Kiss Me Quick

by Miller, Danny

  When Vince came along a year later, things just got worse. Earning whatever she could from cleaning jobs, his mother had long since given up on her husband, after it became clear he couldn’t provide for his family. The writing was on the wall when Lenny fell behind with repayments to Jack Regent’s shylocks. That was when Lenny skipped town, never to be seen again, leaving Vince barely a year old, and Vaughn only two. Their mother kept her boys above the breadline only by working her fingers to the bone. Cleaning in the mornings, pulling pints in the evenings, both jobs she hated, but she did them because she had to.

  The boys living on Albion Hill fought regularly with the boys of Carlton Hill. Occasionally they would join up to fight the James Street boys. Who, in turn, would join up with them to fight the boys from the estates in Moulsecoomb and Whitehawk. Vince marked himself out as a fearless fighter. Tall for his age, strong, game and fast, he was a natural-born scrapper endowed with a precision and powerful punch. And he was smart, too, passing his Eleven Plus exam despite himself. Even while attending grammar school, he carried on running with the boys of Albion Hill. As they got older, and further into their teens, the gang fights became more vicious, more organized, the gang became a mob and Vince became a natural leader. And it looked as if he was heading the same way as them, crime, time, more crime and always more time.

  When Vince became old enough to learn that his father had skipped town because he was in debt to Jack Regent, the childhood awe he’d harboured began to turn into teenage resentment. But it wasn’t that act alone that focused him on Jack Regent and shaped his future.

  Billy ‘the Schnozz’ Riley was eighteen, and living with his mother four doors up from Vince. He was a braggart and a bully with a screw loose; and that loose screw made his tongue flap and talk himself up, and eventually dig himself a hole. It had been a Saturday afternoon, and hot. Most of the families were out on the street, the women gossiping and smoking, the men struggling back from the pubs, the kids fighting a losing battle with gravity as they chased footballs that kept rolling down the hill. Their playtime activities summed up the neighbourhood: a constant uphill struggle.

  The big black car had no trouble rolling up the hill, however. Vince couldn’t remember the make of it, not a Rolls-Royce but with the same kind of pedigree and prestige to make heads turn as it glided up Albion Hill. It came to a halt outside Billy the Schnozz’s house.

  The driver, thickset and bull-necked, sprang out the car and dutifully opened the back door. Out stepped Henry Pierce, while another man stayed inside, his face obscured by a low-slung panama hat and black wraparound sunglasses. What little of his face was visible was shrouded in thick smoke from a bespoke blended cigarette. The kids murmured his name as if he was the bogeyman made flesh.

  ‘Heard he’s got a crippled foot,’ one boy whispered, his tone so hushed that his mate asked him to repeat it. But the boy didn’t dare speak louder, for fear his voice would penetrate the black car and reach the ears of Jack Regent.

  Pierce cracked his knuckles and took a cursory look around him, not to check that no one was watching, but to make sure everyone was watching. And everyone was, for a crowd had already gathered. Pierce strolled up to Billy’s door. He didn’t bother knocking, just kicked it off its hinges and entered. Meanwhile, the driver waited on the kerb, eyeing the crowd for any dissent or potential rescuers. He needn’t even have bothered; there were no candidates for either role.

  A minute later, and Billy the Schnozz exited via a top-floor window. A closed window. Loud gasps from the crowd. Women looked away, girls started crying; the boys’ faces lit up as if they were watching a firework display, as shards of glass exploded into the air and Billy hit the pavement with a bone-buckling thud.

  Vince noticed two beat coppers appear at the top of the hill, from where they had a good view of what was happening. When they saw who was in the black car, they quickly turned and walked away.

  It should have been all over for Billy. But Jack needed his coup de grâce. He needed to put his signature on this violence. With one hand, Pierce hauled Billy up on to his knees by clasping a handful of his hair. Pierce then reached into an inside pocket, and everyone thought they knew what was coming next. Because everyone knew what Henry Pierce usually kept in there: the knife, the razor or the ice pick. Instead, Pierce pulled out a … pen? The sight of this drew unexpected gasps from his audience, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Pierce was given to poetic flourishes in his frequent acts of violence, so in his hands, the slim steel Sheaffer ballpoint pen still managed to look like a weapon, glinting lethally in the sunlight. Pierce gripped Billy’s hair tighter, pulled his head back and inscribed I AM DEAD on his forehead.

