SpringSummer 4 Khalid Is Warned

SpringSummer

4 Khalid Is Warned

Khalid Christopher had slept for roughly an hour when he got a call from his brother, Ahmed. “Call me back on this number from an untraceable.”

Khalid climbed out of bed and transcribed the number into a mini notebook that he kept in the nightstand drawer. He said “Give me a couple,” to his brother and ended the call. Khalid dug into a satchel hidden in the bottom dresser drawer and removed one of the three disposable phones.

Groggily Khalid Christopher stumbled into the TV room and fell onto the loveseat. He powered up the throwaway and secured pad and pen. A proprietary jingle and the phone was ready to go.

Ahmed picked up on the first ring and apologized for calling so late, yes he was aware of the time change, this is important. And Khalid meekly responded,"Yes” and Ahmed proceeded with the purpose of the call. The Organizers could find themselves in a civil war. A faction of the South led by Rabi Dog had decided to break away from the California mother ship.

That explains why Rabi Dog would do something so brazen as to Rob an Organizer bank. That explains why he he had gone missing. It explained a lot of things. Ahmed also warned his brother about T Rex.”Act normal. Don't let anyone know you got your heads up. There is only one man you can trust, Pharaoh.

Khalid was familiar with Pharaoh. He was a squat, dark-skinned guy originally from Sacramento. He was now second in command in Mississippi. “Pharaoh's on our side but he's playing Blunder and T Rex for the time being. Pharaoh will introduce you to everyone you can trust. In the meantime, act like nothing's wrong. “You keep this together and you might be back in the Officer's Club. I'll be in touch."

Khalid knew he would not be going back to sleep. Too much to think about. He realized he would be a target being Ahmed's brother. It might happen sooner or it might happen later. The rebels were probably still too disarrayed to clean house.

Khalid turned off the lights and sat near the room's only window and stared into darkness outside. All in all it was good news. Yes, there would be bloodshed but Rabi Dog would pay for what he had done in those narcs who buffaloed his love would pay-- one way or another-- and Khalid would once more be able to buy nice things for Kathy.

Khalid lifted himself off the loveseat and bounded back to the bedroom with the floors squishing beneath his feet. He was sick of this house with its low ceilings and spongy floors and zigzag layout. He hated the mildew and he hated the memory of the robbery and the cloud that hung over this dwelling ever since.

More than anything else, Khalid hated the trash. What kind of place doesn't have a trash pickup day? And why the hell would someone build a house so far from the road? You had to pack a lunch to check your mailbox, much less bring your trash to the curb.

Khalid was of the strong opinion that serious men did not clean houses are empty trash. Cathy's head injury soften him on those subjects. He patiently waited for the toilets to get scrubbed. It could be months until she felt better. No use stacking dirty dishes in the sink all that time. They would just have to eat off paper plates until that day arrived.

The trash could not wait much longer. Khalid had wrapped their garbage in Hefty bags and threw them in the backyard. That worked well enough during the cold weather months but now it smelled and rats and mice scampered across the colossal waste pile.

Khalid had recruited an online task contractor from the Internet and paid him handsomely to carry the dozens of trash bags to the roadside where he hoped garbagemen would retrieve it. But a week passed in the nine-month accumulation of black trash bags remained where it had been piled. Khalid called the nearest municipality and got a voice-mail recording. He called more numbers and they referred him elsewhere until finally he spoke to a woman at the County Clerk's office who seem to talk in slow motion. “You gotta take it to the dump.”

What dump? How y'all get there? No I don't have a truck. Turn at the road at that place where you brother used to work? No I don't know where that is. No I don't know where that is either. Which Walmart you talkin about? I don't go to no church. A dumb sticker? Oh, a dump sticker. Where I get that? It cost how much?

Khalid called the same worker to return to putrid mass of trash bags to the backyard. A middle-aged white man with a Santa Claus beard wore no work gloves or special clothing. He just smiled and drag bag after bag to the backyard and there he somehow managed to stack them neatly.

