“
I was standing by the car when two police officers showed up in the alley, very interested in me and the BMW in an alley where car traffic was not allowed at all, sitting there with a Belgian plate tag in the middle of the coffeeshop district, with me, the Hungarian guy, leaning to it smoking a cigarette, obviously waiting for something to happen. They began to examine my IDs and started searching the car. They were looking for drugs, apparently. I had been dealing with them for a few minutes when Adam showed up at the end of the alley. I was the only one looking that way, seeing Adam walking to turn into the alley; the two officers were too busy to notice what I had witnessed. The moment Adam looked up and noticed the officers around me, the moment he was about to turn right towards us into the alley, he made a 180-degree turn, the way a bad kid would do when playing hide and seek. Catching his steps the way Mr. Bean or Benny Hill would do—I could almost hear the music too—was both very funny and very concerning. He was too stupid to be a criminal; he was such a lame criminal that he didn't even think of walking past the alley's entrance like nothing happened instead of turning around and acting so suspiciously and obviously being in the wrong. I began to wonder how the coffeeshop business would work out with this guy if he was suddenly on cocaine all the time before we even opened the club? How would not he get me in trouble when there would be kilograms of marijuana and tons of cash flying around? How could I ever quit this job even if we could manage to run the place and get rich over the next 2-3 years? How would I ever get rid of this embarrassing, childish, dangerously silly criminal guy?
By some miracle, in the car—which was used by these junkies and was usually full of smoking accessories—the cops didn't find a cigarette paper either, although they were very, very thorough. Belgian BMW wagon with a Hungarian guy, in an alley in the area full of marijuana clubs. They were sure they had me now, that they would be rewarded for such a catch. But there was nothing in the car.
I was able to show them Rachel's Belgian registration and everything, explaining that she was my girlfriend who was in Belgium at that time and we were both working for a company selling smoking accessories; I gave them my business card. I apologized for parking there and even driving into that alley with the car.
They fined me regardless. Before we started dealing with the marijuana behalf my name, we were collecting fines attributed to Adam on my name. Talk about being cheap. Apparently, he had started growing a lot of marijuana without my knowledge in a place he did not want me to find out about.
As I was driving back to Urgell, we were both very silent. I was calm but he was anxious and I could almost hear the gears spinning in his mind. Perhaps at the same moment, we both realized that if I got arrested for any reason and ended up in jail, Adam could keep the 33% profit of the coffeeshop which I had signed up for and which belonged to me.
‘Thinking quickly. Acting quicker.’
Never quick enough. The sneaker.
Adam was usually very slow,
whether he was high or low.
”
”