Chapter 15: Rising Rep
The graffiti said "Cap'n Cook" on a wall Jesse didn't usually pass and now found himself detouring to see, as if words on brick could bless him. The letters were arrogant and shaky—spray paint never quite doing what you want under pressure—and they thrilled him in a way he pretended to be too cool to admit.
He snapped a picture and sent it to Adam with no caption. Adam replied with a dot: understood, noted, unamused.
Jesse laughed, then felt shame creep under the thrill. He knew what reputations did: they attracted moths and men with guns. Still, he bought a new hoodie that fit better and walked a little straighter, and when Badger called him "Cap," he didn't correct him.
Adam noticed all of it. He noticed Jane's pallor—how her eyeliner had begun to smudge by noon—and the way she talked about art like it had hurt her personally. He filed that under "brace for fall." He noticed Hank's new board with pins placed in ways Adam could predict better than he liked; he underlined a route with his pencil and then erased it, satisfied that he had preempted the next sweep. He noticed Walt's new habit of looking at his hands before he did anything important, as if asking them for permission. He noticed everything because noticing kept him and his people alive.
He also bought from other dealers to feed the machine. He didn't love it—outsourcing created variables—but demand was a tide, and he had chosen to build boats. He met with a woman who ran her corner like a small kingdom, with tax and mercy. He bought cleanly from a crew that treated time like money, which he respected. He passed on a group of kids whose eyes flicked to guns too often.
Jesse rode along for some of it, learning to read faces with an attention he'd never given school. "That guy's bad news," he said once, unprompted, and Adam nodded.
They moved 12 kg over two days. The weight of it in the world turned into numbers in Adam's mind; he never let the numbers lose their connection to the faces he'd paid.
Sell 12kg meth.
[Asset recognized: drugs (methamphetamine), 12 kg.]
[Confirm sale for $600,000?] Y/N
Y.
[Sale confirmed. Double-profit applied.]
[Proceeds: $1,200,000 credited.]
Balance: -$400,000
Strength: 8x
Better. Not solvent, not yet, but the debt had a back that could be seen, which made it smaller.
Hank called Adam's school line the next morning, a casual "hey" that had the weight of a warning. "We're seeing movement," he said. "South of the border. You hear anything?"
Adam, at his desk in an empty classroom that smelled like old experiments and chalk dust that refused to be scrubbed, let silence be a sieve. "Border stuff is above my pay grade," he said, mild.
"Yeah," Hank said, and Adam could hear him smiling. "But pay grades are more like guidelines these days."
"Have you checked Mexico?" Adam asked, the words thrown like breadcrumbs, not bait. "Lot of chatter about the shake-up hitting there, not here."
A beat. "Mexico, huh?"
"Big place," Adam said. "Lots of room for theories."
"Sure is," Hank said, and Adam could hear the sound of pins being moved on a board across the city. "Appreciate it."
"Anytime," Adam said, and hung up, then crossed out two routes he'd considered and drew a third that wouldn't exist on anyone's map but his.
Jesse showed up later with the hoodie and the swagger and an energy that made him taller. "Yo," he said, looking around the classroom like he'd snuck into a museum after hours. "You a teacher now?"
"I am many things," Adam said. He slid a worksheet toward Jesse: basic chemistry math, as if this were a joke and a lesson. Jesse grinned and started filling in numbers with a pencil he borrowed from a cup with cartoon frogs on it.
"How's Jane?" Adam asked, casual.
"Good," Jesse said quickly, too quickly. Then, more honest: "She's…she's cool." He stared at the numbers like they could tell him how to fix anything. "She's like, real."
"Be careful," Adam said.
Jesse nodded, not sure which warning he was agreeing to heed.
That afternoon, they passed the wall again. Someone had added a crown to the "Cap'n Cook" tag. Jesse stopped the car and stared, a smile he couldn't stop flowering over his face. Bad idea, Adam thought, and also: He deserves two days of pride before the world taxes it.
In the evening, as dusk turned corners into hiding places, Adam made his last prank call for the day. He used a voice three shades more nasal than his own and said, "Tip for Agent Schrader—check Mexico," like he was recommending a restaurant. He hung up and imagined Hank's face, the combination of annoyance and grim satisfaction a man wears when a piece clicks into place even if it's the wrong puzzle.
He returned to the motel with a bag of takeout that smelled like cumin and the satisfaction of a board arranged the way he liked it. The ledger hovered.
Balance: -$400,000
Strength: 8x
Stamina: 1x
Durability: high
He considered the next five moves: Saul's entry, the desert stranding, Walt's attempt to quit, the first whisper of Gus. He laid them out like a chess endgame and fell asleep with a sense that the pieces would be where he put them when morning came.
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