The Gold Club: A White Collar Crime Thriller

by David Haskell

  “And how do you expect me to take care of all these appearances, Mr. Ward,” she was halfway down the list and picking up steam, “I’m sorry if this comes off as harsh, but I just have to tell you, this situation has taken a turn for the worse since we last spoke. I’m not at all pleased with the treatment your people have been giving me...”

  Ted was only half-listening, his workspace packed with candidates he’d asked to swing by for a quick evaluation. This was getting out of hand, both the lack of a decent space in which to operate, and the lack of underlings to handle such problem clients. He motioned to the closest girl. ‘Judy!’ according to the Hello, my name is... that was stuck to her left breast. Handing over the receiver, he mouthed ‘Lucy Littleton’ by way of introductions. Then he made a circular motion with his arm, indicating that Judy should now keep up the conversation. Judy hastily put the phone to her ear and listened, uttering a, “Uh huh,” every now and then in a passable imitation of Ted’s voice.

  Satisfied with her performance for now, Ted pulled his chair back and gave the gathered workers a once-over. He only had a couple minutes at best before he’d have to deal with client numero uno, so he cleared his throat and jumped in; “I want to thank you all for your time today, I know everybody’s busy. We’re just looking for a few people at the moment, and I have to tell you straight off that none of them are particularly glamorous positions. Having said that, for those who are still interested, I’ll take a look at your applications and notify the selected candidates in a few days. Okay? Thanks!”

  With that, his attention was back on the phone call. By ignoring all the others in the room he made his intentions clear—he wanted them to leave now. As the candidates filed out, muttering in confusion, Ted grabbed the phone and got back to placating Littleton. When she finished complaining, he waited for her to hang up first so she wouldn’t notice his annoyed receiver-slam. He turned back to his paperwork, pretending to forget anyone was left in the room. Judy cleared her throat, forcing him to acknowledge her presence.

  “You heard what I said to the group?” he demanded, hoping she would take that as the end. She refused, shaking her head no.

  He sighed, shaking his own head, looking like he didn’t believe her.

  “I can help you, you know,” she said, turning her better side to him as she spoke, knowing she looked good, and knowing how to make use of it.

  “Oh?” he wasn’t particularly intrigued, but she wasn’t pissing him off anymore either.

  “I know what you need to do about Ms. Littleton, for one thing.”

  “You don’t say?” Now he was intrigued. He liked people who took initiative, and this woman was certainly self-assured. She had a familiar quality to her as well. He wondered if he’d perhaps worked with her before, though he stopped short of asking. Reclining into his chair, he motioned for her to have a seat.

  She left the room twelve minutes later, officially in the role of staffer number seven. They hadn’t even budgeted for her, hadn’t even crossed Ward’s mind yet apparently, and of course she hadn’t asked. She knew he’d figure it out with his partner soon enough. After what she’d had to say, his next order of business would certainly be to fill him in on all the new details.

  * * *

  Ted joined his girlfriend for a stroll around the neighborhood that Sunday. With work stress piling up, and the club picking up steam, he found himself looking forward to weekends more than ever—their time together was guaranteed to relieve him of ninety percent of the built up stress, and not just because of the sex. It was like their own little oasis in the desert, the two of them shutting out the world.

  They ventured far beyond the area Ted was familiar with, having been out for almost two hours. He hadn’t realized he’d been living near so many pleasant spots. He’d always been busily zipping in and out, paying little attention to his surroundings, and even less to the nonessentials. But parks and woods were out there, within just a couple of miles, and the two of them ended up enjoying a genuinely scenic stroll right in his own backyard.

  They walked through a swath of sports fields, slightly unkempt but still inviting, while Til revealed more about her young self that made Ted wonder if she weren’t one of those old souls people talk about.

  “So that’s when I left,” she was explaining, “I was fifteen.”

  “Jesus, that young?” Ted would still be living at home if his parent’s hadn’t split up while he was away at college. He often joked about that over the holidays, but it really was true. He only set out because he had to, not because of any desire. “Did you have a blowup or something?”

  “Not so much. I just really wanted to start singing full time, and they had this idea about finishing high school. You know how parents are.” She gave him a wry look. He guessed there was more to the story, there always was, but he knew better than to push.

  “I was never close with my family either,” Ted said. Feeling like it was a touch shallow to bring up his own troubles, he added, “Nothing like your situation though. Just...distant, I guess.” In point of fact, he was at least as much responsible for the distance as his family was, but he didn’t like to admit it. Then, in the spur of the moment, he elected to do just that. “I’ve been distant from a lot of people, really. I’m not the easiest guy to get along with. Not on a deep level anyway.”

  This seemed to catch her off-guard. She looked at him with a surprised expression. “I wondered when you were going to tell me something real,” she said, bending down. She picked a wildflower and handed it to him. “That’s how you get close, you know.”

  * * *

  That Sunday flew by, and the next one and the next, each solid thirty-six hours of togetherness feeling like not nearly enough. They were together aside from that, but Sundays were dedicated. Ted was busy with the nine to five, and Til was always heavily booked on Friday and Saturday nights, so late Saturday until Monday morning was all they had. They didn’t sleep much, just a little on Sundays when the sun came up.

