Bad Blood Empire

by Hale Chamberlain

  “How is that a fair deal? You’re the only one benefiting from that deal.” Zakariya couldn’t believe those words had just come out of his mouth. He probably had spent hundreds of hours observing drug deals from afar, and even if he had never even seen actual cocaine, he felt he was already part of the trade. His brain had just fired out the question.

  “Here’s a perceptive one,” the tall man said. “Well, you do us a favor, and we’ll do you one. We make sure you’re safe and sound. We’ll make sure your sister’s not getting bothered.”

  This time, Zakariya kept his mouth shut. His eyes blinkered toward Mustafa, and he could have sworn that his brother had thrown a furtive glance at the knife drawer.

  “You keep our bundle warm,” the man said, as he and the other intruder walked out of the apartment.

  The brothers stood in the kitchen for a while, speechless and unsure what to do next. They were officially receivers. Nannies, as the dealers would call it, and out of everything that had happened that evening, Zakariya was most unsettled by the uncontrollable excitement he felt at the idea of finally being in business.

  CHAPTER 31

  Following the nanny incident, Zakariya’s detached curiosity for the ghetto’s traffic turned into an unhealthy obsession bordering on psychotic addiction.

  He had kept the package unopened. The brothers had finally decided to hide it – after an animated debate as kids do – under a pile of books their mother knew were off-limits. Mustafa had threatened to flush it down the toilet, but Zakariya had managed to talk him out of it, cheekily, reminding him as graphically as possible the retaliation that would await. He had felt no pride doing that, but he was all too aware that the two men that had trespassed on their private property had the means and the will to hurt anyone standing in their way. In hindsight, he remembered having seen them several times from his balcony.

  In truth, Zakariya was frantic about the serendipitous visit. He spent that fateful night with the feeling that a new realm of possibilities had just materialized in his universe. He was captivated by the tricks and trades of a business he had been sizing up from his perch for months.

  The youngest recruits would be introduced to the trade as guardians or watchmen. Those were teenagers enforcing a stringent right of way dictated by their older brothers. The legion of watchmen would monitor the seven entries of the housing project, day and night, seated on low walls, or erect as meerkats lurking in the shadows of the high rises. The most agile of them would climb the rare trees peppering the tower complex.

  "We're here to sniff around, to smell danger, before beef becomes beef," Djibril had explained. Despite his young age, the kid was well-versed in the groundwork a watchman was responsible for. "If something stinks, you shout like a motherfucker. And remember, if you miss something, be ready to receive blows." He pointed his finger at a group of eighteen to twenty-year-olds across the square.

  Zakariya nodded, paying close attention to the young boy's every word. He knew that once he was an active participant, it was every man for himself, and he would be expected to hit the ground running. He had seen older dealers beat the crap out of children barely his own age for failing to alert the group of incoming police cars or enemy gang members.

  Mustafa had reluctantly joined them in the local chapter of the gang, with the barely-veiled objective of keeping an eye on his ambitious younger brother. Without admitting it, he also hoped to lift part of the burden they were putting on their mother, who was aging fast with her three jobs and a few hours of sleep every night. Nour Mansouri was no fool and had been aware of her sons' involvement with the drug-dealing low-life scums from the onset. But she also knew that they were not leaving the Val Fourré anytime soon, and after over a year committing to bring about change in the ghetto without the slightest trace of success, she was understandably resigned and exhausted. She had forsaken all hopes of salvaging her boys' innocence and had come to the conclusion that the sooner they were faced with the harsh realities of the life in the darkest corners of Mantes-la-jolie, the sooner they would forge the character needed to get out.

  Much to Mustafa’s skepticism, the mid-level dealers reckoned that he had the menacing quality and the imposing size to start a step above the watchmen. He would be a beater, in charge of escorting customers who had passed the first layer of security to the lower-level dealers.

