“50….51...52…53…..Christ I can’t feel my arms anymore.” Lee fell from his push up position, arms limp.

“Well I guess I win this time, Lee.” I said smugly from Lee’s couch.

“You always win man, what's your workout routine, are you training to fight a superhero or something?” Lee cried out, still lying on the floor. Lee and I both decided the best course of action was to kill time at his place. He stays in a studio downtown which he’s kept surprisingly clean considering his outward appearance.

“Well you never know what could happen nowadays, with how crazy the world’s gotten. You need to stay prepared.” I grabbed the TV remote and turned it on. “Hey what channel is SSN on? I haven’t had cable in the house for years.”

“204.” He finally got off the floor and sat on the opposite end of the couch. “Hey isn’t that the place Norvio bought a bunch of space in.” I looked back at the TV and saw it was a news report on a new multipurpose building opening downtown. The report had the caption: ‘Ambitious Multi-Level Entertainment Building Opens Downtown Sunday.

“Yeah they’re calling it ‘the Debonair’, maybe we could check it out sometime.”

“Hopefully the boss can hook us up with a job over there considering we’ll be unemployed, and between you and me I don’t think the government would pay us unemployment for what we do.”

“You think so?” I let out sarcastically. After we had our fill of the news, I dialed the numbers for the sports channel. It was on the morning rundown of the scores from yesterday.

“But seriously man, what do you think is going through Norvio’s head? He can’t just up and quit like he’s working a day job, can he?”

“I think only the lord himself could decipher what's going through that guy's head, he’s been like this as long as I’ve known him, I honestly think he’s putting on a front to stay unpredictable.”

“So he’s paranoid. Like uh, that one communist guy.”

“Yeah...like that one communist guy or he could just be batshit insane. I’ve known him for 3 years and I don't even know where he lives, if he has any relatives, his age, or his full name.”

“Well that’s reassuring. I’ve been working for a ghost.” Well he is 'The Phantom' Lee sounded disappointed. To be fair, the guy is a drug kingpin I'm sure he isn't the type to vent to anyone anyways. We went back to watching TV. After some time passed Lee got up from his seat.

“What’s up?” I asked

“Nothing, my phone is going off, I’m gonna take a call.” He put the phone up to his ear and went out to his balcony making sure to close the door.

So he’s the only one that can have private phone calls. I wanted to say something but I figured it’d be for the best if I kept quiet, forgive and forget right? I turned my attention back to the television. The debate segment had just come on. It was always my favorite part, the two commentators always knew how to get on each others nerves. It made for good entertainment, but honestly not the best sports discourse. I turned the volume up, it looked like they were getting heated.

“You just can’t understand my point of view Kramer, I have the player's perspective. I know why a guy like Zeke’s gone cold.”

“Oh really and just what is that Benny? The fans of the Vegas Jacks wanna know why their star player is not contributing at the level he should be.” Benny took his shades off; he was really raring to set off.

“Well Kramer I’ve got a simple answer for your simple mind, the answer is…….It's the goddamn preseason you-” Lee turned the TV off before he could finish.

“It was just getting good wha-”

“We gotta head out and pay the triplets a visit.” He cut me off; that call must’ve been from Norvio.

“I thought we scared them already.” Lee had already made his way over to his living room closet where he grabbed his gun and threw me a balaclava. “Hey, wait a minute he didn’t tell us to kill them did he?” For all of the loan sharking I’ve done for Norvio I never had to really resort to force or hurt anyone, usually just dropping his name was enough.

“Just a bit of insurance, those guys are getting a little too comfortable.” He shoved his mask in his jeans pocket. “Come on, let's just get this over with” He started stretching.

“You’re getting a little too excited about this.”

“Well you wanted to kill some time didn’t you?”

“Who called you anyways Lee.” I was more interested in that than anything else.

“It was O’Neil. Why do you ask?”

“Oh no, I was just curious that’s all.” I got up from his couch and started stretching myself. Does O’Neil know Norvio is trying to go clean? Why would he send Lee on this trivial task any of his goons could’ve done. Whatever it was, it would probably be best if I shut up and just went along with it.

“You naked Leon?”

“Huh, oh I guess so, you know I don’t really carry.” Usually I just let Lee do most of the intimidating; he's a natural.

“Here take this.” He pulled an identical handgun out of a jacket in his closet. “Norvio wanted me to give this one to you a while back.” He pulled the slide back “Still loaded huh?” He passed the gun to me.

“Thanks but I'm gonna need the jacket too.” I said while taking it from him making sure to quickly engage the safety. My outfit wasn’t exactly the best for concealing a handgun and I wasn’t too comfortable with having a gun pointed at my crotch. Lee went back and threw me the red jacket the gun was initially hidden away in. A little too bright for my taste but beggars can’t be choosers. I threw it on and concealed it in the interior pocket. This jacket must’ve been from one of those tv ad campaigns; you could fit a whole laptop in this thing.

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“You ready Leon? I need to take a nap after this so let's not waste any time.”

“Never in my life have I been more ready to flash a gun at some rich kids, Lee.” I rolled my eyes and we went on our way. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with the triplets but hopefully it’ll be the last. The triplets were well, a trio of triplets born into a pretty wealthy family. Which leads me to believe that their small time drug operation must be out of boredom. Even stranger still, they somehow have access to some of the harder drugs on the market which would imply they do have some connections to the black market.

“O’Neil told me they were at the park on the east side, he just wants us to rough them up a little.”

“Does O’Neil know about Norvio? Seems a little silly to send us on an intimidation run like this when we’re going straight in a couple days.” Lee let out an exasperated sigh.

“Who said anything about me going straight? Not all of us have it made like you.”

