From Innocence to Arrogance

by Ezekiel King

  “Nice to see you, Cyrus,” B said, as he shook my hand.

  “Nice to see you too, B. So this is your area?” I asked as I looked around at my unfamiliar surroundings.

  “Yes, this is my area. Come on, jump in my car because we have got things to do,” B said as he walked back to the driver’s side of the white German hot-hatch with the black spoiler and wheels. I walked to the passenger side and got into B’s car. B’s car was pure luxury—black leather and chrome trim everywhere I looked, everything made to the highest quality. The car had that new car smell of brand new leather.

  “We will go and get some food, then take care of business after,” B said.

  “Okay, I don’t mind,” I replied. We drove through streets that mostly looked identical to me. I felt a little out of my comfort zone. Not knowing B at all really, mixed with the new surroundings, was a bit overwhelming; I couldn’t give in to these feelings of nerves.

  Jason was right about one thing he had said, “If you can’t swim, stay out the sea,” or something to that effect, so as I was already well and truly in the ocean. I had to just stay calm and keep ‘treading water’.

  “B, I’ve had a think about what you said,” I said to start some sort of interaction with him. He had Asian music playing fairly quiet on the stereo, but since I had got in the car, he hadn’t spoken much.

  “Cyrus, wait until we get out the car, I don’t like talking in the car, and it’s a good habit if you don’t talk in cars either,” B said dismissing my invitation into conversation.

  “Why shouldn’t I talk in cars?” I asked as I wasn’t a hundred percent sure as to why he had made the statement.

  “Because dirty police officers like to plant listening devices in them, so never talk about anything dodgy in a car, not that we’ve got anything dodgy to talk about,” B winked at me and touched his ear. He had basically said he thinks the cops may have bugged his car, so that’s why he doesn’t talk in the car. It was a lesson duly noted by me.

  B and I pulled into the restaurant car park; the car park was nearly full of cars. “What is this place like?” I asked again trying to start conversation.

  “Have you never been here before?” B asked.

  “No, is it nice?” I asked.

  “You will find out in a minute,” B said as he parked the car. The entrance to the restaurant was raised from the car park floor with big, white tiled steps. I walked slightly behind B as he opened one of the two big glass doors.

  Inside, the restaurant was carpeted throughout with a thick floral design covering the carpet from the entrance out onto the restaurant floor. “Bob, how are you doing?” The entrance employees asked as they saw B; the maître d’s eyes lit up like he was B’s biggest fan.

  So, B stands for Bob, I thought to myself. B looks as much like a ‘Bob’ as Santa Claus looks like a ‘Mr Singh’, I thought as I watched the restaurant waiters shaking B’s hand and smiling at him. The restaurant smelled of Asian food, and as I walked, I looked at people’s plates on their table. This was not your usual curry house or Balti hut on a side street, this was more of a posh restaurant. The waiter seated us in the back corner of the room, giving us a good view of the whole restaurant. The restaurant was almost completely filled with Asians, consisting of mainly families in small groups of 12 or less people per gathering. B and I sat and spoke about our plans. I told him I had put a few feelers out about the cocaine to see if it was something I could work with; also I told B about the positive feedback I had received. The word that kept cropping up was ‘quality’ or ‘is it good’; so I summarised to B that if the product was good, then we would more than likely be onto a winner.

  Regardless of what the future held, life had progressed massively in the last few months. I had gone from dossing around on foot with nothing, to having money put away and having a nice car and meeting serious drug-dealers for dinner in their local posh restaurants. These were my feelings as I tucked into the tender lamb chops the waiter had brought over with our starters. “Yes, Cyrus, when we leave here, I’m going to show you how to make money,” B said.

  “That sounds perfect to me…is there anything else I can call you other than B?” I asked. Saying B seemed so detached in terms of us being friends.

  “Yes, most of my friends call me Bob. Either B or Bob, it’s totally up to you,” Bob said.

  “Okay, Bob,” I said as I chuckled at his funny but strange name. Over dinner, Bob went on to explain what he wanted from our arrangement.

