The Money Game

by Michael A. Smith

  The man-child took off his cap again in an act of utter confusion. “Whadaya mean, Ace?”

  “You a have, a wannabe or a have-not?”

  Country laughed his goofy laugh, which sounded partly like hiccupping. “I’m a have-not and a wannabe, Ace.”

  “Me, too,” Ace chortled, immensely satisfied with his teaching effort. He slapped Country affectionately on his back. “Now that we got that settled, let’s go in The Stadium and get a beer and a burger.”

  “You buyin’, Ace?”

  “For my best buddy, damn right.”

  As it turned out, Ace Semanski and Skinny Walker had a similar philosophy of life, which greatly influenced their friends and enemies alike, some to the good and some to their utter destruction.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Inside, Ace ordered two beers and told the bartender to run a tab for both him and Country. When John looked dubious, Ace handed him a prepaid debit card he’d purchased with part of Marshon’s bribe. “Credit my account for a hundred dollars,” Ace said. While he waited on the bartender, Ace looked around until he saw Richey sitting alone at the far end of the bar.

  Ace handed Country a twenty-dollar bill. “Why don’t you get some change from the machine and play video games in the other room. Get yourself a burger and fries and put it on our tab. Charge your beers, too.”

  “Golly, Ace, thanks!”

  Ace walked over and sat beside Richey. “Hey, boss, what’s happenin’?”

  “Not much, Ace,” Richey said, looking up from the Keno card on which he’d been marking numbers.

  “You winning?”

  “An occasional free trip to the bathroom is all.”

  “What are the odds on the Keno hundred-thousand-dollar game?”

  “Several million-to-one, I suppose.”

  “Ain’t hardly worth the effort, then.”

  “Unless you win, then it’s one-to-one.” Richey laid his completed Keno card on the front of the bar so John would see it. The bar was busy with the Sunday lunch crowd; by mid-afternoon, pro football fanatics would predominate. “Keno is something to do.”

  Ace swigged from his Bud. “Yeah, everybody’s gotta have something to do — or somebody to do. If the object is to win big money, though, gambling probably ain’t gonna work. It’s like sitting here waiting to get struck by lightning. Am I wrong?”

  “No, can’t say that you are, Ace. Say, while you’re here, let’s talk a bit about the conversation you and I and Marshon had about the business at The Wheel.”

  “You mean those two guys I took care of, saving Marshon’s whole operation. Maybe even his life. Your life.”

  Richey reluctantly nodded his agreement. “And you agreed to leave town after Marshon financed your trip. That was last Monday night, nearly a week ago.”

  “Wow, I didn’t know you guys were in such a hurry. Like I told you at the time, I’ll probably leave, soon. I’m a rolling stone. But, for the time being, I’m enjoying fucking the shit out of Kandie Givens every night and twice on Saturday and Sunday. There’s no hurry, is there? I ain’t gonna snitch! What would I get out of admitting to what I done!” He leaned over and whispered. “Twenty to life?”

  “Obviously, what Marshon fears is that you’d give him up to save yourself.”

  “I ain’t got nothin’ on him, or you, Richey.” Then, Ace looked startled, as if an idea had just popped into his head. “I don’t even know what happened to the bodies. What did happen to those guys, Richey?”

  Richey didn’t even turn his head to look at Ace, but concentrated on sipping his martini.

  “You guys are worried about nothing, Richey. I’m solid. Nobody who was at The Wheel is gonna say anything, right? You remember what Marshon told the crowd about snitching? But, Marshon and his sidekick, the big guy, Jemmy, they should think twice about strong-arming me, or threatening me. That would backfire in a big way, if you know what I mean.”

  Richey shrugged and dropped the topic, although he planned to report the conversation to Marshon. Even Richey cringed at the idea of a collision between Ace and Jemmy. One of them would wind up dead, and Richey feared it could be Jemmy, as unlikely as that might seem to those who spun The Wheel.

  That gave Ace his opening to shift the discussion to another topic that could be central to his plan to get rich. His fellow workers at Biederman’s had told Ace about Richey’s acting ambition. “Hey, Richey, someone told me you tried out for some big part in a play,” Ace said. “I didn’t know you were an actor.” Actors followed a script, and Ace had a role for Richey.

