ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) (21 page)

That wasn’t good enough for me. Now that I was going there I had to find out if he knew Bob Prescott. “Do you know who set us up? Where did you hear about my brother and I getting popped?”

I studied Paul like he might be an enemy.

Lance looked like he was getting more than stressed out by the implication. “Benny! I told him. I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have. We were just putting our heads together to try and figure out why so many Sheriffs were parked around the corner and in your house.”

I broke the pool balls and the cue ball went flying off the table. Two solids and two stripes went in and the eight ball just missed going into the corner pocket. There was a little less tension in the room and I asked, “What did you come up with?”

Paul picked up the cue ball and handed it to me. “Nice break.”

I set the cue ball on the table and Paul continued. “There was another bust in Dana Point a few days ago. They might be connected.”

That must have been Damon’s bust. I asked, “Did you know that dude in Dana Point that got busted?”

Paul said that he didn’t know him personally but knew of him. I asked him a barrage of other questions to do my homework on him and dropped the million dollar question right in the middle of it.

“Do you know a dude named Bob Prescott?”

Paul didn’t look like he knew him or of him. He got a little bit more comfortable and opened up more.

“Man you were going at me half cocked there and I don’t even know you! Are you always that intense?”

I gave him the short version. “You’d be ready to explode too if you just lost your younger brother to juvenile hall and about $40,000 in cash and product over some piece of shit rat I found out is a rapist too!”

I snapped my fingers to show how fast it happened. Then I explained that bust he mentioned in Dana Point was Damon who I’d just met in jail, and how he was on his way to prison over the same rat. Then I explained that Vince who was going with Damon to prison had informed me that Bob Prescott raped one of his friends.

Paul and Lance both looked ready to help. After a couple of pool games Paul broke out his specialty, selling speed. He told me he used to sell coke until he decided it was for sissies. He explained that you wasted too much money on a wasteful high. “It helps you get a lot done in a short period and it’s really just a more raw form of A.D.D. medication like Ritalin or Aderol. It helps you focus better, like adrenaline does. Remember the last time you had a spike of adrenaline, and how it felt?”

I could remember how it felt. I was also pretty sure I had A.D.D. What I didn’t know was what a major crossroad I was at. I asked, “How much can you make on your investment with this speed?”

Paul broke some out. He had a little sandwich baggie with a yellowy white substance at the bottom the thickness of a cigar. He pulled out a little rock and dropped it on a portable glass tray. It made a “tink” noise as it hit. He smashed it down with an I.D. and I could hear the rock cracking into smaller and smaller shards. It kept cracking until it was finally powder to chop up. The contents on the mirror had gone from that yellowy color to white like magic.

I asked Paul, “How much is that small bag worth?”

Paul answered it was worth over a thousand dollars. I imagined that a suitcase full would be worth a hundred grand! Since I’d just had $40,000 seized from me… And I still had $3,000… I had to know more.

“What does that bag cost you? Run down the business to me!”

Paul explained that the cigar thick bag of speed he had was just over an ounce and that it cost him from $400 to $600. He could sell five quarter grams per gram if he weighed them up at point two. At twenty dollars a pop that made it possible to get $2,800 for the ounce. I was sold on that kind of return.

I watched Paul snort two of the four lines he laid out, one in each nostril. Paul’s eyes cringed and his forehead creased in what looked like pain. After a pause he pinched his nose to snort what hung on his nasal membranes and ran to the kitchen faucet. He turned it on and rinsed his nose and exclaimed, “That shit is the rocket fuel. You have to rinse those dirty chemicals out or they will eat through the cartilage eventually.”

Paul walked back and handed me the rolled up hundred dollar bill. I hesitated and thought about my Mom. She’d always said that doing drugs fried the brain God blessed you with, and doing them showed you weren’t grateful for those blessings. Then I thought about how alone I was with my brother in juvenile hall, the five day notice to vacate the house I was living in, and the over $40,000 I had just lost. There was a huge gaping hole inside of my chest that I blamed my Dad for. I grabbed the rolled up hundred dollar bill.

I snorted a part of the first line and literally jumped off the ground. The pain in my eye was so sharp and foreign that my hand covered it and the rest of my face seemed to cringe around it. That eye with all of the pain in it was flooded with tears and I felt my brain opening up. It was just like Paul had said, I felt Focused! And Happy! I went back to the mirror and snorted some in my other nostril and the same thing happened but this time I was ready for it. Once I gathered myself I studied Paul in greater clarity.

He had brown wavy hair and a meaty face that suited him well. He had a rugged look that could dance between G.Q. and grungy. Other than being a little fidgety he didn’t look like a dope fiend or even a drug user unless you looked close. He was dressed pretty sharp and looked pretty athletic.

“Can you get it cheaper when you buy quantity? When are you going to buy some more?” It felt like my mind was turning things over so fast I almost couldn’t wait for Paul to answer before I kept firing questions at him.

It looked like Paul was hoping I’d be intrigued. What a wheeler-dealer!

“As soon as the kingpin comes down from the mountain.”

All I understood was that he was dealing with a kingpin.

Paul continued. “He goes by kingpin Bob, or Big Bob. He’s from San Bernardino, but he calls it San Berdoo. He lives in Redlands up near the mountain and he cooks better speed than any of the biker dope I’ve found!”

If Paul was baiting the hook, I was biting.

I asked, “If he cooks it… How much does it cost him to make?”

Paul looked like he had often wondered the same thing. “If you listen to him tell it, it’s more expensive than you’d think. He comes up with all of these extra expenses that don’t make sense to me. But then again, it’s an insanely risky business so I really don’t doubt him. I’ve heard him say that it cost him just under a thousand for the ingredients to make a pound. He’ll sell that pound for $8,000-$10,000 in San Bernardino. There’s more speed than money there so it’s cheaper. I could milk that pound into $25,000 here.”

