‘Sure,’ Ben answered.
‘I looked in their showroom last night,’ James said. ‘It’s all like custom paint jobs and twenty-grand bikes for fat blokes who need a bike ’cos they’re too old to get an erection.’
Nigel laughed. ‘That’s the irony with expensive bikes and sports cars: by the time you’re rich enough to afford it, you’re old and bald and you look damned stupid driving it.’
James, Ben and Daisy all laughed. Daisy’s laugh was weird and James looked at her glazed eyes and guessed that she’d had a few puffs on a joint.
‘That showroom’s for tourists and second-home wankers,’ Ben said. ‘But they’ve got a workshop over by the Brigands clubhouse and a whole room full of secondhand bikes.’
‘I noticed a couple of Brigands last night,’ James said. ‘Scary looking bastards.’
‘You don’t wanna start any trouble with them,’ Nigel said. ‘But they’re OK. My big brother says if you like bikes and you get on their right side they’ll buy you drinks all night long.’
‘Good mechanics too,’ Ben said. ‘I mean, they’re enthusiasts more than capitalists. If you go into Leather and Chrome, and you’re a kid and you don’t have a lot of money they’ll treat you fair. Sort you out with a good bike and not rip you off for servicing.’
‘They’re really decent,’ Nigel nodded. ‘Especially with my brother ’cos he’s one of the Monster Bunch.’
‘The what?’ James asked, though he knew of course.
‘Monster Bunch,’ Nigel explained. ‘It’s a bike gang. They ride with the Brigands, but they’re mostly younger and it’s ten times easier to join. My older brother is a member, though he’s away at uni at the moment.’
‘My cousin is in the Monster Bunch, so I knew a few people,’ Ben said. ‘Leather and Chrome set me up with the bike, the financing. They even helped me get a job so that I could make the payments.’
‘So if I went down to Marina Heights I could get my Honda looked at?’ James asked.
Ben nodded. ‘What’s up with it?’
‘I think it’s got a bit of a brake imbalance,’ James lied. ‘It was OK when I first had it, but now if I brake hard the front wheel does next to nothing, then it suddenly bites, locks up and I get tyre smoke.’
Ben laughed. ‘I’m amazed that bike ever goes fast enough to get tyre smoke.’
‘I’ve had it up to eighty-five,’ James lied again. ‘I’ve got no class this afternoon. I might ride down to Salcombe and see if a mechanic will look at it.’
Nigel looked at his watch. ‘You mind if I ride with you, James? I got nothing going on. I might even have a word about that restrictor kit thing.’
20. ER5
It was a thirty-minute ride from the sixth-form centre to Marina Heights. Nigel led the way, showing James a couple of neat shortcuts down farm tracks and walking paths. At two on a Monday afternoon Marina Heights was dead and they parked two bikes into a single space near the back of the shops.
The two teenagers strode towards the bike shop with their helmets in hand. Giant steel bins overflowed after the weekend and the heat amplified the smell of waste food as they walked past the dead neon sign on the Brigands clubhouse. James noticed video cameras pointing in all directions, bars over all the windows and heavy steel bollards that would prevent anyone from trying to smash their way inside with a vehicle.
‘What do you reckon about the Brigands?’ James asked.
‘They’re intense,’ Nigel explained. ‘I mean, I’ve lived around here my whole life and I still shit myself a little bit when I see one of them.’
‘Ever seen any trouble?’ James asked.
‘Nah,’ Nigel said. ‘But you read stuff in the local paper. Some guy got his head bashed in on the pavement out here a few weeks back. There’s one blind spot where the video cameras can’t see, and that just happens to be where you’ll get stomped if the Brigands take a dislike to you.’
‘So, best avoided?’ James smiled.
‘They’re friendly with the locals,’ Nigel said. ‘They even do charity open days and stuff in the clubhouse. Just don’t piss them off. To be honest, I prefer them to image bikers like Ben.’
James was confused. ‘Ben seemed nice enough.’
Nigel shrugged. ‘He’s a nice guy, sure. But for Ben it’s all about the image. You can tell he spends half an hour every morning spiking his hair and trimming that beard. And he’s always got that cigarette packet tucked in his sleeve like he thinks he’s James Dean or something.’
