The first customers of my new life were served up to me on a platter by the drug squad case involving three Moroccans which I happened to be working on at the Second District DPJ. It was the perfect convergence. All the stars were aligned: here was a bunch of guys sufficiently idiotic not to wonder where I might have sprung from, and who had an urgent need for product as a result of a delivery mishap.
I always take great care in my work to translate word for word. That’s my trademark. I don’t miss a scrap of what I’m listening to, and when I’m transcribing I set out to convey the tone and style of conversations so as to maximize reading pleasure. And on this point I confess to a shamefully patrician and perverse fascination with stupidity:
Intercept No. 7235 dated Thursday, 25 July. Intercept taken from the telephone device of the person under surveillance originating from line no. 2126456584539, the registered owner of which is not known to the Moroccan authorities. The person using the line is Karim Moufti alias Scotch. His interlocutor is Akim Boualem alias Chocapic.
Words in Arabic have been translated by Madame Patience Portefeux, who has been engaged for this purpose and who hereby jointly certifies this transcript.
Scotch: Don’t start giving me some crap about me being in it ’cos you done put me in it, and you’re in the same shit yourself. Words like that, bro’, I can take it from some nobody I don’t know but not comin’ from you. Every night I’m goin’ to the hookah bar and you’re tellin’ me: Don’ stress man, s’all good, don’ stress . . . And here I am bro’, here I find myself with some stuff that’s been dunked in petrol. Camel shit that stinks so much of petrol you could light it up with a match. I couldn’t even give that shit away, that’s how much they don’t want it. Hamdullah, if you think you can manage to get your notes back at your end, go ahead bro — and I’m telling you, good luck with that — but don’t ask me to pay for crap in that state . . . That shit is just trash, man.
Chocapic: I’m gonna take my notes straight back outta his sonuvabitch hands. I don’t want no more from that motherfucker. I don’t want nuthin’ no more, even if he be coming back to me. Don’t wanna hear nothin’ more from him!
Scotch: He’s shoved a big fat finger up your ass and you ain’t ever gonna see another cent. You gotta show no mercy! Action reaction!
Chocapic: It’s makin’ me sick, man. I’m not sleepin’. I’m not breathin’. I’m not eatin’. He’s gone disappeared with my 180 big ones for a metre of crap . . . He did me with the photo, you feel me, huh?