by Anton Marks
Gridlock, Tottenham Court Road
10.45am
Ramona Cleopatra Jones, Patra to her sisters gave the Kawasaki Ninja some revs and punched the warm fuel tank between her legs with a gloved fist. The Bluetooth wireless rig in her ear blinked as she spat the words with venom.
“Can you believe this bullshit?”
It was Suzy on the other end of the line and she sounded excited and concerned but not as excited and concerned as Patra was at this very moment. She stood helplessly on her kick stand and surveyed the gridlocked traffic of Oxford Street, the fallout from a 24 hour Tube Strike. In front of her was a winding construct of multi-colored steel made from vans, buses, cars and trucks, undulating their way along like a sun drunk sidewinder, its multiple exhaust haze distorting the buildings in the West End’s commercial centre as it went along.
“You did what? That nigga deserved every bruise his ass got,” Patra nodded her head and belted out her signature laugh. “I’d loved to have seen that beat down. Y’s trippin you say, whaddup?”
The earpiece that hugged her earlobe blinked with the comment and a flurry of high pitched mobilespeak that made sense only close up, made her shrug leather clad shoulders and nod in agreement, her focus firmly engaged in the traffic madness of the West End.
“Okay, okay I’ll be there but her ass better be on fire ‘cos I’m bringing the water, yuh heard me.”
Patra looked behind her and realised every degree of a three hundred and sixty rotation was tight, the sun was reflecting off bonnets and obscuring her view but the blaring horns and the shimmering heat curtain being flung into the sky said it all.
Motherfucking gridlock.
“Gotta go Suzy but I’ll be there, I promise sugahh.”
Pulling the helmet onto her head, Patra glanced at her carrier unit and knew this delivery was going to be tight, if not impossible but savored the odds.
As fate would have it though, the outcome of this particular ride would decide the future of all female dispatch riders who joined the chicken shit outfit of Pathos Couriers.
By 1.45 she should have been regretting her outburst of indignant wrath but the snide comments, the disrespect and the downright sexism had gone beyond male banter to victimization. By accident, Patra had walked into the midday drivers’ coven. Their little fantasy session was in full swing, describing her as a horny bitch best suited to be riding cock instead of a motorbike. In a fist fight she could take these pansy ass faggots without breaking a sweat but she had to learn to approach challenges without resorting to physical conflict. She was a woman after all and she was blessed with a brain and the guile to use it. So in the heat of the moment, her mouth getting in the way of her brain or so she would have them think, she threw down an unusual gauntlet.
“So you niggas think you can handle this?” She twirled and grabbed a butt cheek, her anger simmering. Wild agreement from the cave men was spontaneous and enthusiastic.
“Okay, okay. Let’s put your money where your motherfucking mouth is.”
Just at that minute a priority request was made by one of their corporate clients that a record contract had to be collected from its headquarters in the sticks of Middlesex and delivered to a promotion company in the heart of Soho in a ridiculous time frame.
Patra didn’t think and neither did that hollow yearning in her chest, that tingle at the base of her skull that flexed the laws of coincidence in her favor in many a tight scrape.
That was her gift and it was grinning from ear to ear.
“If any of you cocksuckers wants to take it, that’s fine by me.” She had proclaimed. “But I know I can collect and drop off the package in forty-five minutes. And I’ll stake my ass literally on that shit.”
It was a done deal as the words left her mouth and after the laughter died down she was dashing out the door with the clock ticking and the possibility of five salaries in her back pocket if she won. Losing on the other hand was not worth considering.
That’s how she was brought up, to be a competitor.
Her memories of growing up with three brothers in Georgia, Alabama, fighting with them to gain every ounce of respect by doing what they could do and doing it better was what made her. Competition and adventure flowed through her veins and molded her character. Telling her she couldn’t do something was an invitation to conflict, something she reveled in. And with her talent of confounding probability - an above average lucky break quotient some would say - nothing much scared her.
