Time is money.
— Violence
I worked with Claire for a year, but the longer we were together, the further we drifted apart.
I tried explaining Doug, but she didn't get it.
"He's a really bad guy," I said.
"Does he have Bitcoin?"
"No."
"Then what are you trying to take from him?"
"His sanity!!!"
And she always got pissed when I mentioned anything that wasn't part of our thing. Even before I told her about Doug, she knew I had other stuff going on.
She thought our whole deal was just the two of us. She was furious when she found out where the cash I'd been giving her came from. I admit, I may have neglected to tell her we were part of a money laundering scheme with a major drug dealer, and gosh it sounds so bad when I say it that way.
I also admit, Claire's knowledge of that came due to a sloppy slip on my part.
We were at home, with the TV on in the background because we'd been fighting again, and I couldn't stand the silence. Claire gets quiet when she's pissed, and I needed background noise to drown out the noise in my head.
A story came on the news about a couple guys from Foke's crew getting busted. She didn't know about Foke and had no idea who the guys were. She just scoffed at what other people do for money, as if she was any better.
"Hell yeah," she said, when the news reporter showed video of a guy in cuffs. "They should round up all the drug dealers. Get 'em all!"
I said, "Where the fuck do you think our cash comes from?"
"You sell Bitcoin."
"Yeah! To Foke."
"Who's Foke?"
"Oh fuck!"
We didn't speak for days after I explained all of that. And she practically shit a brick when she realized I wasn't searching homes anymore.
She screamed, "Who the hell's doing it?!?"
"I hired somebody!"
"Fuckin' A, bitch! How many people are you bringing into our thing?!?"
"OUR thing? This is mine! And she's the new ME!"
"There's a new YOU?"
"You're goddamn right there is! I got a chick going into marks' homes, so I don't have to. It keeps me insulated. And soon, I'm gonna need to hire a new YOU!!!"
"OH, FUCK YOU!!!"
That was our breaking point.
Claire thought we were friends. And we were. I guess. But I knew she'd leave. That was the deal from the start, right? One year, or the other thing, which I never should have said.
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!!! Ahhhh. After a fight, she keeps boiling, like a live lobster in a pot. Even when I let her win, it was never over.
But the fight we had when she realized I was going to hire somebody to do her job when she left... That was when she left.
It marked the end of our year together. January 24th 2022. Did you know, January 24th is National Compliment Day? It's a thing. I remember the date because Claire told me I was evil. I said, "Coming from you, that's a compliment!"
She moved out of the house a couple days later, but really, she was already gone.
As a parting gift, I gave her a duffel bag with a hundred grand in cash.
"Don't do me dirty," she said. "One year or one million, and we split the take after expenses. That was the deal."
"I know what I said!"
"I gave you a year. I should be getting half of everything. 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 and fed you lots of cash along the way. Those are expenses. Plus the house and the hot tub? All of this shit got expensive."
I could tell she was burning up, but she didn't say a word. She just snatched the duffel bag and stormed out.
I thought about replacing her with a new girl. I even tried a few times, but none of 'em had the smarts to pull it off.
The hot tub scheme worked because Claire could talk a guy into asking her out. If he thought the date was his idea, he wouldn't realize it was a setup.
Claire made it look easy. Dez, my partner before Claire... I'm not saying she was good at it, but 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. In hindsight, that should have been a clue.
I found her a mark. She got him in the hot tub, which is putting it mildly. She fucked him in the hot tub, and she made him pay her for the privilege. But the worst part is, she got him naked by the hot tub, in the garage instead of in the house. That meant I didn't have access to his pants, which meant I couldn't copy his keys and ID.
I had to have Beanie follow him. She figured out where he lived and she managed to sneak in, so we still got his Bitcoin. But that's not the point. That's not how the job was supposed to be done.
Another girl I tried working with... I think her name was Eve? She was never around when I'd find a mark. Fool me once, fuck you. Fool me twice? We're through.
And then there was Violet. She was violent, and I should have known that since she had a tattoo of a knife between her tits and she showed more cleavage than even a cleaver wants to see.
We did a trial run. When she realized the mark was a bust, she wrenched the shit out of him for wasting her time. So that went well.
I tried explaining it to her. "Subtlety, Vie. Subtlety. They're not supposed to know it's a setup."
"Fuck subtlety," she said. "Time is money. Violence gets the job done."
Her attitude was wrong, but she was right... about time.
It was time for my hot tub scheme to come to an end, because it took too much time, and there was too much money to be made.