You Don't Know Me

19

So just before the break, I was telling you about the trap-house we were making.

Anyway the trap-house we made wasn’t no trap-house that would fool anyone who had ever seen a real one, but we were counting on Jamil never having seen one. Of course he was picking up a kilo from the Olders when he had to, but word had it that he met them in their Mercs in a car park. They trusted each other by now so it wasn’t really a problem for them to do business like that. But they weren’t about to let him into their factory.

For this to work though, we needed to persuade Jamil it was a legit set-up. It didn’t have to be perfect but it had to be good enough to pass a casual look. The plan was to get him through the door, past all the powder and the operations, and into the back room. As long as it felt right, he wouldn’t ask no questions we reckoned. He was still a boy after all. He was still a plastic.

When the day came we had the yard looking like it was a den. The place smelled of bleach and all other kinds of chemicals and there on the table in the middle of the room was a pile of white powder, soda mainly, some scales, some little plastic bags, a few razors, that kind of shit. The windows were all covered and the single bulb in the middle of the ceiling made a giant glow on the table but shadowed out edges of the room. I thought it looked the part, but then I’d never seen the inside of a crack house before. Curt was happy with it though. And Ki. And they knew what was what, though for different reasons of course, even if I didn’t.

The only problem was the girls. There weren’t no girls we could count on who we wanted to bring into this shit. We thought about all the girls we knew but the only ones who would be willing to do this kind of shit were basically drug whores and they were too fucking unpredictable. There was no telling what the fuck they might do. I decided that we would just have to do without them. There was no other choice.

‘We could just say they’re on a break or something innit?’ I say.

‘A break? This ain’t fucking McDonald’s man. Those bitches don’t go on no breaks. And they definitely don’t go on no breaks at the same time,’ says Curt as he gives the place a once over.

‘Well there ain’t nothing we can do now is there? He’ll be here in about ten minutes. Ki you better make tracks. Now Ki!’ I shout out at her in the kitchen where she is boiling up some pans of water.

‘And give me them masks,’ I go, ‘at least maybe we can have them lying around or something.’ These were the mouth masks that if this was a real trap-house, we would be wearing to stop the powder getting into our lungs while we were cutting it up. I had bought them for the girls to wear but as I say, we couldn’t find no girls.

‘And the aprons,’ I add.

I spend a few minutes trying to get the plan straight in my head in the little time I have got. We got the room ready. We got masks and aprons though we got no one to go in them. I got the gun.

The Baikal makes me feel a bit like I don’t know who I am but at the same time I feel almost complete with it. A part of me doesn’t know how I will be able to live without it in a way. The fucker is still whispering to me but me and it have come to an understanding about it. I ain’t going to use it. It’s just there as a back-up, like a third man. Although it is possible I might give him a whack on the head with it. You know, if needs be.

Just then Ki walks in wearing a baseball cap pulled down low over her eyes and one of them white masks over her face. For a second I almost laugh out loud as if she is just pissing about. Then I look again and see the rest of her and immediately I start seeing all kinds of colours, not just red.

‘No fucking way,’ I say. ‘No you ain’t doing it.’

She pulls her mask down. ‘You don’t know what I have done. You do not tell me what I can do. I am doing this.’ Then in a different voice she adds, ‘Do you even have a choice?’

I look at Curt hoping that he’s going to say something, but he has this look like, she has just done the only obvious thing there was to do.

‘Come on man, tell her,’ I say.

‘She’s right bruv,’ he says and puts his palms in the air.

‘Well at least stop fucking looking at her, dude,’ I say and throw her an apron.

‘I still haven’t agreed to this Ki. Put the fucking apron on please while I think.’

‘There’s nothing to think about,’ she says and right then there’s a knock on the door.

‘Fuck he’s here,’ I say and dart into the back room and get flat behind the door. I touch the Baikal to make sure it’s still there and then I look around for something to put in my hand. I find the metal bar bit of a dumb-bell in amongst the wreckage in the room and weigh it in my hand. It feels solid, but too heavy maybe.

My heart starts doing its thing. Bang bang bang. I wait for a minute and then hear the front door opening. Fuck this shit is too quick. Then I hear Curt’s voice. Then Ki’s. That is the strangest part. Ki should have her mask on, bent over the table. She should not be saying anything. She should be playing the role of a beaten-into-submission trap girl, not chatting up the punters. I start worrying for real now. I should have pulled her in here with me. What was I thinking?

I steal a look through the crack of the door but can’t really see anything. Curt’s massive body keeps getting in the way to block the view. Just then a voice is calling out and steps towards my door. The bar is clenched hard in my fist. I can feel the blood leaving my hand and the fingers throbbing, ready. Curt should be coming into my room first. Then Jamil. I need to hit the second head I see. Just then I see it. There is Curt’s head leaning into my room, the light from outside making a stripe of colour. Something is wrong. He is calling my name. He shouldn’t be doing that. Nobody is supposed to know that I am here, hiding in this room. With a fucking gun in my pocket. Am I being set up?

‘Fuck man! False alarm. False alarm. Put that fucking thing down man.’

‘Shit,’ I say and start deep breathing. It takes me a while to catch my breath again. Finally I say, ‘Who the fuck was it?’

‘A Blessing.’