At least one, anyway. Have you, like “Nate,” employee of [make your best guess here], stopped purchasing your usual stash in the wake of having no money only to find your hook-up calling you from private lines, showing up at your apartment, hiding in your closest, and demanding to know why you never see each other lately? You don’t have to be afraid anymore. You’re not alone.
Then the stock market crashed, and people started losing [coke dealer] Sammy’s number. But he didn’t lose theirs. “It was a 646 number,” says Nate, 26, who works at an investment bank; he got three calls from Sammy in one week. (Sammy’s contacts — five years’ worth — are stored in a small black notebook with cross streets, physical descriptors, and even sketches corresponding to each name.) When Nate called back, Sammy picked up right away: “He was like, Hey Nate, it’s me, Sammy, where ya been?” Last November, Nate was forced to switch jobs, and took a notable pay cut. “It’s not all fun and games anymore. I told him thanks but no thanks.”
(Of course, Nate needn’t be such a prick about the whole thing. Obviously Sammy is all too aware of the lack of good times up in this piece, and is just trying to make a living, just like Nate, though possibly with more integrity.)
Hit By Recession, Cocaine Dealers Resort To Cold Calling [NYM]
nate sounds like a huge asshole, and could have been any number of my colleagues at bear.
I’d never avoid my dealer like that.
nate = dick fuld?
sammy = jimmy cayne
@5 my first thought too
First discount hit men. Now coke dealers going the extra mile. If you scrounge around I think you’ll find the high class prosties offering two-fers. You know it’s out there.
I endorse Cocaine usage. In limited quantities. For medicinal purposes only.
And, I guess, if you’re trying to tag an SMU hottie.
–Mark Klein, MD
P.S. – I think Dennis Kneale is dreamy.
@6 where? show me, where?
No mention of the mexican coke sharks camped out in the mildly suspicious van parked across the street?
I’M sorry, why wasn’t I interviewed for this story?
It’s sales. When it’s a bad market, you have to resort to cold calling. That’s what it comes down to.
And, I guess, trying to NOT get picked up by the cops.
“Sammy’s contacts — five years’ worth — are stored in a small black notebook with cross streets, physical descriptors, and even sketches corresponding to each name.”
I don’t know about everyone else here but that quote sure makes me not the least bit paranoid, at all.
@12 Naked – Luckily Sammy is a Cubist so the NYPD’s Modern Art Unit will be needed to interpret the sketches in the book.
@7 How did you find yourself in the Park Cities? Clearly you went too far south on Hillcrest.
If this happened to me I would think it was a sting or something…who cold-calls clients like that…also never write anything down…
@15 same, wtf?
Sammy = UBS expanding client services