Cabrón stopped by PanStar on the last day of 1999 and told me he was going to be bringing Eula by that night.
“What for?” I asked.
“It’s time,” Pierre replied, obliquely. “She needs to know what’s going on.”
“I don’t really understand what you’re talking about,” I said.
“This girl knows nothing,” Pierre explained. “Like, zero knowledge. She legit thinks Mundo’s some dumb street kid who hustles drugs out the trap and I’m some asshole thug henchman. We need to start showing her what’s really going on.”
“So, you’re bringing her here to do what?” I pushed.
“To show her that if she’s gonna fuck with us, she needs to know this is some real shit,” Cabrón replied.
“And you need me to do what, exactly?” I asked.
“I just need you to be there and look stern,” Pierre told me. “I’m not gonna tell her we have anything waiting for her yet, but I wanna let her know this is a serious operation and that she can’t fuck around.”
It sounded like a half-baked scheme to me, but I was going to give Pierre a little room here.
I told him to bring her by before midnight.
“Get in and get out,” I said. “Don’t mess around back there too long. PanStar is not a playground.”
“I’m well aware of that, Hopeton,” Pierre replied. “In and out. I got it.”
That night’s performance went to plan.
I briefly met the girl Mundo was dragging into our orbit and then I left. Our interaction was underwhelming, but it did give me the opportunity to note that Cabrón seemed to enjoy playing the Don Dada role much more than I’d expected.
Now with Mundo out of the picture, I’d be able to assess the kids’ actual power dynamics.
Chatter about the EBT scheme picked up again, sometime around February. Pierre and I had taken to working closely, and he made it a point to keep me apprised of any set-backs and break-throughs happening over at HQ. Once their boss had been dispatched to Central America, Biz and Lucci had absolutely no reason to enter PanStar, but somehow, they’d gotten in the habit of turning up with a frequency that left me baffled and annoyed. It would be framed as a quick drop-by, a necessary touch-base, to show me how serious they were about “keeping PanStar going with outside money.”
“What is going on with these kids?” I asked Cabrón one afternoon. We’d done a run out to Port Newark together, a rare occurrence by that point, and after we were done, he’d taken me to a Portuguese restaurant that he said his cousin’s husband swore by. We were sitting over massive plates of frango no churrasco com arroz branco e feijão preto, and it seemed like a good time to get to the bottom of this drift. I’d already discovered that Pierre was more approachable whenever food was involved- that was fine by me, honestly, because I had the same weakness.
Pierre took a quick sip off his bottle of malta, then placed it back on the table.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean, what is going on with these kids?” I repeated. “Why are Biz and Lucci always sneaking around PanStar? What’s going on with this EBT plan? Have any of you made any progress?”
“Okay, well, details are still a little shaky,” Pierre began, cautiously. “But Biz has been hitting the streets, trying to get more info about these cards. The whole thing’s not really gonna play, if we have to deal with actual foodstamps. We gotta wait until cards are sent out.”
“Yes, I agree. Those details are very shaky,” I said. “Can you please help me drill down on specifics? Have you set the basic workflow? Who are you getting these cards from? Where are you planning to offload them?”
Pierre had no idea. Those details were too specific for him to tackle. I let him know that he should consider it a problem that he was still unable to figure it all out.
“Biz is on it, I think,” Pierre replied, off-handedly. “He’s been over at Eula’s a lot, trying to get the whole plan nailed down. He’s constantly hunched over his laptop. It’s like you, with your spreadsheets.”
“Why are you all not dealing with that over at HQ?” I asked, sharply. “That’s what HQ is for!”
I interrupted myself for a moment. I needed to regain control.
“Listen Pierre,” I said in a let’s be reasonable tone, “You don’t want Biz to be bringing over his work to some little girl’s house like that. It needs to be contained, in HQ, where it’s supposed to be. I need you to get HQ under control and Biz back where he’s supposed to be- inside HQ.”
Pierre gave me a thin smile and said, “Lucci’s in charge of HQ. Biz had to pass it off because he has to be out and about, trying to figure out what people are saying. We need this to be a success for you. And for Bolo.”
“If Biz is spending time on that little girl’s comfy couch, I know Lucci is sitting right next to him. You’re leaving HQ empty and exposed and you’re letting that little girl in on things she should have no part of. I need you to do better, Pierre. Get Biz and Luciano back over to Pacific Street. And keep that girl out of things until she needs to be brought in.”
