We all got through the summer and the first half of Fall without any major incidents.
Mundo was still pushing the gun business hard, but I refused to let him use the garage as anything more than a holding bay. No people were allowed there but him and me. We hadn’t clued Hopeton into our little operation at that point. So, on the surface everything was status quo. Money was flowing in, inventory was flowing out- and Doe and I were able to keep all the money for ourselves.
On the Bolo side of things, I was handling business at the Port. Doe was making his rounds throughout upstate New York and Connecticut.
Over at HQ, we had Biz and his baby mother’s sister’s son, a nineteen-year-old named Luciano, working on this new age computer scam involving social security numbers, EBT cards and food stamps- Biz had a knack for mind-numbing admin work and Lucci, like all kids born in the 80s, was a computer hacking genius. If managed correctly, this hustle alone would make HQ worth its rent money. Mundo and I had both been keeping half an eye on it, and had agreed to give Biz another couple of months to work out the kinks. EBT cards were slowly starting to replace the physical books of food stamps, so he was gonna need a little more time.
And if Biz could mobilize his crew of juniors to step up their stoop sales activities, they’d have their own constantly replenished inventory- fiends were already used to trading their food stamps for product. Adding electronic debit cards to the mix would force a few steps into the workflow, but that’s what Biz was messing around with at the present time. We estimated we’d be really up and running by January.
Doe had been messing with this little Westchester white girl named Eula, who seemed hell-bent on becoming the vanilla hood princess of Bed Stuy, so I privately marked her as the perfect candidate for drop courier, once we had our clients confirmed and routes solidified. Princesa Blanquita was a little too interested in sniffing dope for me to want to keep her too looped in, but she’d do for a few things here and there.
One night in late October, Mundo and I met up at Madiba for a business meeting. We had a lot to go over.
Once our peri peri chicken dinners were demolished, we did the run-through:
Brownsville garage operations
Bolo business
Hopeton-related logistics matters
Biz and Lucci’s EBT scheme
“Yeah,” I threw out there, “I’m thinking we could utilize your little girlfriend, Eula, as our courier, once we get to that point. Anyone noticing her trooping around Fort Greene or Williamsburg would just take her for one of those Pratt students who got lost on the way to the G train.”
Doe laughed, shrugged his shoulders in a “well, you’re not lying,” gesture and told me to use her anyway I thought would work.
“But try to look out for her, ‘Brón,” he said. “She’s kinda confused, but she’s cool.”
And then Olmando dropped the bomb.
“So, listen,” he said and took a huge sip of his castle Lager.
I looked up from my BlackBerry. Hopeton had sent me a message about an idea we’d been batting around, but it could wait. This sounded serious.
Mundo had this look on his face, like I was his girl and he was breaking up with me.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“Bolo’s bringing me to Panama,” he said. “Like, on a permanent basis. He has some real estate development projects that just got funded- gated communities and whatnot. And he needs me to be there to oversee the construction companies to make sure he Doesn’t get robbed blind and completely fall off schedule.”
“Oh, word?” I asked quietly. “That’s dope.”
Doe nodded. We both knew I wouldn’t have flipped out, but now I felt like he took me to Madiba to dump me in public, or some crazy shit like that.
“When are you heading out?” That was the real question.
“Day after Christmas,” he replied. “Boxing Day. That gives us two months to get everything straight, so you can run things while I’m gone. There’s things I’m gonna need you to stay with until I’m on my feet out there. You know Bolo will take care of me, but I need to keep my money in play here, for at least the first quarter of 2000.”
I knew what he was talking about- Mundo was gonna try to make me keep the garage open and its holding bay stocked with inventory.
I sighed. I had a bad feeling about it, but I could tell Mundo was not gonna let it go.