  He then told Billy, ‘You’ll wear this on you for the rest of your days, boy! If the rain washes it off, you run straight home and write it back on. Never be without, boy. Never be without!’

  When the inscription on the forehead was completed, the writing was already on the wall as to where the pen would end up next. Pierce thrust the pen up into Billy’s nostril, through the bone, the cartilage, until the blunt end of it emerged, bloodied, just above the bridge of his nose. What saved Billy from getting his brain skewered was also the reason for his nickname, ‘the Schnozz’. That was the considerable size and length of his nose, against the relative dimensions of the pen.

  Pierce wiped the pen clean on Billy’s shirt-tail, climbed back into the car, and it was gone. An ambulance was called, which collected Billy and carted him off. The boys laughed at his fate, but Vince didn’t join in. In broad daylight, right under everyone’s gaze, Billy the Schnozz had been destroyed. And no one had lifted a finger to help him, not even the law. It had all clearly been orchestrated and sanctioned by one man, but there were no repercussions and no questions asked. Vince thought long and hard that night. It wasn’t just the horror of the act that affected him, it was the power behind it. The power that one man could exert over others. And Vince didn’t ever want to be one of those others. An innate sense of justice had stirred in him, without him fully understanding it. At first he thought he was weak, so he kept his tears to himself and laughed along with the others when it was talked about the following day. But he’d changed.

  He put childish things behind him, stopped hanging out with the pack that trawled the streets, knuckled down and got on with his school work, listened to his teachers with fresh ears. Achieving top grades, he went to Durham University to read Law and get as far away from Albion Hill and the memory of that hot summer’s day. But as the old adage goes: you can take the boy out of Albion Hill, but you can’t take Albion Hill out of the boy. And now Vince was back to finish the job.

  CHAPTER 9

  A DAY AT THE RACES

  As Vince parked his car outside the Seaview Hotel, he found Terence Greene-John sitting on the steps, waiting for him. Terence rose to his feet grinning with Boy Scout enthusiasm. ‘I got your address from Detective Machin. Hope you don’t mind?’

  Vince certainly did mind. He could just imagine Machin getting the measure of Terence, sussing him out as a potential pain in the arse and sending him around to the Seaview.

  ‘Did he now? That was nice of him,’ said Vince, making his way past him while searching his pockets for his room key. ‘What can I do for you, Terence?’

  ‘I appreciate you’re busy, Detective Treadwell, but I thought I might be able to help.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘It’s Brighton races today. Might be some interesting people there.’

  Vince stopped searching for his keys and looked at the young would-be hack in a new light. It was a useful light. An informative light. Vince smiled at him and Terence smiled back.

  Vince’s next port of call was meant to be the Sunnyside Retirement Home, to visit Henry Pierce. But he realized Terence was right: Brighton races was where the action would be today. And Pierce would be caught up in it because, retired or not retired, blind or not blind, villainy always loves the races. It gives them a chance
to spend their illicitly earned cash. Clean it, launder it, wash away its sins in the bookie’s satchel.

  At eleven years old, Vince knew all about the Brighton races. He had found himself a Saturday job as a ‘bucket boy’, which meant going around the betting ring, wiping the chalked-up odds off the bookies’ boards between races. He did it so fast that he soon put the other bucket boys out of business. Not only fast on his feet and swift with a wet sponge, Vince was good with numbers. Soon the bookies trusted him enough to run bets around the ring with other bookies. They didn’t even have to write them down for him, since he could hold complicated lay-off bets – with all their mathematical intricacies – in his head, three or four at a time. He looked like a natural for becoming a bookie himself.

