The Profession of Violence (36 page)

But Elvey bungled it. He had his excuses, and explained that the man never appeared in the central lobby as the twins predicted. Cooper was angry but apologetic to the twins. He would immediately devise another means of murder.

A few days later he produced a high-powered hunting crossbow firing steel-tipped bolts lethal to fifty yards. Elvey had found out where the man was living; he would wait for him in his car, then shoot him silently in the street. Again it was a plan that would appeal to Ronnie. He and Cooper spent a lot of time discussing it, but once again a last-minute hitch prevented Elvey making the kill. By now this hardly seemed to matter. Reggie was cynical, but Ronnie felt Cooper had established his credentials.

And then towards the end of January, with the police still waiting for the twins' next move, Cooper got his final hold on Ronnie. He seemed to take the place that Leslie Payne once held as father figure and adviser. Ronnie consulted him at any time of day or night: Cooper would always come, and always leave him happy. He seemed to understand him perfectly. Ronnie confided his ambitions to him. In return Cooper had the big ideas that Ronnie needed and seemed as thrilled as Ronnie by them all. They often talked about narcotics; Cooper had European contacts and clearly knew the market. This was the quickest, safest way for the twins to become millionaires. As a start Cooper suggested setting up a flat in Belgrave Square as a clearing-house for wealthy addicts and their pushers. Cooper got as far as renting the flat when Ronnie said he wasn't interested.

Other rackets they discussed were large-scale gold-smuggling, further currency deals, a takeover of an existing marijuana racket carried on through the diplomatic immunity of some Pakistani diplomats and the traffic in illegal Asian immigrants from Belgium. And each time it was Reggie's caution that prevented Ronnie from becoming involved.

Cooper was genuinely upset. Then he started talking of their oldest dream of all: the worldwide murder network operating with the Mafia and the European syndicates. The time had come, he said, for the twins to visit Paris and the States to arrange things personally.

In theory this was totally impossible. The United States rigidly excludes known criminals and the twins had Scotland Yard investigating them for almost every serious known crime, including murder. Yet Cooper solemnly suggested to the twins that they should fly to Paris, contact the leading gangsters in France, then travel to New York, where he would arrange more meetings with the top
Mafiosi
in America. Reggie thought he must be joking. When it was clear he was not, he said it was a trap. Ronnie replied that this was a risk worth taking; he trusted Cooper and could hardly wait to start the great new role he promised him. On 2 April Cooper and Ronnie Kray travelled to Paris on a scheduled flight and nobody stopped them.

As Reggie would not come, Ronnie brought an old friend, Dickie Morgan. Cooper had booked rooms in the Frontenac Hotel and seemed firmly in command. He took them out to dinner, talked of the possibilities of a European criminal common market – ‘when you get trade between nations, crime follows' – and next morning introduced them to an impressive Frenchman with grey hair and a Brooklyn accent. This, Cooper said, was the man sent to meet them by the brothers who controlled crime in the city. He was a knowledgeable man. He talked of how he had killed various people in the States and had spent some years in San Quentin Prison before returning to France. Discussion followed on the sort of deals the Krays and the French gangs could fix together. The first need was for close liaison; Cooper said he was prepared to act as go-between. The Frenchman made it clear that several Continental gangs regarded England as an unexploited market: they thought the narcotics trade could easily be doubled overnight; expert criminals from Europe could fly in, commit a major theft and then fly back again; French gunmen could be used in England, goods stolen on the Continent disposed of there. They talked along these lines most of that day and visited the US consulate so that Ronnie Kray and Morgan could apply for visas. These were immediately granted – Cooper explained that the Paris consulate had no way of checking on the records of British citizens. Next morning all three flew from Orly to New York.

This was the life for Ronnie; this was better than cowering in Bethnal Green and worrying about Nipper Read.

Ronnie had always known that he was someone special, but it was still exciting to have this confirmed. Immigration gave him VIP treatment; there were no questions, no examination by the customs. Cooper explained that the Mafia had arranged things and their man was waiting. He was an old friend of the twins, a tiny Jewish Sicilian called Joe Kaufman. Ronnie had met him several times in London for business over gambling clubs and stolen bonds and Cooper said he had powerful connections with the Mafia.

