Krayzy Days Page 13

  I knew I couldn’t do anything to calm them down, but I didn’t allow myself to get swept up in their madness. Ronnie in particular would only get more violent at any attempt at rational discussion. It would have been fatal to have given any hint that I thought this might be anything less than a brilliant plan. There had to be another way. This wasn’t being brave, it just made more sense. To be honest, the worst people around the twins were the yes-men. They were the real killers. They made Ronnie feel like Superman and that there was nothing he couldn’t do. He hardly needed convincing of that at the best of times. That was what brought the twins down in the end.

  You had to know when to come back with a hard and effective response to avoid looking weak but at the same time try not to go along with their tendency for overkill. They were always over the top. When they attacked the twins never bothered to mask up. The positive side effect was that if they were after you and you managed to avoid them for a bit they would probably forget after a while, unless you kept on doing whatever it was they had taken against. They didn’t know how to track people down and they didn’t have the strategy to maintain a campaign.

  The twins got a long way on their natural charisma alone. It blinded many to what should have been obvious faults – their lack of intelligence, organisational ability and common sense. They looked the part and they had those famous good manners. Don’t underestimate how far that gets you, even in the underworld, particularly when you’re usually dealing with brainless muscle and chancers. I knew what was behind their image. If the time came for me to break off relations with them I could be secure in the knowledge that they’d never be able find me without help. I might have been working with the Krays, but I’m not sure I ever really respected them. Perhaps I was getting to know them too well.

  When it came to dealing with the men who used the Kray name, I was able to appeal to both brothers. There was one thing that always got their attention.

  ‘Will you leave this to me?’ I said. ‘I’ll probably be able to make an earner of it.’ The magic words. They didn’t have that much of an effect on Ronnie, but Reggie went my way.

  He said, ‘Okay,’ and I headed to Canning Town that same night. I met with Big Jim Tibbs in a pub and all I needed to do was be honest.

  I never thought there was any point in going in heavy-handed. Partly this was because the news that the Kray brothers were irritated was in itself an effective threat, as I had found when I eventually spoke to Atrill. But I found that people reacted well if I offered to help them out.

  ‘Listen, I’ve come to do you a favour,’ I said and advised my terrified audience how to deal with their major problem. ‘It’s a tumble. The twins know it was you. The best thing to do is return it or give me the money and you won’t hear no more about it.’

  I practised a kind of reverse intimidation.

  ‘I’m not going to set about you,’ I said. ‘I’m just going to go if you’re not interested.’

  The implication was always very clear. The next visit would be from the twins themselves and any sane person would do anything to avoid that. My approach never failed. The most resistance I got was from those who reckoned themselves and would give me a bit of chat. They thought they could talk their way out of it but they soon sobered up when they realised how serious I was.

  Big Jim Tibbs was not going to give me any trouble. He knew who he was dealing with when it came to the Krays, having been charged with and acquitted of murder himself, along with Georgie Woods, Teddy Robbins and Don Mooney of the Queen’s Road mob. Big Jim was a scrap metal dealer with a reputation of his own. He had three sons who were also well known and I would later have a major feud with them. At this time their father was worried about Ronnie and Reggie coming to get him. Now Big Jim’s worst fears seemed about to be realised. He believed me immediately. I told him about the money and laid out the options for him – which weren’t exactly plentiful. Jim didn’t blink when I told him how much cash he’d need to give me. He said precisely eight words in response.

  ‘God! Can I go and get it now?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘go on, then.’

  I didn’t need to wait long. The story was the same with each of the conspirators. I don’t even remember how much money they gave me, but it wasn’t insignificant. It would have been something like 500 quid – and from each, not in total. It was a sort of fine. Here was the real protection money, if the papers cared to look for it, but, of course, they’d never get to hear of it. But these men were more easily frightened than any owner of a legitimate small business.

