Heavy Duty People: The Brethren MC Trilogy book 1 (33 page)

‘
Don’t get me wrong. Dazza was good, he was smart, he was a good operator, but he also had his drawbacks. Some people thought he was getting too ambitious, and that’s something that you have to watch carefully. And he was becoming too high profile, too violent. Fucking up with The Rebels like that with your mate. It ended up that I had to speak to their main guy. He denied it was them that did it of course, but I told him that whatever, it stopped there anyway which he was OK with. Trouble is bad for business, we both know that. When there’s trouble it stops people earning so no one on either side wants a war or too much heat. It just gets in the way.

‘
So down to business then. You have the stuff?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
And Dazza’s connections?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
So the route is safe and still works?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
And our money? Is that safe?’

Right
, I thought, as Polly confirmed my suspicions. Even with his local dealing network and own international connections, I had always assumed Dazza wouldn’t have been able to fund and arrange this sized operation on his own. He would have had to have partners, people with access to serious cash to put up the seed money and the contacts and credibility in The Brethren’s international network to help him make the right connections to get this thing set up.

And Polly had been that partner.

‘It’s all still where I put it for Dazza.’ It did no harm in reminding him that I was the key to him accessing the cash that Dazza had been dealing in.

‘
OK, so we have the outlets. So do we have a deal?’

‘
Same deal as you had with Dazza?’

‘
Same deal, same terms.’

‘
Business?’

‘
Just business.’

So it looked as though I was going to get a new silent partner as well.

‘OK, but on one condition.’

‘
Yes? What’s that?’ he asked.

‘
All the other Legion guys are in. No question about striker status. I’m talking about a straight patch over, full membership for all.’

He considered it
and then nodded.

‘
OK, I can wear that. We’ve seen what you can do. You’re obviously guys who need to be treated with respect. But I’ve got one condition as well.’

‘
What’s that?’

‘
This is a one-time offer. They take it now or they leave it and that’s it. Finito.’

That was fine by me.
‘OK, that’s fair enough.’

‘
Now, do we have a deal?’ he asked.

‘
Yes we have a deal,’ I told him, and we spread our arms and embraced in a backslapping hug.

‘
Well, congratulations on making P,’ he said as we broke apart again, ‘it means you’ve stepped up. I have to say I always thought it might be you. So how’s it feel?’

‘
Pretty good, but a big responsibility.’

‘
Yeah, you’ve got that right. That’s the mistake guys make who just want it for the tab. It’s not just strutting your stuff, about being up front at runs, about having people kick back up to you. It’s more than that.’

I listened.

‘It means the guys’ll be looking up to you, looking to you to look out for ’em, to make the tough decisions. You’ve gotta be ready to lead. Are you ready for that?’

‘
Yeah, I think so.’

‘
Yeah well, I guess you are,’ he said, ‘Mind some advice? P to P? I’ve been doing this a while now.’

‘
Sure, shoot.’

‘
As a P you’re an officer. I know you’ve been Road Captain and all but this is a step up again.

‘
As P you’re the top of the tree. The shit stops with you, when it comes down to it, comes to a decision there’s no one else to turn to; the guys, the club, are all relying on you to do the right thing, whatever it is. Which is an honour and also sometimes I have to tell you a complete pain in the arse. But I guess you’ve found that out yourself already?

‘
As Brethren we’re the top club. You know it, I know it, everyone around knows it. We run the show in our territory so first thing you need to do is keep on top, keep all the other clubs in line, don’t stand for any crap. But hey you know this already, otherwise you wouldn’t be standing here today like this anyway.

‘
So all you gotta do is keep your guys tight, keep the club strong and secure and keep focused on your reputation. Your rep is what works for you. It’s what people know about you and what they know is what makes them act. Shit, your reputation is all you have so guard it tight. You can’t be everywhere at once making sure every shitbird that’s working the ground is doing it right, paying respect and kicking up, but shit, your reputation can be everywhere, breathing down everybody’s neck and working for you twenty-four seven.’

‘
So that’s the secret?’ Perhaps he knew more than I had given him credit for, I thought. After all you didn’t get to be The Freemen P without having something about you.

‘
Yeah. Make it your business to manage your rep and your rep will manage your business for you.’

‘
Thanks, that makes loads of sense.’

‘
No problem,’ he was obviously starting to think about getting going again, ‘Well now you’re P we’d better get you to meet some more of the guys.’

‘
Yeah, that’d be good.’

‘
OK, leave it with me, I’ll get some meetings set up. You need to meet the other Ps.’

‘
Just so as I know, anyone I’m likely to have a problem with?’

‘
Problem?’

‘
This shit?’

He smiled,
‘Nah. I don’t think so. Remember mate, it’s reputation, reputation, reputation. That’s what matters.’

‘
And delivery.’

‘
And delivery of course, but then you’ve shown you can deliver and what d’ya think your reputation’s like after what you guys have pulled off here? No, I wouldn’t worry too much on that score if I was you.’

So
Dazza wasn’t going to be sorely missed it seemed.

