The Charity Committee 2013

1 I pulled away in my motor, leaving Delroy standing with his prick in his hands, and me with a few hundred grand in the boot, knowing I had to act fast before the shit hit the fan, and that there were still some loose ends that needed to be tied up. Over the previous years I had consolidated mine and Longshanks' Soho properties into various offshore shell companies, run through a mind-boggling web of fake front-men, bent briefs and hookey accountants. There were also numerous freeholds we owned around the Canning Town area, which although didn't bring in much in the way of revenue, had long-term investment potential. I had made up my mind that I could afford to swallow the East End stuff and leave it to Longshanks but considered Soho to be mine. There were also some other bits and pieces in Brighton that needed attention, before I got on a plane and fucked off to America, in order to get my shattered nut back to some semblance of normality. Luckily I had been prudent enough to keep my Brighton bolt-hole quiet to all but a close few pals, so I gunned my motor towards the coast with my head buzzing like a hornets nest. First thing I suspected was that I probably wouldn't make it past the cash-sniffing drug dogs at Heathrow or US Customs carrying a suitcase full of shit-stinky crooked dough, so I belled celebrity Soho tailor, Mark 'Powelly' Powell, who had in the previous month laundered a hundred grand for me and Longshanks through his WestEnd shop. Powelly had been gifted fifteen grand on top for the bit Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

2 of graft and was just waiting for the say-so on what to do next. When he answered the blower I told him to ask no questions but to go straight down to the American Express building on Regent Street and purchase a hundred grand's worth of US Dollar travellers cheques via their express pick up system. I then drove down to a storage warehouse just off the A23 near Haywards Heath and rented a small unit, pulled out about ten grand in cash from the drug fuck, stashed the balance in the unit, then fucked off down to Brighton, where I packed a small suitcase full of clobber, pulled three different passports from my wall safe, donated all my furniture and spare clobber to another pal, then fucked off up to London, where I booked into a hotel just down by Picadilly Circus. I reckoned it would be a day before Longshanks got proper on my trail but I wasn't sure because I didn't know what Delroy's story would have been once he went back to him empty-handed and without me. I also double-guessed Longshanks may have tortured him or even topped him, and to be truthful at the time I couldn't have given a rat's arse but I still knew I had to work quickly. Later that afternoon I hooked up with Powelly while also getting a message out to a man called Gary Oxley to meet me straightaway. Gary 'Little Tich' Oxley had been my right-hand man in Soho for a few years. When I first met him in the early eighties, he weren't much more than a heavily-tattooed former football thug with a taste for stabbing rival fans up their sphincters with Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

3 garlic-dipped knives, and also pulling his strides down and waving his bollocks about when pissed. And even though I knew you couldn't polish a turd I tried to help him get his act together. As I worked my way up Soho's criminal ladder I gave Little Tich the job of collecting rents and debts and generally minding off the gaffs me and different Soho firms took over. He did a pretty good job with only the occasional tug for slashing donuts across their mooeys when there was no need for violence. I also had to sort him out on the sartorial front as at that time he was strolling about in sheepskin jackets and sporting a crafty comb-over on the barnet front. After pointing out to him that the second-hand south London car dealer look weren't cutting it in the West End, I sent him to the barbers for a number one shave, after which I took him round to Powelly's tailor shop, where he had

a little box-suit knocked up, complete with bum-

freezer jacket and a pork pie hat. Now the only problem was he was a dead-ringer for Alexi Sayle, but it was a step in the right direction and gave us a chance to shout at him 'Ullo, John! Gotta New Motor' which used to give him the right fucking zig. Little Tich had often pulled me to one side through the years saying he wanted to be made a partner. His chance had arrived. We met up in the bar of the hotel where I was staying, and over a bottle of bubbly I told him that not only was I sick of Longshanks' pointless violence and paranoia but that he'd also fucked me over with a large amount of dough in order to buy the Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

