Setup on Front Street by Mike Dennis

felt naked without it.
    Yale Lando was the guy in Key West to see
for that. Driver's licenses, green cards, birth certificates, college degrees —
no job was out of reach for him. He even licensed a few Cuban doctors up in
Miami who didn't want the minor inconvenience of having to attend American
medical schools.
    To top it off, his work was flawless, never
questioned. I'd gotten some Nevada ID from him before leaving for Vegas, and
I'd referred some others to him over the years.
    He worked out of his house on Havana Lane,
a little street tucked away off Truman. The house sat behind a high wooden
fence, nearly concealed by a canopy of very big, very old, orange bougainvillea
and other heavy vegetation. His equipment was in a mother-in-law apartment in
the rear of the house, but I never got to see it.
    You always dealt with Yale in his living
room, sitting on cheap furniture.
    The Price Is Right was
on his TV. The host was about to offer a squealing contestant a shot at a new
car.
    Yale leaned back in his ancient armchair,
sipping on a glass of fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice as he ran down my want
list and gave me a price. He had to raise his voice a little to be heard over
the excitement on the TV.
    "Forty-five hundred," he said in
his rich Conch accent. "Two grand for the passport, five hundred for the
driver's license, and a dime apiece for the two credit cards."
    I nodded.
    He ran a hand through curly brown hair,
then down through a matching beard. I knew we were the same age, but you
couldn't tell by looking at his face, so much of it was covered up. His eyes,
however, showed the truth, and the backs of his hands had the first faint
traces of the gnarl that time would eventually put there.
    "Remember, the license and passport
will be in the same name, while the credit cards will be in two different names
altogether."
    "So the passport is backup to the
license? In case I'm asked for two forms of ID."
    "Check. But the passport will be
totally valid for travel out of the country. And the license will be valid
also, complete with a backup file in Tallahassee."
    I always marveled at Yale's deep
connections, how he managed all of this. He moved me over to a makeshift area
in his Florida room where he set up a camera on a tripod. I sat down on a small
stool as he snapped my photo.
    "Light blue," he said, pointing
to the backdrop behind me. "That's the color they use on authentic Florida
licenses. Any other color and they peg it as a phony. We'll use a white
backdrop for the passport."
    "Do I pick everything up at the same
time?"
    "No. On the first deliv — hey,
wait a minute!"
    His eyes shot back to the TV. The woman
contestant said something as he hissed, "No, you stupid bitch! The motor
oil is more expensive than the fabric softener!"
    He kicked off his sandals and headed back
toward the couch, shaking his fist at her.
    "The motor oil! The motor oil!"
    Finally, the woman changed her mind at the
last second, selecting the motor oil. It was the right move, so she advanced
one step closer to the car.
    Relieved, Yale went on. "Anyway, on
the first delivery I give you the passport, the license, and one of the two
credit cards. You can start using the card right away. It'll have a ten
thousand dollar line of credit, and like I said, it'll be in a different name.
A totally legit name of a real guy somewhere who actually has his real credit
card safely buried in his wallet. This is an exact duplicate, number and all,
so the charges will breeze through when you go to make a purchase. The real guy
won't ever suspect a thing till he gets his bill."
    "So, for all practical purposes, it's
a real credit card? Not stolen?"
    "Check. Now, you can only use it for a
month, of course. Visa sends out their bills on the twenty-third of each month.
So you can use this card until about the twenty-fifth of April. That's when the
real guy'll get his bill, around that time, and naturally the shit will hit the
fan when he sees what's happened. Then, on