Over the remainder of Hopeton’s visit, and with his oversight, PanStar’s structural organization solidified. I figured out exactly what my duties would be when Hopeton was in BK. And Wilkie was subjected to and successfully passed Hopeton’s ultimate stress test- a four-hour twilight drive to a totally random location. And since this was Hopeton’s show, I had him drive the Prado. The majority of the trip was on unpaved, unlit mountain pass roads, with Hopeton mandating no radio and minimal pit stops.
After midnight, we finally pulled up to a random-ass, in the middle of nowhere, country cabin. Hopeton got the single bedroom. Wilkie and I crashed out in the great room, on rock hard couches. We awoke the next morning to find a random lady scrambling eggs and slicing up a freshly harvested papaya. She offered us coffee, homemade banana bread and freshly squeezed jugo de naranja. Ten minutes later, Hopeton rolled out of his room and asked us how we slept. I told him to fuck off and motioned to Wilkie to go take a shower.
The next day, the three of us got together at my apartment- Hopeton spent several hours walking us through the various accounting spreadsheets Wilkie would be responsible for. He also asked Wilkie for his banking information, “and by the way, do you have a valid driver’s license?”
Hopeton called working sessions pretty much every day for the next two weeks.
By the time my bredren returned to Brooklyn, Wilkie’s head was spinning, but he was still happy to be involved.
Like I’d mentioned to Hopeton, Mundo was pretty absent during this time. Gianina was well into her third trimester, she’d recently completed her compulsory year of rural work and was taking it easy at home. From what I gathered, Mundo was dividing the bulk of his time between attending to his wife and sneaking around with his sidepiece, with a few spare hours spent in office, whenever absolutely necessary.
Doe loved to take me out for long lunches at his club, get me drunk and tell me long, fucked up stories about the girl he was dealing with. Eventually, I had to tell him I wasn’t interested in being a party to his infidelities. When I let him know I needed to be kept out of it, he looked at me with such disappointment.
“We used to tell each other everything, Cabrón,” he said.
“That was way back in the day, Doe,” I reminded him. “Back when we didn’t have much going on.”
Moving forward, he kept his sex tales to himself. But I knew I had to start planning my exit. Panama was not my place.
