3.
Levi
When it comes to parties, I’ve been all over the world: Mykonos, Tel-Aviv, Goa, Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam, Berlin, Koh Phangan. But Ibiza is, hands down, my favorite, the best place ever, heaven on Earth. I’m not being hyperbolic.
I flew into IBZ in Ibiza Town, bid adieu to Anders, and then hopped a cab to Sant Antoni de Portmany, also known as San Antonio, also known as Sant Antoni, but mainly known as the clubbing capital of the world. It was here I had a lovely villa of my own, bought not with trust fund money, but my own money, procured through a wise business investment I had made years ago and that Dad had no clue about. That business was a little pill we called Lush, a simple combination of pure MDMA (and when I say pure, I mean it) and Peruvian flake cocaine, not 100% pure but pretty damn close. Mix those together in a clear capsule embossed with a gold cursive L and that’s the product we’re pushing. By ‘we’ I mean myself and my business associate, Alfie, my long-time pal from Manchester. He basically handled everything and I provided the funds, which, in less than a decade, amassed us quite a fortune. Sure, there’s a legal risk involved, but Alfie was careful, and anyone else he was involved is also careful. In a way, Dad would be proud.
But something wasn’t quite right.
What the hell? I was here, back in paradise; I should’ve been feeling great, that light sort of happiness that is really only attainable when you’ve got long stretches of time ahead of you with nothing to do but whatever the fuck you want.
I had that, but I didn’t have that feeling. No, the feeling I had was like I’d forgotten to do something, or I’d done something that I shouldn’t have. It was strange, if only because I seldom felt this way.
I was sitting at Le Croissant Show, with my espresso and pain au chocolat, trying to figure out what the deal was, why I wasn’t feeling as carefree as I always felt, especially considering I was here. This was my place. New York City might be where I technically lived, but Ibiza was my home.
I took a bite of the croissant, barely tasting it. The problem was with my father. The problem was that he thought I was this lazy, completely irresponsible asshole who was just sponging off of him. I couldn’t exactly fault him for it, because for a while, that’s exactly what had been happening, but things had been different. I’d bought the villa out here with my own money, and though that money might have been from illegal activities, the fact was it hadn’t been something I’d taken from my father. I wasn’t just living carefree off of good old Dad. I needed to tell him this, I realized. In the past, I’d kept it to myself because he’d probably disown me, which was exactly what he said he was going to do before I left on this trip. So might as well come clean now, I figured.
I immediately felt better after coming to this decision, though I decided I’d put off calling him for a little while. That could wait; just having a plan of action was enough for now.
After breakfast, I went back to the villa and met up with Alfie. We slapped palms and he filled me on what had been happening while I’d been gone, which wasn’t much, other than people were partying, doing drugs, and specifically requesting Lush.
“You know, we could raise the price to forty, fifty a pill and people would still go for it,” he said in that clipped British accent of his. Alfie was about my height—six feet—but much stockier, and he had a crooked nose because it’d gotten broken so many times. Before he’d discovered the party scene, Alfie had been a bit of a street brawler, but you’d never know that now—except for the broken nose, maybe.
“Glad to hear business is going so well, but fifty is way too much.”
“Just think of the profit, though. And people would pay. Gladly. They’re all here on holiday, they’ve got coin to spend, they just want a good time. This guy from Amsterdam was trying to pass off these shitty pressed pills as a step above Lush, but people caught onto that pretty quick. Don’t expect to be seeing him around anytime soon.”
“Who cares,” I said. “Let him try to sell whatever he wants. So long as we have a good product—which we do—and a fair price, people are going to continue to do business with us. We’ve got a good reputation, and at this point, that’s all that matters. We’re not just going to start raising prices just because we can. There’s no reason to.”
Alfie raised an eyebrow. “Oi, mate, you sure your dad’s really a billionaire? You think he got to that point by acting like a socialist?”
“I’m not saying give it away; just keep things the way they are. Do you need a raise, Alfie? Is that it?”
“I always need a raise.”
“Then here.” I got up and rummaged through one of the kitchen drawers where I kept the checkbook. I wrote Alfie out a check for five thousand dollars. “Go buy yourself something nice.”
He looked at the check and then at me. “For real?”
“Sure, why the hell not?”
He grinned. “Thanks, boss. And Kip will be around at the end of this week, so we’ll need to pay him, and he’s expecting double because—”
I waved my hand. “Yeah, yeah, sounds good; just remind me at the end of the week.”
The extent of bookkeeping I did for this was glance at the bank statement every couple of months. The transactions attracted very little attention because the people at Colfax Bank knew who I was—rather, they knew who my father was and they were thrilled that I’d taken some of that wealth and opened an account with them. They didn’t blink an eye when we’d deposit considerable sums of cash. If anything, they were happy we were doing business there.