The fact that they were chauvinistic morons whose centre of intelligence was in their gonads was a foregone conclusion. Her duty, and one that any woman from the Jones family in Alabama all upheld, was their pride of self and an unhealthy belief that whatever any man could do - biological restraints not withstanding – they were not just their equal but their betters.
Not the most endearing character trait, especially with prospective partners, but it was the truth.
Running her fingers along her tight braids, sweat trickling down her brows, Patra had ten minutes to make the drop.
And it would be done by any means necessary.
It was about then she saw the motorcycle cop surveying the traffic situation.
Nothing had changed since her last profanity-riddled thought and Patra began to feel the uncomfortable emotion of panic as the seconds slipped away and failure loomed.
Boxed in on all sides, she didn’t even have the luxury to snake her way through the gaps in the vehicles.
Trapped like a son-of-a-bitch.
She looked over to the cop who was in conversation on his radio.
This was bullshit. She had to do something now.
Huffing, she swung her long legs off the saddle and proceeded to lower the Suzuki to the tarmac, with cars in front, behind and to the side of her. The driver of a BT van popped his head through the window totally bemused at what she was doing.
“Oi, what the f…? You can’t leave it there.” He screamed looking like he was about to burst a blood vessel.
Patra gave him the finger and reached for the package.
Then came that familiar tingle around her temples and an imperceptible lurch that made her stomach protest as if God the celestial DJ had stopped the track that was the earth’s rotation and rewound it ever so slightly. This was her gift at work, the ability she had to be at the right place, at the right time to benefit from a fortuitous event especially when she was threatened. It was a kind of luck factor that she had no control over but when it did appear it altered shit to Patra’s advantage.
And this was one of those times.
Miraculously the vehicles in the left lane started to move at a steady pace.
She smiled.
There was still a slim window of opportunity.
Patra flew back on the Ninja’s saddle making it squeal as she fed it through the tightest of gaps. Wiggling her leather clad ass from left to right, shifting it’s centre of gravity with every twist, she deftly maneuvered herself away from another lane going nowhere and instead lurched onto the side walk.
Pedestrians stared open mouthed while Patra revved the motorbike threateningly and sped up the sidewalk parting the gawping tourists like farmyard chickens. Traffic lights loomed so she bumped back onto the main road and broke right, weaving her way through the stationary vehicles who might as well be sitting with their engines removed.
A sudden speakered wail and the unmistakable blue flash.
Five-O, they can get a piece of my ass later. She thought as another bottleneck hurtled towards her.
This time she didn’t test the impossible.
Speeding up a cloistered lane, Patra grabbed the brakes, skidding the Ninja to a stop and unceremoniously flung the motorbike on its side. Reaching over she undid the latch from her carrier unit, snatched the package and started sprinting down Needle Street.
The sirens grew louder behind her and the strobing blue lights bounced off the glass walls and shiny metal but she kept ahead of any implied threat the
familiar sound was supposed to instill in her.
Patra’s mind was at the finish line.
She was shedding weight in mid flight.
Her gloves went first, savagely shaken off her hands, then her bulky jacket spiraled above her head and next her lipstick red helmet was tossed behind her, bouncing off the urine soaked walls and spinning to a stand.
Looking up she saw the neon lighted sign in the distance.
Razzmatazz Records.
Fifty metres in four minutes.
Piece of cake.
She sprinted forward.
Docklands, East London
Thursday, July 4th
23.45
Toppa yawned and arched his back, farting as his urine found the perfect trajectory into the toilet bowl. He wanted to applaud himself but he had one hand on his dick and the other propping himself up against the wall so instead he let out a sigh of contentment and that’s when the scream messed up his reverie. A stream of piss splattered the wall and splashed on his hand as he jerked to attention.
“Rass!”
