'You got an accent,' she notes, fluffing her hair in the night wind.

'London,' I tell her.

'Wow,' she says, as we drive on.

Now one thing I've learnt over the years, is that if something seems too good to be true, it normally is. Like, no matter how much you spend on Christmas crackers, after the initial expectation of the bang, all you ever seem get inside is a silly hat, a hundred-year-old joke and a poxy plastic toy. And this situation is no exception. It's not the lack of Adam's apple that's sets me to worrying, for with the skills of today's plastic surgeons, that could have been shaved down. And the hair's real from what I can make out, otherwise she'd be holding onto it instead of teasing it in the wind. The feet? They don't seem overlarge. Got it. It's the hands. They look a little like gardening gloves, perfect for a rebound shot or pruning rosebushes I imagine, but I wouldn't fancy them giving me a five-knuckle shuffle. Not that I'm quibbling, mind, it ain't a perfect world. And besides, in this case, a close second don't appear to be too far behind first place.

Without appearing too obvious I next allow myself a closer slippery shufti down by the rabbit hutch, but for the life of me I can't see a p.e.c.k.e.r in the panties. It's either strapped up well-tight or been cut and tucked. Aw, what the f.u.c.k! I'm a million miles from home, and this is the nearest I'm ever gonna get to Beyonce.

'Candy Darling,' I say. 'You got that name from Lou Reed, Transformer, right?'

'Pardon me, honey?'

'Transformer. Walk on the Wild Side.'

'Oh, I ain't been transformed yet, baby, still saving up the dough. But I been walking on the wild side since I was a little itty bitty young thang.' So that answers my question. But I have to say, sterling job of stas.h.i.+ng the meat and two veg.

'Besides, honey,' she continues. 'What's a little piece of gristle between friends?' And I'm thinking, my sentiments exactly. And then get this. He then, er, I mean, she then, whatever, reaches across and puts one of her gardening glove mitts right in between my legs and starts to give the skinhead in the polo-neck some ready rub, telling me, 'Mmmmm... now that's a two hander if ever I felt one.' And she's bang on with her a.s.sessment. 'Now, you come and see me if you want the real thang, and thanks for the lift, honey.' And with that she sashays into the night, and ten minutes later I'm standing in the lobby of my favourite hotel in South Beach, the Alfonse, trying discreetly to stash a still bulging semi-lob.

The Alfonse is the coolest place in town and naturally, extremely expensive. Each room is designed around a different theme. I'm booked into my usual suite, the voodoo room, whose walls boast a disconcerting mix of Haitian juju masks and Creole voodoo dolls (with pins). Strategically placed on the top of various sideboards and cabinets are pint-sized, see-through pickle jars containing such hoodoo staples as black cat bone, John the Conquer root and mojo hand, all used by voodoo priests in their magical rituals. In the centre of the room, draped in Mosquito muslin and rigged up to look like a giant cobweb, sits the piece de resistance, the broken heart bed. It's a killer king-sized number that actually splits into two crooked single beds down the middle in the shape of a broken heart. And when you turn off the main lounge light, the suite automatically becomes bathed in an eerie turquoise glow. Not only does it match my extreme mood swings and nasty propensities, but it also scares birds s.h.i.+tless when you bring them back here to f.u.c.k them. On the ground floor sits the Bada.s.s bar, where a righteous dreadlocks serves up Killer Zombies, as well as providing a nifty under-the-counter service of the finest Colombian collie-weed. In the bas.e.m.e.nt there's a full-sized recording studio that's used by top musos from all over the world, and as if that ain't enough, a premier New York modelling agency has a permanent suite on the second floor. So, if you're into stunning airheads and you've got dough to burn, you can take your pick.

After checking in and showering and taking some time to suck in the ambience of my suite, I bell my Cuban connection, Henri, and later that evening we hook up at a down-home Cuban restaurant on Ocean Drive. He introduces me to his powder-man and brother in blood and business, Paulie, a heavy-looking dude, relaxed but intense behind a neatly clipped Van d.y.k.e beard and a bulldog frame settled snug inside an immaculate, ice-white, almost knee-length zoot suit. The three of us proceed to get hammered over tequila slammers and old times. It's been two years since I last saw Henri and I'm pleased to find that things are going great for him. Only one downside he tells me. Their older brother arrived by inner tube across the shark-infested straits that separate Cuba from America, only three weeks ago. He was twenty pounds underweight and near to death when the US Navy picked him up a couple of miles offsh.o.r.e. I blamed the Yanks for the inhumane sanctions imposed since Kennedy got his a.r.s.e kicked in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Henri blamed Castro for being a 'c.o.c.ksucking, communist son of a f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h wh.o.r.e', which, seeing as both him and his brother were packing ironware, left us all square on the argument, I felt. I'm ashamed to say that the combination of jet lag and Mexican firewater f.u.c.ked me big time, and I crawled off to my pit, pale-faced and pathetically early. But I'm up less than five hours later, just in time to catch the tail end of a stunning sunrise, and attempting to blow away my hangover with a slow, booze-hazed jog along the wooden boardwalk that runs about two miles along the bestest beach you've ever seen. Miles and miles of nothing but clean as a whistle sand and bright blue briny. And to add to the craziness of the gaff, I've just seen a Rip Van Winkle lookalike, leash-walking his three-feet-long pet monitor lizard and heading for their usual morning dip in the ocean.

The locals call this place G.o.d's waiting room because it full of ancient New York Jews who come down here to retire, then die. And as I move slowly along, peering out of p.i.s.s-hole-in-the-snow eyes, weaving in and out of hobbling coffin-dodgers, I swear I've never seen people as old as this. Crinkled up old dudes in snap-caps and chest high, stay-pressed trousers that barely skirt the tops of pristine white pumps, walking hand in hand with loving wives, their faces caked in pan-stick make-up, and all bearing the faded remnants of concentration camp tattoos on withered arms. In pairs they shuffle gamely, on their way to two-for-one breakfasts at the beach front McDonald's. And as I'm running I'm thinking, that these long-suffering people cannot be aware of the fact, as they're sitting down to their bargain McBreakfasts around plastic tables full of f.a.g burns, that McDonald's has recently opened a branch in Germany, that sits only one third of a mile from the infamous Dachau concentration camp, where thousand upon thousand of their fellow compatriots and other innocents besides were exterminated industrially and wholesale by the n.a.z.is. And what's more the n.a.z.is s.h.i.+pped their victims to Dachau in cattle trucks. I sincerely f.u.c.king hope that McDonald's don't use the same method to s.h.i.+p in its beef.

