Alright. This is the last one, my last cigarette, as it were. And then…cold turkey. One more fool to stuff in the bag and then I’m giving up this so-called career for good.
It’s early—nine-fifty in the morning. I told the guy yesterday, Randy, that I’d come at ten o’clock. He was over-excited. He didn’t try to weasel out of it or anything. “Yeah, ten o’clock would be great! I’ll be home,” he said.
When I’m about to suggest coming to the house, the more skittish ones usually change their minds at the last minute. “Uh, well, that’s not a good time for me,” they say. “I, uh… I have a bowling league to go to that night.” Yeah, tell me another one.
But not Randy. Randy is a prime pigeon. “I’ll have the house to myself tomorrow!” “Okay then. How about your wife?” I asked. “Won’t she be joining us?” “My wife?” Randy said. “No, I ain’t married, thank God. My mom will be at work, so it’ll just be me.” Kid’s got mom’s money to burn, excellent—this’ll be over with quickly.
I breathe out a sigh and check my briefcase one more time. I step out of the car, stamp out my cigarette, and walk up the drive to the house.
Randy is living the high-life. Nice painted-brick, two-story home with a dog in the fenced-in backyard. Manicured lawn.
I run my hands through my hair and straighten my tie. I ring the doorbell.
“Just a sec!” I hear from inside. A stereo blasts the same bad heavy-metal music I heard yesterday on the phone. The volume goes down and I hear Randy tromp towards the door.
It swings open. “Hey! Mr. Tapp! Good to see you, man. Thanks for coming.”
Randy is a tall, scrawny character with a long mane of black hair.
He’s wearing a skull-emblazoned T-shirt, jeans, and sandals.
“Sorry for being so early, Mr. Smalls,” I say.
“Dude, call me Randy.”
“Alright, Randy,” I shake his hand firmly. “Are you ready to secure your financial independence?”
“Hell, yeah! C’mon in!”
The place is immaculate. Ornate, little collectable figurines line the mantle over the fireplace. All-leather furniture in the living room. It smells like a doctor’s office in here—sterile. And just as if I were in a museum, I can look at everything, but nothing is to be touched.
A ceramic Dalmatian umbrella stand sits on the stone floor foyer.
“Nice place,” I say.
“Oh. This is mom’s part of the house. I live downstairs. Follow me.” We walk down the wooden steps into the basement—half of which is an open laundry room. The other half is Randy’s den. It resembles a bum’s lean-to under an overpass. A shabby card table takes up much of the space.
A television is on and talking to itself. Dirty running pants and t-shirts lie haphazardly on the bed/couch. CD’s out of their cases lie strewn about on the oval, brown frayed rug covering Randy’s part of the cement floor. Looks like the kid never got out of the dorm-room phase.
“So this is the bachelor’s pad, eh?” I pretend to scratch my nose, holding it shut against the B.O. for a glorious moment. I hope Randy buys in before I pass out.
“Yeah,” Randy says. “Just until I get enough saved up to get out of this dungeon. My mom keeps nagging at me to get a job. I got a job, I keep telling her. I’m a day-trader! But I really just need a chunk of cash to get a deposit for an apartment. And then, BAM!, I’m gone.” Randy reminds me a bit of myself before I got started in con-artistry.
Only I was much better dressed.
“Randy, my friend. Day-trading is peanuts compared to what I can set you up with.” “Well, if your program is easy as you say it is, then I can still do both, right?” “Piece a cake.” The ease of the “program” is what attracted me to this line of work in the first place. A Mr. Sam Yardsburg was an old pro who came to “rescue” me from my growing spiral of gambling debt. But, I knew that I was being conned even before Mr. Yardsburg delivered his pitch. I admired Sam’s technique though and I saw the potential of what this racket could earn. So, instead of beating the shit out of old Sam, I made him tell me all he knew. He didn’t make any money off of me, but he left without any broken bones.
Yesterday on the phone, I gave Randy the exact same spiel Sam had used on me: “It’s easy. All you need is a determination to earn lots of profit.” “Hell, I got that!” Randy said.
“Have a seat, man.” Randy gestures towards the drink-ringed table. I take an orange plastic chair and open my briefcase.
Randy opens a rusty mini-fridge and takes out a beer. He sits.
“Okay. The process is simple,” I tell him. “This is a Self-Liquidating Loan.’ If you have a little money, you can make a lot of money.” “Cool.” I can smell his gullibility. It’s like spoiled lilacs. “It’s a five-step process. And it’s all about multiple loans and investments,” I say. “Using a circular progression, you use one loan to pay for more investments that pay for the original loan.” Randy nods and fingers his chin. “What you do,” I continue, “is take out a loan for a large sum of money—about $100,000.00 or so.” “Whoa.” Randy’s eyes become as wide as silver dollars. He takes a swig of his beer, his eyes glued to the spread of glossy paper I’ve thrown upon the table. “Fuckin’ A!” I need to massage most of my clients into signing before buttering them up with the fancy brochures. My first job was an elderly woman—Mary Lipner. Her husband had just died and, as it often happens, he was the one who handled all of the financial obligations. I smeared on the charm and she let me take care of her. The circular investment system zipped over her head, but I assured her that her investment was gold. She eagerly scrawled a check, decorated with a country scene and a flowery mailbox, for the five-hundred dollar finding fee.