  “Cyrus, I’m going to make you one of the biggest drug-dealers in Coventry, but what I show you, do not even tell your shadow. It’s got to be an absolute secret, because if you tell anyone, it could fuck my work up and yours,” Bob stressed. We sat and talked over our quality meal surrounded by posh Asian decor. As we sat finishing our meals, I noticed the same stocky white guy that Bob had been in Coventry city centre with walking towards our table.

  The stocky white man was with a slim, light-skinned Asian male with a big beard that came down to his chest. The Asian guy with the white guy called ‘Luke’ had on jeans and T-shirt similar to mine; and Luke had a grey tracksuit on, that looked fresh and new. Bob noticed them at the same time I did and put his fork down to wipe his hands with his napkin and smiled at them. “About time,” Bob said as he smiled at his two friends and shook their hands in turn. Bob’s two friends then said ‘hello’ to me and shook my hand.

  “Everything is there for you; are you sure it’s a good idea?” the white guy called Luke asked as though he was concerned about something.

  “Don’t worry, I’m never wrong about things like this,” Bob said to reassure Luke. I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, but I knew it was not something I should ask about either. “I’m going to be about an hour and a half after we leave here, so I’ll call you to drop my friend here home when we are finished,” Bob said to his two friends. The two men hadn’t even sat down; they had walked in and stood beside the table.

  “Here,” Luke said as he took out a single key and gave it to Bob.

  “Make sure Bubbles is at the spot when I get there; we will be there in ten minutes,” Bob said as he took the key and placed it straight into his pocket. I just sat there trying to act as though I wasn’t listening to their every word. They were not talking to me, so it would have seemed rude to just stop eating and listen to their conversation. I did listen to every word—I just did it subtly.

  The Asian man with the big beard and Luke walked off back through the restaurant in the direction they had come after saying goodbye and shaking both of our hands once more. I could tell they were close to Bob; possibly even work colleagues, their relationship reminded me of mine and Chris’. The difference being, these guys were further up the chain than Chris and me. “Who is the guy with beard?” I asked Bob as we finished eating.

  “Oh, that’s my mate, Yax,” Bob said. The name meant nothing to me. I had never heard it before. “Are you ready to leave, Cyrus?” Bob asked as he picked up his drink and tipped the glass just over horizontally to finish its contents.

  “I don’t know what I am ready for, but if it’s business, then I’m ready,” I said as I smiled at him in jest.

  The two of us got up from our dinner table. As we did so, I put my hand in my pocket to get the £300 I had brought with me out to pay for our dinner. As I pulled the money from my pocket, Bob saw the money. “What are you doing?” Bob said as though I had annoyed him.

  “I was going to pay,” I replied.

  “Cyrus, that is very disrespectful. I have brought you for food, put your money away,” Bob said as he frowned at me. It was an order not a request, just as he had told Chris ‘not to look behind him at me’ in the car outside the club when we had met. I didn’t argue the point of wanting to pay any further, as I could tell he was genuinely annoyed that I had thought it was necessary in the first place. We stepped back outside into the cold Sunday late evening air.

  “Haven’t we got to pay?” I asked in a
voice that just let Bob know I was curious and not suggesting that I wanted to pay.

  “Cyrus, that’s my friend’s restaurant. If he heard I had paid, he would go mad and fall out with me,” Bob said as he pressed the fob on his keys to open the luxurious white hot-hatch. With my belly now full and feeling revitalised, we turned out of the car park. “Turn your phone off, Cyrus,” Bob said as he took out the two phones he had on him as he drove and switched them both off. I didn’t ask any questions as I remembered the no talking in the car policy and assumed it was for good reason.

