59 Minutes (6 page)

‘What the hell are you telling me for? Why would I
give a rat’s shit?’

‘You want to get back at Read?’

He tilted his head the other way.

‘What kind of question is that? I’m not stupid. It’s
taken me all this time to come home. Why would I want to screw it up again?
Anyway why shouldn’t I go to him and tell him about our little chat. I’m sure
he would be more than interested to find out why you haven’t told him?’

‘Because he won’t take a call from you,’ I said. ‘Because
if this is true you’d be stupid not to be interested. Because I know he has
your balls in a sling and is asking for fifty percent of your earnings in
return for letting you live. Because he has lined up a world shattering set of
crap jobs for you to do. Because if you were to get caught in any one of those
jobs it is a minimum of two years in Bar L. Now what do you know about a new
mob on the scene?’

Martin turned away and looked out the window. Things
had been tough since his exile but I’d heard that he had started to run with a
gang from
London
and I was betting there was some word on the street
about a move north.

‘Rumours,’ he said.

‘Like what?’

‘I’m not sure. It started about a year ago. Rumours of
a new boss on the scene. The guys I was working with put it down to the same
old, same old. There’s always gossip on the go. Stories of some new king
muscling in. Hot air and nonsense most of the time.’

‘So what changed?’

‘Eddie Haliburton.’

I knew of Eddie. Most people in our game did. A major
player down south. Old school. Friend of the Krays and all that.

‘He’d died a while back. Car crash
somewhere in the sticks,’ I said.

‘Spot on. Only thing was that he was
found with no head. Nothing to do with the crash. It would seem that Eddie got
in the car – minus his head, which would make steering difficult, drove into a
tree and the petrol tank exploded’

‘Anything else.’

‘Chuck Semple.’

Another name I knew and another dead man.

‘Went swimming in a DJ in St Catherine’s dock.’

‘And? Were they connected?’

‘Rumour mill says so. Add to that about half a dozen
of both Eddie’s and Chuck’s senior crew going missing and you can see a
pattern.’

‘Fuck. That’s serious shit.’

‘Could be. Might just be a turf war. I left
London
before
Chuck went for a dip so I’m a little out of touch.’

I knew how hard it had been for Martin to come home. He’d
offered up a raft of future favours to Mr Read before he was allowed back. Read
had taken his offers and tripled them. Martin was in for a few years full of
crap. No wonder he was opening up. I represented a way out.

‘So why would they approach me. I’m hardly in Read’s
inner circle.’

‘Story goes,’ he says, ‘that this new mob don’t want
the old guard when they move into an area. Too unreliable. Too likely to rebel.
They don’t need thinkers, just doers. Foot soldiers they can mould. If they are
coming to
Scotland
then you fit the bill.’

‘Me?’

‘Take Jack Rushent. He worked for Eddie. Low level but
bright. A month after Eddie and his team vanish Jack suddenly has money on his
hip and has moved up a social circle or two. He’s about your age and was about
your level.’

I mulled this over.

‘Look,’ said Martin. ‘I think you’ve just been made an
offer you can’t refuse.’

‘How do you figure? It could be Read checking me out.’

‘Could be - but unlikely. If someone is moving in,
Read has far better things to do than check up on every grunt in the team.
Besides what would he learn? That some of his trusted men were willing to jump
sides for a wedge. Hardly a revelation is it? I think the offer is genuine.’

‘So what do I do?’

‘Why ask me?’

‘Because I think you know more than you are letting
on.’

Martin closed his eyes and shook his head - loosing
the cobwebs.

‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘You cut me in for a cut of
your cut and I’ll help you out.’

‘What about Read?’

‘If this is really going down I’d rather be on the
winning side. He was an idiot with the job in
London
. From what I hear he is
history, with a motorway support as a grave in his near future. But you’re
going to have to be plenty smart if you want to get through this intact. If
Read gets wind you are on the flip he’ll nail your balls to the City Chambers.’

I wanted time to think but I knew my decision. Martin
was right. Hobson’s choice.

A day later I offered him twenty percent of my cut and
he agreed. I phoned the number on the piece of paper and was told to go to Tennents
Bar in
Byres Rd
in the west end of
Glasgow
. I told them about
Martin and was asked to bring him along. They didn’t seem bothered about him.

I was to meet a man carrying a copy of the Daily
Telegraph. Brave man - that could get you killed in some pubs in
Glasgow
back
then.

I turned up with Martin in tow and we were bundled
into a car and driven to a small flat in Yoker. We were told to cool our heels
in the flat for forty-eight hours and we would be contacted. We had no guards
but it was clear what would happen if we stepped outside the door.

Two days later and David Read was headline news on
Scotland Today when his body was found in a coalbunker behind a small hotel on
the south side. We later found out that he had been discovered with a dick in
his mouth. Not his own but Craig Laidlaw’s. Craig’s body was found on wasteland
near the
Clyde
and three other known associates of Read’s were
declared permanently AWOL.

On the third night the gunman and his mate reappeared
and told us how it was going to be. We didn’t have much choice so went along
for the ride.

You would think that my life was full of the cloak
and dagger nonsense back then and, to be fair, it sometimes felt like that. But
most of the time I just put my head down and got on with life. True I was no
nine to five guy but I looked on work as work and that way kept my head screwed
on – at least for a while.

