People pay for this.
— Old Style
Steve was a drug dealer, and dealers deal in cash.
He had a house around ten miles west of Gary, in Hammond. In order to rob him, I figured I'd be headed into a rough neighborhood. Apparently not. Out there, it's all suburban and subdued. Nothing but lawns and yawns.
After a trip to Walgreens to pick up supplies, my next stop was at Needza Pizza. I was hungry, but really, the pie was a prop.
Steve was in the hospital, so I wasn't worried about him coming home, but I didn't know if anybody else would be around. Even though I had his keys, sneaking in looks bad, so I walked through the front door triumphantly, shouting, "Hi honey, I'm home!!! And I got dinner!"
Luckily, nobody was there. I didn't know how long that would be the case, so I worked fast.
I ran through the house, trying to figure out where the money was.
Living room? No. Dining room? No. Bathroom? Whoa. Filthy. Bedroom, bedroom? No, no. So far, all I'd found was shitty furniture, video games and a TV mounted way too goddamn high, plus three cases of beer on the kitchen counter. I took those out to the car.
Even though the voice in my head said, "Don't go down to the basement!" I had to check.
The door at the bottom of the stairs had a huge chunky lock, but I had Steve's keys. On the other side of that door was a scary basement with a walled-off room in the far corner.
In that room, there was a desk, a small disgusting couch, and a safe. And I had the key! Well, I had the key to reset the combination, which I did.
In the safe, I found stacks of cash and clear plastic bags filled with drugs. The safe was too heavy to take, so I needed boxes.
I ran up to the kitchen and hauled the beer out to the car. I dumped the bottles in the trunk and took the boxes back to the basement. I filled one of the boxes with cash. I filled the other two with drugs and everything I found in Steve's desk. I took the boxes out to the car, and went back inside to get my goddamn pizza, and I got the hell out of there.
The cash was for me, obviously. I took the other boxes to the Boxtan Inn, where the manager acted like he'd never seen me before.
"Yeah, so... Whadaya need?"
"You can't be serious."
"What."
"You don't recognize me? I used to work here!"
"It's like I said. Whadaya neeeeed?"
"I got something for the owner. Mister Foke. Is he around?"
"No."
"Well, when he comes back, remind him who I am, and give him this."
"You got him two cases of Old Style?"
"Open 'em."
He took a peek in one of the boxes, and quickly closed it. "I don't know nothin' about what's in this."
"That makes two of us, but I assume it's all uppers, downers, and sidewayers. Maybe some diagonals? Are those a thing?"
"No."
"Whatever. We both know, people pay for this. All I ask is, only sell it to guys. No chicks. No kids."
"We don't sell dr..."
"Yeah, yeah. I threw in some other goodies too. Just tell Mister Foke it's a gift. He'll want it. I'm not asking anything for it. And this conversation never happened."
Then I left, knowing my pizza was cold and the beer was warm, but victory was sweet because there was one less drug dealer in town.
I shut Steve down.