You Don't Know Me

17

It was Ki who came up with the plan actually. I was dead against it, I ain’t even going to lie to you, but once I thought about it I knew it made sense. The fact was that Jamil was being ripped off by the Olders and he knew it and everyone knew it. It was like a joke everyone was in on. Now I know boys like him from old. Underneath all the front he was just a wannabe. He was still only a plastic gangster and the thing that mattered to him most of all was the same shit that mattered to all of them boys. Face. Or as Ki put it, ‘It’s one thing to be ripped off and to pretend you want it that way. It’s another thing if his mandems start calling him out about it.’

It was just a matter of time really. Someone was bound to rub his face in it one of these days and what Ki thought was that it might be better for us to do it and to do it sooner rather than later.

I didn’t really like the idea of Ki putting together this plan. It weren’t that it was a bad plan or a good plan. It was that I didn’t want her to still be in this. She was just starting to get back to herself. Every now and then she would open up a bit about what had happened to her. And when she did I felt like the distance that was between us got a little bit shorter. That was really in the end why I let her get involved at all. It seemed to make her more alive. It gave her something to think about. And Kira needed stuff to fill her brain. She was one of them kind of people. Not like me. I’m more a PS3 kind of guy. Switch it on and switch me off. Unless you got a ride you want to sell me I don’t need random stuff in my head to keep me interested. So where was I? Oh yeah plan A. The new one.

To kick it all off we needed to find JC. Curt man, I don’t know why he felt he had to help us. I mean I know we had been tight but this wasn’t his shit and to be honest with you this could have fucked him up a bit with the Glockz. I still didn’t know what his deal was with the gang. He was a straight-up-and-down non-ganger all his life – like me – and suddenly he was into a proper crew. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. But the way he told me it then was that he wasn’t really in it in it. And he was doing his best to get out anyway.

It didn’t take me and Curt long to track Jamil down. You could go to any one of the estates round my ends and he had either just left there or he’d be on his way there, in his M3 with his goons hanging out the windows. We decided to go to the Aylesbury. You know the one. It’s the one that you used to see at the beginning of the Channel 4 thing innit. Ki told me that it was named after like a rich little town or something which proper would make you laugh if you saw this estate. Hah. Whatever, that’s where we decided to go because that was the one we knew best because of Curt living there at one point before he went up to North London.

We walked over there and just hung about for an hour or something before he finally rolled up. It was like five or six o’clock, just about the time that Jamil started his evening shift. We stood by the side of the road waiting for his ride to pull up. Then just as we was talking about maybe jetting, we saw him. He had his usual mandems Shilo and Binks with him, with their heads sticking out the back windows like dogs. He parked up and in a few seconds we could see them as they came bouncing down the path like they were big men.

Curt tapped me on the arm and pointed at them with his chin. ‘Check it bro. You think they need some fruit to go with that bowl?’ he goes and laughs his bear laugh.

‘Idiots innit,’ I say.

We hang back to where we knew they basically have to pass us to get by. Jamil comes up first with his boys directly behind him. He sees us and then as he gets close he nods at me.

‘Blood,’ he goes.

‘Blood,’ I go back.

They walk by close enough for me to be able to smell the unwashed smell on them. And then just after they have passed us, Jamil turns round like we knew he would. He’s that kind of fucker who just can’t resist a little dig or something.

‘How’s Kira?’ he says over his shoulder.

‘Don’t know what you’re chatting about boy,’ I say and turn to face him.

‘Ha,’ he says laughing, ‘I’m fucking wid you innit. Don’t be so serious.’

‘I am serious, boy. If you know where she is I wanna know, innit,’ I say and put extra emphasis on the ‘boy’.

‘Don’t be boying me. Who the fuck is he to be boying me?’ JC says, screw-facing.

He starts looking at his mans as if to bring them into his beef. Shilo takes the signal and walks up to where we are and gets in my face.

‘Don’t be fucking boying him, man. You boy him and you’re boying me. And nobody boys me.’

I take a step back to get away from his breath which smells like a dog’s. As I do Curt steps into him.

‘Fuck off boy,’ says Curt with his arms out like Jesus. He is almost as big as Shilo but in a straight fight I’d put my house on Curt. But I ain’t sure Shilo knows what a straight fight even is.

Suddenly Binks is right there. He puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a lump of metal. I swear down, the shooter was this big. He comes right up and starts pointing it directly into our faces. All I can see is the barrel. It’s the size of a drainpipe. I follow the hole straight down into the darkness of it. There is hell in there. I flick my eyes to his face. He’s saying nothing with his words but he’s saying enough with everything else. That boy was ready to shoot us there and then. I have to do something or this thing is over.

‘Yo yo, easy Binks,’ I goes. ‘We just being friendly.’

Jamil changes colour for a split second, as if he is just realizing how this could go down. ‘Yeah put the fucking shooter away, we ain’t getting rolled for this waste man,’ says Jamil pulling Binks’ gun arm back gently. He turns to me. ‘You want to be careful about what you fucking say in front of my man innit. He’ll shoot you up for jokes.’

