Londonstani. Gautam Malkani

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СКАЧАТЬ woman. You lucky dat traffic warden in’t got round to givin our own Beemer no ticket yet cos Hardjit’d break yo face. Fuck’s sake, Jas, why da fuck din’t you call us, you sala kutta?

      —I, well, I, the traffic warden, I was kind a, I…er, I, you know, er, you know…

      —For fuck’s sake, boy, how can anyone argue wid’chyu if you can’t fuckin talk?

      —Well…I…I, er…

      Remember that Fatboy Slim CD? The one that all the goras liked cos it mixed electric guitars with breakbeats. Remember what it was called? You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby.

      —I…I, er, I did call you guys. I was shoutin for you lot to come.

      —Wat’s da point in dat? How we meant to hear you holler from da muthafuckin car?

      —No, I…I, er foned you, man. I was shoutin on the fone.

       Rudeboy Rule #1:

      My dad always said that you shouldn’t ever lie cos you’ll have to tell another ten lies to back it up. However, Hardjit’d taught me that if the back-up lies are good enough, then so fuckin what?

      How to tell a good lie, though? Especially when sometimes you stammer even when you tellin the truth. Mr Ashwood taught us in History lessons that Hitler thought a good lie was a big lie.— He even had a minister for propaganda, Josef Goebbels. Jas, explain to the rest of the class what propaganda is. However, Hardjit’d taught me that a good lie is a lie with lots a detail in it. That’s why, right now, Davinder an Jaswinder were being even more gandah, listing the ingredients a Davinder’s imaginary vomit. Rice, daal, aaloo ki subjhi mixed in a base a bhindee an bile. If the back-up lies were detailed enough, then so fuckin what?

      —I foned Davinder to warn him, innit, I say to Amit as I carefully reached for the Nokia 3510i in my back pocket an dialled Davinder’s number, stealth-style behind my back. Davinder an Jaswinder were frettin so much they probly wouldn’t hear the fone ring anyway. A long way indeed, baby. —Trust me, Amit, I din’t have time to come in an get you guys cos the traffic warden only just showed up. But I swear I foned Davinder though. Check his fone if you think I just be chattin shit. A hundred bucks says it shows a Missed Call.

      Amit walks over to Davinder an does that whole Chinese whispers thing in his ear. Sure enough, Davinder’s Sony Ericsson P800 colour display showed a Missed Call from me, prompting Davinder to hold his forehead as if to go, Shit, how could I be such a deaf khota? Amit held his palm out towards me, as if he was givin me blessings, though what he was really going was, Shit, sorry, Jas, my bad. Jaswinder held his own palm out to Davinder, though not in a givin blessings kind a way but stead pretendin like he was gonna give him a thapparh across the face for being deaf. All a them too vexed to check the exact time the Missed Call had been missed. Then there’s Hardjit givin me a proud grin as he gets in the car an silences the drama outside by shuttin his door.— U jus call’d Davinder now, din’t u, bruv? I always knew u could b nuff smart when u proply tryin.

      Davinder’s leather rucksack had twenty fones inside it this time. I nearly dropped the thing when Ravi passed it to me, though obviously I din’t look like I nearly dropped it. Most customers usually give us bout two or three at a time but Davinder normly gave us more’n ten. That was why we bought him some Nando’s or kebabs or whatever whenever we did dealings with him. The bredren was our best customer, you see, an if a good desi knows anything, it’s how to look after their best customer.

      I don’t even want to know where Davinder’d got all his merchandise from, but it kept us in business an you can’t be a businessman if you in’t in business, innit. Our business is reprogramming mobile fones, which basically means unblocking them or unlocking them so that they can be reconfigured. To unlock a fone, you change its security code so that the handset can be used on a different network from the one it was originally bought on. Most people came to us cos they wanted to swap fones with their dad or mum or sister or whoever but keep their own fone numbers an tariffs an stuff. After all, what’s the point in your dad havin a blinger fone than you when he probly can’t even use the thing proply. So say your dad gets a handset upgrade to some slick Samsung on his Orange network an you want to swap it with your Nokia 6610 that you got on a T-Mobile network. You can’t just stick the SIM chip carryin your fone number an tariff an stuff into your dad’s new handset. It won’t work cos most fones are locked to the network they were originally bought on. To switch networks you gotta unlock the handsets by changin the security code. For some reason, the fone companies din’t allow people to have their fones unlocked in proper fone shops. In business-speak, that meant the fone companies had gone an left a gap in the market.

       Rudeboy Rule #2:

      Havin the blingest mobile fone in the house is a rudeboy’s birthright. Not just for style, but also cos fones were invented for rudeboys. They free you from your mum an dad while still allowing your parents to keep tabs on you.

      So any time anyone round here wanted to enforce Rudeboy Rule #2 by doing one a these family fone swaps while keepin their own fone number, all they had to do was dial our fone number. Easy. Except for one thing: Davinder may’ve had a lot a cousins an uncles an aunts an everything, but he din’t exactly have twenty relatives all wantin to swap their fones round all at the same time like unwanted mithai boxes being recycled at Diwali.

      Customers like Davinder were different to our normal family fone swap customers cos there’s more to this business than just switchin fones between different networks. If a fone gets reported missin or stolen or whatever, the fone company blocks it so that it can’t be used no more. They do this by deactivating a 14-17 digit code called the IMEI number. To unblock a fone (stead a just unlocking it) you gotta change the IMEI number. This code also makes it easier for the police to trace the thing, so if you ever find or jack some fones an want to use them you first gotta change the codes or find someone who can change them for you. Davinder an his crew had found us. Every couple a weeks we’d hook up with him an he’d give us this black leather rucksack full a fones. Fuck knows how he got them an how he never got caught gettin them. But he got them. An Amit’d got all the software an hardware for changin the IMEI numbers.

      Don’t get me wrong, we in’t wannabe badass gangstas or someshit. We din’t jack no fones or sell no jacked fones or nothin. We just provided a service. We’re businessmen, innit. Our business dealings with Davinder just meant that he could guarantee to whoever he sold the fones to that they’d work an that they’d never be identified as being jacked. People keep sayin it’s becoming illegal or someshit to tamper with a fone’s codes, but, let’s face it, the cops would only round up all the little dodgy corner shops that offer this service, they’d never get round to little people like us. The feds were such pehndus they thought the little shops were the little people.

       Rudeboy Rule #3:

      My dad always told me to stay outta trouble. However, Hardjit’d told me to stay outta trouble with the police. After all, while the law is for goras, so is Feltham Young Offenders Institute. An while the police may be a bunch a pehndus, so are those who end up in prison.

      Only last week we’d helped Amit swap fones with his dad. We did that job for free a course, even though Amit’s dad wanted to pay us anyway cos he said he admired our business skills.— Give me invoice minus VAT and I pay you boys cash, he’d said.— No use making taxman richer so he can give to bloody Somali asylum seekers. When we told his dad that we din’t have any a that VAT thing going on in the first place he got even more СКАЧАТЬ