The Art of Making Money - Jason Kersten [50]
Deeming it too dangerous to enter the dealer’s house alone, Art enlisted Jason, who after eight years had recently been released from the boys’ home in Des Plaines. Art had visited Jason many times over the years with his mother and sister, and had never held any illusion that the home was helping him. By the time he finally left, Jason could barely read or write, and at the time, he was living with Wensdae and looking for work. When Art asked him if he was interested in making a fast buck, Jason jumped at the opportunity and flew down to Dallas the very next day. If there was any doubt among the girls that Art was serious, one look at his brother eliminated it. “When we picked him up at the airport, he had this big Chicago Bulls jacket on,” Art remembers. “He looked like a straight-up thug from the South Side.”
ART’S PLAN WAS STRAIGHTFORWARD: While he and Jason waited in the woods near Clayton’s, Susan would call the dealer and ask him to deliver some marijuana. Once Art and Jason saw him leave, they’d emerge from the woods, break in, and rifle the apartment for cash and drugs. Their getaway driver would be Natalie, who’d be waiting up the street.
“Things went perfect at first,” remembers Art. “Susan called, Clayton came out and left, and me and my brother jimmied his sliding-glass doors and went right up in there.” In Clayton’s bedroom, the brothers found about seventeen thousand dollars in cash, a vacuum cleaner bag stuffed with hydroponic weed, and five prescription bottles filled with Ecstasy. Art was feeling so comfortable inside Clayton’s that he even dallied to liberate some of Clayton’s high-end cologne off his bureau. “That’s how much of a jagoff I was,” he muses. But they ended up paying for every extra second: When they opened the front door to leave, the first thing they saw was Clayton, holding his key in his hand, about to insert it into the lock.
“He looks up, and the look on his face!” Art recalls. “Can you imagine? I covered my face and started walking real fast. My brother’s behind me and he says, ‘Who the fuck is that? What’s going on?’ I’m like, ‘That’s him, walk!’ And the dude freaks out and starts following us.” As soon as Jason realized Clayton was following, he wheeled around to confront him, but rather than take on two men, the dealer backed off. Art and Jason took a side street, circled around, and met Natalie. But a minute after they pulled away Art spied the black Mustang behind them. Clayton was on his cell phone, undoubtedly rounding up friends to come help him take back his drugs and money by force. Art had no intention of being around when that happened.
“When we get to the next stop sign, Jason and I are jumping out,” he told Natalie. “Then you turn around and get the fuck out of here, go home. He’s gonna follow us because we’re carrying all the bags.”
Natalie, who was terrified of being left alone, didn’t like the idea at all, but by then she had already reached the next stop sign. Before she could protest, the brothers were already out the door. The ruse worked. After the brothers bailed out of the car, Clayton backed up and tried to follow them, but they quickly lost him by jumping fences. The problem was that they weren’t familiar with Denton, and soon found themselves slogging through a swamp on the outskirts of town. As the day wore on, the dejected brothers started arguing, then wound up getting into a small fistfight right there in the muck. By the time they finally found their way back to Susan’s apartment, hours later, they were both covered in mud, shrub-cut, and exhausted.
Natalie, Susan, and Lucy were crying when they arrived, terrified that Art and Jason had been killed because Clayton had called and threatened as much. Art calmed the girls down and assured them that the dealer was simply talking tough. But Clayton did do something: He found the phone number and address of Art’s aunt Donna, then called her house and threatened to burn it