‘We ain’t even looking for beef,’ I goes. ‘Actually I was just seeing if I could put some business your way.’

He pauses for like a minute like he’s trying to think it all through. He ain’t sure whether he’s being messed with or not. Then finally his eyes go bright.

‘Well why the fuck didn’t you say so? And so it’s no hard feelings blood, first one free,’ he says smiling now and reaching into his pockets for a ball.

‘Nah man. Not that kind of business.’

‘Well I ain’t selling fucking trainers.’

‘Nah, I mean it is this kind of business but he wants to buy a block innit,’ I say pointing at Curt with my elbow.

‘A whole kilo?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Fuck off,’ he says and turns as if to go.

‘Serious,’ I say and just then Curt makes as if to walk off like he’s had enough. It feels like I am juggling balls. Any minute now I think one of them is going to slip out of my fingers.

‘Nah man, hang back,’ I goes to Curt then I turn back to Jamil. ‘Man’s good for it.’

Curt stops and waits looking from me to Jamil. He is playing this just right. Jamil and his mans stop in their tracks. It’s like they can see money flying around. Binks especially is proper panting.

‘Lay it down for me,’ says Jamil and then in that moment, I know he’s hooked in.

Curt and Jamil huddle together a little closer and start speaking low at each other. At first it’s just general chit-chat about prices and shit and then when we notice Jamil beginning to relax, I give Curt a little side-eye and we start reeling him in.

‘Nah, let’s fuck this off,’ Curt says eventually. ‘Fifty gees for a kilo? This guy’s taking the piss.’

‘Take it or leave it man. You’ll get fifty a gram after you cut it up innit. That’s doubling up easy. I got to make my own slice though too you get me?’ says Jamil, arms folded.

‘What purity you giving me though? Eighty per cent?’

‘Fuck off. Forty.’

‘Forty per cent and you want fifty K? Do I look like I just came out my mum? I can get eighty per cent for fifty K no problem. What kind of fucking slice you carving up blood?’ Curt leans over him using his huge bulk to intimidate the man.

‘No way you can get eighties for fifty K. No fucking way.’

‘I can even get you eighties blood. Sixty K if you want it.’

‘I’m selling, not buying,’ says Jamil pretending he’s all cool about it but you can tell from his face that he is interested.

‘You got to buy though innit? You gotta buy and either you ripping me off or you being ripped off. Simple as that. Tell you what though, I never took you for a kid. Mandems telling me you connected and you just a kid selling street deals. Soldier innit,’ says Curt and then he nods at me and walks off. ‘Let’s bounce.’

As we walk off I see that witness who came into court saying that she heard me arguing with Jamil. I didn’t even know she was there till I saw the CCTV. But when she came into court I realized that I know that girl from time. She’s okay, you know. Now I can understand why she might have thought that it was a bit on top at this point. There were plenty of loud words being spoke and bare waving arms so I don’t blame her for what she said. In fact to my mind she is kind of a witness in my favour. What she is saying kind of proves what I am saying. There was an argument. Well kind of an argument but what she don’t say is what it was for. What I can do that she can’t do is to say that.

Anyway, there is a few seconds as we are walking away when I am thinking to myself have we blown it? Curt is whispering at me, telling me, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay, he’s on the hook’, and to keep walking, but I’m not sure. Then as we are nearly on the road, Jamil comes jogging up, shouting for us to stop.

‘You got a deal then blood,’ he says. ‘Fifty-five K. Eighty per cent.’

‘Sixty,’ goes Curt, ‘I ain’t unloading a kilo for five K.’

‘Okay sixty,’ Jamil says not missing a beat. ‘How long you need?’

‘You got the dollars? Next week then. Where you want to do it?’

‘Nah, tomorrow man. I got the P right now. At one of my yards,’ says Jamil and points vaguely in the distance like his place was just there.

‘Nah man, too soon,’ says Curt all calm. ‘Okay three days. My yard. I got a trap going round the block. These are my digits. Check me laters,’ says Curt getting out his BB, you know, BlackBerry, as he’s speaking.

There’s a few seconds where no one is talking. Jamil’s got his head down typing in Curt’s number. Shilo and Binks are just watching but you can tell they’re feeling useless. Finally Jamil looks up. ‘Who’s your crew?’

‘Glockz innit,’ Curt says.

‘Guess your crew don’t mind getting their girls jacked if you hanging with him,’ he says, pointing his head at me.

Curt shrugs his huge shoulders like he doesn’t give a shit one way or another.

‘Unless you Glockz too?’ he says turning to me.

‘Nah man, I ain’t rolling with no crew. I’m just giving my mans a bit of a favour. I ain’t part of this. And for your FYI, I ain’t got Kira. But I am looking for her, blood. So if you know anything …’ I goes and with that I was gone leaving the two of them to work out the details.

Later that day Curt met me up and told me it was on. ‘All we need now is a trap,’ he says.