by Mick Norman
INTERIOR. ARMOURY. CENTRAL POLICE STATION. BIRMINGHAM. FOUR P.M.
‘Can we check that one more time. Two hundred standard issue revolvers. Two thousand rounds of ammunition. Forty pump-action shot-guns with twelve rounds of ammunition per gun. Ten of the Belgian rifles with sniper-scopes. Don’t forget, those are only to be issued to men carrying an L.K.109. Tear-gas, twenty-four launchers with six grenades each. Walkie-talkie units as requested. And the Ordnance Maps, Twenty of sheet 131. That’s all.’
EXTERIOR. QUARRY. FOUR-THIRTY P.M.
Brenda is reading a note that had been left with one of the look-outs for Gerry. It’s from Ruin. She looks at Gerry. They don’t speak.
EXTERIOR. QUARRY. FOUR-FORTY P.M.
Shooting has just finished on the black magic sequence. Donn stands with Tarquin and the rest of the film people.
‘That was really super. A few more like that and we’ll be finished here. You know Rupert is getting worried about us working with this mob of filth. I reckon he might just be right for once. I want to try and wrap up all the shots with this crowd and then fake the rest in London. It shouldn’t take more than three days. Then Tarquin, my love, you and I might have a bit of a break. Maybe a very long weekend in Tangier. Remember those little Arab boys from the last time. The one in the hotel with the mouth like silk?’
Nancy Thompson had retreated to her tent for a flask of coffee. Dick the Hat had attached himself to her as a kind of guardian angel. She, in return, had turned all her charms on him. It helped to pass the time. He had carried her bag for her back to the tent and she had poured him out a cup of coffee. They sat dose together in the small tent.
INTERIOR. ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE STOUT’S OFFICE. FIVE P.M.
‘Any questions? No? Right, gentlemen. Well all meet as arranged at four tomorrow morning. One final thing. Try and avoid using guns. The Home Secretary’s getting just a little bit touchy about law and order. It’s bound to be an issue in next year’s election, and there seems to be a move elsewhere towards more liberalism. But, if they show fight, then let them have it all the way. Good luck, gentlemen.’
EXTERIOR. QUARRY. FIVE-THIRTY P.M.
Vincent was sitting alone when Tarquin wandered or, rather, staggered – he’d been getting heavily into the supply of Southern Comfort – and stood by him.
‘Vincent, Vinnie. You know, I really dig you Angels. You reckon it might be possible for me to join your group? I’ve got lots of leather gear and studded jackets and belts.’
He sat down next to the President and leaned back against a pile of rusting metal. His right hand held the remains of a bottle of liquor. As he talked, his left hand edged over until he was able to emphasise a point by putting it onto Vincent’s thigh.
INTERIOR. NANCY’S TENT. FIVE-THIRTY P.M.
Nancy sits on her bed, smoking a joint, wearing a dressing-gown. Dick the Hat has been joined by Riddler, Moron and Atlas, sitting on the floor of the tent. All four of the Last Heroes are smashed out of their heads. Nancy is only slightly stoned and as she talks, she allows the dressing-gown to slowly fall apart. Feeling herself begin to get moist with the kick of exposing her sex to these masculine apes. Knowing that they won’t have what she lets them glimpse. Saving it for when she gets to London and can get back to the flat and the slim, blonde little maid.
Thinking of it, she opens her thighs wider.
EXTERIOR. QUARRY. FIVE-THIRTY P.M.
Rupert and Gerry talking.
‘It’s worse than that, Rupert, mate. If I were you, I’d get your intellectual film-making friend, the dyke and the poof – no offence, of course – away from here as soon as possible. It hasn’t worked out. They all take the piss out of us the whole time, and all the brothers are getting thoroughly choked off about them. Somehow it turned bad from the start.’
‘I reckon you’re right, Gerry. It was all Donn’s idea. I thought it might have worked, but it hasn’t had a chance. Still, it wasn’t your fault’
The run went sour. Three killed. I don’t give a fuck about Dylan. Kafka told me he killed Priest. But three dead. That’s a lot. We ought to get away. I’ve just got a feeling.’
‘What about?’
