The Guv'nor (18 page)

‘You're a cocky bastard, Lenny, I like that. Do you never think somebody's going to hammer you?'

‘I ain't cocky, Arthur, I'm confident in myself. I'll tell you something. Apart from that git Irwin I told you about, no man has ever knocked me off my feet. Some people have hurt me inside where it don't show, but no man has ever damaged me with his fists or his feet, in the ring or on the cobbles, and they never will.

‘I'm not giving you a load of bollocks, Arthur. I don't kid myself I'm Superman, it's just that there's something inside me that won't let me be beaten. I took a lot of shit when I was a kid and couldn't defend myself, and ever since then every fight I have is for that little kid I used to be.'

There was something about Arthur that made you want to confide in him – you knew he wouldn't take the piss. All he said was, ‘You're all right, son,' and patted me on the shoulder – good bloke. He knew what life was all about.

We came in the back entrance to the pub – the Barley Mow. The bloke I was fighting, I'll just call him Jock, had a group of men with him straight out of a gangster film. Like Arthur's braces they must have bought their suits and hats back in the Fifties. Jock stripped his shirt off and advertised that he was an ex-con. He was tattooed from arsehole to breakfast time – well, chest, neck and arms, anyway. Prison tattoos aren't like the ones you get outside. They're crude and the colours are all different shades, because they're done with pins, razor blades and whatever colours can be dug out of Biro pens. He had the lot. Dotted line round the throat saying ‘Cut here' (might take him up on that), and ‘Kill' and ‘Death' on his knuckles. What a fucking ape.

As he came at me he had hate oozing out of him and he was growling like a dog. I bet he frightened the shit out of everybody in Barlinnie, but it didn't work with me. I let him hit me about a dozen times just to blow some steam off, and just when he started thinking I don't know how to throw one, I caught him full on the ear. Gloves take the sting out of a punch. Bare knuckles rip, and half his ear flapped down, leaking blood all over him. I don't think he felt it because he came back with a left and a right, very low, one on the hip bone, one on the old chap. I'd be pissing round corners for a week.

I stepped back and kicked him in the kneecap. I could feel my big toe snap, but as he's gone down on his good knee and half swung round I knuckled him in the kidney as hard as I could hit. He's gone all the way down, so I dropped my 19 stone into the middle of his back. He gave a sort of ‘whoosh' and tried to roll over but I just punched and punched him until he didn't move. As I stood up his legs twitched so I started kicking him in the ribs and the face. Somebody grabbed my arm and I downed whoever it was with the other one. Then about half-a-dozen people weighed me down, dragging me over to the wall, and Ritchie, I think it was, slung a glass of water in my face.

I came out of it and it was like waking up. My arms and legs think they're still fighting but those blokes had got a tight grip on me. As my breathing slowed down, I was back with them again. I pushed them off and sat down on an empty beer barrel. I watched as Jock was rolled on to his back but he wasn't moving at all.

Arthur came over and said, ‘Come on, Len, we'll get you out of here.'

I said, ‘Have we got our money, and what's the fucking rush, is he dead or what?'

‘Never mind him, Ritchie's got your money and I'm going to get one of my lads to drive you to London. I'll ring you at home tomorrow.' I shook hands with him and realised my hand was broken – apparently, both of them were. The next thing I knew, we were in one of Arthur's Jags and doing 100mph towards the south.

Ritchie said, ‘Nice one, Lenny, £21,000 in all.'

I said, ‘It's not that funny Scotch money, is it, them notes that look like they're out of a Monopoly set?'

He laughed, knowing I like to wind him up. ‘I don't know why it bothers you. They spend just the same … but in case you're worried they're mostly Sassenach fifties.' He flung me a couple of pills and I swallowed them down. The last thing I remember is him saying,
‘Forget this one, he would've killed you if you'd given him the chance.'

I woke up just before we pulled in to Charing Cross Hospital. They did my hands up and we were out in an hour. I never mentioned my toe – I couldn't be bothered wasting any more time; I just wanted to get home, let it mend on its own. I was tucked up with my Val by seven o'clock that morning. Good result, but nice to be home.

