The Lost Chapters
Part 2
'You want cab?'
I paused en-route to the taxi rank and looked around.
'Hey, you, lady. You want cab?'
The thick Turkish accent was coming from the recesses of a luxury black 4x4, the sort drug dealers favour, undoubtedly for the copious trunk. Maybe there was some specific model, the Hyundai Pusher, with armour plating and a roach clip instead of cup holders.
'You're a cab?'
The car sprouted a head, fat, dark, balding. He smiled and waved an arm towards the back, which unlocked with a resounding 'thunk'. Either this was normal for Liberty City, or this was the most inept kidnapping attempt in history.
'Yes, yes, Bellic Enterprise Taxis. See?'
He stuck out a neat little card rectangle between two fingers. Obliging him, I came closer and peered at the slightly smudged print. Sure enough, the legend was there. At this range, I could see inside, a sheltered, cool little hideaway from the blazing sun, the AC ticking away in time with the music on the radio. Compared with the stale-stench of what I'd already seen, a little luxury couldn't hurt.
'Alderny? Can you take me there?'
The driver eyed my jacket, licked his lips, then shook his head.
'Not a good place, lady. Dangerous.'
Fuck it.
I pulled out my wallet, thumbed out thirty dollars and threw them through the window. By the time he'd picked it all up, I was in the back, bags in the trunk, feet up on the passenger-side headrest. Call me pushy, but I was sweating my ass off out on the curb. He leant over to shout something at me, thought better of it, flapped his lips a few times, then finally shut up and gunned the engine.
Liberty City. What can you say?
Hot, very hot. Cramped, dirty, expensive and elite, all on one street corner. The ride lasted twenty minutes, and I counted three gun shots, five times we were cut up by cop cars, ambulances or cuntish drivers. I had to roll up the windows, the sensory overload was thumping through my skull like some hellish rave.
For once, I was grateful to see the approaching smog and industrial grind of Alderny Island. Sounds and smells I could drink in and remember. By now, the sun had slipped into the artificial cloud bank of pollution, smearing everything with a warm brown light. I hadn't slept over the whole flight and now my internal clock was running out of juice. I'd just stagger in, get a beer, pass out in a corner and hope no-one grabbed my tits as I slept.
Ah, I should be so lucky.
The clubhouse was just like in the picture. Just one huge fucking stone wall with a few windows and a blast door set into it, a fortress in all but name. As the car pulled away, I closed my eyes, expecting to have some revelation, some flashback to when my mother was wheeled out of here on a gurney, clutching that little pink blob that would grow up to be me, now coming full circle, back to this place.
But nothing.
Leaving my bags on the sidewalk, I climbed the steps and pressed my palms against the wood. Silence. I put it down to nerves. A strange English girl wandering into a bikie's hangout, wearing their patches? God knows what they'd make if that.
So, I pushed. It didn't budge.
I pushed again, harder, still nothing, I pushed with all I had left in me, slamming my shoulder against the rough wood and paint, flakes of it raining down on this furious spectacle. And still, it wouldn't give, not one inch.
Half-falling back down the steps, I looked again with fresh eyes and saw the signs I'd missed. The windows, blown out, the brickwork stained with black soot.
The door I'd thrown myself against until my knuckles bled, I now saw: The Lost MC.
Someone had spray-painted over the stencil.
STAY GONE FUCKERS
A.O.D.
Fuck fuck shitty cunt fuck arse cock bastard shitfucking fuck.