Ollie Savage

Chapter 15

The past six months have been an eye opener for Ollie. All he wanted was to start his own recruitment agency. His first potential contract fell through, due to the unavailability of funds. The care home's owner had asked him to prove he had at least ten grand available, for paying his staff and keeping the recruitment business afloat, until all invoices had been paid out. He could not provide evidence of having that kind of money, unless he had good credit. The car business is not making him that much money. His pride does not allow him to beg, so even though he could easily borrow that money from Deena or Nancy, he would rather not.

Only if he had stayed in touch with Lynx, but he has too much pride. Lynx belittles people, not that he is mean, but because of the environment he was raised in. Environment is everything. It's all about the environment. The environment creates an ecosystem. In Lynx's case, a system that enables the well informed and disables the terribly misinformed. Lynx knew too much yet Ollie knew too little of the other street. You see, when hustlers talk about the streets, there are two kinds of streets. There is the "high street" and the "common street". The high street is where all the white-collar crimes such as crypto fraud, dark web activity and Ponzi schemes happen. On the common street; there are violent crimes surrounding drugs and postcode wars.

Why hasn't he reached out you may ask? Well, their friendship only works as long as Ollie allows it to. Ollie prefers a controlled environment. Like back in university for an instance, Lynx had all the money and the women. Ollie had the smarts. He did all the assignments for him, hence Lynx's first-class degree too. The assignments hustle was what led to these two meeting up. Ollie was into that lazy white boy money, eight hundred a pop. He had earned his reputation with all the white kids. All they had to do was read it through in case any suspicions were raised. Lynx wondered how someone so smart was taking major risk for so little. Little? Eight hundred per assignment and three grand per dissertation was little? Well, given the time and energy, and compared to what Lynx was making, yeah, it was little.

Lynx had his own house and Tesla both paid for. The party life he was known for, paid for itself. Ollie believes the right crime pays. So, when Lynx got into Cunnings Banking after graduation, it was not for a career. It was for knowledge and new connections. That is high street, and Ollie liked that about him, he was decent, ambitious and loyal. Lynx has a way with Ollie, like Caster did. He knows there are certain jobs he cannot do, so he tracks down Ollie. It takes some doing but he finally finds him. Ollie is suspicious but excited about this visit. Lynx is a phenomenal trickster. He is cutting edge, clean and way too advanced for the likes of Ollie.

Ollie loves Lynx's efficiency, when he says he has something, that's exactly what it is, he has it on lock. On the day of their reunion, they spend the afternoon driving around Manchester, catching up, before going into a titty bar, something Lynx has taken a liking into. Lynx whips out a small bag of snow and cuts a few lines. Ollie swiftly passes up on the offer. There are things he only associates with white boy behaviour, and this is one of them. He has always known of Lynx's snorting since the first time he met him. He was jittery and always rubbing his nose. It never bothered Ollie or caused them any problems. Worst case is he gets insulted, but he has developed thick skin for it. The alternative will of course be smashing his head through a brick wall, but who needs that much attention given all the risk.

"Do you like this joint, Ollie?"

"Nah, not really. I was raised a Muslim, remember?"

"Shame, best way to clean your money. I have just bought this."

"This whole joint? Fuck me Lynx, how do you afford something like this?"

"Don't worry about that. I have more down south. Good business I tell you."