The Gold Club: A White Collar Crime Thriller

by David Haskell

  “...and not just the people who pay us, either,” he had explained, “I want this to boost all the independent vartists. That’s the only way this thing will be fair.”

  Naive, perhaps, but if they were going to do something like this it might as well benefit as many people as possible. Ted agreed to give all the little guys a leg-up, so long as they were promoting their own clients at the same time. Phil agreed that their own people deserved first priority. He had something of a Robin Hood take on things when it came to the publishers and producers, though. “They already have so much,” he argued, “what’s wrong with evening things out for a change?”

  “It’s not like they lose if we win, right?”

  Ted had to admit he agreed. It wouldn’t hurt them much to allow some of the fledgeling talent to move ahead, and it was certainly more fair that way. Plus, it made the whole enterprise seem noble in a way.

  Phil also wanted to roll most of the profits back into furthering the club’s agenda, running it like a non-profit enterprise and keeping only a finder’s fee percentage for themselves. In that way, they could consider their actions beneficial rather than greedy.

  Ted could live with that. He’d never realized how much of a noble side there was to Phil. It was endearing. Admirable, even. Having him as a partner meant that Ted would be less likely to allow greed to cloud his judgement. With that realization came another, deeper one—he needed Phil.

  They agreed on the broad strokes, and Phil was on board.

  * * *

  “How do we make sure they don’t catch on?” Phil asked for the millionth time. He was obsessed with making sure the bosses didn’t figure them out. A perfectly valid concern, but one that Ted had already answered numerous times. But he was learning to indulge Phil on these little things, allowing him his quirks, accepting the fact that having an OCD partner had it’s plusses as well as these obvious drawbacks.

  “Good question!” Ted said, staying positive and keeping his cool. Easy on the enthusiasm, though. Don’t want to come off sarcastic. “We promote only known quantities,” he explained for the millionth time, “people who are already on the rise. That way they never stick out. It’s all going to look perfectly organic, that’s the beauty of it.”

  Once they’d gotten through the timeline and hashed out the smaller details, the decision to proceed was easy. But they couldn’t do it alone, not at the volume they were hoping for. It would take a small staff to process the applications alone, once word of mouth got around. And it would. The multitudes of starving artists would be beating down the doors to get in.

  They also needed to consider how to contain the club as it grew, more specifically how to keep members from talking it up in the media. Phil’s solution was to force them to sign nondisclosures, but Ted was uneasy about that. Taking their scam to another level didn’t strike him as a smart move, though there didn’t seem to be any way around it either. The clients would still talk, there was no way to prevent it entirely, but at least they would consider themselves barred from doing so in public. The agreements wouldn’t be legally binding, but as long as everyone thought they were, some of the larger concerns could be avoided.

  * * *

  Phil ran a finger down the list of figures, then tapped each of them as he counted in methodical fashion. Finally, he re-counted the whole thing from the bottom up, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “So, you really think this’ll work, then?” Ted asked.

  Phil looked up from the paper, an expression of pure exhilaration on his face. He nodded vigorously. “Oh yeah,”—his voice rose in pitch—“you bet your ass it’ll work!”

  Ted felt a rush of excitement. Here was confirmation from an impartial source. So many times he thought he was just fooling himself, that this could never really work. Just knowing someone else thought it possible was uplifting. There was a moment of hesitation. “And the timing?” he asked.

  “Well, yeah,” Phil admitted, “that’s the tricky wicket right there. We’ll have to be really careful. Make sure they’re all lined up and ready to go one by one.”

  “But it’s doable,” Ted ducked down to eye level, looking his partner square-on to make sure this confirmation was for real.

  Phil glanced once more at the scratched out computations. “Yes. It’s definitely doable.” Then he smiled. An actual, broad smile. Seeing this made Ted light up too, knowing how rare it was for Phil to express excitement, or any emotion other than frustration. It made him confident, knowing that Phil was totally onboard. For the first time since this crazy idea had occurred to him, it felt real.

  ~ 5 ~

  Setbacks

  The operation expanded quickly. Soon it was taking Ted half a day just to get all the clients lined up and squared away, and Phil was too busy with the coding to help. Chart manipulation aside, Ted also handled email requests and responses at a hunt and peck pace, and reviewed material and content from new applicants in as fair a manner as he could manage. Of course the whole thing was patently unfair, Ted being the sole authority and all. He had no idea what content deserved recognition, but he didn’t have much of a choice. He had to narrow it down somehow. Either way, he desperately needed help. The problem was trying to wrangle assistance for help with a non-existent project. It wasn’t the sort of thing he could just memo up the ladder.

  He needed a smokescreen. A company within a company, to throw off the scent. Letterhead for those memos that would land him the help he needed. He couldn’t do it, of course—but the CEO could.

  Opening up his access channels, he began browsing the boss’ corporate files, deeper than before. He read high level emails, getting a feel for the culture and how these executives really spoke to one another. He accessed various departments electronically, noticing how easy it was to dip into their systems without setting off red flags. Either they were completely unaware, or else they simply accepted the invasion because it came from the top, but either way it was a cakewalk with one glaring exception—the Infotech department was impenetrable, completely walled off from the rest of the company. Damn, even Hamm can’t see what they’re up to. This made Ted doubly glad to have Phil on his side.

