The Billy Can Bomb

Chapter Three


The noise and commotion didn’t just strike Kev, they shook him, sending a shiver of panic and fear through his body. Instinctively he slowed his bike, gently pulling the brakes so as not to make a sharp squeal and draw attention to himself. As slowly he began to ease himself into something he didn’t quite comprehend.

“Easy does it Kevin boy”, he murmured to himself, unsure what next to do. The commotion became louder, a bin was pushed over clattering its filthy contents over the concrete. He heard four, maybe five, people arguing. The underground car park was black as pitch, the night had now closed into its darkness. Kev, despite his confidence and physical size, felt uncertain; whether to cycle off, or investigate the increasing noise.

“What are the police paid for anyway”, Kevin thought, “it’s their job to sort out grief”. Part of him was excited, “wicked, man!”, he kept saying to himself hiding his turmoil with bravado. Answering himself, as if searching for a solution to his dilemma, said, “it’s not my area. I don’t live across the road. Leave this dump to itself!” Then he remembered me: “it’s Billy’s home too, I sleep over at his place. I know what’s going on”.

And all the time gently freewheeling down the concrete ramp, past a few car wrecks, avoiding, as much as possible, shards of broken glass glinting from a shaft of light.

Instead of merely hearing people arguing he could now see them. Dark hulking shapes, big men, by a car, its engine sweetly ticking over almost noiselessly. “That’s expensive”, Kevin thought. By the car stood two youths. “I think I recognise him”, said Kevin to himself applying a name to the body shape in the shadows.

The cycle was coming to a halt after running out of momentum. Gently braked, it finally stopped. Kevin, astride, to keep it balanced, quickly swung his leg over the cross bar and rested the machine against a filthy concrete wall.

He could see all of them all clearly. Two men inside the car, two outside leaning against it and the two youths, his age, maybe a little older, but not by much.

“Yes”, he thought to himself, “it’s that kid from my school who was expelled last year for fighting”.

He couldn’t quite hear all that was being said, but sufficient to get the drift. The young man, whom he knew, was talking excitedly saying he didn’t want to do it, but his friend kept telling him, “C’mon, Dave, think of the money, think of the clothes, the clubbing, the girls we could pull”.

The two men outside the car began to move menacingly closer to the boys, and, as if to make their point fully understood said to them, “you won’t let us down will you? We don’t want chickens in our operation”.

Kevin thought one of the men turned to look in his direction and quickly moved back to the shadows in the process knocking over his bike to clatter eerily in the near empty cavern. “Damn, oh hell”, he mumbled to himself.

“Who’s there?”, a voice said sharply, “I thought you two boys guaranteed no one would be here?”
“But we did, we did, honest!”

One of the men started to move in the direction of where Kevin had pushed himself flat into the darkness. His heart pumped wildly, ready to explode, threatening to project his body into the open. The car began to move slowly, lights off, towards another exit. Kevin felt relieved, “safe now”, he thought. The two boys had vanished when suddenly Kevin felt a thick, powerful, heavy arm around his throat and saw a man’s right hand flick open a long thin blade.

His deep, rasping breathing as he struggled to loosen his assailant’s grip, his wild anger driven by panic on seeing the vicious knife, ended when a police siren shattered the futility of his struggle. The man loosened his grip and Kevin slumped to the ground choking and exhausted. His companion had turned heel fleeing towards the car now revving its engine full bore. The doors slammed and they were off.

Kevin, on the dusty ground, was being hauled up by two extremely large police officers. Another he saw giving chase to the two boys who had been hiding behind some large garbage containers.

“OK son, you’re nicked. We’re taking you down to the station”.
“Here, Mike, take his bike will you. Put it in the boot”.