I got a call on my cellphone at the end of January. It was a number I didn’t recognize, from a 516 area code.
I decided to take the call.
A random voice was on the other end.
“Hopeton, yo! I gotta talk to you!”
“Who is this?” I asked.
It was Osvald’s nephew.
I asked him how he got my number.
“Osvald gave it to me,” he replied. “How do you think I got it? I need to get up with you. Can you meet me over at Prime Cuts tonight around eight?”
“Will Osvald be there?” I asked.
“Yeah, papi!” the nephew laughed. “What do you think?”
I said I’d be there and hung up.
I got to Osvald’s barbershop at 7pm and got a cut in before his nephew showed up.
“Let’s take it down the block,” the nephew said when he arrived.
Osvald locked up and the three of us walked over to the bar.
“What you drinking?” Osvald’s nephew asked.
“Glenlivet on the rocks,” I replied.
The nephew waited until I’d finished my drink before diving in with his proposal. Osvald sat by silently, sipping his whisky.
“I have a little proposition for you that I think could work out for everyone,” the nephew said, then he laid it out for me.
“I got a hundred and fifty k, cash money, and I wanna give it to you for the building,” he explained.
“But the building is worth closer to three hundred, so that would leave another one fifty outstanding,” I replied.
Osvald chose that moment to enter the discussion.
“If I had to pay it off myself, through the shop, I could probably manage around two k a month, maybe twenty-five hundred if I kept it steady,” he said.
“But at that pace, it would take about six years to pay off the balance,” I pointed out.
“Listen,” the nephew interrupted. “Take my hunnid fitty now. Keep the deed. Don’t sell the building to anyone else. I’ll get you the other one fitty, and then we’ll be done. Scout’s honor.”
The building had been hard for me to sell. The rent Osvald paid each month was pocket change. I had no desire to sink any money into the upstairs apartments and become a real landlord. And the kid did have cash up front, with the believable promise of future liquidity.
“So, do you want to sign any papers with me?” I asked. “Keep a cash transaction on record?”
“Nah, fuck it,” Osvald’s nephew replied. “Just do me right.”
We shook on it, and then the nephew bought us another round of drinks.
And with that, Osvald had his barbershop, the nephew had a small block of apartments he could do with what he pleased, and New Hopeton Bank was back in business.
But this time I didn’t have to worry about chasing my money down. I still held the deed.