  Ted hated dragging himself out of bed on those cold, lonely Mondays. Leaving his cute, nude girlfriend behind in bed was the hardest part of the week. But neither of them thought much about Mondays until the time came, they were too deeply in the moment, focused on their new love. They socialized at Til’s gigs and occasionally during the week, but weekend time was passionately exclusive.

  Then came the first Sunday that something else came up, and along with it, a fight. Not a huge fight, but there were hurt feelings on both sides. Neither of them wanted to bend, and it quickly turned into a test of wills.

  It was Til who got the commitment, and it was work related, an aging rocker’s wedding party that came with a hefty paycheck. Ted tried to argue it monetarily, insisting that he’d give her the lost cash, but she took it the wrong way, implying that he thought she was ‘available for a price’. That proceeded to set him off.

  “The thought never crossed my mind,” he said, raising his voice to match hers.

  “That's not how it looks to me,” she shot back, unwilling to let go of the accusation so easily. What she was fishing for was an apology, only Ted wasn't the type to go there. Even if he'd wanted to, it wasn't in his makeup. Kicked too many times, he always felt the need to protect himself, to avoid vulnerability at all costs.

  When she rolled her eyes, he took it to mean she was calling him a liar. One of those early relationship misunderstandings. They were becoming familiar with each other, but not enough to avoid hurtful misunderstandings. Rolling her eyes was a defense mechanism designed to surrender, as in ‘I know I'm wrong but isn't this whole thing just stupid anyway’. The fact that Ted escalated threw her off and made her feel extremely defensive.

  “Well, if you can't accept that I have a life, then I don't know Ted. Maybe we shouldn't be spending any Sundays together then!”

  “Fine!” he bellowed, inflating his chest and flaring his nostrils. An overreaction, pure and simple, and far from his genuine wishes, but he owned it now. Feeli
ng like there was no more to say, he stormed out. It would be three days before they spoke, and in that time they both buried themselves in their work, trying to forget what had happened.

  ~ 14 ~

  Clients

  The process—otherwise known as the gold club assembly line—began with Ted, Marge, and a stack of envelopes. Ted came up with a list of new clients and old business, and Marge filled out routing slips accordingly, using fake but verifiable names. She never used the same marker twice, keeping a box of assorted ones nearby and rotating through the different thicknesses, and she varied each scrawl carefully. It was impossible for an untrained eye to see that one person had done it all.

  Each staffer was assigned two false monikers. When they received the package, they scratched out the first and added the other to the bottom. Marge knew all the names and their corresponding locations, including one in particular that was known only to her. That one, Jolina Kreimer, appeared on each empty envelope that made it’s way back. With the top names crossed off, and the bottom ones confirming the work was done, Marjorie Klein aka ‘Jolina Kreimer’ would then shred the envelope to close the case.

  When Marge was done labeling, she stuck them on the envelopes and handed them off to Ted. He stuffed them with the relevant paperwork and buried them inside network updates, minutes of fictional meetings, and “follow-up” emails to conversations that never happened. It looked the same as so many hundreds of others coursing through the warehouse every day, hiding in the plain sight of legitimate business. He thumbed through the contents, making sure departmental routing matched phony paperwork, then he tossed it into the inter-office tray.

  The mail cart trundled through the halls half the morning before delivering the envelope to Infotech. Not directly addressed to Phil, it was instead sent to a little-used office Phil had discrete access to. Tossed onto the desk in the darkened room, Phil retrieved it and began his work.

  Phil was the first to look over all new material. If he felt it necessary, he could circumvent the chain and toss it straight back to Ted, though in reality that never happened. He carried the package to his workstation underneath a pile of other paperwork, opened it when he was sure no one was around, and sifted through the documents looking for access codes and publisher confirmations. Once he had what he needed, he turned to his computer and launched an army of bots and scripts into the network—paving the way for the false paperwork that would follow.

  The envelope then moved from Phil’s area back to Marge, who reviewed the notes and adjusted the routing accordingly. Over time, the paperwork had begun to filter from person to person directly, rather than everything through Marge, since everyone had grown familiar with who came next. But new clients were too important to leave to chance, she had to keep a close eye on them.

  This pattern of hand-offs continued on down the chain, perhaps with a few too many winks and nods from those who smelled profit in every envelope, but it was subtle enough to escape notice. Even though none of the rank and file staffers knew the true scope of things, they were all peripherally aware something significant was going on. Getting their hands on that envelope meant they were in-the-know, involved in a hushed project even most executives knew nothing about. Knowing this gave them a sense of pride, a feeling that they belonged to something.

  * * *

  This particular envelope included payment information, so the next stop was accounts receivable. If the payment didn’t go through, the girls would send a message to the offender: pay up or lose status. Under threat of discontinuation, clients always found a way to pay, and the club offered an array of options. Paypal was the usual way, but personal and cashier’s checks, credit cards, and even Sahara vouchers and gift cards were readily accepted.