Arthur rung me up later that day and the first thing I wanted to know was how that Jock was doing. I don't usually give a second thought about fighters I've done the business on, but this time I had a funny feeling.

‘What's up with you, son,' Arthur said, ‘did you think you'd killed him?'

I think I laughed a bit too loud when I said, ‘Nah, course I didn't. I was just wondering if I've got to come back up to Scotland and do him again.'

‘Well, Lenny, considering Jock was unconscious for an hour after you left, you proved a point, but I don't think he'll be looking for a return for a long while yet.'

Fancy me thinking I've done him in – I must be getting soft.

I said to Val, ‘I ain't crippling round Hoxton looking like a road accident. Let's treat ourselves and get out of it.' So with plenty of dough in the bin we took a lovely holiday. Set me up a treat.

I wasn't long back and nicely healed up when a relation of mine, Dennis McCarthy, came round with his partner, an ex-copper. They hadn't long taken over the Barbican Club in Smithfield Meat Market and they were having a bit of a struggle because of all the aggro. I knew the club and I knew the bloke they had on the door, Billy Reece. Bill was a nice guy and that was his trouble. He wanted to be friends with everybody. When you have that attitude everybody takes you for a mug and that's when the trouble starts. He was getting it from everywhere and couldn't handle it.

I knew what was coming; they wanted me to take over the minding. I was due for a change of scenery but I didn't tell them that. ‘Sorry, Dennis,' I said, ‘I'm well fixed up down the Swan. They look after me and give me good dough.'

‘Len, we're desperate – how about a £100 a night?'

I said, ‘I'll be round tomorrow.' I went down there, straightened all the aggravation, busted a few heads, and everything was lovely … for a while.

One rule of mine is never to let stag parties into the club. They get
pissed up, then boisterous, then nasty. They're a pain in the arse. On one particular night they came in twos and threes; they knew the rule so they were being a bit crafty. They were downstairs – 18 of them. They were all right at first, but now they had passed the first two stages and were just starting on the nasty.

They'd been drinking all night, but all of a sudden they didn't like the prices. When the girl behind the bar asked for £38.00, not bad for 18 drinks, they started telling her to ‘Fuck off' and gave her a load of grief until she was in tears. Dennis thought about being the hard man, but having weighed them up he had second thoughts and decided he'd be better off calling me down.

Down I went. ‘Right, you mob, pay up and piss off.' Then they're all giving it some; ‘fat bastard', ‘fucking gorilla' and all that. I said to them, ‘OK, you're all drunk, there's 18 of you and you're very brave. You want to fight, we'll go outside,' and I started shoving the ones at the front. As they're on the way out they're picking up glasses, bottles and ashtrays and putting them in their pockets – but I've got them on the move.

Eddie Richardson was sitting at one of the tables with a couple of friends. He used to do a bit of boxing so he's a tasty fella to have beside you. I heard somebody say, ‘Are you going to give Lenny a hand, Eddie?'

‘No,' he said, ‘Len doesn't need any help. He'll square them off on his own in two minutes.'

I was still shoving these mugs out and I thought, ‘He's giving me bundles of credit there, but a bit of help wouldn't be out the way.'

As this mob went out of the door, they turned round and started smashing bottles and glasses up the front of the club. I turned to Dennis and said, ‘Come on, we've got to hurt this lot.'

He said, ‘I'm not going out there … that's what I'm paying you for.'

I said, ‘I know that, but it's your fucking club.' He wouldn't budge though, gutless coward. As I stepped outside, he locked the door behind me – so I was on my own.

The next minute, a good pal of mine is at my elbow; I don't know where he came from. ‘Wanna hand, Len?'

I said, ‘You are a lovely man, but I think I can handle this one. Mind my back though, and if I get out of breath I'll give you a shout.'

This mob was still hollering and playing up so I shouted, ‘Oy! Shut it, all of you. Pack it in and calm down. Now listen … listen.' As I said that the whole lot were like a load of school kids; they stopped
shouting and sort of grouped round me. And I thought, ‘Lenny, you've got the bastards.'

