Tod Goldberg - The Bad Beat

“Even though you built a Web site just like theirs, but probably even more sophisticated, in your dorm room?” Fi said.

“Well,” he said, “yeah, but, you know, I’m an American, so, yeah. And for a long time, like, it was a big joke with my classmates. If someone needed rent money or couldn’t make their car payment or whatever, they’d be like, ‘Call the Russians!’ So when my dad disappeared and the bookies started leaning on me, that’s what I did.”

“When did your dad go missing?” I said.

“Two months ago,” Brent said.

“You have any idea where he might be?”

“No,” he said. “He’s left before, like when I was a kid, but then it was only for like a week. He’d go get money somewhere and come back. He’d hook up with a bookie in some other city who didn’t know him and then he’d show back up when he could pay off his debt. Stupid.”

“How much does he owe?” I asked.

“I’ve already paid off sixty-five thousand bucks,” Brent said, as if it was nothing. I didn’t say anything. “But he’s got big tabs with guys all over town. Every week, a new guy shows up asking for his money. I’m supposed to meet a guy named Big Lumpy tomorrow to pay off part of a debt my dad has to him for fifteen large.”

“ Fifteen large. Really.”

“That’s how they talk,” Brent said. “That’s how my dad talks. I’m just telling you everything.”

“How do you know you’re not getting shaken down?” Fiona asked. “I don’t want to be morbid, but your father could already be dead.”

“He’s not,” Brent said. “Because I know he’s still betting. He took money out of a shared account of ours a week ago. It’s this old Christmas club account my mom gave me when I was born. He drained it.”

The problem with degenerate gamblers is that it’s never about winning or losing; it’s about the rush of playing. It blinds your ability to make good decisions. It ends up putting everything you have in jeopardy… like your son’s life.

“Okay,” I said. “So these guys come and demand money or they’re going to kill you, am I correct?”

“Me,” he said, “and everyone in my family. They gave me MapQuest directions to my aunt Jill’s house in Austin, my cousin Matthew in San Francisco and they even showed me a picture of my mother’s grave. They said they’d dig her up and kill her again. And when they find my dad, they said they’d kill him, too, but they’d do it slowly.”

“Here’s the thing, Brent,” I said. “If they kill you, they won’t get any more money. Do you understand that?”

“Yeah. So, great, I’m paralyzed or something instead. I’d rather be dead.”

“Why didn’t you just go to the police in the first place, Brent?” I said.

He got up off of the bed and began to pace my loft, much like Sugar had, much like half a dozen other clients had when faced with the one question that should be the easiest to answer. It portended extenuating situations, which I presumed would lead to the Russians.

“They told me not to,” he said.

“Right. Of course,” I said. “But was this before or after you contacted the Russians and took their money for a device that doesn’t exist?”

“How did you know?” Brent asked.

“Because I’m a spy,” I said. “And because you’re smart and did the only thing you could to save your father’s life. And I don’t know any other way you’d be able to get your hands on sixty-five thousand bucks. That nugget of information didn’t elude me, Brent.”

“Thanks. For the smart part, I mean.”

“But being smart is also the one thing that could likely get you killed,” I said. “How much did they send you?”

“Which time?”

“ Which time? How many times have there been?”

“Well, they asked to invest in the project and so at first I kept shining them on, just like all the others, until this all happened and I said, okay, they could get in on the Angel level for seventy-five thousand.”

“And what happened next?” I asked.

“They asked where they could wire the money,” Brent said.

That got Fiona interested. Money does that to her. Especially money garnered as an ill-gotten gain. “How long,” she asked, “would it take you to build me a Web site like this one of yours?”

“Fi,” I said. “Still not helping.”

“Michael, if Russian gangsters are giving away their money, why shouldn’t we profit from it? We could clearly cover our tracks much better than a dumb college kid. No offense, Brent.”

“Some taken,” he said. “And anyway, I didn’t know they were gangsters, like I said. I thought I was dealing with an accountant somewhere in the Ural Mountains.”

“What did you do with that money?” I asked.

“I paid the bookies and I paid my tuition, or else I was going to get kicked out of school. Dad didn’t pay any of my school stuff for the last six months, which I didn’t realize, of course, until he was gone. They were going to lock me out of the dorms and everything.”

“Okay,” I said. “How much do you have left?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Or, well, nothing from the first payment. I had them send me another seventy-five thousand two weeks ago, which was supposed to facilitate delivery of the initial specs for the project, which, you know, don’t exist.”

I was silent for a moment while I tried to figure out all of the mistakes Brent Grayson had made, all of the terrible choices he was forced to make by his father, Henry, and then the likelihood that I could be killed while trying to help him out of this barbed-wire corner.

“When did the Russians figure out that there was no InterMacron?” I asked.

“A couple of days ago, I guess,” he said. “After I didn’t deliver the specs, I guess they started to investigate things a little further and that’s when they said they would be at my dad’s office to either get their money or get their information and that’s when I called Sugar. He’s the baddest guy I know, so, you know, I thought he could help me with this.”

“Except you lied to him,” Fiona said.

“You know Sugar,” Brent said. “I didn’t want him knowing all that stuff.”

The kid had a valid point.

“What time are you supposed to meet Big Lumpy?” I asked.

“Noon,” he said. “At someplace called the Hair of the Dog. I’ve never been there, because I’m not twenty-one.”

“You defraud Russian gangsters but you’ve never been to a bar?” Fiona said.

“This is the first time I’ve broken the law,” Brent said. “I mean, other than buying stuff from Sugar. But that’s just because I have a hard time sleeping.”

It was no wonder.

“Tomorrow I’ll go meet with Big Lumpy. I’ll explain the situation to him and I’m sure he’ll understand,” I said. “And then we’ll get to work on the Russians.”

“What about my father?”

“We’ll find him, too,” I said.

“I can pay you with whatever is left after you pay off Big Lumpy,” he said.

“I’m not going to pay Big Lumpy. And you’re not going to touch the money in that account. Got it?”

Brent didn’t say anything. Not good.

“How much have you spent, Brent?”

“I lent a girl I know some money,” he said. “She wanted a boob job and her parents wouldn’t pay for it.”

“Noble,” Fiona said.

“How much?” I said.

“Five grand,” he said. “And I bought a scooter. To get around campus.”

“How much?”

“Another five grand.”

“Anything else?”

“I had a small party,” he said. “And I bought another computer.”

“Why don’t you tell me how much of that $75K is left?”

“$45K.”

“Must have been some party,” I said.