As the kid in the car scrambled out, and the others quickly backed away, I left them to it and carried on into Baldwin House.
Troy O'Neil's flat was at the end of the corridor on the ground floor. Number Six. The front door — which was made of reinforced steel — was guarded by a full-length metal grill. I'm sure I could have got through both the door and the grill if I'd wanted to, but instead I just reached up and rang the bell. Light was showing through the edges of the door, so I guessed that O'Neil was in, and probably awake.
I waited.
Orange light from the blazing Golf was flickering through the corridor window, and I could already smell the faint stink of burning rubber in the air. From inside the flat, I heard a ringtone (2Pac's "Hit 'Em Up"). Inside my head, I tuned in and listened to the call. It was from one of the kids outside, calling O'Neil.
Yeah? he answered.
You know that weird kid? The one done your brother? He's here, man. He just fucking —
Yeah, I know.
O'Neil ended the call.
I scanned the flat for other mobiles.
There were three of them, including O'Neil's.
I rang his number.
He answered, angrily. "I just fucking told you —"
"Are you going to open your door, or what?" I said.
"Eh?"
"I'm not waiting all night."
"Who's this?"
I saw an eye appear at the peep-hole in his door.
I waved at him.
"Is that you?" he said.
"Is what who?"
"What?"
I sighed. "Just open the door, for Christ's sake."
There was a pause then. I heard the phone's mouthpiece being covered, muffled voices, and then the metallic clack of locks being unbolted. After a few seconds, the inner door opened, and through the metal grill I saw Troy O'Neil standing in the doorway. He looked a lot like his brother — mixed race, tall, with dead-looking eyes — and I guessed he was in his early twenties. He had his phone in one hand, and the other hand was stuffed in his pocket.
"What d'you want?" he said to me.
I smiled at him. "Can I come in?"
He frowned at me. "What the fucking hell are you?"
"Let me in, and I'll tell you."
He stared at me for a moment, and then — with a shake of his head and a suck of his teeth — he unbolted the metal grill, swung it open, and moved to one side to let me in. His right hand, I noticed, never left his pocket, and as I stepped through into the hallway, I wondered what kind of weapon he was holding. A gun or a knife? And I started wondering then if my electric force field was strong enough to protect me from a bullet... but I quickly realized that it was too late to start worrying about that.
As O'Neil pulled a pistol from his pocket, a figure moved out from behind the door and put a knife to my throat, and at the same time a door on my right opened and a fat Korean guy came out holding a rifle in his hands.
O'Neil grinned at me, waggling the pistol in my face. "You're not so fucking smart now, are you, eh?"
I stared at him.
The Korean guy — who was only about five feet tall, but seriously fat — was just standing there, pointing the rifle at my head, and whoever it was with the knife at my neck was making a weird kind of panting noise in his throat. I couldn't see him without turning my head, and I couldn't turn my head without the blade of the knife digging into my skin, but I guessed it was probably Jermaine Adebajo.
I kept my eyes on Troy O'Neil.
He moved closer, peering curiously into the shimmering whirl of my face.
"What is all that?" he said. "I mean, how do you do it?"
"Do you want to see what else I can do?" I said quietly.
Before he could answer, I tensed myself — from within — and then, almost immediately, I released the tension and blasted out a surge of power. It came out from all over my body, a blinding white CRACK! that knocked O'Neil and Adebajo and the Korean guy off their feet and sent them all flying. O'Neil and Adebajo smashed back against the hallway walls and crumpled to the floor, and the fat Korean guy was blown back through the bedroom door.
I waited a while, just looking down at their smouldering bodies, but none of them got up. The barrel of O'Neil's pistol had fused together at the end, and the blade of Adebajo's knife had buckled and melted.
I leaned down and checked O'Neil for a pulse.
He was still alive.
So was Adebajo.
I closed the front door, locked and bolted it, then went into the bedroom and checked the Korean. He looked a bit worse than the other two — blood coming out of his ears and his nose — but he was still breathing too. The rifle was still gripped in his badly burned hands.
I went over to the window and looked out to see what was happening with the burning Golf. Nothing was happening. There was no one around. The car was just burning away, thick black smoke drifting up into the night, and nobody gave a shit about it.
I went into the kitchen and found a roll of insulation tape in a cupboard under the sink, then I went back out into the hallway and got to work.
After I'd tied up Adebajo and the Korean guy and locked them in the bedroom, I dragged O'Neil into the front room, tied him to a chair, and then I just sat down and waited for him to wake up.
The room was filled with all kinds of drug stuff — bags of white powder, bags of brown powder, blocks of cannabis, carrier bags full of grass and pills. There was clingfilm for wrapping, scales for measuring, spoons and knives and syringes and foil... piles of cash all over the place.
I wondered how much money they made here. And how come, if they had so much money, they didn't find somewhere nicer to live? I mean, even by Crow Town's standards, this place was a hovel. Dirty walls, dirty windows, greasy carpets, foul air ... the whole place stank.
O'Neil groaned.
I looked at him and saw that his eyes were beginning to open. I waited a few seconds, just enough time to let him recognize me, then I leaned forward and spoke to him.
"Howard Ellman," I said. "Where does he live?"
"Munh?"
"Howard Ellman," I repeated. "I want to know where he lives."
O'Neil just looked at me for a moment, not quite sure what was happening, and then — suddenly realizing that he was tied to the chair — he started struggling. Wriggling and writhing, cursing and spitting, trying to break free ...
I touched his knee, giving him a short sharp shock. He yelped, stopped struggling, and stared wide-eyed at me.
"Listen to me," I said to him. "Just tell me where Ellman is, and I'll let you go."
"What?"
"Ellman. I just want to know where he is."
O'Neil shook his head. "Never heard of him. Now you'd better fucking —"
I zapped him on the knee again, harder this time, and once he'd stopped screaming and shaking, I said to him, "I'm going to keep doing this until you tell me what I want to know, and each time it's going to get worse. Do you understand?"
He glared at me, trying to show me that he wasn't scared, but I could see the fear in his eyes. I reached out towards him again. He jerked away, rocking from side to side in the chair.