Do They Know I'm Running? by David Corbett Page A

is why I won’t have a problem taking this someplace else, you turn it down.”
    “You’re setting me up.” Vasco cracked a sick smile, pointing his finger. “You’re setting me up, cocksucker.”
    Happy unbuttoned his flannel, opened it. “Pat me down, you feel that way.”
    “I want nothing to do with no ragheads blowing up buildings.”
    “You’re not seeing the whole picture. I take this elsewhere, you don’t just lose the Colombian franchise. You gonna find yourself on the bottom looking up at whoever grabs it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Guy who steps forward gets to play kingpin this end of the bay.
El mero mero
. Could be you. If so, you’re the one who gets to collect taxes. Nobody moves nothing without giving you a piece. You walk into any
salvadoreño
business you want, you tell them what they pay, you’ll protect them from anybody else tries to move in, shake them down. You’ll have the muscle to kick the
norteños
back into Sonoma, you’ll run things up here. This anoints you. You turn your back on this, though, all that shit rains down on you. You can ride or get ridden. Just the way it is. Meanwhile, you’re already set up to launder the money through the business here, all the other shit you got in play. That’s one more advantage you’ve got over the competition. They’re just street hustlers. They can’t take it to the next level.”
    Vasco’s black eyes jittered back and forth as he thought it through. He was sick of being dictated to by the men working the mortgage scam, you could tell by the way he talked about it. They were no smarter than he was but there were angles to the thing he hadn’t mastered yet, a degree of finesse he lacked. Sooner or later the moving racket would tap out and there was only so much copper wiring to steal and there were rumors the price was about to tank. Everybody was trying to get into identity theft, computer scams, low risk, high reward, but that wasn’t Vasco’s realm. He’d come up through street dealing and takeovers, spent a few years inside himself, Santa Rita on a possession beef, Folsom for the armed robbery. He’d emerged from prison pledged to a cagier tack, conning the dupes, but he wasn’t a natural. Basically, he was stuck, edging thirty, chasing around forhis next good idea, tied to a crank-whore shrew and her demon child. If he didn’t make a bold move soon he’d get eaten alive from above or betrayed from below.
    “You say you and your old man, you work the port angle.”
    “Vasco, stop worrying and thank your luck.”
    “How much a piece you want for that? You haven’t brought that up.”
    “I figure twenty points.”
    “Twenty fucking points
?”
    “The port’s where the risk is. That’s where they look the hardest.”
    “You just shaved three hundred grand off my one-point-five mil.”
    “Stop looking at the floor, look at the ceiling. Three mil’s easy you work it right, first year alone, and that’s just the coke run.”
    “Meaning what, six hundred grand for you, that right?”
    “Add in the protection money, the taxes, the other rackets you got going? You can be in the shit, you want. But you gotta step up.”
    Vasco turned away, glancing down into the truck yard. Puchi was hurling rocks at the crows perched on the telephone wires. Chato shadowboxed, the others looking on, cheering, mocking. “I say yes to this, Godo comes in.”
    Happy cocked his head, as though he hadn’t heard right. “Sorry?”
    “Godo. He helps pay off this outrageous nut you’re asking for.”
    “You seen him since he’s been back?”
    “I’ve heard.”
    “He’s not good. I’m serious.”
    “Listen to me. I start seeing money like you’re talking about moving through here? Gonna need to weapon up. Godo knows more about that than the rest of us put together. At least, if he doesn’t, fucking jarheads aren’t what they’re cracked up to be.”
    “Vasco—”
    “He can teach us things. Things we’ll need to know, in