Blotting Paper: A life of sex and drugs

[sjkevent]

Love it ! The Asian Heisenberg with American Dream. Bet NY's life must be awesome. BTW, how old are you ?

[Lindblum]

Originally Posted by sjkevent

Love it ! The Asian Heisenberg with American Dream. Bet NY's life must be awesome. BTW, how old are you ?

lol thanks! I'm 26 this year

[Lindblum]

- Continued Chapter 3

Friends (III)

I unlocked my luggage and took out the US$2500 my dad brought over when he came to visit in August. Perhaps its a thing with their generation; they preferred to carry a lot of cash. I kept procrastinating and never got down to actually depositing the money. Later that day, I made a trip down to the bank to withdraw the remaining US$3500. A part of me wanted to do this, and another part of me was reminded how hard my father had worked for this money, and I was about to spend it on LSD. I shouldn't be doing this; this wasn't right.

Investment, this was an investment..

If I pulled this whole Operation off, I could pay my dad 5, no 10 times the amount I took from him, plus interest. Agreeing to the deal with spending US$6000 on LSD was the easy part. It's only when you go to the bank to do the actual withdrawal that you have second thoughts. Seeing the actual money in your hands was more than enough to feel the gravity of things. How was I going to tell my dad that I'm now US$6000 short?

Course deposit for school.. Yea that's right... Just say it's a deposit for reserving my place in my school if I go back to Singapore.

My dad would be too busy, I don't even think he would even realize that there was no such thing. I was going to Hell for sure.

Twenty minutes until 2:00pm.. I kept looking at my watch, and time was just crawling. I didn't have any appetite for lunch; my gut was too constricted and I was taking short and light breaths. The bus stopped a few blocks away from 545 W 110TH Street, and I decided to take a slow walk on foot. If there was anything I learnt about being a Police Officer, it was to mind your surroundings. Every step I walked, I counted the possible locations BlueViolet or the DEA could be coming from. But I didn't expect the DEA that day; there was no way the DEA could have known from the secure phone line we used to communicate. If anything could go wrong today, it wouldn't be getting arrested. My worst fear, albeit unlikely, was that I was going to mugged of US$6000 by BlueViolet.

"I'm in the car. I will be able to see you once you turn the corner. Coby is at the other end smoking. Do not look at him once you're past him"

I took a quick glance at Phillip's text and put my personal phone back into my coat. The sky was clear, but there was a strong breeze today; typical of an early winter. For clearer recognition, I wore a red beanie on purpose in case.. just in case, something went horribly wrong with the deal. However amateurish this was, it was our only shot at getting a picture of BlueViolet. Phillip with the high zoom camera, Coby with a simple portable camera.

20 minutes past 2pm; still no sign of BlueViolet. My secure line with BlueViolet still hasn't rung. Why was he making me wait? I'm pretty sure he would show up, but being late was completely rude. Then I thought about what I would have done if I were him; I would have surveyed the surroundings first.

Shit.. Did he spot Coby and Phillip?

Though possible, but its an unknown. The longer I stood at the street corner, the more suspicious I was going to look, that was just common sense, was BlueViolet an idiot?

Finally, the call came in through the secure line. His voice was a little distorted by the breeze blowing across his receiver.

"Hey, I see you now. Take a turn, walk towards Central Park. Find the first bench you see, and sit down. I will be there; just wait for me."

"Ok, Got it."

I hung up on him.

I looked around; I couldn't see anyone who suited his profile, White, 40s, or at least that was what he sounded like to me. As I walked towards, my personal phone started ringing continuously. It had to be either Phillip or Coby wondering why I left my position. If BlueViolet was watching me, it would be unwise to pick it up now. That was why I wore the red beanie in the first place, so that they could spot me moving and make appropriate changes to the plan.

Almost there.. As I walked a couple of more blocks.

