Free The Survival Game by Stavro Yianni Page B

of smoke as he checked the time on his mobile phone. 17:21. He nodded his head. It was time.
    ‘I’m popping out,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I’ll be back soon. Don’t go anywhere.’ He then stepped out into the rain.
    ‘What? Where are you go—’ was all he heard as he swung the door shut. He didn’t wanna hang around to answer any of her questions. Instead, he got in his car, stuck on a DnB CD, and drove away.

CHAPTER FIVE
    John made it across the river just as darkness began to fall over London and the lampposts blinked on for the night. He was down south again, doing his delivery run out of working hours ’cos he was convinced Omar—the sly, devious piece of shit he was—knew something about what happened to him the other night. Since he first left hospital, the notion had been bugging him like an unreachable itch right in the middle of his back.
    How did the muggers know I was gonna be in that alleyway, at that particular time, with the delivery?
Lucky guess?
    Yeah, my Greek
kolo
it was a lucky guess.
    Nah, someone must’ve told ’em he was gonna be there ’cos there was no doubt that they were waiting for him. Scream was searching his car for him; their van was waiting nearby.
And who else knew that John was gonna be in that alley at that time?
The one and only Mr. Omar, that’s who. John was a hundred and fifty percent sure that the scumbag had a dirty hand in this. And he was gonna find out exactly what.
    He chucked another
cigarro
out of the window, and jacked the volume up on his CD player. Hard DnB was still banging out, fuelling his anger. He was gonna go and unlock Omar’s mouth. He had the key; it was sitting in his glovebox, ready for action.
    He flew through Kennington, entering the concrete jungle of south London, eager to reach Omar’s ASAP. Only when he made it to Clapham Road did he finally slow down, crawling past the Grill. He bent his head down low, trying his best to look inside past the tacky Christmas tree lights. But it was too dark to see exactly who was in there, and the rain wasn’t helping things either. He didn’t want to spend too long staring in case Omar clocked him, bricked himself and done a runner out the back or something. So he went and pulled up a little further on and killed the engine. He took a sly look around him before he opened the glovebox and grabbed his gun. He quickly stuck it in his belt while staring at his reflection in his rear view. That damn halo was still shining out from his head and he wondered for just a split second if angels carried Glocks in Heaven. He grabbed a pair of shades from the glovebox and put them on, making the halo go dark. He preferred it like that. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady himself, to get himself together. When he was ready, he opened the car door and his Reeboks touched concrete. He had another of those sly looks around him before he dived into the Grill. Panpipes hit his ears, and charred meat hit his nostrils as per usual.
    He surveyed the area—a couple were sitting at a table in the corner enjoying wine, horns sprouting out of both their heads.
    Standing over to the side was Gertrude, who spun round to face him. The sudden look of shock that jumped onto her mug made her halo dim. ‘John!’ she gasped. ‘Are you okay?’
    John met her stare. ‘Where’s Omar?’ he asked snappily.
    Gertrude just stared back dumbly. ‘What’s wrong, John? What happened—’
    ‘Just tell me where he is!’ John barked.
    Gertrude flinched backwards. ‘
Uh-uh-uh…
’ she stammered.
    John tutted and walked past her towards the bar. Grinning Imran with horns then came out of the back door, almost walking straight into him.
    His surprised eyes rolled up to see who he’d almost collided with. ‘
John?
’
    ‘Where’s Omar?’ John asked.
    Imran gave him a strange look. ‘He’s in the backside…’
    ‘Cheers.’ John walked past him into the kitchen where Hassan was busy toiling, horns shooting out