American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote-Chapter 52 - 49: If You Want to Eat, You Have to Snatch It from Someone Else’s Mouth
The ashtray in front of Don Quixote was already piled high with cigarette butts. The acrid smell of smoke hung in the air within ten feet of him.
He didn’t respond to Li Wei’s teasing remark. He just silently took another drag from his cigarette before speaking slowly.
"Oh—the date," he said, pausing as if trying to recall something from a decade ago. "It was fine. We just talked about work the whole time."
"Er... never mind why you’d talk about work on a Friday night date," Li Wei said, sitting down next to Don Quixote with a concerned expression. "You look like you’re in a bad mood."
"Do I look like I’m in a bad mood?" Don Quixote asked, surprised. He then let out a dry laugh. "I’m thinking about something big. Something that could let me make a complete comeback."
"What is it?" Li Wei asked, grabbing a six-pack of beer from the fridge. "Will I get to share in the rewards?"
"Of course," Don Quixote said, accepting a beer. "If I can pull this off, by next year—no, by this Christmas—I’ll be able to sign you up for all sorts of prep classes and extracurriculars. Maybe I can even hire you a coach. You know, the more AP exams you pass, the better your chances of getting into the Ivy League. And that piece-of-shit Franklin High doesn’t have those kinds of resources. Plus, the cost of AP tutoring is astronomical."
"So..." Li Wei ran a finger over the beer can, the cold shocking his fingertip. "Tell me about this plan to strike it rich?"
"You know I graduated with an economics degree from the University of Chicago and worked at JPMorgan Chase for several years, right?" Don Quixote said with a self-satisfied nod. "It’s an occupational hazard, but I’m extremely sensitive to numbers—especially when it comes to money."
With that, he stood up, a cigarette dangling from his lips and a beer in his hand. He went into his room, came back with a notebook, and spread it open in front of Li Wei.
"The previous accountant lumped all of Susan’s various expenses together. It took me a ton of work to separate them out for each property," he said smugly. "I used to think he was just a complete moron, but then I dug up something else. Stupid as he may be, he was actually trying to hide some things."
He flipped open the notebook, its pages crammed with dense notes, and pointed to one for Li Wei.
"See here, kid. These five apartments," Don Quixote said. "They’re all in the same building. The annual rent adds up to 100,000 USD, but look—look at this. The maintenance and water bills alone come to 50,000 USD." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚
Li Wei examined Don Quixote’s notes carefully. The monthly expenses for each unit were meticulously itemized, going back five years. He had circled every questionable charge in red ink and added his own comments.
With accounting this detailed, it was no wonder he’d managed to survive after bankruptcy while still sending his ex-wife 2,000 USD a month. Even though he’d had to regularly sell his blood twice a month and had even sold one of his balls, he’d at least made it this far in one piece.
"How can the pipes need repairs every single month? Bursting every month?" Don Quixote said. "So I went to check it out myself and found the whole building is like this. Because of all the problems, the rent is low and the vacancy rate is high. Once you factor in property tax and other levies, Susan’s five apartments are actually losing money year after year."
"That doesn’t sound like a plan to strike it rich."
Li Wei offered his cautious opinion.
"No, no, no, that’s just the background," Don Quixote said, crushing his cigarette butt into the overflowing ashtray. "At first, I thought maybe the water mains for the whole street were old. So I looked up the New York City Government’s public records, but it turns out everything is normal. The problem is isolated to this one building."
He lit another cigarette as he continued, "Later, I took Juan—the Mexican maintenance guy from my company—over there to take a look. I bought him a couple of meals, and even taught him how to negotiate his medical bills. I helped him get a 120,000 USD bill down to 17,000. To thank me, he secretly told me that this area is actually turf of the Italian Gambino Family. They pull this kind of scheme often. They trash a building to the point where the landlord has to sell it at a loss. Then, another one of their front companies comes in and buys the whole property. After renovations, the rent jacks up by several times, and the value of the building skyrockets."
"The Italians’ turf," Li Wei said with a smile. "Why are you always getting mixed up with Italians?"
"Can’t be helped," Don Quixote shrugged. "A lot of neighborhoods here in Brooklyn used to be Italian turf. Haven’t you noticed that Bei Ling Ridge, where we live, is basically all Italians?"
Li Wei thought about the statue he’d salvaged, the one that screamed ’Italian immigrant taste,’ and nodded.
"So, my plan is..." Don Quixote rubbed his hands together. "To run those Italians off. Or, failing that, at least get a piece of the action. I’ve already worked it out with Susan. If I can actually get them to leave, she’ll form an asset management company with me to buy the building. I’ll get a five percent stake and a new job. I’ll finally be able to crawl out of this Hell."
As soon as the words left his mouth, Li Wei’s brow furrowed in a deep frown.
The Gambino Family was one of the five great Mafia families of Italy. They had countless members and assets spread across Brooklyn and Queens. A couple million USD might not be a huge asset to them, but crossing them was still an incredibly dangerous proposition.