4 Essex mansion he was now living in. I then offered Little Tich an equal share of all Soho revenues, telling him all he had to do was keep a low profile when I fucked off to America for a while, carry on collecting the rents until the storm blew over, and wait until Longshanks turned his greedy jaundiced eyes back to the skanky shithole of Canning Town, where he first crawled out of. Little Tich almost bit my hand off, telling me he would recruit his brother Fat Andy, along with some of his old pals who used to graft with old time London gangster Joey Pyle, a former associate of the Kray Twins. Satisfied with Little Tich's affirmation of loyalty I took him to my West End lock up which held all the paperwork for the Soho properties and some others besides. After further briefing him fully and instructing him clearly not to go on any meets whatsoever with Longshanks, I met up with Powelly and together we went to the American Express building, where I picked up the US dollar travellers cheques, signed them and stuffed them into a money belt. I then booked a first class ticket on an early morning flight to San Francisco and waited until it got dark before driving back down to Brighton. Once there I destroyed a small nightclub belonging to me and Longshanks that sat right on Brighton beach itself. Then I went to another building we owned in another part of the same town which contained a Hardcore porn cinema on the ground floor and a knocking shop upstairs. I then fucked that building up as well, along with another couple of Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

5 buildings before having it on my toes to a five star hotel next to Heathrow, where I booked a room and proceeded to get fucking hammered while toasting the first steps of a new journey. After a first class Virgin Atlantic flight I breezed through US Customs with no problems, although I had to fight hard to keep myself together, what with all the grief still churning up the cogs in my still gangster-fucked brain. I had rightly shafted one of the heaviest gangsters in England but me feeling justified didn't matter as I knew there would be some severe fucking ructions going on back in Blighty. I was also very concerned about Longshanks using his IRA connections to try and hunt me down whilst in the States. As soon as I left San Francisco airport I rented a nondescript motor and hit the road, just as the sun was going down, trying to work out how I was going to cash over one hundred and sixty thousand US Dollars worth of travellers cheques, without drawing suspicion from the Federal authorities, or some fucking Paddy hellhound who could be on my trail. It hit me straight-away. Sin City! The sort of dough I was carrying was fuck-all to that gaff, so I put the pedal to the floor of my motor and hit the interstate, making it to Las Vegas in about ten hours. Once there I booked into a pucker hotel on the Strip, shitted and showered, put on a class whistle and set about going into the casinos to cash the paperwork. Not wanting to draw too much attention to myself I done the lot over four or five days Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

6 with not a single plucked and shaped eyebrow raised. Now there was another problem. I was sitting on a shitload of readies which I couldn't afford to lose, so on about the fifth day I strolled into a local Wells Fargo bank, opened up a safe deposit box and spent the next week or so going in and out of it to top up the box. It then began to slowly dawn on me that I had made it out of the hell-hole that my life had sunk to since becoming partners with Longshanks. My body began to finally unwind with all the heartache and grief began seeping from my body and brain like pus from a boil. I booked myself into another hotel, one with a topfloor suite, pulled open the floor-to-ceiling glass doors, and under the starry desert night cried like a baby, as I sucked in the cool crisp air while looking out over the city's buzzing neon. For the next few days I hit the craps tables, bars and brasses, and began to kick back and have a fucking blast. It felt like being reborn and given another chance at life. If I have to be honest I was never really in the criminal game for the dough, it was the buzz of committing crimes that was the turn on. On further reflection I felt nothing but revulsion for the fucking animal that was my ex partner, alongside his embarrassingly gaudy mansion with its revolting marble floors, King Tut décor and badly maintained lawns, all of which had been purchased with the dough of his supposed best friend. You can spend as much as you like Longshanks but you can't buy class. You truly are Essex royalty. A scampi-in-a-basket slag! Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

7 Plus the delusional cunt thought that his mansion was the total bollocks, whereas we used to take the piss out of him behind his back by calling him Jed Clampett and whistling the theme tune from The Beverly Hillbillies whenever we drove up to him on a meet. The slippery cunt knew he was doing a wrong 'un when he bought it, that's why he never told any of his firm about it till the deal went through. I remember going over there when he first moved in and he had the electricity meter wired so he wouldn't have to pay the heating bill for the indoor swimming pool. Fucking freezing in the winter the gaff was as well. And because the clueless cunt had no en-suite bathrooms in any of the bedrooms we used to just piss in the vanity sinks whenever we stayed there. And the first time he came round to my Docklands pad and saw my bidet he thought it was for birds to wash their Jack and Dannys in. Longshanks also fancied himself a bit of an interior designer, although every gaff he put his touch to ended up looking like inside of a gypsy caravan, even going so far as sticking plastic covers on the DFS sofas. His new gaff soon acquired the moniker of the Pikey Palace. Think Donald Trump meets Keith Lemon after a bad acid trip with Bez from Happy Mondays. There was pink wallpaper and marble floors everywhere, and he had a guard dog with long toenails that got inside the house one day, and the marble was so slippery that the dog ended up just running on the spot with its fucking legs going a million miles an hour, as if it Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

