Free The Dirty South by Alex Wheatle Page B

fucking boops!’
    â€˜What? You can’t even buy your girl a chicken and chips? You’re proper mean like them Asian shopkeeper who refuse to give you a free cigarette so you can build a fat-head!’
    â€˜You’re my girl?’ snapped Noel, now getting vex. ‘You better rephrase that before I make you get out of the ride and step. And don’t think I wouldn’t do it, bitch! I hope your trainers are fitting neatly.’
    Noel wasn’t joking and Priscilla did shut the fuck up. Sociologists or better minds than mine should research how the fuck them two ever got to have sex.
    I was looking out of the car window and I noticed that the Feds had sealed off a large area. Some families were booted out from their flats and there were forensic officers in their white jumpsuits crawling on the ground. It was a sure sign that this was a murder scene. Even more worrying was the fact that they were searching right next to Red Eyes’ flat.
    â€˜Noel, don’t park the ride in the estate,’ I advised. ‘Park it near the church and we’ll walk up. This don’t look good…’
    â€˜No, it don’t,’ Noel agreed. ‘It must be Red Eyes. Who else in that little block of flats is a shotta or a gunman?’
    â€˜Little Louis, Maaga Benz,’ replied Priscilla. ‘And there’s Ponytail Ranger, Jamaicy Jim, Lambs Bread Larry and Chemical Collie. Then again, Chemical Collie’s doing bird in the Mount. But they all at one time or other lived in these ends.’
    Noel and myself looked at Priscilla with wonder. ‘How comes you know so much badman?’ Noel said. ‘You better not have been woking them brothers.’
    â€˜No! Fuck you! I have not been woking them brothers!’ Priscilla shrieked in that head-moving-but-the-neck-keeps-still way of hers.How the fuck do ghetto chicks do that shit? ‘What do you take me for?’ she went on. ‘I know them shottas and badmen through my older brother, innit. He’s always walking with man he shouldn’t walk with.’
    â€˜Her brother’s doing bird in Glen Purva,’ Noel remarked.
    We climbed out of the car and after Noel had taken out his car audio set, we made steps to where the Feds were. A tonk looking brother was approaching us and Noel recognised him. This guy had He-Man muscles on his neck and probably owned an eight-pack of Madonna-like size. You see a lot of guys like that in Bricky. Tyrese wannabes… As if Coca-Cola are gonna come down to Bricky and cast a tonk Brixtonian in a fucking drinks advert. It ain’t gonna happen.
    â€˜Doosh,’ Noel greeted. ‘Doosh, what’s gwarnin? Untold Feds are all over the place. Something happen to Red Eyes? Has he been duppied? Did he decide to go out all
Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid
-like?’
    â€˜Who the fuck is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Chi chi men?’ Doosh asked.
    â€˜No, they’re not gay,’ laughed Noel. ‘Don’t you watch westerns? What I mean is did Red Eyes go out blazing? Was it a shoot-out?’
    â€˜Haven’t you heard? Red Eyes has been burst. Stabbed over forty times. The man’s got more perforations than Tetley motherfucking teabags. Word on road say it was a crack addict looking for a hit but he didn’t have any P’s. He’s been dead for two days but no-one knew shit ’til the gas man came to read the meter this morning. It didn’t smell too good… The door was open and apparently the blood was dripping everywhere. It’s proper Christopher Lee Hammer movie shit. Word on road says the Feds have found untold drugs in Red Eyes’ flat and they have taken away his plasma. There’s gonna be a skunk and crack party at Feds HQ tonight and they’re gonna be watching
The Bill
on one big bitch plasma TV. Some people get all the luck.’
    I was listening to all this with my mouth wide open. Red Eyes dead! Merked. And