….
Holding the business card Carme Turk had given him, Alex left the indie film set, intending to clear the industrial district and catch a bus back to North Hollywood.
As he crossed the block, he noticed a few guys loitering on the corner watching him closely.
They pointed in his direction, whispering back and forth as if double-checking something.
“Hey…
check out the kid in the suit.”
“Blonde hair, sharp jaw…
yeah, that’s him!”
“The British guy from The Poison Tongue!”
“Call Big D—we found him!”
Three guys stepped off the curb, following him at a steady distance.
Before Alex could cut down a side street, four more men stepped out from behind a parked van, cutting off his path entirely.
“Alex Shawn,” the leader sneered, stepping into the center of the ring.
“The singer from West Hollywood.
Remember me?
Name’s Big D.”
Alex recognized him instantly as one of the guys he had dropped outside the bar on his first night in town.
Carl Massimo, Alex realized.
The sleazy bar owner had sold his headshot and name to the local Bloods crew to cover his own ass.
Surrounded on an unfamiliar street corner with nowhere to run, Alex forced his breathing to stay steady.
Showing fear or trying to apologize to a corner crew in 1991 L.A.
was an invitation to get beaten into the pavement.
He needed leverage, and he needed it immediately.
His eyes went cold, and he let out a harsh, mocking laugh.
“Are you serious?” Alex said, stepping forward instead of backing away. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
“You tracked me all the way down here for that?
Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?”
Big D blinked.
The kid was completely outnumbered, yet his tone carried zero hesitation.
“Who the hell are you supposed to be?” Big D asked, his confidence wavering slightly.
“You don’t know?” Alex’s expression shifted into pure, condescending disbelief.
“I’m with the Birmingham Razor Gang.
Ever heard of the Peaky Blinders?”
“The…
the what?”
The guys surrounding him glanced at each other, the name completely foreign to them.
Birmingham?
England?
What did some British crew have to do with Los Angeles?
Alex caught the hesitation in their eyes and pressed the advantage, channeling every bit of old-school British underworld menace he could muster.
“Unbelievable,” Alex scoffed, his sharp accent dripping with disdain.
“A bunch of local street corner amateurs.
The Razor Gang runs the entire industrial North in England.
Even the London Met doesn’t cross us.”
He paused, letting the silence hang over the alley, then dropped his voice to a low, icy whisper.
“Do you know why they call us the Razors?”
Alex raised his hand in a sharp, lightning-fast slash.
His fingertips missed Big D’s throat by less than an inch.
“Because we sew flat razors directly into the brims of our caps and suit collars,” Alex said softly.
“When we fight, we don’t shoot wild like idiots and bring half the city’s police force down on our heads.
We lean in close…”
He made a subtle, slow-motion reaching gesture toward Big D’s neck, his eyes completely dead.
“…and before you even realize what’s happening, your throat is open to the bone.”
Alex leaned in half an inch closer.
“You lay a finger on me today,” he said, drawing out every word, “and tomorrow morning, someone from Birmingham will be sitting inside your apartment, holding a surgical blade, waiting for you to wake up.”
The detailed, cold-blooded description—delivered with total confidence in a thick, authoritative British accent— hit the crew hard.
Guns and gang territory were everyday business for them, but a quiet, organized crew from across the Atlantic operating on surgical intimidation was an entirely different kind of threat.
Big D stared at him, his mind racing.
Was this kid telling the truth?
Was it worth starting an international mob feud over a minor bar fight in West Hollywood?
“Now,” Alex sneered, flicking his lapel with his thumb, “get out of my way before I lose my temper.
I’m not in the mood to bleed anyone on a Tuesday.”
Without waiting for a response, Alex turned his shoulder and walked straight toward Big D.
His posture was upright, his stride steady, carrying the calm authority of someone who fully expected the crowd to part.
The two guys blocking the sidewalk hesitated—and then stepped aside, opening a narrow gap.
Alex walked right past Big D, feeling the man’s muscles tense as he passed, but nobody moved.
He kept his pace calm and deliberate, stepping out onto the main boulevard and walking toward the bus stop fifty yards away.
Only when he finally boarded the bus and saw the block fade into the distance did he allow himself to exhale, his shirt soaked in cold sweat.
That was too close, Alex thought, leaning his head against the glass window as the bus pulled away.
Bluffing a street gang using a legendary 1920s British gang tale had worked once, but he couldn’t rely on luck forever.
He needed real security, better representation, and enough status in this town that low-level thugs couldn’t touch him.
And as for Carl Massimo—the sleazy bar owner who had given up his headshot—Alex made a mental note to settle that score the moment he had real leverage in West Hollywood.
….
-Krazybro