By the time Cabrón left for Panama in March, I’d been approved as a Ria agent. There was nothing for me to do with that just yet, but it was a comfort to know that when I was ready to move out from under Bolo, a major piece of the puzzle would already have been put in place.
I let Mano know I’d be down to see him shortly, as soon as I had a few things taken care of in Brooklyn.
“And I think it might be time for you to see about getting a tourist visa to the States,” I told him. “I may need to have you meet me in Miami in the near future. Let Bolo know if you need any help with that.”
Mano told me he’d take care of it himself and would get on it immediately.
My real reason for delaying my trip was that I was waiting for Pierre to get back from visiting Mundo. I wanted to get his take on what was going on down there between his brother and my business partner.
In the meantime, things were quiet, so I caught up on things I’d let fall by the wayside. I was coming from a meeting with Ever over at Restoration Plaza one afternoon when I saw MARTINO flash across my cellphone screen. Cabrón was still in Panama, so I could only think there was some sort of emergency.
I took the call.
Biz bypassed any sort of greeting and jumped right to it.
“Hopeton! You got any time for me and Lucci today? Or tomorrow?”
“What is this about?” I asked.
“It’s too complicated to get into over the phone,” he told me. “But when we see you, we can explain everything.”
“Is it urgent?” I asked.
“C’mon, Hopeton,” Biz said. “We really want to talk to you about this new thing. It’ll be worth your while, I promise. We even wrote everything out into a Word doc, like a business plan!”
“I assume you know Cabrón is still away?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Biz replied. “But I hate having to go through him every time I want to get to you. This time, I promise you’re gonna love what me and Lucci have. Brón doesn’t even know about this, yet. We just want to see what you think first.”
“Alright, meet me at Snooky’s in Park Slope tomorrow at three o’clock. Bring Lucci and your business plan. Please be on time.”
I hung up the phone.
When the three of us met the next day, I was shocked at these kids’ proposal.
ATM skimming.
“ATM skimming? What the hell is that?” I asked.
Biz gave me a quick lesson on skimming:
· Fit a skimmer overlay on the debit card slot of an ATM machine
· Install a pinhole camera above the machine- camouflage the camera behind a two-way mirror or a car service flyer and call it a day
· The skimmer records the card’s magnetic stripe data (account number, name)
· The camera records the customer entering their four-digit PIN
· Et cetera, et cetera
All told, there were over twenty critical path items needed to make this scheme a workable enterprise.
“Okay, this is making sense to me,” I admitted. “Do you have everything written out step by step, or should I start asking you questions?”
“We didn’t think it would be a good idea to write you out a skim ‘n dip manual,” Lucci said. “But we know exactly how it needs to go, step by step.”
I had to laugh out loud at this. This was the point where I started to believe that these kids might actually stumble upon their own road to greatness.
“Seen,” I agreed. “So, then let me just start in on the questions.”
“Have at it, boss,” Lucci replied.
I fired off questions relating to what I thought were the biggest potential problem areas.
“Question one: how are you going to partner up with store owners to get the skimmers and cameras installed? Question two: what are your roles going to be in this endeavor? You’re not going to have time to do every single thing. Who are you delegating to? Question three: how long do you think this scheme will hold up? What’s its shelf life, realistically speaking?”
“I got this one, Lucci,” Biz said, before addressing me directly.
“We’re gonna use our EBT list,” he said. “You know- all the bodegas and whatnot that we had on our routes.”
“That’s the first potential problem,” I cautioned. “You don’t want to use the Fort Greene to Williamsburg list. That’s too close to home. You can’t do this type of dirt so close to your own backyard.”
Biz and Lucci looked at me like I was the messiah resurrected from the dead. These kids still had so much to learn.
“What about your Brownsville list?” I asked. “I remember you were starting to service that area at some point.”
“That’s what I was thinking!” Lucci exclaimed.
“So, stick to Brownsville. East New York. Coney Island,” I instructed them. “Stay away from the north side of Brooklyn. Never shit where you break bread.”
I interrupted myself to call over a waiter.
“You kids want anything else to eat?”
“Nah. We’re good,” Lucci said.
I ordered a fresh pitcher of Brooklyn Lager and continued my inquiry.
“On to question two,” I began. “How much the two of you think you’re going to be able to manage handling on your own?”
Lucci and Biz tag teamed on this one and the answer that followed was both incoherent and misguided.
I interrupted before it went too far.
“I need you to listen to me carefully,” I told them. “You never, ever want to expose yourself when you’re leading a project like this. You need to pass information down the line, and only to people you trust.”
Biz and Lucci were listening intently. I didn’t necessarily want to play the older, wiser elder role but…
“The two of you are in the front office. You make the list, you set the route, you get the info and money is brought to you,” I explained. “You. Stay. Off. The. Bumbaclot. Streets.”
“So, you’re saying we’re gonna need our own set of lieutenants to manage the stores?” Lucci asked.
“Yes,” I agreed. “That is exactly what I’m saying. You’re going to need to vet the store owners to make sure they’re really going to work with you and not fuck everything up. It doesn’t matter if they were your EBT customers- this is a whole different ball game. You’re going to need to get a fairly large crew of technicians to install the devices and get them tested. You’re going to need another foot soldier army to do collections and enforcement, if needed.”
Biz had been noticeably silent during this whole exchange. I could see the gears turning in his head, as he realized how large this operation really was.
“You know what you need to do,” I said to him. “You need to sit down with a legal pad and a Sharpie and make yourself an org chart, with you and Lucci at the top, and every level of personnel you’ll need listed below you, until you get to the bottom rung of the organization.”
“And you can be over us and off to the side,” Lucci joked. “Like the Godfather.”
That friendly little remark made something click in my brain.
“Actually, there will be two of us off to the side and over you lot,” I told them.
The nephew would be the perfect person to bring into this.
“I have someone I work with out in Brownsville,” I explained. “His name is Sobrino, and he does what you guys do, but he’s a little older and a bit more on the managerial level. He’ll be the one who makes sure you don’t get killed out there. Let me set up the meet and we can get going on this.”
“Okay, this is all good,” Biz said. “Are we ready to rock it?”
“Not yet,” I replied. “There’s still one question you haven’t answered. How long do you think this scheme will last?”
Biz briefly scrunched up his face as he did some quick mental math.
“I’d give it under a year, to be on the safe side,” he replied.
“That sounds about right,” I agreed. “Prepare for six months and hope for nine.”
Biz reached out his hand to close the deal with a handshake. Lucci followed suit.