That was all I needed to hear. I could picture myself incorporating this kingpin Bob into my program and making that $40,000 that had been seized back, A.S.A.P.!

CHAPTER 49

Paul came over to my house to help me clean up and as soon as we entered he exclaimed, “They tore your pad a new one!”

That’s all I let Paul get out. My mind was spinning with possibilities so fast that I told him my life story and time disappeared. The speed I had snorted had me so wired I couldn’t believe what an amazing problem solver I was! I was going to fix all of the wreckage in my life and enjoy doing it immensely! My brain was now operating optimally! It felt like there had been a missing piece in my mind that was now filled! Why hadn’t I found out about this shit earlier? I spracked around in circles cleaning and talking the whole time.

Paul stopped what he was doing and watched me. He started laughing and said, “That rocket fuel is going to take you on a ride!”

I hit Paul up for another line. He gave it to me and I pulled out my own I.D. and crushed it up on the table. I couldn’t believe how hard it was. It made a cracking sound like I was breaking glass until it was finally crunched up enough to chop up.

Paul said, “Be careful. You already won’t sleep for a couple of days from the other line you snorted!”

I blew right through that stop sign. After snorting enough to choke on, I gathered myself against the eye pinching pain and it felt like I could focus even harder. I remembered what Jasmine had said about contesting the five day notice to vacate my house, so I hit Paul up about it.

Paul answered, “No way. Maybe if you owned it. Look at it this way; you’re already going to lose your security deposit so just cut your losses. It wouldn’t be worth it to put yourself on their radar. Right now you’re just a fish that got fried and law enforcement is already looking for other fish to fry. If you make a big stink about it your name will keep circulating. You’d be developing yourself into a constant enemy and they would continue to target you. Just let it ride.”

That made good sense. Paul was continuing to impress me. We made it to the kitchen and I saw the dog food!!

“Oh my God!! Our dogs!! They’re in the pound!! How many days do they give you before they euthanize them?”

Paul proved to have a love for dogs and rose to the occasion. He handled everything. He called the pound and we raced there in his Saleen Mustang in the nick of time. They would have been put to sleep the following morning. In the next couple of days Jasmine came to the rescue and found a home for them.

CHAPTER 50

I didn’t sleep for more than a week. I looked at sleep like a weakness. If I gave in to it, I was giving up the fight! If I gave in to it, I’d have to face a ton of shit I didn’t want to face. A black hole of depression. I’d rather try and problem solve my life and conquer the riddle. I only needed to snort a couple of lines a day and the elevator ride took me up where I could run from everything and concentrate on my ambitions of enterprise. Unfortunately, the elevator would come back down and I’d stress on how scared and lonely I was. Questions like: what am I doing? How did I get here? Where is it that I’m going? When I searched through these thoughts I found that the mental pain hurt more than anything I’d ever felt physically. I thought about my childhood memories and let anger carry me.

I thought, if I have to do it alone, so be it. I welcomed the self propelled will that was fueled by righteous anger that also slipped into a comforting rage at times. I told myself, I’m going to hold on to my conscience, though. I’m going to go into the business with integrity and honor, and regulate those who don’t have any. If there is anyone preying on the weak, I’m going to check them. If I find fraudulent people in the business, I’m going to give them some truth. If this works out right, I’ll be like an underground mayor who brings honor to our business.

CHAPTER 51

The first round with Paul was purely an investment; a study of the playing field. Paul claimed to do his business with a few rules he never broke, according to him. I could respect his integrity but found a flaw. His rules were: He didn’t deal with anyone he didn’t know, he didn’t deal with anyone under 21 and he didn’t turn people on to the drug who hadn’t already had experience with drugs. His other famous saying was, “Money talks, and bull shit walks.”

I hit him up over a pool game. “Paul, you have some good rules… but you broke half of them dealing with me.”

Paul racked the balls and I could tell he’d already thought about it. “Those rules are rarely broken, if ever… on general principles… You might be the first.”

There was no way Paul could make me over 21 but he gave it his best.

“The most important rule I mentioned was not to deal with people you don’t know. You’re probably thinking that I don’t know you. Let me ask you something, how can you really know anyone? You can’t. You can only take what you can see and learn from it. People will always say, Oh, I know him or her… they would never do that! But have they seen that person they think they know really pushed under extreme circumstances? Do they just talk a good game, or have they proved it in dire circumstances? Most people don’t even know what dire circumstances are! So all you can do is study the situation and do your homework carefully and you’ll have a better shot at predicting right. If you do this assiduously, you’ll hone your instincts into a sharp tool that can penetrate into the truth and separate any exterior fraudulence. I’m doing this with you. I’d already heard about you and your brother before I met you. Your specialty is moving high and low grade marijuana in big and small sizes. That means you have the skills to develop deep networks with the potential to earn. Then you got busted… You didn’t rat. Then, when I met you I saw how relentless you are and thought to myself, that guy would make a good business partner! Once we started talking I saw even more—that you have a family first mentality and I could see how loyal you are. That’s rare these days. You told me your Dad comes from a few generations of iron fisted discipline. I also learned from you that your Mom’s side of the family has their roots in Sicily. They are passionate people and I think you’ve got a lot of that in your genes. You told me how your grandfather took good care of your Mom in New Orleans while owning a bar. Then, through prohibition. Is that enough homework, or what?”

I realized a few things. Paul could probably sell ice to an Eskimo, and that I had done a lot of talking since my introduction to speed. I had armed him with too much information and knew I had to start guarding my tongue. I filtered through Paul’s speech and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt as to why he was doing business with me. Or maybe… it was more about the money, contacts and potential I had? What can you expect?