by Crin Claxton
Tony didn’t know what to do. Jade was right. Getting involved with gangs was dangerous stuff. She didn’t want to help people that terrorized others. She’d never heard anything good about gangs. On the other hand, she didn’t know that much about them either.
“Why do you care about this guy, this Repo?” Tony asked Scott. He stood next to Deirdre with hunched shoulders, hood up, and his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He turned to her and pushed the hood slightly back to reveal a blond crew cut. His eyes were sockets in a pinched, thin face, with skin stretched taut over cheeks and jaw.
“Repo’s my brother.” Scott took his hands out of his pockets and clasped them. “He’s the only fam I ever had. Never knew my dad. Never even knew who was my dad. My mum’s a crackhead. They’d have taken me into care if anyone had ever noticed me. Mum said they’d take me away from her if I wasn’t dressed right at school. So I knew how to wash and iron by the time I was nine. I didn’t make trouble. I wasn’t smart. I was the quiet boy in the back of the class. Even when I joined the Stepney Walk Boys I kept my head down.”
“Did they make you join the gang?” Tony asked.
Scott shook his head.
“So you could have chosen not to?” Tony didn’t understand why anyone would join a gang.
“There ain’t no choice. Not where I live. If you ain’t in a firm, you’re no one. You’re fair game for everyone then. You just need to walk down the wrong street. They don’t care that you’re not in a gang. They treat you as the enemy anyway. It happened to me. I got this.” Scott pushed up his hooded top and T-shirt. On his skinny abdomen, ribs stood proud of a thin layer of flesh. Scrawled across his belly was the pale outline of a scar about ten centimeters wide. It looked like three badly written letters: JMC.
Scott pushed his top down. “I was eight. I never went down that street again. Ever.” His eyes glistened. “You don’t understand what it’s like. Outside of the gang, all I was, was scared. Who was going to protect me? Not my mum. Then when I was in the SWB, everyone was fired up with anger all the time. The JMC done this. The Poplar Boys done that. Now I’m dead, none of it matters. All the anger’s gone. I’m not scared anymore, just sad.”
“But you’ve killed people.” Tony couldn’t get past that.
Scott smiled sadly. “No, I didn’t, and Repo neither. I couldn’t admit it before.” He glanced at Deirdre. “She told me off, after. Told me I was stupid. I was still worried about my rep. But I’m beyond all that now.”
“You’re racist.” Tony wanted to help, but it stuck in her throat to help a racist. Jade was family to her, same as this boy’s Repo. And it wasn’t just about Jade. It was something that ran to the very core of Tony’s personal code of honor.
“I wasn’t once.” Scott cradled his right thumb in his left hand. “After the JMC carved their name into my belly, everyone told me on the estate, they told me it was because I was white. All my life, that’s all I’ve heard. White look after their own. Black look after theirs. You know what? That attitude don’t help no one. I can see that now. All of it, even how much I hate the JMC seems stupid.
“Someone came to my school once. She stood up at assembly, talking about gangs. I was in the SWB by then, so really I wasn’t paying her no mind, but I remember this. She said more boys were killed in the UK than forces in Afghanistan. It didn’t mean nothing to me then. But it does now. It’s a waste. I miss Repo. I don’t care if that makes me a faggot. I miss him with all my heart, but I don’t want him here, dead like me. I want him to have kids, to be a rapper, whatever, to have some kind of chance to do something.” He looked deep into Tony’s eyes and bit his lip. “You need to go now, if you’re going to keep Repo alive.”
*
It was getting dark by the time Tony reached the council estate where Scott used to live. The entrance from the main road was a small, poorly lit alleyway. Three men hanging out by a BMW stopped talking and stared at her as she passed.
She turned into the alleyway and walked quickly through into the internal courtyard.
Blocks of flats rose on all four sides of the enclosed cobbled area. The estate was built in a square with a hollowed-out center. Each block was five stories high. Restored, the brick-faced, red tile-topped buildings could be beautiful, but these were scrawled with tags and graffiti, while the doors and windows ironically cried out for paint. Washing was strung outside individual flats, providing a splash of color behind the black railings of each walkway. Cooking smells combined with cannabis, tobacco, and urine. Music drifted through open windows. Far off, a baby cried.
