Good Intentions (Samogon 1) (9 page)

After Louise retreated to the confines of her bedroom, Rochelle inquired about the source of income herself.
“Chris, Mikhail will buy the brandy. He won’t even question the amount. You won’t believe what he wants to do.”

“Oh, I can believe what he wants to do.”

Chris did not want this punk white boy in Rochelle’s life, nor did he think for one moment that this kid could come up with the amount of money needed to buy all five hundred gallons of brandy. “You give him a call and tell him you have five hundred gallons he can have for the rock bottom price of $50,000. Then you come tell me what he says. When he tells you that he doesn’t have that much money, then maybe you will realize what is at stake here, and that I have to find customers who have money to buy one to two hundred cases at a time.”

Chris wanted Rochelle to understand that this wasn’t like selling liquor to a wholesaler, but she wasn't listening to him because he was acting like a pompous ass.
Rochelle was going to be a part of this business whether he liked it or not—and she was not going to be belittled.

While Chris continued eating, Rochelle went outside and called Mikhail.
“I know I said I would call you Friday, but I thought maybe you wanted more of the brandy.”

“I hear your friend made it back to the farm a little while ago.
Does he want to meet with me and do business?”

“What are you talking about, Mikhail?
I just called to see if you wanted to buy some more brandy.”

“Of course I do, love.
I will buy it all,” Mikhail said as if the amount was never an object.

“Mikhail, quit playing around.
I’m talking about a lot of brandy and a lot of money.”

“How much are you talking about, love?”

“Five hundred gallons. $50,000.” Rochelle just threw it out there. “Maybe you can buy some now and buy more later when you have the money.”

Mikhail just laughed at her proposition.
“Maybe I will just buy it all now and you can sell me more later. But I am not bringing
you
that much money. I don’t mind dealing with just you, but before we go any further, I want to meet your friend who works the farm. I want him to know what I want and what I will pay. I want him to sell to me exclusively.” Mikhail continued, “Love, if I’m not meeting him, I’m not buying anything. Figure it out and call me back when you have finished talking with ... Chris. I will have the money tonight if we meet.”

Rochelle was a bit surprised that Mikhail knew Chris was the friend distilling the moonshine.
How did he know?
she thought.

Chris was eating another plate of meatloaf when Rochelle came back into the house.
“I have to pick up groceries for mom. Will you take me to the supermarket so we can talk?”

Chris nodded as he kept eating.

***

Driving to the supermarket, Rochelle told Chris that Mikhail would have the $50,000 tonight, but would want to meet with him before handing over that much money.
Chris expected that from anyone, but how does an eighteen-year-old exchange student have that kind of cash? Or was it his brother’s money?

“Did you tell him where the brandy is or where I make it?”
Chris wasn’t trusting Rochelle too much with keeping business to herself. The white boy didn’t figure Chris out on his own. Rochelle had to have slipped up and said something that allowed Mikhail to put two and two together. He knew she wouldn’t just come out and say it, but sometimes she didn’t pay attention to what she was saying. It was how Chris figured out she was dating the white boy—she just gave too many clues when she talked about him. He was positive that’s what she did here—gave the Russian too many clues. As long as you were listening to what she was saying, you could figure out what she wasn’t.

“No, I didn’t tell him anything like that.
He wants you to sell exclusively to him. He wants to buy everything you can make.”

Chris couldn’t tell if Rochelle was trying to help him sell the stuff, or was helping Mikhail buy it.

“Look, if you are dealing with just Mikhail, you won’t have to deal with situations like you just had in West Virginia.”

“But you never told me what he was wanting to do.
Enlighten me.”

“He says they are buying all the grain alcohol they can get and shipping it home to sell.
You wouldn’t even have to worry about people getting caught with it anywhere around here.” Rochelle took his hand in both of hers and said, “If they can afford to buy as much as he says they can, we could pay off all the debts and you could even buy your own farm.”

“Sounds like mob shit.
You really don’t have any idea what’s going on, do you? You really believe an exchange student and his brother are able to throw money around like this? Come on, Rochelle. You need to wake up. I’m telling you this white boy’s brother is Russian mob.”

As they drove to the supermarket, Rochelle sat there in silence pondering that the Rimsky family was an organized crime family.
She wanted to believe that Mikhail was no different than the kids at school who were selling weed or stolen goods. None of them were connected to anyone. Nor was her dad. But hearing Chris say it made it seem more probable. You’d have to be connected to someone to ship stuff overseas in large quantity. Somebody had to be there on the other end to take possession of it.

As the two made their way through the
aisles of the supermarket, Rochelle asked Chris, “Does it really matter if he is Russian mob?” Chris just looked at her. “I mean he’s not looking to muscle in on something of yours, he’s looking for suppliers. So, it
could
be like selling to a wholesaler.”

