The Return
The day of my flight arrived and I had made sure to tie up all loose ends. I had already finished my packing with a couple hours to spare before heading to the airport. I decided to give Snap-Chatty Patty a call. I had been checking in with him daily on the status of business and things while I was gone. Pretty much was my confidential informant on Papi’s activities. Perfecto’s Work/Play graph was on a steady decline. About what I expected. But also got the breaking news that Tone (Ramon’s cousin) no longer works for us. Papi had been dicking him around and not paying what was promised to him. So he decided to pay himself. He snagged a company check, filled in the blanks, and deposited it into his bank account. $1,500 upswing for Tone. He had no intention of returning to work. I then called him to try and resolve the issue, but it was clear I had no shot at mending things between them. He was very good at what he did, but oh well, man down.
I then checked in with Max to see how the SUV was holding up. Wanted to make sure my poker table hasn’t flown off yet. Him and C-Dog had spent the night at his brother’s place in North Carolina. They were already off on their second leg of the trip. I was a little tilted about the Tone situation, so I figured I would stir stuff up with Max. Just recently I had found out C-Dog piped Max’s little sister. Max was aware, and acknowledged this as true. He had zero influence on whether C-Dog would be joining us in Orlando, but did beg/request/threaten that it never be spoken of again. So I apologized to him, and let him know I just slipped up. That I accidentally mentioned it to SCP. The current biggest mouth in the south. I know this sounds like I was being a prick, but I was actually doing him a favor. He was running very low on funds from the money he left with. The $300 budget I gave him wasn’t looking so promising at this stage in the trip. He didn’t calculate for reduced gas mileage on the wind the table was catching. I heard from C-Dog he was crushing a ton of energy drinks. Plus there was speculation he may have purchased a few out-of-state scratch-offs. Anyway, the point is, I wanted him sick to his stomach, so he wasn’t hungry and could save on food cost.
Speaking of scratch-offs, I figured I would kill the last 30 minutes or so with a quick run to the corner store. I bought 4 of Max’s favorite ticket. He had been torching money on these $5 tickets, so I prayed I would hit just to torture him a bit more. Now you may not believe me, but cross my heart and hope to die. I HIT!!! I instantly called Max to ruffle his feathers. He didn’t believe me until I FaceTimed him the winner. He tried to sound happy for me, but it hurt him. I almost got more pleasure out of that, then the actual win.
So my flight went by smoothly, I spent most of it drinking vodka/crans. I also made sure to spend the couple bucks for in-flight messaging. Was checking in on where Max was on the map. As soon as I landed, Papi was waiting for me. You could tell he was in full blown Perfecto mode, but tried to keep it cool. I was starting to realize some changes may have to be made to keep this business successful. He was supposedly tight on funds for unknown reasons. SCP kept me in the loop that he was blowing it on the 11. I didn’t care too much as long as he wasn’t touching my money.
I think it was a Tuesday I landed on, but since I started drinking on flight, I made sure to kill time messaging everyone down there that we were going out that night. Papi was living at the apartment full-time at this point. He was running wild and wouldn’t go home to his wife for a few weeks now. Didn’t bother to send her home a single peso either. One responsibility Papi always made sure he showed up for, was taking care of his older son (from another relationship) on the days he has him. He’s an extremely well-mannered 12-year-old for having such a Degen dad, and a mother that makes Papi look like a saint. Very nice kid who handles his father’s antics like he's one of the guys. Seemed to love the action, even played poker. Not that big of a brag for him, but he did beat Max heads-up one time.
Well this night he had his son, and seemed very upset we were going out. He knew he had to do the right parent thing and stay home with his son that night. I felt his pain, but that wasn’t stopping everyone from hitting the town, especially when it’s C-Dogs first night. Some friends had already arrived when Max and C-Dog finally pulled up. The whole crew went down to unload the cars. There was a good amount of stuff to lug up the elevator. I even brought all the chairs with my poker setup. A few runs by everyone and we had everything in the apartment. I got all the formal introductions done with C-Dog. To this day I wonder what he first thought of this crew. He never met anyone beside Max and I prior to this. Now it’s Debo, SCP, Papi and his son, plus a couple other randoms. It didn’t matter though, we were all excited to go out that night.
