Even Money

by Stephanie Caffrey

  The night went better than expected, at least until about one when a fight broke out, and the cops cleared the place for a full hour. We managed to get back up and running again, but we’d lost a key hour of prime tipping time which gave rise to a foul mood and much grumbling among the girls.

  “That sucked,” Kayla said, joining me in the locker room.

  I shrugged. “I always set my expectations low, so it doesn’t bug me too much,” I said, half lying.

  “Get your handbag yet?” she asked playfully.

  “Going shopping tomorrow,” I responded, lying. “Seriously, girl, save your money!” I said, getting animated. “Those things aren’t going to last forever,” I scolded, eyeing her artificially plump breasts.

  She shrugged. “I won’t need them that long,” she said nonchalantly. “I’m going to retire when I get to a million dollars.”

  I chuckled. “You’re not going to get to a million if you keep buying five-thousand-dollar handbags.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” she chided. “Don’t you worry about me.”

  I wasn’t worried exactly. But I let it slide and dropped the subject. The vibe I had gotten was that they’d been doing me a favor by letting me into the investment in the first place, and I should be thankful and not ask too many questions.

  I slept in on Sunday morning and awoke to a blinking cell phone. Aaron had finally returned my email. He wasn’t a verbose guy—that was for sure. His terse email said he had a check for me, and I could “buy him a drink” with the proceeds, if I was so inclined. He told me to text him.

  I mulled the idea over breakfast. It was hard to read too much into emails. Some people just didn’t have a way with words, and others didn’t realize that short emails could often sound more gruff and off-putting than they’d intended, especially among strangers. Still, it was clear that Aaron definitely wasn’t throwing himself at me, which you’d think I would like but which I instead found annoying since it tapped into that deep vein of nagging self-doubt that had been plaguing me in recent months. My nightly tips had leveled off over the last year, and the previous week one of the new girls at Cougar’s had poached one of my regular customers. I knew I was getting older and had put on a few pounds, but denial was a powerful impulse. I knew this kind of thing happened to other people but hoped it wouldn’t happen to me. At least not for a few more years.

  When I got over my little pity party, I texted Aaron, and we agreed to meet for an early drink. The location he proposed—the Sports Book at Bellagio—was consistent with the blasé and nonromantic vibe of his email. It was obvious to me that he was visiting with me out of some sense of business obligation rather than anything else.

  I headed over to the Bellagio—a ten-minute walk—and paced around the Sports Book, not seeing Aaron. Late on a Sunday afternoon, the Sports Book was loud and raucous inside, a smoky and almost exclusively male bastion of hooting and hollering. Everywhere you looked there were needlessly loud and large television screens, and the atmosphere was peppered with ubiquitous grumblings of the men who were second-guessing the refs every chance they got. Men who had probably never played a down of actual football camped out in these places, pontificating about point spreads and extra points. In short, it was not my kind of place.

  A hand rested gently on my shoulder. “Raven?” a voice asked.

  I turned and smiled back at Aaron, who was about three inches shorter than I was. His thick, fat neck bulged against the collar of his pink dress shirt, and I noticed a pinky ring on his right hand when he removed it from my shoulder. He was smiling at me with a set of teeth that looked like he’d gone a few rounds with Evander Holyfield.

  “Shall we?” he asked, leading me with his arm to a booth where a Reserved sign was perched on the table.

  After we sat down, he fished into his shorts and pulled out an envelope and slid it across the table. The envelope had a computer-printed label with my name on it. I didn’t know whether to open it or not.

  Aaron was looking at me expectantly, and so I took the hint and opened it. Inside I found a check for $2,000 from Proprietary Capital Growth. My eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  “It’s a little early, actually, since you haven’t been in a full month yet,” he said offhandedly.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate it.” Aaron’s eyes had already strayed toward the big TV screens above the bar. It must be something in the male gene pool, I decided. “To what do I owe the honor?” I asked.

