Fallen Angels Vol 2

by Mick Norman

  The remnants of the Last Heroes had waited for the return of their president, but he hadn’t showed. Gerry wasn’t the sort of brother who’d have crashed out somewhere stoned out of his mind. Nor, was he likely to be shacked up with a tart somewhere. Since Brenda’s death, as far as the chapter knew, he hadn’t laid so much as a finger on any of the mamas or made a play for any of the old ladies.

  ‘So, where is he?’ The speaker was Cochise, one of the oldest brothers. The sergeant-at-arms now that Kafka was gone.

  ‘I don’t know. I know he was going to get his head together up in the hills somewhere. Maybe he looked up the Wolves and got stuck overnight.’

  The words didn’t convince anyone, least of all the speaker. Mick ‘Monk’ Moore, one of the youngest of the chapter, and one of the hardest. In the shifting hierarchy of the Angels, where death helped in the promotion battle, Monk had risen fast. Now he was the accepted number two to Gerry. If he didn’t know where the president was, then nobody did.

  The discussion was interrupted by the arrival of one of their sentries. Skulking among the bushes, sidling between the patches of shadow, came Rat. Nobody knew how old he was. Nor his real name. Nor where he came from. Nor why he never bothered with the scrubbers who hung around the Angels like groupies round a big plaster cast. All anyone knew was that you didn’t turn your back on Rat.

  His hiss of warning broke the talk up. Monk got up and ran to where Rat beckoned.

  ‘What is it? Trouble?’

  ‘Don’t reckon so. One man. A brother. He’s waiting by the gate. He knows I sussed him out, and he’s not trying to get in. Dick the Hat’s watching him. I reckon it’s the Welsh git. The one with the long hair called Bardd.’

  If Rat, or any Angel, describes someone as having long hair, then you can bet they’ve got long, long hair.

  ‘Could be a decoy.’ The thought was from the cautious Riddler.

  Monk smacked his fist into his open palm. ‘No. Not from the Wolves. Maybe he’s got news about Gerry. Come on Rat. Go and invite him up. He’s a righteous brother. Remember that time we went out to the Tower of London? Just for laughs. He nicked that fat American cow’s vacuum flask, tipped out her decaffeinated coffee and pissed in it. Then put it back in her bag. Class, man. Class.’

  It only took a few minutes for Rat to reappear, shepherding Bardd before him. The Welsh Angel was tall and agonisingly thin. His hair was knotted at the back with a strip of leather and hung to his belt. When he saw Monk, he gave a whoop of joy and clasped him to his chest, kissing him in the passionate way of a good brother. This French-kissing was what blew straights’ minds more than anything else.

  ‘Good to see you, Bardd.’

  ‘Good to be here, Monk, boy.’ He looked quickly round the fire-lit group. ‘Hey, where’s Gerry?’

  There was a silence. Finally, Monk answered. ‘We don’t know. He went off a couple of days ago and we haven’t seen him since. He said he’d be back by now.’

  Bardd sat down, looking disappointed. ‘That’s bad news. Gwyn specially told me to talk to him.’

  Cochise asked the inevitable question. ‘Come on, Bardd. We’re all brothers together. What’s happened?’

  ‘Yobboes. Heavies from Manchester, calling themselves the Star Trekkers. They’ve tried twice to take us over, and we’ve managed to hold them off twice. But, things are getting tough up there, and we wondered if ...’

  He let the sentence drift away into the evening air.

  Monk wasn’t one to sit around while his arse sprouted weeds. If a brother asked for help, then you gave it. It was as simple as that.

  ‘We’ll leave first thing in the morning. I’ll have to leave a few here, because we’ve been having a bit of aggro from some local Skulls. Not serious, but we don’t want this place wrecked.’

  Hanger John stopped picking shreds of corned beef from between his teeth with the point of his sharpened steel coat hanger and belched. ‘Hey, what about Gerry?’

  ‘He’s going to have to take his chances. This shouldn’t take more than three days to clear up, then we’ll run back. If he’s still not turned up here, then we’ll go out and look for him. There’ll be brothers here to tell him where we’ve gone.’

  ‘Suppose we don’t find him?’

