Rey Morales

Concept: Janitor/Industrial Espionage Specialist

AKA: Rey has always been just this side of skeletal and he still eats like a starving wolf. As a result, his childhood nickname was “Flaco” (Which means “Skinny”)

Desc: Late 30’s latino male. Skinny, as I said. Callouses from a life of hard physical work. One diamond stud in his ear. No ink.  Good muscle tone, although his back gives him occasional trouble.

On the job, he wears a grey-green coverall and work boots, (he bought a dozen of them so he only has to do laundry every two weeks.) But on his time off he goes in for a bit of color and sandals. 

History: Papi always used to say that gangs were for stupid boys. Smart boys had better things to do than get killed over some patch of territory.  Smart boys learned everything they could, If life in America taught you anything, it taught you that you could steal more with a briefcase and a suit than you EVER could with a gun.  And that turned out to be true.

Rey was a smart kid, and he was able to get and keep a scholarship. But it didn’t really cover everything. So on the weekends while other student were partying, Rey was working for his cousin who ran a janitorial service. 

Rey was going in the direction of becoming a corporate lawyer. He did well in his pre-law classes and was looking around at various possibilities for law school. But law school wasn’t going to just fall down in front of him with its legs open. It was going to be expensive.

   It was at this point when he read a section on corporate espionage in one of his text books. It talked about, in very broad strokes, how it was done and how lucrative it could be.

And the idea popped into Rey’s head...”Hey. I could totally do this.”

He was not wrong. Rey found that most people who worked in janitorial services tended to be completely invisible to the people that they worked for. Moreover, they tended to assume that anyone that worked with their hands for a living had to be too fucking stupid to even understand what they were talking about. (Rey learned quick to adopt a “Rain Man” style persona and occasionally lapse into rapid babbling Spanish when dealing with certain people)

   It started small. At first, the operation involved sifting the daily garbage for nuggets of gold. Rey made anonymous approaches to competitor companies to the one he was servicing promising occasional bits of actionable intel. In return, They’d put money into a grand cayman account for him.

At first, no one took him seriously.  But Rey is pretty talented at reading between the lines, He was able to see from garbage and from scavenged emails when and how the stock prices would change. And when it turned out he could predict these things to his clients...They began to sit up and take notice.

     Rey is pretty swish with a computer. He’s been using one almost his whole life. He bought a decent set of tools online that he could load onto a thumb drive. And that’s been helpful. He bought a set of bump keys online and that’s enabled him to go anywhere that isn’t restricted by keypad access....And the funny thing about that is, Occasionally, areas with key-pad access have messes that need cleaning too.

    Rey has also taught himself a few things about surveillance equipment. Small bugs and tiny cameras can gather a LOT of intel, especially if you can set those devices to squirt their informational payload to a smart phone. (Although, obviously not one in your own name.)

    Rey began to make so much money at this, that he put law school on hold, and eventually bought out his cousin. Rey has become something of a spymaster. Not only is he interested in hard intel but he’s also realized that corporations will pay top dollar for talent that they can hire away from their competitors. Sometimes, all it takes is being passed over for promotion, a big gambling debt, or even a messy horrid divorce that creates a desire to start over in a new city.  Rey has hired members of his own family, and while they may not know too much about the corporate espionage themselves, they certainly know what Rey wants them to look for, and can occasionally make an approach to a person looking to get out.  If nothing else, Rey can always take news that a research director is unhappy and looking for greener pastures to a competing company and let their headhunters do the rest. 

   Rey has taken the time and trouble to create a few extra identities for himself, and while his relatives work for a single company, on paper that company is actually ten companies under a grand cayman corporate umbrella. It would take forensic accountants some time to untangle the whole thing.  The best bit is, that since he’s taken great pains to keep himself anonymous if his client companies decide to screw him, and of course, some try...He just turns up on THEIR doorstep and soon enough their offices are nice and clean, but they are bleeding inside.

  Rey’s not a fool. He’s put money aside in case something goes sideways. Not just for him, but for his family too. And of course, he’s got inside information that makes playing the market childishly easy.  The only question is, will he manage to get out before someone twigs to his activities, or will they figure out who he is before he sees them coming.

