Blinded by the Lights by Jakub Żulczyk

Author:Jakub Żulczyk [Żulczyk, Jakub]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781789559859
Publisher: Legend Press

11:20pm

I should have spotted them earlier. Driving behind me. I was talking to Pazina on the phone. It’s not her fault, she simply has to talk. The fault is mine. We’re parked by the side of the road, and one of them places a reflective plastic triangle on the asphalt behind us. They mean to be here for a while. I feel thirsty. I forgot to hydrate.

The cars going past make a soothing, whooshing sound. And so I wonder what they would do if I just collapsed and fell into a coma right now. Or at least a very deep sleep.

Standing by the side of the road, it looks like my car has broken down, and they are preparing to give me a tow. They’re driving a beige Renault, rolling on cheap winter tyres. Undercover cops always ride round in shitty cars. These three look alike, Siamese triplets separated at birth, a freak of inbred nature. Their faces do not speak of intelligence. Quite the opposite. They seem irritated, tired, crumpled up, permanently hung over.

“You know you have no due cause,” I tell the one leaning against my car, wrapped in a thin leather blazer, hair done in a severe army issue crew cut.

“If I wasn’t at the end of a shift and on my last legs, I’d laugh at that,” he replies humourlessly.

“Me too,” says another over the noise of a passing truck. “I too would laugh. If it was funny.”

“We have no reason?” Crewcut repeats. “Fucking hell, do we need reasons?”

“Due cause, not reason,” I correct him. “You need due cause.”

I was talking with Pazina, but it’s not her fault. She insisted on talking, and I didn’t turn on the hands-free system in time, but she meant well. Paz always means well. I am to blame.

“What is it you want?” I asked her.

“Bethlehem’s online profiles – Facebook and all that, you know what it is – said it would be shut tonight. Warning people to keep away.”

“That place is always open.”

“Yeah, but it was Tiny. He posted about it being shut.”

“Fine, maybe today twenty less idiots will go there to waste their money, why do I care? Get someone to change the password on their Facebook account, get Tiny off it, that’s all. You know the score.”

Tiny must have got drunk and posted shit without thinking, or thinking he’d get sympathy, or that he’d gather up support for his punk cause. How his club, his little club has been taken over. No one cares. No one trusts the fucker.

“I don’t know, Kuba, I’m getting a bad feeling about all this. Tiny wants to pull something, I can feel it. I just know. I can just tell such things, so don’t give me lectures now about superstitions. Did you talk to Dawid?”

I talked to Dawid, the manager we installed at Bethlehem, earlier on the phone. Paz recommended his services, said he’d run some clubs for trusted people, could be counted on to run a tight ship without too much hassle.

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