‘The fuzz. Vincent did for some on the run, and they’re not going to forget that easily. I didn’t trust that Birmingham brother, Ruin. He stank of fear.’
‘Donn was thinking of folding it in a few days anyway and matching the rest in studio. You reckon we can hold out for, say, four days?’
‘Maybe. But, I doubt it Not with Donn’s continual snide cracks about us. Or the dyke’s cock-teasing. Honest, mate, we’re on a barrel of gelignite. All it needs is someone to light the fuse.’
In fact, Gerry was both right and wrong. He was right about there being a fuse. But, as it turned out, there were three separate fuses and they all got lit round about the same time.
EXTERIOR. QUARRY. FIVE-THIRTY-FIVE P.M.
‘Keep your fucking hands to yourself, you bastard! I’ll fucking show you!’
INTERIOR. NANCY’S TENT. FIVE-THIRTY-FIVE P.M.
‘Dick darling, roll me another joint. There’s a dear. What are you staring at? Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to stare? What do you think ... ? No. No!’
EXTERIOR. QUARRY. DONN’S CAR. FIVE-THIRTY-FIVE P.M.
Donn has had more than enough for one day and is about to leave for the night, though there are still hours more of light. The rest of the crew are staying at a hotel in Walsall. One of the sound boys had seemed interested – and interesting. That was one way of working this filth out of one’s artistic system.
Donn got into his Jaguar and pressed his foot savagely down on the accelerator. The big car surged forwards, then slewed off to the left as the rear wheels skidded in a pool of greasy slurry. The front wing caught the high-rise bars of Riddler’s bike and knocked it into the next chopper. The hogs went down like a pack of cards, and the big car drifted into the confusion.
There was agonised screeching of torn and crushed metal and then hush. From all around the quarry, Angels came funning towards the carnage. Donn got out of the car and glanced at the mess he had caused. He spoke to the first Angels who arrived: ‘You! Get these bloody motorbikes out of my way! Bloody move them. Don’t just stand there like a crowd of ruptured apes, move them!’
So, the three fuses were lit. Almost simultaneously, the three explosions went off.
The first explosion was really not so much a bang as a whimper. Vincent had stood up and tried to push Tarquin away. The star whispered urgently up at him, promising him all kinds of pleasure. He pressed his face against the Angel’s thighs, his mouth eagerly seeking the bulge at the front of the tight Levis. He pushed the bottle into Vincent’s hand, urging him to drink. His own fingers tugged impatiently at the zip on Vincent’s jeans.
‘Fuck off, you bastard!’ Vincent slapped him open-handed. Tarquin crawled back to him, pulling himself up his legs, his hands working at his groin, his mouth drooling open. Almost without his realising it, the half-full bottle of Southern Comfort swung high in Vincent’s hand, then arched down. It cracked across Tarquin’s cheek, drawing blood. A second blow caught him across his expensively remodelled nose, wrecking several hundred pounds worth of plastic surgery. Moaning, Tarquin slumped at Vincent’s feet.
With almost fanatical strength, he scrabbled at the Angel’s boots, trying desperately to get to his feet. Vincent lifted one foot and stamped down, as one would on a revolting slug, cracking the skull and forcing the pulp of a nose into the gravel. Then, Tarquin screamed, once only. Vincent stamped twice more, then edged back and kicked accurately for the base of the skull. The toe of the boot seemed to dig in a dreadful distance, then cartilage and bone parted and Tarquin Wells was dead. His neck broken, his face bloodied and stained from the vomit that had stirred the sand into mud, Tarquin Wells, a million dollar investment, was dead.
He would rise no more.
Explosion two was more of a bang than anything else. Lovely lesbian, Nancy T
hompson, sweet dream baby of a dozen films. Masturbatory fantasy become flesh for tens of thousands of adolescent boys – and some girls – had pushed her luck a little too much with the wrong people. Like her co-star, she was used to playing games with rich and beautiful people. Like Tarquin, she discovered that there are some people who will simply not play your games. People who won’t take that sort of shit from anybody.
Prick-teasing is not a game to play with the Hell’s Angels.