Attitude: “It turns out that there is a place online where you can buy roach eggs by the pound. I was doing a thing, and I got in to clean up a mess. I had just enough time to open up a wall outlet and stash some eggs and a slurry of water and sugar in there.  In a weeks time, the secure area was COMPLETELY infested.  So, innocently I happen to mention that my cousin is an exterminator and he works cheap. SO he and I went in, he killed the bugs, and I went through the corporate accounting files.  We laughed. Well..As much as you can do with the respirators on.”

Skills: Mentally, He’s sharp. Not SUPER GEEENIUS sharp. But still pretty sharp. Socially, he’s pretty good, grew up in a decent sized family and has the kind of social reflexes that a smart boy growing up in the hood will get.  Physically, he’s okay.  He’s got a decent pile of dots socked into academics with a specialty in business.  Got some dots in Computer with a spec in anonymous intrusions.

Streetwise and subterfuge are in good shape too. He’s got enough dots in Empathy to be able to spot someone who is a likely target for headhunting. Also enough that it occasionally makes it morally problematical.  He does have a gun and knows how to use it, but isn’t terribly combat capable.

Gear: He normally carries a decent sized tool bag which holds his lunch, his smartphone, his earbuds, a paperback or two. There’s nothing in the tool bag that is remotely incriminating.  Rey has taken the trouble to hollow out the handle of his mop. He stores his jump drives and bugs in there. He also keeps the spare memory card for the phone in there.  He keeps his gun in the glove box of his van.

Home: Rey is careful. He’s got a little apartment in his own name and he drives an old ford van. One of his many companies owns a decent sized house and a late model Lincoln town car. and this is where he spends the bulk of his time. His neighbors think he’s a political analyst.  Funny thing, though. The “family” home is wholly owned and there have been significant additions to it over the years. Rey has had to make with some pretty fancy maneuvering in order to do these things without arousing the suspicions of the neighbors or the IRS.

Circle: Rey lives a double life really. His work means it’s difficult for him to connect to people at his work and a lot of the actual “Cleaning” takes place on the third shift anyway.  He also has to keep his work pretty secret from anyone in the old neighborhood. A good story like that would get around town at roughly the speed of light. Also, gangs might like to take a slice. Fuck that shit.  Even the family is mostly in the dark. Papi thinks that Rey is still going back to law school someday.  But Rey still has some friends he trusts, and family who know a little and those people are the only ones he can really relax with. Rey suspects that someday he’s going to get tired of spinning these plates...But right now?  The work makes him smile and keeps him in beer and skittles.

Story Uses:

“Hm... I’m thinking that these guys are going public after the software rollout.”

Need some company jacked up good and proper? Rey might be the right guy for the job if you can connect up to him somehow. He stays off the grid, for the most part, tends to make the approach and has only a few clients that have a way of getting in touch.

“Look. I don’t do revenge jobs...But your Abuela was like a sister to mine...I’ll look into it.”

If there’s anything that might make the balloon go up too early, it might be Rey’s connection to his extended family.  If some corporate interest screwed over his family badly enough, they would call down a storm of heat, shit, and pain that hasn’t been seen since biblical times.

Connections:

* Rey once hired Selma Collins to do a number on a company. Their internal security was getting a bit too close. Selma was a total professional. Rey would use her again if a stunt called for it.

* He bought his tools from Boolie Hinson but they don’t know one another. Still, they’ve worked pretty well and updates handle new things pretty darn well.

* Anytime he’s got the time to do so, he chats up Rosalie Prescott. That’s mostly because he’s got weird hours and the Gas-N-Go is near his apartment. He likes her a little and her kid too.

* A number of Weiland Diversifications projects have been stymied by some market “misfortunes”  To date, no one has rooted out exactly who is causing it. Meredith Shaw would pay a kings ransom to find out who’s causing it.

* Once, Rey and Clavo Hernandez sat in Clavo's studio one night over a bottle of Tequila and talked about ID's and staying off the grid.  Rey will kick business in Clavo's direction and occasionally Clavo can do the same.