Paul Ferris - Villains: It Takes One To Know One

The Ross Street San Toi

aka The Bowery Boys

You will never be forgotten

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Who the hell am I?

Who the hell are you?

Do you ever catch yourself asking that question? Maybe in lonely, quiet moments? When things have gone wrong? When things have gone right? Or maybe just when you're too drunk or too stoned to do anything else but listen to your favourite music and think dark thoughts in the dark?

Not just your name, address, job, friends, family and hobbies but who are you really? You know, that bit of you that thinks like only you can. The bit that is truly alone at times with your successes, your failures, your regrets, your pain and your joy. Who the hell is that?

Of course, if I could answer that question, this would be the intro to a book on philosophy not true crime. But who the hell wants to read a book on philosophy? Not me.

Whoever the real you is surely is influenced by what you do and who you know. It's not the whole story, of course, but it's a bit of it we can touch, see, describe. That's my kind of philosophy.

What do I do? Well, I'm a writer now but, most of my life, I've been up to villainy. Who do I know? All sorts of people but more than my fair share of villains. That's who this book is about the villains I have known and who have influenced me for good or ill.

Here you'll meet figures some you'll have heard of and others will be brand new to you. They'll have somehow slipped by you unnoticed deliberately slipped by you unnoticed but here we tell their tales of the street for the first time.

Yes, you'll meet one or two characters I've written about before but don't turn away from them if you have read about them before. This book contains new tales funny, tragic and sometimes very bloody ones. It's real life real life that has made me think, made me who I am who I really am.

With great reluctance, a few names have been changed to protect the guilty. They know who they are. So do we. But in Villains' case the guilty have also been helpful telling true accounts that have never been told before, often of crimes that remain unsolved crimes the cops are still very interested in.

It seemed a fair trade-off to us to change a couple of names to get into the underbelly of these scenes. If we had refused to do it, the truth would never emerge. Burying the truth is the job of bent cops not writers like us who always stick to the principle of keeping it real.

Villains is stacked full of people who live beyond the law but they are not all the same. Why should they be? Are all footballers, bizzies, taxi drivers, working girls, homeless folk, scribblers the same as each other?

Villains isn't just about my friends. Sometimes it's about my enemies. But it's always about people I've learned from. Some taught me what is the right thing to do others what never to do. You'll have to make your own mind up.

Villains is about the mad, the bad and the sad all as different from each other as it is possible to be. The one thing they have in common? They are all villains. Trust me in this. Well, it takes one to know one.

Swinging lead kissed his cheek.

WhzzzzzwhoOOMP.

Just tell us where he is, right? The speaker stood in front of him, a hammer in one mitt, jabbing the air at him with the other.

WhzzzzzwhoOOMP.

You're a stupid little bastard. Look at the state of you.

They'd jumped him as he walked down a lane on his own team-handed, like they usually did. Maybe thirty or forty he hadn't stopped to count. Too busy fighting and losing this time. A jagged slash ran down one cheek, the blood drying black and crusty. One eye was closed, mottled navy and purple. Skin flapped loose from a split lip. One arm was aching and useless and he held it up with his other hand, suspecting it was broken but praying he'd only ripped some tendons.

We've given you a doing already. And we're no' finished yet.

WhzzzzzwhoOOMP.

The lead inched closer to his face. The swinger was off to his blind side but he knew who it'd be. The lead was a heavy lump of metal used in old-fashioned sash windows. Most guys just used them as coshes but this bastard kept it on the thick cord sash and liked to swing it at skulls. He knew who the lead swinger was all right. He knew all of this big mob every one. They were older than him men, really but he'd grown up in the same neighbourhood, knew what they were capable of.

Tell us, for fuck sake, or we'll finish you. The speaker opened his long thick coat to show his usual array of steel a butcher's cleaver and a sword.

Next to him, one of the team laughed high and shrill, drawing a long-bladed knife. The small teenager stared straight ahead and said his usual nothing.

WhzzzzzwhoOOMP.

He knew who they were looking for. Sinatra, a mate of his who'd jumped in when three of the team had been beating up some old guy. Nobody messed with Sinatra and the three had come off very much second best. To add insult to injury, Sinatra and his mates had turned over an illegal gambling joint that this mob were meant to be protecting. Now this was a revenge raid payback time. All they wanted was to know where Sinatra was. He knew. Their wee group always knew each other's whereabouts. But his wee team didn't work with anyone else not the cops or ugly mobs like this lot, no matter what they threatened. The small teenager stood, staring straight ahead, and said nothing.

WhzzzzzwhoOOMP.

YOU LOOKING FOR ME, YA PRICKS? The shout came from the end of the lane. It was Sinatra and his other mates, tooled up and teamed up. Well, all four of them were there, hefting open razors and meat cleavers. Some passing citizen must have given them the word on the small teenager's predicament and, as usual, they'd dropped everything and come running to help a pal.

He looked around, seeing fear in the eyes of the big mob. All they'd hoped to do was ambush Sinatra on his own but now they had the whole team to face thirty versus four. Bad odds? He turned towards the lead swinger and kicked him swiftly in the balls. It was now thirty against five. He knew who he'd bet on and he wasn't proven wrong.

Once upon a time, there were five wee boys pals as close as you can get. None of them would ever be described as tall ever. But big men they were all so big they were going to change the face of organised crime. In the hungry 1930s they were just nippers, scraping to get by in the hard-lands of Glasgow. It was never easy never easy for anyone. But they had a plan they were going to stick together.

Ross Street was their pitch. Just off the Gallowgate, round the corner from Saltmarket, walking distance from the Green. It was old Glasgow, reeking of the gallows, prisons, slaughterhouses, pub after pub and the outdoor hustle-bustle of the Barras market.

It was the kind of area you could catch anything diphtheria, pleurisy, TB and too many did, perishing young. Not these five amigos. They might have been wee but they were tough and had parents who made sure they took their cod liver oil and orange juice supplements. They'd live till they died and that was some time away.

It was a violent place where kids learned to battle with fists and feet as soon as they could walk. Brutal? That was the way of the place. You either battled it or bottled it and, once you bottled it, you'd be relegated to the bottom of the food chain. Permanently. Not a good place to be in that place in those days.

As individuals, this lot learned to handle themselves very well, thank you. Poverty had seen to it that Glasgow was a city of small people. But, even among that tiny urban tribe, these five were smaller still. No matter they just fought harder.