  The hint of jealousy that Zakariya felt then had been short-lived. After a month, he had established that his own job was more strategic, although beneath his brother’s occupation in the official pecking order. He was an agent of the gang, writing down new license plates, new names popping up around the block, taking pictures of new faces. He was gathering intelligence that would be stored for years in the collective memory of the Val Fourré ghetto.

  For the local police, any temptation to penetrate the ghetto would inevitably be welcomed by a storm of stones, spits, and insults. At the sight of a police patrol, the watchmen would wake up the tower complex, and as the roar of peeps propagated, a platoon of scooters would swarm around the car. If the police vehicle got too close to the heart of the opiate traffic, frozen water bottles would fall from the sky, and the odd gunshot would be heard. For the authorities, trying to bring back order in the open configuration of the housing project was a losing battle.

  “You don’t take the ghetto, however many you are! We’ll whack your ass before we let you out,” the tall man, who went by the name of Majid, had yelled at the battered fleeing police car following the pigs latest attempt to investigate reports of flaring violence in the ghetto. Only a few yards away, on their second-hand rusted bikes, Zakariya and a young Rayyan had found the scene utterly ridiculous and overplayed, but they knew the man had killed for less.

  In the ghetto, nobody was pulling strings from the shadows. The puppet masters were found right into the action. They hustled, they micro-managed, sometimes they took lives. Majid was from that mold, and he had made a name for himself in the wake of a string of ruthless executions.

  It was with a certain apprehension then that the Mansouri brothers launched on a staggering, yet somewhat out-of-their-control, ascension within the ranks of the most pervasive opioid trafficking gang of the Val Fourré.

  CHAPTER 32

  The sun was obscured by the high rises, but at that time of the year, the scorching heat remained suspended in the air until at least two A.M. At the height of the summer, there was only one place to be for the youth of the ghetto – outside.

  Zinedine was showing off the wad of cash he had collected from his clients earlier that day. The boy was only seventeen, but he was already the best salesman in his age rank in the entire organization.

  "A few more years, and I'll be off to Ibiza for good." He sat on the pleasantly-cold concrete bench, facing his less-prolific friends Zakariya, Rayyan, and Ismael.

  “Don’t you even think about it, sneaky Jew,” he added, glancing at Ismael with an overplayed nervousness. They all laughed, even Ismael, who wasn’t Jewish at all.

  “Dude, I just figured out why you’re such a brilliant salesman!” Ismael replied, with the lack of conviction of a man who had just heard the same joke for the millionth time. “You’re just as dumb as your addict cash cows! Ismael, in both Muslim and Jewish tradition, is the ancestor of the Arab peoples. So why don’t you shut the-”

  “Ismael, Ishmael, whatever,” Zakariya fired back, finding the scene amusing but jaded at the feeling of déja vu. “We’ve heard your explanation even more often that Zizou’s shitty banter. Just drop it.”

  "Yeah, let's celebrate the man's success," Rayyan said, extending his palm toward Zinedine. "Teach us, master, how did a shrimpy thug like you manage to earn that type of cash?"

  The mockery was fair game, but Zinedine didn't care and took the question literally. He closed his eyes, and when he reopened them, he had the severity of a priest about to say mass. "My dear boys, I have been preaching about it for as long as I can remember, but you never listen to uncle Zizou
." He tucked the bundle of cash in the pocket of his Sergio Tacchini tracksuit and raised his arms facing upward. "In the ghetto, you have two opposite paths to success. The steady, safer pace.” He lowered one hand, opening it slowly and revealing an empty palm. “Or the fast line, with the non-negligible risk that, you, my son might burn your fingers." He brought down his other hand, and released his clench suddenly. It was empty as well.

  “And which one did you take smart ass?” Ismael asked.

  "That's where the brilliance comes in; I took the one in the middle!" Zinedine announced triumphantly, revealing a few banknotes hidden in his sleeves. "You need to be ruthless with the kids but show the utmost respect to the old brothers."

  Rayyan had stopped paying attention to the conversation a while ago, keeping an eye on his watchmen from afar. Ismael, however, was still very much in it. He said, "What a bunch of horse shit, man. If your cousin hadn't taken one for Majid, you'd still be down there riding your bike."