  “Saves me a stamp,” he said, smiling. His eyes twinkled playfully. “Since I knew I was going to be seeing you, I figured I’d just bring it along.”

  I turned the check over in my hands. It certainly was nice—a twenty percent return on my money in less than four weeks. I could see why the girls were spewing money on handbags and God knows what else. Money was growing on trees. But it was too easy, and I wanted some answers.

  I pocketed the check and then looked back at Aaron, who was half watching me and half watching a football game. I was screwing up my courage to start probing when the cocktail waitress came over and interrupted.

  “Welcome back,” she said to Aaron. “The usual?”

  He smiled at her, pretending not to notice that her plump breasts, which were perched conveniently at our eye level, were spilling out of her top. “Bring us two,” he said authoritatively. She nodded, never looking back at me for confirmation.

  “What’s…the usual?” I asked.

  “I drink tequila,” he said matter-of-factly. “Not the crap the kids drink on spring break, either. This stuff is smooth, aged in caskets. It’s like fine Scotch but without the burn.”

  I nodded along, pretending I was an amateur in the drinking department, which of course was the furthest thing from the truth.

  “So, Aaron,” I started, “the girls were a little vague on how our money is being invested. Something about oil?” I was trying to use my least threatening voice, as though I was merely being conversational rather than worried to death about my investment.

  His eyes reluctantly lowered themselves from one of the giant TVs and fixed onto my own. He was smiling a tad, but it wasn’t a friendly smile.

  “You ever see the second Godfather movie?” he asked.

  I pursed my lips. “One of my favorites.”

  “Well,” he said, “then you remember how many times Michael told what’s-her-name, Diane Keaton, don’t ask me about my business?”

  I smiled cautiously. “Yeah, I think he made that quite clear more than once,” I replied a little nervously.

  Aaron looked deathly serious for a few seconds, and then he chuckled. “Gotcha,” he said. “I’m just joking. Fire away. It’s your money. You’ve got a right to know, of course. I mean, it’s not like we have a bunch of glossy pamphlets explaining what we’re doing. That’s intentional. But I’m happy to answer any questions you have.”

  “Why do you do it that way?” I asked, genuinely intrigued.

  He leaned in and looked back and forth to make sure no one was listening. “You think we want our competitors to figure out how we do it? When you get right down to it, it’s very simple. And that’s why we keep this on the down low.”

  I nodded, still not completely buying it. Aaron was slick and likeable, despite his obvious excess of testosterone.

  Our drinks arrived, or should I say our glasses. The waitress carefully placed two ice-filled highball glasses in front of us and then swiveled around, walked three steps to the bar, and flagged down the bartender. He handed her a bottle from the top shelf, made a wisecrack of some sort, and then she turned around and returned to our table.

  “Three fingers, right?” she asked, probably knowing she was right on the money.

  Aaron nodded distractedly, his eyes on the screen above us.

  I snuck a glance at the bottle, confused about why she had brought it out to our table rather than pouring our drinks at the bar or from one of those giant machines casinos have that spit out almost any beverage in th
e world. The bottle was plain, like a vodka bottle, and the tequila was called Casa Dragones. I’d never heard of it.

  I thanked the waitress and took a sip. It had not cooled down quite enough for my tastes yet, but even so, it was undeniably delicious. As Aaron said, there was remarkably little heat to it, despite the fact that it was 80 proof.

  “You like?” he asked, taking a healthy quaff of his own drink.

  “Very good,” I said, although I didn’t intend to finish it until I learned a little more from Aaron.

  “It’s made by a woman,” he said. “Can you believe it? The liquor business is very male-centered everywhere you go. Russia, Germany, Scotland, Mexico—anywhere. But she cracked into the business and makes the best stuff out there. You see?” he asked, finally looking at me. “I am truly a feminist at heart.”