  That was a question that Monk hadn’t really thought about. He knew that Gerry wasn’t happy with the fragmented remains of the Last Heroes, and shared his own desire to break and get out. Some time. Monk’s other pressure came from his old lady, Modesty, who was constantly pushing for a real Angel wedding. That left him a simple choice. Throw her back in the pool as a mama who was anyone’s property. Or, marry her.

  He’d decide soon.

  ‘I said, what if we never find Gerry?’

  ‘Then, John, we’ll have to wait and see. All right?’

  Hanger John looked up at him out of the depths of a coke world and grinned. ‘Right.’

  Dawn crept up over the Lee Valley, flicking at the tops of the pine trees that surrounded the old missionary college where the Angels now ran and lived. It gleamed off the chrome and bright paint of the hogs that were getting their last polish and service. Gerry had installed a giant petrol tank for them to use – hassles with filling stations were the most persistent aggravations in an Angel’s life – and it held five thousand gallons of the high octane fuel they used.

  Finally, at seven, they were ready. No old ladies, except for Forty and Modesty were coming along. The rest of the women stayed with Riddler and a few of the younger brothers to guard their turf. Monk held up his hand, and boots stabbed at starters. Birds flew shrieking out of their nests at the thunderous bedlam. Rabbits dived back in their burrows.

  Clutches were slipped, wheels dug gouges in the soft leaf-mould under the trees, and they were off.

  The Angels were running again!

  There had been too much trouble on motorways, and the white patrol cars would always pick up any band of motorcycle outlaws they saw riding in a pack. So, although it was a lot slower, Monk led the raggle-taggle file up along the quieter A5.

  They cut through St Albans, scaring the crap out of the early rush-hour traffic, twisting and cutting among the cars and lorries. Up Watling Street and under the Ml at Harpenden.

  The sun shone, and they were able to enjoy the run. Rat got his huge chopped B.S.A. moving well, and took his feet off the rests and put them up on the ape-hanger bars. Riddler and Cochise terrified a motorist in an old Humber Hawk by roaring past him, one on either side, and then linking hands in front of him.

  A police car rolled in with the convoy at Fenny Stratford, manned by a young copper in his first week with the force. It did little for his hopes of a man’s life in the police force when he discovered Bardd riding alongside him, then leaning his arm in through the open driving window to pat him affectionately on the cheek.

  At seventy-five miles an hour!

  He had just enough sense left not to try anything. He realised that they were friendly and played his luck. He even managed to pull out a stick of chewing-gum from his top pocket and hand it to the grinning brother. That gesture brought a round of applause from the rest of the chapter, and they all gave him a wave as they accelerated past him.

  After they’d vanished over the crest of the hill in front of him, the young policeman pulled over and sat for quite a while before he could stop his hands from shaking.

  By then, the Angels were barrelling through Wilnecote, on the fringes of the industrial Midlands. It was getting on for nine o’clock.

  Cochise leaned across and shouted to Monk: ‘Glad we came this way. Nice and quiet. Brings back some good memories!’

  Four miles ahead of them, pushing their old Dormobile van to its limit, were a crowd of Skulls. These cropped youths, with their embroidered waistcoats and their anarchic violence, were the true successors of their skinheads of the sixties.

  There were ten of them cramped into the van, huddled on benches jammed down both sides. Led by a Birmingham tearaway –
Duggie Whitehouse – they were off to cause the maximum damage they could over a weekend on the North Wales coast. They were all tooled up for action, with knives and small axes in fitted holsters inside their long, draped jackets,

  Duggie had their pride and joy broken open in his lap. Every time they passed what they thought might be a suitable target, he would slip in a couple of cartridges and pretend to squeeze the twin triggers. They all thought that was a load of laughs.

  It took a long time for the Angels to close that gap, and the van was nearly at Nesscliffe – close to the Welsh border – before one of them spotted the leading Angels through the dirty rear window.

  ‘Angels! A run coming up fast behind us!’

  Duggie took over immediately, pushing the others out of the way, so that he could kneel behind the back window, with the sawn-off shotgun ready. Cocked and ready.

