Mafia Hit
First, here’s some background information.
I’ve changed the names of some characters in this story:
a) to protect their privacy, and
b) for my own self-preservation.
With about 14,000 residents in 100,000, Bedford has the largest collection of Italian families in the UK. The link to Bedford is so strong, the town has its own Italian Consulate. The reason for this is, Marston Valley Brick Company didn’t have enough labour to handle the post-war demand for bricks. In the late 1940s, the company recruited 7,500 workers from villages in southern Italy. Like my father, who came from Ireland for the same reason, many Italian workers brought their families over and settled in Bedfordshire.
In the mid-1960s I knew a lad my own age from Bedford called, Marco Lombardo. We were on first-name terms, but we weren’t exactly friends. He was from a Sicilian family, quite tall about five foot eleven. He had fair hair, which I thought was quite unusual for an Italian. His ancestors may have been part of Sicily’s Norman conquest, as the Butlers were from the Norman invasion of Ireland. They got around those Vikings. At a stretch, you might say we were family.
In later life, Marco became a well-known businessman around town, maybe not always for the right reasons. To my knowledge, he had a shoe shop and a barbershop, food outlets, arcade game machines, and a property development company. When my friend Norman was at university, he got a holiday job with Marco’s ice cream vans. Norman said the first order of business in the mornings was to slash the tires of the opposition. Norman was a funny guy, so I suspect that was a joke, but I couldn’t say for sure.
The fact is, I always found Marco to be a very nice guy.
Now on with the story.
31 Dec 1965. I went to a dance at Ampthill, Parkside Hall. Curiously, a very pretty mod girl named Jillian Brook, who I’d never met before, decided I was going to spend New Year’s Eve with her. We ended up on the mattress in the back of my mate’s van. There was a lot of French kissing, but to her credit, I never got further than getting my hand up her jumper. Typical teenage boys, I got a lot of ribbing from my mates about the love bite on my neck, and of course, did nothing to dispel their fantasies.
I met Jillian the following Friday at the same place. During the band’s break, our relationship blossomed, slightly, behind the dance hall. Things were going well, so we arranged to meet two days later. On Sunday evening, I hitched a lift into Bedford. I met Jillian at Matarelli’s cafe in Midland Road, a popular hang out for the mod fraternity. I used to go there a lot, but before Christmas, I’d badly bent my Vespa Sportique, and myself, in an accident that wasn’t my fault. The scooter was still in the garage waiting on the insurance claim, so I hadn’t been to Matarelli’s for some time. Jillian was there with some friends, she said she had to go into town, and she’d meet me at the Con Club dance later.
On my way to the dance, I was approached by two youths. One was Marco Lombardo, the other I’d never seen before. Marco looked surprised, even awkward when he recognised me. Before we could exchange any pleasantries, the other fellow asked if I was going out with Jillian Brook.
“What if I am?” I replied. And that was the end of that conversation.
I woke up on the pavement with a fat lip, with the two of them walking off.
A Bedford boy I knew, helped me up and told me the guy who’d hit me was Jack Peters, an amateur boxer. Strangely, I didn’t find that surprising. He also said he was a very nice chap, something I didn’t feel qualified to comment on.
At that point, anyone sensible would have gone home. However, it seems that being Irish, I might have been born with a stupid gene. I tidied myself up and headed for the dance.
At the Con Club, I bumped into Marco Lombardo. The conversation was like a hit man’s cliched line in a mafia movie.
“Bernie, it was nothing personal. I didn’t know it was going to be you.”
I met Jillian in the dance hall and told her what had happened. She told me the guy who hit me was her ex-boyfriend. The ex-boyfriend Jack was also in the dance hall. Dented pride is a powerful motivator, I just kept staring at him. Jillian asked me not to start anything. In retrospect, it was stupid, antagonising someone on their own turf.
In the end, he came over. I thought ‘here we go’, but to my surprise, he apologised saying.
“Sorry. If she likes you better then I can’t do much about it”.
He offered me his hand. Stupidly, I took it, which could have turned out badly if he’d been a southpaw and hadn’t finished with me.
Jillian went and sat in a corner. When I approached the subject, she said she couldn’t decide who she liked best. That was too complicated for me, so I gave her the hands up surrender signal and went home. That wasn’t the end of things between Jillian and me, but that’s another story. Women!
Some months later, I was with friends at the Saturday night dance in the CIU Working Men’s Club in Brogborough, where I lived. A Lambretta turned up driven by a guy called Scoot, and on the back was Marco Lombardo. I’d not seen either of them in Brogborough before so I went over to say hello.
Alex, a friend of mine from Brogborough, was at the dance. Alex and his girl had a falling out. During that time Scoot apparently made a play for her. Now, Alex was one of the nicest people you could meet, he seldom lost his temper, but things went ballistic if he did. Someone told him about Scoot’s indiscretion. It took a while for the pressure to build, but then the volcano erupted. Alex, came through the dancers like a bowling ball through skittles, followed by three of his mates. It looked like The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were about to obliterate him from Scoot’s perspective. He didn’t realise that three of them were actually trying to prevent the carnage and save Alex from a possible court appearance. The three restrainers managed to get their hands on Alex just in time, leaving him like a Rottweiler on a short chain going for Scoot’s throat. Alex’s blood was up, and there was no guarantee he could be held back for long. In the resulting confusion, I bundled Marco and Scoot into the small changing room by the side of the stage and bolted the door.
When the scuffle outside subsided, I quietly reminded Marco he was fortunate I wasn’t vindictive. “You remember that day at Bedford bus station? Well, you really owe me one for this, Marco”.
After a short while, there was a bang on the door. I thought Scoot was going to pass out.
“You can get them out of there now. They’ve dragged him home and locked him in the bathroom”.
I escorted the celebrities from the changing room, like a pair of rock stars through the crowd, to the car park.
Scoot tried to fire up the Lambretta, but he was so shaken he flooded it, so he and Marco tried bump starting it.
In the meantime, Alex escaped through the tiny bathroom window. Pursued by his mates, he came thundering back like a charging buffalo. He was so focused on getting into the dance hall he ran straight past Scoot and Marco running up and down in front of the club, pushing the Lambretta. Fortunately, the machine burst into life. The two of them jumped on and disappeared into the night over Brogborough hill, heading for Bedford.
All I can say about this story is:
Life’s a series of reoccurring events, but you just never know which side of the fence you’ll be on when they happen.
And, Marco Lombardo still owes me one.