8 were stuck on a gym treadmill. After a short while the the fake shine of Las Vegas began to lose its lustre. Plus I really didn't want to stay in a gaff built solely to fleece dopes of their dough, because I knew I'd be one of those dopes and blow every fucking shilling I had there in a matter of months, so I decided I needed to head west to LA. The City of Angels was a gaff I knew well and was a place where I also knew some old pals of mine were living, although I hadn't been in contact with them for a few stretch. A day or so later I hit the road, and although I was thousands of miles from London, paranoia soon set back in and I started to get as twitchy as a schizophrenic at pill time, looking for hitmen in my rearview every five fucking minutes. I needed some protection, and so on spotting a house-sized hoarding advertising a three day gun show on the outskirts of the city, I thought I would try my luck. I parked up my motor and walked into a warehouse full of right-wing peckerwoods and doomsday preppers, salivating over rocket-launchers and fullyautomatic rifles, while eagerly waiting Armageddon. After making a few discreet enquiries about purchasing a handgun I realised I would not be able to buy anything without an American ID. As I walked back out to my motor I was stopped by a redneck sporting a Billy Ray Cyrus mullet who asked me if I wanted to buy a gun. I explained to him my predicament to which he replied it weren't no problem in the land of the free. An hour Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

9 later I climbed back in my motor packing a Smith and Weston .38 snub-nosed revolver with two packs of bullets and a two-shot Saturday Night Special that fitted nicely in my suit jacket pocket. A thousand dollars the lot. Once again I felt safe, although I did curse my insecurity for pushing me into the madness of now being in the United States in possession of two felony offences while driving on a desert highway towards a new life. The road I was driving on cut straight through a succession of shit-kicker towns and I followed it all the way until I could drive no more, finding myself confronted by a wall of blue Pacific Ocean at the beautiful beach town of Santa Monica. It seemed as good as place any to plot up and have a butcher's around. Within a month I'd tracked down an old pal of mine and former hitman, Killer Ken. Ken had jacked in the murder game and was running a successful business knocking out syrups for superstars from a quiet little set-up just down from Venice beach. From the outside of his gaff you couldn't tell he made wigs, which was the way it was supposed to be and sort of reminded me of my early Soho days, in the fact that you'd get all these well-known male actors pulling up outside his parlour with baseball caps pulled down low over their heads. They'd then take furtive glances around to make sure no-one had spotted them before creeping inside the door while staring down at the ground. Once inside they'd have their bald spots tonced over with one of Killer Ken's weaves Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

10 before slipping back out and having it away back to the safety of the Hollywood Hills. As time slipped by I was keeping in intermittent touch with Little Tich who told me that the initial storm had passed and everything was settling down nicely. He also let me know he was regularly topping up my secret Channel Islands bank account with cash deposited via a system I had set up in Soho's Chinatown. As everything seemed to be going sweet, I got myself an American social security number, and after opening a number of bank accounts, stuck a deposit down on a condo in Santa Monica, furnished it and set about trying to set something new up to start earning a straight living. It weren't long before I hooked up with another pal I hadn't seen for donkeys, a tea-leaf by the name of Pinch, who told me over morning coffee on Venice beach that he was earning a reasonable crust as an actor. The first name he stuck up to me who he had worked with was Al Pacino, although I wasn't convinced, until he took me round to another coffee shop in Santa Monica a week later, and sure as shit there was Al Pacino sitting at a table in a pair of sunglasses knocking back espresso after espresso. Pacino gave Pinch the nod which left me well fucking impressed as more names rolled off his tongue. 'Jack Nicholson, De Niro, Duvall! I've worked with them all, Billy.' He told me, although being a film buff I'd seen all Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

11 their work and couldn't remember seeing Pinch's mooey in any of them. After digging a little deeper it turned out that Pinch was only a spear-chucker in the movies, and although the names he had mentioned were in films he had worked on, being only an extra he had never even seen any of the stars on the set, let alone done any acting with them. It didn't really matter, at least he was having a go and seemed happy, which was more than I was, even with all the readies I had wrapped around me. Pinch went on to tell me that since he had known me before I had become totally introverted and suspicious and that I needed to free myself from within. It sounded like a lot of New-age southern Californian bollocks from a man that now spent his time swimming with dolphins and chanting the chakras. He also told me he was taking ongoing acting lessons up in Hollywood and reckoned it would be a good idea if I came along to get in touch with my inner-self. I had nothing to lose and nothing else to do, so the next thing I knew I was three weeks into Method Acting classes with a crazy old bird who had starred in sixties slasher movies and even had a part in the Godfather. So there I was in the class with about ten other hapless cunts, no shoes and socks on, eyes closed and a gun stuck down the back of my strides, while pretending to be a tree swaying in the breeze, when the door flew open and in steamed this homeless looking bloke who had been watching us Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

