Angel City

by Mike Ripley

  ‘Okay, okay, I’m up. Breakfast is served,’ I muttered, more to give my jaw exercise than to make conversation with him. He’s such a grump in the mornings. ‘Who needs an alarm clock with you around?’

  I was in the kitchen halfway through pulling the ring-pull on a can of cat food (a great innovation and once they make them paw and claw friendly, will negate the need for humans almost entirely) when I thought: Lee does.

  When I had found Lee in Lincoln’s Inn, he’d had an alarm clock inside his sleeping bag. I doubted if he had to get up to catch a train to the office each morning, and it had looked new come to think of it. What did Lee have to get up for?

  Springsteen circled my feet and howled impatiently.

  Doc. It must be Doc. Tigger had said she did an early morning round in Lincoln’s Inn. Maybe Lee was on her list of regular patients now. God knows he ought to be somebody’s.

  Springsteen took a lump out of my calf and this time it was me howling.

  I checked Lincoln’s Inn just in case, but it was after 11.00 am when I got there and there was no sign of life. Sure, there were a few tents there and the more permanent bashas, but there was no sign of Lee or his new dome tent. There were signs of a more ominous nature in that a wire fence had been erected around the perimeter of the Fields, allowing access only to the gates. At intervals around the fence were printed notices in small, official print. I didn’t need to get close enough to read them to know what they would say. The empire was striking back. It was hit the road time for the residents of Cardboard City.

  I cruised the Gray’s Inn Road until I was fairly sure I recognised the house where Doc and Tigger had taken Lee to fix his smashed-up hand. The bell push didn’t help. It just listed the flats, six of them, with no names. The occupants valued their privacy. I could handle that.

  I pressed all six buzzers with the flat of my hand and kept it there.

  ‘What the fuck ... hey? Who’s that?’ was the first response from a distorted, tinny but undoubtedly male voice.

  It was impossible to tell which flat it had come from, but at least it was a response.

  ‘I’m looking for the Doc, man,’ I said dreamily.

  ‘We’re all fucking doctors here,’ he snapped back. ‘And some of us have been on night shift.’

  ‘Hey, sorry, man,’ I said, resisting the temptation to tell him to try tranquillisers. ‘I’m after the Doc, the lady doc. The one from the Fields, man.’

  ‘Oh shit, you want Sandy. Flat 2.’

  ‘Thanks, man. You ought to get more sleep, you know. Working nights takes it out of you.’

  But he’d gone.

  I pressed the button for Flat 2 and heard a voice asking: ‘Yeah? Whaddayawant?’

  I leaned into the doorbell unit and said: ‘Doc? Is that Doc from Lincoln’s Inn?’

  ‘Could be. Who’s that?’

  ‘I’m a friend of Tigger’s. We brought a kid here a coupla weeks ago. Kid with a smashed hand. You fixed him up.’

  ‘Can’t say I know what you’re talking about,’ she said chattily. ‘And what’s it to you anyway?’

  I could detect a transatlantic twang in her voice that was coming over the intercom as clear as a bell.

  ‘Listen,’ I pleaded, ‘I don’t really want to talk about this out here. Can I come in?’ No response. ‘Look, Tigger’s in trouble.’

  ‘Yeah. We have a medical term for the kind of trouble Tigger’s in.’

  ‘Really? What’s that?’ I had to ask.

  ‘Dead. It’s quite common really and nothing to be ashamed of.’

  I did a double-take at the bell box, not quite believing I was having this conversation. She took pity on me.

  ‘Look up,’ she said, and I did, and there she was leaning out of a second-floor window looking down on me.

  ‘Okay, you can come up.’ She nodded her head towards where Armstrong was parked. ‘I recognised the cab.’

  She disappeared inside and the door buzzed off its lock and I tramped in and climbed the stairs to where she had the door to her flat already open.

  She was wearing a long T-shirt that came down to her knees. The front of it was entirely given over to a reprint of the cover of an old, green Penguin paperback: Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. The penguin logo fell diplomatically just around her crotch.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ she said, leaning back against a table, arms out to the side, giving me a good view.

