Chapter Five

Gus McCreed was born in Kendal in the parish of Manchester in central Jamaica. The little farming village was to be made famous, some thirty-seven years later by that horrendous train crash. At twenty he had migrated to Kingston via a market truck. That was in the forties. Kingston had been hell in those days of widespread poverty. He had stopped with relatives in Allman Town. There had been restlessness on the streets as the trade union movement began to take root. After much loafing and partaking in free for all brawls, he had found work at the Golden Emerald nightclub and restaurant. The early shift saw him working as a doorman in the restaurant and when he worked late it was that of a bouncer in the nightclub.

He had developed into a fearsome young man, fearing no one and ready to take on all comers. It was here that he learned about the power of money.

The way he had seen the local people humiliated at the Golden Emerald had turned something inside of him. The rich locals taken into society owed it to their wealth. Gus knew that he had to make a lot of money if he wanted to be powerful.

He was a womanizer, sleeping around with the women in his yard, at the nightclub and eventually with this fabulous married woman, Paula Jones. He knew that it was a rule of management that employees weren’t allowed to get romantically involved with patrons, but Paula’s charm and beauty swept him off his feet and he ended up in her bed. When the manager heard about his romantic escapade with the patron, he was fired immediately.

After he left the club, he moved from one job to another. He later learned that one of Paula’s neighbors had informed her husband about her one night stand with him and the man had given her a frightful beating. Gus didn’t feel any remorse about what had happened to her; after all she had cost him his job.

He gambled a great deal and was used to carrying a gun. He used it frequently when he started working for Rhyging, who was overlord of the Jamaican underworld in the forties.

Gus was in Kingston when he heard the news.

Rhyging had been killed in a shootout with the police over

at Lime Quay. He had fled the island when he managed to buy a boat ride to America. He stopped with a friend in a small apartment on the West Indian side of the Bronx. He was soon involved in peddling bootlegged liquor, a killing and gang warfare before he became the number one hit man for the Carlo Santini mob. He soon wanted to quit, but the crime boss had set him up to take the rap for several unsolved murders. Once again, he had to take flight with the Santini organization hot on his heels. He had stowed away on a Jamaican bound ship by bribing the captain.

Once in his homeland, Gus had thought that the Santinis would forget about him, so he had begun to haunt his old digs again. One night after a visit to one of his women off Red Hills Road, he took a taxi to his home in Duhaney Park. Another man was in the front of the car. The driver told him that the man had begged him a lift to his home in Pembroke Hall. He saw nothing strange about it reasoning that the men were obviously friends. The soft life had made him lose much of his wariness. On the way home, the men had stopped the car and he found himself staring into the muzzle of a gun.

“Gus McCreed, you dirty fucker. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to kill you? Mister Carlo paid me good money to get rid of you.”

Looking the man in the eyes Gus realized how stupid he had been. This was Speedo Driscoll, the New York assassin. He had done some special work for Santini, he remembered.

The three men got out of the car.

Gus had heard that the thin man was a cold-blooded killer, who liked to see his victims suffer before he got rid of them.

They relieved him of his gun, then took him to the edge of a gully. It was one of those concrete made canals, built to take flood waters down to the sea. He was sure that the waters from this gully would run down into the Sandy Gully. It was wide and deep, although it was only dangerous when flooded. One would likely break all their limbs if not their neck if they fell into this gully.

“I’ll give you a chance, Gus, but you have to try jumping that gully,” Speedo said, pointing down into the gully.

“Damn it, Speedo, you’re going to kill me, your own black brother for some white son-of-a-bitch?”

“I collected the man’s money already,” came the gunman’s harsh reply.

Gus knew that he was telling the truth. To a working professional gunman, the only important thing was the amount of money he was being paid to do the job. In desperation, he shouted.

“Speedo, watch it, car coming!”

The gunman had fallen for the cheap trick and turned around and Gus lunged at him.

The taxi driver stabbed at Gus and missed as he swiveled his body away from the knife. He tripped the driver and as the man fell, kicked him, making him roll to the edge of the gully, lose his balance and fall over. They heard his screams as he fell into the gully. Speedo fired at Gus, who threw himself on the ground as the bullet flew over his head.