12 through the door's window. 'I'm paying you motherfuckers thousands of bucks and you're teaching my daughter this fucking bullshit!' He screamed. I recognised the face and voice straight-away. It was Brad Dourif the actor of Billy Bibbit and Chucky doll fame. That sealed it for me. If Chucky thought that pretending to be tree was a load of old bollocks then who I was I to argue. I put on my shoes and socks and walked out of the class with Pinch in tow, telling him I weren't cut out for the acting game. Next thing I know he'd talked me into catching a plane with him to New York to take some more acting lessons with a bloke called Jack Waltzer. 'Honestly this geezer's proper, Billy,' he said. 'Plus I got a personal recommendation from Al Pacino himself.' I weren't convinced. I'd already spent nearly a month trying to channel my inner De-niro but all I'd managed to come up with was Mr Tumble. Nevertheless I was up for the challenge so off we went. After arriving in the Big Apple we booked into a hotel and then spent sometime sightseeing before starting lessons with Jack Waltzer. About a week into classes I still didn't have a fucking clue what was going on and my acting was still about as realistic as Spotty Dog from the Woodentops. I was longing for a way out. Providence came in form of a prim and proper little bird of about nineteen with a whiny Minnie Mouse voice. We were all sitting in the acting class one day and she asked Jack Waltzer how she could Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

13 become a better actress. He looked at her with a cynical smirk and growled. 'Go out and get fucked up some!' It was the best advice I'd ever heard. I bid farewell to Pinch, boarded a plane back to Las Vegas, booked into a five star hotel and spent the next week getting fucking hammered with any prospective acting career well and truly binned. Another eighteen months flew by as I put down some roots in southern California while still keeping in intermittent touch with Little Tich, who told me everything was still sweet and he was happy now that he was copping a nice few quid without having to sell drugs. Meanwhile I'd been dipping my toes in various small ventures, and was also keeping myself afloat by having a trusted pal raid the drug cash stash in my Brighton lock-up, and send it over in twenty grand parcels of travellers cheques. As the next six months approached I felt secure enough to consider my first trip back to Europe, in the form of flying to Jersey, in order to pick up the takings from my West End properties. That's when things started to sour. I had belled Little Tich on our secret number but there had been no answer, so I left a message on his voicemail. Still no reply. Starting to get suspicious I left another message letting him know I was on my way to the Channel Islands. After landing at Jersey airport I was making my way through Customs when I got a strong tug by the authorities which I Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

14 felt was a bit strange as I knew by all appearances I was kosher. Then a succession of flat-capped cunts rummaged their way through my belongings and immediately honed in on the ten grand cash I was carrying for the trip, telling me they believed it to be part of a robbery haul, before throwing me in the slammer and then proceeding to check the serial number of every note with the British authorities. Twenty four hours later after coming up with fuck all they reluctantly let me into the airport terminal where I rented a car and headed for for Saint Helier in order to go sort out my offshore account. As I was making my away through the countryside that led to the town, I sensed that Old Bill was on my tail, and so I pulled in to a small village, got out the motor and went for a coffee. Sure enough I spotted two dopey looking plainclothes cunts watching me through the reflection of a shop opposite. I didn't want to lead them to my bank so I had to work out a way to shake them off. After getting back on the road I carried on driving until I spotted a small country road, just wide enough for one car, that ran parallel to the beach front. Without indicating I turned into it, as if I was looking for a particular place, and once I was about a mile in I looked into my rear-view mirror and could see the unmarked pig motor a few hundred yards behind me. I stopped, turned off the engine, grabbed my bag, got out, locked the car and legged it through a field down to a beach path, leaving the two Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

