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Faustino trained me well I harbored a very healthy amount of fear and respect for him He hadn’t ever hurt ain, especially since I was on his shit-list for disappearing three o

And here I was, ten feet away from El Tiburon and Enrique where they dined on Italian pasta Well, Faustino dined Enrique only dines on hot fresh liquid blood They , in a restaurant filled with families Lia and I sat at a table across from them I faced away All they could see was the back of my head I had on a pair of two hundred dollar rose-colored Prada sunglasses, and an eleven hundred dollar khaki suit fro like the Esperanza de Salvador who Faustino had once known

Knowing this didn’t help to alleviate the fear settled in ht kill nized me I had an eerie sense the last three months spent with Enrique were but a brief interlude, a passing dream that was now over Like I’d been on loan to Enrique all this tihtful owner It really creeped me out I felt ready to bolt at any minute, to run flat out as fast I could, to escape back to my beautiful bedrooh to overhear the conversation, but Lia could She had ears like a dah Lia’s ears, and at the sahts to catch the unspoken

Enrique got down to business i services?"

"Si compadre We need product transported from Panama into New York harbor I know you can handle the job, my main concern is the cost"

"Why all of a sudden? You never needed me to ship any farther than Florida in the past"

That shocked the hell out of led cocaine But it made sense He knew Faustino, knew his nicknaht of Enrique in that light He seeh class to be involved in this kind of business

"I have problems The mules, they don’t like to fly anymore They’re superstitious about the new ho, pockets The scanner is not an X-ray, it can’t see inside the body They don’t listen They are afraid You kno it is The ignorant ones always live in fear"

Faustino himself couldn’t be certain if the new scanners saw into a person’s body He tried to bully the mules into a test Some of the cartel bosses back home were suspicious The new scanners itally stripped away to reveal the nude body underneath A subject of great debate a financially The cocaine market had been steadily eroded away by heroin, methamphetamines, and all the narcotic prescription pills Cocaine’s popularity had dropped fast Faustino started trading cocaine for heroin in atte of choice He tried to adapt, but business wasn’t what it used to be

I felt relieved to hear the mules had been shut down I knew firsthand of the nerve-wracking experience I had sed the latex balloons of cocaine, h custo the around ih without the added threat of the scanners

A few months after I made my one and only delivery to LaGuardia International, I rented a irl orked as a et production, but it could have been a irls died I hadn’t witnessed that personally, but everyone knew the rumors of what happened when a latex ball bursts in your stoh, you’re dead I tried it once, got lucky, and decided to take o back to Rubin

Enrique nodded in acknowledgeht to the point "When, where, how much, and most importantly, how much can you pay me?"

Faustino snickered and scooped the last of his pasta doith a swig of beer "That’s what I like about you Always direct and professional I knohat to expect e do business"

Enrique s three hundred kilos We load up at Panama Take a day or two to receive the product, then however long it takes for your ship to make it home"

Enrique nodded "A week or less, from the time we leave port in Panama And your price?"

"Hundred thousand"

"For three hundred kilos all the way fro contracts to create a legitimate reason for the trip That’s not even a thousand a kilo"

"Two hundred thousand"

"Make it two hundred fifty thousand I’ll pay the fifty as a bonus to the crew for timely delivery, and to keep their mouths shut"

"Done"

"I need a hundred thousand up front, and you’re responsible for bribing customs officials at both Panama and New York"

"Of course"

"When do we leave?"