  Most of the money went back to the Krays, though I knew I’d be able hang on to some of it. That was how I earned money when I wasn’t on the long firms. They would ask me to do something for them and it was just simply understood that if the money came through me, some of it was going stick to me. I didn’t need to hide that – the twins would know how much I took.

  I also knew that if we were splitting the proceeds, it would be three ways – not just between the twins and me, 50/50, but between me, Ronnie and Reggie. Three ways. Other people didn’t get such a good deal. Someone might ask if he could use the Krays’ name to do some work and agree to a split without waiting to specify who got what until the job was done.

  The fella who did all the work would sit in Vallance Road in dismay as the money was divided between him and Reggie, Ronnie – and Charlie. Four ways. The Krays had evolved a clever system, particularly considering they had little formal education. That was 75% for the loan of their name. Most of their associates were too stupid to spot how badly they had come off. Some might think that wasn’t a bad deal and others might disagree but all would see the wisdom in not saying so. That was standard practice and Jimmy Tibbs Sr that night at the pub knew that making his offering saved him from – at best – a severe beating. Perhaps much worse. And it wasn’t the last time I would be thrown together with him. Later on, as you’ll see, he played a major role in my life.

  Chapter Nine

  Life Saver

  I stood at the front door and I spoke clearly and deliberately. I kept completely still and I didn’t raise my voice.

  The man was a right Jack the Lad until I said, ‘You were seen with Reggie Kray’s bird the other night.’ I knew the words would have an effect on him, but I hadn’t expected him, almost in one movement, to leap backwards and slam the door in my face. The letterbox opened and a pair of terrified eyes peered at me.

  I said, ‘Open the door.’

  ‘No! Talk to me through this,’ he shouted. ‘I don’t care if my wife hears!’

  ‘Open the fucking door!’

  He was scared, but he did it. I saw he was crying and shaking. Snot dribbled down over his mouth. He pleaded and begged indistinctly. I kept my own voice level and spoke as kindly as I could. There was no need to be any heavier.

  ‘It’s nearly on you,’ I said. ‘Behave yourself in future.’

  Reggie had told me of his suspicions the night before in The Grave Maurice. He was engaged to Frances and he was worried.

  ‘Mick, I’ve got something I must talk to you about,’ he said. ‘I was outside her house the other night, sitting in the car and watching. A fella came home with her very late at night and dropped her off. I took his car number down and I HPI’d it.’

  He was referring to doing a hire purchase investigation, something that was carried out by car dealers as a routine check on the details of potential buyers. Johnny Hutton, who owned the Walthamstow firm used by the Krays, had run the enquiry for him.

  ‘I’ve got his address,’ said Reggie, ‘and I wanna do him.’

  It would have been easy to go along with this but I didn’t want to cause unnecessary trouble and I just felt there was something here that I thought could be done differently. I knew right away why Reggie had come to me, because he was terrified the Colonel would have found out and driven him mad, the main thing for me was to give him a get out.

  ‘Hold tight now, Reg,’ I said. ‘I’ll
sort it out. Leave it to me, okay?’ And Reggie let me get on with it.

  Perhaps, deep down, he wanted only to know that Frances wasn’t playing around. If there was a way I could get him out of it with his own dignity intact it had to be worth trying. But I had no real idea of what I was going to do. I needed this particular job like a hole in the head and come closing time I was pretty irritated by being caught up in Reggie’s tangled life again. I went home and to bed.

  I was woken at about 5.00 am by a knocking on the window. I didn’t connect it with the conversation in the pub, not least because I lived in Upton Park at the time, a long way from Reggie. But there he was, staring in at me when I pulled back the curtain. Reggie! What now? I left the house to talk with him outside.

  ‘I can’t sleep!’ he said. ‘Can we do that today?’

  It all came flooding back. I knew what he meant – he wanted to go and find this fella who had been with Frances.

  ‘All right, Reg, calm down,’ I said. ‘What’s his address?’