“I don’t like this. Ring Jade,” Deirdre hissed in Tony’s ear, making her jump.
Tony looked around, trying to see into the shadows. The place looked deserted. “I can handle it,” she said tersely. “Jade will be angry. This will take me five minutes. Jade never needs to know.”
Deirdre vanished. That took the biscuit. Tony couldn’t believe Deirdre would go on and on about coming to the place and then bail out on her.
Scott was still beside her. He stared up at the buildings. He looked like he was searching the walkways.
Following his gaze, Tony felt exposed out in the middle of the courtyard. She walked over to a set of railings on one side. A couple of bicycle skeletons were still secured to railings by thick bike locks, long after their wheels had been stolen. Tony had always wondered why people didn’t remove the bike frames when that happened. Had they been visiting friends and couldn’t be bothered to come back? Or were they leaving the skeletons there as a warning to other bike owners?
There was a clatter and a screech to her right.
A black cat tore out of another entrance to the estate and sped off across the gray cobbles into the shadows of the block opposite.
Then Tony saw what had disturbed the cat. A group of hooded figures strolled out of the entrance, fists clenched, shoulders back, eyes fixed in her direction. They came straight for her.
“Be back in a minute,” Scott muttered.
“What?” Tony said, but he was gone.
There were four young men. Tony guessed they were somewhere between fifteen and twenty. None were very tall. All were white. One looked like he worked out. Two were slight. The fourth was fat.
“What you doing here?” The fat boy walked up to her. The others flanked her on both sides and behind till she was surrounded. The fat boy leaned his face in till he was a breath away from hers, and dropped his voice. “This is my manor.”
Tony forced herself not to pull her face away or step backward. She’d grown up on a smaller but similar estate. She knew the rules. “I’m looking for someone.”
“Fed. I told you,” the worked-out guy said.
The fat boy narrowed his eyes at her. “Shit. It’s a bitch,” he said.
“I’m not a bitch. I’m a woman,” Tony said before she thought better of it.
“Same thing,” the fat boy said.
“She’s one of them community police. They’re the only ones stupid enough to come here on their own,” the worked out guy said.
The others laughed. Tony didn’t think it was the moment to tell them she wasn’t police, community or otherwise.
“What phone you got?” The fat boy pulled Tony’s jacket open. She stepped back and walked into the youth behind her. He shoved her forward. She felt his hand slip into her back pocket.
“IPhone five. Nice,” he said.
Tony turned. “Give me my phone back,” she snarled.
“Give me my phone back.” The fat boy did a whining imitation of her voice.
Tony shut her mouth.
With no phone and no one coming to help her, Tony was in serious trouble.
*
Jade tore through the south side entrance of the estate. She saw Tony, surrounded by youths in hoods. Anger pushed her fear aside.
“Don’t go to them. They won’t take no notice of you. Especially as you’re a…a black person.” Scott spoke quickly, close to Jade on her right side. “Turn
left, go up the stairs. Repo’s on the third floor.”
Jade hesitated. “Tony needs help now.”
Scott shook his head. “You can’t do nothing. They’re tooled up. Repo’s the only one who can make them stand down.”
Against her instincts, Jade trusted Scott and headed for the stairs. She ran up them. She was terrified for Tony. She was also furious with her. Tony had gone back on her word.
“It was my fault,” Deirdre said for the third time. It was like she was reading Jade’s mind. “Tony didn’t want to come. I persuaded her.”
“You shouldn’t have been able to persuade her,” Jade muttered. “And this is exactly why.”
Jade stepped onto the third floor walkway. She stood panting and looked along the length of it. It was empty.
In the courtyard below, a fat boy held a phone in front of Tony’s face and then pocketed it. A slight youth standing behind Tony stepped up to her and put her arms around her, pressing himself against her.