After a couple of hours of shopping and sightseeing I then spend a fantastic afternoon with Henri on his charter plane, island hopping for a happy crowd of out-of-town tourists. What a great front for a charlie business! Halfway through the flight and just for the h.e.l.l of it, Henri dropped alt.i.tude and we ended up buzzing the Florida Keys, a dotted ma.s.s of breathtakingly beautiful atolls, which rightfully claim their place as the jewels in America's crown. Ernest Hemingway drank himself to death on Key West, and on another, Jimmy Buffet wasted away in Margueritaville. Being surrounded by such beauty has already got me dreading going back home to grey, poxy old Heathrow, to negotiate the waiting throngs of dullard customs c.u.n.ts with their ferret heads sticking out of their greasy s.h.i.+rt collars. Straight after touching down at the local airstrip I slip off for some peace and afternoon's quiet reflection, and end up watching a posse of elderly Cuban men fis.h.i.+ng for Barracuda off of the nearby pier, after which I stroll two blocks inland through the city's buzzing gay district to a Cuban cafe where I've laid on a meet with Sunbed Terry and Heart-attack Jack.

'f.u.c.king beautiful here,' says Sunbed to me, as the three of us sit hunched round a rickety wooden table and sip gingerly on thunderbolt-strong, red-hot espressos. 'I'll be going home with a great tan.'

'You already got a great tan,' says Heart-attack, chomping down on a Romeo y Julieta.

'But it's out of a f.u.c.king tube, bruv! You can't beat the real McCoy. And don't worry about my tan. You're not supposed to be drinking coffee, or for that matter smoking, especially a Cuban cigar. They're f.u.c.king illegal here. But I got to admit you do look like a film star with that lah-de-dah stuck in your north and south.'

'Clint Eastwood?' says Heart-attack, puffing out his chest while puffing on his cigar.

'Nah, La.s.sie having a s.h.i.+t.'

'You f.u.c.king w.a.n.ker,' says Heart-attack. 'Anyway, it's a special occasion. Must say, Billy. It's f.u.c.king lovely down here. And look at this coffee bar, right old-fas.h.i.+oned. f.u.c.king cla.s.s.'

'Yeah,' I say. 'This is the gaff where Meyer Lansky used to come to when he was living down here.'

'Meyer Lansky!' says Sunbed. 'What, the Meyer Lansky what was partners with Lucky Luciano?'

'That's him,' I say. 'He went on his toes to Israel but they knocked him back as a bad Jew, so he settled down here for his final days. In fact he used to sit at this very table that we're sitting at now, and use that pay phone right by your canister.'

'f.u.c.k me,' says Heart-attack. 'Just think, he probably had people mullered by just putting in a coin and dialling a f.u.c.king number.'

'Makes you feel part of history, don't it?' says Sunbed. ''Ere, Billy, you gotta take our picture for the boys back home.'

Just after I've taken snapshots of the brothers grinning inanely while calling their mum on Meyer Lansky's phone, Paulie comes strolling in and so I commence with the proceedings.

'Paulie,' I say. 'These are my pals, Terry and Jack. Good people from England. Terry, Jack, this is Paulie. Paulie is one hundred per cent proper and you can talk to him as you talk to me.' Nods and handshakes all round sees me wolfing down my now cold coffee, bid my farewells, and then slip out through a side door while thinking what a pleasure it is to just do such business without Danny wanting to turn people over, or cut them to pieces for some transgression, real or imagined. It's finally getting through to my thick skull that without that lunatic on the firm I could be doing deals like this all day long. No violence, n.o.body getting hurt. Good charlie, good karma and plenty of easy cash with the chance of having my collar felt down to about zilch. And I mean I have to be honest with myself, the day I ever do a straight job will be the day pigs fly. And if pigs ever do fly, then Scotland Yard will be London's biggest airport. Yeah, f.u.c.k that straight-goer nine-to-five s.h.i.+t. I like to do my business with the sun gone down. What about ethics I hear you say? As far as I'm concerned, ethics is a county in the south of England, where some of my pals live in great big houses. When I get home I resolve to sit down and give myself a serious talking to, but for now with my part of the deal done, I decide to vamoose out of town for a few days while they sort their business out, in the very slim chance that it goes boss-eyed. The last thing I need at the moment is to be banged up in a Yankee nick. A s.h.i.+ver runs down my spine. The thought of spending fifteen stretch in one of those reptile houses runs my blood cold. On the plus side, Paulie has slipped me a large nugget of crystal, bit of personal, if you get my drift. And so, with the sun setting against the left side of my face and the moon already rising bold over my right shoulder, I gun open the throttle of my Mustang and hit the freeway that leads up to Boca Raton, to lay low and catch me some serious rays.

FIVE DAYS LATER and with not a d.i.c.ky bird from the two brothers means I'm taking as read that no news is good news, and so I've slipped back down the coast to spend my last night in Miami. After bidding fond farewells to Henri and Paulie, I make my way to South Beach to drop Lennie McLean's film script off to Derry O'Dourke. I'm a little apprehensive about the meet because of O'Dourke's reputation of being a flash c.u.n.t with a big mouth, but I press on regardless for Lennie's sake. A message left at the Alfonse informs me he's hanging at his brother Buck's bar, b.o.n.e.r's, located one block back from the beach. One reaching the bar my eyes lock onto a single custom Harley-Davidson parked directly outside on the sidewalk. On it sits a handwritten sign, warning; 'This bike belongs to Derry O'Dourke, don't touch it or I'll kick your a.s.s.' Now this tells me two things. One, that the bike's his; and two, he's a total c.u.n.t. I bowl in but already I've got the f.u.c.king zig. Working my way through a party crowd of biker babes, beach b.u.ms and surf n.a.z.is, I catch sight of O'Dourke propping up the bar in the far corner. He's togged up in full outlaw leathers and with a stars and stripes bandana wrapped tight around the top of his head, while holding court spieling war stories to a small crowd of bought and paid for cronies, who are hanging on every ounce of his bulls.h.i.+t. One of the sycophants lapping up his largesse is a pretty-boy English boxer, who me and Danny smashed the granny out of in an East End boozer a while back, after him and his mates took a stinking liberty with an old-age pensioner. As I approach the party, Pretty Boy stares at me through narrowed eyes then pretends not to recognise me.