  I chuckled at the idea that a fat frequenter of strip clubs would care the first thing about feminism but decided to keep my skepticism to myself. “You were about to tell me about your investment model, I think,” I prompted.

  Once again he seemed transfixed on the football game, sitting like a statue for several seconds until he slumped in his chair and shook his head. A groan soon came from the crowd behind us. “I’ve got ten grand on this game,” he muttered, “and this is how their defense plays?”

  Ten grand? The number struck a chord with me since I’d given him exactly that amount to invest. It was probably just a coincidence, though, since he seemed like the kind of guy who would have put lots of money on a bunch of games since then.

  “Anyway,” he said, finally looking back at me. “Do you have any training or experience in the oil industry?”

  I cocked my head sideways. “No…?”

  He smiled. “I didn’t think so. Just checking. Because if you did, this would be very simple.”

  “Ah,” I said. “I guess you’ll have to dumb it down for me.”

  Aaron took a loud slurp of his tequila and then checked his oversized watch. “We provide bridge financing for oil and natural gas pipelines. Actually, we provide funds so that other companies can provide that financing. Say you want to build a hundred miles of natural gas pipeline. Gonna cost you, right?”

  “Right,” I whispered.

  “And you won’t have the money until you actually start transporting the gas. So how you gonna build it if you don’t have the money?” he asked. “See? Not so complicated.”

  “But why not just go to a bank?” I asked.

  He smiled again, warming to the topic. “That’s the key. They need dollars. The international oil market works in dollars, but all these guys ever have is rubles, a currency that is much less secure and that’s manipulated by the Kremlin. American dollars are the oxygen that they breathe. That’s how they buy up condos and Ferraris in Miami Beach. So if we can open our own pipeline of US currency to the oil companies out on the plains of Kazakhstan, we’re in business. They’re making so much money that they can pay us a very high rate of return. Get it?”

  It seemed to have a ring of truth to it or, at least, plausibility. I was trying to judge him honestly, without thinking about the wads of cash he could potentially bring into my life.

  “So,” I began, “we’re just financing oil pipelines at a very high rate of interest?”

  He nodded. “That’s why this works so well for, um, exotic dancers. You guys deal in lots and lots of cash. Cash is still king—don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. As long as we can ship big envelopes full of hundred-dollar bills, believe me, we’ll all keep doing very well.”

  I nodded, batting the idea around in my head. I decided Aaron was somewhat credible overall. He didn’t come across as some kind of slick pitchman, and he wasn’t trying to snow me with all kinds of fancy financial terms. I had half expected him to draw me some equations and bust out an expensive calculator to try to impress me, but he hadn’t. Instead he’d explained that we were basically acting as international loan sharks.

  “Okay, thank you so much. The girls were a little, well, unclear on all this. I told them I wanted to hear more, so I appreciate you meeting with me,” I said, raising my glass of tequila.

  “Cheers,” he said, holding my gaze for a second, and then he tossed back the remnants of his drink.

  Our waitress must have been hanging back in the shadows because she appeared seconds later, bottle in hand, and topped off his glass.

  “She’s the best, ain’t she?” he asked rhetorically. His eyes had already begun their wander back to the football game, almost as though the TV had giant magnets in it, and his eyes were made of lead.

  I sipped at my drink, trying to think of something else to ask him. With a couple of drinks in him, he might open up a little bit more, so I sat there like an idiot watching the game on the TV behind the bar, biding my time.

  “Who do you have in the game?” I asked.

  He grimaced ever so slightly. “Nobody. I’ve got the under. I figured Denver’s defense would be able to stop the run better than it is. What the hell do I know, though, right? Only been doing this twenty years.”

  I nodded, pretending to be impressed. “You make money at this?” In Vegas, unlike most places, it wasn’t considered impolite to talk about money.

