by Karly Violet
There’s silence for a moment before the woman replies, “Sir, Mr. Bellington will be in tomorrow. At this moment, he’s at a very important meeting. I’ll be happy to take a message, though.”
Feeling my body burn with anger, I say to her, “I know he’s there. He’s always there if he isn’t here for a meal. I want to speak with him or I’m going to call the SEC about the investment he made for me.” I don’t want to wield such a threat over my longtime customer at the restaurant, but he’s got some explaining to do. The money I invested is gone and I want to know where things went badly.
Again, there’s a brief silence on the other end of the line. “I’ll see what I can do. Please hold.” There is a click on the line and I wonder at first whether I have been disconnected from the investment firm. However, just moments later I hear someone on the other end of the line.
“Hey, Layden,” Mr. Bellington’s voice bellows from the other end of the line. “How are you today?”
“How am I?” I say with a high level of sarcasm. “Oh, I don’t know, Pete, I’m feeling a little concerned at the moment.” It’s not like me to be so confrontational with anyone, especially with someone I have known as a customer in my restaurant for the last few years. Maybe I should have first considered my tone before answering.
“Layden,” he begins after taking a breath. “You must have heard the unfortunate news.”
“That the company I have invested in is collapsing because of fraud,” I reply. “Yeah, I just got that from the television news. What’s going on?”
Mr. Bellington stumbles a bit with his words as he tells me, “This wasn’t something I could know. No one could know what they were up to, except for the company’s CEO and board. They took a huge risk and got caught.”
“They have taken my money,” I complain. “How can I get it back?”
After some silence, he replies, “I’m not sure you’ll see any of that money back, Layden. I’m so sorry.” Though he does seem genuinely concerned about my plight, my feelings for what has happened are sour and angry. Why would he put my money into something that would collapse so easily?
“I should have fucking sold.” I tell him. “You said to hold on and wait for things to get even better. If I had sold the stock when I wanted to, I would have had over two hundred grand in the bank right now, Pete. What the hell do I do now?”
“Please, Layden,” he replies. “Just calm down a moment and think. The FBI as well as the Federal Trade Commission and the SEC are investigating this, alright? There’s always the chance that you will get some of that money back. It probably won’t be all of it, but maybe twenty or thirty thousand.”
I shake my head as I sit back in my chair. “I should have just bought Bitcoin. At least that is pretty stable.”
“It’s not stable at all,” Mr. Bellington tells me. “Bitcoin and the other virtual currencies are pretty volatile right now. You could have lost your money there too.”
“Really? It’s the only thing up right now, at least in my portfolio,” I reply. “Dammit, Pete, you told me this was a good investment.”
“Based on the information we had at the time, it was. The corporate office at Pennard Pharmaceutical lied to us. They lied to everybody, which is why there are so many people who have lost money so far.” The investment advisor continues, “I’m sorry that things went this way, Layden. I really am. But whenever you invest in something, there’s the risk that you could end up losing some of your money.”
“All of my money,” I correct him. “It’s all gone. It’s tanked.” My body shakes as I think of all the money I put into this investment. Sure, the money ultimately just showed up in my bank account one day, but I had hoped to make something from it. I didn’t want to simply throw it away.
“I’m sorry, Layden. Look, I have more calls coming in. Lots of them from people in the same position as you.”
“Yet you have your receptionist lie to me about whether you are in your office. That feels a little crooked, don’t you think?”
“I’m sorry. I truly am. Have a good day.” Peter Bellington hangs up and I sit still in my office chair for a moment as I consider our conversation.
“Fuck me,” I say as I put my cell phone down on the top of the desk. “Dammit, I wanted to surprise Terri. Fuck.” My heart sinks at the loss of the money, but then I remind myself once again that it wasn’t originally my money at all. It was just sitting in my bank account one day and I used it to try to make even more money. That was particularly greedy of me. If only I had thought things through before investing.
There is a soft knock at the door. “Layden? Can I come in?” Monica has apparently come to check on me.
“Sure. Come in.” I straighten myself in my seat as I watch the young woman walk into the office.
“Are you doing better?” she asks.
I nod my head. “I think so. Do I look any better?” I manage a slight smile as I look up into the brown eyes of the beautiful college woman.