Ten seconds after I've introduced myself, O'Dourke's all over me like a cheap suit, ordering up drinks and asking about Lennie McClean, as if he's his long lost brother. Waving Lennie's script in his hand for all to see, he then orders a lackey to chop up some fat hairy ones on the bar, which we demolish, chasing them down with shots of gold tequila. But the high don't last, because after suffering approximately fifteen minutes or so of embarra.s.sing rhubarbing, and watching grown men debase themselves by sucking up to this egotistical, phoney baloney piece of southern-fried white trailer trash, I'm already plotting my escape. Thankfully, Lady Luck deals me a fabulous hand, which I run with, when O'Dourke, who obviously can't drink like he can talk, and judging by the couple of snide boxing bouts he's taken part in, can't even fight like he can drink, goes as green as a gooseberry and starts staggering through the bar to the entrance, brus.h.i.+ng revellers aside as if they were ninepins. Without so much as a by-your-leave to any of his a.r.s.ewipes I follow swiftly in his wake. On reaching the outside of the bar he misses a step, tumbles a.r.s.e over elbow over bandana and ends up in a crumpled and dishevelled heap next to his motorcycle. As I reach the bottom of the steps I stand and take stock, not quite believing what I'm seeing, because there laying comatose like a tramp in front of me, and with a p.i.s.s stain forming on the front of his jeans, is a movie legend and one-time idol of mine, who not only blew most of his peers off the screen in any number of cla.s.sic films, but who also ended up in the feather with some of the most beautiful women in the world.

Stepping over him in obvious disgust in order to get on my way, I suddenly catch sight of his dentures, which have fallen out of his mouth and are laying open in a wide grin two feet away from his head. I do no more than give them a swift kick, sending them tumbling into the gutter, alongside my estimation of the man. Then without even checking to see if he's OK, I stroll off into the night to look for some real action with some real people. But witnessing yet another hero plummeting to a zero sent me into a deep depression, the result of which saw me skulking the streets of South Beach acting like Mr Sad-f.u.c.k himself, charlie-sniffing alone and talking b.o.l.l.o.c.ks to the moon. I even got refused entry to Gianni Versace's nightclub, because the no-neck mackerel of a head doorman spotted white powder around the edges of my nostrils and all down the front of my s.h.i.+rt. If this was London I would have shot the mug in the f.u.c.king leg, but I didn't have no yogger, so instead I screamed abuse at all and sundry then tore off into the night with the raving hump, hitting more bars, sinking yet more booze and consequently searching for action in a steadily declining quality of watering holes, until reaching rock bottom in the form of the flickering neon of the Four Deuces, which in essence is nothing more than a cave gouged out of a hole in the wall, and that sucks desperadoes into its clammy h.e.l.l like dog s.h.i.+t draws flies.

The Four Deuces. Twenty-four seven of scuzzball heaven. Excepting that they close up for one hour between five and six in the morning to throw out the trash alongside the drunks, sweep up the spit-soaked sawdust and swill the congealed sick out of the toilets with buckets of disinfected water. After which, they open up and let the drunks back in again. As soon as I walk in off the street, the door slams shut behind me, leaving me blinking blindly into the bar's netherworld of half-light and lipstick-stained gla.s.ses. Tentatively I make my way along the bar, brus.h.i.+ng past a row of seated barflies in stinking workwear, glued to their stools with dried sweat, and swigging back mouthfuls of snide well whiskey. At the end of the bar, what light there was abruptly disappears and I find myself having to feel my way into the men's toilets like a blind man boarding a bus, just so as I can have a toot and a freshen up. Another indication of what a cla.s.sy joint this is, hits me as soon as I make it into the wash area, because the lights installed are ultraviolet, put in specially to make it impossible for junkies to locate their veins for mainlining. After moving in close to the mirror and seeing my reflection, I give out an audible gasp of 'f.u.c.king h.e.l.l!' Because staring back at me is one messy c.u.n.t. Not only is my reflection s...o...b..ring at the chops, but its nose is dripping like a jank p.u.s.s.y. Not that it matters, 'cos the c.u.n.t ain't got a cat in h.e.l.l's chance of banging any beaver tonight. So, after blanking out the mirror, I creep into a cubicle to sniff up some more sustenance and then negotiate my way back into the main bar area to get f.u.c.ked up some more.

They say that G.o.d works in mysterious ways and he sure does, because I've just found divine providence in the form of Candy Darling, sitting in a far corner under a swathe of light emanating from a nearby pool table, and sharing c.o.c.ktails with Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. Well, that's who they look like to my f.u.c.ked-up eyes. After straightening myself up as best I can in the circ.u.mstances, I stroll over to a trailer-bride c.o.c.ktail waitress, busy chewing gum and painting her inch-long nails, order the two screen legends a drink, plus another each for me and Candy. She's so pleased to see me I get a full on frenchie and a loving reef round my b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. Now if she was a bird I would've loved to have bent her straight over the pool table and f.u.c.ked her right there on the spot, after which, I would've stuck a finger up each one of her holes like I was ready to pick up a tenpin bowling ball. But no matter how f.u.c.ked up I am I ain't f.u.c.ked up enough to forget that Candy's only got one hole to play with, and I don't do business with the brown-eye.

Plus, there's already a couple of heavy looking h.e.l.l's Angels at the table playing eight ball for big bucks, so I give that pa.s.sing pipe dream a miss, and instead drag Candy off to the gents, pile her into a cubicle and carve up another couple of lines. Candy ain't no sooner powdered her hooter, when without any further ado, she drops down to her knees on the beer and p.i.s.s soaked floor, pulls down my flies, whips out Mr Sloppy-head, throws a Jamaican lip right over him and starts sucking him like she's sucking a golf ball through a hosepipe. And let me tell you, there ain't nothing in the world to make a man feel more like the almighty than someone, anyone, down on their knees in front of him, sucking his corey.

So there I am lost in l.u.s.t with my life being played out like a backstreet p.o.r.n movie, and the volcano deep inside my spuds showing every sign of erupting and getting ready to blow Candy's tonsils down the back of her throat, when it dawns on me that my f.u.c.king plane leaves at seven a.m. But I don't have my watch on, and being a gentlemen, I deem it rude to interrupt anyone while they're enjoying a good meal. But a quick look down at Candy tells me it must be at least five o'clock, judging by the shadow that's starting to manifest itself on her jaw. Now sometimes while I'm getting blown I'm p.r.o.ne to sermonising and dispensing my own particular pearls of wisdom, but with a plane to catch, my mind is now on my flight, and so I pull out my c.o.c.k sharpish and dispense a pearl necklace instead. A lovely clammy number made up of thick white globules which I proceed to lay in as uneven line around Candy's neck and shoulders. But as quickly as I shoot my bolt, the guilt trip kicks in, and I quickly zip up in silence and do the Dustin out of the Four Deuces without so much as a thank you for services rendered. Although I'm as mangled as a drunken redneck's pickup truck in a death crash I somehow manage to gather my possessions from my hotel room, check out and drive myself to the airport, arriving with only fifteen minutes until the gate closes and I miss my flight. After pulling close to the pavement directly outside international departures, I dump the Mustang in a loading bay that says no parking, leaving the keys in the ignition and the engine still running. Then, grabbing my luggage off of the bag seat, I hotfoot it to the check-in and slip through pa.s.sport control, arriving in the departure lounge with just a few minutes to spare.

