The Devil: Britain's Most Feared Underworld Taxman by Graham Johnson

Author:Graham Johnson [Graham Johnson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: True Crime, Organized Crime, Social Science, Criminology
ISBN: 9781845968915
Google: zfEoDifZvdAC
Amazon: 1845961781
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2007-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

I was doing this shit instinctively, without even having read the book at that time.

I said, ‘Fucking hell, Curtis. How do you do it, lad? I’ve only had one bizzy on me, and my fucking arse is like that – gone. I don’t know how you can cope with having a whole division on you.’ A sick-looking grin spread across his face. Inside, I could see he was thinking, ‘I can do something Frenchie can’t and Frenchie is supposed to be the hardest bastard in Liverpool and far beyond.’ I reinforced my point: ‘You do this fucking 24/7, like it’s nothing.’

He said, ‘I’ve got enough money to stop and I wouldn’t have to work again. But what am I going to do? Fucking sit at home and watch daytime TV? I do it cos it’s something to do, lad.’

He was taking the patriarchal position with me, and I allowed him to, because I was making seventeen grand every three days from the geezer. I was trying to be useful to him, providing him with technology and so on, so that I could continue to curry favour in his court. I was trying to align myself with the king. It’s what you’re supposed to do as a courtier. You’re supposed to align yourself around power but not make it too obvious. Machiavelli had written about it and now I was putting it into action.

Curtis then told me that his motives went beyond the money. He said, ‘If I spent 50 grand a fucking day, I couldn’t go broke.’ He used to drop little lines like that on you to make you start counting up his money, but he never told anyone what he had outright.

I respected what he did, despite the problems I’d had with him over Andrew John. He had outwitted some of the smartest that the opposition had to offer. Also, he followed the rules of engagement: never grassed or compromised himself. I’ve had it said to me that Curtis Warren’s a grass, and I think, ‘Go and kiss my granny.’ He’s just anti-establishment and has been from the day he was fucking born. He was born kicking and screaming, but envious people have said that he couldn’t have got to where he did and be as big as he did without being a grass. I would say to those people, ‘No, he paid people to get there, and he had the bizzies in place.’

We could have gotten real big together, but there was a fundamental mistrust between us. He knew it was there, and I knew it was there, but we didn’t talk about it. Two bulls can’t live in the one pen. However, I’ve still got a massive, grudging respect for the guy. Later, when he went to prison, he did his bird without bitching and screaming. In contrast, when I was in jail, he spread this rumour that I had had a nervous breakdown. He said, ‘Frenchie isn’t a proper criminal.’ That was because I had been to university, had a job and was doing things.

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