  Ten minutes later, we arrived on the street that was predominantly Asian and resembled the road I had met Bob on. “Put this on, I will explain when we get out of the car,” Bob said as he gave me a black eye mask—the type of eye mask that people wear to bed to block out the light. The mask had an elastic strap that goes around the back of your head. I had seen people wearing the same masks on the plane when my mum and dad had took me to Jamaica years before. Again, I didn’t ask any questions; it was self-explanatory. He was taking me somewhere that he didn’t want me to know the location of. It was his place, therefore his right, and who was I to argue. I put the double eye-patched elastic thing on willingly with the thought he must be taking me to see something good, or he wouldn’t care if I knew where it was. When I had put the eye mask on properly, Bob pulled off again and began to drive. The world went black with darkness as I sat rocking as the car turned left and right. Bob seemed to be driving quicker than he had before. I could feel the power of the car holding me in place in my seat as Bob sped down straight roads. I had confidence in Bob’s driving ability; he seemed like a man that knew what he was doing. My eyelashes rubbed against the nylon feeling material on the inside of my blindfold. The car stopped quickly, and I felt the powerful engine grumble as we parked up. The engine turned off. “Cyrus, when I say ‘now’, take that blindfold off and follow me quickly. Okay?” Bob said clearly making sure I understood perfectly.

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “Now,” Bob said. I lifted the eyepatch causing me to squint due to the dramatic change in lighting. I heard Bob’s driver’s door open. Bob got out and walked around the car towards my side, which was closest to the row of houses we were parked outside of. I got out and followed Bob closely. He walked quickly to a door which was no more than four houses up from where we had parked. The street had the same brick houses on it—they looked no bigger than four-bedroom houses. Each had a small brick wall outside with a little gate. They were average houses on an average street. I could tell we were still in an Asian area. Bob walked to the front door of a house with me closely behind, and using the single key Luke had given him, Bob opened the door. In through the front door took us into a reception type room. A kind of tiny living room Bob ushered me in quickly and locked the door behind us. The reception room had a sofa and a few pictures on the wall of buildings and nice sceneries. The room also had a brown cabinet with a little table the same colour in front of the small two-seat leather sofa. “Cyrus, I have never brought anybody here before, you’re only here because you’re going to work with me, and I want you to understand how things work; but you do not tell a soul about what I’m going to teach you, okay?” Bob said in a serious tone.

  I could tell that Bob was nervous and unsettled. I had never seen Bob look nervous before, which told me whatever Bob stored in this house was very significant. So significant that this house unsettled Bob as soon as he entered the front door.

  The door to leave the reception room and continue on into the house was closed—a cheap white wooden door. Bob walked past me and opened the white wooden door to walk through. I followed Bob to find the strangest layout for a living room I had ever seen. As I walked in through the white wooden door, there was a window in the left side of the wall opposite me. It had a long blackout blind all the way down, covering any view from outside. There was a doorway directly in front of me leading through to the kitchen. The floor in the living room had been carpeted, but that looked cheap and was hard due to the fact it had no underlay. There was a large wooden workbench in front of the window with the blackout blind. The bench ran from the front of the window along the wall at just over waist height and was over two metres long. The room had a three-piece sofa against the wall immediately to my left as I walked into the room. On top of the workbench was what looked like a pair of industrial weighing scales. They looked like the type that people have in their bathrooms, but this pair of scales was much thicker, with a big square silver surface on the top. The scales had a little digital screen underneath the weighing surface. Also on this large workbench was what looked like four big blenders. I could see an extension lead on the workbench with the four blenders plugged in and the scales.

  “Welcome to my office,” Bob said as he looked around the room. Bob had walked in through the white wooden door and taken three steps forward, then turned left and walked to the wall, putting the sofa on his left and the giant work surface starting on his right. He was kneeling down in front of a rectangular, red metal-frame type thing. It had a circular gauge on the top of it, and a platform in the middle of the frame with a big thick steel black plate resting on top of the platform. It was roughly waist height, and it had a lead coming from just beneath the gauge on the top. The lead was connected to what looked like a large pump that was red and cylinder shaped, as thick as the fat part of a baseball bat. The pump was resting on the floor with a lever above it to pump.

  “Do you know what this is?” Bob asked as he turned from the machine to look at me.

  “No, what is it?” I answered truthfully.