On reaching the required boarding gate it relieves me immensely to find that the package tour lemmings have already boarded, and now the only downer is that because of my paranoia about keeping a low profile back in Blighty, I'm booked into cattle cla.s.s. After chucking a quick envious glance at the first cla.s.s cabin, I turn right and skulk along the impossibly narrow aisle looking for an empty seat. As I squeeze my way past the legions of sweating fuglies, squashed together like cattle to the slaughter, their turnip heads red raw and sunburnt by unaccustomed sun, I can't understand why they seem so happy and content. I mean they're flying back from paradise to belting rain and the grindstone of twenty-five year mortgages. But then my heart lifts a little when I suss that there's rows of empty seats at the back. Snagging the furthest window seat I can find away from the madding crowd, I plonk myself down under the auspices of a s.h.i.+t-eating grin, because the nearest sore-heads are five rows down, and there's no screaming brats within earshot. A short while later as we taxi ready for take-off I remember that I'm still cottrelled up with some of the c.o.ke I got as a gift from my Cuban connection. A quick reef around my strides also reveals me to be in possession of half a bottle of amyl nitrate. As the plane eases onto the runway, the interior lights go down and the hostesses strap themselves in as we prepare for take-off. Seizing the opportunity I discreetly pull the blind down on my porthole window, pull down the table from the back of the seat in front of me, and chop up a couple of lines on it, which I sniff up straight away. As we move further along the runway, the jet's engines wind up into a high-powered scream and the plane jolts forward reaching maximum tyre speed, tilts backwards then takes off, rocking slightly as the wheels leave the tarmac. And right at that very moment, I uncap my bottle of amyl nitrate and take a huge blast up each nostril before settling back to enjoy what is definitely a whole new meaning to 'in-flight' entertainment. Twenty cans of Budweiser, two wraps of charlie, f.u.c.k knows how many blasts of amyl, and ten racehorse p.i.s.ses later, my plane finally touches down at Heathrow.

FAT RAY'S A real piece of work. Thirty rotten stinking stone of soap-dodging, ex-army smegball. But for all his personal hygiene problems he ain't no mug. He's got his nicotine-stained fingers in untold dodgy pies, only trouble being is that when his fingers ain't in the pies, they're either up his a.r.s.e or up his nose. He never changes his clobber and bites his nails to the bone, but I love the man to death because he's one hundred per cent and brightens up the darkest day. He runs the stall pitches in Berwick Street Market, Soho, copping kickbacks from every stallholder, although he does keep one himself, just as a front really. And if you ever find yourself trolling about down Berwick Street you can't miss him. Gravy-stained wife-beater, mouldy old sweat pants from h.e.l.l, potatoes growing out of his cauliflower ears and scuffed-up dealer boots, leering at every little piece of Top Shop totty that totters by. 'Come and get yer gums around me plums,' is what he shouts at them. Don't think he gets too many takers though. I've slipped up to see Fat Ray today because I've got a proposition for the man, but having scouted his usual haunts I've drawn a blank. He ain't even standing at his stall, which means there's only one man to ask, Hoover-mouth. Hoover-mouth is Fat Ray's eyes and ears on the street.

And any s.h.i.+t that needs straightening out, it's down to Hoover-mouth. Like if a stallholder's late with their rent he'll get Hoover-mouth to hover around their stall, c.u.n.ting and f.u.c.king in his indecipherable lingo and scaring off punters. You see Hoover-mouth blew half his own face away in a failed suicide attempt. Put a shooter under his chin, pulled the trigger and BANG! Only thing is he lived, sort of. His bad aim saw an ordinary mooey transfigured into a grotesque mask, of which one side is exposed down to raw flesh and jawbone, into which a few manky teeth have survived, alongside a stub of tongue. And what with a hook clay pipe stuck permanently on what's left of his lower lip, he looks likes like a cross between the Elephant Man and a sawn-in-half pig's head with a strange taste in smoking apparel.

Hoover-mouth grunts and points to the sky when I ask him for Fat Ray. That don't mean Fat Ray's dead or he's on a plane. It means he's in an upstairs room in a building of mine and Danny's that we let him use rent free, and where he conducts all his moody business from. Like the fat man don't stop telling me, 'Gotta keep the crooked cash rolling in, Billy, there's f.u.c.k all karats in carrots.' And on that I have to make him right.

DREAMING LIPS, THIS gaff is a gold mine. Forget p.a.w.nbroking, and open your heart to p.o.r.nbroking! The whole building belongs to me and Danny, but not on paper of course. In the bas.e.m.e.nt there's a hardcore p.o.r.no cinema that takes a fortune. All men, all day. Middle-aged married inadequates mostly, trapped in pitiful cycles of self-abuse. Spend all afternoons engaging each other in furtive bouts of mutual masturbation and s.p.u.n.k swallowing, before slinking home to their Doreens in Dorking. Ground floor. s.e.x shop. Soft stuff on show, hard stuff under the counter. At the back of the s.e.x shop we've got some peepshow booths. Absolute money-spinners, consisting of nothing more than a bored, b.u.mpy-legged old broad, grinding lethargically for endless droves of sad-f.u.c.k, five-knuckle shuffle merchants. And hardly any outlay needed, save for the bird, and the bloke who gives out the change and has to mop up the s.p.u.n.k the punters leave behind. At the moment there's a clampdown, f.u.c.king Tory council! And we're also getting serious grief from the vice squad. Two raids a month. They come in, smash the gaff up and take everything, even the DVD machines. But we've got a large van full of p.o.r.n parked up in a car park around the corner, plus a cowboy building firm on call, and as soon as they bust any of our gaffs, we're back ready to do business in a matter of hours. That's the great thing about the p.o.r.n game. Build it, and they will c.u.m!