15 Old Bill stranded. Once in Saint Helier I made my way to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank to check my account. My worst fears were realised when I realised that that slag Little Tich hadn't topped it up with fuck all. I was fucking fuming and it was all I could do to bite my lip and not go garrity and start smashing up the gaff while understanding that I had to act fast to salvage whatever may be left of my Soho criminal empire. I rushed straight to a travel shop and tried to book a flight to England but there was nothing leaving till the next day, so I made my way to a hotel booked in and decided to get some shut eye. I was awoken about three hours later by a posse of Plod standing around my bed, some of the carrying yoggers. They instructed me to get dressed and while doing so read me an order they had obtained from a local magistrate which in essence was an order banning me from the Channel Islands. One of the pigs then growled at me. 'We don't want your type here.' They then hand-cuffed me and hustled me through the foyer of the hotel with everyone staring at me. Although feeling embarrassed and humiliated I was also thankful on learning that I was being loaded onto a flight leaving that very afternoon. Plod ferried me straight through the main gate of the airport without getting out of the motor and drove it all the way to the waiting plane which was parked up and ready to take off. They then hustled Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

16 me up the steps with all the passengers craning their necks for a gander as I was then brought on board. After having my hand-cuffs taken off I was informed by the Plod in charge never to return, and spent the whole of the plane journey paranoid as fuck, while wondering if I was being set up in some way for a proper nicking or execution by my old firm. After working through a strategy I made my way straight to Soho the same afternoon. By sheer good chance it was a Monday which I knew would the ideal day to ambush Little Tich as Mondays were rent days. I plotted up near a telephone box in Great Windmill street and sure enough, the short-arsed, bad-breathed quisling turned up, and entered a premises where me and Longshanks had two brasses grafting in two flats above a tattoo parlour. After about five minutes he came out and I had a little chuckle on noticing that the muggy cunt was carrying a leather clutch bag. I called out his name and he turned and had a litter of fucking kittens before legging it up the road with me in tow telling him nothing was going to happen to him and that I just wanted to talk. I finally managed to calm him down and we went for coffee, where first of all he tried to convince me he had gone into partnership with Longshanks at his own behest, but as I probed him deeper he began to crack before breaking down and sobbing that he had done as I had told him and kept a low profile but that Powelly had inadvertently lured him to a meet with Longshanks at his tailor's shop. He said that no sooner had he had walked through Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

17 the front door then Longshanks hit him on the chin, dragged him into the stock room, sat him on a chair and then threatened him with having sulphuric acid poured over his head. He told me he rolled over straight-away. 'Fair enough' I said. 'That's why I gave strict instructions to you not to go on any meets.' Brains of a fucking rocking horse! I then asked him why he had not answered my phone calls and he told me that Longshanks had told him he was supposed to tell me that I was not allowed to phone England ever again. I couldn't believe what he had just said to me so I asked him to repeat it word for word. Longshanks' actual statement went as follows. 'Tell that AIDS-ridden, coke-headed poof, I said he's not even allowed to ring this country.' 'He's the one that needs to have an AIDS test,' I sneered. 'Cunt's fucked more people than a crack whore. Listen, that slag ain't Pablo Escobar. He's just a Canning Town guttersnipe on the make. Now tell me about the Channel Islands. How come I got a tug, seeing as you was the only cunt who knew I was going there?' Little Tich went on to tell me that it was Longshanks who made him phone the pigs in the Channel Islands in an attempt to get me lelled by the authorities. He then went on to explain that he had handed over all my paperwork to Longshanks, including property deeds and offshore company registrations. I sat there feeling like I wanted to strangle the dopey little cunt, Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

18 especially when he told me that Longshanks had stuck him on less wages than what I used to pay him. 'I made you a fucking partner,' I said. 'You was copping grands a week and now Longshanks is wanking you off with shirtbuttons. Why did you tell me you could handle it, if you couldn't?' 'I'm sorry I came up short, Billy.' He grinned weakly. Yeah, about five foot three I thought to myself, gutted that I had been fucked-up in the head enough to have entrusted my dealings to a mentally-challenged midget. Without Little Tich knowing I carried on with the conversation and grafted him as best as I could in the circumstances. He went on to unwittingly tell me that Bernie Silver had also rolled over and signed over my other Soho properties to Longshanks, leaving me out in the cold. Before I left Little Tich I wanted to know where he stood and he tried his best to meet my stare, telling me that now I was back he would no longer pick up any rents on behalf of Longshanks. Determined not to show my hand we parted on seemingly good terms but inside I was fucking gutted that I had been completely frozen out but remained determined to at least remove Longshanks from Soho. The properties we had together in east London could wait but Soho was my baby, and if it weren't for the steady money from the West End then Longshanks would still be stuck in his ex council house in Canning Town. The other thing that rankled was that that cunt Longshanks had no idea about mortgages or offshore Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

