Bringing Down the Krays Read Online Free Page B

love to go there and meet her… Get him another drink. He’s smart, very smart, you must come here again.’
    Alfie was flattered. He was smart, despite having left school at fourteen and getting a job as a butcher’s boy. Like me, he’d grown up fast and had found quicker ways to make money than cycling round Holborn delivering pork chops. By now he had abit of experience as a petty thief, mainly in jewellery shops. He used to drive two Buicks at the time. He thought he was Elvis Presley. I used to catch him posing in the mirror, combing his hair and wiggling his hips whenever he came to stay with me.
    As Alfie had revealed, Mum and Dad had indeed recently opened a nightclub. Their first one was called the Theberton Club near the Angel in Islington. I suppose it was a natural thing for Dad to do – he was always a showman, and Mum loved a bit of glamour. It was her stage and she was the star in the spotlight.
    Everyone used to drink there. Small-time crooks, big-time crooks, market stallholders, coppers, the lot. It got very crowded so they soon moved round the corner to a bigger place called the 66 Club. It was above a clothes shop on Upper Street, a bit beyond Islington Green towards the Angel with the old Collins Music Hall just over the way. It was what you might describe as a little speakeasy. I was only there a couple of times but David and Alfie caught all the action.
    Ronnie Kray obviously saw the possibilities in this new friendship with the son of these north London nightclub owners. By the end of that night in the Double R, Ronnie told Alfie directly how pleased he was that Teddy Smith had brought him there, what a shame it was that Reggie was away, and that it was good to see new people coming in. Alfie basked in the attention. He was twenty-one years old. Ron was five years older, a man of the world, a businessman, a face among faces.
    Three days later Alfie got a phone call. It was Ronnie. Alfie had been expecting it. ‘I thought I’d phone you up because I’dlike you to come over to my house in Vallance Road and meet my mum and dad,’ Ron said. ‘You’ll like my mum and dad.’
    Alfie said: ‘OK, Ron. What time?’
    ‘Come over early,’ Ron replied. ‘I’ve got a bit of running about to do later.’
    Alfie agreed to be there at nine o’clock. He was intrigued to know more about Ronnie Kray and his family. So the next morning he drove over to Vallance Road, parked his car round the corner, and knocked on the door. Ronnie’s mum, Violet, answered the door and greeted Alfie warmly.
    ‘Oh, you must be Alfie! Ron is over at the bath-house right now but he’ll be back in ten minutes. Come in and wait in the kitchen and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.’
    Alfie went into the kitchen and saw about ten or fifteen white shirts all immaculately ironed, hanging up on an old-fashioned indoor drying frame on a pulley. He sat amongst them awkwardly, drinking his tea, until eventually Ronnie came in.
    ‘Hello, Mum,’ he said, handing her the towels and soap he’d been using over at the bath-house. Then he turned to my brother. ‘Hello Alfie! You met Mum then?’
    Alfie said he had and what a lovely lady she was. Ron then turned to her and said: ‘Make me a nice bit of breakfast, Mum. You’ll have some, Alfie, won’t you?’
    Ron sat down with Alfie and started telling him about the caravans the family had got down at a place called Steeple Bay in Essex, where they often used to go at weekends. In the meantime Violet Kray rustled up two plates of smoked haddock and poached eggs with bread and butter. Alfie ate it up with relish,enjoying the company of his new friend. It already felt like he was part of the family.
    Alfie started telling Ron more about our parents’ new club, the 66. It was nothing like as luxurious as the Double R, of course, but it was a nice, clean family club. Alfie proudly told Ronnie how well it was doing.
    ‘Oh, that’s good,’ said Ronnie. ‘I must come up there and