After that he was ready to be off. We exchanged some details about how we would make contact going forwards, as we walked back to where his bike was. We shook hands and he and his guys pulled their lids back on and remounted their bikes.

With a whirr of starter motors the bikes burst into the familiar roar of starting Harley engines before dropping back down into the burbling crobba crobba of idle as Polly turned to face me again.

‘
Look after yourselves guys. This is your territory now, so good luck with it. Just make sure you make it work for you, and all of us.’

And with that there was a clunk as he mashed the box down into first gear, his
engine rose into a snarl and he was back off down the road the way he had come, his two guys slotting in behind for the long run back down south.

Gut stepped forward to stand beside me as I stood and watched as the patches disappeared into the distance.

So much for loyalty to your brothers I thought.

What a disloyal
, treacherous shit Polly was. There was only one thing Polly was ever interested in, and that was what was in it for Polly. Not that there was anything wrong with that. It’s an attitude that any leader needed. But his problem with it was his ego. He was so sure of himself that he wasn’t subtle about it at all. And worse, it only ever went in one direction. Anyone working for Polly was ultimately disposable as far as he was concerned. Loyalty as far as Polly went was a one way street, and that, I decided, was likely to be his downfall.

Of course to a degree Polly was right.
Dazza’s private enterprise and the way he had been running it just for himself, and Polly of course, was bad for business.

If
something was club business, it should be club business, after all everyone who was wearing the colours was taking the risk on this trade whether they knew about it or not. If it went down, everyone in the colours would suffer the fallout and the heat. Of course you had to keep things tight to ensure security, but at the same time you had to ensure everyone enjoyed some of the rewards. If you didn’t, it would ultimately lead to bad blood and trouble within the club between the haves and the have nots. It stood to reason. If everyone is earning off a deal, it’s in everyone’s interests to keep it sweet. Cut people out and what’s in it for them to ensure you succeed?

And what
’s more it just made sense of who we are. Polly and Dazza had forgotten what the club is about.

That was a
n error I would not make.

Gut
was obviously feeling some of the same things too. As he stood there beside me he asked, without I think, ever really expecting an answer, ‘Did we just save him a job?’

Or
did we just save him his job? I wondered to myself.

With the power and cash that
Dazza would have had from his route, with his own private army of Butcher’s boys, with the guns he’d had in from the Ruskis, with even The Rebels becoming dependent on his stuff, what would Dazza have wanted next? How ambitious had Dazza been? How long would he have been prepared to continue to take orders from the existing Freemen leadership, seeing as he hadn’t even actually been let in yet?

‘
The unarmed man is never safe from armed servants,’
I said quietly to myself.

‘
What was that?’ asked Gut.

‘
Nothing.’

It was a d
elicate balance climbing the greasy pole. Dazza had to show himself good enough to be useful to those above him. But like any organisation, there was always the problem that if you showed yourself to be too good, at what point did you become a threat to the position of those above you?

No, all things considered, I guessed that Polly wasn
’t too upset that Dazza was gone. And as someone only new into The Brethren’s network this year he wouldn’t see me as anywhere near as much of a threat.

Yet.

‘Just some old shit. Don’t worry about it.’

*

It was the type of riding I always enjoyed. It was very Zen somehow. The speeding solitude, with just the sound of the wind, and the mix of unthinking instinct, and fierce full mind and body concentration required on the here and now of the riding freed my mind to wander, it gave me time to think.

T
onight was no different.

As I rode I reflected on where I had got to and what I had achieved.

I had had my revenge on Dazza, but more than that. Of course sometimes in business you have takeovers. And sometimes, just sometimes, you also have reverse takeovers.

I
also had his badge, his charter, his network, his business.

And in bringing back in The Legion I had a charter filled with guys who were now loyal to me.

Sweet.

Now all I had to do was keep it.

I had watched Dazza carefully over the years and over the last few months particularly. I could learn a lot from Dazza I knew. But both from his achievements and his mistakes.

And so building on his successes
I had a plan.

I had become President through my own efforts and skill
.

It hadn
’t been by luck.

Dazza
had been powerful and good. He had had strong and ruthless guys working for him, he had had the forces, the cash, the weapons to be strong and he had had a hold on lots of people that mattered through his business network.

And
I wasn’t handed success by anyone else for their own reasons who could just as easily take it all away again.

No,
I had seen when there had been an opportunity, and I had taken it. And I’d done so by raising and leading a group of guys who I had made loyal to me.

What I had achieved with difficulty I
thought I should be able to hold with ease.

The old Legion club
, at least the ex-Reivers, ex-Fellmen and ex-Devil’s Henchmen would be loyal to me. They were the democrats, the guys that I had successful appealed to in the name of our traditional freedoms, which I had restored to them.

The rest of the charter, Butcher
’s boys from Wearside and the remaining members of the original Brethren charter would be no problem either I knew. They had each been used to working under the direction of a single controller whom I had now replaced. Not only were they used to taking orders, Dazza and Butcher had each ensured that no one had been allowed to rise within who might pose any kind of a threat to their own authority, so there were no obvious internal challengers for the others to unite around as an alternative to our reverse takeover.