We set the poker table up quickly, got dressed, and made drinks. After a bit of that we were ready to head out. The whole crew minus Papi. As we were getting in the elevator to head down we hear him yelling to hold the doors. He decided to leave his son home alone. I can’t tell him how to parent, so we all held the doors. We first hit our usual club, Vintage. Papi quickly ordered Ciroc and a hookah. C-Dog seemed to be really excited about this lifestyle. I explained to him that this is a regular night for us. Just your ordinary Tuesday. Him, SCP, and I all chatted for a bit about stuff. SCP kept asking how much C-Dog was worth of course. As far as I knew, he owned an Impala outright. Wasn’t sure how much money he had tucked away. I then ordered a bottle a champagne for a toast with everyone.
We started pressing Max to guzzle the rest of the bottle before we hit another club. He obliged and quickly became pretty loopy. Next club Papi ordered a couple more bottles. I noticed he used the company card for them to hold this time. We all just drunkenly mingled with girls and had an overall good time. None of us ended up bringing any girls home, but we all made it back to the building safely.
The next day we all got motivated so we could get going on the day. We registered C-Dog at the auction and showed him the ropes at the dealership. I had Max detail the SUV so we could get it up for sale. Also he finally laid his eyes on what Papi invested his remaining $1,100 in funds on. It was the most bombed-out car I had ever seen. Looked like it cost $300. Papi swore it was $1,100, that he would find the receipt(never did). Poor Max was sick. He would be lucky in my opinion to get $1,100 for it. It started to become clear that Perfecto was really running his flim-flams. I told Max to keep his head up and try to sell it. That if he didn’t sell it that week, I would give him the $1,100 for it. Either way I had his back on food, drink, etc. in the meantime.
By this time, SCP had plans to head home for Halloween in a few weeks. His sugar daddy had him financially comfortable so he decided he was taking vacation time. The next few weeks he wouldn’t be coming into work. He claimed it was more so that he didn’t want to have money tied up in cars and not sell them before he leaves. A bit afraid what Perfecto could do while he’s gone. I didn’t hold it against him, I mean he has been the one witnessing his maneuvers first hand for the past month. C-Dog on the other was very optimistic about this whole opportunity. He posted an ad immediately for his car. I can’t remember his initial asking price, but pretty sure he had that Impala up for $4k or something. I told him he would never get that, but he was adamant to let it play out.
None of us felt like drinking that night, so we all agreed on a poker run. We headed out to the Daytona Kennel Club for a poker tournament and some cash afterwards. I didn’t realize at first, but Chris Moneymaker was featured in this tournament. I went over to wish C-Dog good luck in the tourney and seen Moneymaker at his table. I text him afterwards asking if he noticed him, but at the age of 25 he missed that era of poker I guess. He had no clue who he was. Now C-Dog loves poker, but never really played on the internet, never went on forums, never really been a true fan of the game. He’s decent on your average weekend $1-$2 line-up. Better then Max and Papi, but worse then SCP. Papi loves poker too, but never followed it. I told him that the WSOP world champion is there. He made sure to go up and introduce himself. Told Moneymaker his name is Papi Perfecto and that he is well known in Florida.
We all eventually bust the tournament. I went the furthest, but once I busted I wasn’t in the mood for cash. So we all headed home after that. The weekend was coming up so we had to get geared up to move units. Tone was gone, SCP was on “vacation”, Max was sick with the bucket he had to try and sell, C-Dog had high hopes and loved this life, Papi was up to no good, and I was trying to figure out what needed to be done to save us…
Last edited by WarmDeck; 06-14-2017 at 09:03 PM.