  Southern Road, Plaistow. I stalled, telling Reggie that we couldn’t do anything at this time of night. To kill time we went for an aimless drive around for a couple of hours. Reggie was still agitated, but at least I was more in control now. We weren’t just tearing off on instinct. We finished up at Stevie Tucker’s house. He was a good few years older than me, but a reliable friend – he still is and he’s in his 80s now – and I knew I could leave Reggie there out of harm’s way with Stevie’s wife, Lou.

  Reggie seemed relieved that he didn’t need to go himself. His own way of dealing with things would have been less direct than his brother but just as violent in the end. If Reggie was going to chin you, he would often first compliment you on your tie or shirt to put you at ease and to make sure he got the first punch in, you had no chance. The newspapers had it that Reggie would offer someone a smoke and, as they lit it, would then chin them: the ‘cigarette punch’. All very dramatic. He might have done it once, but what a lot of cobblers.

  Some time after half eight, Stevie drove me in his own car to an unremarkable terraced house not that far away. The small front garden had a gate and the fella, a car dealer, eventually answered my knock on the door, half-asleep, no shirt.

  ‘Yes, mate? Whaddya want?’

  I stood on the pavement, not opening the gate.

  ‘I want a word with you,’ I said. ‘And I don’t want your wife to hear.’ He looked annoyed as he stepped into the garden, pulling the door to slightly behind him.

  ‘What? Whaddya want?’

  And we had the exchange that ended up with him cowering indoors and weeping. Stevie Tucker saw it all, killing himself laughing in the car, and I joined in as we drove back to report to Reggie. He was anxiously waiting to hear what had happened.

  I had my story straight.

  ‘Frances is a friend of a daughter of that fella. So what’s happened is, he’s gone, “If you’re going home, I’ll drop you off.” They were out together, that’s what it was. You’ve got it all wrong, Reg!’

  Reggie really did sigh with relief. But he looked troubled.

  ‘Dear, oh dear,’ he said. ‘Mick, she ain’t been at it or anything like that, has she?’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Reg,’ I said. ‘For fuck’s sake! Course she ain’t! What you on about? I just told you!’

  And that was the end of it. But the car dealer was very lucky it was me and not one of Reggie’s other mates. And the fella knew it. I did a bit of research on him afterwards just in case it might turn out to be useful. His name was Levy. But – not surprisingly – we never heard from Mr Levy again and he never went near Frances.

  Frances had first come on the scene when she was just 16. I would sometimes give her a lift home from Vallance Road. She was attractive, but her role was simply to be arm candy for Reggie. She had to look the part and be everything for him. She was not welcome as far as Ronnie was concerned. With the one exception of the twins’ mother, Ronnie thought women were, in general, vile, dirty creatures, but he particularly loathed Frances. She came between the brothers. It has been suggested that the twins had a sexual relationship, which couldn’t be further from the truth, but Ronnie did see the end of their partnership in Frances and never lost an opportunity to get at her.

  He fired me one of his loaded questions one day.

  ‘What do you think of his bird, Mick?’ It was hard enough to answer at the best of times, but particularly tough as Reggie was also there. I tried to be as neutral as possible, but he wouldn’t let it go.

  ‘Ain’t she got horrible legs?’ It was one of those occasions when I couldn’t do more than say as little as possible, wait for the punches to start flying and remove myself from the increasingly tense situation as politely but quickly as I could.

  Frances’s admirer wasn’t the only life I had a hand in preserving. There was also Dickie Bennett, a singer and completely straight. Somehow he had ended up in the twins’ orbit and they had decided they were going to manage him. This sort of thing was always happening – no doubt some local businessman character knew Dickie and thought he could help him out with his career and get in with the twins if he introduced them. A nice theory, but it was harder to picture a less likely match. Slim, lively and wearing a pork-pie hat, Dickie was every inch the Sinatra-esque crooner. There was no way he belonged in the world of the twins and it was small wonder that he almost ended up at the bottom of the Thames.

