Heavy Duty Trouble (The Brethren Trilogy) (29 page)

‘But that’s what I’m saying,’ continued Wibble, interrupting my train of thought, ‘I don’t even think it was his.’

‘
So w
ho
se
was it then?’ I asked.

‘No, I think it was Dazza’s.’

‘Dazza’s?’

‘Yeah, think about it. He was the one who opened the dealing with The Duckies, not Damage; he was the one who set up the pipelines in and wholesaling operations out. I think that’s what he had in mind for when he was ready to make his move internally. It’s just that Damage moved first,
and
took him out before he’d had his shot. But then when Damage saw what he’d taken over, well, let’s just say that he quickly appreciated the possibilities
.
’

‘So pax Damage wasn’t just about keeping business sweet?’

‘No, it wasn’t. It was part of a bigger picture, it was part of rolling us all back from somewhere that we didn’t really want to go, but no one could really see how to avoid it.

‘No one but Damage, once Dazza was out of the way you mean?’

‘Well, exactly
,
’
he said and downed a bit more of his pint.

‘
Did I tell you what Toad said to me as I was leaving today
?’ he asked.

‘
No
.
I saw you talking to him in the doorway, it all looked very civilized I have to say.
’

‘
Yeah, Toad’s
all right
,
’ he nodded, ‘he’s
good people.
’

‘
So, go on then
. W
hat did he say to you
?’

‘
He said,
A word of warning to the wise
.
So I said
Oh yes, what’s that
then
?
, and he told me,
It’s a mistake to think that Charlie is just a young thug in a hurry. Don’t do that
.
So what do you think of that?’ Wibble asked.

‘Much as I hate Charlie
’s guts
and think he’s a complete psycho,’ I said, ‘I think Toad’s probably right. Charlie would be a dangerous bloke to underestimate. OK, so he’s had a bit of a special background, but when you think what he’s done
already
, how far he’s got at such a young age, well Christ, he’s pitch
ing at Freemen P at what twenty-two, twenty-
three?
You’d
know better than me
,
but that takes some balls doesn’t it?’

Wibble nodded at this and tipped the last of his pint down his neck.

‘
You’re right, and I don’t plan to, not if I can help it. Toad said something else. He said
He’s more, Charlie has a plan, he knows what he wants, he knows what he needs to do to get it and don’t for a moment think that he’s not going to do everything and anything he needs to do to make it happen
.’

That sounded like Charlie
all right
.

Wibble stood up, glass in hand and pointed to mine which still had about a third left in it.

‘Another one?’

‘Yes, that’d be great thanks.’

‘Don’t thank me
,’
he said,
‘
it’s going on your room.’

‘That’s OK,
’
I shrugged, ‘no skin off my nose, it’s going on the card you guys gave me.’

He laughed at that and headed over to the bar to interrupt Bung’s siege of the barmaid.

*

A little while and a
good
few pints later he turned to me and out of the blue asked,
‘
Have you still got that
electronic
recorder thing on you?
’

‘Of course,’ I nodded
,
surprised that he’d asked
, ‘It’s up in my room, why, do you want me to get it?’

‘
No, that’s OK, I just wanted to make sure you had it around,
’
he said, ‘you never know when we might need to use it.’

‘So
what’s this?’ I asked,
‘
Do you want to give me an interview? W
as
there something
that you wanted to say?
There’s only one problem though, since I’m on the run, no one’s printing any of the stuff I write anymore
,
which is a bit of a pity.
’

‘Oh, poor you! My heart’s fucking bleeding for you mate,’ he laughed,
‘
And here I was thinking about giving you what you want.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘and what’s that then?’

‘
You want to know about Damage don’t you? You want to know who killed him and why?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well I can tell you.’

That stopped me dead.

Can you now? I though
t
. But more importantly, will you?

‘
Maybe, one day, when this is all over that is
,’ he continued.

‘
Christ, so when will that be?
’ I asked with feeling.

‘You know
,
mate,’ he said
,
leaning over as he stood up again and tapp
ed
me on the shoulder, ‘I’ve got no frigging idea,’ and with that he was up and on his way back to the bar
, again
.

*

Thursday
4th March
2010

‘It’s n
othing personal Wibble mate, I always liked you,
’ with a warning finger t
o
me not to speak, Wibble had put Toad on speakerphone
in the empty hotel bar
so Bung could he
a
r what he was saying
. I
t had taken
Toad only
a day to make up his mind.

