The Devil (32 page)

I now own four legit property companies and I am a commercial debt-recovery expert, but the jewel in my crown is my role as problem-solver extraordinaire – my security consultancy and arbitration company registered with the OFT. In business, I conduct myself with integrity and honour. I attempt to treat everyone with respect, with a view to receiving respect in return, thus enhancing interpersonal relationships.

One of my proudest achievements is that I run my own rehabilitation scheme for offenders, employing people that no other company would touch and giving the hard pressed in society a second chance. You'll be glad to hear that one of the people who has benefited from this scheme is none other than my old friend Marsellus, who is currently learning a skill after spending 15 years in jail.

A lot of my friends and colleagues will ask, ‘Why the hell did you contribute to this book?' My answer is that it had a cathartic effect. I laid myself bare. In 2009, I will be 50, and I wanted to share my experiences about the futility of crime and the pain and devastation that it causes. This book is a platform to reach the young men of today, to teach them that there is another way.

My brother Andrew John was shot dead, my son Stephen was shot in the backside, my nephew Grantley was stabbed in the chest and shot in the head by a 9-mm pistol, losing the use of his left eye. Personally, I know at least 20 people that have been murdered. Go to any black community in the UK – Chapeltown in Leeds, Moss Side in Manchester or St Pauls in Bristol, to name but a few – stop a man over the age of 30 and I guarantee he will also know someone who has been murdered.

On 8 June 2007, A.J. had been dead for 16 years. Every year on this day, I meet his brother B.J. at his graveside at 12 noon. B.J. looks so much like Andrew it's uncanny, and we both say that not a day goes by when he doesn't flash into our minds. Though he's still alive in our hearts, he was ripped from us by a horrific and heinous crime. He was never allowed to fulfil his potential and to fully express himself in life. I assure you that this individual had even greater talent than me. Therefore, it is my hope and intention that this book will give me a platform to reach into the black communities up and down the land, and if I can stop one individual following the same fate as Andrew John, then it will have been worth it.

You may ask yourself how a man called the Devil can claim to have honour and integrity. Let me just say this: it is my wholehearted intention to increase the peace and to treat everybody whom I encounter with respect. With my honour and integrity intact, I leave you with this: at times the world can be a harsh place and harsh measures are needed to survive. But all you can do is strive to be a better person.

Stephen French

August 2007

GLOSSARY

79 kalookie – variation of the card game rummy

Babylonians – black word for police

bag-head – drug addict

bake – to turn powder cocaine into crack cocaine

bally – balaclava

bang on – spot on or accurate

barrios – neighbourhoods

bird – jail time

bizzy/bizzies – police officer/the police

blagger – armed robber or liar

blimp – glimpse/look

blouse notes – counterfeit money

blowing us through/up – when a police officer asks for criminal record information or a vehicle check over a radio

boxed it – when an action is complete; sorted

brown – heroin

bumped – refused to pay up

burst a ken – to ambush a house by bursting through the front door

bush – leaf marijuana

capex – capital expenditure

Charlied – under the influence of cocaine

chi – inner strength

chipping – cheating; specifically to hide profits from a partner

claret – blood

compo – compensation

crash the gaff – to storm a building

defo – definitely

dough – money

draw – cannabis

dollars – money

Ebonics – pertaining to black culture; something which is constructed using black influences

exies – expenses

face – well-known criminal

fessed up – confessed

fours, the – the fourth floor of a prison wing

gaff – house or place of business

gat – gun

gazelle – to run at speed or to jump high and far

gip – bother

go-around – fight

golly – phlegm

granny – used to refer to old ladies employed as drug mules

hash – cannabis resin

heater – a gun

Hoffmann – run (named after Dustin Hoffman, who appears in the film
Marathon Man
)

intel – intelligence data

ironed or ironed out – killed/ assassinated

jarg – fake or phoney

jockey – driver

jug – jail

kecks – trousers

ken – house

khazi – toilet

KO – knockout

la – lad

lash – throw

leccie – electricity

licks – punches or blows

mark – intended victim of a con or scam

mithering – annoying

MO – abbreviation of modus operandi

narco – narcotics

nice touch – successful criminal operation

noncery – paedophilia

on offer – vulnerable to arrest

on top – underworld emergency

one over the eight – drunk

oppo – partner/comrade

ounce out – split drugs into ounce batches

outro – escape route

ozzie – hospital

PACE – police and criminal evidence act

paper – cash

parley – meeting

pigs – the police

plod – police officer

punter – the victim of a mugging

put somebody under manners – to threaten a victim into following instructions; to make someone an offer they can't refuse

rattler – train

rep – reputation

roid-head – a steroid-using bodybuilder

rolling – mugging

scally – youthful miscreant

scooped – hit

score – to buy drugs

scrap – credit

screw – prison warden; job

shovel – jail

slam on – to bring a fast-moving car to a stop using a handbrake turn

springboked – kicked

squeeze somebody out – induce unconsciousness by compressing the windpipe

steward's – steward's inquiry, to get to the bottom of an incident

three-piper – foursome that includes three men and one woman

tick – credit

ting – black word for a gun

tippled – tipped off

town halls – balls

trackies – tracksuits

tranny – radio

tug – arrest

twat – hit

U-ie – U-turn

vidi – a look (from the film
A Clockwork Orange
)

white – cocaine

yellow pedal – a police document that proves drugs have been seized