After sitting down as instructed, the waiting began again. Then he finally came, a Super Big Gulp of soda in his hand, grinning at me at the same time. He was White, had short white hair with a side parting, a little on the plump side, and a really gentle face with droopy cheeks. Absolutely not someone you'd expect to be a drug dealer. He looked more like my science professor than anything. The things people do for money..

[Spikerman]

There's always more than Meets the Eye

[Lindblum]

-Continued Chapter 3

Friends (IV)

Geez.. So much soda, no wonder you're so fat...

He wasn't 40. Definitely much older; I'd put it at 50, 60 or somewhere in between. BlueViolet had this smile about him that could brighten up even the gloomiest person on Earth. To be honest, I felt secure, and I felt like I was in school. So much to the extent that if I had asked him an organic chemistry reaction, he would probably take a pen and paper out and start drawing line structures. It was that funny.

"Want some soda?" He gestured his Super Big Gulp to me as he sat down.

"Nah, I'm good," politely refusing.

For a moment, we both didn't know what to say to each other. We just sat and looked at the park in awkwardness while he continued to drink and swirl his soda in the cold weather.

"What's your major?"

He knew I was a student? .. While I don't actually think he was sure, it was probably a wild guess based on the way I was dressed and my address. I lived near the university after all, naturally anyone in his shoes would guess I was a student. Enough was enough, whether it was a wild guess, or a an accurate profiling, there was no way in hell I was going to let him know more about my life. The danger was real, and clear. Beneath those smiles, fat droopy cheeks, and that friendly facade, was a pit viper that would strike everyone and anyone; friend or foe. Anybody who needed "insurance" will have no hesitation using it as leverage against you. This was the way the underworld worked. Brotherhood, honor, and trust were just words to get the dumber people to fall in place on the chess board.

"Ehh.. Come on you know so much about me, and now you want to know my major too"

Again that little funny grin came on his face.

"It's just insurance. There's never such a thing as being too careful in this line, you would be wise to remember that."

"Do you always ask your customers for their State IDs?"

"Only the ones who Deal - Come on, don't give me that look. From that amount you wanted, you're either the Feds, or a Dealer."

With one hand, he peeled open his coat, and gestured to me to pass him the money with the other hand. Naturally, I was reluctant. Was he trying to be funny? He wanted me to hand him $6000 of cash without a single indication that he brought the goods. Come on, I was no fool. He probably sensed I was reluctant to hand him the money like that.

"You're not really good at doing business are you."

Hearing this, he closed his coat and once again drank his soda while grinning at the same time. Then he turned to look at me again.

"You sure you don't want some soda - you paid for it"

Huh.. I paid for his soda? .. Ahh, I get it now

I can't help but smile at the realization of what was going on. I paused for a while, looked up at the sky with both hands in my pockets, and turned back to face him.

"How good is the soda?"

"Good enough for a very long time."

The mood lightened up, now both of us were happy with the pleasantries and comfortable doing the exchange. I took out the envelope from my coat, gave him, and in return, he gave me his whole cup of soda. Swirling the cup; I could feel the ice, and a large object within the cup as it hit the cup walls. Just to be sure, I opened it, and saw a bottle floating with the ice. As much as I wanted to sample it to prove its authenticity like how the movies portray, it was an extremely bad idea to Trip right now with so much LSD on my hands.

"Thanks. Want your SIM card back?"

"No, keep it. The number I used to call you with will be the number you will text or call if you want to contact me, but send me an Email first when you're gonna call - I have a ton of those cards and only a few phones."

"Wait, how do I address you?" I wanted a name, and I wanted it bad.

"Violet" grinning again once more. This time, I wanted to punch his fat obnoxious face and wipe that grin off his face. Obviously, any idiot who believed that his name was Violet would be an even bigger idiot.

There was no handshake. There was no need to. A dealer had just met his super-dealer in what was basically a trust-less relationship. We parted ways as casually as we met. In total, the exchange didn't take very long; probably 10minutes tops.

My personal phone rang after a few minutes; it was Coby.