‘Tries too hard,’ James guessed.
‘Exactly,’ Nigel nodded. ‘Real bikers don’t give a shit. They smoke, do drugs, shag skanky women, drive awesome bikes and pulp anyone who disses them. Once I’m eighteen my brother says he’ll sort me out getting into the Monster Bunch. I might even be going on my first run this summer if I can arrange transport.’
‘Nice,’ James smiled. ‘But what’s wrong with your bike?’
Nigel shook his head. ‘The gangs cruise in formation at eighty or even a hundred miles an hour. You can’t do a run on a two-fifty. Even if you could keep the pace the older guys would all take the piss so bad you’d end up miserable. I’d have to get a seat on a coach, or in the run truck.’
‘I’ve read about runs in magazines,’ James nodded. ‘They sound awesome. What about your mate Julian, would he go?’
‘Nah,’ Nigel laughed. ‘We’ve grown up together, but he’s only a school mate nowadays. His dad is a judge, he’s pretty spoiled but he’s also on a tight leash. Like, he pranged his car not long after he got it and they went spare. And when they found spliff in his room he was grounded for a whole month.’
By this time James and Nigel had passed the clubhouse and reached the bike workshop. The space was immaculate, with tools in wheeled cabinets and hydraulic lifts that raised the bikes up high so that the mechanics could work without having to crawl around on the floor. Lynyrd Skynyrd came out of a boom box resting against the wall.
Up back there was a custom shop with expensive parts lining the walls. Along one side three Harley Davidsons were suspended in mid air in various stages of being stripped and rebuilt. One was an extraordinarily shabby rat bike with a Brigands M.C. badge painted on the fuel tank.
James moved in for a closer look and found himself confronted by a shirtless man with bushels of hair growing from every orifice.
‘Never touch a Brigands bike unless you don’t like the way your face looks,’ the man barked.
‘I wasn’t touching,’ James said warily. He saw that the man’s Levis were stiffened black with oil and filth. James knew he was a Brigand called Heartbreaker. He looked like he’d last bathed several decades earlier and his cologne was eau-de-petrol.
‘If you boys are here about a bike you need to go up them metal steps and speak to Rhino.’
James knew Rhino’s name from a police file. He was thirty-eight, a long-term biker and Brigands associate with a string of petty convictions. According to Neil Gauche he’d turned down the opportunity to become a prospect Brigand many times because he took pride in his status as a lone rider and didn’t care for the infighting and squabbles that came with club membership.
After passing two well groomed mechanics in turquoise overalls, they headed upstairs and found Rhino at a desk in jeans and an AC/DC T-shirt. Behind him was a large room, with its white tile floor streaked with tyre marks. The space was crammed with bikes ranging from battered Harleys and Ducatti racers to pink Lambrettas and quad bikes.
After James had explained about his brakes, Rhino gave him a card and told him that he’d need to phone the service department and make an appointment for later in the week. Nigel had wandered off and found half a dozen mid-sized bikes, similar to Ben’s. They were all a few years old, but most only had a few thousand miles on the clock and prices on the right side of £2,000.
‘You’ve got a two-fifty haven’t you?’ Rhino asked, as he sniffed a sale. ‘You’re Will’s brother?’
Nigel nodded. ?
??Some nice bikes here, but I’m just looking.’
‘Look all you like,’ Rhino smiled.
James sat astride a £1,800 498cc Kawasaki ER5 and bounced the suspension.
‘That’s a perfect bike for a young man like you,’ Rhino said. ‘Easy to ride, fifty horsepower, it’ll cruise at a hundred miles per hour.’
‘You’d need one of those restrictor kits,’ Nigel said. ‘That’d slow it down.’
Rhino smiled. ‘Between you and me, on a fifty-horsepower bike we’ll fit you the kit, give you the certificate and make sure you feel no difference if you see what I mean.’
‘It’s academic,’ James smiled. ‘I haven’t got eighteen hundred quid.’
‘Maybe you don’t need it,’ Rhino explained. ‘Your old bike will count as a deposit of at least four hundred. Then you’ll have fourteen hundred outstanding. Zero per cent finance over three years, that’s less than ten pounds a week.’
‘Can you lend us money?’ Nigel asked incredulously.
