By September every last bit of product had been sold. PanStar was officially bone dry. Every single shipping barrel had been dispatched- not even a dusty eight-ball remained.
While I waited for Bolo to source a viable supplier of our next product line, I decided to shut up shop for a while and have an HVAC system installed on the entire storefront floor. There was no way I could turn PanStar into a weapons depot and have people sweating it out, minding the store twenty-four hours a day. I needed to have cool heads around me, literally and figuratively.
Shortly after work was completed, I let Cabrón stop by. The emptied-out space felt cavernous and the room was a cool sixty degrees.
“It’s like you got a whole new world now,” he remarked. “Don’t let Biz and Lucci find out you’ve got air conditioning back here. You’ll never get rid of them.”
“Those two are not allowed inside for as long as we have going on what we’re gonna have going on,” I said. “Remember that.”
Pierre looked skeptical, but I was not playing around.
The rest of my downtime was spent preparing for PanStar to receive its next level inventory. I hired a security systems company to turn the old shipping barrel storage into a locked facility with a state-of-the-art access system. Not quite a vault, yet far more than a storage area.
Tight, tight security for my assurity.
Right around the time I shut down PanStar for renovations, Téo called to let me know he’d given Pierre his commission check for the sale of the garage.
“Did you talk to him about Panama City?” I asked.
“He doesn’t seem interested,” Téo replied. “He told me he’s taking a GRE prep class and ‘thinking of going into real estate.’”
“Interesting,” I said, offhandedly.
“I got the vibe that he’s planning on going into business with you,” Téo said, obviously fishing for information.
“We’ve kicked a few ideas around, here and there,” I said. This was the truth. “But nothing serious has been discussed.” Also, the truth.
“Well, when you see him next, try to get him to commit to at least going down to Panama for a few weeks,” Téo asked.
“I’ll make sure to do that,” I promised.
Pierre was M.I.A. for the next few days, but then one Sunday afternoon he randomly rang me up.
I was at a cricket match at Prospect Park, when my cellphone rang. I saw CABRÓN pop up on the screen. Pierre never called me on the weekend, certainly not on my cell, so I decided to take the call.
“My yute,” I said by way of greeting.
“Hopeton,” Pierre said. He didn’t sound stressed, which was a pleasant surprise. “You busy?”
“No man, I’m over in Prospect Park playing cricket.” I told him to swing by. He said he’d be by me within an hour.
After the game was over, we decided to grab a beer at a bar over on Flatbush, not too far from my house. I told Pierre I’d walk over there and let him find parking for his gigantic SUV. I probably should’ve just let the kid pull into my driveway, but I wanted him to work a little for my attention on what should have been my day of rest.
I’d been standing outside of the Westbury Inn for a good twenty minutes by the time he showed up.
“Parking is a bitch around here,” he remarked.
“Well, you know,” I replied. “All these out-of-towners wanting to live the good, suburban life in the heart of Brooklyn.”
Pierre, born and raised in Bed Stuy, nodded in agreement.
“Plus, that money green Mercedes truck you insisted on getting once Mundo was banished isn’t the easiest thing to park.”
“I love that shit,” Pierre said with a mixture of pride and defensiveness.
“I know you do,” I told him.
We walked inside the Westbury. It was a small, pointedly unrenovated dive without table service. We walked up to the bar and got beers. Pierre put in an order of onion rings with the bartender, who said he’d throw us a sign when they were ready. We grabbed a table and sat down.
I knew Pierre had a reason for wanting to get up with me this Sunday, so I wasn’t surprised when he pulled out an envelope and tried to hand it to me. But I was caught off guard.
“What’s this?” I asked, looking confused. I placed the envelope, unopened, on the table.
“It’s a five percent finder’s fee for putting me onto the buyer for the Brownsville property,” he replied.
“No, man,” I said, as I slid the envelope towards him.
Cabrón had the right instincts- he definitely was correct in thinking I needed to be kicked back something. But money was not appropriate in this situation.
“You keep it,” I told him. “Just buy me a nice, professional league dartboard. Yunno, the one that has those cupboard doors, like in pubs in England.”
Pierre laughed, and said he’d make sure to do so.
Within two weeks he had that dartboard mounted in the PanStar back room. It remained hanging in the same spot for years, and I made sure to take it with me when I finally vacated the premises.
“Food’s up,” the bartender called to Pierre.
He stood up to go grab the onion rings. I took a sip of my beer.
After Cabrón returned with the basket of food, I gave it a few seconds before I started in with my proposal.
“I’m glad you brought up the real estate deal, Pierre,” I said, as I reached for an onion ring. “I’ve been working on a business plan and I think there’s something that might work out well for the two of us.”
Pierre smiled as if he’d been expecting this line of conversation to open up.
