How the Dead Live (Factory 3) by Derek Raymond Read Free Book Online

we’re in it.’
    ‘No you’re not,’ I said, ‘you’re both outside it talking to me, so you’re both committing an offence and could be reported.’
    The first copper said: ‘So you’re telling us the law, are you? Is that it?’
    ‘It’s not difficult at all,’ I said, ‘if you happen to know it.’
    ‘I see,’ said the first copper. It was obvious that he didn’t quite. With his mate he exchanged one of those careful looks from under his cap that you see them do on television when the producer hasn’t got it quite right – he was young, and needed much more practice with a look like that. Finally he said: ‘I’m going back to the car, you just stay right where you are with this officer, get it?’
    ‘You’re the great big policeman,’ I said, ‘and yes, I’ve got it.’
    ‘Don’t follow me up with any more jokes just now,’ said the first copper, ‘not if you want to keep your guts in where they belong.’
    I said to the second copper, the driver: ‘This officer has just threatened me, will you take official note of it?’
    The driver said: ‘I think I’d let it go if I were you.’
    ‘If I were you,’ I said, ‘I probably would, only I’m not.’
    ‘You really are looking for trouble,’ said the driver, ‘aren’t you?’
    ‘Yes, and I’ve found a lot of it too,’ I said, ‘more than you ever have in your short lives.’
    ‘I don’t doubt you have,’ said the driver, in a voice as grey as rain.
    ‘What you ought to be doing,’ I said, ‘both of you, is hop into that tax-paid motor of yours that you can’t take your bird for a ride in and get into the fight I just saw three streets back on the right, five whites running for an Asian to beat him up. It looks dodgy but at least you’d be doing some good. Here, you’re doing no good at all. Here, you’re just wasting public time, dear.’
    ‘I don’t like the dear,’ the driver said. He bunched his fists. ‘Not at all.’
    ‘It’ll teach you not to call people sonny,’ I said. ‘Are you going to have a go?’
    ‘It’s really dark here,’ said the driver, ‘and there’s no one watching that I can see.’
    ‘And they call you a police officer,’ I said. ‘Well, that’s the gullible public for you.’
    I could have let them off the hook long ago if I’d wanted to; but in my shabby clothes, with my tired-looking car, I wanted them to take me for just anybody, to see how far they would go.
    ‘Just one little smack,’ said the driver, ‘might teach you manners.’
    ‘Do it if you must,’ I said, ‘but I should think very hard first. I could have a weak heart or a strong right – whichever it was, you’d be looking for a job.’
    It was near, but in the end he flexed his arms, sighed and looked away; just then his mate came back with a drink-and-drive kit. ‘Let’s do a little breathing, son,’ he said. ‘Breathing out. I think we’ve been drinking a bit, haven’t we? I think we’ve had a few, yes.’
    ‘That’s it,’ said the driver. ‘Very slow. Nice and hard.’
    ‘I don’t object to the test,’ I said. ‘The only thing is, let me just examine that kit before I blow into it.’
    ‘Why?’ said the driver.
    ‘Because I know some coppers where I come from,’ I said, ‘they keep a special one in the car for folk they don’t like, and that’s a hat that might fit me, isn’t it?’
    ‘And where are you from?’ said the second copper.
    ‘From where you two berks would get red ears fast,’ I said.
    ‘Oh, London, is it?’ They both smiled. ‘How very nice to meet a Londoner on our little country patch, though they say our great capital’s not the city it once was – must be on account of the people that live there.’
    ‘In this little shithole,’ I said, ‘they can say what they like about London.’
    ‘He’s cheeky, this one, isn’t he?’ the driver enquired upwards of the scudding sky. ‘Very cheeky, yes.’
    ‘It’s a habit we all have to try and master,’ I