‘
I
t’s just business. My guys need to eat and I can’t take that sort of risk with the club and its standing. Just what happens if you’re wrong? We could have left ourselves wide open mate, you know that.
’

‘Any chance I can get you to change you
r
mind?’ asked Wibble.

‘Why?
What you going to do, throw in a couple of strippers?
’

‘
Would it help?
’
Wibble said smiling.

‘
No, not a chance in hell mate
,’
Toad replied good naturedly.

‘
Yeah, that’s sort of what
I
figured
,’
conceded Wibble,
‘
well, thanks for letting us know.
’

‘That’s OK,’ said Toad, and then
he
asked
in a friendly way
, ‘so
do you know
what you guys
are
going to do now?’

‘Well I guess we’re going to have a think about our options.’

‘Sure. Look mate, if you want to talk about it before anything serious happen
s
, give us a bell.’

‘Yeah, thanks Toad,’ and with an exchange of pleasantries Wibble killed the call.

And that was it really. We had his answer, Toad was throwing his, or more accurately, the Northern charter’s lot in with Charlie. Like he said it wasn’t anything personal, it was just a business decision about where the balance of risk and interest lay.

Once he was off the phone, we sat in silence
for a moment.

‘
O
K,’ I said at last, ‘so what are our o
ptions
then?’

‘
Well we can fight
…’ started
Bung.

Wibble
interrupted him, ‘
That’l
l never work, Charlie’s got two-
thirds of the English charters against us, he’ll have Stu and his Scottish boys to call on if he needs to, and on top of that
, as soon as he can turn on the pipeline again he’ll have enough money to buy himself an army. There’s no way we’re going to win against that lot, we’d just get
massacred
.
’

‘So that’s it? Charlie’s won? If you aren’t going to fight what are you going to do? Knuckle under and serve under him?’ I asked.

‘Not a chance,
’
s
narled Bung.

‘Even if it means leaving the club?’ I insisted, ‘What is this,
Better t
o reign in hell than serve in heaven
?’

‘Something like that,’ agreed Wibble with a sigh and leaning forward to speak quietly to Bung, ‘
Look
mate
, it’s over, I know it is, you know it is. It’s just a matter of facing up to it that’s all.

‘
Why?
’
I asked
breaking in
,
‘
W
hy is it over?
Fighting or knuckling under aren’t your only options surely? You’ve still
got
the guys who are loyal to you. Why not up sticks and create your own thing?
Why can’t you
take your guys off and
go back to being a
proper
club again now
down on your turf
if that’s what you want? You’ve got
the
Yank
s off your backs
.
The Rebels are out of the picture since you’ve absorbed their southern crew.
What’s stopping you
just breaking away
now?
’

Bung looked at me with
something like
scorn
on his face
for such a stupid question.

‘Have you any fucking idea how big a business this is?’ he demanded.

I knew from what Damage had told me that they were into some serious volumes of shit, but I hadn’t really ever thought about trying to quantify it, so no, I hadn’t
,
I had to admit.

Wibble the QS and Mr Math intervened. He was staring out of the window as he spoke.

‘Damage told you they had dropped in a metric ton of basically pure
that first time
didn’t he?’

He was talking about the first shipment that Damage had described being
delivered
by Dazza’s Russian connections.

‘Well you don’t think anyone sells that shit pure at retail do you? It all gets cut well down before it hits the streets. Mixed with bulking agents, dextrose if you’re lucky, or whatever the fuck if you’re not, so what you’d buy as a punter off a dealer is typically only about 15% coke.

‘
If you work it out,
Damage’s one ton of pure would have become something like six and a half tons by the time it was cut and out on the streets.
Then it’s just a question of the market.

‘
At
street
values,
a ton of coke
’s abou
t 37
and a half
million
quid
. So six and a half tons would be worth what, just under 250 million
quid
,
give or take? The plod reckon the size of the whole UK market is
worth about
1,200 million a year
,
so
on that basis,
that
first
drop of Damage’s would have supplied a
round
a fifth of the UK’s total demand
that year on its own
.
’

Christ
,
I gave a low whistle. I’d known this was a big deal but I hadn’t really
grasped
until now the real scale of what Dazza and Damage between them had done.

‘So long as you can move your product,’ Bung added.

‘So long as you can move your product
,
’ Wibble agreed,
‘
which means you need your boots on the ground
right across the country
to control y
our distribution.’

‘Now do you get it?’
Bung
asked
,
turning to look at me.

‘So you won’t be allowed to take a load of guys
and a territory
off since it would hurt distribution?’ I said.