As soon as we were dropped off at the Albany Hotel I
knew things were changing for the better. 

How did I know this?

Simple really. Full length leather jacketed,
jewellery-laden guys with bottle blondes on each arm don’t walk up to me every
day and say ‘Welcome aboard son.’

I was ushered into the hotel lobby, whisked to the top
floor and shown into a suitably plush suite. Martin and I were herded into one
corner, handed a large whisky and told to chill.

I often wondered what was going through Martin’s head
back then. Maybe you would know?

No?

Well time to move on.

Mr Leather dropped the blondes on a chair and flipped
them a bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses. The girls were all fur coat
and nae knickers but the way they got to work on the champagne showed they were
no strangers to the good life.

Our driver lifted me by the elbow and led me to the
next room where Mr Leather was stripping to a Saville Row suit and an
outrageously out of date kipper tie.

He motioned for me
to take a seat and the driver dropped another three fingers of malt into my
glass.

‘Names don’t matter son,’ said Mr Leather. ‘You won’t
see me again.’

He stood at the far end of the room and I noted that
his hair seemed to have a life of its own. Expensive wig. A crap one but
expensive. Add to that the way the fat round his waist failed to move with him
and I suspected that a twenty-four hour Playtex was de rigueur for my new
leather coated friend.

‘I’ll keep it short,’ he said. ‘Life’s changing. Small
time gangs are on their way out. Think big, that’s the secret. This is nearly
the eighties and we need to change. Take your Mr Read. Nice operator - until he
pulled that diamond stunt. Wrong job, wrong place and no thought to the future.
Hard to think that he expected us to let a million quids worth of ice just
walk.’

A million and all I got was a lousy grand.

‘
Glasgow
wasn’t high on the list for us but your Mr Read
changed that. A bit of research and a bit of planning and here we are.’

He paused to sip at the beer he had just poured.

‘Anyway new management needs new personnel. Personnel
with ambition and drive. Word goes you’re not half daft and a whizz at the old
safes. So, we say to ourselves, we need someone with a bit of nonce and cool
under pressure. You seem to fit the bill, so here’s the script. We set you up
in an office. None too grand but nice – if you know where I’m coming from. We
give you a contact and he passes on a few errands we need done. You help us out
and we cut you in for five percent of the action.’

‘You’re going to need some help. I’m assuming that is
why your friend is here. It’s up to you how you fund the help. We don’t mind a
few homers but nothing that will get you noticed. Keep it under the radar and
we will be fine.’

‘Give us twelve months unblemished service and we
double your cut in year two.’

He took another slug of beer.

‘It is about here that you expect me to say ‘any
questions?’ but it isn’t going to happen. You are a smart kid. There is no
negotiation on this unless you want to negotiate over the colour of your
wreath.’

‘Get the picture?’

He finished the beer.

‘Time for me to go. The pros next doors are yours to do
what with what you want. The room is paid up until tomorrow and the tab on room
service is open for light refreshments but not for abuse.’

He headed for the adjoining door.

‘We’ll be in touch.’

And with that he was gone. I got up and followed him
through but save the two girls and Martin, the room was empty.

We had a hell of a night. The girls were willing and
more than able and the bar tab was large but at the back of my head I knew that
there was no such thing as a free lunch and my new life might include a touch
more than ‘a few errands’.

Two days later a bruiser of a man turned up at my door
and handed me a set of keys that were dripping with the grease from his just finished
fish supper along with a letter, crumpled and battered. Hardly the auspicious
start to the new life I had been expecting.

Inside the letter was a slip of paper with an address
and the words – ‘Move in and wait.’

The keys turned out to open an office on
Gordon St
that
lay four floors above a Chinese restaurant. It shared a common entrance with
the Chinky’s (you could call it that back then) and in the following year we
had a line of credit with the restaurant that made us their best customers by a
country mile.

The office itself was a simple two room affair. One
room was set out as a reception with a desk and a battered two-seat sofa that
attended a plywood coffee table. The next room had a desk, chair and a filing
cabinet that didn’t work. Decoration was from the late grime period and
two forty
-watt light
bulbs provided some gloom. The view - a trade description violation in itself -
was of a brick wall.

I made my first executive decision and, dipping into
my own pocket, I called in a girl called Sally Macintyre. Sally was an interior
decorator – one of the few in
Glasgow
in the late seventies. She usually did the houses of
the rich and not so famous. I gave her a free hand, a small budget and told her
I needed the place to look business like with an air of authority.

Two weeks later I had the smartest office in the west
of
Scotland
but still no contact from
London
.

When it eventually came it seemed innocent enough at
first.

Most of the early jobs were simple pick and drops and
I pulled together a team of runners under the watchful eye of Martin.

Glasgow
’s
waifs and strays flowed through our offices, turning it into an all day rush
hour. The office was always alive with activity. We went from one to six phones
- that raised a few eyes with the GPO - we were still a year short of the
creation of British Telecom. Within a month I had rented the office next door
and knocked through - creating an area for the pick and drop crew - named the
PD’s by Martin. We put in a coffee and tea machine and, eventually, a telly,
radio and a hot plate.

The first big job came three months in and it was a
darling.

A bruiser appeared at our office and
handed me a distressed envelope - clearly
London
specialised in the battered look. It contained a date and a time.