“What do you want me to do?”
Chris asked her. Truth be told, Chris liked the idea of selling to one buyer.

“Just meet him, hear him out, and decide.
At the very least, sell him the brandy.”

Meeting this guy was the last thing Chris wanted to do.
He’d rather beat the Russian’s ass over Rochelle than to form a business relationship with him.

“Okay, give him a call,
” said Chris.

That next night, the three met at the ballpark and sat together in the bleachers as they watched a little league game. Chris didn’t come empty handed. Tucked in the back of his pants was his Glock .45 handgun. Chris was anxious to know why Mikhail and his brother were shipping the moonshine back to Russia instead of selling it by the drink in their bars and clubs.

“To understand why
, you must know Russian history and politics,” Mikhail started to explain. “Back when Russia was run by the tsars, half of the nation’s income came from the sales of vodka, which was controlled by the government. Until oil and gas came into play, vodka made up over one-third of my nation’s revenue through the 80’s. But during President Yeltsin’s administration, the economy collapsed and almost all vodka producers went bankrupt. That was when foreign companies started exporting to Russia. But my government started taxing imported alcohol through the roof. The tariffs were outrageous.” Mikhail summed it up by saying, “So, it’s cheaper to buy alcohol in America and smuggle it home than it would be to distill it at home. We call illegal alcohol
samogon
.”

Chris was taking it all in when Rochelle laughed.
“So, you’re just avoiding taxes?” To Rochelle this wasn’t any more of a problem than what Chris was already doing.

“Oh, it sounds simple my friends, but don’t be fooled.”
Mikhail wanted them to understand what happens in his homeland. “Back home our families war over control of
samogon
, shipping it, selling it, and providing protection. It’s no different than if it were drugs or gambling. After all, we’re talking about 300,000,000 gallons smuggled and sold each year.”

Rochelle didn’t hesitate and jumped right back into the conversation.
“So what exactly do you expect from us?”

“I’ll tell you, love.”

Chris sat straight-up when he heard Mikhail call her “love.” He was ready to explode.

Rochelle became uneasy sitting in between her two lovers, both of them alpha-males.
One, a Russian mobster’s little brother with a gang at his beck and call. The other a large, muscular, hard-hitting brother with jealousy in his heart and a gun tucked in his back.

Mikhail continued and slid a small bag across the bleachers to Rochelle.
“We’re going to buy the brandy as a gesture to show we are committed to you. But what we want is grain alcohol or that white lightening you brought to Jennifer’s party. We want as much of it as you can produce and as often as you can.”

“First things first,” Chris said.
“You need to know the brandy is sitting in a storage
unit ..."

“Not a problem,” said Mikhail.

“In Charleston, West Virginia,” Chris finished.

“Well,” thought Mikhail, “that’s a burden but not one I can’t carry, this time.”
Mikhail was willing to send a crew for the two-hour trip if it meant he could secure a source of alcohol through Rochelle and Chris. “How much can you produce and how often?”

Chris took a minute to think.
“About two thousand gallons every ten to twelve days. Maybe six thousand gallons a month.”

Mikhail smiled.
“Yes, that is fine. But we will want a price of $20 a gallon. We will not pay the forty a gallon you typically charge because we are buying so much volume.”

Rochelle was right back in the mix of things.
She negotiated at $30 before everyone agreed to $25 dollars a gallon. Rochelle was getting engrossed in all of it just thinking of the money. If all went well, each load would bring $50,000, or $150,000 dollars a month.

Now it was Chris’ turn.
“What are we talking about for delivery?”

“My people can pick it up where you distill it.
You wouldn’t have to move a single gallon.”

Rochelle turned to Chris with a frantic look on her face.
She couldn’t have all this activity and all these people at the farm with her mother. But Chris didn’t need her to tell him that. “Not happening, Russkie. No one comes to the still. I got no problem moving it to a safe spot. I do it all the time.”

“So be it.
You will have to load it in fifty gallon barrels, blue barrels. I will get you a supplier for the barrels.”

“Hold on.
Barrels? The price just went to thirty a gallon.” Chris didn’t like this little surprise and he felt like the white boy was trying to run roughshod over him.

“Relax, my friend.
The cost of the barrels are no more than what you already spend. The price stays at twenty-five.” Mikhail did have the upper-hand but he wasn’t trying to be inconsiderate. “We have to ship it in barrels, and it makes no sense for anyone to pour everything into small jugs only to pour it out and then pour it into barrels.”

