You Don't Know Me

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.’