Speedo was now trying to bring his gun to bear on Gus again, but the bigger man’s fist tore into him sending him spinning sideways. He was over him and kicked the gun out of his hand. He then dragged the killer to the edge of the gully.

The little man was begging for mercy now. Gus ignored his pleas and shoved him over the gully. He paused only to listen to the agonized screams of the killer and the sound his body made, as it came into contact with the concrete at the bottom of the gully.

Gus collected his own gun, Speedo’s gun, the taxi man’s knife and the spent shell and took them home with him.

As he neither listened to the news nor read the newspapers, Gus could only guess as to what had happened to both men. He suspected that they may have gotten some life threatening injuries when they fell in the gully. He did make some inquiries from people who lived in the area, but nobody seemed to know anything. After that he never heard from the crime syndicate again.

Gus reflected that apart from being paid to kill him by the crime boss, Speedo may have been carrying a grudge against him because of the rumors about him and his wife. He had only begun sleeping with the man’s wife after she left him.

He had spent the next two and a half years doing some boxing, but decided that the sport was too tough and he was getting too many head blows. He threw in the towel after he lost a fight, he thought he had won.

He then decided to use his savings to open a wholesale store in Downtown, Kingston. There was fierce competition as the Jews, Chinese and Syrians dominated the trade. He wasn’t afraid to take a few pieces of stolen merchandise from the boys since they were willing to take a fraction of the price for it. Business had progressed so well that he eventually branched out into hardware dealing, buying the adjacent premises to open that store.

By this time he had met Charlene Raymond, a registered nurse, and they had gotten married after a six-months period of courtship. She got pregnant soon thereafter. Charlene was an American citizen as she had actually been born in the States. He didn’t object when she decided to have her baby over there so that it could have citizenship of that country. However, he had felt a tinge of disappointment that it wasn’t a boy and more when she failed to get pregnant again. However, Lorena was a bundle of joy and then one day a little boy was left in one of his stores.

Nobody saw the woman, who left him there. A piece of paper in one of his pockets disclosed that his name was Fred Billings and that he was two years old. Gus decided to take him home and when his mother never showed up to claim him, started treating him as the son he never had. He decided to give the boy the best education he could have despite Charlene’s reservations.

He had also tried his hand at politics, contributing to Dean Merchant and later Colbert Nevers’ campaigns. He had lost off both men for Merchant ran unsuccessfully and although Nevers made it to parliament he had virtually turned his back on him. He had vowed to stay far from politics.

A few years later he moved into the marijuana trade. Several syndicates, some of them, with heavily armed men, were controlling the trade.

Rather than form a syndicate, Gus had been content to go it alone, relying on his reputation as a former mob hit man to keep his rivals at bay. It was not long before he realized that he had to get his own fighters too. He had recruited several men to take the fight to his rivals. At least two syndicates had been destroyed and one of their leaders killed while the other was seriously wounded. The marijuana money had enabled him to build a hotel in Ocho Rios and a mansion in Coopers Hill.

It was after they had moved from Vineyard Town to Coopers Hill that his troubles with Charlene began. He began staying out late at nights, and on weekends, in Ocho Rios, ostensibly for business but more for womanizing. Charlene hadn’t liked it. Relations between them deteriorated, as they were constantly quarrelling. Lorena was at boarding school so she didn’t see the life that existed between her parents.

Finally, Charlene returned to live with her sister in Vineyard Town in East Kingston. By this time his name was being linked to the underworld. Still, she didn’t seek a divorce or return to full-time nursing. He supported her and Lorena, sending them a hefty check each month. When Charlene died from cancer, Lorena decided to return home and attend school in Kingston. At sixteen years old, she was capable of looking after herself.

She was his daughter and he loved her, but there was always that look in her eyes. An accusing stare as if to say ‘You were responsible for my mother’s unhappiness’. He tried to improve his relationship with her by cutting down on his drinking and his love life.

Lorena had made excellent progress in high school, and had gone on to do a successful degree course in Computer and Management at the University.

