Chapter 8 : The Broker
The park was called Roosevelt, named for a president nobody in this neighborhood cared about.
I arrived early, as usual. Found a bench with good sightlines and settled in with a newspaper I wouldn't read, looking like any other unemployed loser killing time on a Tuesday afternoon. The spring sun was warm on my face, almost pleasant. Birds chattered in the trees. A few mothers pushed strollers along the winding paths.
Normal life, continuing normally. Completely oblivious to the criminal enterprise being planned on bench number seven.
Badger showed up fifteen minutes late, which was actually early by Badger standards. He spotted me and ambled over with his characteristic loose-limbed enthusiasm.
"Pete! Yo, I thought you fell off the earth or something. Nobody's seen you in like a week."
"Had to lay low for a bit. Some business went sideways."
"For real? You okay?" Genuine concern in his voice. That was Badger—unreliable with schedules, absolutely solid when it mattered.
"I'm fine now. But I need to change how I operate." I gestured to the bench beside me. "Sit down. I've got a proposition."
Badger sat, curiosity replacing concern. "What kind of proposition?"
I'd rehearsed this pitch during the walk over, tailoring it to Badger's specific psychology. He wasn't motivated by money alone—he needed to feel trusted, valued, part of something. The recruitment had to hit those notes.
"You know how I've been doing the information thing? Watching corners, telling people what I see?"
"Yeah, the consulting shit. Pretty smart, actually."
"I'm expanding." I lowered my voice, forcing him to lean in. Creating intimacy. "Not just information anymore. I'm connecting people. Someone needs product, someone else has product, I make the introduction."
"Like a... middleman?"
"Exactly like a middleman. But here's the thing—I can't be visible anymore. The wrong people are looking for me. I need someone to carry messages, make introductions in person, be the face while I stay in the shadows."
Badger's eyes widened slightly. Not fear—excitement. The promise of being trusted with something important.
"And you want me to be that guy?"
"I want you to be that guy. Fifty bucks per job, minimum. More if the deals are bigger. You never touch product, never handle money, just talk to people and report back to me."
"Fifty bucks just for talking?"
"Plus you're helping people get what they need. Buyers get sellers. Sellers get buyers. Everybody wins."
Badger was nodding before I finished. "Yeah. Yeah, I could do that. I'm good at talking to people. You know that."
"I know. That's why I'm asking you." I let a beat pass. "But this stays quiet. Nobody knows you're working with me. Nobody knows I'm involved at all. You're just a guy who knows a guy. Clean and simple."
"Like a spy."
"Kind of like a spy, yeah."
His grin spread wide. "Dude, this is awesome. I'm in. When do we start?"
The first deal came together faster than I expected.
I'd identified the parties over the previous week, during my cautious re-entry into the information network. Luis, a mid-level buyer who'd complained to an associate about his regular supplier's inconsistent quality. Kenny, a cooker with excess product and no distribution channel after his usual fence got arrested.
Perfect match. Both motivated, both trustworthy enough for a first attempt, both operating at a scale where a brokered introduction made sense.
The mechanics were simple. I gave Badger instructions: meet Luis at the coffee shop on Fourth Street, tell him you know someone with premium product looking for a reliable buyer. If interested, arrange a meeting at the parking lot behind the Walgreens on San Pedro, tomorrow night at nine.
Badger executed flawlessly. Luis was interested.
The next day, I sent Badger to Kenny with the mirror message: buyer ready, parking lot, nine PM. Kenny agreed.
I wasn't present for the actual transaction. That was the whole point—I stayed invisible, untraceable, one step removed from the risk. Badger positioned himself across the street, watching from a distance, ready to confirm that everything went smoothly.
His text came at 9:47 PM: done. they both happy. kenny gave me something for you
Twenty minutes later, Badger handed me an envelope. Three hundred dollars. 10% of the $3,000 deal, my finder's fee.
Clean money. No fingerprints.
We celebrated at the arcade on Central.
"Dude, that was so easy," Badger said, feeding quarters into a racing game. "Luis just walked up, Kenny walked up, they talked for like five minutes, then Luis handed over the money and Kenny gave him the package. Nobody was stressed, nobody pulled a gun, nobody even raised their voice."
"That's how it should work." I watched the screen as Badger's car smashed into a wall. "Good deals are boring. Drama means someone fucked up."
"Can we do it again? Like, regularly?"
"That's the plan. I find the matches, you make the introductions, we split the commission."
"Hell yeah." Badger whooped as his car crossed the finish line in last place. "Okay, your turn. Let's see those racing skills."
I took the wheel. NZT did many things, but improving hand-eye coordination wasn't one of them. My car veered into the guardrail within seconds.
"Dude, you're worse than me," Badger observed gleefully.
"Shut up."
"No, seriously, how are you this bad? It's like you've never played a video game before."
He wasn't entirely wrong. My previous life had been spreadsheets and market analysis, not arcade racing. And Skinny Pete's muscle memory was useless—he'd been too busy getting high to develop gaming skills.
"Some of us have better things to do than practice fake driving," I muttered.
"Yeah, like crashing fake cars into fake walls." Badger was laughing now, genuine and unguarded. "Come on, try Mortal Kombat. Maybe you can button-mash your way to victory."
He destroyed me. Twelve rounds, twelve losses, not even close. But we were laughing the whole time, and for one hour I wasn't a transmigrator planning a transformation or a broker building a criminal empire. I was just a guy hanging out with a friend, being terrible at video games.
Small moments. The kind that made the rest bearable.
I walked home through streets I was learning to read like text.
The corner on Fifth had changed management—new faces, new product, worth noting for future introductions. The auto shop on Trumbull was still a front, but the owner had been seen talking to someone who looked like law enforcement. The apartment building on Silver had a new tenant in unit 3C, someone who kept odd hours and had too many visitors.
Information everywhere, if you knew how to look. And NZT made looking almost automatic—a constant process of observation, categorization, storage.
$500 in my pocket now. Still a long way from $20,000, but the math was changing. If I could broker one deal a week at this scale, that was $1,200 a month. Two deals a week, $2,400. Three deals, and I'd be close to my target timeline.
The model worked. Badger had proven reliable. The risk profile was manageable.
Tomorrow, I'd start looking for the next opportunity. And the one after that. And the one after that.
The machine was starting to run.
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