  That was only part of the story. Zakariya had watched his friend from his balcony many times and had observed first-hand his tenacity. Zinedine was a born salesman, he had a deep knowledge of all the opioids on the market, their effects, side-effects, origins, variants, and could give an accurate assessment of any dope’s purity in seconds.

  "Alright, ladies, time for me to stash my cash and take a well-deserved rest," Zinedine said, taking a step backward. "Zak, my boy, you coming? Need the key, man."

  . . .

  Barely a few months earlier, just when he thought he had everything figured out, Zakariya's world was rocked again. He had been entrusted with some actual dope and was finally able to sell the white candy. This was hardly surprising in itself, as Majid and his lieutenants had all noticed the boy's remarkable ability to act decisively and do the right thing when it mattered. He had been a reliable guardian, and his quick thinking had saved them a few hundred thousand francs worth of dope when the narcos had launched an unexpected lightning raid upon them on Christmas day.

  What had blown his mind was the realization that the drug traffic went way deeper into the ghetto than he thought. The traffickers had overtaken the network of basements stretching out underneath the slew of towers, the squares, the wastelands and the twisted roads. The original underground economy, the underworld.

  The long corridors and dark hideouts were a side of the trade he couldn’t possibly have fathomed from the elevated observatory of his younger years. He knew the dull towers hosted extended basements, but what he saw when the big brothers gave him the key to sector C was a revelation.

  The underground is teeming with life! The first time he had roamed the narrow alleys of subsurface Val Fourré, he was awestruck by the colorful yet eminently ordinary characters he encountered. He spotted a few threatening lurking figures in the shadows, as expected, but the overwhelming majority of subterraneans were regular people. Close to the exit, he was drawn to a row of chairs laid out in front of a room. A swinging light bulb was weakly attached to the low dusty ceiling. On the seats, he saw a man dressed like a lawyer typing on his mobile, a chubby student in baggy jeans and a middle-aged elegantly dolled-up woman, all looking as if they were waiting for the dentist’s assistant to call up their names.

  A girl with glorious afro hair opened the door and said, “Who’s next?” The man in suit raised and entered the room. This was one way the dope changed hands, hidden from daylight and from police raids the various layers of security failed to contain.

  The sales room was only open certain hours each week, on a rotating schedule. What interested Zinedine, however, was another room, located much deeper underground, in the darkest recesses of the tunnel network. A sacred space where the dealers hid the loot. Cash and drugs were spread out in different sectors to minimize losses in case of unforeseen police searches. It was diversification at its most basic, and Zakariya was now one of the key holders for the basements of sector C, which not only meant that he could wander underground as he wished, but also that he had the trust of the big brothers.

  “Come on in, put your cash over there, and don’t forget the lieutenants’ share,” Zakariya said, as he turned on the lights.

  “Yeah yeah, I got this. Sixty fucking percent. Still not going down...”

  “Man, perhaps it’s time to take the fast line and be your own boss,” Zakariya said, the outline of a cheeky smile quickly forming on his face.

  Zinedine permitted himself to imagine that scenario for a second. Is it that inconceivable? He said, "Nah, I might be good at selling the shit, but running the ring is another story. I got big balls, but Majid's still the fucking man here."

  It was notorious within their small circle that Zakariya was unconvinced the big boss had anything on them. At the very least, he had nothing that they couldn’t learn in a matter of months. As he locked up the door behind them, Zakariya pictured his brother attempting to talk down his ambitions. He immediately shook out that thought, and they left the oddly-enticing comfort of the basement to resurface in the hostile, gloomy reality of the Val Fourré.

  CHAPTER 33

  The ensuing year had passed with blistering speed. Majid's longest-serving lieutenant had been killed during a bust-up with narco agents outside Mantes-la-jolie, and Zakariya had been propelled to the much-coveted rank of second-in-command, a title he shared with six others, including Djibril, a wicked boy back then.