“You do look a little better,” she admits. “I was worried that you had something terrible going wrong. What was it, anyway?” She sits down near me and puts her soft hand on mine. Oh, how I wish sometimes that I wasn’t married.
“It’s just a little exhaustion,” I reply. “I’ve had some really long days here recently.”
Monica squeezes my hand. “Well, you know that I’m here for you, boss. The others are too.” The employees here have been fantastic whenever I have needed them to do anything for me or the restaurant. There are very few of them who would not give up a day off to come in and help with our staffing issues.
“Thanks for that. I’ve leaned pretty heavily on all of you over the last several weeks. Hopefully that will change soon.”
The young server nods her head. “I bet it will. After all, there are people out there who need jobs. Some of them just don’t like to work.” We both laugh over this fact, but it has been an issue for some time. It’s gotten to the point that the restaurant is now paying people up to fifty dollars just to show up to interview for a job. That’s unheard of in my line of work. Even so, the money isn’t quite enough to get everyone who comes in to actually take a job with us.
“You should consider going after an assistant manager position here when one opens up, Monica. I think you would be a great one.”
“No thanks,” she replies with a smile. “You know that I plan to go to work as a veterinary tech when I get finished with my studies, right?”
“But, you would see more animals than people all day long,” I tease her. “Is that really what you want to do with your life? Look at animals all the time?”
Monica giggles. “What can I say? I’m an animal lover.” Her dark brown eyes meet with mine for a moment. There’s something between us that we haven’t given in to. Of course, I’m a married man and should never be so tempted, but it doesn’t mean that I’m blind to what’s happening here. I want her and she probably wants me. It’s a fact of life when it comes to men and women.
“You’ll make a great veterinary tech,” I say as I turn to look away from her. After fishing my hand from hers, I tell her, “I’ll be here until close tonight. If you want to help out until then, feel free. I’m not sure we’ll be staffed very well.”
“I’ll stick around.” Monica gets up and moves toward the office door. “I do hope you are feeling much better, Layden. Let me know if you need anything.” She smiles before walking through the door and closing it behind her.
“Damn, she’s hot,” I mumble under my breath before my mind turns back to what happened in the stock market with the money that mysteriously appeared in my bank account. Though I am a bit upset that I lost the money, it wasn’t truly mine to begin with. Some banking error put money in my account that shouldn’t have been there. Oh, well, it was their mistake, right? So, in essence, I haven’t lost a dime to the stock market. The bank has. This causes me to smile just a little as I get up from my chair and make my way to the office door. There is sti
ll plenty to do around the restaurant before lunch rush, so I don’t have time to mourn the loss of someone else’s money.
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Chapter Five: A Mysterious Message
“There’s a letter for you on your desk,” my assistant manager, Elaine, says as she walks past me at the front of the restaurant.
“The mail has been delivered already?”
She shrugs. “No, a courier came by and delivered it. He said it was urgent and for you.” Elaine smiles, nods her head, and then makes her way toward the kitchen. I turn and walk to the office in the back of the restaurant.
After settling down in my seat, I pick up the envelope and look at the outside of it. Only my name is on the front. There is no return address. “That’s odd,” I say to myself as I open it up and extract the letter from within.
“Dear Sir,” it begins. “My name is Vincent and I am the accountant for an important businessman in the city. I would share his name with you, but he wishes for me to err on the side of discretion.”
“Okay.” I shake my head and then look back down to continue reading.
“A few days ago, an error was made while transferring a deposit into a bank. That bank happens to be the same bank where you hold an account,” Vincent tells me. “Apparently, your account number differs from ours by just one digit. That is all that it took for the error to occur. As you might have noticed, $100,000 ended up in your account. I’m writing to see if we can rectify this situation.”
“Fuck.” My mind begins to race as I think of the money I lost in the investment I had with the pharmaceutical company. The money appears to actually belong to someone, not just the bank.
“Of course, we are willing to offer you a finder’s fee of sorts for your trouble. $10,000. Does that sound fair? At any rate, I will come by your restaurant this afternoon to discuss this matter. I look forward to seeing you then.”
A flourishing signature appears at the end of the letter. My skin crawls as I think about what I could possibly say to this man about his money. It’s gone, after all. Not one thin dime of it still exists in my own account.
“What is it?” Elaine asks as she walks into the office and sees the pained expression on my face. “Were you served court papers? He didn’t say they were court papers when he left them here. They can’t serve papers to you through me.”