“You remind me of my grandson,” she had said.
Mrs. Lipner was a great beginner con’s dupe. After a little practice, I was able to convince most folks to roll over and beg. I was well on my way to paying off all my student loans. It didn’t matter that I dropped out of college, major-less, after two years of sleeping late and missing classes. Who needs a degree when there are suckers just waiting to be “taken care of”? And boy, is Randy is a sucker. I only need to convince him that he thinks he understands what he’s getting himself into.
“When the loan comes in,” I tell him, “use some of that capital to buy multiple Certificates of Deposit—about twenty. You use this as collateral for the loan. Then,” I point my finger in the air, “take another chunk of capital to buy dividend-paying investments—that I’ll find for you—which will pay off the original loan.” “Uh huh.” He nods with his mouth half open, arms crossed on the table.
He looks like a bobble-head puppy in the back window of Mrs. Mary Lipton’s K-car.
“You’ve still got a lot to play with from the hundred-grand, so you can easily pay the fees for finding the investments. That’s where I come in.” “Okay. I get it now.” He sits up straight and puts his hands on his hips. He scans the ocean of paper as if he’s hunting for Waldo.
“I was wondering what you get out of all this,” Randy says. “But, Mr. Tapp—” “Please, call me Mitch” (which happens to be my name this week). I’ve had more names than an NYC phone book. I keep changing my P.O. box too. And I only pick the dupes that are too embarrassed after having been scammed that they don’t bother to come looking for me. I learned to do that after my encounter with Mr. Crimson.
He was a resident at the Shady Glenn Mobile Home Community. We sat outside at his rusty wrought iron garden table while I spewed a fountain of statistics and figures. Mr. Crimson chewed on half a cigar and scratched his ample belly. “Mr. Crimson, your investments will pay for the loan. All you have to do is find the highest yielding funds.” He seemed doubtful. “Now, wait a minute, Mr. Lawrence,” he said.
“Please, call me Frank—Frank Williams.” “You said your name was Lawrence.” “Did I?” I gulped.
“Hey what the fuck is goin’ on here?” He dropped the cigar and shoved the table on its end.
“Wait a second, Mr. Crimson, I—” All I remember after that moment was the stacks of phony applications, investment projection reports, and the purple and green “Financial Freedom At Your Fingertips” brochures, raining down like a flock of sparrows that had suddenly caught West Nile virus, slapping the makeshift cement patio square outside Mr. Cimson’s tilted trailer.
I’ve still got a few bruises under my white Oxford shirt and a scar above my left eye, which, thankfully, Randy doesn’t notice.
“Right. Mitch,” he says. “If this is so easy,” he looks me in the eye, “why aren’t you doing this yourself?” I smile at him. “Randy. I am doing this myself. The only advantage I have over you is that I don’t have to pay my own finder’s fees.” “Oh. Well, that makes sense.” Punks like Randy are so afraid of looking stupid that they will pretend to understand. It only makes my job easier.
“So the rest is cream, my friend,” I tell him. “You get to keep whatever’s left. Even if that’s only fifteen percent of your original hundred-thou’ that’s still fifteen-thousand clams—which I would guess would be enough to…‘get out of the dungeon’.” “You ain’t kiddin’!” “You could get a nice pad, man. I’d even start looking at houses.” “Oh, I got plans. I’m gonna get the band back together and get back in the studio. This’ll be fuckin’ great!” “Whoa, slow down, Ran,” I put my hands up. “Financial independence means taking care of priorities. Know what I mean?” “Hell, yeah. It’s gonna be a kick ass studio this time! No more cheap-ass garage set-ups.” He starts playing air guitar.
“Randy?” He doesn’t hear me.
“Mr. Smalls?” “Uh, yeah, yeah.” “I still haven’t approved your application yet. If you and I are going to do this, I need to know that you’re not a risk,” I say.
“What do you mean, Mitch?” “The system itself is fool-proof, but, the investors are only human, you know?” “Yeah, I know.” “Let me ask you, Randy: do you have any outstanding debts?” “Like what?” Randy’s eyebrows scrunch up.
“Do you owe your mom any money, Randy?” I lean forward, put my elbows on the table and look him in the face.
“I owe her a lot,” he says. “To tell you the truth, the day-trading gig isn’t all it’s made out to be.” I figured as much. He looks down at the table, sips his beer.
I fold my hands and nod.