19 companies until I showed him the ropes. On another downside I was stunned by Bernie Silver's betrayal as I had always afforded him the utmost respect. Finding out that he had fucked me over was a bitter pill I had no intention of swallowing. Through discreet enquiries I had heard that he hardly any longer visited the West End and had settled back down with his ex-missus Joan and retired to his farm in Derby which was run by his son Joe. However, I guessed Bernie was still a keen golfer and so phoned around some courses where he lived and simply asked if 'Bernie was about' knowing he would be using at least his real first name. With no luck in finding him at any of the gaffs I turned my attention to his farm with the intention of recruiting a couple of pals to help me kidnap him and hold him for ransom until his family paid me for my losses. Just as I was putting the kidnapping plans into operation I received a call from an old pal of Bernie's saying that Bernie had heard I was looking for him and so had scheduled a meet in the Sportsman's Club casino in Mayfair. As soon as we met I tumbled Little Tich had been lying to me, as Bernie went on to tell me that Little Tich had told him I had gone to America and left all my business in his hands. Bernie had no reason to doubt him because I had often used Little Tich as a go-between in regards to dealing with Bernie if ever I wasn't about. I outlined my problems and Bernie insisted he did not recognise Longshanks as having anything to do with the properties we had with him. Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

20 There were four buildings all told in which I had dealings with Bernie, alongside another building in Green's Court, which was exclusively mine and Longshanks and which was run via an Isle of Man company and administered by front men in Jersey. All of the buildings had brothels on the first and second floors with varying sex businesses on the ground floors and in the basements. Before taking any further action I got word to Little Tich and told him I planned on causing a stir in Soho but was prepared to leave things be and fuck off back to America, if Longshanks were to agree to pension me off for an index linked grand a week, no questions asked, and he could even keep all the east London properties we shared. A few days later I got back an answer. 'Tell that queer cunt, I'm gonna bury him!' So I went to work. The first thing I did was go around to Bernie's properties and change all the locks. Then I sent written notification to all the tenants that no more money was to be handed over to Little Tich. Instead it was to be paid into an offshore account administered by me. This was done my means of a solicitor's letter pinned to all the doors. A few days later my brief received a letter from Longshanks' brief, who was now also acting for Little Tich, and claiming his client to be the sole owner of all the businesses that were really mine. Not only did Little Tich have all my paperwork but he also had access to the various aliases and company names used in all the properties. It had now become clear Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

21 just what a duplicitous little Judas cunt he had become. In order to bring things to a head I once more offered a deal to let Longshanks have the lion's share with me keeping a pension and agreeing to stay out of the way. I got a further message from him via an intermediary in the following words. 'No deal will be ever be done with that AIDS-riddled cokehead cunt. You tell him from me, If he fucks off back to America now I'll spare his life, if not he's fucking dead!' Following that response my next move was to meet back up with Bernie where we discussed our options. Bernie wanted no violence attached to his properties, so we settled on an agreed plan. I got my brief to write to Longshanks' brief to confirm that Little Tich was still claiming to be the sole owner and proprietor of the four Soho properties and he sent a letter back saying that he was. A few nights later I accompanied a photographer and private eye around to all of the properties where they collected evidence of all the sordid business taking place. With Bernie's connivance I then complied a dossier and sent it to Bernie's brief, who was also in the coup, claiming my rightful ownership and informing him that the properties were being used for illegal purposes by Little Tich, namely that of porn and prostitution, and were therefore in breach of the properties' legal uses, as stipulated in both the freehold and leasehold covenants. Once Bernie's brief received the dossier he issued 'cease Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

22 trading' injunctions against Little Tich and all four buildings, effectively closing them all down. Not long after that my brief received a letter from Longshanks' brief asking for a meeting to iron things out but by then it was too late for a deal, as I'd already agreed with Bernie Silver that restarting the businesses would be probably bring nothing but grief with Longshanks in the long run. Bernie subsequently brought in a bloke called Scotch John and between us we worked out a deal where he paid me off a nice whack and took over the four buildings for himself. I shook hands with Bernie, wished him well and we went our separate ways, job done. Before I left, Bernie also told me that a year after I had fucked off, he had heard that Longshanks had led Little Tich and Powelly by their noses like stray mongrels through the streets of Soho and paid visits to cafes and watering holes I used to frequent. Once there, and at Longshanks' prompting, the two broken bitches slagged me off no end to people that had the utmost respect for me. I thanked Bernie for the information and noted down their treachery before parking it up in the back of my brain to sort out later. With Bernie Silver's four properties now out of Longshanks' grip it left only Green's Court to deal with and I soon received word through the criminal grapevine that Longshanks was now on the warpath having lost thousands of pounds per week in relation to Soho. Of course, being a psychopath he wouldn't take Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

