Keeping up with criminals
 And another...? |
"Another large whisky for you, Laurie?" I could tell from the tone of Geoff's voice that he wasn't so much offering me another drink as testing the limits of my capacity.
Even though I'd been doing a pretty good job disguising the effects of the four large whiskies I'd already consumed, I knew from the feeling in my legs that I'd be hard pushed to take another one without betraying the hard drinking image I was so anxious to maintain.
Geoff was a highly successful confidence trickster, one of a small bunch of criminals I was researching for a book on professional crime called In the Underworld.
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On that particular night, nearly a decade ago, he was sharing the bar of the West End club with two of his working makes, Mike and Bing.
I'd only been able to make contact with such people because of the introductions that had been provided for me by a friendly ex-criminal. But once the introductions had been made I was often left to my own devices.
I had to prove to these working criminals, to confidence tricksters, drug dealers, robbers and assorted gangsters, that I was not some remote desiccated academic but someone who could at least, in part, identify and even sympathise with their way of life.
Heavy drinking was a vital part of this introduction process. Almost from the first day of my research I realised that one of the many ways in which these men marked themselves off from the rest of the world was by their capacity to consume considerable quantities of drink without displaying any sign of its effect.
|  I very quickly learned that handling alcohol wasn't my only research problem. I also had to deal with drugs  |
In a way it was an adaptive necessity. Professional criminals could only operate successfully if they enjoyed total loyalty from those around them.
They not only had to know for certain that their mates would never grass them up to the authorities, but also that they were capable, whatever the circumstances, of never saying a word out of turn.
No questions
At my first meeting with Geoff, I'd ingenuously said that I wanted to ask him a few questions. "Questions?" he said, "Sorry Laurie, I don't do questions. Never have done. Never will."
An ability to have your wits about you and keep a lid on your tongue after consuming several large whiskies and a bottle of expensive wine marked professional criminals off from the small time "Jack the lads" who shared their drinking spaces.
 Marijuana was regularly smoked |
I very quickly learned that handling alcohol wasn't my only research problem. I also had to deal with drugs.
In several of the clubs I visited, members smoked marijuana with much the sort of aplomb that ladies munch cream cakes in tea shops.
Burning spliffs were passed around the group without comment. Nobody spoke of feeling high or showed any appetite for sweets or other "munchies".
Later at night hard drugs were more evident. Small packets of cocaine were silently passed across the table and members of the group took it in turns to visit the toilets and sniff their lines.
This at least made life easier for me. I could duly take my turn in the toilets, spend a requisite few minutes behind the closed door, and then return the unopened package to its owner.
Keeping cool
As far as their behaviour was concerned all the other members of the group might well have been following my practice. Even after several lines, it was considered bad form to chatter excessively in the usual manner of cocaine users.
You had to stay cool. Keep yourself together. Show that you could take it.
 The Kray twins drank heavily |
I was so impressed by the capacity of these men to fight off the effects of drink and drugs that I once dared to ask Geoff why any of them bothered to indulge in the first place.
It was, of course, a question: the very form of discourse he most abhorred. But on this occasion he at least replied with another question "How'd you mean drink and drugs, Laurie?"
"Well," I said, "All that drink and all those drugs you did at the Gimlet club the night before last."
Geoff gave me an old-fashioned look. "Can't say I noticed, Laurie," he said, "Can't say I noticed."
And I realised I'd just failed another test.
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