Читать книгу Ride or Die - Khurrum Rahman - Страница 22

I blasted the heat to max, dropped the gear and pulled away from The Chicken Spot towards London Road, only to drive into a standstill. Ahead of me were unnecessary road works galore. I was temporarily defeated by temporary traffic lights. I shifted the gear into neutral and checked my mirrors for the cops before firing up the web browser on my phone, hoping for some inspiration. I typed Imran in the search bar and Google ominously auto-filled Siddiqui. I ran my eyes down the first few hits.

Racially motivated bomb attack at wedding party.

Five dead. Many injured. Husband survives.

Ten-year-old Jihadi targets interfaith marriage.

Hostile reception for Prime Minister as she visits Osterley Park

Hotel amidst protests.

Calls for tighter immigration laws.

Nah, I ain’t reading any of that shit.

I shut down the browser and exhaled dramatically as traffic crawled slowly in front of me. It was killing me to be so stationary. Frustrated, I slipped the car into gear and pulled a daring U-turn and I was on my way. I glanced in the rear-view mirror, wishing away the suckers stuck in traffic, when I noticed a slimy green Merc pull the same manoeuvre.

There was no way that there were two of them in Hounslow. Not in that fucking colour. I’d seen that car twice in the space of a couple of hours.

Okay, so rationalise. It’s not exactly unheard of to pull out of traffic and head in the opposite direction. The earlier appearance at the car wash was a little strange, though, considering the car already looked squeaky clean. But then again, if I was rolling around in a motor like that, I’d be getting it washed daily. I shrugged it off. I didn’t have the time or the energy for paranoia. I put my foot down and put some distance between my Beemer and the Merc and took a turn and slipped down a quiet residential road.

Finding Imy was turning out to be a proper mission. There was one person who could help me in my search, but I really, really did not want to go there. The last thing I needed was for a next man to get involved, but with fuck all in the way of options, I had to consider it.

Using the dial on the centre console I scrolled through my phone book and stopped at S.

I caught myself smiling as his name appeared on the screen.

I wouldn’t say we were friends; he was once my customer and I was once his dealer, that was the extent of our relationship. But I liked him, he was funny as fuck, mostly unintentional as he muddled through life like I once did. He and Imy were close, like only stoner-buddies can be. If anyone could point me in the right direction, it’d be Shaz.

My finger hovered over the screen. I swallowed the guilt at getting him involved and jabbed at his name. The phone rang through my car speakers, and eventually a small voice that I didn’t recognise came through.

‘Hello.’

I turned the volume up a touch. It didn’t sound like Shaz at all. His token greeting had always been a jovial ‘What’s cracking, Jay?’ followed by an inexplicable laugh and a smoker’s cough.

‘Shaz?’ I asked, unsure.

‘Yeah. Alright, Jay?’ he said through a sigh.

‘It’s been time, man.’

‘It has. Look, I’m not looking to score at the moment.’

‘That’s cool,’ I replied. ‘I’m not looking to deal.’ I laughed unnecessarily. He didn’t, unnecessarily or otherwise. I cleared my throat. ‘I wanted to chat to you about some next thing.’

I heard him sniff, as though he’d been crying or maybe he just had a seasonal cold.

‘I haven’t got long, Jay,’ he said softly.

‘What’d you mean?’ I said carefully, wondering if he was ill, as I tried to recall the last time I’d checked my testicles.

‘I’ve got a coach to catch in an hour.’

‘Oh,’ I said, relieved. ‘I just need, like, five minutes, ten, tops.’

He didn’t answer, and whatever he had said up to that point didn’t seem like the Shaz that I knew. Considering the sensitivity of the situation, and the sensitivity coming off him in droves, I figured it would be better to meet him rather than chat about it over the phone. That way he wouldn’t be able to cut me off.

‘I can link you now, tell me where you are?’ I said.

‘Seriously, this is not a good time.’

‘Please, Shaz. It’s important,’ I said, approaching the junction to the Great West Road, my hand hovering over the indicator, the direction dependent on his reply. It came in the form of a low moan. I was frustrating him, I know, but I couldn’t let it go.

‘Is this about Imy?’ he asked, so fucking gently, that I had to think twice before answering.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s about Imy.’

‘Sorry, Jay,’ Shaz said. ‘I… I can’t meet you.’

He disconnected the call.

Deflated, I slowed down, and without a destination I parked my car to the side. I let the engine idle as I slid down in my seat. I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose. The fuck was I thinking, calling Shaz? He’d probably been at Imy’s wedding reception – scratch that, he was probably best man! He would have seen the tragic events of that night unfold in front of his very eyes. I should have let him be.

I exhaled deeply, trying to loosen a little of that frustration. I opened my eyes and in front of me that fucking slimy green Merc was creeping towards me. Any thoughts about coincidences curled up and died when it slowed down and stopped beside me.

His window slid smoothly down. He was a young Asian man, with a tight buzz cut and a small stud on the side of his nose. He was wearing a bright red tracksuit over his skinny frame, and he was watching me with an air of amusement on his face, as though Tom had finally caught up with Jerry. He twirled his finger, gesturing to me to drop my window.

