by Sam Wiebe
It took me awhile to notice all that foreign money pouring into companies that you helped establish, before poof!, the money disappeared into the ether of various offshore accounts. You did an awesome job at hiding the paper trail, by the way. I have to give you some grudging respect for that, at least. I used to think you were a total idiot, but I was wrong. Your idiocy isn’t all-encompassing. You’ve got your skills, man, you really do. Creating documents to cover up money transfers, contracts, and invoices. Slow applause from me for this. But there’s very little you can hide from your executive assistant when she’s got revenge on her mind.
I only had the time to do all this investigating and uncovering of trails, you understand, because Juanita broke up with me. She hasn’t come out yet, but we’d been slowly getting there until your surprise visit spooked the hell out of her. I won’t lie, this was a serious blow to my personal life. Do you know how hard it is for a lesbian to get laid in Vancouver?
The calls I made to her went unanswered. I got worried, because she’d taken to running the trails up by Pacific Spirit Park in the evenings after work, so I went by her place in Point Grey.
I waited for hours.
This is what love can do to a perfectly rational person when it slaps her upside the head. I was about to leave when I saw her walking down the road. She was just coming home from drinks, I assume, because I saw her on the sidewalk, wobbly on the high heels they made her wear at the perfume counter. There was a man holding her up by her elbow. She looked into his eyes and let him kiss her. Right in front of me.
I beat a hasty retreat right then and there but wasn’t sure if she’d seen me until she texted me the next day.
I’m sorry, but it’s over. I’m really sorry.
With the periods and everything! In a text!
The man she was with looked like your average married guy with an itch to scratch away from home. But he had money. I could tell from his suit, which was leagues above the quality of yours.
So she wanted money?
It’s not so hard to get some of that, if you know what you’re doing.
5. Know when to quit.
(See above about letting go of your past.)
Just because something worked before doesn’t mean it’s going to work again. If you sense you’re losing your audience, don’t double down. Move on, man. Move on. For example, when I was at the University of British Columbia, I crammed myself into Intro to Economics along with a horde of other undergrads reeking of weed. We were all hoping for a career in investment banking so that we could go yachting with models. The others seemed to do okay, but I could not, to my shame, read a simple line chart to save my life. Numbers I can handle. Concepts I can rattle off with no trouble at all. But there was that god-awful midterm where it was all about the line graphs. Let me tell you, economics as a prerequisite class is not geared to the graphically disinclined.
When the Papers came out, naming your old firm as the center of a Canadian shitstorm of what could have been epic proportions, that should’ve been enough for a thinking person to walk away. Yet you maintained your connections to your past. You still advertise snow washing, because why not tempt fate?
If I had to draw a graph to explain what snow washing is, it would look like a pile of garbage. So I won’t even bother. Plus, you already know, don’t you? It was your specialty. Advertise Canada as a more lucrative tax haven for high-net-worth foreign individuals, set up a front company with no legal obligation to disclose the real owner, and bada-bing, bada-boom. Tax haven benefits without the money-laundering stench that now pervades the Caribbean. Which is still used, but not as often as it used to be. Speaking of . . .
6. Make eye contact.
But only hold each pair of eyes for a few seconds. You want to include the regular plebes in your presentation, but you don’t want to be creepy. Save that for one of your island getaways when you send Bridget off to the spa and sit on the beach ogling women who are young enough to be your granddaughter.
Which reminds me, I sent a card to your granddaughter for her birthday last month. She said thank you for the personal note and the generous dollar amount on the check I signed on your behalf. You’re lucky I know how to forge your signature so well. It keeps your personal life in order and everyone, including me, happy. Birthday cards, apology notes, memos, miscellaneous documents pertaining to your secret accounts . . . I sign them all.
Were the Cayman Islands nice? What about the Bahamas? Boss, you have no idea how happy I was to get that shitty little box of chocolates you brought for me from Switzerland. Airport chocolates from the Swiss are so much better than what you get here, am I right?
There’s an interesting pattern that emerges when one is of the mind to look into the timing of your vacations with Bridget. It took me awhile to get the documents sorted, but when I did, boom. There it was. Secret accounts for your secret accounts, and vacay spots that line up perfectly.