Rhino shook his head. ‘You’d have to get a parent to sign the paperwork. But that’s a formality. All our bikes are guaranteed rock solid. You’ve seen the mechanical set-up we’ve got down there and all these bikes have been stripped and tested. Your friend is sitting astride a bike that’s done less than six thousand miles. It’s barely run in, but you’re paying a third of what some sucker paid in a showroom less than three years ago.’
James smiled, imagining himself blasting the motorway on a 500cc bike. ‘Maybe I’ll ask my mum.’
‘I’ll need a bigger bike if I’m going on a run in the summer,’ Nigel said. ‘But the insurance is gonna be the killer.’
Rhino switched out of being a salesman and sounded more genuine when he heard this. ‘Who you going on a run with?’
‘Monster Bunch, hopefully,’ Nigel said. ‘My brother said he’ll try and sort something out when he gets back from uni in a couple of weeks.’
‘Has Will still got that raggedy 883 Sportster?’
Nigel nodded. ‘Spent a lot of money fixing it up. It looks the business, but he’s had chronic breakdowns.’
‘We have a philosophy here when it comes to selling motorcycles,’ Rhino said, dropping back into salesman mode. ‘You’re teenagers. You don’t have much money now, but enthusiasm for motorcycles is a lifelong thing. I’m more interested in sending you out of here on a good reliable bike. Then I can bleed you dry when you’re older and you come in here to drop ten grand on a Harley.’
James and Nigel both laughed.
‘Do you know Teeth?’ Rhino asked.
James knew the name, but he shook his head.
‘I know of him,’ Nigel said.
‘Well Teeth is the Führer’s right-hand man these days,’ Rhino explained. ‘He runs Marina Heights promenade. Cleaning crews, maintenance, the diner and the fast-food kiosks. He can’t offer glamorous work, but it’s a minimum six quid an hour. You can work Saturdays, and once the school holidays start you can do forty hours or more a week. If you’re prepared to graft you can easily pay for a bike like this over a single summer.’
Nigel snorted. ‘Do you know how hard it is to get Marina Heights jobs? Every kid in town wants them, along with about a million older dudes who come to the beaches to surf.’
Rhino nodded. ‘But in case you haven’t noticed, Marina Heights is run by the Brigands. We’re motorbike people, you’re motorbike people. If you’re buying a bike out of here, I’ll go to Teeth and your names will go to the top of the list for Saturday work and summer jobs. All you’ve got to do is pick out a bike, get one of your parents down here and we’ll sort the whole deal. You could be riding home on one of these bikes tonight.’
James was a bright kid, but he’d never faced a hardcore salesman like Rhino before and the prospect of driving an unrestricted 500cc Kawasaki around all summer pressed all his buttons.
‘I could so go for that ER5,’ James smiled, walking back out into the sun with Nigel. ‘Do you think you’ll get one?’
Nigel shook his head. ‘No bike is worth a summer of cleaning toilets, serving burgers and scraping gum off of furniture. Besides, I’ve got a little gig selling spliff to Julian and that whole crowd of kids. I only make thirty or forty quid a week but it pays for my own weed and my bike insurance and I don’t have to lift a finger.’
‘Nice,’ James nodded. ‘So why don’t you buy the bike with your drug money?’
Nigel laughed. ‘Oh yeah, I come home on a 500cc bike and my ma’s not gonna ask where I got the money from, is she?’
‘Good point,’ James admitted.
‘And if you want to buy some shit to smoke anytime, just ask.’
James shook his head. ‘I tried marijuana a couple of times but I couldn’t get into it for some reason.’
‘Probably some cheap crap is why,’ Nigel said. ‘The stuff I sell is great. It’s all grown down here in Devon. Hundred per cent organic, THC levels are through the roof.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ James said warily, as he reached his bike. ‘What you gonna do now?’
‘I stink,’ Nigel said. ‘I’ll go home and take a shower and I’ve got an essay to write. I think everyone’s meeting up on the beach this evening. If you give me your cell number I’ll text you the where and when.’
21. HANG
Chloe spent the afternoon supermarket shopping, and when the kids got home she told them that dinner was whichever ready meal they picked from the selection crammed inside their American-style fridge-freezer.