After two hours of talking, the trio had reached an agreement on their new business relationship.
Chris gave Mikhail the key to the padlock on the storage unit along with directions to the facility. Although Chris said he could turn a load in ten to twelve days, he wouldn’t need to turn the first load for a month.

On the way back to the farm, Chris tried talking to Rochelle but it was hard getting her to pay attention while holding $50,000 cash.

Back at the farm, Rochelle sat down with Chris and discussed the aspects of their new business. “There’s going to be a lot of sugar being bought. Seems to me like you would need something to justify all of it just to divert attention. There will be a lot of cash coming in, too.” Rochelle outlined how she was going to start a dummy business to legitimize everything. It would also give Chris a safe place to store the moonshine while waiting for Mikhail to pick it up.

For the next two weeks Rochelle kept busy. She went to see her daddy’s attorney in Lexington and gave Bowers $20,000 to pay taxes on the farm. She then gave him $5,000 to draft papers that would register her business, Donovan Delights—a small candy and chocolate manufacturing company—as a limited liability company.

Next, Rochelle opened a checking account at Cartwell Bank in the name of her new business and deposited $10,000.
Chris found a semi-secluded commercial lot for sale. It sat on two acres, had a gravel parking lot and a steel-sided building with four thousand square feet of space. Rochelle put $5,000 down on the property and got a ten-year mortgage under the company name with Cartwell Bank. After getting the utilities turned on, Rochelle then went and had stationary and forms made out for the company. She also had a small generic sign made and hung on the building next to the front door. Donovan Delights was now a legitimate company.

While Rochelle spent time enrolling in classes for the fall semester at Ohio State, Chris began with some interior construction.
By the front door he built a reception area with offices. In the back area he constructed a bakery and equipped it with some stainless steel tables, along with a couple commercial ovens and ranges, sinks, mixers, a blender, and food processors—everything you would ordinarily find in a restaurant kitchen.

The last thing to do was purchase the barrels and sugar.
Rochelle calculated forty barrels for two thousand gallons and ordered enough for three runs and had them delivered. She purchased a couple pallets of fifty-pound bags of sugar. Chris took what he needed back to the farm and left everything else at the warehouse.

For the last few weeks of summer break, Rochelle went shopping with her mother getting everything she needed for college.
The mother-daughter time together was a needed relief for Louise. Mother and daughter spared no expense. They bought everything—new comforters, pillows, linen, towels, clothes, and university tees and sweats. They even picked out a new flat screen television, mini-refrigerator and a small microwave. While they shopped, Chris took care of the farm and made modifications to the bunker.

To make room to work, store barrels, and haul the filled barrels up and out of the bunker, Chris dug out a fifteen foot wide room adjacent to the wall that held the old photographs.
Once the walls and roof were supported, he knocked out a four-foot section of the connecting wall to provide access to the new storage room. After that, he replaced part of the steps with a concrete ramp so he could wheel the barrels out of the bunker. Once the construction was complete and he was satisfied with the ground cover, Chris started making the mash for the two thousand gallons of white lightening.

August had arrived.
With so much going on, Rochelle didn’t have a summer to enjoy. It was practically time to leave for her freshman year at Ohio State. With what little time was left she managed to spend a couple afternoons with her girlfriends, Jennifer and Leah. Both girls were sympathetic to Rochelle. Neither could imagine what it felt like to lose a parent. The three made the most of what little time they had left, said their goodbyes, and promised to stay in touch and to see each other over the holiday breaks.

Chris had finished distilling the first load of moonshine.
Because it was the first time putting the moonshine into barrels, he hadn’t come up with an efficient method for filling the barrels and moving them. Forty barrels barely fitted in the expansion of the bunker. Chris just stared at the barrels, not looking forward to making forty trips up the ramp. He wasn’t going to be able to use his truck for transportation, and that presented another problem in need of a solution.

The next morning Chris took Rochelle to look at some used box trucks.
They found a twelve-year-old Ford with a rebuilt engine. This particular box truck had a new electric hydraulic lift, exactly what Chris needed to load the truck at the farm. They registered the truck under the company name. Chris would keep the truck parked at the warehouse and retrieve it for transporting.

“
Let’s go ahead and move the barrels and call Mikhail.” Rochelle was leaving next week for freshman orientation but wanted to be there when Mikhail’s crew picked up the first load and exchanged the money. She was quickly getting addicted to the thrill of running a moonshine operation and generating a lot of cash.

Chris nodded in agreement and said, “I’ll take the barrels to the warehouse in the morning.
Afterward, you call him and have him come there to pick ‘em up.” Chris wasn’t excited about Rochelle being there, but she was already in it. She had already made two small deals with Mikhail and no matter how much of a player Mikhail thought he was, Chris saw first-hand that the kid was about business.