Powder Wars by Graham Johnson Read Free Book Online Page A

into it we had to break into the warehouse next door, which was a steelmongers, which made wrought iron gates and all that. Then we put a hole in an adjoining wall which got us into the coffee place.
    The first time we hit it, we were rumbled by a guard, so we had to dust double quick. In fairness, it was the size of the van, which had brought it ontop, attracted a little too much attention and we had to leave it behind. Pure fucking downer, that was, because I had to weigh the feller in who’d lent the van to us.
    Few weeks later, went in again. Dick the Stick opens the main door, but there’s an inner security wall inside. No probs. Put a hole in the wall. But it’s like the Bank of England, la. Pure fucking castle walls, knowmean? A foot thick and all of that. So we’re twatting fuck out of this wall with our tools and one of the lads smashes his hand with a hammer. Farcical or what? But it’s near hanging off. The poor lad was in bulk, in all fairness. He was no mummy’s boy by any stretch and soon he’s in bits. You could tell the pain was bad, but we’re like that: ‘Stop moaning will you. You’re going to bring it ontop for all of us.’ But in fairness the wound is bad. Half thought he might need an amputation. So we had to take a view and abandon ship once again and take him home.
    A couple of weeks later we went back again. It was getting personal, this coffee place, now. Got in. Loaded the wagons up. Thank fuck for that. But still no joy – we couldn’t drive them out because the big warehouse doors had these special locks on the inside. Huge Chubbs, they were, which even Dick the Stick was having trouble with. Had to bring the engineering gear in, the burners and that, to cut them off. We were doing all this in the dark, by the way. But after a couple of hours the locks were off and we were in business.
    There were several lorry loads. Pure Italian job, it was. But even then we couldn’t fit all the coffee in. One of lads noticed that there was a BMC van tucked away in this warehouse, obviously owned by this firm, with its livery on the side and that. So we put the last five tons of coffee in there and whatever else we could lash in. Then we decided that we would drive our lorries to the drop-off point and that I would come back for this last van with the five tons in it. Dick the Stick had already lined up the fence. So we were under pressure to make the meet and hand over the bulk of what we had.
    The fence, by the way, was a very rich businessman called Arthur who owned a string of butchers and supermarkets all over the country. He was legit so he’d be getting very jumpy if we were late with the drop off. He was looking forward to this robbed coffee keeping his shelves stocked up for a long time to come.
    By the time I got back to the warehouse to pick up the last van it was about five in the morning. There’s no cunt on the roads still, but I’m thinking that it won’t be long before working fellers will be on their way and that. I’m regretting not taking the van there and then last night, in fairness, instead of leaving it. But I start her up and get off, and in no time I’m bombing down the East Lancs making good progress thinking this is allday. But suddenly this car goes past with a couple of workies in it.
    I have to stop at the lights and next minute, in my rear-view mirror, I noticed that one of these pikies is running towards me, gesticulating and all that. Instinctively, I know that obviously these fellers work in this coffee firm and they’ve clocked that I’ve had their van off. They’re obviously double alert after so many attempted break-ins of recent and they’re on my case. The only thing was to jump out. There’s no way I’m chancing a Streets of San Francisco -style car chase through the suburbs with these have-a-go types, especially loaded down with five tons of Mellow Birds or whatever. So