Stealthily, Khalid put the phone satchel back in its drawer without turning on the bedroom light. He tiptoed over to Kathy and kissed her left cheek as she lay sleeping. He slipped out of the room and gently closed the door behind him. With a grin in his step he pranced out to the foyer to see his other baby.

There she was! A solid black Silent Runner motorcycle. An ad caught his eye and Khalid manged to scrape together enough cash to buy a used Silent Runner. The Silent Runner was an engineering marvel still struggling to find its marketing niche.

The Silent Runner could be used off road or on. It wasn't designed for motocross launchings and landings but it handled mud and turf and hardened sand as well as anything on two wheels. It wasn't as quick as racing bikes but the SR could top out around 100, a little higher if you tweaked the motor. But who needs to go 160 to get away from a cop only to find another cop waiting down the highway and then another and then another?

With and SR you could cut across a foot trail, a golf course, a highway median, a vacant lot, a cemetery, or a suburban lawn and leave the police cars behind. An advantage that any motorcycle had over any automobile was its off-road mobility. The SR was the most versatile two wheeled vehicle in history.

In Khalid's view anyone who fancied himself a gangster knew how to ride. Even more important than mobility was the stealth factor. Anyone can identify a car by the chrome logo and a lot of people can even give you the make and model at a glance. Most people cannot identify a street bike. They might be able to pick a chopper or a Ninja out of a lineup but good luck describing a nondescript black bike zipping by in the night. It gets even trickier if the rider puts colored tape around the wheels and gas tank and removes the tape when he gets home.

License plates are smaller on motorcycles and easier to forge. Most states track motorcycle sales differently than they track cars and trucks. You can build a car from the ground up but it is an order of magnitude easier to build a bike from scratch.

A player can hide a bike in bushes or shrubs while he takes care of business. Try doing that with a drop-top Benz. But the very best stealth feature is mandated by law in some states. Full face helmets make identification damn near impossible. A riding suit and gloves will keep skin tone a mystery.

Feeling energized, Khalid his black helmet, black gloves, black boots and black overalls out of a hallway closet. He pulled a box cutter from a kitchen drawer and squished back to the TV room. He threw his riding gear onto the loveseat and dressed in a ritualistic way. Dressed and ready to ride, he silently pushed his bike outside.

Khalid stood in the dark with his helmet and night visor on. He had not ridden in the dark for a long time and he knew he had to retrain his eyes. He crept around the backyard and removed a large black trash bag from the Hefty Wall. He Returned to the Driveway and Started the Silent Runner.

Khalid had forgotten how much fun riding at night could be. There was hardly any traffic on these back roads but there was some fog. Khalid eased the SR in a series of S-patterns watch full of debris and potholes.

At 1.2 miles from his house, Khalid spotted a primary school he often drove by. The entrances to the parking lot were sealed off by lock and chain suspended for metal posts. This might keep a car or truck out but Khalid darted his bike between a steel pole and a line of trees and seconds later he was on the playground.

On the ball diamond, Khalid idled his SR near home plate. He removed the box cutter from the left front pocket of his coveralls and cut the garbage bag lengthwise. He then gunned the two wheeler down the first base path and down the right field line. The object of the game was to scatter the garbage as thinly as possible without getting much refuse on himself and getting none at all on the bike.

Khalid returned home seven times and grabbed seven more trash bags. As a matter of Organizer and personal policy, Khalid always shredded anything that had his name or address on it prior to tossing it in the trash. Leaving eight trails of fetid litter ranging from home plate to various points in the outfield, Khalid imagined a bunch of mean old white men on their hands and knees, looking to his chicken bones and coffee grounds in search of identifiers.

Khalid wrapped up his mission about an hour before sunrise. He washed the SR with a garden hose and wipe down his riding gear with alcohol pads he did not feel even slightly tired they took a prescription stimulant anyway, just in case he got groggily later in the day.

Khalid and pulled a foldout lawn chair from the shed so that he could enjoy his breakfast next to his Silent Runner. The sun rose in a cloudless blue sky. Over microwaved chili dogs and nacho chips he spoke ever so gently to his new love. “There will be other evenings. There will be other targets. You will make me a happy man.”