Priority jobs are a little unusual. A symptom of bad morale and general slipshoddity. Every job should be a priority job. But every so often, there is something that absolutely can’t be delayed or screwed up. A local manager like Jason can’t order up a priority job; it has to come from a higher echelon.
Usually, a priority job is a Code H. But Jason notes with relief that this one is a simple delivery. Certain documents are to be hand carried from his office to Nova Sicilia #4649, which is south of downtown.
Way south. Compton. A war zone, longtime strong-hold of Narcolombians and Rastafarian gunslingers.
Compton. Why the hell would an office in Compton need a personally signed copy of his financial records? They should be spending all of their time doing Code Hs on the competition, out there.
As a matter of fact, there is a very active Young Mafia group on a certain block in Compton that has just succeeded in driving away all of the Narcolombians and turning the whole area into a Mafia Watch neighborhood. Old ladies are walking the streets again. Children are waiting for schoolbuses and playing hopscotch on sidewalks that recently were stained with blood. It’s a fine example; if it can be done on this block, it can be done anywhere.
As a matter of fact, Uncle Enzo is coming to congratulate them in person.
This afternoon.
And #4649 is going to be his temporary headquarters.
The implications are stunning.
Jason has been given a priority job to deliver his records to the very franchise where Uncle Enzo will be taking his espresso this afternoon!
Uncle Enzo is interested in him.
Mr. Caruso claimed he had connections higher up, but could they really go this high?
Jason sits back in his color-coordinated earth-tone swivel chair to consider the very real possibility that in a few days, he’s going to be managing a whole region—or even better.
One thing’s for sure—this is not a delivery to be entrusted to any Kourier, any punk on a skateboard. Jason is going to trundle his Oldsmobile into Compton personally to drop this stuff off.
Chapter Eighteen
e’s there an hour ahead of schedule. He was shooting for half an hour early, but once he gets a load of Compton—he’s heard stories about the place, of course, but my God—he starts driving like a maniac. Cheap, nasty franchises all tend to adopt logos with a lot of bright, hideous yellow in them, and so Alameda Street is clearly marked out before him, a gout of radioactive urine ejected south from the dead center of L.A. Jason aims himself right down the middle, ignoring lane markings and red lights, and puts the hammer down.
Most of the franchises are yellow-logoed, wrong-side-of-the-tracks operations like Uptown, Narcolombia, Caymans Plus, Metazania, and The Clink. But standing out like rocky islands in this swamp are the Nova Sicilia franchulates—beachheads for the Mafia’s effort to outduel the overwhelmingly strong Narcolombia.
Shitty lots that even The Clink wouldn’t buy always tend to get picked up by economy-minded three-ringers who have just shelled out a million yen for a Narcolombia license and who need some real estate, any real estate, that they can throw a fence around and extraterritorialize. These local franchulates send most of their gross to Medellín in franchising fees and keep barely enough to pay overhead.
Some of them try to scam, to sneak a few bills into their pocket when they think the security camera isn’t watching, and run down the street to the nearest Caymans Plus or The Alps franchulate, which hover in these areas like flies on road kill. But these people rapidly find out that in Narcolombia, just about everything is a capital offense, and there is no judicial system to speak of, just flying justice squads that have the right to blow into your franchulate any time of day or night and fax your records back to the notoriously picky computer in Medellín. Nothing sucks more than being hauled in front of a firing squad against the back wall of the business that you built with your own two hands.
Uncle Enzo reckons that with the Mafia’s emphasis on loyalty and traditional family values, they can sign up a lot of these entrepreneurs before they become Narcolombian citizens.
And that explains the billboards that Jason sees with growing frequency as he drives into Compton. The smiling face of Uncle Enzo seems to beam down from every corner. Typically, he’s got his arm around the shoulders of a young wholesome-looking black kid, and there’s a catch phrase above: THE MAFIA—YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND IN THE FAMILY! and RELAX—YOU ARE ENTERING A MAFIA WATCH NEIGHBORHOOD! and UNCLE ENZO FORGIVES AND FORGETS.
This last one usually accompanies a picture of Uncle Enzo with his arm around some teenager’s shoulders, giving him a stern avuncular talking-to. It is an allusion to the fact that the Colombians and Jamaicans kill just about everyone.
NO WAY, JOSé! Uncle Enzo holding up one hand to stop an Uzi-toting Hispanic scumbag; behind him stands a pan-ethnic phalanx of kids and grannies, resolutely gripping baseball bats and frying pans.