  “Some of the local theater critics have raised the same question. Yeah, I do some acting on the side. It’s a hobby I enjoy.” What else could he call an activity that didn’t make him any money? Society judged the value of any human activity according to how much income it generated. If you worked at something that didn’t pay, you were either a hobbyist or a plain fool. A burden to society.

  “I’m a movie buff, myself,” Ace said. “No ambition to be an actor, because I don’t have any talent, but I find movies very interesting. They provide entertainment and escapism, of course, but they also seem to reflect what people are thinking and feeling, don’t they?”

  Richey turned sideways in this seat, seemingly transformed from a zombie barfly to a sociological lecturer. “You’re right, Ace. At the time the Iraq and Afghanistan wars wound down, there were several movies about them. They all had the same theme, which is the futility of war in general and the disillusionment all soldiers go through, both during and after combat. Sometimes, they survive the war but lose their lives to drugs, booze, depression and divorce. Most people our age aren’t aware of it, but there was the same phenomenon after the Vietnam War. After every war, in fact.” Richey drained his martini. “Also, in recent years, we’ve had a rash of anti-Wall Street movies, after they screwed investors and the public in real life and nearly caused an economic depression about ten years ago. Same thing happened in the early eighties, when the economy was on the skids. The first Wall Street movie with Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen came out in nineteen eighty-seven.”

  Ace looked impressed. “So, are the movies reflecting the majority public opinion that wars and Wall Street are evil, or are the moviemakers trying to influence public opinion? Many conservatives say Hollywood is full of unpatriotic liberals with an agenda. Right?”

  Richey seemed truly amazed. “I never took you for a philosopher, Ace!”

  “You mean, because I work at Biederman’s — like you.”

  “Touché. That’s a whole ʼnother therapy session.”

  Ace waved at John. “I’m buying this round, Richey.”

  “Thanks. I never turn down free drinks. Okay, Ace, what’s your favorite movie genre?”

  Ace looked down, chuckled softly and didn’t speak for maybe half a minute. Maybe Richey thought Ace was searching his memory; or, maybe it was that Ace just couldn’t believe how easy it was to co-opt Richey. He’d expected Kandie and Country to be walkovers, and he already had roles for them. He had a vague idea about how to use Richey, and after this conversation he’d know if it was possible.

  “I like suspense stories, thrillers, crime movies, some sci-fi,” Ace continued. “I guess my favorite movie is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Saw it again for about the tenth time on the American Movie Classics channel. What about you, Richey?”

  “Actually, I like anything that’s well done. Historical stuff like Lincoln or Twelve Years a Slave. Anything by the Coen Brothers, Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Tarantino. Musicals like Les Miserables. Some of my favorites are old movies, too, like From Here to Eternity. One of my favorite movies is Elmer Gantry. Burt Lancaster simply was the best. Same with any movie starring Meryl Streep. Out of Africa had it all. A great cast. Stunning scenery. Historical significance. Wonderful music by Mozart. The characters were all seeking adventure and love. And they found it, and then lost it.” Richey shrugged. “Maybe I like it so much because it’s a lot like my life, minus the sig
nificance and adventure.”

  They drank is silence. Ace didn’t say anything, as if he was waiting to see which way Richey would take the conversation.

  Richey couldn’t resist holding forth on a favorite subject. He’d never encountered anyone in The Stadium who could converse even halfway intelligently on the subject. “You know, there’s always been a movie genre about the big score, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Richey said, taking a Camel from the pack Ace had tossed onto the bar between them. He couldn’t resist movie talk, regardless of how much he distrusted Ace. “Redford and Newman were in The Sting, too. Another Robin Hood-type movie in which they steal from the rich and give to themselves. The audience gets caught up in the romance of it all. For about ninety minutes, they forget about the law and ethics. The bad guys become heroes and the audience identifies with them, forgives them, and secretly wants to be like them.”

  “Sounds ʼbout right,” Ace said.