I acknowledged him with a slight nod, and in no mood for bullshit, I said, ‘I saw you at the car wash. What? You tailing me?’

‘Nah, bro. Just trying to get your attention,’ he said. ‘You walked away just as I was about to say hello.’

‘Do I know you from somewhere?’

‘I think me and you should catch up,’ he said, completely pissing over my question.

‘Catch up?’ I said, not a clue what he was chatting about.

He slipped his hand in the centre console and reached for something. My heart did a backflip. This is exactly how drive-by shootings happen. To my relief his hand emerged holding up a business card between two fingers. He passed it across through my window. I took it. It was a black and glossy, embossed gold trim bordering around an embossed gold phone number and nothing else. Not even a name.

‘Call me,’ he said.

I nodded and slipped away the card. ‘I better go,’ I said, making a show of putting my car in gear.

‘Busy man, huh?’

‘Just got a lot on, that’s all.’

‘Yeah,’ he smiled. ‘Just another day for Jay.’

Wait. What?

Before I could ask him how he knew my name, he’d roared away. My eyes flew to the rear-view mirror trying to pick out his number plate before he disappeared out of sight. The plates were private – OMA 22R – I repeated it out loud a few times before it escaped, and opened up the notes app and typed it in. It wasn’t exemplary detective work, but at least I now knew his fucking name, too.

Omar.

The name didn’t mean jack to me. He definitely wasn’t someone I knew from dealing, that circle was small and I knew every one of my customers pretty well. I didn’t recall him knocking about town either, flash little rich boy like that, I would have remembered. It’s possible that we may have crossed paths at a house party or at a session, or his older brother was in my class at school and why the fuck was I wasting so much time thinking about this shit? I had more urgent matters to get my head around and getting hold of Imy should have been my only focus. And my only link to him had told me in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t help me.

Doing the right thing, I swear, is a bitch. Most of my life I’ve done the wrong thing and it’s served me well. Responsibility is over-hyped. The last year or two, my attitude changed pretty quickly and pretty fucking dramatically, and doing the right thing has done nothing but cause hurt.

I dropped the indicator and turned right onto the Great West Road, when I should have turned left towards home. There was something I thought I needed to do but I wouldn’t know for sure until I got there. If I couldn’t face this, how the fuck could I ever look Imy in the eye?

Five long minutes later I wheeled my car into the grounds of Osterley Park Hotel.

Ground fucking zero.

The car park was empty and I parked in the first spot I saw. I exhaled loudly and stepped out. A toxic smell hit me like a force field and I found myself breathing through my mouth. The entrance to the hotel was at the far end, to get to it I had to walk past the hotel pub and the hotel Indian restaurant. Both haunts that I’d often kicked in, lifting my glass in one and stuffing my face in the other. Both now closed for business. I hoped the community spirit Hounslow is known for would soon see both of these businesses thriving again. Then again, people have long memories.

I gritted my teeth and moved quickly past, the presence of rioters, looters and protesters apparent as my feet crunched through a sea of discarded leaflets, patronising placards, broken glass bottles and improvised missiles. All that crap that comes when people lose their fucking minds.

There are six wide steps leading up to the entrance. I stood at the bottom, and despite wanting to puke out my heart, I lifted my eyes to Osterley Park Hotel.

The double doors leading into reception were hanging by a thread. Somebody had attempted to board it up, but somebody else had ripped it off again. The board lay by my feet, and scrawled over it in thick black marker was Closed for Refurbishments. It sounded a fuck of a lot more respectable than Closed due to Terrorist Attack. A few windows were smashed, and there were patches of a rough paint job, no doubt covering probably offensive or righteous graffiti. If I made the effort and looked closely enough, I could make out the message under the paint, but what the fuck for? To be honest the damage was minimal; it could be fixed. It was the screams that would be trapped inside forever.

I turned my back to the hotel and sat on the bottom step. I slipped out a cigarette, sparked it and pulled hard.

The fuck had my life become?

I’d lived my life in a lullaby, without a care in the world. Juggling a little weed to the bods in Hounslow and cruising through life in my shiny black Beemer, so blissfully ignorant. I never even used to watch the news or read the papers, and suddenly there I was, making the fucking news. I’d seen first-hand the destruction that most people only read, and cast their judgement about.

Fuck, man, this wasn’t even the first bombsite that I’d had the misfortune to set eyes on. A hospital, located beside beautiful snow-topped limestone mountains in Afghanistan, was the first. It was built and funded by Ghurfat-al-Mudarris for the poor people of a poor village called Hisarak, and devastated by two US military drone strikes.

The result of a war – as was this, thousands of miles away in Hounslow.

The difference, and there was a fucking difference, was that the military action that destroyed the hospital was able to dodge the bad press. Sorry about all the innocent lives but target has been met. A round of applause and pats on the fucking back. Either way, the impact was felt, at the time and forever after. Points are scored as lives are lost. Shit escalates and then calms down for a beat, just before the next devastation. It’s just where we are.

I sighed and it sent a shiver through me as I tried to figure out who was the egg in this fucked-up equation, and who was the chicken.