23 the blame himself, and so I knew Little Tich would be sweating like a cheese sandwich in cellophane, having to explain how he lost four premium porn properties on the turn. I felt in fine fucking fettle and was now planning my next move but the elation didn't last long. Using Little Tich as a Judas Pig Longshanks had tracked down a pal of mine who weren't a criminal but had helped me out on a few things over the last couple of years. After luring him on a meet they kidnapped the poor cunt and took him to a slaughter in east London where, as a warning to others not to help or harbour me, Longshanks cut off the fingers on one of his hands one by one with a pair of garden Secateurs. Knowing there was no way I could go to war against Longshanks, his six brothers and untold cousins, I had to start thinking outside the box to slow him down. I contacted a well-respected journalist, who was at that time writing for a weekly London listings magazine, gave him the lowdown on what was happening, and he stuck in a small article in his magazine. A couple of weeks later he called me and gave me some disturbing information that he had come across after doing some of his own investigative work. It seems that the Club Squad had carried out a routine check of the brothel in Green's Court and had found a pair of fifteen year old schoolgirls grafting there as prostitutes. I was fucking devastated. I had always made sure when I was in Soho that we ran a clean show and kept well away with anything underage. I Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

24 had been out of the frame for two years and now it appeared Longshanks had schoolgirls punting out their poor little pussies for peanuts, while the psychopathic slag was driving around Essex giving it the fucking big 'un and pretending to be a bona fide businessman. I was also furious that Little Tich had been seen going in and out of the gaff on a regular basis, rightly reckoning that people might still associate me with the premises. On further digging it also transpired that Little Tich had signed over the title deeds of the property to an offshore company owned by Longshanks but administered by his brief. I needed to distance myself publicly from the gaff as quickly as I could, so I got the journalist to run the story about the schoolgirls, while also naming Longshanks as the new owner. Once it had gone into print I had copies printed up, jumped on a motorbike and in the dead of night scattered thousands of them outside his Essex mansion and throughout the local village. I also painted a sign on the tarmac outside of his mansion with the word NONCE and an arrow pointing at the front gate. I then headed down to Canning Town and dropped the same leaflets through the streets there. A few days later my brief received a High Court injunction via Longshanks' brief, attached to which was a written statement signed by Longshanks (that I still have in my possession to this day) in which he accused me of being a very sick and dangerous man Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

25 who had committed a number of very serious crimes in and around the London area. In the same statement Longshanks also detailed some of the alleged crimes, one of which carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. That was it for me. London's number one villain had grassed me up via a civil court in an attempt to stop me revealing that he was poncing out schoolgirls at his Soho brothel. Despite the legal proceedings I still knew I had to be careful as I'd heard he was desperate to track me down and have me executed, and I believed the injunction to be a ploy he put into operation, if ever he managed to get to me, by then sticking his hands up and saying he was just an honest businessman doing everything by the book. Not only was there the Green's Court property left to be sorted out between us but there was also some nice up and coming real estate in the Canning Town area that I had shares with Longshanks in. I decided to get out of the country for a while to plan my next move and so caught a flight back to Dublin. Imagine my surprise when a few weeks later I read in a copy of a London evening newspaper that Green's Court had been fire-bombed, by according to the newspaper report, a gang of Maltese pimps. In the article it stated that unknown assailants had kicked open the ground floor of the premises and thrown in a fire-bomb which almost killed four people on the upstairs floors. I needed to know more, and so after about a week I phoned Powelly Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

26 at his tailor's shop, hoping he would be able to furnish with me with some more details of the actual firm who carried out the attack. Instead of being forthcoming with any information he sounded very evasive and nervous and asked me a series of strange questions. It was then that I sussed that the slag was recording our conversation. After cutting the conversation short I decided I would one day have to pay the cunt a visit for potentially trying to stripe me up at what was obviously at Longshanks' behest. A month or so later I was back in London to sort out some unrelated business when I decided to drop in to see Powelly at his shop. I walked in and asked the bloke who worked there where the slaggy plastic gangster cunt was. He looked at me, shit his pants, then legged it out of the shop. My anger overcame me and I made a foolish mistake, in that I spotted a bottle of bleach on a nearby table, and poured it all over Powelly's brand new Soho Summer Collection. Realising my error I had it out of the shop sharpish and headed back to my safe house out in the sticks before slipping back over to Dublin. It must have been a week or so later when my brief phoned me in a bit of a panic asking me if I could account for my movements the previous Friday. I told him I had been to the cinema and then a restaurant with some friends in Dublin city centre. He went on to explain that Powelly's tailor shop had been subject to an arson attack and that subsequently Powelly had visited West End Central police station and made a statement Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

