Everybody wants to move up.
In The Gutter, it means crushing the heads of those beneath you.
In The Gutter, it means crushing the heads of those beneath you.
Banged up by Mike Loniewski
The rickety
bicycle rounds the corner of the cafe with a skinny bloke wrestling the handle
bars. A kid with an Uzi hangs off the back. He’s not aiming for me, but for the
other guy at my table. A young, American tech-billionaire arsehole who cashed
in on some face tweet thing I’ll never understand.
The Uzi
starts spitting and people slip under their tables as if it’s an ordinary
course of the dinner. I, on the other hand, pull my HK over the American
kid’s shoulder and put neatly cropped holes in the bicycle twins.
Wirat, the
delivery boy, pulls up with his tiny car on cue. Wirat’s a friend and a gifted
drunk. Put a few in him and the bastard turns into an F1 champion.
I shove the
American and my bag of food into the back. Wirat hits the accelerator. We’re
weaving through congested streets as people rush to the cafe to see dead
bodies. They love dead bodies out here.
“Can you
hear what I’m saying to you?” I ask.
Kid’s in
shock. Maybe just stoned. He looks at
me with dinner plate eyes. “Is my ear bleeding? My ear’s bleeding”
It’s
bleeding, alright. A forty-five went off at his ear.
We’re out
of the alleys and market streets and into more civilized traffic, trying to
elude an unstable man with a passion for chopping up limbs and trafficking
drugs.
“Have you
heard of this fellow Ukrit?” I ask the American.
“Yeah.
Shit. I know him.”
“That
bicycle was property of Ukrit. I happen to work for Ukrit.”
The kid
fiddles with his ear. “Why the hell did you cap your coworkers?”
“I saw an
opportunity.”
Wirat pulls
us up a block from a dingy fish market.
Ukrit’s somewhere inside waiting for the food from the cafe. Sick bastard ordered food from the same place he ordered a hit.
Ukrit’s somewhere inside waiting for the food from the cafe. Sick bastard ordered food from the same place he ordered a hit.
I hand
Wirat the to-go bag, tell him to run it inside and to be quick about it.
I turn back
to the kid. “You’re having yourself a blast smuggling heroin to artists in
Europe. That’s a far cry from your computers in California. Drugs are Ukrit’s job.”
“Ukrit’s
got poor business sense. He’s local. I’m taking it global,” he says.
This
wanker. Part of me’s thinking I should just hand him over to Ukrit. Hack him up
proper. But I can’t manage this without him.
“Bangkok’s
going to kill you before you’re twenty six. If it wasn’t for me, Ukrit would
have made sure of it already,” I say.
“Why do you
give a shit about what Ukrit does to me?”
There’s no
sense telling him how I’ve drowned myself in booze to erase the memory of
killing my own men in combat, and how I ended up a mercenary to pay the tab. I
don’t tell him about the cancer and how I just want a few good days to make
things right with the people I’ve fucked over. I just tell him it’s about the
money. “A dead man always leaves a few prizes in his pockets. Ukrit’s pockets
will have plenty of prizes for the both of us.”
The kid
shakes his head. “Don’t need his money.”
“But, I do.
And you need his growers.”
He laughs.
“So, we’re ripping off Ukrit? You don’t need me for that. There’s something
else.”
He’s right.
“I need those computer talents of yours. Fill some personal accounts with
Ukrit’s dirty money. Wash it clean. Same time, I deliver Ukrit to his maker for
you.”
“You got
some crazy ass plan to kill Ukrit?” he says and laughs.
I flip open
the burner phone. “Do you know what Mok Huak is?”
“That I do
not.”
“It’s
tadpoles and fermented fish. Ukrit’s favorite.”
I hold out
my hand. “We have a deal?”
We shake
and I press send on a text to a receiver tucked inside that slimy glob of Mok
Huak from the cafe. I only hope Wirat’s made it out.
Silence.
There shouldn’t be silence. The charge inside the to-go bag should have
detonated instantly.
Things are
really buggered when I see Ukrit and a small gang come strutting out of the
market toward our cab. Ukrit’s swinging something in his hand.
“Holy shit!
Is that a head?” The kid screeches next to me.
It’s a
head, alright. Wirat’s.
Flashes pop
off behind Ukrit and the cab’s windshield cracks into spider webs. Rounds
explode off the grill.
I jump over
the driver’s seat and press both hands down on the gas. “Steer, you cunt!” I
shout at the kid.
As bodies
thump against the hood, the kid screams again.
I take a
peek and see Ukrit—still alive and high on something—smashed through our
windshield.
“Shoot
him,” I shout.
The kid takes
my HK and—as his generation would put it—“caps” Ukrit in the head.
I slam the brakes
and the drug lord’s body ejects.
I
straighten myself and pat him on the shoulder.
“Right, then. Let’s see what’s in those
pockets.”