All of a sudden, I slipped into them. I pulled a nice little cosh out of my pocket and went through the lot of them. They went down like skittles as I slashed left and right like a maniac. I could hear Old Bill coming. I shouted at my pal to fuck off quick and he gave me a wave and shot down an alley. Nine geezers were on the deck and the rest were on their toes. As the vans pulled up, I slung the cosh right over the roof. Then we were all nicked and shot down to Snow Hill. They rounded up the nine who ran off, brought them into the nick, and banged them up in the big holding cell opposite mine. There were about 13 of these blokes, the rest were in Bart's Hospital. The booze and piss have worn off by now and they aren't half as brave. Me, I don't drink. I'm dead sober and am I steaming.

The flap on my door was down and so was theirs, and I could see most of them standing about looking sick. I stuck my face up against the flap and I started growling and screaming at them, ‘You gutless bastards … you fucking mugs, you're like little lambs now. Look at me. Go on, look at me. You're not seeing me with drink inside me, I'm like this all the time, a stone-cold sober ravin' lunatic.' None of them wanted to look.

To shut me up, two coppers took me up to the CID room. They said, ‘We're going for a section 18 on this one. You've given some of these blokes broken jaws, concussion, and one of them's got five ribs broken.'

I said, ‘Don't fucking talk to me, what would you have done?'

They said, ‘Len, we wouldn't have gone outside with that lot.'

‘I had to, though!' I shouted at them. ‘It was my job. I was minding the gaff and, on top of that, it's my pride and reputation.' I think they were on my side, but they still had to go through the DPR.

Three weeks later, I had to answer my bail and I got a result. They said they'd had a note from upstairs saying, ‘We do not think it is prudent to use public funds in pursuit of a charge that one man assaulted 18 others.' Of course they wouldn't – it would have looked a bit funny in the papers, wouldn't it?

So that's off my mind and I'm back on the door of the Barbican. On Monday to Thursday, when it's a bit quiet, I do the door on my own. On Friday and Saturday, when everybody's out on the town, I have a bit of help. It was Saturday so I had Bill Sullivan with me. I
was just inside the door, and Bill was chatting to some birds at the top of the stairs.

Suddenly, there was a bang like a bomb going off. The front window of the club was shattered into a million pieces and I was thrown up into the air.

Bill fell straight down the stairs and took the birds with him. I didn't feel anything. I ran out to the front and two geezers on a motorbike were coming along the pavement for another pop. The one on the pillion had a 12-bore, and I took them by surprise. They must have thought I was well shot up and didn't expect me to come flying out. As they went past me I shouted, ‘You c**nts,' and I kicked the back wheel. The bike wobbled all over the place, the gunmen let one go up in the air, but his mate straightened up and they were away.

I went back into the club – my arse is on fire and my feet are soaked in the blood that's running down my legs and squelching in my shoes. Everybody's round Bill who's still on the deck – when the bang flung him down the stairs, he knocked himself spark out.

I said, ‘Hold up, don't fucking worry about him, I've had my arse shot off.'

Dennis is flapping all over the place. ‘I've called an ambulance, Len, it'll be here in five minutes.'

‘Five minutes! I'm losing gallons of claret, I can't wait that long. I'm getting a cab.'

I went out, stopped a cab, and told him to get me to the hospital. The cabby said, ‘You can't get in my cab, you're smothered in blood.'

‘Forget smothered in fucking blood,' I said, ‘I'll kneel up in the back. Put the mess on the bill.' He dropped me at Bart's and when I asked what I owe him, he said, ‘Leave it out, have it on the firm.'

I walked in the hospital about half-twelve. there was a black porter sitting in his cubbyhole reading a comic. I said, ‘'Scuse me, pal, what can you do for a bloke with two arseholes?'

He let out a screeching laugh. ‘Hey, man, you drunk or what?'

I said, ‘No, I've been shot,' and I turned round and let him see the bloody mess through the hole ripped in my trousers. I must admit I was feeling a bit dizzy by then. I stayed on my feet, though.

All hell broke loose. I had got myself there under my own steam, and now they wouldn't let me walk to Casualty. I was laid on a stretcher, they stuck a drip in my arm, and I was rushed up to theatre so they can dig the lead out of my bum and stitch me up.

When I came round next morning, Old Bill's sitting by the bed reading the
Daily Mirror
. I said, ‘What do you want?'