  Hanger John was out in the lead, showing some fine class in a fit of exuberant high spirits, weaving in and out, standing up on the saddle, passing vehicles on the wrong side of the road. They were reaching a long straight patch of road, and he opened up his hog, and managed to get upright, pulling down his zip as he did so. To the cheers and encouragement of the rest of the brothers, he succeeded in having a piss while belting along.

  He was so involved in avoiding splashing himself with the golden shower that he scarcely noticed that the old van in front of him – the one with the dusty rear windows – had slowed right down.

  Hanger John got closer, still peeing over the road. Slowly, almost imperceptibly the window inched down, and the snub nose of the shotgun peeked through.

  The only one of the Angels to see it was Rat. His mouth opened and he screamed a warning to the clowning John, but the noise of the bikes was too loud, and he never heard it. Rat frantically throttled the chopper onwards, but he was way too late.

  The boom of the gun shook the air. The double charge of shot starred out and struck the Angel in the abdomen and chest. The impact lifted him clear off his machine, hurling him up in the air. It seemed like a slow-motion replay of a doll being thrown in the sky by a wilful child. Blood gushed from the torn flesh, sprayed high, and dappling the following brothers, making the road greasy.

  Duggie immediately shouted at the driver to move it, and the van accelerated away from the shambles behind it. The Skulls had expected to get away in the chaos caused by the murder, but they showed little awareness of the manners and way of life of the Angels.

  It was obvious that Hanger John was snuffed. Although his bike still rolled on for another hundred yards, causing a woman driver coming the other way to faint and steer her car through a hedge into a herd of Jerseys.

  The following convoy skidded round and through the spilled blood, machines weaving and sliding as they struggled to keep upright. Rat was well in the lead of the pursuers. Where the Skulls went wrong was assuming they would at least stop to see how Hanger John was.

  He was dead. Nobody stops both barrels of a shotgun and falls off a speeding motorbike without being dead. One of them would pull in and collect the bike, if it wasn’t scrapped. Probably either Modesty or Forty would be dropped off to make her own way along.

  A dead brother wasn’t an important thing. Just a load of meat. What was important – more important than even drawing breath – was getting the bastards who’d wiped him.

  Duggie looked back out of the window, ready to grin at the carnage of his victory. His face changed when he saw Rat creeping up at over eighty, only a hundred yards behind. Closing fast.

  ‘Step on it, Harry. For Christ’s sake. They’re right up our arse!’

  There were few Hell’s Angels who didn’t carry special weapons on their hogs. Rat was no exception. Indeed, he was a one-man arsenal. There were Molotov cocktails, three knives, the obligatory length of chain, and even one hand grenade. There used to be two, but one had gone a year or so back removing an awkward police car from their path.

  The gun barrels again poked out at him, but the road was winding, and the shots went wide, cutting a swathe through a fence on the far side of the road. It takes a little time to reload a shotgun in a crowded, swaying van, and Rat took the chance to draw right up alongside the rear off-side.

  The driver steered wildly back and forth, narrowly missing oncoming traffic, but he couldn’t shift him. Again, the window wound slowly down.

  Rat grinned.

  He’d bought the two grenades from an ex-I.R.A.man years back. Now, at last, the second one was coming in useful. He slipped it from its pouch, tugged the pin out with his teeth, and wheeled in close behind the van. He dropped it, rather than threw it, through the gap near the top of the window.

  Inside the van, things began to happen. If it hadn’t been anything as lethal as a grenade – say a stink-bomb – then it would have been hilariously funny.

  It rolled forwards, under legs, banging on the steel sides of the van. The driver could only hear confused screams and shouts, so he pushed his foot even harder on the accelerator. Duggie dived down, trying to find it in the tangle of legs and bodies. Some of the Skulls hadn’t seen what had happened, and had no way of knowing they were less than four seconds from death.

  Duggie, being the quickest-thinking of the band, abandoned his search, and concentrated in trying to get out. Concrete at eighty miles an hour was preferable to a hand-grenade in a small van.

  But, the doors were jammed.

  Rat had been joined by Cochise and by Monk, and he screeched to them what he’d done. They throttled back, watching the van.

  Rat had been counting, and he dropped the last three fingers. Two fingers. One finger.