We use a front man system to avoid the nickings ourselves and it runs like a dream. You see the thing about Soho is that it attracts drifters. They come and they go, and we make cunning use of them. The front man for this building is The Monkey, a miniature Scouser already on his toes from a lagging. A pal of his brought him round to see me, and this is the deal. On paper, he now owns Dreaming Lips, and so first of all we got him a new ID and a little flat on the top floor, rent-free. A three'er a week in his hand, which is well enough to keep him in scag and sherbet, and all he has to do is make himself available when the pigs put on a raid. Of course, they look at him, a five foot druggy Scouser and know he's only a patsy. But he'll wave a snide lease in front of their snouts, stick to the script and all they can do is confiscate the p.o.r.n, write him up and send him a summons in the post. Then, using one of our bent briefs we can normally stretch out proceedings for anything up to two years. And when it all eventually does come on top, The Monkey will go down to Bow Street magistrates court and stick his hands up to all the p.o.r.n charges, plus any VAT or tax owed. He'll get six months to a year and do most of it in an open nick, where he'll use the time to dry out. We'll send him down regular parcels to help his bird run smooth, and when he comes out he'll get a ten grand cash pay-off, after which, he'll probably slip away to Scouse heaven. Chasing the dragon till the cows come home in a pox-ridden little bedsit down on the Cornish Riviera. And there will be another hapless doughnut waiting to step straight into his smelly trainers. That's how we run all our gaffs in Soho, and it's why, no matter how early Old Bill gets up in the morning, he's got no chance of feeling our collars.

I stroll into the ground-floor s.e.x shop and nod, without the slightest respect, to Greebo who works there. The man's as rotten as a f.u.c.king pear and has always got his greasy, duck-tailed quiff buried in the latest American muscle car mag. Total f.u.c.king waste of s.p.a.ce! One of those sad b.a.s.t.a.r.ds that ain't never been further than Eastbourne, but strolls about in Stetsons and rides about in two-bob's worth of snide Americana. As long as he's got a hole in his a.r.s.e he'll never be able to afford the real deal, because he's under the cosh of a four-eyed bulld.y.k.e who batters him senseless, takes all his dough then blows it on fruit machines. And even if he ever does get a windfall, somebody should tell the p.r.i.c.k, you can't live the American dream under the grim, dowdy skies of England. Whenever you see a man like Greebo driving around in a battered old motor with furry dice hanging in the window, you can bet your bottom dollar he's also got a battered old bird with furry teeth sitting next to him in the pa.s.senger seat. As I slip past Greebo's desk he pushes down a b.u.t.ton on the floor with one of his (made in Korea) cowboy boots, and it clicks open to reveal a secret door hidden behind a shelf full of s.e.x-aids. After negotiating the door I close it behind me and make my way up the first flight of stairs, pa.s.sing the bra.s.s's flat on the first floor. Pinned outside the flat is a piece of paper, across which the words 'Brazilian model' are written in spidery, infant scrawl. I allow myself a little chuckle, wondering how many sad-f.u.c.k punters have climbed these very same, tired-out old stairs, their b.a.l.l.s hanging heavy with unrequited love, and under the impression they're going to be emptying their frustrated sacs inside the Girl From Ipanema, only to find on their arrival that it's a sweaty old skag-head from Sc.u.n.thorpe with more track marks up her arm than there are train-lines at Clapham Junction station.

On reaching the second floor I look out of an adjacent window to see a barely-alive pigeon with half its head smashed in, huddled up in a s.h.i.+vering ball on a ledge. A crying f.u.c.king shame, but not my problem so I carry on, chuck a left and head towards the room where I guess Fat Ray will be hiding out. He is, and believe me this room is straight from h.e.l.l. Every window in the gaff has been boarded up from the inside by nailed planks of wood, allowing only tiny slithers of occasional light to penetrate its darkness. The carpet's as bald as Gail Porter's bonce and dotted with all manner of dubious stains, as well as being alive with legions of bugs and lice. What's more, it stinks like the inside of a f.u.c.king slave s.h.i.+p. Littered about like landmines are boxes of half-eaten takeaways and crushed beer cans full of stubbed-out f.a.gs. Plus, there's an extra bad, bad hum, smelling like twenty p.i.s.sy old ladies lying dead for a week in an Oxfam shop, emanating from an unplugged and decrepit fridge in one corner. As I enter the room I catch Fat Ray crashed out on a battered old Dralon sofa that has sucked him in at its middle until he's almost touching the floor. He's stark b.o.l.l.o.c.k naked, save for a smeggy, once-white bath towel, wrapped vainly around acres and acres of blue-veined blubber. On an empty banana box three feet in front him sits a state of the art TV, while beside him on the sofa on a tin plate is a mound of about twenty steaming hot dogs, all smothered in las.h.i.+ngs of economy tomato ketchup.

On seeing me enter he toasts my arrival with a large torpedo-shaped bottle of Diet c.o.ke, of which he takes a swig, gives out a sloppy wet burp followed by a sloppy wet fart, before cramming a hot dog whole into his mouth and instructing me to 'Take a pew, Billy, my son.' And as he's speaking, chewed up food is spilling from his mouth and falling down onto his front. Flopping down into an adjacent chair I find myself unable to resist the temptation of glancing down at his feet, the toenails of which are yellow and discoloured, and curling like eagle's talons over the tops of his toes. The whole scene fills me with such unbridled revulsion that I'm sitting there with a face like a shoplifting s.k.a.n.k crutching a frozen chicken.

'Watch this, Billy,' he adds, picking up a remote control, which he points at the TV and thus reactivating a p.o.r.n movie that's been previously freeze-framed. 'This louvney's got five black dudes pulling a f.u.c.king soul train on her. That's one for every f.u.c.king hole.'

'That's two left over surely, Ray?' I say, turning my attention to the action on the screen. 'You're forgetting about her ear-holes, or even her nose-holes, eh?'

'Never thought about them, yeah, the more the f.u.c.king merrier! Go on my sons, fill that f.u.c.king s.h.i.+tc.u.n.t up to its f.u.c.king gills. That's it, ooooh, look at that, Billy. A great big chocolate jawbreaker right up the f.u.c.king dirt-box!'

'How the f.u.c.k can you watch that s.h.i.+t, eating that s.h.i.+t, Ray?' I ask him.

''Cos I'm a connoisseur of c.u.n.t and cuisine, Billy-Boy. Want a hot dog? They're freshly made.'

'Yeah, about ten f.u.c.king years ago.'

'You're too f.u.c.king fussy, son,' he then says, stuffing the third dog deep into his mouth and was.h.i.+ng it down with long, noisy glugs of Diet c.o.ke.

'Fussy, do you know what you're f.u.c.king eating?' I spit back at him. 'Earholes, a.r.s.eholes and lips. All the s.k.a.n.ky s.h.i.+t they can't do f.u.c.k all else with, they grind down and sell to the likes of you.'

But while I'm giving Fat Ray a b.o.l.l.o.c.king about his dietary habits, all he's doing is carrying on stuffing regardless. It's then that I suss out that there's something here that's not quite right. It takes me a few seconds to ascertain what it is, but I'm f.u.c.ked if there ain't something shuffling about underneath his towel. Not a big movement mind, but something nonetheless.