Nancy had played it in her little tent, snug with four of the Angels. There is no point in giving the details of precisely what happened. She was raped by all four, then by others who were attracted by the noise. Her dressing-gown was torn from her shoulders by Atlas, but it was Dick the Hat who penetrated her first. Then more, singly, and in pairs. When she tried to scream she was brutally silenced by one of the brothers punching her in the mouth, breaking teeth, destroying the beautiful and expensive caps and crowns.
Oddly, after it was all over, and she was safe – for the Angels let her go when they had finished their sport – she found herself little touched by the nightmare. As a star actress, she had forced herself to sleep with men, and women, that she found totally repulsive. She had done things and been places that few dream of. The experience didn’t alter her at all, unless it strengthened her lesbian tendencies.
Nancy Thompson sold her story to a nauseatingly popular Sunday paper, had her teeth fixed again, and found she was a very hot property. She stayed a star for many years. But she never made that one mistake again. However much good came incidentally out of it, she never again played the game of prick-teasing with Hell’s Angels.
But she lived.
Finally, to the last and greatest of the explosions.
EXTERIOR. QUARRY. BY DONN’S CAR. FIVE-THIRTY-SIX P.M.
‘You! Get these bloody motorbikes out of my way! Bloody move them. Don’t just stand there like a crowd of ruptured apes, move them!’
‘Ain’t nobody gonna kick my motorcycle! ! You bastard, you hear me? Everything in this stinking world that I’ve got is invested in that thing.’
‘Listen to me sonny-boy. Fiddler, or whatever they call you. Shift that mess or I’m going to get back in my car and drive right clean over the top of everything and you can whistle for your money. It’s over. Dig. It’s over!’
Riddler, the foremost of the Angels to reach the chaos where Donn had knocked over a pile of their bikes into the dirt, grabbed him by the sleeve of his trendy Madras cotton jacket. ‘You prick! I love that hog better than I love anything else and you want to drive over it. Man, I know what you are.’ ‘ Donn shrugged the hand off his sleeve, as though he had just discovered a particularly repugnant insect ‘All right. What am I?’
The voice that answered was quiet. It came from the back of the group. It was the voice of Gerry.
‘You are dead, Mr. Simon. You get down now and pick up each one of those bikes and polish them off and you say how sorry you are to the brothers. Then, you will live.’
‘Come off it. You don’t frighten me, Wolf. If I want to I can get the police to hound you to the end of the country. It’s over. Right now. And you, leave that camera alone! Come on Rupert. Or stay with your butch friends if that’s what you want.’
‘Mr. Simon. I mean what I say. You won’t tell the police, because you will be dead. One last chance. Take my advice and take that chance.’
‘Up your arse. You wouldn’t dare hurt me. I’m a big man. Tell them Rupert.’
‘Yes, Rupert, mate. Tell him.’
The confrontation was interrupted by a scream, quickly choked, from the other side of the quarry. Almost simultaneously, Nancy’s small tent began to thrash and billow. Again there was just one scream. Again, it was quickly muffled.
Gerry turned to Rupert. ‘I reckon it’s too late my little mate. That first yell sounded like Tarquin and that (pointing to the heaving remnants of Nancy’s tent) is the end of our Nancy. And those bikes are going to be the end of Donn Simon.’ He pulled the little man to one side. ‘Listen. All the film crew are gone. He’s as good as dead. When the brothers get going they might get a bit indiscriminate and I don’t see why you should buy it as well as that bastard. So, push off, Rupert. I’ll see you one day.’
Rupert looked up at the taller Angel. He touched him quickly on the arm. Thanks, Wolf. See you. Sorry it ... well, you know.’ He slipped through the ring of Angels and was gone.
Donn Simon opened his mouth as though he was about to say something, and then closed it again. With the disappearance of his right-hand man, and the screams, realisation had come to him with the chill sudden horror of the Angel of Death.
The group parted again to let Vincent through. He walked slowly to stand by Gerry. The blood on his boots had picked up sand. He held the broken neck of the bottle in his right hand. Gerry turned to him. Tarquin?’
‘Snuffed.’
‘What the hell does he mean, “snuffed”? Where’s Tarquin?’
‘He just told you, Mr. Simon. He’s dead.’
‘Oh, God!! God Almighty!! Why? For Christ’s sake. Why?’