  “It’s a 10-ton hydraulic press,” Bob answered. It had the words ‘strong arm’ written on it, and a thick cylinder that is moved using the hydraulics that comes through the middle of the frame to squash whatever is resting on the thick black metal plate on the platform. It is operated hydraulically using the pump. Bob levered the white handle up and down three or four times, and the arm-sized cylinder in the middle started to move down towards the platform with each pump of the lever. I understood the concept, but what the fuck did he want that for? Also, why was he so happy with it? Bob stood up in front of the ‘10-ton press’ and opened the door next to the sofa that presumably led upstairs.

  “Bubbles! Yoooh, Bubbles!” Bob shouted as he put his head around the corner of the door. I heard movement upstairs before I heard someone coming down the stairs.

  “Didn’t you hear me come in?” Bob asked the guy he called Bubbles.

  “Yes, of course, I heard you come in, but I thought you were busy,” Bubbles replied; he was a white guy in his late 30s or early 40s. He was slightly overweight and bald; he looked a little scruffy and a bit greasy.

  “Get a case of ‘nose’ and three cases of ‘Benz’,” Bob said to the fattish man he called Bubbles. At this, Bubbles started back up the stairs. “Sit down with me, Cyrus, while I explain what’s going on,” Bob said as he pointed to the three-piece sofa.

  Bob then went on to explain. "Cyrus, I buy kilos of pure cocaine. I buy it from my Albanian friends, or I buy it from my Dutch friends, depending on who has got better cocaine at the time. I pay £35,000 per kilo. What we are going to do now is turn one kg into four kg. Cyrus, how we are going to do that is we are going to blend one of our kilos of pure cocaine with three-kg of benzocaine.

  Benzocaine, or as I call it ‘Benz’, has no taste. It’s white and causes a slight numbing if you put it in your mouth. It’s perfect for mixing with cocaine. Cyrus, what we are going to do now when Bubbles comes back downstairs is sit here while Bubbles blends one-ounce of pure cocaine with three-ounces of benzocaine. Cyrus, we are going to sit here until he has done that 36 times, because there is 36 ounces in a kilo as you know," Bob went on to explain that he blends the cocaine and benzocaine mix in small quantities as it ensures an even mix.

  The fattish white guy called Bubbles came back down the stairs with a black drawstring bag with writing on it ‘a sports bag’. Bubbles walked o
ver to the big work surface and emptied the contents onto the workbench.

  “Can I watch?” I said to Bob as I began to stand up.

  “Yes, of course, just don’t get in his way or distract him, because he ain’t the brightest crayon in the colouring box, are you, Bubbles?” Bob said clearly mocking him. Bubbles didn’t even reply; he just looked behind him at the sofa and grinned at Bob.

  I stood up to position myself with a clear view of the work surface without impeding Bubbles’ work. There were three giant clear bags of loose white powder that looked finely blended. There was also one rectangular block, the block was about an inch and a half thick and roughly the size of an average book; maybe half an inch wider and longer, like an old videocassette box. “Is that a kilo of pure cocaine?” I asked trying not to disturb Bubbles too much but still acquiring the information I wanted.

  “Yes, mate, that’s a case of pure,” Bubbles replied. The word ‘case’ being street terminology for a kilo, ‘case, box, square’ are all words used to describe a kilo of cocaine, or anything else that weighs a kilo. I stood watching as Bubbles used a Stanley blade to slice along the long edge of the kilo of pure cocaine. It was covered in a brown tape. Bubbles was pressing hard as he ran the blade slowly along the corner from one edge to the other. “You’ve got to press hard because under the brown tape, there’s a rubber jacket and clear plastic,” Bubbles said as he offered an explanation for his method.

  “Oh, okay,” I said, showing appreciation for the knowledge. Once finished with the long edge, Bubbles ran the sharp blade along the short edge that met where he had just cut and repeated the procedure. Bubbles then opened the flap and pulled the packaging off using force, but not recklessly. A white rectangular block emerged from the packaging, over an inch thick and as big as an old videocassette case.