“I keep telling her, as soon as my stocks jump back into the game, I’m good to go. No problem. ‘Get a job,’ she yaps. ‘Sitting in your mother’s basement staring at a monitor is not work. You never see the sun. What kind of job is that?’” Randy sneers as he mocks his mother, his head wobbling with contempt.
He leans back and empties his beer bottle. “She needs to get off my fucking back! Yap! Yap! Yap!” I can picture her yapping. Every afternoon standing behind him. He’s sitting in his Ohio U. beanbag chair that reeks of Old Milwaukee.
She’s clutching yet another black concert t-shirt or pair of ripped pants, sighing perhaps. Is this how a twenty-seven-year-old man is supposed to live?
“But that’s all gonna change now, man,” he says. “I can feel it. First thing I’m gonna do when she gets home today is show her this deal you’re setting me up with.” He slaps my shoulder. “Then I’m gonna tell her to stick it!” He leans back in his chair, a toothy grin stretched across his teeth.
“I’m gonna be honest with you, Mitch,” he says. “I’m sure glad you came along.” He leans forward again and almost whispers, “I don’t know shit about day-trading. I’m lucky if I break even after a month. I’m just guessing at the numbers. But now, after the first check arrives, I’m walkin’!”
“If you ever come back here again,” Mr. Crimson had said, after he was out of breath, “I’ll make sure you ain’t walkin’ no more. Got it?” His fists were still balled. He was leaning over me, hyperventilating.
“Get your snake oil shit and get the fuck offa my property!”
“Man, I’ll tell ya,” Randy continues. “I’m in the clear. It’s Easy Street for me from now on.” He pulls a rose-colored checkbook from his back pocket and picks up one of my pens. “What did you say the fee would be?”
“Eleven-hundred dollars.”
“One thousand, one hundred,” he says as he makes out a check. “You don’t mind if I just sign this Nancy Smalls, now do you?” he asks with a tilted head and a sideways smirk.
“Would you mind terribly if I just signed my husband’s name?” Mrs. Lipner had said. “My husband’s accounts haven’t been transferred over yet, and he was the one who took care of all of this.”
“Why certainly, Mrs. Lipner,” I had said. “I want to be as flexible as I can with my clients.”
“You really are a nice young man, Mr. Thompson,” she had said. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along. The kids don’t seem to want lend a hand. I guess they’re just too busy.”
“Here you go, Mitch!” He hands me the check. “Let’s celebrate!” He goes to his mini fridge and pulls out two bottles. He sets one in front of me. Before I have a chance to speak again, he’s downed half his beer.
“Look, kid,” I say looking at my hands. “I gotta level with you.” He sits.
“I actually don’t think this is the right program for you,” I tell him.
“What?” He almost chokes. “Of course it is.” “I’m thinking about the numbers now and I don’t think that—” “Hey!” he barks. “I know what I’m doing. And I ain’t no kid!”
“Right. No, it’s not that. It’s just… If you lose your investment it could cost—” “What are your saying, man. We got a deal.” “It’s a deal you really don’t want, Mr. Smalls.” “Look. I can get this liquid loan thing set up from you or I can get it from somebody else,” he says pointing at me.
He’s got the “set-up” part correct, anyway. If I don’t scam him, someone else will.
“Randy. Mr. Smalls, your mother’s account will be emptied if this…when this doesn’t go through.”
“Oh, it’ll go through. She’s loaded! What do you need, man. I got Social Security numbers, pay stubs, you name it. She’s got lots in the bank.”
“That’s not the point, Randy.”
“Oh man. Oh man.” His eyes go wide. “You can’t turn me down. She’s gonna toss me out if I don’t come up with something.” He stands up and starts pacing. “This is my ticket out, man.”
Mom’s money is ripe; I can smell it. It mingles with the acidic scent of Randy’s desperation and greed.
Randy’s panic begins to trickle down his check. I’ve casted the line, now it’s time to set the hook.
“That fucking bitch is going to throw me out, Mitch. Just take the fucking check, damnit!” He shoves the pink slip of paper at my nose.
Watching him writhe is like heroine.
I grimace and pretend to think the deal over. Randy needs to be taught a lesson. Randy will be outdoors—if not today, soon—whether I have anything to do with it or not.
Spoiled little greedy punk! He’s no different than I was.
“I admire your gumption, kid,” I tell him. “I mean, Mr. Smalls.” I sit up straight, smooth out my lapels, and pinch the check out of his hand.
Randy sighs loudly and sits down. “Oh thanks, man. You don’t know what you’ve done for me.” “Oh, I’ve done this before.” I move the Investor’s Agreement Form in front of him. “Sign here, here, and initial here.”
I twist the top off the other beer, as Randy scribbles, raise it in his honor.
He slides the now papers across the table and clinks his bottle with mine.
“To cash in the bank,” he says.
“Yep. Nothing tastes better.”