'What the f.u.c.k you got going on under that towel, Ray?' I say. Fat Ray laughs again, he's always laughing. After wiping a large dollop of tomato ketchup from his mouth with his hand and cleaning it on his chest hair, he reaches underneath his towel, and like a magician pulling a rabbit from a top hat, pulls out a miniature Yorks.h.i.+re terrier not much bigger than a pint mug, panting happily behind an almost toothless grin.

'This is b.o.l.l.o.c.ky Bill,' he tells me, holding the dog up to his face. 'Loves licking my f.u.c.king ball-bag, don't you, son? Reckon it's got something to do with the salt.' Ray then tilts his head forward, allowing the dog to eagerly lick his lips. After returning the gesture, Fat Ray puts the dog back to work under his towel before leaning back into the sofa with a look of pure pleasure spreading across his face.

'You should try it sometime, Billy. f.u.c.king lovely it is, especially first thing in the morning. And it never asks for nothing. Not like the old woman. Any time she goes down under the blanket and throws a lip over it, you can bet your life that when she surfaces she'll be holding her hand out for a few quid.'

'You are one f.u.c.king debauched being, Ray. And that's a boy dog, ain't it?'

'Wa.s.samatter, Billy?! You got something against gay dogs? So anyway, what you got for me?'

'We need a driver. Someone we can trust to keep their mouth shut.'

'Tight as a camel's a.r.s.e in a sandstorm, you know me.'

'That's why I'm here.'

'So?'

'Twenty mile journey, twenty-five large.'

'f.u.c.king h.e.l.l! What is it, gold?'

'The three Ps!'

'Pills, puff and powder, sweet. Who'll I be grafting with?'

'Me, the Longshanks and Frankie.'

'Count me in, son.'

'Good man.'

'The f.u.c.king best, Billy,' chuckles Fat Ray, spitting into the palm of his right hand and then leaning forward for us to shake and seal the deal. Now as I say, I love the man to death but there's no way I'm shaking hands with the c.u.n.t after what I've just witnessed, and so, instead I make a fist and we b.u.mp knuckles. He winces and I can see that the outsides of his hands are cut and badly bruised.

'You been fighting again?' I tut disapprovingly.

'You won't believe this one, Billy,' he says.

'I probably will, Ray.'

As Fat Ray stretches himself back into the sofa once more, it protests loudly, and I would too if I had a fat c.u.n.t like him sitting on me, day in day out. After letting out another fart, this one of the silent but violent strain, he burps again, stuffs another hot dog into his mouth, then starts his story.

'Two days ago I was out on the stall, and one of the chavvies working downstairs came running out saying that this bird and a geezer wanted to buy a d.i.l.d.o. Only thing is, she wanted to try it out for size first. Now, the two chavvies were f.u.c.king s.h.i.+tting themselves, so there was only one man for the job, right. Me! So I told Hoover-mouth to keep dog-eye on me fruit and veg, and off I strolled into the shop. And believe me, Billy, this bird was f.u.c.king gorgeous. Total f.u.c.king sort, honestly. Full-length mink fur coat, seamed silk stockings, suspenders, the f.u.c.king lot. And to top it all, she was wearing a pair of them six-inch high f.u.c.k-me shoes with these dainty little painted toes peeping out the front. Gave me a f.u.c.king b.o.n.e.r straight away it did. Not only that but she'd picked out the biggest plastic f.u.c.king chopper in the shop. The Loch Ness Monster! It's like a baby's arm holding a f.u.c.king orange. So, I dropped me toffees and went in like Flynn, and next thing you know I had her on top of the Betty Grable on her rickety-rack, both legs akimbo and with a carrot stuck up her a.r.s.e, while plunging her up to her gills with Nessie. The two chavvies couldn't believe it. They were bolted to the floor, gawping like f.u.c.king goldfish. And by this time her old man had his p.r.i.c.k out and was beating it like he was going down to Margate on the f.u.c.king happy bus for the day. Then she started begging me to f.u.c.k her. Well she's only f.u.c.king human, ain't she? So, I didn't need no second invite did I. I jumped on top of her and started to give her the old fat-boy special. Three hundred pounds of muscle and man, baby. Pumpity, pump pump pump, and then she started hollering and hooting and calling out to her old man. "Oh, I'm coming, darling, I'm coming." All posh like. Then the old man screamed back. "So am I, darling, so am I."

'Next thing I know, the c.u.n.t had jumped me from behind and tried to stick his c.o.c.k up me f.u.c.king a.r.s.e. Shot his f.u.c.king bolt all over me, the slag. Of course, I went f.u.c.king garrity didn't I. Started to smash the c.u.n.t to bits. I mean f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, Billy, it's a f.u.c.king liberty, ain't it? An Englishman's ringpiece is his f.u.c.king castle! And not only that, I suffer bad with piles, mate. I mean even on a good day me a.r.s.ehole's like the Hanging Gardens of f.u.c.king Babylon. So anyway, I started giving this c.u.n.t a right larruping, but the thing is the c.u.n.t was loving it, begging me for more. Then his old lady started to jump all over him with her f.u.c.king stilettos. f.u.c.king m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t weren't he. Now even I know there's no point in giving a f.u.c.king good hiding to a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t. So, I just pulled me strides up and f.u.c.ked off. But that weren't the end of it, 'cos about ten minutes later one of the chavvies from the shop came over to see me and handed me two hundred quid. It was from the couple. Reckoned it was the best time they'd ever had.'

'That's f.u.c.king sick, Ray. What did you do with the dough?'

'Took the missus out for a nice curry and a couple of bottles of Moey.'

'You're a good husband, Ray.'

'Think so, Billy?'

'Yeah.'

'Wish you'd tell my missus that. She reckons I'm a fat disgusting b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

And that's what I say about Fat Ray. The man's an absolute scream, but at least the driving department for the Spud Murphy coup's sorted out now. And I feel a whole lot better that we've got someone we can trust. It's always hard when you have to reach outside your circles and bring in semi-straight-goers like Fat Ray, because that's normally where you find the weakest links. And they're always the ones that snap first if any bad s.h.i.+t goes down. But I'll worry about that another day.

Slipping down the stairs back into the shop, I'm just about ready to leave when this old boy comes hobbling out from the inside of the cinema. You know the sort. Sir Bufton Tufton type, straight outta the s.h.i.+res. Handlebar moustache, rolled up umbrella, highly polished brogues and gout. Not only is the old c.u.n.t as red as a beetroot, but he's huffing and puffing and blowing smoke rings out of his ears. Obviously not a happy bunny.

'You!' he shouts at me, waving his brolly in my face. 'In th... th... there. Those fer... fer... f.u.c.king... Je... Je... Jezebels on that screen, swallowing all that s.p.u.n.k. What a G.o.d-awful waste. Should be in my mouth, do you hear?!'

