Read Online Angel City by Mike Ripley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mike Ripley
Tags: Fantasy, Crime, London, Novel, angel, Comedy, Violence, wizard, Poor, dungeons and dragons, homeless, sad, misery, mike ripley, comic crime, crime writers, fresh blood, lovejoy, critic, birmingham post, essex book festival, wand, 1990, 90s, flotsam, gay scene, broke, skint
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something, but whoever it was had decided he liked his breakfast so much he had wanted to see it again. Close up. On his T-shirt.
âIâve got money,â snapped Tigger.
He reached into a trouser pocket and produced another wedge of notes, all seemingly £20 ones, folded in half and obviously old.
âFrom the bank, you said,â I said vaguely.
Tigger wasnât looking at me. He was trying to put an arm around the vagrantâs shoulder. Needing both hands, he pushed the notes back into a pocket.
âWhat?â
âLet it ride.â
It suddenly didnât seem important to ask Tigger where heâd got the money. Notes like that would never have come out of a hole-in-the-wall cash machine, even if there had been one at the bank Tigger said heâd been to.
The reason I stopped worrying about it was that I got my first good look at the corpse Tigger was trying to resurrect. It wasnât a corpse, of course, it was a kid â a skinny blond boy who could pass for 18 in a dimly lit pub and maybe fool the Social Security that he was 16, but was probably nearer 13. Along with his vomit-stained T-shirt he wore a pair of black ski pants, but no shoes. The black footstraps were indistinguishable from the filthy soles of his feet. I looked back to his face as Tigger tried to raise his head again.
âCome on, Lee, itâs OK, youâre down now,â he was saying. The kidâs head snapped back, a lock of blond hair stuck to one cheek with snot or vomit or saliva. He didnât seem to have any eyeballs, or none that faced outwards anyway.
âWhatâs he on?â I asked, not wanting to know, because it would mean I would be involved.
âHeâs been to a party,â said Tigger, still trying to get the kid upright. âThese arenât his clothes. It was that sort of party.â
âI didnât ask about his dress sense or his social life.â
âI think heâs been smoking Amp,â said Tigger quietly.
âOh shit.â
âI think heâs broken his hand, but he doesnât know it yet.â
He moved to one side so I could see the kidâs right hand. At first guess I would have said a Number 159 bus had run over it. Possibly a 73. That was why Tigger had crouched the way he had, shielding the crushed hand, which was red with blood and black with dirt. The dirt you could clean, but no-one touches blood these days.
âProbably did it when he landed,â I offered.
Tigger nodded and just breathed.
âYeah.â
âAmpâ , believe it or not, is good old marijuana â that quaint social drug from those innocent days when people smoked and wore fur â soaked in embalming fluid. Now who thought that one up?
The effects of smoking it (and itâs easier to buy than cigarette tobacco on some railway stations) were similar to that of the drug PCP, which the Americans called âAngel Dustâ. In the early â80s, there had been numerous cases of Angel Dusters trying to take on the rush hour traffic in the middle of the Los Angeles freeway system. I had once met a paramedic with the LA Fire Department who had seen Viet Nam and the Watts riots and gone into blazing buildings without turning a hair, who dreaded attending a call out to an Angel Duster.
âWhere did he get it?â
âDoes it matter?â
âNo, I suppose not.â
Somewhere, a couple of streets away, a burglar alarm went off. It was nothing to do with us, and under normal circumstances, we would have put it down to the white noise of Londonâs street life. At that time of day it was invariably going to be either an employee arriving early at a shop or a cleaner leaving an office without thinking. But the noise galvanised us into action.
âYou wanted to go to Lincolnâs Inn Fields, right?â
âYeah,â said Tigger, looking all the time at Leeâs boyish face, not at me. âThereâs a medic, a
âIâve got money,â snapped Tigger.
He reached into a trouser pocket and produced another wedge of notes, all seemingly £20 ones, folded in half and obviously old.
âFrom the bank, you said,â I said vaguely.
Tigger wasnât looking at me. He was trying to put an arm around the vagrantâs shoulder. Needing both hands, he pushed the notes back into a pocket.
âWhat?â
âLet it ride.â
It suddenly didnât seem important to ask Tigger where heâd got the money. Notes like that would never have come out of a hole-in-the-wall cash machine, even if there had been one at the bank Tigger said heâd been to.
The reason I stopped worrying about it was that I got my first good look at the corpse Tigger was trying to resurrect. It wasnât a corpse, of course, it was a kid â a skinny blond boy who could pass for 18 in a dimly lit pub and maybe fool the Social Security that he was 16, but was probably nearer 13. Along with his vomit-stained T-shirt he wore a pair of black ski pants, but no shoes. The black footstraps were indistinguishable from the filthy soles of his feet. I looked back to his face as Tigger tried to raise his head again.
âCome on, Lee, itâs OK, youâre down now,â he was saying. The kidâs head snapped back, a lock of blond hair stuck to one cheek with snot or vomit or saliva. He didnât seem to have any eyeballs, or none that faced outwards anyway.
âWhatâs he on?â I asked, not wanting to know, because it would mean I would be involved.
âHeâs been to a party,â said Tigger, still trying to get the kid upright. âThese arenât his clothes. It was that sort of party.â
âI didnât ask about his dress sense or his social life.â
âI think heâs been smoking Amp,â said Tigger quietly.
âOh shit.â
âI think heâs broken his hand, but he doesnât know it yet.â
He moved to one side so I could see the kidâs right hand. At first guess I would have said a Number 159 bus had run over it. Possibly a 73. That was why Tigger had crouched the way he had, shielding the crushed hand, which was red with blood and black with dirt. The dirt you could clean, but no-one touches blood these days.
âProbably did it when he landed,â I offered.
Tigger nodded and just breathed.
âYeah.â
âAmpâ , believe it or not, is good old marijuana â that quaint social drug from those innocent days when people smoked and wore fur â soaked in embalming fluid. Now who thought that one up?
The effects of smoking it (and itâs easier to buy than cigarette tobacco on some railway stations) were similar to that of the drug PCP, which the Americans called âAngel Dustâ. In the early â80s, there had been numerous cases of Angel Dusters trying to take on the rush hour traffic in the middle of the Los Angeles freeway system. I had once met a paramedic with the LA Fire Department who had seen Viet Nam and the Watts riots and gone into blazing buildings without turning a hair, who dreaded attending a call out to an Angel Duster.
âWhere did he get it?â
âDoes it matter?â
âNo, I suppose not.â
Somewhere, a couple of streets away, a burglar alarm went off. It was nothing to do with us, and under normal circumstances, we would have put it down to the white noise of Londonâs street life. At that time of day it was invariably going to be either an employee arriving early at a shop or a cleaner leaving an office without thinking. But the noise galvanised us into action.
âYou wanted to go to Lincolnâs Inn Fields, right?â
âYeah,â said Tigger, looking all the time at Leeâs boyish face, not at me. âThereâs a medic, a
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