Read Online Gilded Edge, The by Danny Miller - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Danny Miller
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property empire, whilst upstairs he conducted card games, dice and dominoes. From here he also ran a book-making operation that ran unhindered by other West London villains because it catered for black punters only; and a private taxi and limousine service that delivered drugs and stunning black whores all over the city.
Vince remembered Michael de Freitas well, a tall Trinidadian with narrow suspicious eyes that were shaded by a heavy frowning brow. On a broad chin he bore the scars picked up in chiv fights, which he covered with a goatee beard that wrapped around a wide mouth that seemed to be permanently set in a scowl. His face was worn like a frightening mask, which for his purposes – having started out as muscle for the slum landlord Peter Rachman – served him well. Faced with Mikey de Freitas banging down the door, people did as they were told, which was either pay up, sell up or shut up! Before Rachman died in ’62, he looked down favourably on the Trinidadian tearaway who had collected his rents and evicted people with such terrifying efficiency, and bequeathed him around twenty of his one hundred and fifty properties in the area. And now, with all his other rackets, Michael de Freitas was surely chewing on the fat end of a good few quid.
Black doors on dark nights, with no one around and only the low hellish sodium glow of orange street lights, are always a little intimidating. They reminded Vince of the great void, the end, and something you don’t really want to go through. Standing at the door, Vince could hear laughter and the sound of dominoes being slammed down on a table, and sensed the rustle of money changing hands. Them bones, them bones, them crazy bones! What was traditionally seen as an old man’s game played in backstreet boozers was a different proposition in these boys’ hands. Like with mah-jong games in Chinatown, big money was played on the laying down of a tile. Vince rang the bell, then peered through the small round spy-hole in the glossily painted black door – and saw the light from inside quickly eclipsed. After the few seconds it took for the report to be carried back, the sound of laughter and dominoes stopped.
Vince counted to ten, then questioned if pitching up here on his own was such a good idea. He decided it probably wasn’t – then had the decision taken out of his hands as the door opened. At around six foot, Vince was no midget, but he felt like one as he craned his head skywards to look up at the man in front of him. He was big and black, seven foot if he was an inch. With that height he could have been one of the Harlem Globetrotters – with that height he could have been two of them. His bigness and blackness was made to look all the more big and black because he was so unrelentingly swathed in it too: clad in a long leather trench coat and capped with a black beret. Though worn at an angle, the beret wasn’t of the jaunty French type; it was the serious military kind. Dusk had dutifully departed and it was now officially night, but the tall boy was wearing sunglasses. No light from inside the building escaped because the solid figure was fitted into the doorway as tight as a jigsaw piece in a puzzle. Vince dispensed with the introductions and badged him. The man then stepped back and closed the door. This wordless exchange seemed surreal, so Vince decided to knock again and, this time, say something. But before he could do so, the door opened again and ‘Tiny’ – for that proved to be his nickname – gestured for Vince to come in. Not wanting to be considered a mute, Vince said, ‘Thanks very much.’
The office looked about as innocuous as any cheap letting agency or advice centre he’d ever been in. There were two desks, with chairs in front of them, and chest-high filing cabinets. Overhead, strip lighting hummed away and made everything look jaundiced. On one wall was a large cork board holding a map of the local area with multicoloured thumbtacks
Vince remembered Michael de Freitas well, a tall Trinidadian with narrow suspicious eyes that were shaded by a heavy frowning brow. On a broad chin he bore the scars picked up in chiv fights, which he covered with a goatee beard that wrapped around a wide mouth that seemed to be permanently set in a scowl. His face was worn like a frightening mask, which for his purposes – having started out as muscle for the slum landlord Peter Rachman – served him well. Faced with Mikey de Freitas banging down the door, people did as they were told, which was either pay up, sell up or shut up! Before Rachman died in ’62, he looked down favourably on the Trinidadian tearaway who had collected his rents and evicted people with such terrifying efficiency, and bequeathed him around twenty of his one hundred and fifty properties in the area. And now, with all his other rackets, Michael de Freitas was surely chewing on the fat end of a good few quid.
Black doors on dark nights, with no one around and only the low hellish sodium glow of orange street lights, are always a little intimidating. They reminded Vince of the great void, the end, and something you don’t really want to go through. Standing at the door, Vince could hear laughter and the sound of dominoes being slammed down on a table, and sensed the rustle of money changing hands. Them bones, them bones, them crazy bones! What was traditionally seen as an old man’s game played in backstreet boozers was a different proposition in these boys’ hands. Like with mah-jong games in Chinatown, big money was played on the laying down of a tile. Vince rang the bell, then peered through the small round spy-hole in the glossily painted black door – and saw the light from inside quickly eclipsed. After the few seconds it took for the report to be carried back, the sound of laughter and dominoes stopped.
Vince counted to ten, then questioned if pitching up here on his own was such a good idea. He decided it probably wasn’t – then had the decision taken out of his hands as the door opened. At around six foot, Vince was no midget, but he felt like one as he craned his head skywards to look up at the man in front of him. He was big and black, seven foot if he was an inch. With that height he could have been one of the Harlem Globetrotters – with that height he could have been two of them. His bigness and blackness was made to look all the more big and black because he was so unrelentingly swathed in it too: clad in a long leather trench coat and capped with a black beret. Though worn at an angle, the beret wasn’t of the jaunty French type; it was the serious military kind. Dusk had dutifully departed and it was now officially night, but the tall boy was wearing sunglasses. No light from inside the building escaped because the solid figure was fitted into the doorway as tight as a jigsaw piece in a puzzle. Vince dispensed with the introductions and badged him. The man then stepped back and closed the door. This wordless exchange seemed surreal, so Vince decided to knock again and, this time, say something. But before he could do so, the door opened again and ‘Tiny’ – for that proved to be his nickname – gestured for Vince to come in. Not wanting to be considered a mute, Vince said, ‘Thanks very much.’
The office looked about as innocuous as any cheap letting agency or advice centre he’d ever been in. There were two desks, with chairs in front of them, and chest-high filing cabinets. Overhead, strip lighting hummed away and made everything look jaundiced. On one wall was a large cork board holding a map of the local area with multicoloured thumbtacks
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