Less than a year after my private lending operation had been established, I’d acquired two additional clients. Both had taken out loans in the low six-figure range. Those two were able to pay down their debt quicker than Lloydie, which was good. But I wasn’t nervous about my first big deal going to shit. Lloydie’s money was reliable and I admired his hustle. Legitimate stability helped ease my nerves about the Bolo side of things.
My regular PanStar routine took up a lot of my time- overseeing pickups at the ports, managing inventory in the backroom and constantly negotiating a never-ending, headache-inducing firehose of personnel problems.
I was still working with that security company owner I’d met at the lumber yard dominoes game- he supplied me with a steady stream of pick-up drivers and overnight security for PanStar, but there was a massive gap in less specialized workers. Follow car drivers, backroom cash-counters, kids to do smaller drop-off along the distribution routes. All of that was a major issue, always, and the major topic of conversation every time I’d go to sit with Bolo in Panama.
“I know it’s a problem, Hopeton,” Bolo would say to me. “Can you imagine how bad it is here, with the labor pool I have to draw from?”
I’d tell him I didn’t expect him to fix things for me, but that I felt it was my duty to let him know what was going on. We were only as strong as our weakest players, and that was a very dangerous position to be in.
It was around this time that Bolo started telling me he was working on a solution to our problem and all I needed was to have a little patience. I wasn’t quite convinced, but let it go for the time being.
And then I started to recognize that aside from my endless quest to convert the grey zone to an unimpeachably lily-white existence, there wasn’t much going on in my life. I had church and the occasional card or dominoes game. I stopped by to check on Prentiss. Got my hair cut by Osvald every other week. But you couldn’t really call that a full schedule of enriching activity.
There was one thing I’d done to try and develop a more meaningful existence, but it wasn’t anything I could count on in the short term. The day after I’d received my American citizenship, I filed paperwork to bring my sister and niece over from Jamaica. Hetty was a widow, Yasmin was twelve and they were living in a small house outside of Montego Bay. By the time I’d be able to get them here, my niece would be ready to graduate high school. In the interim years, I gave my sister money to buy a modern house in a gated community, paid for my niece’s tuition at a well-established girls’ school and promised I’d take care of her college fees once she got to Brooklyn.
Growing up, my sister and I had always been very close and we remained in touch, no matter where I was in the world. She was the only family member who visited me in prison, the only one I mailed a postcard to when I was living in Cornwall. Our parents were dead, our older brothers nothing more than faded memories. She was all I had left. I wanted to share with her all I had access to.
And then a funny thing happened in the midst of my mild depressive state- I remembered that I also had Téo. He’d specifically told me that even though we’d have no direct business involvement once Bolo pulled out of New York he’d still be available to me as a friend. And I’d been so busy trying to develop my own portfolio while continuing to replenish Rafael Montilla’s coffers that I’d almost completely forgotten I did have other people I could call on for advice, or to make me feel human for a minute.
I rang Téo’s home office number on a Thursday evening. He sounded happy to hear from me.
“It’s about time you gave me a call,” he admonished. “Bolo’s been keeping me up to date on your comings and goings but I was starting to feel like you forgot about me!”
He wasn’t too far off the mark, and it actually made me feel ashamed. I’d allowed myself to become so consumed by feelings of alienation that I’d completely managed to isolate myself for real.
“Are you free any time on Sunday?” I asked. “I can stop by and catch you up on everything.”
“Actually, I am,” Téo responded. “Lali’s going to be away on an executive committee golf retreat and Mundo’s in Connecticut.
Maybe Téo was also feeling a bit lonely.
I arrived at the Clinton Avenue house at around seven p.m. Téo greeted me at the door, gave me a hug and ushered me into his kitchen. There was a huge amount of food spread out on the table, along with a bottle of Brugal, an ice bucket and mixers. A dominoes set rested on a kitchen counter.
“I picked up something to eat from Two Steps Down and figured maybe we could knock out a couple games of dominoes after dinner,” he explained.
We dug into smothered chicken, collard greens and rice pilaf. Conversation started out on a superficial level- Lali’s fundraising position with the March of Dimes, Mundo’s coursework at University of Hartford, the Mets’ spring training down in Florida.
“When are you going back down to Panama City?” Téo asked as we cleared the table in preparation for dominoes.
I looked up from the drink I’d been pouring and said I had a ticket for July. “I should be down there for about two weeks,” I said. “He’s going to have some people in from Turkey that he needs me to meet.”
Téo looked up from where he’d been loading plates into the dishwasher.
“Turkey,” he said, quietly.
“Yes,” I replied, “my thought exactly.”
I could tell that while ostensibly he was a disinterested party, Téo had his opinions.
“Bolo’s looking to diversify,” I continued, “meanwhile I’m looking to close ranks. Eventually I’m going to have to pull out altogether.”
“I can’t tell you what to do, but I will say that I think your instincts are on point,” Téo told me.
“But what about Bolo’s real estate?” I asked. “Why is he trying to get in any deeper when he has that going on?”
Téo closed the dishwasher, walked over to the counter and picked up the dominoes set.
“That’s a money suck and a political play,” he explained. “What Bolo has you doing is what keeps the lights on. It’s what funds the vanity projects. But the thing I’m worried for you is that what you’re handling now isn’t going to be safe forever. It may be time to start thinking about the next thing.”
“I know that,” I agreed. “I tried to bring it up to him last year and he shut me down, immediately. The man is afraid to pivot and that makes me nervous.”
Téo sat down across from me and began washing the tiles.
“I deal with trade forecasts every single day, Hopeton, and I can tell you this- things are not going to remain the same for much longer.”
“I need you to make Rafael understand that,” I replied. “Because he is not listening to me. And that’s a problem.”
“I’ll speak to him,” Téo said and then threw double six.