‘Because he tried to fucking blow me. And I just didn’t want to be blown. Not by that bastard narcissistic queer. I told him to pack it in, but he wouldn’t He just kept on and on. So, I hit him. With this bottle. He still tried to keep on with his filth. So, I kicked him a couple of times. And he died.’
That was more or less that. The gang-bang continued for another hour or so, until everyone had had enough. And they let Nancy go. They even let her wash herself. Then they let her go.
But Donn Simon was different He was the boss man. It was his fault. It had all gone wrong, and it was entirely his fault. Worst of all, he had messed with their bikes and he had dared them to do something about it. And, he had even had the bleeding nerve to threaten them with the fuzz. Any one of those three crimes could have got him killed by a Hell’s Angels chapter. All three meant that he didn’t have a ghost of a chance. The Last Heroes unanimously passed sentence of death on him, and they kept their word.
While Kafka operated the camera, and while the Krieg light blazed. Donn Simon took part in his last film. It was a unique movie. For a man who made his reputation as a director, he ended his career as the star. Sadly for Donn, there weren’t any stand-ins available for him, so he had to do all the action stunts himself.
First of all there was the grand race. Donn, on foot, had to try and beat Riddler, on his scratched but still functional hog, in a race round the gravel and sand floor of the quarry. It was Brenda who pointed out, with her usual thoughtfulness, that it was hardly a fair race. So, Vincent offered to help him out He gave Donn a tow. An offer which didn’t seem much appreciated, as far as one could gather, for Donn was having trouble communicating. It could have been the piece of cotton waste that was wired into his mouth. Vincent gave him a length of rope to hang onto, tying the other end to the highly-polished cissy bar. Just to make absolutely sure that Donn didn’t accidentally let go of the rope, Vincent tied the end securely round both his wrists.
Then, both Angels revved up their engines, let in the clutches, and the race was on. Vincent’s big Harley lagged behind at the start, but he soon picked up. Donn couldn’t run fast enough, so he got towed round behind the bike, his clothes being torn from his body by the gravel.
Kafka discovered that the camera had nearly run out of film, so there didn’t seem that much point in going on with it.
A little later, Vincent decided that Donn had become totally” superfluous.
So, he killed him.
Fourteen – The Law is for the Protection of the People
PM Kennedy (Reporter for B.B.C. News team): The time is three in the morning. The place is a police station, a few miles north of Birmingham. The day is July 3rd. Here around me, in the early morning half-light are several hundred policemen, gathering for one of their biggest raids in Great Britain, since the second of the so-called ‘Angry Brigade’ assaults in 1974. Here with me I have Assist
ant Chief Constable Stout, who is heading the operation. An operation that could spell the end for the gang of motorcycle outlaws reportedly hiding out a few miles from here. Chief Constable, could you tell me a little about this gang?’
Assistant Chief Constable Stout: Well, as far as we know, they seem to be the gang that call themselves the “Last Heroes”. You’ll probably remember that this was the gang that we suspect may be able to help us with our investigations into the Holloway Bank job.’
PM Kennedy: ‘Do you know any of their names?’
Stout: ‘Well, I believe that the leader is still a man named ‘Vincent’ – after the famous horror-film actor – but we have reason to believe that there is some kind of power struggle going on within the Angels, and that a man named “Wolf” is trying to take over the presidency.’
Phil Kennedy: ‘How many do you think there are? And, could you tell us about rumours that film stars Tarquin Wells and Nancy Thompson are in the quarry with director Donn Simon, making a film about the Hell’s Angels?’
Stout: ‘I would prefer not to comment on who else may be involved, as this might prejudice any trial that may result from our investigations. I would only say that it has come to my attention that rumours, such as you have just mentioned, are going the rounds. To answer the first part of your question, we believe that there could be as many as fifty outlaws up there. We aim to find out precisely.’
Phil Kennedy: ‘What are your instructions to your men if the Hell’s Angels attempt to resist?’
Stout: ‘I’m sorry. I really can’t divulge that to you. All I can say is that we hope that there will be no violence. We are certainly not going to go in there looking for it. Although, just in case of trouble, I have ordered that certain selected officers may carry arms. I will not expose them to any unnecessary danger from these hooligans. The sooner they are all behind bars the better.’