7. Know your audience.
When I first moved to Vancouver from butt-fuck nowhere Ontario, I wanted to get laid. So obviously I signed up for all sorts of websites, run by people who were all too happy to take my money. They understood their demographic well. I wanted sex, and money for school—therefore I needed a sugar mama. Vancouver isn’t a sugar-baby mecca for nothing, my friend.
The first “date” I had was with an older woman named Carla, in her fifties. She had no time for bullshit, kept multiple phones to keep her various lives separate, and would spend no more than one hour each week in my apartment, which she helped me pay for.
It was the most blissful hour of my week. Carla could have me naked and panting in three minutes flat, but usually made me wait. We lasted six years.
One afternoon—it was always afternoons—she came in looking rushed and overwhelmed. Something was clearly on her mind, and it was so pressing that she wouldn’t even let me touch her first. I sensed it was the end, so I popped a bottle of champagne I kept in the fridge and poured two glasses. She didn’t even smile when I handed one to her. We drank half the bottle before she took me to bed.
Afterward, she asked me who I worked for. I said it was you, of course. She nodded once, because she already knew, and said that she’d seen me at an event, holding your phone and whispering the names of VIPs into your ear like a goddamn idiot.
“You’re better than that,” she told me. “You’re better than him. After what he’s done . . .”
“What?” I said, even though I’d already started to suspect the worst about you. This was before the night in your office when you found me and Juanita.
“I hear there’s an investigation going on,” said Carla. She was a real estate agent who worked exclusively with wealthy international clients. She found them investment homes in the pricey Vancouver marketplace, then helped them figure out how to avoid paying hefty taxes on said mansions.
“There’s massive corruption, and your boss is a part of it. A bunch of journalists around the world are working together to investigate a series of documents that show where and how the super-wealthy have been funneling money for years. They’re calling them the Panama Papers. I’m warning you right now, if your boss goes down, so will you.”
“Speaking of going down,” I said, reaching for her.
She pushed me away and slipped back into her clothes. “I’m serious, Mags. You could get into a lot of trouble working for this guy. It’s always the staff that gets scapegoated when this stuff comes out.”
“You worried that I’m going to ruin your reputation? Nobody knows about us.”
“It’s not that.” Her look was clear as day. When she made a decision, nothing in the world could turn her away from it. And it was obvious she had already decided about us. “We’re going to have to stop, me and you. My wife just retired and she’s spending more time at home—if she ever found out about us . . .”
“Is this about my boss or your wife?” I asked, watching her from the bed. She never talked about her wife with me.
She shook her head and leaned against the doorway. “Look. I just don’t want to see you hurt because of your boss. It’s tough enough for a woman in business, especially in the financial sector. You have to work twice as hard—and you already go above and beyond. Don’t let this man ruin your career.”
What career? I didn’t have a career, as anyone who watched me settle your dry cleaning bill would know.
It’s not the only thing she was wrong about. I wasn’t going to be hurt because of you. She didn’t know her audience, you see. Her warning me about you only sped up my timeline.
You know, everybody underestimates the sugar baby. You have a number of little companies of your own, and you know who has signing rights on them besides Bridget? Well, of course, the person who can forge your signature like a pro. Setting up my own company was simple. There’s a reason why those rich foreigners do this. Canada, land of opportunity, makes it so damn easy.
8. Keep it short and sweet.
Closing remarks should be brief. For example: “I would like to thank you for all the years you have kept me employed doing your dirty work without once giving me a raise. My career is a dead end and my love life is in shambles, but all of this has taught me a very valuable lesson. In a city taken over by the wealthy, where white-collar crime is the norm, where everyone has a price, nobody blinks at a little cream being skimmed off the top. When it comes to the ‘tax planners’ of Vancouver, who are the lubricant of the astronomically priced real estate market, everyone does it. The thing about stashed money and the misrepresented funds of companies that are not required to disclose their real owners, also, is that anyone can steal from a thief without repercussions. Nobody in this shady business wants to bring on any extra scrutiny. So thank you for all of your help in padding my own shady accounts, and sayonara.”
See? Easy as Bridget.
Hope your speech goes well tomorrow. I have booked you an economy seat on a flight that’s always jam packed. Good luck on getting upgraded to business class this time, asshole. And if you’re thinking of trying to get back at me somehow, remember that I’ve seen the pervy videos on your phone and, whoops, made a few copies.
If you’re upset about suddenly joining the ranks of the lower classes, remember that your office window opens outward.
And by the way, I left that diagram on your desk. Happy hunting
