Two

Nick presents Sammy with the plan

Nick began, “You know I’m from Columbia?”

“I knew you are Latino, I never knew from where.”

“Yup.  Columbia.  So, what I need to do is get a package up here from my cousin down there”

Even though Sammy had promised to give nick a shot he had to draw the line, “Whoa.  I’m not having anything to do with coke!”

“No Man.  Not coke.  Emeralds.”

If Nick had said anything other than the word emerald, Sammy would have probably stuck to his intention waiting until the end of the story and then simply saying no.  The word Emerald piqued his interest though.  Sammy believed he only really had two friends in the world, Wookie and his girlfriend, Emerald.  As he was approaching the crossroads of uncertainty he believed that being asked to get involved with emeralds was a sign from Allah.   Sammy was not religious.  Had not been since he’d broken the bounds of his parental umbrella and started existing in the secular world with Wookie but he still believed in Allah.  He also believed in signs.  This was a clear sign that he must listen to Nick.  “What about emeralds?”

“So, I’ve got a cousin who works there, in a mine.”

“Right?”

“In Muzo.  The way it works, the miners are basically slaves to the mine owners.  I mean they get paid, but the pay is s**t.  And there are quaqueros…”

“What?”

“Quaqueros. Bandits.  It means Quakers, but these guys are nothing like the Quakers here.  They’re nobody’s friends.  They wait until all the hard work is done and then they raid the houses where the emeralds are before they get shipped off to Cartagena.  They steal everybody’s hard labor.  They usually do it overnight when only the guards are there.

“So, my cousin, Paolo, he was delivering the day’s dig.  They had a breakdown so they get to the safe house really late.  Just when they get there, these quaqueros were running out of the house.  My cousin saw them coming out.  He recognized one of them. You know how they say, ‘snitches get stitches?’ You know ‘Columbian necktie?’ So there’s no way Paolo is going to tell anyone that he knows one of the quaqueros.  The other dude with him, the armed guard, he says he didn’t see a thing.   He pretends like nothing happened.  So they just walk in and deliver their stones like nothing happened and they go home.  It was actually a good thing they ran late that day or those emeralds would have been stolen too.”  Nick paused

Sammy asked “So what do you need me for?”

“Let me finish.  So for like a week, Paolo just did his thing.  Went to work each day, he’s actually a supervisor, not a miner anymore.  That’s why it’s his job to make the delivery sometimes.  So Paolo just acts like he knows nothing for a week to see what’s happening.  Nothing happens.  It’s business as usual.  They just keep mining and the quaqueros, they just keep hitting all the different safe houses from all the different mine companies. Sometimes they get in and sometimes the security guys fend them off.  And when they’re not busy robbing safe houses they go after each other too.  There’s no honor amongst those thieves.  And then Paolo gets an idea.  He knows who one of these quaqueros is and he knows where he lives.  So one night, he follows him and he sees his gang take down another safe house.  Then he still follows and he finds out where their stash is.  

“Now the mining companies, they have security up the yin yang.  But the quaqueros, they keep a low profile.  So their stash is just a s****y little house, right in the middle of Muzo.  After they leave, Paolo hangs out and watches for the rest of the night until he has to go to work.  Nobody is there and nobody comes to collect while he is watching.

“So, Paolo waits a week and then instead of following his dude around he just goes and waits by the stash.  And sure enough, they eventually come by and drop off their booty.  Paolo watches this a few more times and then watches the stash as much as he can to see if he can figure out what’s next.  Finally, after a month, he waits until they clear the house and everything quiets down.  Then he breaks in and steals whatever is there.

“Dude!  you ready?  There’s like 10 kilograms of top quality emeralds in this friggin’ slum of a house with no guard on it!”

Sammy didn’t see what the big deal was but felt Nick’s excitement.  “What’s a kilogram?”

Nick looked incredulously at Sammy.  “Dude!  You Americans.  A kilogram is like two point two pounds.  Paolo has twenty two pound of rough Colombian emeralds.”

Sammy still didn’t understand what that meant. “Yeah?  So?”

“So?  That’s rough.  It still needs to get cut but we’re talking about about a yield fifteen thousand carats of top quality emeralds.  At four thousand a carat that’s…”

“Sixty Million Dollars” Now they were in Sammy’s comfort zone, doing quick math.

“That’s right!  Sixty Million dollars.  Only that’s retail.  We’re not gonna get retail.  We need to dump it on a wholesale dude.  But we can still swing twenty five to thirty.”

“Well that’s great.  But why do you need me?”  Of course Sammy wanted whatever his share of thirty million might be but he still didn’t see how he could be a part of this.

“So, here’s the deal.  Paolo is safe.  He’s got all those emeralds but he can’t do a thing with them because either the mines or the quaqueros will find out about it and then he’s a dead man.  It’s already been a year and he’s still a millionaire trapped as a slave.  So we came up with a plan”

Sammy hated to admit it but he was hooked.  He wanted those emeralds.  “What’s the plan?”

“Paolo applied for a visa to come here for a visit.”

“Okay.”

“But he can’t bring the stones with him.  Nobody is looking for him specifically but it’s too dangerous if he gets caught with them.  Everybody knows him and our family.  He just can’t take the risk.”

“So you want me to go down there and bring the stones back?  Why isn’t it just as risky for me?”

“Eventually someone is going to have to get down there and retrieve them but we’ve go a lot of work to do before that happens.  If you want to go, more power to you.  But I need you for the money.”

“What money?  I thought we’d get thirty million.”

“Yes. I’ve got a gem dealer lined up who says he’ll give us twenty five to thirty but he’s not going to give us a penny before the gems are in his hands.  Paolo wants three million as his cut.  He can take his whole family somewhere and live like a king for the rest of his life for three mil.  To make this happen, we need to pay Paolo three million when he comes up here to visit.  Then he’ll let us have the emeralds and we can take them to my guy and he’ll pay us the thirty and we can split that fifty fifty.”

Sammy was stunned, “There are so many things wrong with that plan I don’t even know where to begin. Starting with I don’t have three million dollars.”

Nick remained optimistic, “Paolo isn’t coming until next year.  Maybe February.  We can make a better plan by then.”

“What’s this ‘We’ talk?  I haven’t agreed to anything.”  He let the word ‘yet’ hover unsaid.  Both he and Nick knew he was in.  They just needed some refining.