July Fourth was on a Saturday. I hated that colonialist holiday.
Osvald had told me in advance that he was going to shut down for the day. “I’m chartering a boat out of Freeport,” he explained. “I wanna catch some bluefish. It’s gonna be a bunch of us. You should come. Drink some beers, smoke a little weed, catch some fish. It’ll be fun!”
And it actually did sound fun. So, I said I’d be happy to be a part of his colonialist fishing expedition. Osvald laughed at me.
“But, I’m gonna stop by the shop on Thursday,” I told him. “I need to get myself together.”
Osvald’s Prime Cuts was ram packed when I arrived. Every chair was occupied and it was standing room only in the seating area. Someone got up to take a phone call and I grabbed his spot on the couch.
Osvald was finishing up with a customer- a regular I recognized from the old location.
“You got this place jumping,” I commented, once I was in his chair.
“Yeah, you know,” he agreed. “Holiday weekend’s coming up- everybody gotta look fresh.”
“It’s hard to believe you’re coming up on two years here,” I remarked. “It’s gone so fast.”
“It feels like yesterday and a million years ago,” Osvald agreed. “We’re getting old.”
He caught my eye in the mirror.
“How you doing with selling the building?” he asked.
“No real bites yet,” I said. “Everyone loves how sharp you have the retail space, and they’re okay with the apartments upstairs, but no one wants to take on a building with the lease I gave you. But it’s okay. I knew that might happen. And this neighborhood has to pick up, eventually. I can wait.”
I looked into the mirror and saw Osvald’s nephew enter the shop.
“I got next,” he told his uncle. “You made me book in advance and I’m here on time.”
Osvald said he’d be done with me in a minute.
“How’s it going?” I asked the nephew. He was forever involved in some next level shadiness and always seemed to know who was moving what and when the next big thing was about to pop off.
“It’s hot around here,” the nephew confirmed. “Money’s not flowing like it should be and kids are getting restless. Crews are starting to scrap.”
This was of especial interest to me. Bolo’s pipeline issues were part of a broader problem.
“But I thought you don’t really deal with that work,” I replied. “Your lane is still good, right?”
“Yeah, I’m not into that shit at all,” Osvald’s nephew agreed. “You know that. The drug game is mad grimy. Kids would rather boost Ralph Laurens from Macy’s than slang.”
What he said tracked with what I’d been experiencing in Crown Heights. Good help was getting harder to find.
“But if the kids used to making money are taking a hit, then they’re not coming to me,” he continued.
“What do you have going on?” I asked.
“I have my eye on some new age shit, finagling with credit cards and whatnot,” the nephew replied. “It’s real niche.”
“Very interesting,” I said, more to myself than to anyone else.
Osvald finished me up, then his nephew slid into the chair.
“Okay, Hopeton,” Osvald said as I got ready to depart. “I’ll see you at the dock at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday.”
The next day was payday over at PanStar. I knew Pierre would be eager to receive his money, it being a holiday weekend and all.
Mundo was in Guyana, visiting family with his mother, so I expected the disbursement to be less chaotic than usual, which was helpful. I had a lot of my own work to handle and didn’t have much mental bandwidth to tolerate junior level shenanigans.
I was in the back room sitting at my desk, reviewing a complicated trade commission briefing that Téo had slipped me. Between the lines, I could clearly see that scrutiny of certain maritime cargo lanes was about to intensify.
I was deep into a passage detailing proposed revisions to container security mandates when Cabrón entered the room. Trailing behind him were Biz and another, younger boy. I glanced at my Rolex. It was one o’clock.
“Aren’t you a bit early to collect your pay?” I asked.
“We came now because we wanted to talk to you about something,” Pierre said, sliding into the seat across from me. “I know you’re usually free right around now.”
Biz sat down in the chair next to Pierre.
“Hello, Biz,” I said in a stern voice. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Lucci,” Biz said. “He’s sorta my nephew, but I wanted you to meet him so we could tell you about something else we’ve got going on.”
“Lucci? Is that short for Luciano?” I asked. I still hadn’t learned Biz’s government name.
Luciano nodded. He was very young looking. I was not looking forward to learning why he’d been brought to me.
I gestured for Luciano to have a seat on the couch.
“Okay, what’s on your minds?” I asked, as I slid Pierre his envelope. I caught Biz giving it a longing glance.
“So, you know the phone card thing Biz has been working on?” Pierre asked.
“Yes. It’s all Mundo had been talking about for the past several months. What about it?”
“Well, we’re right at the point where it’s ready to roll,” Pierre explained. “We wanted you to meet Lucci, because he’s actually the one who figured out exactly what we needed to do.”
“Really now.” I looked across Cabrón and Biz at the kid sitting on the couch. “How did you know what to do?”
“I’m really good at hacking shit,” he said, not particularly helpfully.
Biz stepped in. “Hacking is when you break into some big-ass company’s mainframe and steal data from them that helps you do shit that you’re trying to pull off.”
“Like, make your own ‘unlimited minutes’ phone cards?” I suggested.
“Exactly!” Lucci shouted, giving me shades of Mundo.
“And what do you want me to do with this information?” I asked.
“You already know what we want,” Pierre said, slightly impatiently. We want you to help us get our own office and some equipment, so we can get cracking on this.”
“I’ve already told Mundo I need to see a business plan. Remind him of that when he gets back from his trip. Office hours are on paydays,” I said.
I stood up, and ushered the kids out of my back room.
I had to laugh to myself once I was alone. It appeared that while Mundo was away with his mother, Pierre and Biz had seized that opportunity to build their own business relationship with me. And it was highly interesting that Mundo’s employee had shown up with his own employee.
These kids were a lot of work.
I went to sleep before nine o’clock that night, because I had to be on the road to Freeport at the crack of dawn.
Osvald’s Independence Day fishing expedition was very nice. His friends were all like him- tipos comunes in the best sense of the phrase.
We spent a good six hours out on the boat, drinking beer, smoking weed, casting our lines into the Atlantic. Osvald got sunburned and we all laughed at him. I won a prize for catching the smallest fish. I handed my prize, a forty of warm O.E., to Osvald’s nephew. He cracked it open and took a slug.
“So, yeah- I wanted to tell you I heard something,” the nephew said, as we leaned over the railing at the stern of the boat.
I nodded at him to continue.
“I heard there’s a new crew wholesaling out in Far Rock,” he continued. “Supposedly, they’re a splinter group of one of your partner’s old crews.”
A gust of wind kicked up off the water. I inhaled.
“The Edge?” I asked.
Osvald’s nephew nodded.
“That’s not very surprising,” I replied. “My partner has lost focus.”
“You can’t sleep on Far Rock,” Osvald’s nephew agreed.
