Beat up little Malcolm (3)
I believe the answer is:
lam
'beat' is the definition.
(I've seen this in other clues)
'up little malcolm' is the wordplay.
'up' becomes 'la' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'little' indicates taking the first letters.
The first letter of 'malcolm' is 'm'.
'la'+'m'='LAM'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lam that I've seen before include "hurried flight" , "On this, you're fleeing, from the police" , "Hit hard or repeatedly" , "Beat hard" , "Hit hard, strike" .)