Tod Goldberg - The Bad Beat

“I believe you’ve met my muscle,” Sam said. “She can be very persuasive.”

“And which of you did I speak to on the phone?” he asked.

“That would be me,” I said.

“You are smart,” he said. “If you weren’t, you’d be dead.”

“You found my phone?”

“You have small operation here,” he said. “But effective. Lessons to be learned.” Yuri looked at his watch. “I have twenty minutes before I need to receive my guests.” He sat down at the table where his wife and children were. “Please, have a seat, show me what you have. Convince me Kineoptic Transference is what will make me even richer.”

We all sat down as well and Sam set up the laptop in front of Yuri and began running the PowerPoint presentation Big Lumpy had prepared, the whole time providing a running dialogue on the different aspects of Kineoptic Transference, starting and stopping the presentation when Yuri had questions. Yuri would periodically whisper something to his wife in Russian and she would nod, or grimace, and once she said, “Nyet” in a tone that seemed to suggest a level of frustration one reserved for one’s children.

When it was over, Yuri crossed his arms over his chest and exhaled slowly. “My question,” he said. “This works?”

“Of course,” Sam said.

“And you?” Yuri said to me. “You who are a doctor, no?”

“Scientist,” I said. “It works. Our government is too beholden to Verizon and AT amp;T to consider it now. Which makes it gold for you. You take this to Europe, to the Middle East, you’ll be a billionaire.”

“How much?” Yuri asked.

“I told you,” I said. “Six million.”

“Crazy,” Yuri’s wife said. She pushed herself back from the table then. “Six million dollars for wind.”

“I guess she does speak English,” I said.

“I turn that into six billion,” Yuri said.

“You make your own choices,” she said. “This woman breaks your wrist and you let her live. These men come here and sell you air and you let them live. This is a disgrace.” She clapped her hands in front of her children’s faces. “Come,” she said. “We have guests to meet.” She turned to her husband. “I expect you in ten minutes. My father? My father would kill these men. And this woman, too.”

You can spend your entire life in covert operations and never feel as uncomfortable as when you see a couple air their dirty laundry. That Yuri’s wife did it in English meant a simple thing: She wanted us to hear it, too.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Fiona said, “I’m happy to tell your wife that you put up a valiant fight.”

Yuri glared at Fiona but didn’t say anything. In fact, he sat there at the table in perfect silence for three full minutes before he finally said, “I send you four million dollars now. If the technology works as you’ve shown, I send you another two million. If the technology fails, I kill you all. Slowly.”

“Agreed,” I said.

Sam reached into his bag and pulled out the three zip drives that contained all of the information Big Lumpy had provided and slid them across the table. “You’ll find what you’re looking for there.”

“And I need the death certificates,” Yuri said. “My associates at home will want to know that I am not getting soft, even on children and degenerates. A head or a pancreas would be better, but they are both difficult to get through customs. Official paperwork from the United States is much easier to believe. I can’t be losing my reputation for violence, can I, Mr. Lumpy?”

“Maybe don’t let anyone talk to your wife,” Sam said. He produced the death certificates for Brent and Henry and handed them to Yuri. He put the certificates and the zip drives into the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket, as if they were nothing at all, as if they did not cost him four million dollars. As if they were not about to cost him his freedom. “It’s why I’ve stayed single.”

“Hmm, yes,” Yuri said, “I’m sure that is the most compelling reason.” He looked at the death certificates and then at Brent and Barry. “How does it feel to be dead?” He frowned slightly even though neither of them responded and it occurred to me that seeing father and son together in such a situation-even if they weren’t really father and son-might be causing this strange melancholy. Or maybe it was because his wife was waiting in the hall, waiting to call him a failure again. “You have an account ready for a transfer?”

“Yes,” I said. I slid the computer over to Barry and he pulled up the banking information.

“You trust him with your banking?” Yuri said.

“Like you said,” I said, “we’re a small operation.”

Yuri shook his head but gave Barry his account information. Two minutes later, four million dollars had been transferred from an account in Ukraine to the account in Iceland that Big Lumpy-the real Big Lumpy-had given us.

Yuri Drubich, one of the most dangerous men in the world, at least by reputation, stood up then. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I am to be honored for my philanthropy. It would be a shame to be late for my own coronation.” He then walked past us all and out of the salon without another word. He opened the door and his daughter stood there with one of his beefy-looking security guards. Yuri put his good hand down and his young daughter grasped it and off he went to be celebrated.

I watched them walk down the long hallway, past the circus going on between the kitchen and the ballroom, and then heard a roar of clapping as he turned the corner and disappeared from view. Tonight would probably be the best night of his life and the very worst.

I detached my cell phone from the magnet in my pocket and called Monty. “The money is there,” I said.

“I see it,” he said.

“Make your deductions and transfer the remaining amount to this account.” I gave him the numbers for the account Barry had set up for Brent.

“And what is Mr. Grayson’s decision regarding his money?”

“You know,” I said, “why don’t you ask him?” I handed the phone to Brent. “It’s for you.”

I walked out into the hallway and Fiona, Sam and Barry followed me.

“We should get in there,” Sam said, “so I can make my splash.”

“No,” I said. “He’s got his kids here. We’ve done all we need to do with him. He’ll be in prison by tomorrow morning.”

“Michael,” Fiona said, “he’s a terrible human being. Why not have the gratification of him being photographed with a huge check from a company that is going to be found to belong to Big Lumpy? The shame alone will be enough to drive him mad.”

“Because,” I said, “those kids who sat in there with us thought we were his friends. His daughter doesn’t know anything and she’ll remember tonight as beautiful. I’m not the person who’s going to ruin that. I’m not willing to make that choice just for spite.”

Brent came out to the hallway and handed me back the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”

“He says he wants the money,” Monty said. “And that he accepts all of the conditions.”

“Then he wants the money,” I said.

“It will be sent within the next twenty minutes,” Monty said.

“When are you going to let the government know what Yuri has possession of?”

“How long will it take you to leave the consulate?”

I thought about that little girl holding her father’s hand and said, “An hour.”

“An hour? Are you dining?”

“We just might be,” I said.

“Where is the information?”

“He has the zip drives in his jacket pocket and we’re leaving the laptop computer Big Lumpy provided in the salon down the hall from the ballroom.”