As if to prove that Ronnie was the honoured guest of the Mafia, Kaufman then took over, driving them to town from the airport, booking them a suite at the Warwick Hotel and acting as their host. Kaufman is hospitable by nature. He has a pretty wife and knows a lot of people – gamblers, boxers, theatrical celebrities. With Ronnie he did all he could to make him happy, introducing him that night to several boxers, including Rocky Marciano, taking him to clubs where he could find a boy or two, and paying for the endless rounds of drinks. Cooper, on the other hand, seemed ill at ease. He spent a lot of time on the telephone. Morgan noticed that his stutter was worse. He kept reminding Ronnie that he had friends to contact.

Next day, when Ronnie started making his appointments, something had gone wrong. Angelo Bruno had mysteriously left town; so had the other leading
Mafiosi
Ronnie had met and entertained in London. Cooper suggested telephoning other friends long distance in Florida, and Las Vegas; George Raft would be glad to know Ronnie was in town. Ronnie might even make a trip to see him in Hollywood. When Cooper rang there was no reply.

It was Kaufman and not Cooper then who saved the day by driving Ronnie to Harlem and Brooklyn to meet some old-time criminals he knew. This was no top-line gathering of the Syndicate, but retired gunmen, former racketeers, old bootleggers. They were all characters willing to have a drink and ramble on about the old days and Ronnie got on well with all of them. One gave him details of how gang killings were organized by rival gangs and spent an afternoon offering technical advice about assassination; in return Ronnie gave him his star-shaped diamond ring. Later he met the bodyguard of one of the ward bosses of Harlem. Again they talked of killing; Ronnie gave the man his £800 white gold and diamond bracelet watch. Cooper seemed increasingly elusive but Ronnie was happy. He rang home to Reggie and his mother and that night went out again with Kaufman, drank, nightclubbed, saw Greenwich Village and a lot of ‘interesting people'. At one club Kaufman asked him what he'd like. He answered, ‘A brown boy about eighteen.' Cooper was the only one who didn't laugh; he was concerned that Ronnie wasn't seeing the men he'd come for.

The next few days were similar, with Ronnie in high spirits as they made the rounds of Brooklyn, Coney Island, Wall Street and Skid Row. He drank a lot, ate sparingly and met half the dead-beat criminals in New York City. New York appealed to him. He liked its size, its noise, its sense of possibility after the constraint of London. This was a holiday from Reggie and his worries, and from Scotland Yard. Kaufman was picking up the bills.

The only blot occurred when Morgan noticed they were being followed, always by the same two men looking suspiciously like plainclothes detectives. Ronnie was unconcerned, but on the night of 8 April they spotted them again waiting outside their nightclub in a dark-red Dodge. Morgan was certain they were tailing them all the way back to the Warwick, but Cooper said he couldn't see them; Kaufman thought them probably from the FBI.

Next day Cooper once more brought up the idea of flying to Las Vegas. Ronnie announced that they were going home.

He came back to Bethnal Green in style, bounding with energy, laden with cigars, transistor radios, a big woolly dog for Violet, a stainless steel model of a knight in armour for Reggie. If his absence had proved anything, it was how much the Firm and his family relied on him for their existence. Ronnie was the centre of their lives. Rumours had started that he had cut and run for it; only three people in the Firm had known he was in New York. Tommy Cowley, one of the shrewdest members of the Firm, had decamped instantly for Majorca; most of the remainder started worrying about the future. Even Reggie had fleetingly thought of making his escape and asked Tom Mangold of the BBC, who was off to the Far East on an assignment, if there were any way of getting out to Vietnam as a volunteer.

The police had also been getting anxious over Ronnie's absence. Amazingly, for all the supervision of Tintagel House, none of them had known Ronnie had given them the slip and turned up in New York. Nipper did not discover this until some time later. So at first there was considerable concern that the prime suspect of their mammoth inquiry had disappeared. Just for a moment it had seemed as if this might be a new trick of the twins': everyone knew there could be no question of arresting one while the other was at liberty to scare their witnesses.

