“It’s a good start, that’s for sure. Kate said the overall numbers are down though.”
“I don’t think they really are,” Antony says. “It’s just because we moved everything this week, and it hasn’t all been accounted for. I gave Reid a lot of shit for it, and he’s going to make sure the numbers are accurate before the day is done.”
“He’s got a lot to do. Is he handling his new responsibilities well?”
“For the most part, yeah. He doesn’t know as much about the document shit as he does about real estate, but I think he’ll catch on soon enough.”
“Let me know if he doesn’t.”
“Will do.”
“Anything else I should know about?”
“We did have an interesting customer.”
“Oh yeah? Who?”
“Sebastian Stark.”
“Never heard of him.”
“How about Landon Stark?”
“That dude from Seattle? Works for Franks?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“Is Sebastian his son or something?”
“I’m not sure. The weird thing is, he came in looking for a driver’s license with Landon Stark’s name but Sebastian Stark’s picture. Said he just needed a quick one, nothing fancy.”
“Did you make him one?”
“Sure.” Antony shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I? We hardly have any dealings with the Seattle mob.”
“If he gets in trouble with it, and it’s traced back to us, we could be held responsible.”
“I thought of that. It won’t be traced to us.”
“Why not?”
“Because I did a shit job with it. I didn’t make him one, just took his license and doctored it up.”
I glare at him, not sure what I think of all this. Since we ultimately service them all, the Orso family stays out of the big crime syndicates’ issues.
“Don’t do any of that shit for the Chicago guys,” I tell him. “They barely escaped a massive war up there recently.”
“Yeah, I know.” Antony looks down at his feet. “Micha said as much last year when it all started up. I figured since we don’t deal much with Seattle anyway, it didn’t matter.”
“If it does get back to us, I’ll take it out on you.”
“Duly noted.”
“How is it going here? Everything set up now?”
“Yeah, it’s all good, boss. The new skimmers are working out great, and buyers are lining up for the data.”
“Glad to hear it. Who’s the new guy working with Reid?
“The one who looks like he’s twelve?”
“Yeah.”
“His name is Will Phillips. He’s a senior in high school but really good with the computers, I guess. He’s rewritten some of the algorithms for the server traces and such. Says it will make us even harder to track but easier to transfer money into the offshore accounts. I don’t get much of what he’s saying, but he certainly seems to know his shit.”
“Phillips? Ron Phillips’ kid?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Ron was a good guy.” I remember him from several years back. He did a lot of the computer work for my father and brother.
“I always liked him.” Antony looks nostalgically into the distance.
“He got himself killed in a car wreck, didn’t he?” I try to picture Ron’s face in my head and compare it to the kid I saw hunched over a computer.
“That’s just the kind of guy he is. Well, was.”
“How do ya mean?”
“No mess for us to clean up.” Antony smirks.
“Very considerate.” I shake my head and roll my eyes.
“I thought so.” He continues to grin. He finishes his smoke and updates me on the rest of the business in Cincinnati while simultaneously flipping through some hook-up app, mostly swiping right. Clearly, Antony isn’t too picky.
I sigh heavily.
“Antony, I need a favor.”
“Anything you want, boss. What can I do ya for?”
“Do you remember that girl from the club the other night? The one with the bad taste in internet dates?”
“Sure. We grabbed a pic of her ID when you had me take care of that guy for ya. Well, Threes did most of it, but you know what I mean. Cherice Bay.”
“That’s her. I need to check her out.”
“I should be able to get that done today.”
“I was hoping we could do it now.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Antony eyes me for a moment, and then I follow him up the stairs and inside.
Antony closes the door with a bang, but no one hears the noise or looks up. Several dozen people hover over the workstations lined up against the walls. The center of the room is filled with boxes on pallets, all marked with Chinese characters above the English words indicating computer parts.
The boxes aren’t filled with computer parts, of course. They’re filled with stolen and wiped phones, which are much more profitable.
I follow Antony past the workers, briefly glancing at their meticulously created forgeries of passports, birth certificates, social security cards, and driver’s licenses. On the other side of the warehouse is another door, and Antony walks casually through it to the far side of the building.
I close the door behind me and give my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim lighting. This part of the warehouse is empty and looks like it hasn’t fulfilled its role as a place to store stuff for years. The steady drip, drip, drip of a leaking pipe echoes through the concrete structure.
Antony leans over a folding table and switches on the computer that sits there. We wait for the PC to boot up, and then Antony starts his searching.
“All right,” Antony says. “Nothing too spectacular here, but I did find her. Driver’s license looks legit. Cherice Marie Bay hails from Accident, Maryland.”
“Accident? Really?”
“Yeah, that’s the name of the place. I noticed the town when I was looking at the surveillance footage and honestly thought it was bogus, but I checked it out, and it’s legit. Looks like she’s lived there all her life with an