  He looked back at me. “In a good month I’ll place 20 bets and win 12 of them. Usually, I’m happy to win 11. It’s just about hitting the edges, those spots where you think the betting public might be betting with their hearts instead of their brains. But the odds makers are doing the same damned thing, so it’s tough to come out ahead. But I scratch by.” He smiled and took another healthy gulp.

  “Interesting,” I said, only half lying. Like most people, I was fascinated by the idea of making money the easy way. But then again, Aaron was making it seem like work. I didn’t like the concept of having ten grand on the line twenty times a month and losing it almost half the time. My hair would fall out after a week.

  Denver’s defense managed to make an interception which brightened Aaron’s mood considerably. He didn’t seem to mind me just sitting there with him, although he wasn’t exactly going out of his way to make conversation. When a commercial came on, he instinctively reached for his phone and began swiping away at it. He’d had a third glass of tequila by now, so I decided to try my luck getting a little more information.

  “So,” I started, “I assume there’s some paperwork on our investment? I know you said there’s not a glossy brochure or anything, but…”

  His eyes remained glued to his phone for an uncomfortable period. I couldn’t tell if he’d heard me or if he was trying to come up with a good answer.

  Finally he looked up. “It’s all on our computer system, Raven. Don’t worry. But as you can imagine, the Russians don’t want lots of paperwork on this kind of stuff. Remember, they’re trying to turn their junky rubles into American cash, and their government frowns on that kind of thing. That could get you killed over there, actually.”

  I nodded. “But there’s nothing illegal on our end, right?”

  He smiled. “Long as you pay your taxes, you’re golden.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “But you already knew that. You’re in a cash business yourself, so I imagine the feds take an extra peek at your income. Don’t they?” he asked, suddenly interested in me for the first time.

  I shrugged. “I was audited a few years ago. I have an accountant, so everything goes through him. No biggie.”

  He nodded, his eyes already back on the football game. “Smart girl,” he said. His tone of voice wasn’t exactly hostile, but it was enough to suggest that he was finished talking about our investment. He’d said his piece, and now he wanted to be left alone.

  “Well, I’ve got to run,” I said, scooting out of our booth. “Thanks again for the information. And the tequila!”

  He nodded again, barely glancing in my direction. He remained seated as I turned and left.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Winding my way back through the Bellagio, I st
ill had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Aaron had given a plausible story about our investments. Plausible, yes, but it wasn’t like I was going to take his word for it. I would have to find a way to check his story out on my own. No, that wasn’t what was making my skin tingle. No, it was his first remark after I asked him about the investment. Without missing a beat he’d recalled the Godfather II scene where Michael Corleone screams at his wife, Kay, warning her in the gravest terms that she should stop asking about the family business. In the movie it was a thinly veiled threat. The business comes first. You ask too many questions, you wind up with a three-day old salmon wrapped in newspapers at your doorstep. Aaron had been smiling when he made the Godfather reference, but his eyes had told another story.

  I can never leave the Bellagio without getting a taste of the best gelato on the planet. This time it was going to be hazelnut. And when the cashier asked if I wanted a double scoop, I was powerless to do anything but smile and nod sheepishly. Nine bucks for glorified ice cream? It was worth it.

  As I sat there trying not to inhale the creamy, nutty goodness, I couldn’t help thinking about my next step. Normally I was able to find out lots of information about somebody through the internet. Social media was the private investigator’s best friend—it never ceased to amaze me what kinds of seemingly private and embarrassing things people posted on their Facebook pages or on Instagram. Many people even had apps telling you where they were eating dinner or what TV show they were watching. In ten years PIs would be all but out of business. But Aaron was different. He was a riddle, a rare digital void who barely registered in any search engines. For all I knew, his real name was Bill Smith.

  It occurred to me that some good old-fashioned sleuthing could be in order. I knew where Aaron was at this moment, and I also knew he was halfway to being drunk. In that state he probably wouldn’t notice if I tailed him to see where he went. With any luck he’d lead me straight to his car. With a license plate I’d be able to get gobs more information than I had at the moment.