So Ronnie's return pleased everyone and as he went into action he had the edge on Reggie. He was the hero proving everybody's fears were groundless. Although he had not met the Mafia leaders, the trip had been a great adventure. His fantasy was coming true. He could do anything. While all the rest of them were cowering from Read and Scotland Yard he had been to America under the very noses of the police. This was the way a man should be – killing his enemies openly, taking money where he found
it, drinking, enjoying sex, insulting the police just as his Aunt Rose did. A few days after his return he saw the film of Charlton Heston playing Gordon of Khartoum and came out of the cinema with tears still in his eyes.

‘Gordon was a real man. He did what he had to do and he was bent like me. When I go I hope I face it just like Gordon did.'

There was no excuse for cowering pathetically until the police arrived to pick him up.

This meant an end of Reggie's siege tactics: after America, Ronnie was thinking big, and in place of caution, silence, avoidance of all risk, he was eager for a full offensive by the Firm. Now was the time to streamline crime as he had heard they did it in the States. Big crime should be big business.

On the return from New York Cooper had flown on to the Continent for business of his own, but when he came back he agreed with Ronnie – reorganize the Firm on strict American lines, kick out the useless hangers-on, get working with a nucleus of tough professionals. There were whole areas of humdrum life waiting to be exploited on the American pattern – unions, taxis, building sites, the docks. What with their reputation and their knowledge the twins could treble their income in six months.

This could keep Reggie occupied; the idea of tying up the docks appealed to him. He made discreet inquiries among a number of top businessmen and politicians to see whether the docks' management could use a properly organized force of strong-arm men in the next labour dispute. Drawing a blank, he tried the unions – also without success. Finally he persuaded some rich businessmen to start a moneylending business in the docks; the twins would back it with a loan repayment service of their own.

All this kept Reggie busy; Ronnie needed something more dramatic. Cooper kept telling him the time had come to show the world the Krays ruled London. He knew exactly how to work on Ronnie now. Maybe, he said, those
Mafiosi
in New York had picked up rumours that the Krays were slipping, that the police would soon be catching up with them. This might have been the reason why none of them had been over-anxious to meet him.

Ronnie was furious. In New York, it hadn't mattered who had entertained him. He had enjoyed meeting the men he did. But he could see that Cooper could be right. The only language the Americans understood was power: a few efficient killings would restore their faith in the Krays better than any arguments.

As a beginning Cooper suggested Ronnie should do the Americans a favour. A well-known Las Vegas gambler and club-owner had been challenging the Mafia. The man lived part of each year in Kenya and was staying at the moment at the London Hilton. If the Krays quietly eliminated him it would be excellent publicity throughout the States and would also place the Mafia in Ronnie's debt. Ronnie agreed and promptly made his plans. The man took an early morning constitutional in Hyde Park, so Ronnie arranged to have him shot by a marksman from a passing car. But this was a wary man and an unwilling victim, who seemed to know how to avoid presenting himself as a target: after several failures, Ronnie saw that if he wanted a dramatic killing to impress the underworld he must look elsewhere. Somebody suggested Caruana.

George Caruana was Maltese and a West End club-owner – a big, good-looking man. Recently there had been talk of trouble between him and another club-owner. Now came a rumour of an offer of £1,000 for anyone who killed him.

It seemed an economic proposition for the Firm. Ronnie had no strong feelings about Caruana, but a quick £1,000 was always useful and it was necessary to get his message over to the Mafia. As Cooper kept reminding him, the question of which London gang was to look after the big gambling junkets from the States was still not settled.

Ever since Ronnie had read his earliest books about Chicago gangsters he had dreamed of blowing someone up inside a car. In Sicily and the States it is a well-proved Mafia mode of death, but London gangsters had been slow to use it. George Caruana drove a bright-red Mini. This could give Ronnie his big chance to show that the Krays believed in progress.

There is no great problem in wiring a detonator and a parcel of explosive into the circuit of a car, but Ronnie had never been good with his hands, nor were there any real technicians on the Firm. Once more he had to turn to Cooper, and once more Cooper brought in the strange young man, Paul Elvey. Apart from all his other skills, Elvey was a qualified electrical engineer.