  Brighton races would never be confused with ‘glorious’ Goodwood or Royal Ascot. It was all about the lumpen proletariat having a laugh and a day out. Grizzled punters studying Sporting Life; flash young men with their dates, hoping to pay for a good night out on their winnings; gangsters and clergymen all mixing it up – and all of them taking their chances against that old enemy: the bookies.

  Vince stood in the grandstand, surveying the scene before him through a pair of binoculars. The course was packed, and the bookies were doing a thriving business, taking bets and throwing notes and coins into their battered, painted satchels. Tic-tac men standing high on upturned crates, flailing their arms about in that secret semaphore used to manipulate the odds and move money around the betting ring. The action was as fast and furious as a stock exchange in a trading frenzy.

  Vince had already recognized some ‘faces’ from London. There was Benny Blake, small, compact, dark and sharp-suited, with a ready smile disguising the fact that he had been certified insane several times. Next to him stood Albert Dimes, the Frith Street bookmaker, who was boss of the Italian mob from Clerkenwell and overseer of Billy Hill’s rackets.

  But the number-one pitch in the bookies’ ring was reserved for Sammy Bellman. A heavy-set, broad-shouldered man, he looked the part in an off-white linen suit, brown fedora and gold-rimmed glasses with a clip-on sun visor. For all his natty attire, Sammy B was a known shtarker who purportedly wasn’t afraid of anyone. Apart, of course, from the man who would take a cut of whatever he would earn today – Jack Regent.

  Vince’s binoculars then picked out the Bartlett brothers, Victor and Terry, two of the top ‘knocker boys’ in town. The knocker boys were Brighton’s indigenous racket, mainly due to its large antiques trade. Teams would go out all over the country, usually in pairs, knocking on doors and advertising themselves as: ‘Surveyors and purchasers of fine art and antiques, offering the best prices, and free insurance valuations for furniture, silver, jewellery, paintings, ceramics and objets d’art’. That’s what it said on their card, anyway. But once the unsuspecting homeowner had answered their knock, heard the patter and invited them across the threshold, they were subject to a fast-talking conman charisma that would empty their house of its valuables and leave them both breathless and pot-less. The knocker boys were like alchemists working in reverse. Things that seemed worth their weight in gold soon got reassessed as base metal; furniture by Chippendale was suddenly overtaken by an infestation of woodworm that might infect the whole house if it wasn’t swiftly removed; paintings by Dutch masters became apprentice pieces at best, if not outright forgeries; Fabergé eggs hatched little more than a few pounds after being denounced as the baubles they really were. Thus the knocker boys made it clear that they were doing the householders a favour by relieving them of their worthless possessions. Some of them came from Romany stock, and couldn’t either read or write, but they could certainly tell quality antiques when they saw them. And if the knocker boys couldn’t convince the householder to part with his treasures, no problem, for the place had been cased. Either they or their colleagues would return at a later date – and this time they wouldn’t be knocking on the front door in broad daylight, but jemmying open a window in the middle of the night. So it came as no surprise to Vince to see the Bartlett brothers were talking to a bald man in a long camelhair coat, who went by the name of Murray the Head, or Murray of Mayfair, or even Murray of St-Tropez. These last two sobriquets came from the places he had worked, either as cat burglar or sleight-of-hand thief. The first one, ‘The Head’, was most frequently used and the most obvious: for his head was noticeably large and cue-ball bald. But it wasn’t white, however, but deeply tanned. In that regard more St-Tropez than Mayfair.

  There was a nudge at Vince’s elbow, and he turned to see Terence standing at his side, holding two bottles of Coca-Cola with straws in them. Vince accepted one. ‘Cheers.’

  Terence pointed excitedly. ‘That’s Sammy Bellman in the white suit.’

  Vince sucked on the straw, sluiced the fizzy liquid around his mouth, gulped it down, burped, then said, ‘Tell me something I don’t know, ace.’

  Terence cleared his throat and elaborated. ‘Sammy Bellman, forty-three, bookmaker. Jack Regent’s bookmaker. Has pitches at all the top southern courses and runs most of Mr Regent’s gambling interests, on and off the track.’ Vince noted his respectful enunciation of the name ‘Mr Regent’. Terence continued: ‘Bellman runs all his betting activities and a lay-off operation; which lays off bets with bookies all over the country. He also runs Jack’s private casino, the Brunswick Sporting Club.’