“I thought Norvio was blowing up the operation. You’re just going to be running around searching for scraps.”

“He’s leaving it to O’Neil, and he’s already told me I will be his lieutenant.”

“Is that really what you want?” Lee stopped for a moment as if he was trying to think of the perfect response.

“I don’t have to explain anything to you Leon.”

“Well I guess you’re right. You don’t have to but it doesn’t make you less of an asshole for not elaborating.” Lee gave me a pretty nasty look.

“Well you’re awfully casual about it all aren’t you? We’re working for a drug kingpin. This isn’t the office Leon, you can’t just quit and find another job.” I sighed in response and let him drive the rest of the way undisturbed. My loyalty to Norvio was shaky at best. He helped me out in a dire situation. Managing money and loansharking was simply my way of repaying him. Besides it was getting harder to keep this secret from my mother, and Patrick has asked me to work under his financial advisor firm which would’ve been much more profitable and most importantly: Legal.

“Lets go Leon.” Lee said while grabbing some gloves and his balaclava while stepping out of his car. We had finally arrived at the park. It was as usual, empty besides a few ducks and geese in the fields hunting for worms. The land the park was on was once a landfill and people have avoided it mostly due to that stigma. It was the perfect place to skip school or peddle drugs. How's that for land reclamation.

“Alright don’t do anything stupid.” I threw my mask on as well and followed behind him. We made our way to the basketball court that was covered to provide cover from the sun. It was the usual spot delinquents would hang out at. We could see two people sitting on the bleachers they had set up under the cover.

“That’s gotta be them.” Lee started sprinting towards them. I thought I told him not to do anything stupid. I started jogging behind him, being mindful to look for the third one. The three of them are inseparable from what I’ve noticed. When they noticed Lee was running them down they started to scramble. One of them tripped while grabbing a backpack and got his leg caught in the bleachers. The accompanying scream made it seem like something was broken

“HOLY FUCK! MY LEG!” The one trapped in the bleacher cried out. When I got closer I noticed it was in fact one of the triplets which allowed me to let out a sigh of relief as sadistic as that may seem. Lee was still off chasing the other one so I decided to walk up to the one trapped in the bleacher.

“Yo.” I purposely deepened my voice. In high-school Lee and I did attend the same school as the trio. I doubt he'd recognize my voice but I didn't want to risk anything. He looked up at me and frantically tried to get his leg free. On closer inspection it seems his leg didn't break but rather simply was caught pretty bad between the seat and the metal frame. He was wearing some pretty gaudy clothes. Cheetah print shirt with black ripped jeans what a fashion travesty.

“W-What are you doing m-man we don’t have anything valuable on us. So please let us go.” He had tears in his eyes. I couldn't tell if it was from the pain or from fearing for his life. A wave of second hand embarrassment washed through me. "We're just kids skipping class." Yeah right! You're like 20.

“Where’s your brother?” He looked down, it was evident that the third one was somewhere nearby.

“Your friend is chasing him I don’t know what-” I jumped up onto the bleachers making sure to put my foot close enough to his head to get my point across. “J-Jesus.” He was leaning downwards with his feet above his head and completely vulnerable. It was astounding how someone could get themselves that stuck. “H-How do you know there’s three of us?”

“You don’t answer a question with a question. Tell me now before I crack your skull like an egg, chicken. The Phantom doesn't like when punks resell his wares.” I looked at the backpack that was on the ground. “What's in the bag?” I jumped off the bleacher and grabbed the backpack.

“Please just let us go sir, we get it ok we won’t come out here anymore.” He started sobbing again. What a wimp.

“Then I’m taking the bag as collateral.” I threw the bag around my shoulder.

“W-wait you can’t take that my driver’s license is in there.” He tried to unstuck himself but I was sure he wasn’t going to get out by himself any time soon. Whatever was in this bag he didn't want me to take. I noticed Lee had started walking back this way while counting some cash.

“We done here?” I asked Lee.

“Yeah, what about the other one?”

“Let's just go..” I looked back at the brother that was still struggling to free his leg. Suddenly we heard the doors of the bathroom entrance near the court swing open.

“Who the hell are you guys!” It was the missing triplet. Lee and I both pulled out our guns and aimed for the poor fellow. He seemed to get the message and rushed back to the bathroom. The comedic timing of it all was simply too much. I went back over to the one that was still stuck in the bleachers.

"You guys are just about the worst drug dealers of all time. Stick to your day jobs." I gave him a pat on the back just to rub it in. He let out a weak whimper. Hey I could've done a lot worse. I walked over to Lee. “Let's get the fuck out.” We started running towards his car with our bounty.

“That was almost too easy.” Lee said after throwing the mask off and pulling off in his car. “Did they see the car?”

“No, I don't think so.” I started rummaging through the bag and was immediately hit with the distinct smell of marijuana. “Ah shit.” I noticed a plastic bag with white powder tore open and spread all over the bag. “They had coke this time. I guess you can give this to O’Neil and see what he can do with it.” I looked at Lee and I noticed his knuckles were red. “What did you do to your guy?”

“He pulled out a blade so I roughed him up a bit. He'll be fine in the morning I think.” He had a slight smile on his face despite that. Maybe we are sadistic at heart.

“Yeah well I hope so.” I pulled out a license. He really did have his license here. Sorry about that, 'Taylor Campbell’. I slipped it in my pocket. “Hey can you drop me home there's someone coming over to my mom’s I need to talk to.” I sent a text to my mom asking her to hold Patrick there until I could make it home.

“Yeah no worries. I’ll give the bag to O’Neil before I head home. Oh and remind me to split that cash with you.”

“Thanks.” As much as I hate to admit it. The high of getting away with a crime is an awfully addicting one, one that I need to stop indulging in before it catches up to me.