  None.

  It wasn’t quite as spectacular as he’d hoped. There was a rather muffled explosion, followed immediately by the tinkling of glass on the road. The Dormobile swerved to the right, bouncing off the wing of a laden lorry. The glancing impact sent them off to the left, and they hit the kerb and overturned into a field.

  This time, the explosion was more satisfying. A crescent of orange flame, white at its centre, throwing up a column of oily smoke. The screaming had nearly stopped. The run braked to a halt and watched in silence. Revenge had been swift and lethal. The rear doors swung up and open, freed by the flames. Out of it clambered one of the Skulls. It would be nice to claim poetic justice and say that it was Duggie Whitehouse. In fact, whoever it was, was so badly burned that it hardly resembled a human being at all. More a staggering charred piece of wood, flames pale in the light of the sun.

  It ran around, mewing quietly to itself for what seemed a long time, but was probably only half a minute. Then it fell to its knees, then on what remained of its face in the cool grass.

  The van burned on, the sickly smell of roasting flesh picking at the nostrils of the silent watchers.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Monk,

  And they went.

  Things hadn’t been good when they reached the coastal village where the Wolves lived. The ruined houses of Nant Gwrtheyrn showed signs of recent battles, and there were two new mounds where the Angels buried their dead.

  Gwyn had been delighted to see the Last Heroes, though he was concerned to hear about Gerry’s strange disappearance. The red eyes had burned in that ivory face, and he had promised the co-operation of his brothers, should it be needed after they’d sorted out the Star Trekkers.

  There’d been plenty to drink and plenty to eat, and the fire had blazed long into the night. There’d been music – the old rock songs so loved by the Angels. The Everlys, Buddy Holly, Duane Eddy, the King, Gene, Eddie and all the rest.

  It had been a good night. Forty had duly arrived, straddling Hanger John’s hog, the vibration of the rough path shaking her vast breasts, to the ribald amusement of the brothers. Cochise had used his boots on one of the Wolves who’d got a bit carried away by the sight, pointing out in the friendliest way that she was his old lady. Nobody else’s. But, it was all in good spirits.

  Later, Gwyn and Monk walked together along the pebb
led beach, beside the murmuring sea, and talked about the coming fight with the Star Trekkers.

  ‘Thing is, Monk, we’ve not had the numbers to defend this place from all sides. The bastards have got boats, and they’re camping round the bay, somewhere near Nefyn. I’d love to have a go at them in their own camp, but that would leave us too stretched here. Now, with you here, we could have a go.’

  Monk bent down and picked up a stone, skimming it across the low waves. Far behind them, the noise of the party was fading into the distance.

  ‘No. I reckon it’s better to fight on your own turf, if you can. Let them come. They won’t know we’re here, so we can hit the bastards from behind. Probably get their boats. When do you reckon?’

  Gwyn pondered. Although it was almost full dark, it was eerie to see the pale figure of the albino so clearly.

  ‘Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day. No later, I reckon.’

  They walked on, in silence, to where the ghost of a great rock-crushing plant loomed over the cliffs. Part of it had slipped down into the sea, and vast timbers lay, covered in weed and shell-fish, half in and half out of the water.

  Suddenly, Monk started and put his hand on Gwyn’s arm. ‘Don’t look round, but I can hear someone coming up behind us. They’re walking on the earth at the very base of the cliffs, but I still heard them.’

  They sat down, talking quietly of this and that, both straining their ears for another sound. Finally, it came. Monk was on his feet in a flash, diving into the pools of darkness where the rocks met the beach.

  A figure moved, and he was on it, sending it crashing down painfully on the shingle. From the yelp, and from the soft feel, he guessed instantly that it was one of the women. It was only when she spoke, that he recognised who it was.

  ‘Modesty!’

  ‘Get your knee off my tits, you big, heavy sod. I wanted to talk to you.’

  Gwyn left them together, and they talked about it. Finally, Monk knew that there was no way round it. The only thing that would satisfy Modesty would be an Angel wedding.

  When they got back to the camp, their announcement was greeted with whoops of delight. A bike was got ready, and the sacred maintenance manual was dug out.