Our goal is to
make our little corner
of the world a better place.
— Frustration
I returned from Wanatah still reeling.
Claire could tell something was wrong when I didn't send any form of a grocery text after doing a job. No grapes. No bagels. No Maxi-Pads despite the fact the situation warranted it. And I didn't check in when I got home, so she came to the basement to find me.
"You all right?" she asked.
"Yeah. I had a close call, but I got what I needed. Now, I need a drink."
"I could use one too. And a talk."
"Oh?"
"Don't freak out, but... I've been thinking about Terry."
"You've been thinking about TERRY?"
"I've been thinking about how he was a nice guy. It's good that he turned out to be a bagel, because that means nothing bad happened to him."
"What are you saying, Claire? You want to call this off? You want to go back to working the streets?"
"Come on! I didn't say that!"
"Then what are you saying?"
"I'm saying, we don't talk about how not all guys deserve it. Y'know? And we never talk about the progress we're making. When we started, you said a million dollars each. How close are we to getting there?"
Actually, it was one year or one million dollars, and as the months passed, I regretted saying it. That was a fuck up.
"I think we're at a hundred thousand each," I lied, "but that's before expenses."
"Expenses like?"
"Like, I bought a fucking house for this. And because of what we're doing here, I had to buy it in cash. I also bought a top of the line hot tub. That fucker was expensive. And we had to put a lot into the house, because it needed to look like the kind of place an elegant woman like Claire Jenkins calls home. And by the way, it's not like you're paying rent. I've been paying you well, right? We're ahead, but we've got expenses."
I didn't like where this conversation was going at all. She was a fucking prostitute when I found her. I put her in a nice house, one with a backstory I never burdened her with. I put her in nice clothes and fed her well. She went from being a goddamn street walker to living like a queen.
"I'm just asking what our end game is," Claire said. "What's our goal?"
"Our goal is to make our little corner of the world a better place, by having us go from rags to riches, while making marks go from riches to rags."
That was just the frustration talking. There was a lot I hadn't been telling Claire, because it was none of her goddamn business.
I hadn't told about my run in with Boogie, or the fact that I had a deal with Foke to swap Bitcoin for cash. She never asked where the cash came from, so I never told her. But I was feeling pretty pissed about how I was putting myself in danger while she went out to bars and splashed in a hot tub. The balance of duties in our partnership was not even close to being even. And she complained!?
I thought about giving her a hundred grand and putting her ass back out on the streets, but she'd be hard to replace.
"I've been thinking about getting out too," I lied. "I've been thinking about ramping up, so we can make a lot more money, so we can afford to get out."
"You're saying there's a new plan?"
"I'm saying I'm working on a new plan."