  Reggie more or less ordered me to look after Dickie. Ronnie was against him from the start. But they wanted me to take him to a solicitor called Ellis Lincoln who worked out of the City. Dickie was a nice little chap and we got on all right, though I knew as little as the twins about music management. The solicitor, very professional, very well spoken, listened closely.

  ‘Right,’ he said to Dickie. ‘I’ll give you some advice. Don’t have anything to do with this. Find yourself a sensible manager.’

  It was indeed ridiculous. The twins barely knew how to run their own career. And Ronnie didn’t even believe in Dickie. So when I told them what happened they weren’t too bothered. And anyway, Dickie had a booking in a club in Newcastle called La Dolce Vita. Would I take him up there? Again, it was an order rather than a request. I knew there was no money involved in this and it would be hard to see how I could make any unless Dickie hit the big time with them.

  At least we had fun up north for a few days. Dickie sang and performed while I enjoyed what turned out to be one of the most impressive clubs I’d ever seen. The early ’60s were just the start of the era of big clubs owned by the likes of the Bailey brothers. There were photos of Dickie Bennett up in town and the three Kaye sisters. Coincidentally, I had to go up again to visit someone in Durham jail and dropped by the club again. Owner Marcus Levy was in that night and remembered me from before.

  ‘How you going?’ I asked. ‘All right?’

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Everything’s on me tonight. Free. You speak a bit of Yiddish?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘We was in schtuck,’ he said.

  The club was massive and I couldn’t see how they had trouble with a venue that size. All Marcus added was, ‘And I just got out of it. Order what you like, have what you want. It’s all down to me and the best of luck to you.’

  The friend I was with was amazed by the reception – but that was just how it was at the time. It transpired on that very day Marcus had finalised the sale of the club to the Bailey brothers.

  When I told the twins how enjoyable the visit was, they arranged a return with a full complement of Kray associates and another singer, Billy Daniels, who did That Old Black Magic. This excursion became something of a legend thanks to media reports, which painted it as the Krays attempting to take over Newcastle and failing. It was nothing of the kind and the idea itself, if you thought about it, was total nonsense. You can’t go to a town and take it over as if it was a fast-food franchise. Even the great Machiavelli, the fifteenth-century Italian schemer, always said you had to live s
omewhere to know how it works and to run it. He had a point. We were really in the north for little more than an excuse for a works’ outing.

  Ronnie came with his gun-keeper, Johnny Davies, who had too much to drink one night and was sick in little piles all the way to his room, almost like a trail. Along the corridor, by the door, inside the room. Davies was sharing the room with his boss and promptly went to sleep. The hotel staff, meanwhile, were beginning an investigation which they probably wished they hadn’t bothered with when they saw what awaited them behind Ronnie and Johnny’s door. More sick by Johnny’s bed, Johnny fast asleep and Ronnie in bed with the bell hop.

  Ronnie had much less fun whenever Dickie Bennett was around and would be skulking and growling about how the idea of managing him was a complete waste of time. He was in a depressive mood. You could tell by his eyebrows. Ronnie’s eyebrows would come down and knit together when he was bad and then it was best to leave him alone. He only responded to medication when he was like that. I knew it, but I have to admit I then made a tricky situation worse.

  Dickie had committed some minor misdemeanour or looked the wrong way, or something, in the club and now Reggie also commented, ‘Look at him!’ in disgust.

  My mistake was simply to express some level of agreement with whatever trivial point was being made. It was a fine line – if I stuck up for Dickie I could have made things worse.

  I said, ‘Yeah, Reg. Some people mistake kindness for weakness.’

  It was a throwaway line, but Reggie said, ‘Do they? Right. I’ll show him.’ With that he went over to Dickie. ‘I want you to come somewhere with me,’ he said.

  The three of us, along with Johnny Squibb, got in the car and Reggie was to the point.

  ‘Right, you’re going in the river.’

  Poor little Dickie Bennett was terrified, understandably, and yet for me there was something undeniably funny about finding myself in yet another mad scene straight out of a Hollywood gangster film. For no reason at all.