Time is money.
— Violence
I worked with Claire for a year, but as time passed, I could tell she didn't approve of how I was running things.
She thought our whole thing was just me and her. She was furious when she found out were were part of a money laundering scheme.
I said, "Where do you think the cash comes from?"
"You sell Bitcoin, right?"
"Yeah. To Foke."
"Who's Foke?"
"Oh, fuck."
We didn't speak for days after I explained that. And she practically shit a brick when she saw Beanie drop off an envelope in our mailbox.
"God damn," she screamed. "You're giving them our address now???"
"THEM? It's my address, and she's the new me."
"The new YOU?"
"I hired her to go into marks' homes, so I don't have to. It keeps me insulated. And soon, I have to hire a new you!"
That was probably our breaking point. Claire thought we were friends, and we were, I guess. But I always knew she'd leave. That was the plan from the start. After a year, she'd bail. That year was almost up.
Claire and I didn't fight often, but when we did, it was bad. Our styles were too different. I fight to blow off steam. If she fights, it's because she means it. After a fight, I feel good. It's like an orgasm. Release. Ahhh. After a fight, she's still boiling, like a live lobster that got dropped in a pot. Even if I let her win, it's never over.
But the fight we had after she saw Beanie at our mailbox? That was in January, 2022. It marked the end of our year together.
She moved out of the house the next day.
As a parting gift, I gave her a duffel bag with a hundred grand in cash.
"This is your moment to do right by me," she said. "Where's the rest?"
It felt like one hell of an accusation.
"Claire, I gave you a place to live. I gave you new clothes. I bought you stuff. I fed you. I got you a better car and gave you lots of money along the way. I gave you everything. Our deal was, your half comes after expenses. This shit got expensive."
She was pissed, but she didn't say anything. I wasn't sure why though. I expected another fight, but she just snatched the duffel bag and stormed out.
I'd thought about replacing her with a new girl. I even tried a few times, but none had the smarts to pull it off.
The hot tub scheme worked because Claire could talk a guy into asking her on a date. If he thought the date was his idea, he wouldn't realize he was getting scammed.
Claire made it look easy. Dez, my partner before Claire... she made it look easy. Maybe I was wrong to think it was easy.
After Claire, I did a trial run with a girl named Scarlet. She called herself Scar, which should have been my first clue she wasn't right for the job.
I found her a mark. She got him in the hot tub. That's putting it mildly. She fucked him in the hot tub, and she made him pay. But the worst part is, she got him naked in the garage, where the hot tub was. That meant I didn't have access to his pants... which meant I couldn't copy his keys and ID.
I had Beanie follow him so she could lift his keys, which meant we still got his Bitcoin. But that's not the point, and it's not how the job was supposed to be done.
Another girl, I think her name was Eve? She was never around when I'd find a mark. Fool me once, fuck you. Fool me twice? You're out.
And then there was Violet. She was violent. We did a trial run, but the mark turned out to be a bagel. She beat the shit out of him for wasting her time.
I tried explaining it again. "Subtlety, Vie. Subtlety. They're not supposed to know what we're doing."
"Fuck subtlety," she said. "Time is money."
Her attitude was wrong, but her words were true. Time is money.
It was time for my hot tub scheme to come to an end, because it takes too much time, and there's too much money to be made.
Fuck subtlety.