  ‘I enjoy a good read,’ I said truthfully.

  ‘I have another one that reads: “Go Beat Your Meat, I’m Married”.’

  ‘Have you? Are you?’

  ‘No, not really. Now what do you want? And what have you done to your face?’

  At last. Either the medic or the mother in her was coming out. She came over to me and gently touched my cheek, and she was close enough for me to tell that the T-shirt was all she was wearing. I was going to miss the bruising when it went, in an odd sort of way.

  ‘I got hit with a sockful of sand,’ I said, knowing she would have heard worse.

  ‘Don’t give me that. You fell downstairs or walked into a door. That’s what they usually say. Does it hurt?’

  She touched me slightly, probably not hard enough to crease a cigarette paper, but I yelped and jumped backwards.

  ‘So it does. You ought to be wearing one of those plastic cheek guards, if you can stand all the morons saying you look like the Phantom of the Opera.’

  ‘They wouldn’t, would they?’

  ‘And I hope you know a friendly dentist. You’ll not get that lot rebuilt on the National Health, or if you do you’ll have to wait so long you might as well put in for the dentures now.’

  ‘What do you tell your patients who are really ill, doctor?’ I tried my most winning smile but could feel it coming out at an angle.

  ‘I don’t have any. I’m not a doctor, yet. Just a student.’

  ‘You seem to have a thriving practice out in Lincoln’s Inn.’

  ‘Most of those injuries are self-inflicted, and anyway, they’re the sort of patient who would run a mile rather than check into a hospital.’

  ‘I’ve asked around,’ I lied. ‘You do good work.’

  ‘Somebody has to.’

  She moved away from me, over to a Habitat sofa – the sort that converts into a bed if you don’t mind eyeballing the mice while you lie there – and sat down, curling her legs under her. She nodded to the armchair and I sat down after a quick scope of the room. Medical textbooks, a jar of coffee and a kettle, a midi CD system and a set of headphones. The girl travelled light.

  ‘Was Tigger one of your patients?’ I opened.

  ‘I don’t have patients yet. Call him a customer.’ She flicked hair back from her face, although she hadn’t needed to. ‘A very good customer. And he brought me lots of others.’

  ‘Like Lee.’

  ‘I don’t know their names. Not while they’re still breathing, anyway.’

  ‘So how did you hear of Tigger’s death?’

  ‘I heard. The cops run checks. They know about people like me, like us, in this house. Shit, one or two have even brought kids here before now. Nowhere else to go. Some of them on the street call us that, you know. Nowhere. They say they’re going to Nowhere because there’s nowhere else to go. That’s us, Nowhere Patrol.’

  ‘Like you said, someone’s gotta do it.’

  ‘Shouldn’t have to. What’s your stake in all this? How did you hear about Tigger?’

  ‘Newspaper. I’d been looking for him, but somebody else found him first.’

  I waited to see how that went down. She could have thrown me out then. Maybe I would have thanked her if she had.

  Instead she narrowed her eyes and said: ‘Your name’s Angel, isn’t it?’

  ‘I thought you said no names.’

 
‘You’re not a customer, are you?’

  ‘No.’ There but for the grace of whatever, though.

  ‘That’s cool then. Do you know how he died?’

  ‘Fished out of the river, I read. Don’t know the details.’

  ‘I do. I asked around.’ She caught my look. ‘Fellow medics, a friendly cop. Professional interest, that’s all.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Tigger was streetwise. He knew most of the heroin in this town is no more than 35 per cent pure. That’s the way it’s cut to insure maximum economies of scale, give a satisfying kick and not damage the end-user too much too soon, so they develop a habit that is manageable as long as they have the cash.

  ‘Now Tigger may have dabbled with drugs of all sorts. Okay, let’s get real, the guy was a walking cocktail cabinet at times, but he wasn’t mainlining. So why did he shoot himself up with stuff that the forensic boys estimate was over 80 per cent pure?’

