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things."

WEARING DANGEROUS SMILES

    I was watching the world through tears.
    Mandy and the Beetle had emerged, two o'clock in the afternoon, from a damp bed, and were now taking late breakfast at the table. Mandy's cheeks were glowing like an ad. You know the kind of thing -- SEX IS GOOD FOR YOU -- DO IT EVERY DAY. THIS HAS BEEN A GOVERNMENT INFORMATION MESSAGE. Beetle was his
    usual self; hair gelled slick-back with Vaz, his Peter England shirt hot-pressed to the
    limit. He was shaved to the edge, and the tangy aroma of Showbiz arose from his skin like the smell of celebrities at a first night party. Both of them looked fruity from the afterglow of sex, and I just couldn't take it, couldn't take the fresh love. The Beetle was cleaning his gun at the table, smearing Vaz into the chambers. I guess he was doing it to impress the new girl. It worked.
    "Is that real, Bee?" she asked. "Neat!"
    Oh like, wow.
    The Beetle's gun was a joke really. He'd bought it off some old acquaintance, a real bargain, he'd said, and that -- what with the city turning the way it was -- you could never be too careful. Of course he'd never fired it, never had need to, and after two weeks of carrying it everywhere, he'd slipped it into some hideaway, and that was that. Now it was out again, getting the full Vaz treatment, all for the sake of some tough new street girl.
    I wouldn't mind, but Mandy was my discovery. I'd found her hanging around the Bloodvurt stalls in the underground market, her eyes full of buzz and spark as she stroked the feathers, trying some on, just to the lips, falling under spells of violence and pain. And me falling under the spell of her. So I'd asked her to join, become a Stash Rider. She made fun of the name, but still, I could see the need in her eyes. Maybe I was just trying to replace Des the easy way. Maybe. Maybe we all get a little desperate at times. Maybe there are no easy ways.
    "You heard about Icarus, Bee?" I said, keeping it cool.
    He didn't even bother replying, too busy drawing in lungfuls of first-thing Haze.
    Its pungent odour was giving me half-glimpses of the dream and the things that I saw there made me shiver. "Icarus Wing? Didn't Mandy tell you about him?" I glanced over at Mandy. She was shovelling spoonfuls of JFK flakes into the gap between her smeared lips, her eyes dead to my need. "She told me that Icarus Wing was bringing in some Voodoo today." Still no response from the Beetle. "You know this Icarus guy, Bee?"
    "No." His voice coming slow and easy, from the Haze. "No?"
    "Never heard of him."
    "You know everybody, Bee! Everybody!"
    "What are you saying?" His voice growing sharper. "You're holding out on me? I --"
    "Fuck you, Scribble!" "Bee --"
    "You don't know who's helping you? Is that your problem? Is it?"
    His eyes were cold and steely, through the smoke of his joint.
    "You two have a good night?" Don't know why I said it. Just came out. They looked at each other. They smiled at each other. "You think Bridget's going to like that?" I asked, knowing full well that Brid would take a nail file to Mandy's eyes. God knows what she'd do to Beetle. Maybe she'd pour all her smoke into his head, working his brain up, into a frenzy. They called it a Shadow-fuck. It was like doing Skull Shit, with the lights on.
    "Bridget will have to live with it," The Beetle said.
    "Where is the shadowgirl, anyway?" Mandy asked. She made the word shadow sound like some kind of bad disease.
    "She slept in my room."
    "Whoo, whoo, whoo!" shouted Mandy, full of rude life. "Nice one, Stephen!"
    "It's not like that, Bee."
    "Stephen? Is that Scribble's real name?" laughed Mandy. "Aw, how cute!" "That's the way with Stevie baby, Mandy," the Beetle said, knowing full well he
    was getting to me. "It's never like that. Not with women."
    "Piss off, Bee." My best reply. "And the name's Scribble." "He's very sensitive this morning," Mandy said.
    "Maybe we should sell some bits off the Thing," the Beetle said. This was just to get me