  “Take The Thomas Crown Affair. There was an early version with Steve McQueen and a remake with Pierce Brosnan. Whether the male lead was orchestrating a bank robbery or stealing a Monet from a museum, the theft was only the backdrop to romance. In the original, he finally gets the girl; in the remake, he loses her in the end. Either way, he was a crook who became an audience hero. Same with Heat, a movie in which both Robert De Niro and Al Pacino give great performances. The audience feels pretty sympathetic toward the burglary crew. Loyal friends, family guys, loving guys. In fact, the bank robber and the cop turn out to be the same type of personality. They’re on opposite sides of the law, but they understand each other. They are the yin and yang of law enforcement. You can’t have cops without crooks. De Niro’s character dies with Pacino holding his hand. After he shot him, even.”

  “People who watch movies don’t seem to mind seeing banks get ripped off,” Ace ventured. “Or any big company that’s screwing people over on a daily basis. Or even a rich guy, especially if he made his money some way other than working for it.”

  Richey handed a Keno ticket to John to check. “Molière once said of an aristocrat, ‘He must have killed a lot of people to have gotten so rich.’ Same’s true of anybody who’s rich, in fact. Yesterday and today.”

  For a moment, Ace couldn’t hide his delight at the direction of the conversation. It had exceeded expectations, which seldom happens in life. He was assembling his own Hole in The Wall gang.

  “The movie that makes the point of this genre the best, I think, is Thunderbolt and Lightfoot,” Richey continued, as if he were lecturing the entire bar clientele. The volume of his voice rose with his enthusiasm for the topic, as well as the amount of vodka he ingested. Several people at the bar turned to look at him. “Clint Eastwood plays Thunderbolt, the tough guy, and Jeff Bridges is his flaky sidekick. Clint and his old gang rob the same bank a second time. There’s a falling out among the thieves and Eastwood and Bridges are on their own. They accidentally find the loot from the first robbery. Years ago, they'd hid it behind the blackboard in a schoolhouse that was later moved from its original site. As they’re driving away with the money, Lightfoot, who’s dying from a head injury, says to Thunderbolt, ‘I don’t think of us as criminals, you know. I think we accomplished something … a good job. I feel proud of myself, man. I feel like a hero.’ Then, he dies.”

  Ace had set the scene masterfully and he now began to weave the web that would eventually ensnare Richey and others — not that Ace knew exactly how it would unfold at the time. Now, he was just fishing. “I read about a real life big score in the newspaper recently that would make a great movie. Took place out in L. A. Two guys, who the cops think probably were construction workers, got into the big underground storm drains out there and tunneled beneath a bank. They used a water-cooled concrete saw to cut a hole in the floor of the vault. They did all this work at night and used ATVs to haul in their equipment and haul out the dirt, which they dumped into open drainage ditches.”

  “So the runoff water washed away the evidence of what they were doing.”

  “Exactly. Of course, when they finally broke through the vault floor, an alarm went off.”

  “A motion alarm or the kind that measures air pressure.”

  Now, it was Ace’s turn to look surprised at Richey’s knowledge about alarm systems. “When the cops showed up, they didn’t see anybody inside the bank. Besides, the vault door was on a time lock. They couldn’t imagine the robbers already were inside. They thought it was an alarm glitch.”

  “Classic misdirection. How much did they get? Did they get away?”

  John the bartender automatically refilled Richey’s glass when it was empty, which didn’t escape Ace’s notice. “Twenty million, according to the newspaper. I never heard nothin’ about them getting caught.”

  Richey nodded slowly. “Very smart, very smart. Money kept in the vault isn’t marked or doesn’t have dye packets or transmitters hidden in it. They only do that for cash in the teller’s second drawer — or at least, that’s what I read. The bank knows the serial numbers of the stolen money, or course, meaning the guys who stole it can’t spend it. But, if they were smart enough to steal that money, hopefully they’ll be smart enough to figure out the next step.”

  “Which is?” Ace asked, with genuine interest. He leaned toward Richey, so he wouldn’t miss the revelation.

  “Put it into a Swiss bank account, or some account off-shore in the Caribbean. The bank never has to circulate the money, at least not for years. Like gold, the cash becomes an asset on which the bank can issue credit and loans, and generate additional income through fees and interest. It’s a credit economy, anyway, not a monetary economy. Hell, twenty million at five percent makes a million a year in interest. That, plus an unlimited credit card based on the principal, should allow the crooks to lead a pretty luxurious life if they don’t get greedy and do something foolish.”