You know what? Some things there just ain't no answer to. I look at Greebo, he looks at me and we both shrug. And so, with the stench of stale s.p.u.n.k and cheap disinfectant still clogging my throat, I hurry straight through the door and out into the afternoon air. Only it ain't much fresher.

A two minute stroll down Wardour Street sees me hitting Chinatown and having to negotiate the hustle and bustle of industrious Chinese workers, heaving boxes and containers full of exotic goods and food produce and maybe even the sweet, sticky resin of the black poppy plant. After all, it weren't that long ago in Limehouse, east London, home to the original Chinatown, that opium dens vied for business with those architects of mother's ruin, the gin palaces, and where toffs slummed it with tarts and frittered away their time and unearned dough.

My senses, only having just purged themselves of Soho's s.e.x-for-sale stench, now find themselves being harangued by a bewildering array of oriental smells, emanating out of the back of restaurant kitchens down dead-end alleys. Me and Danny own two freehold properties in this neck of the woods, both of which stick out like sore thumbs amidst the workaday honesty of the rest of the area, what with them being the usual uninhabitable slums operating without shame in the finest Soho p.o.r.n baron tradition. Both house ropey bra.s.ses on the first and second floors respectively, hardcore p.o.r.no cinemas on the ground floor, and both bas.e.m.e.nts are deathtrap dinge-holes with no fire escapes, that we currently rent to a heavy-duty yellow peril for use as illegal, round the clock mah-jong dens. Mah-jong being a sort of Chinese backgammon, and on which the Chinese will gamble everything from a poxy Yul Brynner to entire restaurants, and it has been known for them even to wager a daughter's hand in marriage.

Not being a betting man myself I've never set foot in the gaffs, but I've been told that the cigarette smoke's so thick you can cut it with a b.u.t.terfly knife, and besides, if your eyes ain't slanted you ain't welcome anyway. For the Chinese are suspicious of outsiders. But that's by the by, because for a damp bas.e.m.e.nt with absolutely no facilities to speak of, they bring in great dough, and the mush we rent them to pays on the b.u.t.ton with never a complaint.

I'm the only 'round eye' that they'll do business with in the West End, which I consider a dubious honour, plus you don't normally get any grief from the yellow mob, because any trouble that surfaces they sort out internally, meat cleavers being their tools of choice. Although saying that, we very nearly came unstuck a couple of years ago, when a little firm of ex-Vietcong soldiers claimed asylum over here, moved into Chinatown and started to draw protection off of the Chinese, who found them a little bit too wild and woolly for their own taste.

Charlie may not surf, but he can have a f.u.c.king tear-up! I mean he kicked Uncle Sam's a.r.s.e back stateside. And best believe, these little f.u.c.kers walked tall and even had the f.u.c.king audacity to start strolling into our gambling holes and pa.s.sing round compulsory collection plates. We had no choice but to stand strong and tell them to f.u.c.k off, even though we knew we would be no match for battle hardened idealists with the ability to subsist on a handful each of rice a day. Things came to a head when a couple of games got turned over and a few Chinese were chopped up into suey by the Vietcong mob using b.u.t.terfly knives. So me and Danny flopped on the leader of their firm, a former general and all round current psychopath, as he left an all-night kung fu flick in Gerrard Street during the early hours of one morning. And although he never spoke a word of English, it didn't matter because after I copped for him and slammed him up against the car park wall, Danny shoved a revolver between his gold-capped teeth, the two us reasoning that a Colt Peacemaker with its hammer c.o.c.ked back says the same thing in any language. And the message seemed to get through, because this knee high to a gra.s.shopper nuisance with flaring nostrils turned white on the spot and slunk away into the night in silence. But we'd severely underestimated the man and his ambition to carve out a new life in the west, and two weeks later him and his firm petrol-bombed one of our mah-jong dens in the early hours of a Sat.u.r.day morning when the place was in full swing. And seeing as there was no fire escape, it meant that there was no way out for the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds inside.

A gallon of gasoline thrown into the room ignited into a h.e.l.lish fireball that set the whole place ablaze. The terrible screams could be heard for blocks, as men came bursting out of the bas.e.m.e.nt and onto the street, engulfed in flames from head to toe and staggering no more than a few yards like demented wickermen before falling dead in blackened and burning heaps. Seven Chinese men died that morning, their bodies still smouldering when the emergency services arrived. And another fourteen were so badly burnt as to be unrecognisable, their yellow skins scorched to the dark crinkly brown of crispy aromatic ducks. We prepared for war, a prospect we were dreading, thinking back to Uncle Sam's unsuccessful foray, but luckily for us they got their collars felt and ended up getting recommended twenty-fives. It's probably the only time Old Bill's done us a favour, even though it was without them knowing it. After reaching the front entrance of Chen Chen Ku, my favourite dim sum house, a Chinese honey in a silk kimono bows to me, takes my jacket and then escorts me to our firm's usual table, a King Arthur number seated in the rear of the restaurant, that not only affords us privacy from nose ointments, but is positioned so that we can keep one eye peeled on the front door. Seated around it when I arrive is my partner Danny and Johnny Peac.o.c.k the tailor, both of whom are already tucking into a variety of steam-cooked dishes.

'Everything go all right with fat b.o.l.l.o.c.ks?' says Danny.

'In like Flynn,' I say, plonking myself down in a chair and helping myself to a portion of garlic chicken feet, an acquired taste, and that you suck wholesale off the bone. After my reply Danny gets on with his eating. He knows not to say anything more about the Spud Murphy coup because we never chat gangster business to anyone outside of our immediate circle.

For some time now we've promised Peac.o.c.k that we'd take him to see his hero, Ronnie Kray, currently languis.h.i.+ng in top security nuthouse, Broadmoor. We've been to see him loads of times before ourselves, and whereas at first it was a giggle, the novelty's now worn off. Well it has for me at least. I liken it to kicking a cripple. No fun for you, no fun for the cripple. The problem is you see he drives you bonkers, what with him being bonkers himself. But when you're trying to get on with your life, and f.u.c.k knows in this city that's hard enough, you get a call of the blue, and it's some total nutrock on the other end of your phone saying things like, 'I'm a friend of Ronnie's and I just got out of Broadmoor, and he reckons you might be able to fix me up with a whistle and flute.' And so through gritted teeth you make an appointment for him at Peac.o.c.k's, and two days later, in strolls some absolute f.u.c.king loppo, that's not only pulled half of his own hair out with a pair of pliers, but has been behind the wall for twenty stretch for chopping up his wife and kids with a meat cleaver, just because one of them poached the Sunday supplement out of his favourite newspaper.

