The tattoo machine was still buzzing when Dee picked up. Phone pinned between her shoulder and her ear, gloves on, a guy lying on his side on her table with half a koi fish climbing his ribs.
"Talk fast," she said. "I'm in his ribs."
I talked fast. "Underwriting has a problem with your statements."
"My statements are boring. That's the whole point of them."
They were boring. That's why I liked her file. Three-chair studio, eleven years in the same strip, $38,000 a month in deposits that came in like a heartbeat: card batches every night, a little cash every Saturday. She wanted $34,000 to take the empty unit next door before a vape shop signed for it. The landlord had given her until Friday. I had her approved in my head at a 1.32 factor, about $270 a day over eight months. A deal you could explain to your mom.
Then the underwriter called me. His name was Kessler and he talked like every sentence cost him money.
"Your merchant was submitted to us in August by another shop," he said. "Same business. Same bank. Same three months. Except in August she did sixty-one thousand a month."
"She didn't."
"Somebody's statements say she did. We pulled her bank live and caught it. She's flagged. Every funder that checks with us is going to see the same flag."
So I called Dee, and now she was in some guy's ribs, and I was explaining that someone had taken her real bank statements, opened them in a design program, and added twenty-three thousand dollars a month that never existed.
The buzzing stopped.
"That's insane," she said. "I didn't even talk to anybody in August."
"Think. A text. A call. Anybody who asked for statements."
"I don't do that stuff. My nephew handles the computer stuff. He set up the card reader, the booking site..."
She went quiet. I heard the paper on the table crinkle as somebody shifted on it.
"Leo," she said. Not to me.
A long pause. Then a young man's voice, muffled, his face pressed into the vinyl. "I was trying to help."
The guy in her chair, with half a koi on his ribs, was her nephew.
He told it to the vinyl while she stood over him with the machine in her hand. In August he'd seen an ad: funding in 24 hours, no credit check. He filled out the form for her as a surprise. A broker called him back and said, nicely, that $38K a month wouldn't get her the number she needed. If the deposits looked more like sixty, the broker said, it'd be easy. Leo had the PDFs. Leo had a laptop. Leo took an afternoon.
The broker shopped it. It got declined. Nobody told Dee anything, because Dee never knew there was anything to tell.
"I was going to tell you when the money came," he said.
"The money's not coming," Dee said. "The vape shop is coming."
I called Kessler back and asked for one thing. Let me resubmit with her live bank login, read-only, today, plus a signed letter from Dee saying the August file wasn't hers.
"I'll look," he said. "I'm not promising anything. Flagged files don't come back at the same price."
They didn't. At 6:10 that evening he came back with $22,000, not $34,000. A 1.41 factor. Six months. $246 a day.
I did the math out loud for Dee. Twelve thousand short of the buyout. Payments almost as heavy on a smaller check. The deal I could have explained to my mom was now one I'd have to explain twice.
"Will the landlord take twenty-two now and the rest later?" I asked.
"The landlord will take whatever the vape shop won't," she said. "Send it."
I sent it. She signed with her gloves off, the machine finally quiet behind her. Before she hung up, I heard her walk back to the table.
"Sit up," she told Leo. "We're finishing the fish."
"Now?"
"Now. Full price. Fourteen hundred."
"Aunt Dee..."
"Cash," she said. "I'm depositing it Monday, where everyone can see it."