“Deeper,” Bubba told her.
“The oil’s getting scooped under my nails. Like ice cream. The skin’s too slick to break.”
“You’ve managed every time.”
The second scrape was shorter but more intense. Bubba whinnied softly. Romy reached back and swatted a flank.
“Don’t buck me, Seabiscuit. You do and no oats for you in the stable.”
On the fourth try she drew blood. On the fifth Bubba gripped the table legs and chewed his lips. Romy clawed until her friend lost count of how many times she stopped to crack her knuckles and stretch her fingers. Perspiring, Bubba felt furrowed, carved, whittled.
“I’m all nubs.” Romy lasted as long as she usually did, twenty minutes. “You’re done too. Any more and you’ll scar.”
“How’s it look?”
“Like you’ve been crosshatched.”
“Then you’re right. I’m done.”
He jounced hard enough to pop Romy off his sacrum. She landed on one foot and had to slide the other across Bubba’s greased thighs, holding his towel in place, he knew, so she didn’t have to see his hairy rump. She told him to get dressed while she washed him out from under her manicure, then left. Bubba rolled off the table, dropping the towel, half hoping she’d walk in on him, fully knowing she wouldn’t. He looked around the studio, spotting what he was after on the sideboard, tucked among flickering candles: a little Ganesha statue, new to the room since his last visit. Sure enough, when Bubba shook the porcelain figure, something inside rattled. He pried out the statue’s rubber stopper and tipped its contents into his palm. “Got it,” he said aloud, sliding an object into a front pocket of the jeans he pulled from the floor. He was adjusting the pen clipped to his shirt placket when Romy reappeared. Her blond shag was fashionably mussed and she wore a red shift with suede boots. She looked funky, like when she’d been jailbait.
“Sure,” Bubba chuckled, “let’s play dress-up, like tonight’s a night at the opera.” Blood driblets skied down his lumbar region. One rode over his coccyx and cascaded into his ass crack. “Because this fuckery Otis’s pulled is straight-up operatic...”
They drove from the bohemian district where Bubba had bartended for thirty-three years to a lounge in Montgomery’s black half. Exactly where black Montgomery began nobody could really say; it tended to start wherever white people started feeling uncomfortable. But Bubba liked black joints. He could name all the legendary ones from Montgomery’s past: Club 400, the Ty-Juanna on Highland Avenue, Laicos. In a booth at G’s he ordered four Agave Locos and shot two before an unamused Romy reminded him he still had to drive.
“And still a story to tell,” Bubba noted. “Two things about Otis Owen: he’s a bad drunk and a worse gambler. In two years he’s lost $80,000 to Biloxi casinos, every cent he ever saved.”
“He still has my $85-an-hour,” shrugged Romy.
“I didn’t say he’s broke. I said he’s blown his savings. To feed his beast he’s had to cook up a profitable scam...”
Romy hiked her brows. “I gotta beg for deets?”
“I’ll detail it — after you shoot that Loco. That’s how this story unfolds. We come to a plot twist, you gotta drink to learn the next chapter.”
Romy reluctantly drained a tequila and chewed the lime. Before she stopped puckering, Bubba flagged down a hostess and ordered another round — though not straight Agave Loco this time. This time the hostess brought three firecrackers: tequila with Goldschläger and Rumple Minze.
“Why you trying to get me drunk, Bubs?”
“Because it’s the only way you’ll believe this story.”
He set his third empty down. The shot glasses on the tablecloth began resembling chess pieces.
“Bitcoins,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Cryptocurrency, the fool’s gold of the Internet. Other types exist — Monero, Ether, Ripple. Computer dorks pay real dollars in online exchanges for this ‘money.’ It’s legal tender on the Darknet because transactions are untraceable. The problem is cryptocurrencies are easy to steal. Cryptopickpocketing’s a billion-dollar industry.”
“You’re telling me Dr. O’s an Internet safecracker?”
“Even Luddites like us can learn to five-finger Bitcoins. Websites galore teach how to hack into the virtual wallets where investors store this funny money, how to phish for log-ins to trading accounts.”
“I’ve heard of phishing,” Romy admitted. “But I thought only developed nations like Nigeria did it, not third world countries like Alabama.”
Bubba grinned before pointing at her remaining shots. “You’re behind three to one.”
Romy knocked back her second Agave. “You drink too much, Bubs.”
He ignored her. “Dr. O didn’t plan on hacking on his lonesome. He aimed to start a big-time operation, maybe forty hackers mining cryptocurrency side by side. He couldn’t post a Help Wanted ad for entry-level cryptocrooks, though. He needed a Fagin with a labor pool of Artful Dodgers — and that, my friend, is how Dr. Otis Owen ended up in business with Iv’ry Cole.”
Romy flinched.
“So Otis’s mentioned Iv’ry Cole to you,” Bubba realized. “I wish he hadn’t.”
“His last appointment, he got a call. Clients usually ignore their phones, but Dr. O said he had to take it. He downplayed the call, claiming he was helping a former student — Iv’ry was all he said, no Cole — set up a computer network. But the conversation upset him. The rest of his hour he was twitchy.”
“Former student? Maybe Dr. O taught Iv’ry Cole basic microcomputing like he taught you. Probably didn’t fuck Iv’ry like he fucked you, however.”
“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Bubs.”
“Nothing does anymore, honestly. But about Iv’ry: he runs black Montgomery. Loansharking, coke, punani. All are big moneymakers, but nothing close to Darknet profits. Iv’ry’s wanted into cyber-scamming for a while, but he lacked technical know-how until Otis the computer wiz came calling... You buy this story so far, Romy?”
She shrugged. “I buy that Iv’ry Cole’s real, but only because I heard the name from Dr. O, not from you. Your motives remain suspect. Part of me thinks you’re slandering Otis to make yourself look good.”
Bubba raised his final firecracker in a mock toast. “I’m just the storyteller,” he assured her, downing the shot. “Now finish yours so we can roll.”
“Why? I like it here.”
“Because Club G’s is Iv’ry Cole’s front. He owns this place like he owns Dr. O’s ass. The first time Iv’ry heard of Bitcoins was in this room. Dr. O pitched his scheme two tables from where we sit. For all we know, Iv’ry and Otis are here now, watching our every move.”
They drove to Highway 231, where Bubba hit a RaceWay for vodka and OJ. He mixed screwdrivers in a jug and traded sips with Romy while an Emmylou Harris CD played. Three songs in Bubba realized he was lit. Five songs in Romy fell asleep, temple to the window. The farther south they drove and the drunker Bubba grew, the less he watched his rearview for headlights. Occasionally he plucked the pen off his shirt and pressed it against the dashboard speaker. Mostly his attention lingered over the landmarks along the two-lane blacktop. Highway 231 was littered with detritus from every Southern motel chain, service station, and diner to ever go bust. Bubba passed a collapsed Ponderosa, a demolished Gibson’s Gas, skeletal remains of fruit and firecracker stands whose weather-warped planks looked like rib cages from rotted carcasses.
“Where are we?” Romy asked when he woke her. Bubba’s truck idled in a cul-de-sac of sparkling new McMansions.