And none of them have ever got a tanner. Plus, they've been in the nuthouse for so long that the last time they bought a suit it cost them three s.h.i.+llings and sixpence. A good suit nowadays is going to cost at least a couple of grand, but these lunatics are expecting it for nishmans, just because they've spent the last decade stepping and fetching and getting down on their knees to dish out b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs to a burnt-out sixties psychopath with a taste for well-cut Italian suits and souk-bought Arab boys.

And talking of suits, Peac.o.c.k's knocked up a little three-b.u.t.ton, single-breasted number, along with a pair of hand-engraved gold RK cufflinks especially for Ronnie, and Ronnie's going to be wearing the ensemble on today's visit, so Peac.o.c.k's well chuffed. But I'll be perfectly frank, it's Danny that has the fascination with the man. Two peas out of the same psychopathic pod I suppose. And when they're together all they do is gee each other up with the biggest load of old b.o.l.l.o.c.ks you've ever heard, trying to outdo each other with stories of wickedness. It goes without saying that Ronnie Kray was wicked in his day, but when he was wicked he was mostly doing it on medication strong enough to bollox a horse. Danny's wickeder, and he does it stone cold sober, and that surely must be the real essence of evil. And I really have got better things to be doing than sitting in a lunatic asylum listening to a sixties has-been droning on about his salad days. But it's not just the time factor. I mean even the trip down there comes to a small fortune, relatively speaking. By the time we get him a bit of Chinese, his f.a.gs, and his non-alcoholic booze, and then buy boxes of chocolates for all the loony tunes that do his bidding, you don't see much change out of a bottle. And don't believe all the b.o.l.l.o.c.ks you read in the papers. The Kray twins ain't got a s.h.i.+lling. They're always on the ponce, trying to scrounge this or that. And I hate to seem like a f.u.c.king minge, but there ain't no mileage for me in the pair of them. They got nicked, tough s.h.i.+t. Don't be crying over spilt blood. And it was Ronnie that got the pair of them their bird in the first place by thinking he was invincible, just like Danny. The Kray twins were despised by other criminals because what they were was thieves' ponces, just like us. I'll give you an example of how they'd graft.

Back in the day, two brothers, Albert and Bobby Redding, both very proper people who we know well, hijacked a snout lorry and took the load. Word went round, as it does, and the twins let it be known to Albert and Bobby that they wanted a chat. A meet was made in Vallance Road, where Ronnie Kray would hold court drinking endless cups of tea while stroking a black cat on his lap. Albert and Bobby turned up thinking that the twins were interested in a trade. Instead, Ronnie informed them that the load they had taken was being minded off by them. A statement which was known by both parties to be total b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. It was then suggested by Ronnie that the twins would swallow the load, but to smooth things over, Albert and Bobby would have to hand over half of any readies they sold the gear for, then everything would be hunky-dory. Albert and Bobby told them, 'b.o.l.l.o.c.ks' and walked out. The twins caught up with them a couple of days later and broke both Albert and Bobby's arms with baseball bats, then had them run up the hospital to get mended. When they got better they paid on, because next up it would have been a bullet in the head. And that of course was only one stroke they pulled. As time went on they took so many f.u.c.king liberties with good people, that very soon all they had on the firm was total mugs. And it was these mugs who gra.s.sed them up when the s.h.i.+t hit the fan. And when the twins were finally convicted at the Old Bailey for the murders of Jack The Hat and George Cornell, villains all over London breathed a collective sigh of relief, because now they could get on with the job of earning dough without Gert and Daisy breathing down their necks and putting the bite on them every five minutes. Not only that but Reggie could have got out of the murder charges. He only stuck his hands up because he didn't want to be parted from Ronnie, who by the way hanged himself in the witness box, because of his arrogant ignorance.

So, there they were sitting in the cells beneath the Bailey after they've both been weighed off with recommended thirties, and Ronnie shouts to Reg through his cell bars. 'Eat up all your dinner, Reg. We don't wanna let 'em think we're gutted.' And how did Ronnie repay Reggie's loyalty? Ten years into their bird he told him he couldn't handle nick anymore and had himself nutted off. Leaving Reggie to walk the landings in prison blues on his own, while Ronnie sauntered around Broadmoor in silk suits and eating Chinese takeaways, and having his b.o.l.l.o.c.ks sucked by mentally defective murderers. Believe me, Reggie's doing his time hard. He's been poofed-off on numerous occasions by lesser cons, for holding peter parties and having bouffanted blonde b.u.mboys prancing about to disco music in his cell wearing nothing but b.o.l.l.o.c.k-busting white shorts. I don't know what it is about gangsters and gayness, but sometimes I get the feeling that deep inside every hard man there's a queen just screaming to get out. I've even caught Danny, who books himself as hetero number one, running a crafty eye over the well-sculptured b.u.t.ts of buff bodybuilders in the showers, after we've worked out in our gymnasium. So there you go! And if you need one more measure of the twins, chew this one over. When they were in their teens they tied their younger brother Charlie naked to his bed and gave him electric shocks to try and make him more violent, like them. And like all the old faces they were the b.o.l.l.o.c.ks back in the day, but they wouldn't last five minutes if they were around now. Different cla.s.s today. No one cares for reputations any more. A common or garden sc.u.mbag high on smack will blow your nut off without thinking about it. And not only that, when the twins and all the other London gangsters were ruling the roost in their horrible suits, Old Bill chased you with whistles and pushbikes. Now he's got computers and helicopters.

BROADMOOR TOP SECURITY hospital. Home for the criminally insane. Even though the drive here was a welcome reminder of how green and pleasant this land can be when the sun's s.h.i.+ning, as soon as the dark and foreboding d.i.c.kensian turrets of Broadmoor loomed into view it sent a s.h.i.+ver straight through me. Because behind its unscalable walls lurk twisted minds, infected with the most degenerate evil that humanity has to offer. After parking our motor in the visitors' car park and making our way past a row of twee, prefabricated single-story cottages that Broadmoor screws call home, we head towards the hospital's main gate. The big blue clock on its main turret chimes two, telling us we're bang on time. But even before stepping inside, the stink of the place's inst.i.tutionalism is already causing me to wish I was somewhere else.

Slight problem on the Chinese front. We've eaten it all. Well what can you do? I know it's a stinking liberty, especially as Ronnie looks forward to his takeaways. But f.u.c.k it, I paid for it, and besides, it smelt so gorgeous in the car coming down here we just couldn't resist dipping into a couple of spring rolls. And you know what Chinese food's like. Once you start you just can't stop. So in the end we ended up caning the whole shebang. I reckon it's done Ronnie a favour really. I mean he's as jumpy as a jack-in-the-box at the best of times, and all that MSG they stick in c.h.i.n.ky food can't be any good for his mood swings.