Gilded Edge, The by Danny Miller

stop a revolution in this country would be to put up a sign saying it had been cancelled. But you’re not kidding me, you’re just a dope-peddling pimp in a fancy-dress costume.’
    Vince could feel heat coming off Michael X as he briefly turned back into Mikey de Freitas. His heavy brow furrowed, his jaw jutted and he hunched over and grabbed the table edges with both hands as if to rip it up from the floor. Then he uttered, in a lethally hushed tone, ‘Kill ya fwar dat . . .’
    Vince’s goading smirk widened into a victorious smile. ‘That’s more like it, Mikey. Now you’re talking.’
    Mikey said nothing as he took on board some much needed calming breaths and slowly composed himself. And after the composition was complete, he was back to being Michael X. He opened the desk drawer and slipped his hand inside.
    On seeing this, Vince shifted in his seat and surreptitiously did likewise and slipped his hand into his coat pocket, where his fingers curled around the hilt and his thumb rubbed the button of the switchblade he was carrying. Not exactly standard government issue, but only a fool would come looking for Mikey de Freitas and Tyrell Lightly without a tool of some kind.
    Michael X pulled out from the drawer a pair of black leather gloves and slipped them over his hands, then stood up slowly. Vince stood up with him, slowly. Michael X raised his clenched fist in the air. Vince heard a dull thud and a muttered curse, and he looked round at the men behind him. They were all standing in the same position, with fists raised in salute. The dull thud and the muttered curse had come from Tiny, who had almost put his fist through the ceiling.

CHAPTER 10
    With news of the revolution still ringing in his ears, Vince left Michael X and his Brothers and made the rounds of the pubs and clubs in the area, hoping the confrontational cop-cutter Tyrell Lighter would have heard that Vince was after him, and wouldn’t be able to resist showing his face. But that produced nothing, not a whisper. It was around ten p.m. when Vince decided to call it a night and walked back to his car, thinking about, of all things, the alto sax. Did he have the time to learn how to play the thing? Did he have the patience to learn how to play the thing? Or was it just going to sit in a corner of the room looking like a glitzy ornament, a conversation piece?
    Then he caught a break. Standing on the corner of the Portobello Road, outside the Finches pub, was Vivian Chalcott. Vince and Vivian had followed each other’s careers closely, in as much as Vince had had the pleasure of nicking Vivian at every turn in his career. The last time was while pimping in Soho for a Maltese firm, running a couple of black brasses out of two rooms in Berwick Street. And here he was now, standing on the street corner and up to no good. This wasn’t just Vince being judgemental; this was him witnessing Vivian standing on the street corner and leaning into a Ford Zephyr and handing over a wrap of cannabis and getting paid for it. Vince knew he was on to a winner with this one. He waited for the transaction to pass, then collared him. Literally. By lifting the pint-sized drug dealer off the pavement and putting him against the wall, suspended by the felt of his collar.
    ‘Well well well, Mr Treadwell . . .’
    ‘Hello hello hello, Vivian,’ said the laughing policemen as he rifled the dealer’s pockets and pulled out a bag of ten golden cubes of finest Moroccan. ‘What you doing with hash, Vivian? I thought you only smoked the weed in the Islands.’
    ‘I’m from St Lucia – we smoke anything.’
    Vince made a play of weighing the bag of hashish in his hand as if it was a dumbbell. ‘We got about what? . . . about two to three years for this, I’d say.’
    There was some sucking of teeth and some shaking of his head before Vivian said, ‘Ah, shit, you reckon me gonna be doing some time now, uh, Mr Treadwell?’
    ‘Not necessarily, Vivian, not