“No, it’s not court papers,” I reply. “It’s something else.” I hand the assistant manager the letter and allow her to read it.
After a minute or so, she asks, “What’s this about? A hundred thousand dollars?”
“Yeah, I had the money at one point,” I tell her. “Somehow it ended up in my account, so when I saw it I contacted the bank. They said nothing appeared out of order with the account.”
“Layden,” Elaine says with a shocked expression on her face. “Where’s the money now?”
“Poof,” I say almost too dramatically as I allow my hands to rise a little and spread apart.
“Poof?” She shakes her head. “Do you mean to tell me that you had this guy’s money and you’ve spent it all?”
“It showed up in there and I moved it after talking to the bank online. I put it into another account that I have used for investments before.” Swallowing hard, I ask, “Have you seen the news about that pharma company?”
Elaine raises an eyebrow. “The fraud investigation?”
“That’s the one,” I reply. “Well, they got that money too. It’s all gone.”
The assistant manager shakes her head as she covers her mouth. “You are so screwed, Layden.”
“I’ll talk to the guy and work it out. He’s got to understand that it was an easy decision to make, especially after speaking to the bank and being told that it was mine.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think you understand.”
“Understand what? This Victor guy will have to wait until I can get it to him. It was his fault, after all.”
“No,” Elaine says while sitting down beside me. “This letter. It’s the sort of thing the mob might do.”
“Mob?”
“Criminal syndicate. Mafia. You know, the criminals behind all sorts of extortion, prostitution, and other things. That mob.” She grimaces as she looks into my eyes. “Why would you take someone else’s money and invest it as if it was your own?”
“Criminal syndicate?” I still haven’t allowed myself to move on past that one point made by Elaine. “Shit. The mob.”
She reaches over and puts her hand on my arm. “You have to find some way to pay them back, Layden. They don’t just forgive and forget this sort of thing. People die for less with them.”
“That helps,” I say sarcastically.
“I’m being serious,” Elaine replies. “This Victor guy is probably the heavy. He’s the one who collects money for them. When he comes to see you, it’s important that you have something to say that will cause him to believe that you will get that money back for them.” The assistant manager shakes her head. “Honestly, Layden, I thought you had more sense than that.”
“Look, there’s no way I could have known who it belonged to. I thought that maybe the bank had made a mistake on their own. They told me…”
“They told you that it was your money. To them, it looked like your money because it had been deposited into your account with your account number. You should have at least contacted the police and told them what had happened. They would have asked you to hold it for at least thirty days to make sure no one came to make a claim.” Elaine shakes her head before continuing, “You might have to go into hiding.”
“You’re scaring the hell out of me,” I tell her. “How do you know all this?”
Elaine leans forward in her chair and looks hard at me. “My uncle Joey was in the mob for a while. He ended up having to go into the witness protection program when he left them and turned state’s evidence against one of his old buddies. These people don’t play around, Layden. You need to find that money for them.” She gets up from her seat and turns toward the office door. “If you stick around and meet with this Victor guy, make sure you have something to tell him that is believable and useful. If he thinks the money is gone for good, you might end up dead before the morning.”
I nod my head as I watch the assistant manager walk out of the office and close the door behind her. “Shit,” I mutter as I lean back in my chair and run both hands over my head. “I’m going to end up dead if she’s right.” What will I tell Victor? What can I tell him? It’s all gone. There’s not one thin dime left out of the entire one hundred thousand dollars that showed up in my bank account more than a week ago. I can offer him a couple thousand dollars, but then Terri will know that something is going on. We have bills to pay with that money.
“Dammit.” I stand to my feet and try to steady myself as I look at the office door. Whatever is said between me and this Victor individual will need to be straight to the point. If he really is a part of the mob, he won’t be so willing to listen to any bullshit from me.
“Honesty will be best,” I say to myself as I reach for the office door and open it. “Surely he’ll respect my honesty.” Making my way into the dining room of the restaurant, I see Monica nearby. She smiles as she turns and sees me.
“Good morning, Layden.” Her bright eyes cause me to return the smile even though I have a lot on my mind.
“Good morning. Ready for another busy day?”
The young server laughs. “Well, the breakfast rush was no easy task itself. I’ve been busy since seven o’clock this morning.”