Random by Craig Robertson Read Free Book Online Page A

their ignorance. The eyes were supposed to be the window to the soul but they saw nothing in mine. They looked but they did not see. All the time I was thinking, planning, waiting, wondering. Inside it was all there but they just couldn’t see it.
    The SECC. Central Station. Wee wifies with bags of messages. Hyndland. Pick-ups at the ranks. Flagged down in the street. Mount Florida. Early starts. Late finishes.
    Garthamlock. Celtic Park. Kids to school. No smoking. No drinking. No eating. No throwing up. Cathcart. Johnstone.
    I drove them. Drove by them. Drove through them. Picked them up and laid them down. I took their money. Gave them their change. I was right there and they did not see me. They did not know that I existed.
    Suited me fine. For now.
    I’d drop the flag and set the meter going, ferrying the sleepers and the talkers, the happy and the sad to wherever it was they wanted to go. Sometimes of course I’d get duffed for the hire and some chancer would do a runner into the night leaving me out of pocket.
    I’d been sixth on the rank at Central on a slow Wednesday evening, one of those long waits that can happen when you time it wrong in between trains. Sitting watching the to and fro, flicking the wipers on and off to keep the windscreen clear, moving forward every few minutes till all at once a train has come in and there is a queue desperate to get moving.
    When I got to the front, a hard-looking sort in a black leather jacket and a bag slung over his shoulder was the next in line. Wouldn’t have been my choice but it wasn’t mine to make. He got in the back, gave me an address in Barrhead then got on his mobile to tell someone that his train was in and that he was in a taxi, would be there in twenty.
    You get a feeling for people. Even when you couldn’t care less about 99 per cent of them, even when they only existed on the very edge of your world, sometimes they set off alarm bells. This guy stank of trouble.
    I caught him in the rear-view. He had finished his call and was staring out of the window. Scar just in front of his ear that ran onto his jaw line. Eyes set hard. Permanent scowl on his lips. Don’t know if he sensed me looking but he turned and stared at the mirror. My eyes switched back to the road.
    I turned the cab onto Waterloo Street and made for the motorway. Ten miles to deepest Barrhead, past the airport and off. Silence all the way. Quiet the night, driver. Through the lights on Main Street, first right at the roundabout then deep into the warren of crescents. He was on the phone again. Nearly there. One minute.
    Next left and into a narrow street with three-storey flats either side. Snipers alley.
    ‘Stop there on the left,’ he said.
    I stopped.
    ‘You’re no getting paid for this so fuck off.’
    I held his eyes in the mirror but he stared me down, daring me to argue. He didn’t take his eyes from mine as he pointed up to the left. I followed his arm and saw two figures on the balcony, one holding what looked like a rifle.
    The door was locked and would stay that way till I unlocked it. I could have driven off with him in the back seat but that didn’t seem a great idea. I didn’t know what was in that bag that had been over his shoulder. Anyway, he’d read my mind.
    ‘You’ll no reach the end of the street. Like I said you’re getting fuck all money. Now piss off.’
    I released the lock, the red light disappeared and he opened the door. It slammed shut and I watched the back of the black leather jacket as its wearer slipped into the close without once looking back.
    I was raging and out of pocket but something deep inside my dead soul found it funny. A runner had just taken me for a mug and I’d let him. The hard man had decided he’d get a free ride home and that I could do nothing about it. He thought I was nothing and maybe he was right. He thought I was no one. A nobody.
    I laughed quietly to myself as I put the taxi back into gear and drove slowly out of that