The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
With Birds Eye in Hull now closed, No Neck Ted off Benedict looked for work. As well as running raw steel to Iran for use in the arms trade, he started work at Siemens working 6-2 and 2-10 with the chance of overtime. Drinking tea at break, treating himself to a Double Decker out of the vending machine underneath the stairs, and generally trying to experience as much as he could.
Some say his father’s German. He grew up in the west of Hull, making his name on the streets through petty crime, protection rackets, and stealing cheap crocs and sausage rolls from Greggs.
What I’ve been told and what I believe, No Neck Ted comes home from the graveyard shift at Birds Eye, to find the Hungarians at his house, his wife raped, his children with knives to their throats. The Hungarians tell him they want his territory, his business, and the sausage rolls if there’s any left. No Neck Ted looks over the faces of his wife and children. Then, to show these people of will what real will is, he puts PopTarts in the toaster. For ninety seconds the room is silent. The kids are looking around. His wife doesn’t quite know what’s going on. The Hungarians all sort of look at each other. No Neck Ted off Benedict starts to twiddle his thumbs. It’s all a bit uncomfortable. The toaster pops. The Pop Tarts spring up and just like the part when Vincent gets shot by him out of Die Hard and Moonlighting in Pulp Fiction, No Neck Ted looks his family in the eyes and shoots them. With a pistol. He shoots the Hungarians but allows the last one live, telling him he would rather see his family buried than give up his crocs and sausage rolls.
He goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their parents, their parents friends, he burns down the stores they work in, he blows up their children’s BMXs, he kills people who owe them money, he blows up other random things that their close family own, and like that…he’s gone. Underground. He becomes a myth, a spook story, every arch criminal has heard the name of No Neck Ted off Benedict.
“Back when we were at that barber shop in Skokie, Illinois, I’d asked for my one pound fifty protection money, the barber , big fat guy, I mean Orca-fat, says he’ll cut my hair in payment. The hair-do I received was only £1 so he gave me 50p as well. You know, to make it square. I got a new barnet plus 50p”.
The Hungarians held the only man that could identify No Neck Ted off Benedict, “Mad Dog” Nicky Dunn. What I’ve been told, and what I believe is, it was Nicky Dunns partners birthday, so, to show what real will is, took her out breaking into sheds, or “shedding”, high on amphetamines.
“The coffee out of the vending machine under the stairs is shit. Back in Guatemala we’d pick the beans straight from the tree, then dry it for four days, grind it, sieve it, leave it vacuum packed for eight days, then boil it with cream and sugar”.
“I saw Nicky Dunn die”.
“Why didn’t you shoot him? He was your friend?”
“It was No Neck Ted off Benedict. I mean, the devil himself. How do you shoot the devil in the back? I mean, what if you miss? I mean, look at my hands, they look like crabs claws, and have you seen how ridiculously cross-eyed I am?” and he is REALLY cross-eyed, like, properly cross-eyed.
“Let me tell you what I know. There was no dope on that boat. No Neck Ted off Benedict used you to get on that boat to kill the only man who could identify him. It was a hit”.
“No”.
“Mad Dog Nicky Dunn was No Neck Ted off Benedict“
“No. He was my friend”.
“Mad Dog Nicky Dunn used you to get on that boat”
“Why me? I’m just an over-exaggerated cross-eyed cripple, why me?!”
“Because you’re an over-exaggerated cross-eyed cripple with crab like hands”.
“I saw Mad Dog Nicky Dunn die”
“Mad Dog Nicky Dunn was No Neck Ted off Benedict, the kind of man that could engineer a police line-up, the kind of man that could kill Edie Finnerhan. Found this morning, two shots to the back of head”.
“I don’t have to listen to this, I posted ten minutes ago. Fucking cops….”
He walks out. His hands turned from crab claws into a normal persons hands, his (and I can’t EMPHASISE just how cross-eyed he is) over-exaggerated cross-eyes returned to what a normal person’s eyes would look like to be picked up by Kobayashi but walked straight into the bonnet as his eyes were still adapting.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. And like that…..
He’s gone…….
……