  Setting the Infotech puzzle aside, he began sorting through individual personnel files; getting a feel for the type of person who worked at each place, or at least the type of person they were when hired. If they kept their noses clean, there wasn’t much more to see beyond the opening interview phase. Checkmarked lists and insubstantial evaluations, grudgingly filled out in service to the tedious, mandatory end-of-year review. But Ted was looking for the outliers, the ones with plenty of infractions on record. Insubordination of that nature left behind a substantial paper trail. In that sense, the sheer size of their personnel files served as an indicator, flagging potential allies for further review.

  * * *

  Each morning Ted began by bumping his clients a few notches higher. It had to look as though they could be there on their own merit, so he was careful to downplay his moves. Little by little he nudged his clients, up and into the regional bestseller charts, thus fulfilling the promise of membership.

  This time, though, he knew he’d screwed up about ten seconds before the alarms started—blaring and bleeping across all his monitors—followed closely by a top priority message from Infotech that read: “STOP what you are doing! I’ll be right there.” The warning, which Ted carefully heeded, was followed two minutes later by an out of breath Phil.

  “Are you nuts?” he hollered, bull-rushing his way into the cube and shoving Ted out of his seat.

  “I get that impression,” Ted replied, backing up and allowing his friend room to work. “I take it bumping all those guys at once wasn’t a bright idea?”

  “Y’think?” Phil was popping up windows now, writing scripts furiously, fingers flying over the keyboard in a pudgy blur. This went on for a while as the noises of the alarms started to dissipate, one annoying mini-racket at a time, until there were only a few remaini
ng, which Phil began shutting down manually until the cubicle rang with silence.

  Looking up, he clucked his disapproval and said, “So you’re not going to be backing down like you promised?” Still indignant, but he allowed his voice to take on a more civil tone.

  Ted tried to reply in kind. “I didn’t mean to crash the system, Phil.”

  “Pfft. Like Napoleon didn’t mean to,” he paused, “wait, no. Not Napoleon, Hitler? Whatever—Ted, just come to me first next time, okay?”

  Ted gave Phil a chance to calm down and step off the proverbial ledge, not speaking in the interim, which seemed to mollify him. He stood up suddenly and rolled the chair back in Ted’s direction, like he’s just suddenly realized how rude he was being. He was weird that way. Obliviously unpleasant nine times out of ten, but then he turns around and acts like a real person on the odd occasion.

  Not that he didn’t have the right to be angry, having just saved the day and all. Maybe it was the fact that he’d actually blown his stack, such vitriol wasn’t so much in line with his nature. His was a more sardonic type of passive aggression. Either way, Ted wasn’t about to challenge him.

  “Thanks, Phil. I owe you one.”

  “Well, yeah. You do.” He reached out, just missing Ted’s shoulder in an attempted buddy pat that swung wide and low and knocked him off balance, prompting an awkward laugh-snort. Ted took it to mean his apology was accepted.

  * * *

  The issue was resolved to completion within a couple of hours. Then Ted had to go through a post-mortem with Phil, in order to understand exactly what he’d done so wrong. He was able to learn a lot about the inner game of algorithms, more than he’d ever needed to know up until now. It became painfully obvious that the bulk of their digital efforts needed to be relegated to Phil, aka the partner who actually knew what he was doing. Phil had already transferred a bunch of vital stats to his own station, having reached the same decision independently. That was fine with Ted, he would’ve suggested the same thing eventually anyway.

  Ted could handle the big picture, that was the unspoken agreement. He could take his time fleshing it out, thinking about their next move, that sort of thing. He knew his way around a computer, sure, but not like Phil. He likened their relationship to a Jobs/Wozniak sort of dynamic, although in truth it felt a lot more like playing the role of Salieri opposite his genius friend. C’est la vie.

  Ted spent the rest of the day compiling data, cleaning up the files and preparing everything for forwarding to his partner.

  * * *

  There was still the matter of the money, all but inaccessible to anyone outside of finance. He wasn’t just going to leave it there, he’d earned that money. Given the amount of success Littleton was enjoying—not to mention the rest of them—he damned well wanted his share. But the idea of dealing with those finance people made him queasy, so he had to figure something else out.

  He needed to know how much his services were actually worth. Pulling up a duckduckgo.com window, he searched for businesses with a similar model, the sort that promised to get your content noticed. The free sites were useless. Then there were the actual agencies, with big city addresses and lawyerly retainers. In-between there seemed to be few worthwhile options. The ones that promised increased visibility, the sort that Ted had in mind at least, were mostly agents. And not freelancers, either. They were connected to major distributors and publishers, and operated in the traditional manner. Personalized service in exchange for a percentage. None of them worked directly for the content providers, probably because there was too much conflict of interest. Ted’s idea constituted precisely the conflict they all sought to avoid, which put him in a market all to himself. There was just no comparison between what he was worth versus the competition. He could do so much more than any of them.

