I was sitting at my desk in the PanStar back room, taking care of the usual set of administrative tasks. Johnny Osbourne was playing on the sound system. I had a lot of work to get through.
While I was reviewing banking statements, it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard from Bolo in several weeks. My senior business partner tended towards overcommunication, and in earlier days I’d have viewed his withdrawal as a major cause for alarm, but to be honest, I’d barely noticed the silence coming from Panama. My life had been so busy, managing contractors over at the house and navigating the endless, petty dramas of PanStar’s day-to-day operations.
Then, I remembered that Bolo had told me months ago that we’d meet up in November to discuss next steps in our business plans. I glanced at the calendar- it was November twelfth.
Something was off, but I decided not to chase.
After I’d powered through my accounting, I pulled out my day planner and plotted out the next phase of renovations. A lot had been taken care of in the past few months, and I was more than ready to have my contractor get started on the inside. I’d had him draw up plans for reconfiguring the second floor- he’d renovate the master bedroom to include an office that could be directly accessed via a shared bathroom, then combine two smaller rooms at the end of the hall into an extra-large guest bedroom with its own private bathroom.
I reached out to Lali and asked her if she’d consider offering me decorating tips. She had a sharp eye for design, and if I could get my house looking one quarter as stylish as she’d gotten her Clinton Hill mansion, I’d be a lucky man. Lali invited me to stop by the following Sunday. We spent a lovely afternoon reviewing paint chips and designing color schemes room by room, until I had a solid plan for my entire house from kitchen to top floor.
“And stop back when you’re ready to get the outside of the house painted,” she offered as I was leaving. “I’d love to help you sort that out. And the landscaping, if you’d like.”
I promised she’d be the first person I called, as soon as I got the house painter confirmed.
A funny thing happened when I returned to my monk’s cell that evening. Everything looked old. And tired. This wasn’t really a new thing- my studio had looked old and tired the day I’d moved into it all those years ago. But I’d been so busy purposely not paying attention that it had never truly registered. And once my mind had switched on to that fact, I couldn’t shut it off. I made my way downstairs, unlocked PanStar and looked around. I did not like what I saw. Even though it was painfully obvious to anyone passing through the doors that my shop was a front for something larger and more dangerous, and therefore didn’t need to be public facing and presentable, PanStar looked a wreck. I was embarrassed.
The next day I got on the phone and called a local handyman who was popular amongst the small business owners along my stretch of Nostrand Avenue. I told him I wanted to paint my shop in bright white with dark blue accents. I was going to leave the back area alone for the time being. Upgrades would have to wait until after I’d convinced Bolo to agree to our next pivot.
“I’m actually between jobs right now,” the contractor told me. “When do you want me to start?”
“Tomorrow,” I replied.
Once the paint had dried, I called up the company that had installed my alarm system back in 1991- I told them I needed a serious upgrade. They came in and completely rewired both the front and back areas, also installing a surveillance camera system that streamed footage to a monitor the company placed in my studio upstairs. Now, if needed, I was able to keep an eye on PanStar without having to physically be there.
I didn’t feel guilty about making any of those upgrades without first running them by Bolo. After all, he had told me to “handle things in Brooklyn as you see fit,” as long as it didn’t incur any major expenses. As far as I was concerned, the money I’d spent was a necessity and non-negotiable. I needed to do whatever I needed to do- at least until I could find a way out of Panamanian Star for good.