"Dude, I got a picture of him; it isn't very clear but it'll do for now. Lets meet up with Phillip first and we'll see whether he managed to get good shots"

Finally, I had something on Violet.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Lindblum

Finally, I have something on Violet.

Aint too short but not too satisfying haha. but good nonetheless. More please

[Spikerman]

Originally Posted by blade

Aint too short but not too satisfying haha. but good nonetheless. More please

Good story in the making mah ... it's cut off at the pivotal moment ... tease tease dangle dangle hahaha

[jaselee]

great story, lindblum. keep writing!

[Lindblum]

Chapter 4

Newton's Laws

We went back to my apartment and sat by the dining table while I looked at the pictures they took. The clearest shot came from Coby, because he was the only one who got closest to Violet. The mood wasn't exactly uplifting, but all of us were filled with an inconsistent mix of fear, and excitement. No, it wasn't because I had just bought 900 hits of LSD in a 45mL bottle floating in a soda cup. We bought LSD and marijuana all the time, a couple of hundred more made no difference. What gripped us today was that we had just gotten a glimpse into the workings of another world. Leverage, concealment, surveillance, counter-surveillance, and anonymity - those were espionage stuff we watched on TV and read in books all the time. The exchange with Violet today taught us everything we grew up on, and the stuff we thought we understood, was fake.

"Look, this Violet guy, was good. Coby told me how he looked like and to go on foot from the other direction, so I parked my car, took my camera with me, and pretended to be a tourist. You know what, I managed to follow him for a while across a few blocks and streets. I don't know if he thought he was being followed, but he walked all the way straight to the Metro at 103th. Anyone would think he would have taken the Metro to blend in, but no. Right outside the subway entrance, he crossed the road to the other side, and got into a cab."

Right... my first reaction to that was an expression of awe, but deep inside I said "amateurs.." Phillip and Coby went on and on with each other about how close they were to getting the shots, and how they pretended to do something else when Violet passed by. They were so engrossed sharing their version of it with each other, that I didn't want to hurt their feelings. This was probably the most exciting event that happened to them in their whole life; I didn't want to ruin it. Best to let them think they were the Asian version of James Bond. Violet probably knew Phillip was following him, that was why he made the sudden change in course. They were no operatives. Among the three of us, I was the only one with Police training, and real patrol duty experience. Computer geniuses yes, but definitely not suited for the field.

From their excitement, I could tell Phillip enjoyed such a thrill. I didn't want to push it that night, and avoided raising the question about his involvement in our Partnership. I still needed him to do the computer work for me. He may be untrained, clueless in surveillance, and had no idea how to deal with criminals. But in the world of computers, he was God. He used to tell me, the reason why he was jobless wasn't because he lacked the skills. It was because he didn't want to spend his life writing codes, and probing the company's system loopholes. Like me, we both wanted to be someone; we had dreams. We wanted to be people that mattered, and we didn't want to die in obscurity. Working a 9 to 5 job, coming home for dinner, only to do another 9 to 5 job the next day wasn't what we wanted in life. He had to be my partner, I just needed that extra push to motivate him.


Later that night while I was in my shower, I got a voice mail from David, my dealer for high quality weed strains.

"L, David here. Heard you're close to Steven. Wanted to let you know he got arrested at his place for smoking weed. I don't think it's anything serious. A cop was probably nearby and followed the smell all the way to his place. Couldn't be his neighbors; they're nice people, and I just talked to them."

What.. Just like that? Some cop came at random, and started sniffing shit and he got caught?

Steven's sentence was the last thing on my mind. Steven will probably just get a fine of a few hundred dollars and be let out the next day, given New York's marijuana laws. But what got to me was how simple a mistake could be to get you arrested. He was smoking in the comforts of his house, and all it needed was a cop at the wrong place, and at the wrong time, to do what he was trained to do, and you're busted.