To hell with it. She was calling the police. Jade took her phone out and got one nine dialed.
“That’s a pretty phone,” a voice said quietly in the shadows.
Jade started.
“That’s Repo,” Scott said.
A sweet-faced boy stepped through a black security gate enclosing one of the apartments.
“Pretty phone for a pretty little lady.” Repo stopped in front of her. He was about a head taller than her, and handsome, with blond hair allowed to grow past the crew cut of the other gang members. He had an angelic, rosebud mouth and blue eyes that sparkled, even in the dim yellow light of the walkway. A wooden-handled knife with a four-inch blade glinted in his right hand. He gestured it toward Jade’s phone.
“Why don’t you just give that to me?” he said pleasantly.
Jade calculated whether she could tap the numbers before Repo could grab her phone. She didn’t think so. She put her phone in the inside pocket of her jacket and zipped it up.
Repo gave a soft chuckle. “Brave? Or stupid? Which is it?”
Jade ignored the question. She kept the blade in her peripheral vision. “Call your dogs off,” she said.
Repo laughed openly. His smile was warm. “You got to be Old Bill.” He looked up her and down. “Though you’re bare short. I thought the police had standards. They getting desperate?”
Jade didn’t say anything. She wanted to check Tony was all right, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off the knife.
“Only Old Bill would be arrogant enough to come in here. Undercover are you? That why you got no radio?”
“I’ve got a message for you,” Jade said.
“This is a white-only estate. You got no business coming here. We don’t speak to the filth anyway, but if we did, we’d only speak to the white ones.” Repo spoke as pleasantly as he had before, but there was disgust in his eyes.
“I’ve got a message from Scott.”
The smile disappeared from Repo’s lips. “Liar. No one calls him Scott except teachers and the filth.”
“A. My name’s A. They call me Straight A because I can’t lie,” Scott said.
“Straight A is standing next to me.”
Repo glanced to either side of Jade. “What you chatting about, you crazy bitch?”
“He told me he moved the stash. You can’t find it, can you?”
A tic pulsed across Repo’s cheek. “You’re talking shit. I don’t know nothing about any stash. What is a stash anyway?” He was messing with Jade even though he was clearly rattled.
“I’m not the police. Neither is Tony, my girl, there.” Jade tossed her head in Tony’s direction, still keeping the knife in view. “We’re psychics. Scott came to us. I didn’t want to help him. Tony did. I didn’t think you were worth saving.”
Repo raised his eyebrows. She had his attention.
“Apparently, you’ll die tonight if I don’t tell you where the drugs are.”
Repo stared at her.
“Call your boys off, or I won’t tell you anything.” Jade stared as hard back.
Repo glanced over at the gang.
He thought for a moment then put thumb and first finger to his lips. He gave two short whistles. The boys on the ground floor froze.
Repo pulled out a phone. The fat boy’s phone rang. He accepted the call.
“Stand down. Peel back. Tell the bitch to stay where she is. You step back to the railings. Keep your eyes on her.”
“Tell them to give her back her phone.”
Repo shook his head sharply, once. “Where’s the stash?”
“Oh no.” The knife was still a swipe away from her chest. “I’m not telling you till Tony gets her phone back and we’re both outside on the main road.”
Repo laughed. “Well, then, we’ve got a problem. You don’t trust me. And I sure as fuck don’t trust you. You shouldn’t even be standing there. It’s a disgrace.”
He went quiet, thinking. “You’re to do with them, ain’t you? You’re with the JMC. You trying to trap me? Get me out onto the main road?” His grip tightened on the knife. He took a step nearer.
The knife was close enough to touch her skin.
“Do I look like a gang member?” Jade said indignantly. Her eyes never left the tip of the blade.
“No, you’re too old,” Repo said quickly. He thought for a second. “Maybe you ain’t with the JMC, but we still got a problem.”
“He can never let something go,” Scott muttered beside her. “Tell him he’s being as stupid as the time he stood up to Mr. McGonigal.”
Jade told him.
Repo narrowed his eyes.
