Chapter Four: Bleeds (Part V)

All would have been well if it hadn’t been for the problem of the observer. You see, whenever we did that lift and passing off routine, we would walk away from the mark in opposite directions. If I had been made making the lift, it was my job to draw any rozzer or other witness away from the goods in Julie’s possession. But even when I really lost sight of Julie it was never more than ten minutes before she was suddenly walking by my side again, ready for the next lift.

I kept looking for the watchman that I was told had me under observation at all times, but aside from the occasional glimpse of Tyler or Roger in the distance, I never spotted anyone. Even when I went inside one of the arcades and department stores, even when I went to the loo of some fast food restaurant, nobody hurried after me, and still, a few minutes later Julie came towards me, as if she’d known exactly where I was.

Part of the reason I wanted to know how they were keeping tabs on me was of course that I thought about escaping but was too scared to try. Colour me yellow and call me a sissy, but I was pretty certain that if I tried to run and was caught by, say, Melanie or Lonnie, my chances of leaving Leeds alive would have been bloody slim indeed. I didn’t intend to do anything rash. But I wanted to know how they always knew.

It was more than that, though. I consider myself pretty sharp and keen eyed. I mean, anasını satayım, Uncle Valya and I had trained how to make and shake a tail and how to find a spot where you couldn’t be observed. And it bugged me badly that I couldn’t figure this out.

Then, Friday afternoon, Julie and I were at the Burger King at the back of the railway station. I was queuing for those mini pancakes they serve and going through my pockets for change when I noticed that some coins had slipped through tear from the pocket into the lining of my jacket. You know the bother when coins or pens or something slips through such a tear into the lining? Well, I dug around in there, rather absentmindedly, when I noticed something stuck in the seam that was about the size of a thumb-drive.

I wormed it out and looked at the thing – and that was when the penny dropped. The cunts had bugged me. It was a bloody tracker, too small for a real time GPS tracker I’d say in retrospect, but obviously with enough range for downtown Leeds. Julie, or someone, must have had an app on their smart-phone telling them exactly where I was at any given moment. They probably had slipped it in while I was taking that shower on Wednesday, before we went to town to work the first time.

Of course, that was when I could have walked. The next moment the smug bastards let me out of sight I could have slipped the tracker into someone else’s pocket, someone boarding a train or getting into a car, and quietly left town while they were chasing the decoy. Hell, I probably could have slipped out some back way right then.

Why didn’t I? Why, oh why, didn’t I take the blue pill, huh?

The tracker bothered me a lot. It wasn’t that I was being guarded, I mean, they had told me as much. I didn’t mind Nate waiting outside the shower with the taser, I didn’t even so much mind the 14 hours of sensory deprivation, even though I didn’t exactly relish that either. Too many memories, too many ghosts. I don’t think I would have minded if they had snapped one of these ankle monitors onto my leg. But the sneaky, covert way they’d gone about it bothered me a lot.

I thought about scarpering. But it felt as if running would be like leaving a sentence hanging before you made your point. Maybe I am flattering myself. Maybe I just didn’t want to stop being their dog. It was just that after I could run, staying implied consent. And I couldn’t give that either.

As I said, that was Friday, my third day with the Harehills Crew – not counting that first evening when I ran into them. That day it wasn’t Tyler or Roger or one of the others who took us back to Julie’s grandma, it was the boss man himself. Bryan was in a grim mood, you could see that at once. He picked us up in front of the rail station and one we got to the house he came in with us. He knew Julie’s grandmother and went upstairs to say hello.

“What’s with him?” I asked Julie while we waited in the kitchen.

“Problems.”

I didn’t say anything, but I suppose my face said it for me.

“When Bryan took over last year, there was some bad blood. Some of us feared he was just going to annex us to the Beeston Crew.”

“I see. At least I would if I lived in a universe where that sentence made any kind of sense…”

She rolled her eyes, not really pissed off.

“The Beeston leader, Asiv…”

“The bloke you wanted to send a message using my dead body?” I interrupted and she nodded, not breaking her stride.

“… he and Bryan used to be mates, been to prison together and stuff. But then Asiv…” She made a vague gesture. “He made some choices for his crew that Bryan couldn’t go along with. Difference of philosophy.”

“Philosophy…” I echoed dryly.

“Fuck you, man.”

I held up both hands. “Difference of philosophy, fine. Still, Bryan is a Beeston man, has a falling out with his old boss. How’s he get to lead the Hillhares?”

She gave me a hard look, checking if I was taking the piss, and then continued.

“Bryan was as good as dead if he defied Asiv on… that. He needed protection. We knew he had contacts, intel, not just on the other crews, but also business. He knows people, from prison. Big fish. Still, some felt that was just enough to buy him protection, membership at best. Not the right to lead us. But Bryan has his pride. So he fought Dimitri.” And at my raised eyebrow: “Dimitiri was boss before Bryan.”

“Where is Dimitri now?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

“Prison. Has nothing to do with Bryan. Bryan and Dimitri got along pretty good afterwards, Dimitri was his second, like. If Dimitri was still around, they wouldn’t be weaving their little intrigues.”

“Melanie and Lonnie?” I asked. Julie nodded. Suddenly I understood something.

“So, the thing about killing me... that was…?”

“Yeah. Mel has been trying to get Bryan to hang himself for months now. But Bryan is too smart for her, and he got some, uh, loyalty in the crew.”

She fell silent, and her eyes travelled towards the door we were expecting him to walk through any time now – and beyond into memory. I remembered the flicker of eyes, the brief contact, back when they were deciding about my life.

“They… do not know about you… and him?” I asked carefully.

Her smile was paper thin and soaked in pain.

“And you have been…” I continued, tasting the words for their truth, following my intuition the way a snake follows its own flickering tongue. “…since long before he and Asiv… back when he was still…”

Julie cracked another beer. “Some of us are so sharp they might just cut themselves.”

I looked at her, sitting there in her camouflage clothes, her unlaced rude girl boots. She held her fag the way I did, between the thumb and the middle finger, index finger resting on the butt for control, glowing point cupped in the palm. I raised my bottle and clinked it against hers.

“To loyalty.”

She looked up, her grin so at odds with the darkness in her eyes as to be almost a grimace, and clinked hers back against mine. And she muttered:

“Sure, mate. To loyalty.”