  The marketing department took care of laundering the vouchers and cards, but otherwise the money went into petty accounts and large-draw funds, depending on transaction size, depositing a few bucks here and crediting a few bucks there. The clean money was then used to fund the underground payroll system, rolled back into club expenses, or wired into an offshore account for the three principals. Being the ones who wrote the checks, these staffers were treated with a great amount of respect and deference, even from the trio on top.

  Payment received, cash accounted for, another name crossed off the list, and on to vartist relations. In order to work up a profile for the new talent that could be slipped into their records as if they’d always been there. There was usually a genuine file which needed to be extracted and eliminated, and replaced by the gold club version. If no original existed, that made matters easier, but most of these content creators had been making use of Sahara services in one way or the other prior to their entry into the club.

  It usually took a while to pass through vartist relations, depending on how competitive the sub-categories were and how many toes might get stepped on. As a key department for the club, the number of staffers was on the high side. Even those who worked side-by-side rarely knew if their neighbors were involved. And Marge made sure to give the impression that each of them served a unique and irreplaceable purpose.

  The club relied on its ability to remain under the radar, making sure red flags were kept to a minimum. Vital to that end was avoiding any hint of impropriety. The last thing they needed was for outsiders to come sniffing, so every facet of their operation had to be above reproach. This meant that all documentation spent some time in the legal department along the way. The club had no lawyers on their side, for obvious reasons, but the legal assistants tended to be pretty savvy in their own right. Just as underpaid as the rest of the assistant level staff, they were more than happy to farm out their expertise.

  * * *

  When mistakes cropped up, as they often did, the process had to be reversed in order to pinpoint where things had broken down. There was no legitimate reason for the paperwork to flow the wrong way, complicating things greatly. Phil handled that with clever scripts that caused executive emails to be generated and sent automatically: All administrative filings must be returned immediately to origin for revision. Clerical errors, one of which cost us a client, have been on the rise. This needs to to be dealt with! Thank you for your attentive cooperation.

  Memos like this were created by committee, no one individual could be found responsible. As such, all executives would sign off without question. They would assume the topic had come up in the daily briefing, and that they’d simply forgotten about it. The forgetfulness of executives was very much in keeping with the gold club business model, and it was one component they could always rely on.

  * * *

  Having expanded the club beyond the original carrying capacity, they now needed more employee authorizations than Phil could tease out of Hamm’s cache. It would take a lot more than a few hidden documents routed through the inter-office system to get them—they had to be shipped out to, and then sent back in from, supporting Sahara facilities around the country. They needed to extend their network for this. Rather than bank on unknown people, Ted and Marge embarked on the first official gold club business trip.

  Arranged as a fact-finding mission, they used Ted’s credentials as advisor to the CEO as cover. Hamm’s paranoia was working in their favor; having bestowed a relevant title on Ted to explain his presence in the executive wing, Ted now had carte blanche. He took full advantage of this, opening up a brand-new executive charge account to pay for their first-class transportation. Making a comprehensive sweep of corporate locations, then met and observed far flung associates that might serve their needs. Once situated in a particular locale, the informal interview process was handled by one or the other, except in the case of selecting a point person where they would both do it. Just one point person was designated from each facility, someone reliable, so that they would have a contact in case of emergency. Other than that individual, the rest were mostly out-of-the-loop drones tasked only with receiving the marked-up documentation and sending it back where Marge told them to, and to otherwise fo
llow her directions.

  * * *

  Domestic-minded and settled, further along in life, Marge had things Ted felt he might never obtain in life. Yet she seemed to envy his easy, commitment free lifestyle and lack of responsibilities. When confronted, they both admitted feeling a certain uncertainty about the other, and this admission opened the door to some frank dialogue that never would’ve passed muster within the confines of the office walls.

  After the initial tension had eased, they never ran out of things to talk about, with topics ranging from popular culture to business fundamentals. They shared many of the same background experiences and childhood influences, and their outlooks weren’t nearly as dissimilar as either had assumed.

  “So you’ve got a bit of the wanderlust yourself?” he asked during a lull, when they were both too tired to think about anything else.

  She laughed. “Not for business trips.”

  Ted gave her a wry smile, indicating agreement.

  “I tell you, though,” she continued, turning thoughtful, “if it wasn’t for my kids I’d run away from it all. I really would.”

  That bad?” Ted asked. They were half-heartedly putting away the club materials and avoiding any real work.

  “Oh, I don’t know. The pressure, I suppose. You have no idea what it’s like to be a working mother in this day and age.”

  “I’m sure I don’t,” Ted kidded, smiling at her.

  She didn’t smile back. “Divorce is hardest on the children, have you heard that?”

  Damn, this is going down a dark path. “I take it you’re considering it?”

  “Not really. Not yet. You know, I’d never have joined up with your little members club here,”—she waved an arm over the paperwork—“if I didn’t think it would benefit me and the kids one day.”

  “I see,” Ted said. He didn’t press the questions, allowing her to continue at her own pace.