You Don't Know Me

We are at the rear doors of the club. Curt leans his weight against the door and it opens up, just like Ki had promised. We look at each other and then slip quietly inside and pull the door to. Ki was right about this too. It is dark. The lights, if there ever were any in there, have blown. I take my phone out, turn it on and use it as a torch. I don’t realize at that time that even as I turn it on it is sending a signal to a phone mast that will tell the prosecution in months from now exactly where I am.

The phone gives me just enough light to see by and just as Ki had said, there is a door off to the left just before the stairs. We push it. It opens. Curt and I duck in and all around us is nothing but heavy blackness. I feel along the wall for a switch and find one. The room fills with light. I see Curt’s face, his eyes screwed momentarily against the whiteness of the light and then an almost smile. We are in.

We slump down on the floor with our backs against the door so if someone pushes it we will know about them before they know about us. I put the carrier bag down next to me and both Curt and I take out our two-ways, turn them on low until they hiss and wait. Curt’s face is like a mask. You can’t see what he’s thinking. I reckon that if you took a picture of that moment even he wouldn’t be able to tell you what he was thinking. I wonder just then whether he is thinking anything. Just the plan maybe. Only the plan.

Luncheon adjournment: 13:01

36

14:05

The plan is for Ki to wait until she spots Face. If she sees him she radios through. If she sees anything else, she radios through. If she sees trouble she radios through and we walk out. We cannot take more risks than we are already taking. Once we know Face is here in the club, we will wait until Ki sees him go to the toilets. If it looks safe, in other words if he goes in alone, then she calls it through and I head out of the room and up the small flight of stairs at the end of the corridor. The steps lead to the main club. The toilets are just there. The first door I come to on the left is the men’s. I go in, I do the thing and I leave. Ki only calls it in if we can get Face otherwise we are out of there.

Curt will stay where he is. We need him to make sure that the exit is clean and if it gets dirty for him to clean it up for us and make us a way out of there. Once the hit is done, I am supposed to meet up with Curt in the room where we are now and then call it through to Ki and wait for her. She comes, she changes into the clothes I have brought for her in the plastic bag. Then we all leave.

I look around the back room and try to concentrate on some detail of it just to calm me down. But it’s impossible. The room is hot even though there is no heating in it that we can see. Curt is sweating a bit but then he’s a big guy and them big guys can lose some serious water. I think he’s nervous though. I know I am. We sit there saying almost nothing for half an hour, just listening to the white noise of the radios. Even though they are turned down proper low we can hear them crackling still. I am lost in my own mind and by the look of him I guess Curt is too.

Ten minutes or an hour passes and the radio is annoyingly still giving us the silent treatment. I can’t stand the tension. I wish the fucker would just buzz with Ki’s voice now. I don’t even mind whether it comes over just so that she can call it off. I just need something to happen soon.

‘Curt.’

Curt is still sitting next to me. His legs are out and he is breathing deep breaths that shift the whole of his body up and down as if he is bobbing on a wave. The heat coming from him is powerful.

‘We have to do this, right?’ I continue, ‘I mean we got no choice innit?’

‘Yeah man,’ he says, wiping his face. ‘Way to look at it is that it’s already done. We already made the choice.’

I nod more to myself than him.

‘I’ll do it if you like,’ he then says without looking at me. ‘It makes more sense. I done this before.’

I look at him not believing I’m hearing what I am hearing. ‘You done what before?’

‘Don’t act like you don’t know.’

‘Fuck man. I thought we were brothers. Blood. You couldn’t tell me this before?’ It feels like bricks are falling on my head.

‘The fuck was I supposed to say?’ he says wiping his face again with his hand. ‘Anyway point is, I do it for you. Say the word.’

Then I look at him and say, ‘Nah man, you done too much already.’

Just then the radios crackle loudly and Ki’s voice comes travelling over to us. It sounds as if she is a world away. A call from a different planet. Like Armstrong when he calls from the moon.

‘Move,’ she says, her voice is sharp and cuts through all the static. ‘You got to move now. Face is in the toilets now. You got to move now.’

Curt looks at me and then drags himself slowly to his feet but I know he’s moving as fast as he can.