cigarette between his lips and clicked the lighter twice before he got a light. His watch, a very slim gold thing, glinted in the sunlight.
He hadn’t bought his clothes at a street market either. The black shirt looked quality, and his jeans had an Armani label on the back. He smelled of expensive cologne and as he smoked I could see well-manicured nails. The fingernail on the little finger of his right hand was much longer than the rest, to the point where it nearly started to curl. Maybe he played the guitar, or perhaps he just didn’t like using a spoon to scoop up his cocaine.
He traded stares with Lotfi while I cleared the snot and blood from my nose onto the concrete and my jeans. Hubba-Hubba lay less than fifteen feet away from his brother, yet Lotfi gazed at his killer as if he were studying a painting. I was impressed. I’d known a few people over the years who could keep their head in a gang fuck, but this was something else.
Goatee looked down at us and breathed deeply, before kicking Lotfi in the leg. “Do you speak English too?”
Lotfi nodded, his gaze never wavering.
Goatee took another drag of his cigarette. When he exhaled, the halo of smoke danced in the sunlight above him. “I suppose you are the people on the other end of the radio?” His tone was icy. He was waiting for an answer, but Lotfi wasn’t giving, and he was right, but only up to a point. This wasn’t the time to answer questions, it was the time to start begging for our lives.
I wiped another fistful of snot and blood off my nose, then went for it. “Look, I don’t know what the fuck is going on here.” I nodded in the direction of the pit. “We were just told to follow those two. We thought they were moving heroin to the Channel Islands. Someone there was worried it was going to affect his business. Whatever’s going on here, we don’t need to know. What the fuck, we can just walk out of here now and forget the whole thing….”
I knew I had lost him on the first few words. He didn’t even look at me, but remained staring at Lotfi, and took another drag before jabbering off at him in Arabic. Lotfi replied with three or four sentences, which meant nothing to me. I just knew Goatee was getting fucked off by him big-time.
Goatee forced a lungful of smoke out through his nostrils as he turned to face me. “What does it matter? I do not care who you are. If you came to steal from me, or you didn’t, it matters not.” He flicked the ash over toward the pit. “They are dead. You are dead. I still have the money, and I’ll simply wait for another collection. I can’t afford to take chances. I don’t care what’s happened. God understands, God will forgive me.” He turned to Lotfi. “No?”
There was no reply.
Goatee took another drag and turned back to have a word with the black-leather brothers. Lotfi’s lips started to move; he put his head down and rocked backward and forward slightly. I didn’t understand all of it but certainly got the “Muhammad rasul-ullah” bit.
The Shahada; he was preparing for death.
He might be ready to meet his maker, but I wasn’t.
Goatee heard Lotfi too, and turned his head around to watch, before shrugging his shoulders and throwing both passports toward the pit. They landed on the gate, one falling down onto Hubba-Hubba’s black-and-red charred body. Goatee walked away and yelled stuff at the other four.
Lotfi’s eyes followed the black-leather brothers, one of whom carried the empty gas container, as they walked toward the Lexus. If God was on our side, he needed to get off his butt and do something pretty quick.
One of the brothers fired up the Lexus while the other pulled on the chain to open up the grease-and grime- covered shutters. The vehicle reversed, then turned to face the exit as the hawallada’s cell phone gave another ring. He opened it up and headed toward the other side of the building. The Lexus went through the door and disappeared. Van Man started closing the shutter as Baldilocks kept watch on us, sunlight bouncing off his sweat- covered head.
It was a very short phone call: I got the impression that Goatee was telling her he might be back in time for tea after all, but not to keep calling him at the office. Whatever we were going to do, we had to do it before the Lexus got back. I looked over at Lotfi and his eyes were still locked on Goatee. Blood dripped from his nostrils, bubbling as he prayed.
Goatee put the phone into his pocket and walked back over to us. He’d almost reached us when two shots rang out outside. Van Man let go of the chain. The shutter stopped rattling, about two feet from the ground, as they all drew down and Van Man dived to one side of the entrance.
There were more shots, followed by shouts and the revving of engines, then the screech of brakes and the sound of a collision. Baldilocks froze, looking to Van Man for some kind of clue about what the fuck he should do next.
There were more single shots. Van Man took a quick look outside. “Police! Police!”
Goatee barked instructions at them both. Lotfi had stopped in mid-prayer. The light was back in his eyes. He glanced across at me with a look that said, “You see, Nick? I was right. God’s come to the rescue.”
I gave him one back that said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here, and let’s do it now….”
He launched himself at Goatee, as the pain in my chest disappeared and I wrapped myself around Baldilocks before he had the chance to switch himself back on. I hung on to him like a drowning man, trying to keep his arms down and the weapon out of the way. I kept pushing him back, moving my legs as quickly as I could to keep him off balance. The pistol clattered to the concrete and we crashed into the ramp, then fell to the floor, me on top, still wrapped around him. The pain returned, big-time. My ribs felt like they’d been given the good news by a jackhammer. I fought for breath. I heard myself scream as he squirmed under me, his pistol just over three feet away.
It was a Beretta, and the safety catch was still on. My brain shrank. That weapon became my whole world.
I fell sideways, arm outstretched, but Baldilocks managed to slow me down, grunting with the effort, dragging at my leg, pulling at my sweatshirt, trying to beat me to it.
The muzzle was facing us; my hand was no more than six inches from it. I could feel his fingers scrabbling at me, trying to climb over me. But I was there, no pain in my hands now, gripping it to my chest.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t suck in any air. Trying to turn the thing around, I got it in my right hand. He was now on top of me, forcing the weapon down between me and the concrete. My ribcage started to collapse. I pushed up with my ass, trying to make space under me, trying to spin the weapon around, stripping the skin off my knuckles.
He grabbed my throat. His teeth bit into my shoulder. I felt his labored breathing on my neck.
If I didn’t get some air into my lungs soon, I was going down. Starbursts of light flickered across my eyes. I needed oxygen, my head was about to explode.
More gunshots outside.
I got the weapon in my hand, but his weight was still pressing down on me too much to move it.
I twisted left and right, jerking up and down, trying to create a gap so I could free my hand. He bit harder, his hands shifting from my throat to my arms.
I rolled onto my right side, got the Beretta into his biceps, and fired. He shrieked and sprang off me, clutching the wound, wriggling like an eel. I could see bone and blood as I lay there trying to breathe.
Lotfi was lying by the pit, a few feet from Goatee. Both were curled up, both leaking blood.
Sunlight poured in through the gap underneath the shutter. Shots ricocheted off the steel as Lotfi crawled over to the hawallada. I screamed at him, “No, let’s go, let’s go!”
He’d gotten on top of Goatee and was forcing the pistol into his face. Fuck him, we’d never get him to the DOP anyway. “Just do it, let’s go — come on! Come on!”
He looked over at me, his face covered with blood.
“Come on! Do it! The window!”
Sirens wailed. Rolling off Goatee, he lifted the pistol to fire at Van Man, who was still at the shutter, but he was in shit state; it would be a waste of rounds, and he knew it.
The weapon came down as I moved to the cover of the Portakabins, my head swimming, vision blurred, eyes wet with pain. “Come on, kill him,” I croaked. “Let’s go!”
We had to get out of there before the police threw a cordon around the complex.
Lotfi hauled himself onto his knees, clutching his stomach. “Take him, take him now…”