Scott spoke into Jade’s ear. “McGonigal thought he was the big man of the school. We was only nine, both just joined the gang—little Stepney Walkers. We were playing at it, really. Tell him, this ain’t worth getting the belt for.”
Jade was horrified. “Scott says this isn’t worth getting the belt for.” She turned in the direction of Scott’s voice. “What do you mean, the belt? Corporal punishment in schools was outlawed a long time ago in this country.”
“So what? McGonigal knew my mum wouldn’t notice, and he was sleeping with Repo’s old lady. He knew she wouldn’t care. Repo stood up to him in front of the whole class. At Repo’s house later, McGonigal whipped us both good, but Repo had his moment, even if it took his back three weeks to heal. Tell him I said to give your phones back and let you go.”
Jade passed on the message. Repo listened. His eyes darted left and right of Jade as if he was trying to see Scott.
After a while, he pointed the knife down. “I don’t believe A’s here. He’s gone. But maybe he had time to call you and tell you all that shit before he died. No one knows about that, so it must have been him. Whatever. If A wanted me to trust you, all right then. I got nothing to lose. Something’s going down tonight, anyway, so let’s have it.” Repo said the last words cockily, as if going into a fight.
He put his fingers to his lips again and gave a long whistle that cut through the air. He pocketed his knife.
Most of the gang padded away. The fat boy handed Tony back her phone before he turned into the alley too.
Jade made Repo walk in front of her down the stairs to Tony. Tony stared like she was shocked to see her.
Repo scanned the area carefully before they stepped off the estate. Even then, on the main road, he hung back, keeping just within earshot.
“Scott bought his mum a new freezer. Under the bottom drawer is a secret drawer for ice and stuff. You have to take the whole drawer out to see it. That’s where it is,” Jade said.
Repo nodded. He held her eye for a moment. Then he disappeared, back into the darkness of the estate.
*
As Maya turned the key in Tony’s door, she heard raised voices inside. She dropped her bag in the hall and went straight into the living room.
The coffee table was covered with foil takeaway containers dumped straight on the surface, with no mats or kitchen paper to protect it. Tony and
Jade were sitting on Tony’s couch next to the food. Jade had a heaped plate and was looking crossly at Tony. Tony was piling spoonfuls of rice onto her plate, with no regard to how much she was spilling onto the couch. From the delicious spicy aromas, Maya guessed the food was from Tony’s favorite Bengali restaurant.
“I’ve never been this angry with you, Tony,” Jade said. She looked up, saw Maya, and smiled. “Oh, thank God. Now that’s the first good thing that’s happened this evening.”
Tony’s eyes lit up. “Maya. I thought you were coming back tomorrow.”
“I left early. The lectures tomorrow are mostly about Chinese herbal medicine. Anyway, I missed you.” She bent and gave Tony a smooch. Tony tasted of spinach and potato curry. “Mmmm, you taste even better than I remember,” she said.
“There’s plenty of veggie stuff here, if you’re hungry.” Tony waved a hand toward the food. Maya tore her eyes from the spots of sauce on the table. The yellow turmeric stains would set if they were left too long.
“Sit down. Let me grab you a plate.” Tony plonked her meal down. She was half out of her seat.
“No, no. I can get it myself, honey. You’re in the middle of eating.” Maya decided to grab some kitchen paper at the same time as a plate, and minimize the damage.
The atmosphere was decidedly strained when Maya returned. She filled her plate with sag-aloo, tarka dal, and pilau rice without saying anything. She mopped all the spills, sat carefully on the armchair next to the couch, and began to eat her dinner, waiting for someone to tell her what was going on. It was puzzling. She had spoken to Tony at lunchtime, before she’d decided on the spot to come back. Everything had been fine at one o’clock. Tony had been looking forward to having dinner with Jade on Jade’s houseboat.
After ten awkward minutes, she asked, “What’s wrong?”
Tony gave her look as if to say, “Don’t ask.”
“Tony put us both in danger tonight. She went steaming into a council estate on her own and got into trouble with a gang. Deirdre had to come get me,” Jade said.