want compo.’

  I made Harry give me another £25,000. I can remember him sitting in my house in Garston. He knew that he was being had over, but he didn’t want to make trouble with me, because he knew how it went. Later, I caught up with Robin in a flat we had and told him the same story. Of course, he didn’t believe it, so I told him the truth: that I was taxing the gear and the cash, and I wanted some more money off him as a fine – again, £25,000.

  As he was handing over the money, he asked me why. I said to him, ‘Look, Robin. I’ve been splitting thousands with you on the Class As, but you’ve been chipping me, mate, and this is the payback.’ I also explained why I had fucked Harry: he’d tried to take the piss out of me on the deal. I said, ‘Do I look fucking stupid? My colour doesn’t wash off. It’s not fucking green underneath. It’s black right through to the bones.’ Harry just thought I was a knobhead nigger bouncer.

  So, that night, I went to a meeting with my real partners – A.J., Curtis and Lair – to divvy up the loot, which was a gesture by me to win them as trustees. However, I sensed tension in the air. We had about £100,000 worth of coke and £50,000 in cash. Thirty-seven and a half grand each for a day and a half’s work – not bad. Curtis was saying nothing but watching everything. Andrew was being half cocky, flexing his muscles to show off to Curtis and Lair, trying to prove that he was not just my underling. Lair was being neutral and civil but was carefully monitoring the play – to see which way it was going to go – so that he could jump on the winning side.

  I had always given Andrew room to express himself. Foolishly, he’d made the mistake of misconstruing this love as fear. He suddenly made his bid for power and announced, ‘Let’s keep Frenchie’s share. He’s always taxing everybody else, and now we’re going to do it to him.’

  Lair and Warren didn’t say anything to this. They were leaving Andrew to carry the lot. Andrew’s contempt for me was partially down to the power games that Curtis had been playing with him. Curtis feared me because I was too similar to him. He didn’t want me on his firm in case I usurped him from his throne. Curtis was also envious of my ability to read a situation and steer the outcome to my benefit. I was a past master – Tiger Woods. So, Lair and Warren were seeing if Andrew could really put me under manners. I had the ability to turn from happy and jovial to a cold-blooded, calculated killer in a nanosecond – from smiley to vicious in the blink of an eye.

  So, I looked at Andrew and said, ‘Do you really think you’re man enough to keep my money? Do you really think you’re man enough to take my goods? Cos if you do, feel free to do it.’

  Unbeknownst to him and the others, I had taken the precaution of bringing my best friend with me – a gun, perched firmly in the small of my back. Before I’d got to the meeting, my spider senses had told me that there might be a problem.

  This was also an opportunity for me to see if I was real or false. To this day, nobody has stood in front of me and called me a cunt. I had no worries about Curtis, because I knew he wasn’t going to get physical. Peter Lair was an incredible street fighter, but I didn’t have any fear in my heart for him, either. But I was actually wary of Andrew. Not scared, just wary. However, I knew that if Andrew started to get the better of me, Peter Lair would join in and kick me to death. They would actually kick me to death. Andrew had become caught up in trying to impress his new masters, cos they’d convinced him that they were going to make him a millionaire. They would think nothing of killing me. Shit like that happens every day.

  I looked at A.J. again and said, ‘If you take my stuff, you’ll never live to enjoy it. You’re a big, strong guy, Andrew, so I won’t give you a chance. I’ll come out of the shadows, and you won’t fucking see me. You understand? I will not give you a chance. So, give me my fucking money, give me my fucking goods and I’ll be on my way. Otherwise, let’s do what we are going to do.’

  Up until that point, Andrew and I had been brothers. You couldn’t get a fiver between us. No good could come of this. He looked at me and gave me a cold stare. Our eyes were locked. By not blinking an eye, we were saying, ‘Who’s got the biggest cock here? Who’s got the balls? Who’s gonna be the number-one-all-the-way-negro here?’ The true mark of a warrior is facing up to something that you’re afraid of, something that evokes fear in you. If you don’t face a moment like that, you’re nothing but a coward and a bully. So, I was unflinching, and I could see he was realising pretty quickly that 30-odd grand wasn’t worth going to war over. Suddenly, he said, ‘I’m only joking, Ste. Here’s your stuff, mate.’

  However, we all knew it wasn’t a joke – it was just a way out. I snatched the goods from him. It was all over, but I went away with a feeling of dread in my soul. Something had gone wrong in there. He had broken the brotherly bond, and I would no longer be able to protect him. What would become of him?

  11

  SATANIC VERSES: RULES AND POLITICS OF TAXING

  If you are a tax accountant, you might join a professional body, such as the Chartered Institute of Taxation. They have rules to keep budding taxmen in line, such as client confidentiality. However, if you’re going to be a successful taxman in the drugs world, you must learn the following.

  THE CODE OF CONDUCT FOR THE STEPHEN FRENCH FOUNDATION OF TAX STUDIES

  Rule 1 – Never tax the same person twice

  If you tax a man once, he can wear it. He may well put it down to experience, an occupational hazard, a necessary evil. However, if you tax him a second time, he will get angry, and it’s human nature that he will seek revenge. This is because a frightened man is a dangerous man. If you tax him twice, he’s going to think to himself, ‘Every time Frenchie is skint, he’s going to take my money.’ You’ll force him into taking some action against you.

  I had the monologue to deal with this: ‘I’ve taken these goods from you, but you have nothing to fear from me ever again. Even if somebody asks me to do something against you in the future, I’ll have to tell them that I can’t do it because we have history – that I’ve already done something to you, and I don’t want to evoke feelings of fear or panic. So, my advice to you is to wear this tax like a shirt that doesn’t fit and just get on with your life.’

  The psychology behind this rule goes back centuries to Machiavelli. He said that men would often put up with great tragedies befalling them. Nevertheless, the same men would explode with unpredictable fucking ferocity if you managed to slight them in the smallest possible way and, as a result,
would spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge. That is what my victims would see a second tax as – a slight against their honour, dignity and self-respect.

  Rule 2 – Never chase dead money

  Dead money is simply cash that is difficult to retrieve. The best tax is when you get the goods first time – often by surprise. But if you learn of a particularly big stash and you go after it and fail, write it off. Don’t bother going back for it, because you’ll be going into a nest of vipers. Remember, it’s only your greed that won’t allow you to let go. If it’s dead money, it’s likely that you could die in the process of going back for it again.

  Rule 3 – Never give the goods back once you’ve stolen them

  This seems pretty self-explanatory; however, after you’ve taxed someone, 101 reasons to give the stolen goods back might present themselves. For instance, a gangster you know might also be mates with the victim, and he’ll come lobbying to get the gear back on behalf of his pal. Or the victim or his allies might kidnap one of your gang and hold him for ransom until the goods are restored. Nevertheless, no matter what shit comes your way, you must hold firm, because thems your wages.

  Rule 4 – Never tax someone you know

  I’m not even saying for one minute that you’d do it deliberately. Sometimes it might be done by pure accident. For instance, you might not know when you tax someone that the gear is owned by a mystery third person in the background, who might turn out to be someone you know. Or you might be given some duff info about the ID of your intended victim, and when you attack the feller he turns out to be an associate. If so, you have to make amends. Crossing the line on this one can literally lead to murder, as will be later exemplified in a case study very close to home.

  Rule 5 – Never leave physical evidence on the victim