Bad II the Bone (13 page)

As was expected, a gaggle of honeys were holding vigil outside the entrance to the VIP lounge and the flash antics of Grudge playing up to his drooling groupies would make this confrontation interesting. The shottas were out of sight for a moment as they circumvented a thick chrome plated support pillar but the m
oment they swung around from that, Grudge would be in the line of fire. She had to reach him before they did.

Spokes had a glass of brandy in his hand, head back slightly and propped up on the bar bathing himself in the aura of celebrity that was on show tonight. The MOBO VIP lounge was getting busy and, as you would expect, the quota of women far surpassed the quota of men. And he suspected that was how it was supposed to be. He fitted in perfectly. Not just his look which was mature but street but his easy way and that underlying attitude he had that said he was deserving of everything that came his way. It was an understated belief that he was as good as anyone, from the hip hop superstar to the Premiership footballer. Just look at him.

D
ressed elegantly but with a contemporary flair and drove a top marquee sports Mercedes from a stable of super cars. His date for the night was thirty six years his junior and she was a freak in bed with a good heart. Money was not a problem for him and if he was allowed a free reign over his life he would be happy and content from this moment on until he was unable. As it was, over the last few days his sense of gratitude was being slowly eroded. He knew a storm was coming, he just didn’t know exactly how to protect himself against it; but until then, life continued.

Spokes waited for his girlfriend to return from the WC and then made his way out of the VIP Room for a quick change of se
tting, leaving her comfortably waiting for him. He made his way through the dance floor, appreciating the music and the young nubile bodies swaying to the sounds. Smiling with some who obviously appreciated his style, he then just stood and watched. He was beside a young man at the VIP entrance who was rocking some urban flava and almost coated in young women. The bouncers watched him nervously making sure he was not at risk but Spokes thought it should be the other way around. Those poor young girls needed protection much more than he did. His ring told him so.

Grinning
with the thought another more urgent jolt of awareness from his ring superseded everything else that was on his mind. His attention shifted from the svelte bodies at the VIP entrance to one, two, three women deftly making their way through the party goers to where he was. Somehow his perception had picked them out, highlighted them and reduced everything else into obscurity. His ring responded to them like nothing else he had ever experienced. The vibration was almost bone deep, a pleasant resonance that colored his vision mauve and filled his mouth with the taste of sweet almonds. In a six sense snapshot he felt a strength and righteousness they possessed, an unnerving experience that took his breath away for a moment - beautiful women needing to get somewhere in a hurry. Spokes stood his ground buffeted by people moving around him and watched spellbound.

These young women were going to be the answer to his pro
blems he just knew it. They were coming his way so he would let them come, finish his drink and introduce himself.

The force was strong in d
em.

He grinned.

The ring tingled again and this time his perceptions darkened as someone or something else entered the theatre of his preternatural awareness - a familiar warning he knew that meant retreat. He did not see the two men heading his way with guns drawn. Did not know that their intentions were to murder him and take the ring. The only thing Spokes knew was that he had to follow the rings urging without further speculation or question, and so he turned and re-entered the VIP lounge as quickly as he could.

Y slid in between an opening of bodies, ignoring the protests twittering from the groupies annoyed someone else was even more loose and obnoxious than they were – and planted a kiss firmly on Grudge’s lips that carried the momentum of her advances sending them both into the Cristal Lounge and stumbling to the ground. Moments later the gun men had rounded the obstruction with weapons drawn and no target in sight only hysterical squeals from some fracas ahead of them. Their target was gone and instead there was a sea of disgruntled estrogen and raised voices in his place.

The bouncer’s eyes left the irate group of women
on the ground for a moment inadvertently settling on the men tucking the guns back into their jackets as they approached, the slinky flaps of designer jackets falling back into body hugging place. The bouncer whose highly developed sense of self preservation told him it was better to be judged by the twelve than carried by the six, slipped away from a possible blood bath, his duties forgotten.

That’s when the script was rewritten.

Patra and Suzy brazenly walked in front of the men as they attempted to enter the VIP lounge.

The assassins’ instead of
being angry were amused. Grins gurgled up from somewhere in their bellies like aberrant belches as they looked at each other with restrained amusement.

They tried to push by but the girls
shrugged them off bracing them back with sheer strength.

Real professionals underestimated no one. Gun out, double tap to the head and disappear in the confusion. Instead they hes
itated, assessing the determined women blocking their way with amusement first then regret.

How hard
could that be?

Real hard
motherfucker, Patra would say, if asked. Real hard.

Patience went through the window as the men attacked in a
quick flurry of fists but when the smoke cleared Patra and Suzy stood looking at them, bored and unimpressed.

This time t
hey reached for their weapons.

The dude sporting the cane row was a fraction slower than his colleague as his hands snaked for his gun. Suzy didn’t hesitate.
With a blur of movement she was up in his face, striking the bundle of nerve endings in his wrist, making his fingers involuntarily spring open and the gun clatter to the ground as if he had butter fingers. Cane Row howled and swung windmill-like with the back of his hands, trying to catch her off guard but Suzy ducked under it and deftly swayed left. She fired her elbow into his thorax; her dance had left her facing him and her fists stabbed into his thigh and knees like stilettos.

He buckled.

She gave him her back.

And like a final ‘fuck you’ statement she had forgotten to d
eliver, Suzy executed an overhead kick of balletic exquisiteness, snapping her Jimmy Choo’s and dropping cane row guy on his ass.