  The subtle but lingering opiate war that was pervading Mantes-la-jolie had taken its toll on the Val Fourré gang's headcount. The situation was worsening day after day, and the authorities refused to bat an eye to salvage this lair of recluse. Against the wall, Majid was left with no choice but to promote young, ambitious cubs. The leader of the loose organization controlling the drug traffic on that side of the ghetto had taken a leap of faith.

  Something similar occurs every few years, Zakariya explained to his brother. A key man in the ring would die, triggering a snowball effect that resulted in the reshaping of the entire organization. This was the pitfall of a highly hierarchical structure. And Zakariya had been handpicked to take charge of one-sixth of the local drug business's revenues.

  Mustafa was seated at the kitchen table of their small apartment. “Man, it’s a whole other level now,” he said, one hand sunk in his pocket and the other one pointing at his brother. “You’ll be exposed to every last rascal of the ghetto, big time!” As usual, his admonishing eyes spoke louder than his words.

  “I know that, and I’m ready for it.” Zakariya was leaning with his back against the counter, demolishing a freshly-made tuna sandwich.

  “Majid and his men have you by the balls now,” Mustafa continued. “I don’t like this man, and you’re bringing us into it as well.”

  “Do you think I chose to live here? In this fucking dump!”

  “I’m telling you. Stay in the middle of the pack, don’t make waves, don’t get too exposed. That’s how you eventually make it out of here.”

  Zakariya was huffing. "The sooner we make big bucks, the sooner we'll escape this shithole. Stay in the middle, and you'll rot in that place. This damn ghetto is full of scavengers." He pointed his sandwich at his brother. "That cash you're hoarding little by little like a rat, one day you'll wake up, and it'll be gone." He gulped a mouthful of the snack, and added, "There is no playing the long game here. Normal rules don't apply, don't you get it?"

  The argument made sense to Mustafa, but this wasn't what he was trying to achieve by challenging Zakariya. He wanted to make sure that his little brother was committed and ready to do what he had to do. It would be the only way he, and by extension, the Mansouri family, would make it out of this unscathed. "Shut up man," he wailed. "You know how long the average lieutenant lives around here? Three fucking years! What makes you think you're better than them, smart-ass?"

  Zakariya glared at his brother as he chomped. He carefully placed his half-eaten snack on a plastic foil, and said intently, “Well... I got you.” It seemed to throw his brother off, and he wen
t on, "Mouss, I need you. We need to be in this together. I can't trust them as I trust you."

  Mustafa frowned, more for the show than out of genuine surprise at his younger brother’s confession. This was precisely where he wanted to lead him.

  Zakariya continued, "You've been flying under the radar all those years, they don't know you as I do," Mustafa wouldn't bulge, and he was staring at his sibling without blinking, as if waiting for a cue that would pull him fully on board with his brother’s ambition.

  "Come on Mouss! It's about fucking time. Let's make some real money, and get out of this hell for good."

  At that moment, one of the bedroom doors swung open. Yasmina strolled into the kitchen without a word and poured herself a glass of Coke. She threw affectionate glances at her brothers and flashed a disarming smile at them as she returned to her study.

  “Fine,” Mustafa said. “I’ll do it. For her.”

  . . .

  Djibril was the first of the 1977 generation to own a car, and he wasn’t going to let it go unnoticed. He would make the tires howl and the engine scream at every opportunity, and the roar of his BMW would echo throughout the hollow housing complex.

  As another hiss was heard across the square, Ismael felt that the man was drawing unnecessary attention. "For God's sake, this guy is a walking cliché," he said, pestered. "Next thing you know, he'll be walking around with a Kalash' in hand." The others were sitting on the low wall at the edge of the square. They looked down to their feet, as if ashamed to agree with the harsh accusation.

  Moments later, a group of local girls, Tunisians and Malians, strode past Zakariya and his friends, who spun their heads by reflex. Two of the girls gazed back at them, whispering in each other's ears. Ismael couldn't help but overtly track them with his eyes.