  Ace stood up. He’d accomplished everything he could hope for today. “Interesting conversation, Richey. Let’s do it again, seriously. But, right now, I gotta go pick up Kandie after her shift ends at the restaurant.”

  “Is this thing recreational for her, too, or is she serious?”

  “All I know is that she’s got a great body and she’s the most enthusiastic fuck I’ve had in the last three years. I’m surprised Carmen hasn’t heard the screams over in her apartment. But, maybe Carmen is equally vocal when she’s being ridden, huh? You’re a lucky man, Richey.”

  Much later, in the midst of chaos and fear, Richey would remember this conversation as the moment Ace first revealed even vaguely the role Carmen would play in his script.

  7/Selling An Insurance Policy

  Marshon responded to the knocking on his apartment door, opened it and Boudra walked in. She handed him a flash drive and took a seat on his sofa facing the television.

  “Coffee?” Marshon asked.

  “No, I’m good,” Boudra said. Marshon stuck the thumb drive into a USB port on the side of the television. He grabbed the remote and retrieved his coffee cup from the kitchen bar. He sat beside Boudra, turned on the television, accessed the drive, opened the video library, and clicked a video with the latest calendar date.

  “This was the action over the weekend?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I put the summary together myself. Six in all.”

  Marshon didn’t believe in the assembly line approach, preferring dependable repeat customers willing to pay premium prices. “Repeats?”

  “Four, plus two more new ones from my Website.”

  Most working women preferred to troll for customers in hotels and bars, whereas Boudra relied mainly on contacts made through her Website, which was expertly and subtly constructed. She advertised herself as an escort available for dinner, the theater, conventions, and private parties. The site included several photos of Boudra wearing the latest in fashion clothing, including stunning evening dresses. She was as beautiful as most runway models, and probably more intelligent. She screened callers and requi
red a credit card down payment, which allowed her to weed out undesirables and those who called her cell phone number on a lark. She had an account with a people search engine and paid extra for the in-depth background report on credit card holders, which included criminal convictions and any court-issued restraining orders. As a result, she seldom solicited in bars and never on public streets. She always gave Marshon a copy of the monthly bill from her credit card company, so he knew she wasn’t holding out on him.

  Marshon pressed play on the remote and Boudra’s round bed filled the TV screen. A white dude was on top, missionary style. Boudra had wrapped her long legs around his body and crossed her ankles in the middle of his back. Marshon snorted. White men fuckin’ black women was an age-old story that accounted in large part for the variations of color among modern-day African-Americans. He had no sympathy for any of them, past or present. “This one of the new ones?”

  “Yeah.”

  The camera was hidden inside a wooden curio and plant stand about three feet from the end of the bed. Fake ivy hid the lens. Marshon and the women had developed a plan for them to position themselves for the best camera angles, and then press play on a wireless remote attached to the side of their bed. Marshon’s many talents included movie director. So much talent, so little time.

  “What are you smiling about, Marshon?” Boudra asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, turning up the sound so he could hear Boudra tell the white guy, “Take it easy, honey, that big thing o’ yours is tearin’ me up inside.”

  “That’s good theater, Boudra!”

  She arched her eyebrows and shook her head wearily.

  Boudra had John positioned so that his head was in the crook of her shoulder, looking directly into the camera — unknowingly of course. John suddenly grimaced and then his mouth formed into an “O”, just before he let out a primitive sound and ejaculated.

  After catching his breath, John backed out and stood, so that the camera shot was through Boudra’s V-shaped legs as John pulled a condom off his dick. He then walked to his left off camera, causing Boudra to sit up on the edge of the bed. In doing so, she kept one leg on the bed, bent at the knee. Marshon looked at her naked image on screen and then looked out the corner of his eyes at her sitting on his sofa, looking casual in jeans and a yellow cashmere sweater. When he looked back at the television, Boudra had turned her head to look directly into the camera, almost as if she were looking at Marshon watching her, days removed. Marshon squirmed uncomfortably.