27 against me saying that he believed I was the arsonist. Further enquiries by my brief revealed that Powelly had attended the Old Bill shop accompanied by Longshanks' brief to make the false statement against me. So there it was. Longshanks, Little Tich and now Powelly were all using the same brief and all engaged in a conspiracy to try and have me fitted up and lifted off the streets. After speaking to my own brief I then received word from Bernie Silver saying that he needed to speak to me urgently and that it would be in my best interest to meet up with him at the RAC club in London with some Old Bill pals of his from back in the day. I jumped on a plane and flew straight to London and over high teas the pigs briefed me that they knew it wasn't me that set Powelly's shop alight as they already had a suspect. Turns out Little Tich had been spotted by some bloke sitting up at opposite open window having a sly fag. The dopey little Singing Ringing Tree dwarf cunt had pulled up in an adjacent side street, in I kid you not, a car that was registered to him. He then poured a can of petrol through Powelly's letterbox, set it alight then fucked off. The bloke at the window took down Little Tich's number plate and called the Old Bill himself. Bernie's pig pals then went on to tell me that they believed some sort of pressure had been put on Powelly by Longshanks to attend the cop shop with his brief in order to press charges against me. The two pigs on the meeting then asked if I Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

28 would meet up with their pals conducting the Powelly turn out and I figured, why not, seeing as that dirty grass cunt Longshanks had already made a statement against me in the High Court, and had now tried to have me fitted up for arson, as well as having me tugged by the authorities in the Channel Islands. As far as I was concerned the gloves were off. I made my way to a meet the next day with the two Old Bill at a cafe near Scotland Yard, sussing straight away that they were the fucking heavy mob. As I sat at a table opposite them I noticed a mobile phone laying on the table and emitting a flashing red light which I suspected was there to secretly record any conversation we might have. I was right. About twenty minutes into the meet, after spieling them some tales about drug-dealings, punishment beatings, protection rackets and the like, one of the slippery cunts mentioned the double murder of a pub accountant and his bird that happened out in Epping Forest, and suggested that I had used an alias that was being investigated by murder squad detectives on the case. I told them I had no knowledge of the alias they suggested, adding that I was willing to talk further but I would only do it in the presence of my brief. I had the sneaking suspicion that I was being set up as a fucking patsy for the bit of graft and was being given enough rope to hang myself. In the event I called a halt to the meeting and went straight to see my brief, and he suggested I fuck off for a while while it all calmed Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

29 down, so I flew back to Dublin then onto the States and got back to sorting out a means to getting a steady straight living and settling down to my new life on the West Coast. About six months later I received news that Longshanks had put a firm of builders into Green's Court and it had been rebuilt on the hurry and was now back in the porn and brass business. But it weren't all bad news. A month after the building re-opened I was informed by a pal that a gunman had entered the basement in the early hours, while it was operating as a shebeen, and fired off a volley of shots at Little Tich. Unfortunately the treacherous quisling escaped via a fire exit and instead some old shitcunt he was souvering copped the bullets meant for him. For Soho Old Bill it was the final straw. A few days later they raided the gaff and shut down the ground floor and basement by sticking a cessation order on it. From my sunny hideaway I took stock. I had all but succeeded in kicking Longshanks out of Soho, and now all he had left was a brothel on the two upper floors of Greens Court, which couldn't be shut as two of the birds grafting there had been able to prove that they were living in the flats, as well as grafting them, which meant a long legal process to evict them. But on the positive side I had snuffed out all his other West End earnings by about ninety per cent and stuck his moniker all over a London newspaper. There was more good news. I heard a little while later Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved

30 that after the Green's Court shooting Little Tich was too shitscared to back to Soho and Longshanks was blaming him for the loss of earnings and face. So Little Tich was now piggy in the middle between me and Longshanks. And with any gangster grief it's always the piggy in the middle that cops it first. I knew then that Little Tich's days were numbered and that one day Longshanks would throw that particular little piggy to the big bad wolf. So all in all things weren't too bad. Heavy Old Bill were chomping at the bit for a piece of Longshanks, Little Tich was on his toes, Powelly was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and I was sitting in a beach bar in southern California knocking back Long Island Ice Teas.

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Copyright Horace Silver 2013. All rights reserved