I needed to be smarter and better than who I was now if I were to pull a successful operation off in Singapore. I had to predict every possible outcome, anticipate every single move, and take the necessary precautions to avoid making the simplest mistake. I needed to be more than just a Dealer; I had to be beyond and above everyone else. To beat the Police, I must be above them. As I looked back on the day's events with Violet in Central Park, and Steven's arrest, it dawned on me that it would require a whole different skill set just to stay alive and anonymous in Singapore. I needed to be a seller, an operative, a liar, and a genius. It was more than just setting up an anonymous website and shipping LSD off through the mail. I would need all my street smarts, and I still haven't figured a way for money to be transferred since I couldn't afford meeting anyone. Now the weight of 900 hits of LSD, and being a Dealer was beginning to set in - my head was spinning.

The whole room lit up once again as I relaxed on my couch. Once again I felt I connected with the synergies of the universe, the System, and myself. My breathing got lighter, my head stopped spinning, and I started to see things differently. Everything made sense once more; I had all the answers to what went on earlier. As I closed my eyes, my mind began to wonder and float in a mix of fantasy and reality, seeing things from Phillip's perspective, seeing things from Coby's perspective, and from Violet's perspective. I could literally see, smell, and hear the things they saw; from the sounds of cars along the road, to the scent of the woodiness and dirt of Central Park.

One thing was certain, Violet was used to being followed. Real surveillance teams never follow a person across a more than a few blocks, much less streets. An operative would follow a suspect around a corner, then back off, and let another operative stationed at a designated point take over the surveillance for a few more blocks, and then hand the surveillance to a third operative, while the first and second operative move quickly to another position with new outfits which could be a new cap, or a new jacket, and wait for the suspect to pass by them again. What Phillip did was completely amateurish. Did I learn this from the Police? No. I was trained to project police presence, not to avoid being seen. During my time in the Police, I went out of my way, driven by passion, to read decommissioned Soviet field manuals I found online, so I may detect people like that. Sadly, I never got to use it. Maybe the criminals in Singapore were really that dumb.

But why a cab..? He could have blended in by taking the Metro..

The more I thought about it, the more I began to see the light. Indeed, this guy was a professional. In this age of technology, and the high rate of crime in New York, naturally there would be police and security cameras stationed throughout the Metro and in the trains. Where you go, where you get off, and which entrance you came in from can be captured through the cameras. If I were the DEA or FBI tracking Violet, I could narrow down the areas where he came from if he took the public transportation. Knowing cab drivers in New York, all you have to do is tell them you don't need a receipt, pay a pre-determined sum greater than the estimated meter fare, and they'll be more than willing to drive you anywhere you want. There'll be no record of your travel; FBI and DEA won't be able to track the cab driver, because there's no record. Even if they somehow managed to find the driver through road cameras, the cab driver won't even remember it. Violet could get off anywhere, change a cab, go on foot, then take another cab in the same manner, and he could basically disappear into New York with no trace of him. And then I thought, the same idea can be used in Singapore.

My couch and I felt like we were at the very center of existence. The great revelation of understanding how the whole system worked made me feel like the entire world existed for me to conquer. What was the world but a myriad of systems, rules, and laws. For each move the police, government, and criminals made and thought would make them ahead of the game, they'd always end up right where I wanted them to be. I could play the strings while I made everyone hum to my tune. Was I moving as a part of this world, or was I watching the world from a cloud. Whatever it was, there was one thing uniquely different this time round: I wasn't on LSD.

[Lindblum]

lastest post has been updated and edited for content/errors

[Lindblum]

Introduction has been edited and changed for a more coherent flow

[starns]

Impressive story with authentic descriptions. +1

[prott]

Yours story is so lousy, you should just stop writing. I falls asleep when I read until half

[eeemen]

Bro TS, your story caught and held my attention, am hooked!! Going to lay foundations for a permanent camp here , cheers, ....................

[Tailsman]

When is the next dose, I'm getting addicted and need them to free my creativity from boredom.