  Despite himself, Vince liked what he was hearing: this was good information, and better than any Machin had furnished. He was surprised Terence had it. As a reward, he threw Terence a bone and divulged some information of his own. He began by pointing out Bellman’s position on the bookies’ number-one pitch.

  ‘What does that tell you, Terence?’

  Terence’s brow creased; he was giving it serious thought.

  Vince then pointed to Johnny Price, in the second row of bookies. Standing beside him were Benny Blake and ‘Italian’ Albert Dimes.

  ‘Those men there are supposedly in the same league as Regent. In fact, some might say that, because they’re from London, they’re in a bigger league than Regent. But the truth is they have to share London with three or four other mobs. Would you rather have just a slice of a big pie, or the whole of a smaller pie? I know what I’d prefer – but then I don’t like other people touching my food.’

  Terence nodded in recognition of the economics, and the fact that Jack Regent was more than happy with his lot. Besides, Jack, like Vince, wasn’t the kind of man to share.

  Vince continued. ‘So the fact that Sammy Bellman is still holding on to the number-one pitch tells us …?’

  ‘That Jack is still a force to be reckoned with?’

  ‘Exactly. Because Sammy Bellman, on his own, couldn’t hold off men like Blake and Dimes. There just isn’t that kind of muscle in the town – only Jack Regent. Now, Terence, tell me about the Brunswick Sporting Club. What’s the score there?’

  Terence, back on home turf, explained confidently, ‘It’s in Brunswick Square and it occupies a whole house, meaning four floors and a basement. High-stakes poker, blackjack, chemin de fer, baccarat, roulette, a craps table – you name it. It’s a full house casino, apparently, a very slick operation. Lots of high rollers from London come down to play, on gambling junkets with their rooms paid for at the Metropole and the Grand.’

  ‘I never reckoned you for a high roller, Terence.’

  Terence laughed. ‘No, God, no. I couldn’t even get in.’

  ‘Then how come you know so much about it, ace?’

  ‘Told you I knew things,’ said Terence, obviously pleased with himself.

  ‘Then keep on telling.’

  ‘Through a friend of a friend at university. He was going out with a girl he met at the Slade school, who used to model for the students. Very shapely. Very … sexy. She had a job in the club as a cocktail waitress. She told him all about the place. She gave it up after a few weeks, thought it was all a bit too … well, some of the men used to want more than just drinks off her. And Mr Regent
scared her. She didn’t like being anywhere around him …’

  Vince thought about Bobbie. Why did she stay with him? Why wasn’t she scared, too?

  ‘There’s a password to get in,’ continued Terence.

  ‘You know what it is?’

  ‘She said they change it every few weeks.’

  Vince took another swig of Coke and considered his earnest young sidekick. He was bright, smart and obviously a sponge when it came to any information regarding his beloved underworld. Vince decided he’d better pay the Brunswick Sporting Club a visit.

  ‘The Indian! The Indian!’ Terence was now yanking Vince’s elbow.

  ‘Take it easy!’ said Vince, as he raised the binoculars to his eyes. Henry ‘Redskin’ Pierce was currently making his way over to Sammy Bellman’s pitch. He held a distinctive white stick as he tapped his way through the crowd. Vince noted that it wasn’t the usual slim cane that blind people use as a form of antenna, but a solid white stick looking heavy and gnarled; as if fashioned from bone or ivory, or had been ripped straight from a tree. In the wrong hands – like Pierce’s hands – it looked as if it might make an effective weapon. Pierce forged a path before him, as the bodies in his way quickly dispersed. Behind him – not leading the way as you’d expect – followed his driver and companion, Spider. Amphetamine-freak thin, his long, sinewy body kept twisting this way and that as his bony head gazed around him; soaking up the respect and fear that eddied in his boss’s wake. No doubt emboldened by Pierce’s patronage, the skinny spiv wore a lairy bottle-green tonic suit and a pork-pie hat.