A scream, like nothing he had heard in a very long time and not one he would have ever expected from the present company. In his line work you become a connoisseur of screams. After hearing so many as he meted out ghetto retribution on orders from the boss you begin to appreciate their depth and meaning. It was an unmistakable sound of hopelessness and terror that sent chills of pleasure and uncertainty down his spine. This was not the sounds you would imagine to hear from the representatives of two of London’s most notorious crime fraternities playing their monthly poker game.
Toppa had resisted any collaboration with these English bwoys but the monthly friendlies had fostered an understanding between the rivals who came to appreciate the need for a mutually beneficial arrangement in carving up London drug turfs. It wasn’t something the Chinese or the Turks understood but the big boss Deacon was a forward thinking Yard man and the fruits of his smarts were paying off, well until now.
An attack, what else could it be? Toppa thought.
The hard men he sat around a poker table with once a month, would take a bullet or a knife, and accept their fate no screaming like a pussy, no beseeching to the higher powers like a bitch.
These nerve shredding screams were not characteristic of the thugs he knew and that paradox chilled him to the core.
No, this was something else. This was something bad.
Instinctively he clenched his ass, balls tingling, he cut his piss short and reached for the weapon in his shoulder holster. He pushed the toilet door open with the tip of his weapon and looked out. The coast clear he buckled up and moved out into the hallway. The home of the East End mob enforcer was lavish but familiar to him as this was the second time the crew had been invited here. But Toppa had not reached the ripe old age of thirty five in this business without his innate sense of survival. As he hurried along the sweeping balcony he opened every door and peered in on his way downstairs, his ears peeled.
A cold claustrophobic silence met him as he descended, quickly spreading its gnarly fingers in the confines of this huge space. The air hung frigidly expectant of something’s arrival, something dark and unwelcome. He shuddered and every candlelit story of the undead and ghosts from his past in Jamaica came back to torment him.
Toppa descended the stairs, his breath raspy and hoarse, the bones of his thoracic reverberated from his trip hammer heart and his mouth desert dry.
Cool nuh, he chided himself. Just cool, star! But the silence threatened him and with it some dread expectation, he could not put his finger on.
He flinched. More gunshots.
The 9mm rounds echoed off the walls and so did the blood curdling screams and the sounds of a frantic struggle – a desperate struggle for survival. The lights dimmed almost immediately after the screams, appliances humming with a power surge and then there was darkness.
“Bomboclaat!” Toppa spat, his breath plumes of cold condensation, his forehead slick with cold sweat and his legs suddenly hesitant. Almost breathless with anticipation, he felt his way to the last step on the staircase, every instinct telling him to flee. Toppa just couldn’t. He had to know, even when every nerve was compelling him otherwise, almost as if he was digging his heels in but being overridden by synapses hell bent on preserving his life. He held his weapon high, gripping it hard to prevent his hand from shaking and shuffled towards the drawing room, the horror of what was unfolding behind those mahogany doors sufficient motivation to allow himself another step. In a few seconds he knew that motivation would not be enough. A primal curiosity had taken hold of him, hell bent on proving the existence of our darkest fears. His rational mind wanted to turn tail and head back to South explaining his failure to Deacon’s glaring inquisition.
Who deh fuck was he kidding?
Not after hearing what he had heard. These were sounds of grown men slamming into walls, crashing into furniture, guns going off, the guttural screams of hardened thugs unused to fear and its consequences. And then there were the screeches, savage animalistic, high pitched mewls, that itched his inner ear, that only a force of will stopped him from scratching the irritation.
He tried to cover his ears when the smell assaulted him next.
It was seeping through the cracks, under the flues, a stink of excrement and gut wrenching rawness of an abattoir. Toppa was frantic but controlled and was unable to tell whether the heat issuing from behind the doors was real or imagined. He smelled the blood too before he saw it, seeping from under the doors, literally pints of gooey scarlet and chunks of body tissue adding its bouquet to the foul stench already here. One by one the screams stopped and Toppa stood still, cemented to the floor boards. He stared at the sturdy lacquered double doors that he had walked through earlier as he headed upstairs to use the toilet. He wondered why no one had rushed through it as a means of escape. Why the manic twisting of the handle from inside? And why the bone shattering slamming of their own bodies against it had not flung it open? A stream of questions rifled through his mind with no accompanying answers that made sense to him. He simply watched like a befuddled spectator as his own hand reached for the door handle.