About the same time Patra had already tucked into her Muay Thai stance, her five foot nine frame weaving, her shoulders together, hunched and fists up, releasing the right hook like it had been spat from the barrel of a shotgun. The other gun-man was in a conu
ndrum. Block her strike or go for his gun no matter what. He voted to parry the punch.

Damn, he nearly lost balance from the force of the blow. He regained his footing, frantically reaching for the gun this time but was unable to gain his bearings or his aim. He fired and the expl
osion was deafening in the confined space but for all its dramatic effect it went wide lodging into the ceiling.

“You shooting at me motherfucker?” Patra growled and
pile drove her foot into his chest, lifting him off his feet, separating him from his gun and sending him tumbling backwards in a flurry of arms and legs like he had been hit by a typhoon. Both men, in separate oases of pain struggled to compose themselves, looking like dejected boxers who just had their asses handed to them, in an unceremonious fashion in the ring.

By this Patra and Suzy had acquired their guns and p
ointed the business ends at them with a sort of grim resolve the men did not want to test.

“Stay on your knees boys, I’m out of
practice. I don’t want my gun go off accidental like,” Patra said menacingly then broke into a smile. “Man that felt gooood!”

“This is nuh skin teeth business Cleo. Dem bwoy yah came to murder.”

Patra pushed on the temple of one of the men on his knees with the gun.

“You came to murder biaatch?”

The man said nothing.

Patra grinned again, looking at Suzy.

“I know, I know, but come on you know what I’m saying.”

Suzy grinned as Patra went on.

“They quiet though. Not big on talking.”

“You just beat the shit out of two two professionals gal, what do you want dem to seh.”

“How about something like,‘I’ve had some ass kicking in my time ladies but that was the best whooping I did ever get. Thank you, thank you’.” Patra laughed and Suzy rolled her eyes.

“Where’s Y at anyway?”

“She is in deh VIP room. She look cool.”

Patra looked at Suzy with an appraising eye and lowered her voice.

“Hey sugahh, you ever use a gun before?” Patra asked.

“No.” Suzy said.

“I thought all you Jamaican bitches, knew how to bust gun,” she teased.

Su
zy shook her head disparagingly, her hackles rose at any derogatory mention of her beloved island.

“Don’t get me twisted
.” Patra said by way of redress for her first comment.  “You got the stance right girl, legs apart an’ all but in the excitement you flipped the safety on. If you gonna bust a cap in a punk ass, you need it off.”

“Dat cool,” Suzy said and flicked it off with her thumb like a seasoned pro. “Better.”

“Better.” Patra nodded.

By this time the girls had been surrounded by an ever-growing swarm of gawking
revelers. You could see the nervous smiles of uncertainty as the reality, or lack of it, was taking effect. Bouncers started appearing bemused with what they were witnessing, wondering why they had not been informed about this stunt. However, the closer they came to this surreal scenario, the more they became convinced they were witnessing something real.

Y breezed into the frenzy just as the security supervisor turned up and as succinctly as possible glossed over the parts they would not accept as truth and fabricated the rest.

Y didn’t start trembling until sometime after.

The girls sat together on one of the circular VIP seats and stared absently out to the deserted entrance of the nightclub. The debris of a night well and truly partied was strewn on the floor and tables. Out of the ordinary were the police officers milling around the floor plan, a few witnesses being questioned by plain clothed officers and forensic personnel in their white booties carrying equipment cases. Suzy looked calm, Patra was more on edge from the grilling by a Detective Jenkins who - if they didn’t know any better – was insinuating they were more than reacting to a bad situation but were somehow involved in the situation. Y was more focused; she sat with her arms around Suzy recording everything said to them by the overzealous DI just in case it was needed in the future and was milling over his words in the confines of her head.

That freeze frame was held for a moment and through the haze of their own thoughts, the fine figure of DI Winston Shaft McFa
rlane stepped into the crime scene, surveying the proceedings with enough self assured swagger as if he owned the place. Shoulders raised in recognition, frowns disappeared and finally smiles imprinted on lips as the sisters waved at him and he jogged over to them.

Shaft wasn’t superstitious by any accounts, not after achieving a Master of Science in Cultural Anthropology; because that would go against everything he understood about the scientific process. Take his final paper on Jung’s Archetype’s and how it related to belief. That was like a guiding doctrine to how he managed the cases that came across his desk initially. But Shaft wasn’t ashamed to admit Black Book had immersed him in many investigative situations that had made him momentarily question some of his long standing beliefs about fate, destiny and what was possible.

And these girls w
ere like his counterintuitive control group, discounting everything he believed to be the way of the world. He would have remained a non believer himself, if he hadn’t been a witness to the bizarre circumstances that had forged their friendship in the first place.

Now this.

He had bee
n first at the crime scene five years ago, where he had met them and he had taken their statements back at the station. The surreal memory of that interview had remained with him. Then, just add some mental patient - who they had ascertained later was originally from Africa – that they had busted in leafy Hampstead pissing on the pavement, began ranting about them being ordained warriors and how privileged he was to be in their company. Shaft had laughed good and hard but remembered the mad man’s sudden lucidity and his words.

Watunza mwanga

Three warriors to strike fear in the heart of the    

evil.

Three warriors to restore the balance.

Three ways, one mind, one cause, one weapon.