  ‘Good question,’ I said limply. I was getting an awful feeling that my bruised jaw and smashed teeth meant I had got off lightly.

  ‘Fucking good question, actually, and like all the best questions, is one that isn’t getting asked. Tigger was known as a user, however infrequent. He came into possession of some outstanding shit and used it. Whoops, there goes another one. If the needle hadn’t got him, then the HIV would have. Case closed.’

  She flicked the nails of her right thumb and index finger to make a rapid clicking noise. I wondered how long she’d quit smoking.

  ‘Why are you telling me all this? Isn’t this some kind of privileged information?’

  ‘Who hit you with the sockful of sand?’ She made eye contact and hung in there.

  ‘Now that is classified.’

  ‘Same person who wanted to fly Tigger to the moon?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Then I’ll tell you anything that will help you nail them.’

  ‘Whoa, hold on.’ I was halfway out of my seat. ‘What makes you think I’m out to nail anyone?’

  ‘a) because you’re asking, and b) because somebody has to. I’ll help.’

  ‘Then tell me where Lee is.’

  ‘Don’t know who you’re talking about.’

  ‘The young kid Tigger and I brought here in Arm ... in my cab. Had a smashed-up hand and was wired on Amp.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean a thing.’ She stared me out until I got it.

  ‘Okay, I see. Supposing Tigger had a friend who may or may not be called Lee, who may or may not have come here at some point in the past. I last saw him in Lincoln’s Inn Fields last week. Do you think, hypothetically, that such a person might still be there?’

  ‘Hypothetically, I think there’s a chance you might find such a person there tonight.’

  ‘And if not, then tomorrow morning around 7.30 am?’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Lee has an alarm clock. Who else would he get up for in the morning?’

  She allowed her mouth to curve. ‘He doesn’t always see me as an angel of mercy.’

  ‘I’ll bet. Some guys don’t know when they have it made. What’s he on?’

  ‘Physeptone; it’s an injectable drug replacement.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But not strictly on prescription, so to speak.’

  ‘I hear it’s harder to get off than the H it’s replacing.’

  ‘It’s been said. It helps if you don’t experiment with everything else on the periodic table while you’re trying to cold turkey.’

  ‘Life sucks sometimes,’ I said, to lighten the mood.

  ‘No, life’s okay,’ said Doc slowly. ‘It’s just people who screw it up.’

  There was nothing much to say to that.

  ‘You know something, Angel? We have one basic rule here on the Nowhere Patrol: no names. Few questions, no names, no records, no files, no blacklists. Somebody’s been doing Nowhere Patrol for over 25 years now and there’s not one piece of paper to prove it. Guys who were junior interns in the ‘60s did this and now they’re called “Mr” and charge 500 quid an hour in Harley Street. The surgeons do their cutting before 3.00 pm in the summer, 11.00 am in the winter. That’s so they can make the golf course with daylight to spare.’

  I wondered where this was going but I wasn’t going to interrupt.

  ‘Doctors, real doctors, who did the Nowhere Patrol ten years ago now think of kids on the street as just an obstruction to them finding a parking slot for their BMWs. People forget. They forget that 20 years ago they were sneaking condoms to girls too young or too spaced out to go on the pill, and that was when we thought the pill was safe. Today we plead with the rent boys to carry condoms. Always. Even when you’re least likely to score; say, for example, if you were to hang out in the amusement arcade near Cambridge Circus every afternoon hoping to trap some elderly perv on a cheap-day return ticket from the provinces.’

  ‘Would that be the one on Charing Cross Road? Hypothetically, of course.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, relaxing, leaning her head back as if to get a better look at me.

  ‘Doc, you are a very good person.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ She blinked twice. ‘Stick around and I’ll show you.’

  I looked at my watch.

  ‘I thought I had a date up near Cambridge Circus,’ I said. She stood up and walked over to me, reaching out to air-brush my cheek with her fingertips.

  ‘I said late afternoon, didn’t I? I meant late afternoon. Hypothetically, that is.’