I took a last pull of my cigarette and added it to the littered ground, and looked out at the Great West Road. Cars were slowing down with purpose, necks craned, phones out, pointing, snap-snap-snapping away like it was a fucking tourist attraction, taking pictures that would burn through their phonebook, tagged with the same insincere message; Look what I drove past today! It was harrowing. Followed by a string of suitable sad-face emojis.

I threw a firm middle finger up at the rubberneckers. Take a picture of that, you fuckers.

Tyres crunched on glass. I turned to see a black cab pull into the grounds. The back door opened and a blue Adidas Gazelle hit the ground. A head popped out. His woolly Raiders hat was pulled down and it took me a moment to recognise him.

He recognised me, though. With his hand gripped to the car door, he remained rooted to the spot. I expected him to fall back in and leave. I looked away. The car door closed. I nodded knowingly to myself and sparked up another cigarette.

A moment later I felt Shaz stand beside me.

I looked up at him, trying to figure the right way to acknowledge him, but he was transfixed on the hotel. I let him be, didn’t say a word. He’d had already made it clear that he didn’t want to talk to me.

Shaz had changed. Obviously he’d changed! Shit like this chews you up, spits you out and then tramples on you. He looked like he’d put on weight and lost weight at the same time. I was used to seeing him carrying a quizzical look on his round face, as though he was trying to work something out, and then beam stupidly as if he had just worked it out. Now he just looked gaunt and sad. Yeah, Shaz looked sad.

‘You alright, Jay?’ he said, after a time.

I nodded. ‘Yeah, you know.’

Shaz looked at the waiting cab before sitting down next to me on the bottom step.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I know.’

I pushed my cigarette deck towards him and he slipped one out. I sparked him up. He nodded his thanks and we smoked in silence for a bit as we both ran silent conversations in our head.

‘I had to see for myself,’ Shaz said.

‘Me too,’ I replied. ‘I’m sorry. It must have been—’

‘I didn’t go.’ Shaz cut me off. ‘To the wedding, I didn’t go… I went to the funeral.’

I could have addressed it, asked why he hadn’t attended his best friend’s wedding. I was curious enough, but it wasn’t any of my business.

I changed the subject. ‘Where you off to?’ I said, nodding at the cab.

‘Terminal 3. From there I’m catching a coach home.’

‘You’ve moved. How comes?’

He replied with the smallest of shrugs. ‘Just… I had to get away.’

I didn’t push him, sensing that whatever Imy had gone through, Shaz, in his own way was going through, too. I didn’t blame him for moving. He didn’t ask for any of this shit. The person who he considered his closest friend had carried secrets that had devastated those around him. I know a little something about that. The secrets and the life I’d kept from Idris had strained our friendship, at times threatened to break it. I realised then that I couldn’t allow what happened to Shaz and Imy to happen to me and Idris.

We sat in silence, looking across at the Great West Road through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

‘I got to see him,’ I said, before I could stop myself.

‘What?’ he said, his face scrunched up tight.

I didn’t repeat it. He’d heard me. I waited for him to get his head around it. He did so by bouncing to his feet. ‘What is it?’ he said, standing over me. ‘You wanna pay your condolences? Fuck, Jay! Take my advice, stay as far as fuck away from him. He’s… He’s not right. He ain’t thinking right!’

‘I know he’s not.’

‘You don’t know shit! And you don’t know him!’ His outburst had caused his Raiders hat to shift and I clocked the tail end of a deep scar. ‘Fuck!’ he hissed and pulled down his hat and stared at me in defiance, daring me to say something.

I didn’t.

I watched a fat teardrop roll down his cheek followed by another. I stood up and clumsily rubbed his arm.

‘Sorry.’ Shaz apologised when he had no need to.

‘Don’t be.’

He swiped a hand over his face. ‘It’s bad,’ he said. ‘He’s mixed up with some bad people. People that… Shit, Jay, it sounds so…’ Shaz took a ragged breath and then he snorted out a laugh, and there was the tiniest glimpse of the Shaz I knew. ‘These fucking guys!’ He shook his head in disbelief.

‘You and Imy, did you fall out?’

Shaz touched his two fists together. ‘He was my boy, yeah. But he’s got problems, he’s got problems that I can’t even begin to get my head around. I should have stepped up, but no. What do I do? I run. I up and move as far as fuck, don’t even tell him. And now… This! His family! Like that they’ve gone! And here I go again, looking the other way, walking in the opposite fucking direction.’

Shaz closed his eyes tightly and bopped his head a few times as though he was struggling to find his go-to-tune and instead finding nails down a blackboard.

‘He’s got a shooter, Jay.’

Yeah, I knew he had a gun, I knew because he once threatened to put one between my eyes. I nodded my head without committing to anything. ‘Tell me where I can find him.’

Shaz shook his head, and looked at the cabbie. I thought I’d lost him, but really I’d fucking broken him. He met my gaze, held it in his, and slowly he slipped off his beanie hat.

I stared when I wanted to close my eyes. I stared at the word Kafir carved into his forehead.

He placed the hat back on his head. ‘You still wanna see him?’