  Even so, there was no way to get more and still pretend to be some benign Sahara initiative. There was no precedent, not only for Sahara but for any other providers out there. They usually offered promotional services, such as they were, at a reduced cost if not completely free of charge. How could he change the paradigm?

  The answer came to him as he scrolled down the FAQ section of an agency, one of a thousand such services with the same monetization scheme—a percentage of the take. Why not? He didn’t have to charge a fee at all, as long as he skimmed the money off the tail end. Offer a service—in exchange for a reduced royalty—then syphon off the profit from inside Sahara itself. He would need the help of other departments, which would require payoffs, but that was fast turning inevitable anyway. And if he were getting a percentage of the profits, expanding the client base would easily cover the added expense.

  To grease the wheels while side-stepping finance, he would need to access the interdepartmental veins of virtual currency. ‘Spreadsheet cash’ in finance department parlance. Such ghost accounts were everywhere, keeping the departments running smoothly in an endless loop. He would simply create new accounts, tap into the endless supply, and dip into it whenever he needed to.

  False expense reports would be needed in order to pull it off, but that wouldn’t be too difficult. Other than that, the only major issue remaining was how to turn all those accounts into real money. Cash they could get their hands on. Internal funds would only go so far, they could move money forever but they had to cash out at some point. How could he get that out from under the finance team?

  His last ‘Ah ha!’ moment of the day slid the rest of the scheme neatly into place—he would create tech problems in their department, ones that only Ted’s crew could solve, and then make them pay for the work out of their own coffers. And when they sent their legitimate funds to Infotech, Phil could intercept it and shunt it out of the building and into their own private account. Genius! he told himself, then immediately shook it off. You’re no genius until you actually do something.

  ~ 6 ~

  Concerns

  Lucinda Littleton continued to make waves and cause trouble for Ted. But it was her acquaintance that nearly wrecked the whole operation. And it was done in almost charitable fashion, by someone quite naive, and endlessly hopeful. It was such a sweet sabotage that Ted ended up putting the guy in, but it wasn’t long before he realized what a mistake he’d made.

  This man, seeking to benefit further from the scheme without going through the proper channels, obtained from his friend Littleton the address and specifics on where she sent payment. Then he sent a check, made out to ‘Membership Club, Gold Level, Sahara Co.’, which gained the notice of all the wrong people. A woman named Doris in accounts receivable forwarded the mystery money to operations for clarification, who then notified legal.

  “You hear from legal yet?” Phil yelled, bursting into Ted’s office early on a Monday morning. As if those five words weren’t enough to stun, he continued on, giving Ted a fast-growing headache just from listening. “They called me, and asked me what the deal was with this ‘special opportunity’. Besides that, the head of operations is asking questions now. And from what I hear from the Tech guys, the CEO’s office is on it, too!”

  Ted reached into the pencil drawer for an aspirin, took two without water, then reached down to the file drawer and pulled out the pepto. He took a swig, capped it, and returned it to it’s place. He rubbed his temples to no avail.

  “Ted, what are we gonna do about this?”

  Ted didn’t have any idea what to do, but he decided to start where they had access. He pulled up Hamm’s calendar and examined his appointment schedule for the next twenty-four. No visit from legal. That was promising, actually. But there was a meeting with one of the ops executives scheduled for this afternoon. Ted pointed to the meeting.

  “What about it?” Phil asked, “we should go join them, you think?”

  “No,” Ted said. Idiot. “We should make sure that meeting never happens.”

  “How’re we supposed to do that?”

  For an answer, Ted clicked on the appointment in question, and deleted it. He then slid t
he subsequent appointment down to fill in the allotted time, so as to make sure the office was occupied when the ops guy showed up.

  “That’s not going to stop them for long Ted,” Phil insisted He was shifting his weight from one foot to the other in an annoying little dance. “Got any other ideas?”

  Ted put a hand on Phil’s leg, forcing him to stop moving and calm himself. “That was just to buy us some time. Now we’ve got to get to legal. If they drop it, it’ll get dropped. Now think. How can we make this go away over there?”

  Phil’s legs twitched, looking like they wanted to move of their own accord. He was quiet for a few seconds, then he looked up with a pleased expression on his face. “Get someone from legal to help us!”

  Ted buried his face in his hands. Phil really was an idiot if he thought—

  “My friend works there,” Phil added.

  Ted lifted his face and stared up at Phil. “Seriously? You know someone in legal?”

  “Yup!”

  “And you didn’t mention this person in the first place?”

  “Nope!”

  * * *

  Phil’s friend was a new hire with little knowledge of the department. But they had no need of expertise, just names, and she provided the ones they needed. Two lawyers had to be handled, the one who first got the check and the one assigned to the case.

  “Why don’t we just admit it exists,” Phil suggested in response to the hacking issue, “and explain that we never intended to take any money?”

  “Oh, sure, that’ll work.” Ted wondered if the sarcasm was lost on his friend. Phil never seemed to react one way or the other. “I’m sure legal will be thrilled to learn about a covert operation within their own company, started by a couple of malcontents like us.”

  Phil reacted strongly to the term ‘malcontents’, but otherwise stayed quiet.