Wha yuh a duh bwoy?
The cold now – whether in his mind or in reality – was seeping through his skin, gnawing into his bones and freezing his marrow as he reached out. He was shivering uncontrollably, as his willpower fought with an unexplained urge to commit suicide because, instinctively, he knew if he opened that door he would be dead.
The shrieks broke the spell. Not human and not any animal he was familiar with. A hellish screech spat from a multitude of triumphant hungry mouths making his ears prickle and burn. Toppa found himself on his ass scrambling backwards ineffectually emptying the clip of his Walther PPK into the door. A wave of depraved derision lifted up into the high ceilings of the house in an ear splitting bay from things redefining the impossible and answering his premature gun ejaculation with venom.
Toppa knew he had become their new focus of attention and he could hear the frenzied scrambling at the door, the scraping, the scratching, the ripping, the splintering of the old wood. The door shaking to its hinges, savagely being gnawed away by whatever nightmares were on the other side.
He had to get away was all the gangster could think as he stumbled through the confines of the darkened mansion, toppling furniture, slamming into walls, tripping down steps. Confusion condemned him to this maze that would turn out to be his mausoleum. He was at a door he could not open, his chest heaving and his heart threatening to explode out of his chest, his own screams muffled by the internal panic thumping in his head. The shotta were trapped and the things were coming up behind him pushing the darkness his way like stale air being forced through a tunnel and gibbering, screeching, mewing their way ever closer to him. Their sounds resonated with every nerve ending in his body. His senses heightened, Toppa could smell them, a wave of fetid stench and an overpowering mix of bile, shit and sulphur.
H
is own pounding and screaming felt disembodied as if he was watching himself a million fruitless miles away. Trapped he turned slowly and even in the complete darkness Toppa saw them, silent almost admiring him. Their eyes were smoldering red like liquid magma pools holding a malevolent intelligence, the gaping maws of their mouth set with rows upon glistening rows of jagged sharp teeth luminescent in the darkness.
“Mi ready, feh yuh,” he croaked chambering a round in his Browning auto. He made the sign of the cross with the barrel of the weapon, his lower lip trembling. “All a yuh…,” his voice was hesitant but getting louder, more defiant. “...all a yuh, can guh suck yuh mumma!”
His finger wrapped around the trigger as a dark snarling tsunami engulfed him, drowning out the gunshots and his screams.
Westbourne Park, West London
Thursday, July 4th
00.05
“Goddamit!” Deacon swore.
When he could not contact his soldiers at the poker game by Walters’ in Mitcham, he knew instinctively that Darkman had come calling. Calmly he handed the mobile to Minty, a look of inevitability tightening his features and tried to relax.
Not suh easy.
The crime boss stood naked in a marble tub, gesturing to the voodoo priest to continue pouring the foul smelling concoction of herbs, bush and exotic minerals over his head. He imagined marked out symbols with a chicken foot drawing unseen forces to him. The light skinned man performing the incantation was bare footed and dressed in white slacks, necktie, with a garland of pungent roots slung around his neck and a white shirt - miraculously kept in pristine condition although blood, plant extracts and other things he dared not think of were liberally being used in this protection spell. The Voudon whispered in a stream of rhythmic phrases, his tongue twanging like a stringed instrument. Deacon understood the words to be Haitian patios but spoken with such power, the words knitted together to form a tapestry not understood but felt.
The liquid was warm as it was poured over his head and he breathed through his mouth, declining to inhale the repugnant odor. It took a moment for a tingling sensation to begin spreading all over his body like a cloak of invincibility just taking effect or was his mind trying to conjure the effect to cement a reality that was preposterous to most but was as real as the marble tub he was standing in to him?