Straight Life - Art Pepper [130]
We went to Ruben's house. He had a place in back of his parents', a little shed. Sometimes he'd go back there with guys to fix, and his parents knew he did that with his friends. It was cool to do that. We went in to count the money. Naturally I wouldn't get as big a share as they did. They were the brains behind the thing. They had the guns. They had the plan. They had cut me in. I had done a good job, but naturally I wouldn't get as much as they did. We counted up the money. They were going to throw the checks away but I said, "No, let me have them." They said, "You know you've got to be awfully careful. You've got to hold them for a while, and when you finally do pass them you've got to be careful where you pass them. And if anything happens, that's you. Period." I said, "I know that. You don't have to worry about me." They said, "Well, you've been in prison. You know what it's all about." And I did. It made me happy that they trusted me, and I had no worry about my ability to stand up under a bust and to take whatever I had to take. I said, "Let me have the checks."
Frank gave them to me, and then he handed me a little money sack. I didn't question or count or anything. Whatever I got was what I deserved. We left Ruben at the pad, and Frank and I got in his car and went to his house, where I was staying. The Mexicans that are married have a life separate from their wives'. The wife stays home and takes care of the kids and the house, and the man goes out. That's the way it's always been. The wife doesn't ask any questions. Frank drove me to the pad and said, "Tell Lupe I'll see her later on. I'm going to get some Menudo." He was going to see his mistress too. He let me off. I said, "Man, thank you!" I was so elated. I was talking a mile a minute, and he was kind of chuckling. I wanted to kiss him I was so happy.
I walked to the house and looked around to make sure everything was okay. I've got this money sack, and I hold it behind my back. I knock on the door real quiet. We were sleeping in the front room. Diane comes to the door, sees it's me, and opens it. She says, "What happened?" We were really late. Frank's old lady comes and she says, "Is everything alright?" I say, "Yeah." And I took this bag, and I opened it, and I turned it like that, and money flew all over the room.
We got all the money together and counted it. We had over thirteen hundred dollars in cash. That was my share. There was three or four thousand in checks, but it remained to be seen whether I could cash any of them. As it worked out, we cashed a lot of them. When you have checks like that you give them to certain people: you take a percentage and they take the risk. They go through them and take the ones they think they can cash, on consignment, and they pay you as they cash each one. When they finish, they lay the rest back on you. We made almost a thousand dollars on that, so I ended up with about twenty-three hundred dollars for one night's work, and I felt like a real success. I felt that my dad would be proud of me. I wished he could have seen me and gone through the whole night with me, being aware of what was happening, what I did.
I was really sick. I had forgotten all about it; now it hit me. I said to Lupe, "Man, here!" I laid some bread on her and I said, "Give me a quarter." She said, "No, here," and she gave me ten back. She gave me a quarter for forty dollars, and it was good stuff. I put it in the spoon. I told Diane, "I'm going