  ‘Look,’ I tried, but not too hard, ‘I know the doctor usually knows best, but I’ve kinda been in the wars lately.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, so close now I could hear her heart. ‘I won’t go anywhere near your face.’

  Even though I was looking for him, Lee wasn’t easy to spot; not at first, anyway. He was just one of maybe a dozen kids playing the pinball machines and the electronic Terminator shooting ranges or Grand Prix driving skills games. (I filed away the idea of a perfect Christmas present for Fenella when I saw those.)

  They were all dressed the same way. Trainers, jogging pants or shell suit bottoms and some sort of brightly coloured rainproof top, though a couple wore satin-effect jackets emblazoned with the names and logos of American football teams. The Raiders were in, it seemed, because they’d read somewhere that the Los Angeles gangs favoured them. At least it proved they could read something other than a video scoreboard.

  Lee was hogging the Jurassic Park pinball machine. When those had first arrived there had been queues. He was rocking back on the heels of a pair of hi-tops, connected to the machine only by the tips of his middle fingers on the buttons. His score was passable, but might have been better if he’d had his eyes open.

  ‘Hello there, Lee.’

  He swayed some more and said, ‘Hi’ in a dreamy sort of voice. Then he stopped rocking on his heels and opened his eyes, trying to focus on me in the reflection from the machine.

  ‘D’I know you?’

  I wondered just how spaced he was, or whether it was all just part of his sales pitch.

  ‘We’ve met. Twice, actually. I’m a friend of Tigger’s and we need to talk.’

  I had spoken quietly and there was enough background noise in the arcade to cover anything short of a personal rape alarm going off. It was modern-day background musak, the constant beep-beep whirring of electronic bleeps punctuated by synthesised vocal effects like ‘Go, dude’ and ‘A for excellent, hombre’. Lee just stood there as if taking it all in, his fingers frozen on the flipper buttons.

  The last silver ball in his game rolled safely by the claws of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and headed straight for the gap between the two flippers. Lee made no attempt to stop it. ‘Game over,’ I said, about two seconds before the machine did. The effect was more dramatic than I would have thought possible.

/>   ‘I’ve wet myself,’ said Lee softly and then he started to cry. I put an arm on his shoulder.

  ‘Come on, there’s a pub round the corner where we can talk.’

  He was 80,000 points short of a replay, in more ways than one. His fingers seemed welded to the machine. This was ridiculous. He was resisting the pressure of my arm by anchoring himself with the tips of two fingers. I said ‘Come on’ again and used my left hand in the small of his back to steer him clear of the machine. Another kid about the same age was inserting money in it before Lee’s fingerprints were cold.

  He took a couple of steps, stiff-legged. His chin was down on his chest, which heaved as he gulped back the tears.

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the arcade manager, or one of his heavies, getting up from his seat in the change booth. I turned my blue-and-black cheek towards him and held up my right hand, palm up, mouthing the words ‘No problem’ and shaking my head.

  He sat down again. He’d seen worse things.

  Out on the pavement I gave Lee the once over. If he tugged his jacket down at the front, no one would notice, I told him. I gave him a couple of only slightly used Kleenex and steered him by the elbow round the corner and into the Spice of Life.

  Though it is far from the most famous pub in Soho, the Spice is probably the most aptly named with, as they used to say, all human life being there. Fortunately, it being late afternoon, only a cross-section of all human life was in, so we were able to get a table near the door.

  ‘There’s a pub rule,’ I told Lee. ‘The landlord’s Irish and he insists on everyone enjoying themselves. So stop crying or we’ll get chucked out.’

  Lee sniffed loudly and looked around.

  ‘I want to go to the toilet,’ he said.

  The door marked GENTLEMEN was about two feet away. ‘Through there and down the stairs,’ I said. ‘I won’t come with you. That’s a chucking-out offence here as well.’

  ‘Get me a double orange juice, would you?’ he asked as he headed for the toilets, clutching his crotch. I hoped the barman hadn’t seen him.