“Sank?”
“Like a stone,” she said. “And we sold it short and covered our shorts very cheaply and made a killing. It’s nice to make a killing without having to drive anywhere. How did you know how to do all this?”
“I had advice,” he said. “From a fellow who couldn’t do any of this himself because it would be insider trading. But you and I aren’t insiders, so there’s no problem.”
“Well, I’ve got no problem with it myself, Keller. That’s for sure. You know, this isn’t the first time you’ve wound up killing a client of ours.”
“I know.”
“This one brought it on himself, no question. But usually it costs us money, and this time we came out way ahead. You’re going to be able to buy a veritable shitload of stamps.”
“I was thinking about that.”
“And we’re a giant stride closer to being able to retire, when the time comes.”
“I was thinking about that, too.”
“And you bonded with what’s-his-name.”
“Meredith Grondahl.”
“What do his friends call him, did you happen to find out?”
“It never came up. I’m not sure he’s got any friends.”
“Oh.”
“I was thinking I ought to send him something, Dot. I had an idea of how to make money in the market, but he spelled the whole thing out for me. I didn’t know a thing about options, and I never would have thought of shorting the hedge fund.”
“How big a share do you want to send him?”
“Not a share. He’s pretty straight-arrow, and even if he weren’t, the last thing he wants is cash he can’t explain. No, I was thinking more of a present. A token, really, but something he’d like to have and probably wouldn’t ever buy for himself.”
“Like?”
“Season tickets to the Pacers home games. He loves basketball, and a pair of courtside season tickets should really do it for the guy.”
“What’s it cost?” Before he could answer, she waived the question away. “Not enough to matter, not the way we just made out. That’s a great idea, Keller. And who knows? Next time you’re in Indianapolis, maybe the two of you can take in a game.”
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Leave me out of it. I hate basketball.”
NOTHING BUT NET by Jeffery Deaver
He’s stupid. And he makes three million a year.”
“And you won’t feel guilty getting a stupid man mixed up in a deal like this?” T. D. Randall asked.
Andy Cabot shook his head, sipped more beer and glanced out the greasy window as an ambulance eased through Mid-town traffic. “I don’t feel guilt. Never have. It’s inefficient.”
“Yeah?”
“The point I was making is, since he’s stupid he’s going to be more likely to go for it.”
Cabot and Randall were in Ernie’s, a small bar near Madison Square Garden. The place, a total dive, was a relic; there used to be dozens of these old sports bars in the neighborhood but they’d been squeezed out by the same fast-food franchises populating strip malls all over the country. Andy Cabot didn’t really like it here but he couldn’t see planning a deal like they were working on now while sitting next to the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday.
Randall called for another Stroh’s. “I hear you talking, Andy. But the thing is, I don’t know sports that good. Is this guy really the one we want? Danny Wa-”
“Shhh.” Cabot waved his hand to shut the man up. Ernie’s was a bastion for serious sports people and the name Danny Washington would turn a few heads, the sober ones at least. If the deal went south and people heard that Washington had been caught up in a scandal, someone might just remember that these two skinny white guys, unshaven, dressed in scuzzy jeans and T-shirts, had been whispering about the player.
“I mean, how good is he?” Randall asked.
“Don’t get any better than him when it comes to free throws and treys.”
“What’s a trey?”
“Three-point shot. You know, from outside the arc.”
“Whatever.”
Cabot was amazed that Randall didn’t know about Washington or about treys. He probably didn’t know what the arc line was either.
“But how do you know he’s stupid enough to go for it?”
“I joined the gym where he works out. And I got-”
“You’re in a gym?” Randall laughed, glancing at the man’s scrawny frame.
Cabot ignored the put-down. “I got to talking with him. Washington can hardly hang a sentence together. He lifts iron, he jumps rope. He stands on the free-throw line on the half-court and lobs basketballs for, like, two hours straight. Never gets bored. You ask him a question and he looks at you for a minute like you’re from Neptune or something. And it takes him another minute to figure out an answer.”
“But didn’t he go to college?”
“Nope. He got drafted right out of high school. And he’s a free agent. There’s nobody looking over his shoulder.”
“You think this deal’ll work?” Randall asked.
“I know it will.”
Andy Cabot, lifelong resident of Hell’s Kitchen, on the west side of New York, had had three or four dozen jobs in his life. He’d tried his hand at a hundred different hustles. Some worked out, some didn’t. He’d made some good money, lost more. He’d owned two houses, lost one to an ex and one to the bank. And, having just stepped blindly into middle age, he’d recently spent copious time reassessing his life situation and had come to the conclusion that he wanted more out of life than a disability payment of two thousand bucks a month for a faked back injury and twelve thousand in the bank. This introspection, goosed by massive quantities of Old Milwaukee one night, led ultimately to his asking the question: How do people make real money?
And the answer, he realized, was that it didn’t matter exactly what they did as long as it involved something they loved. That was the key to success.
So Andy Cabot came to a decision. He abandoned the slip-and-falls, the shoplifting, the rigged poker games, the real estate hustles, the knockoff polo shirts… Fom now on, his only “deals”-his word for scams-would be in a subject he loved and knew a lot about: basketball.
One day when he’d been channel surfing, he’d watched an ESPN interview with Danny Washington, who’d just thrown more than two thousand free throws in a row as part of a benefit for St. Vincent Hospital ’s Children’s Unit. When asked why he didn’t try to shoot another four or five hundred and beat the world record, the big man had said, blinking, that he’d thought it’d be more fun to go hang out with the kids.
Stupid, thought Andy Cabot, irritated that while the man probably had the skill to break the world record he simply didn’t have the brains.
But then Cabot got to thinking that the fact that this rich basketball player was stupid was a good thing, something he could use. And he’d come up with the plan he was now pitching to T. D. Randall, a wannabe mafioso from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, he’d met last month here at Ernie’s.
Cabot now ordered another beer and continued. “He doesn’t know squat about anything. All he cares about is his mother, grandmother, brother and sister. They live in Maryland, where he grew up. He doesn’t hang out with the rest of the players, doesn’t have a girlfriend. There’re three things he feels passionate about: his family, playing basketball and…”
Randall looked at Cabot, who’d let the sentence dangle tantalizingly. “What?” Randall asked with faint exasperation.
“… and complaining about taxes.”
“He complains about taxes?”
“We’re shooting the breeze the other day and the next thing I know he’s going on and on about taxes. Sounds to me like when he started making real money he never knew the government’d take so much. I mean, maybe he never had a job before this and didn’t even know about taxes. I wouldn’t be surprised.”