When she returned, he had sent her down to the hotel in Ocho Rios as the assistant general manager.

She was as fiery as her mother had been. He would have loved to see her taken out of his hands, if only Bobby hadn’t died in that terrible car crash.

A year after Charlene’s death, he met Rosalee Pearson. She was a widow and fifteen years his junior. They met at a petrol service station on Red Hills Road when he helped to put air in her car tires. He was attracted to her and struck up a conversation. They saw each other regularly and soon started a relationship. Her accountant husband had been killed in a car crash in Southern Florida. They had agreed that she would resign her job to take the kids around while he remained in the States. Everything seemed to be working out until tragedy struck, leaving her alone to raise three girls aged ten, twelve and fourteen.

He knew that the insurance money she would get would only allow her to live for a couple of years without resuming work. He understood her fear of getting into any serious relationships let alone marriage. He had tried to help the girls, buying them presents and helping Rosa with transporting them home from school. The girls’ relationship with Lorena was barely cordial; maybe it was the age difference. Rosa felt satisfied with the relationship. Her daughters seemed to be growing up and they weren’t as tense and withdrawn, as they were a year or two after their father died. A year ago, she had informed him that their immigration papers had come through.

He had known that her sister was filing for her. She had explained that she wanted to see her daughters through school so that the whole family would be going up. He had asked her if she wanted help but she had refused, saying that she had enough money plus her sister had a job waiting for her. She had rented out her house in Orange Grove. He had dropped them at the airport that day with Rosa, telling him that as soon as the girls were on their own she would return to him. In the meantime, they would have to be satisfied with a long distance relationship.

With more money coming in from the expanded marijuana business he was able to open up another hardware store, Uptown, Kingston. Marijuana was serving as a third economy in Jamaica. The government had clamped down on several occasions.

Several of his marijuana fields as well as airstrips were destroyed. Stiffer penalties were also introduced. These were only temporary measures to appease the American authorities. He was able to keep a low profile and with the help of K and other agents, keep his men from being arrested. When the clampdown ceased, he was able to resume full activities again. It was during one of these lulls in activities that Ardez, a waiter at the Golden Emerald for a short time, sold him the idea of collaborating with the Miami drug lord, Paolo Colombo. He was surprised when the man contacted him because the latest he had heard was that he was living in the States and was a big time gangster. He had been reluctant to have anything to do with Colombo, remembering his New York experience with Carlo Santini.

Ardez had explained that there was plenty of money in it for both of them if they played their cards right. He also explained to Gus what had happened to him. To Gus it sounded very similar to his own experience with the Santinis.

He had been up to Miami to see Colombo, who had explained his plans to him. Colombo surprised him. He didn’t look like the typical drug lord and there were no armed bodyguards present.

There had been about three days of negotiations until the deal was finally signed. Colombo would pocket sixty percent of the profits, Gus twenty-five percent and Ardez fifteen. Rattigan would come to Jamaica a week later, on a two month contract to train the fighters.

On return to Jamaica he had contacted some men living in the Wareika Hills. All were on the dodge from the police for one reason or another.

Gus’ men were moved to the hills and more fighters recruited. More shacks were built up and more homes raided to furnish these shacks. The gang was to protect the marijuana fields from rival syndicates and to protect the drug smuggling ring when it started. The base at Wareika had hardly been set up when at least one other syndicate and several individuals had challenged them.

The subsequent war had the police investigating this upsurge in serious crimes and they were able to pinpoint the perpetrators as criminals hiding out at Wareika. When the combined police and military launched their attack, they were ambushed all along the way and had to beat a hasty retreat, suffering minor casualties. A second attack had met the same fate.

The gang had gotten rid of the last resistance and now all the marijuana Colombo wanted he could get. It had been a hard fight to get rid of the last obstacle to his setting up a syndicate. Danny King was almost as big as he was before he teamed up with Colombo. Had he not had the Wareikans he could never have defeated King and break up his syndicate.

McCreed heaved a sigh of weariness, emptied his glass of whisky and flexed his big muscles. He stood up and started for upstairs to join an already sleeping Cynthia.