James got first dibs on the microwave and did a lasagne. He headed into the living-room after claiming that the curry Lauren and Dante were heating up was stinking the place out. But the smell followed him into the living-room when they brought their food through a few minutes later.
‘You not eating?’ Lauren asked Chloe, who sat on an armchair with her feet under her bum.
‘I had lunch at the tapas bar,’ Chloe explained.
‘Good?’ Lauren asked.
‘Very,’ Chloe nodded. ‘This old boy sitting next to me started chatting me up. He had pots of money judging by the gold Rolex and the offer of a day out on his yacht.’
‘Oooh, Chloe’s got a boyfriend,’ Dante laughed as he dipped naan bread into his chicken korma.
‘So have you,’ Lauren grinned. ‘Or it won’t be long judging by the way you were canoodling with Anna on the bus ride home.’
James perked up at the mention of a girl. ‘Good tits?’ he asked.
Dante laughed. ‘Not huge, but nice.’
‘What are we talking?’ James asked. ‘Kiwi fruit, apples, oranges, mangos, melons?’
Lauren tutted. ‘James, not all boys are animals like you.’
But Dante surprised her. ‘Big firm oranges, heading towards grapefruits,’ he grinned. ‘Although nothing compared to this girl I went out with when I was in Ireland.’
Lauren’s heart sank as she watched Dante cupping his hands in front of his chest. ‘Jesus, you’re worse than my brother,’ she complained, as she wapped him with a rolled-up TV guide.
‘It’s just tits,’ James smirked.
‘Tits, tits, wonderful tits,’ Dante sang.
Chloe sounded cross. ‘I’m not sitting here listening to you two talking about breasts,’ she said firmly. ‘Show some respect. How would you like it if we sat here talking about penises?’
James looked down at his plastic dish, chasing the last piece of lasagne with his spoon. ‘How’s the mission budget coming?’ he asked. ‘Only I might need a couple of grand for another bike, plus the insurance.’
Lauren scoffed. ‘Why would you need another bike?’
‘I might get invited on a run with the Monster Bunch,’ he explained. ‘If I do, Nigel says I’ll need a bike that can cruise at seventy or eighty miles an hour.’
James wanted the bike badly and had left out two important facts: Nigel hadn’t mentioned anything about him being invited on a run and he’d said that the Brigands cruised at up to a hundred, not at
seventy or eighty.
Chloe didn’t look too impressed as she straightened up. ‘So what kind of bike would we be talking about?’
‘Five hundred cc. It’s a real beauty with less than six thousand miles on the clock.’
‘You’ve already looked?’ Chloe laughed. ‘You were supposed to ask the mechanics to check your brakes. And I can’t see it. I already had to write up a special report for the ethics committee on whether it was safe to let a sixteen-year-old ride around on the bike you’ve got.’
James shrugged. ‘But big bikes are safer in a lot of ways. I mean, imagine you’re on the motorway and there’s a big truck in the way spraying rain in your face. On a small bike you’re stuck behind it. On a bigger machine you can open up the throttle and overtake.’
Chloe blew air between her teeth. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, James.’
‘I think you should let him have a massive racing bike,’ Lauren grinned. ‘If he splats into a wall at a hundred and sixty miles an hour I’ll inherit twice as much money from my mum’s estate when I turn eighteen.’
‘If you can’t say something useful, Lauren, why don’t you shut the hell up?’ James asked irritably, before speaking to Chloe and trying not to make himself seem too desperate. ‘I’m not an idiot, you know? I’ll treat the bike with respect. And if I get the bike on finance, Rhino says he’ll let me speak to Teeth who’ll set me up with a summer job at Marina Heights so that I can make the payments. That way I’ll have a chance to get much closer to the Brigands clubhouse.’
Chloe seemed much more positive about this angle. James realised he should have used this argument first, because it didn’t look like he was just trying to get his hands on a cooler bike.
‘I suppose I can see the benefit of that,’ Chloe admitted.
‘Cool,’ James said. ‘The dealership is open until seven tonight. You have to sign some papers for the finance.’
‘Not bloody likely!’ Chloe said. ‘I’m not taking sole responsibility for letting a sixteen-year-old ride around on a hundred-and-twenty-mile-an-hour motorbike. I’ll have to speak to the chairwoman and the ethics committee.’