by Dave Jackson
The boys’ mother didn’t open the door any wider than was necessary to talk. “I just got home with Destin, Mr. Singer. Tavis is still in the hospital, but he seems to be doing fairly well.” She paused for a moment. “Jared’s at the hospital with him, but we’re going to switch a little later. If you come by about eight, I think he’d be here by then.”
“Oh, sure. That’d be great. I’ll do that. Maybe I can see Destin then.”
She hesitated. “Well . . . maybe, if he’s not asleep by then. He needs his rest.”
“Of course. I understand. I’ll try to drop by later when Jared’s here.”
Michelle closed the door slowly without saying anything more. Greg knew it had to be a stressful time for them, but he got a funny feeling something else was going on. Or maybe Destin needed her. He walked back down their porch steps. At least he wouldn’t be late for dinner.
The pasta dish was too large for the kids to pass, so after Greg said a blessing, Nicole served everyone. Handing Greg’s plate to him she said, “You seemed to have your nose in the computer again all day. Is that new thing you’re trying working?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.” Nicole asking the question would make it so much easier to explain. “Today . . .” He grinned proudly at his kids. “I won a thousand dollars!”
Nate’s eyes got big. “Wow, Daddy, you’re rich!”
“Not yet, but we’re gonna be.” He checked to see how Nicole responded. “In fact, you’ll be glad to know, honey, that I transferred five hundred of it into our credit card account to reduce our balance.” He didn’t mention that was where he got the money to invest in TopOps in the first place.
Nicole toyed with her pasta. “I still don’t quite understand what it is you’re doing. How do you win a thousand dollars in one day? It sounds like gambling.”
“Ah, I shouldn’t have used the word win. It’s earnings. It’s based on the markets. It can be the stock market, commodities, or international currency. That’s what I’ve stuck with until I get more skilled. You see, the value of the dollar is always fluctuating relative to other currencies.”
She stared at him. “You mean you’re betting that the dollar will lose value? That sounds un-American.”
“Well, it’s not.” Greg threw up his hands. “Why do you always presume the worst about anything I do?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s just . . .”
He closed his eyes a moment. “What I do doesn’t have any effect on the value of the dollar. I just analyze what the trend has been, and then predict what will happen in the next . . . minute. You can do it longer, but that’s what I’ve been doing.”
“And if you win—I mean, if you’re right—who pays you? Where does that money come from?”
“From the exchange. The company I’m working with.”
“And they get their money from . . .?”
“Other players, I mean, other investors who predicted the opposite.”
“Can we be excused?” Becky piped up. “I’m done, and this is boring.”
“After you finish your plate.”
“But you gave me too much,” Becky whined.
“Me too,” Nate echoed.
Nicole sighed. “All right. Just take your dishes into the kitchen and put them on the counter.”
Greg managed to get a few bites of his pasta as the kids did as they were told and then scurried downstairs to the family room. But his wife picked up the subject again.
“Look, I get the stock market. Like a pharmaceutical company wants to develop a new drug, but it’s going to cost a lot of money to develop and test. So investors buy stock in the company, essentially loaning them the money. If it’s successful—a cure for arthritis, say—the company makes millions, and the investors get a share. But it doesn’t sound like this binary thing produces anything for anyone.”
“Sure it does. It produces a profit, and it can be a pretty sweet one too.” But as soon as Greg said it, his words sounded hollow. He knew she was right.
“I don’t know.” Nicole shook her head and stood up, gathering dishes to take to the kitchen.
“Well, a thousand bucks is a thousand bucks, and that’s pretty good pay for one day, I’d say. We need the money. Don’t know why you’re complaining.”
“I’m not complaining, Greg. I just want whatever you end up doing to . . . to work in the long term. But this sounds like gambling.”
Greg stood up fast enough to almost knock his chair over backwards. He threw his napkin on his plate and stomped out of the room, out the front door, and stood on the top step of the porch staring at a cutthroat sunset bleeding through a dark overcast that stretched like a Frank Lloyd Wright cantilever toward the western horizon.
He blew out his bottled frustration. He should probably go back inside and try to bring the conversation to a better conclusion, but he didn’t want to. Not now. The argument wasn’t his fault. He thought she’d be happy he’d made some money.
He checked his watch—eight fifteen. Maybe Jared Jasper was home by now. Hands deep in his pockets and shoulders hunched, he went down the steps and headed up the street to the Jaspers.
* * * *
“Oh. Singer. Michelle said you might drop by.” Jared looked back over his shoulder. “Uh . . . maybe we should talk out here. You mind?” The man stepped out onto the porch.
“No problem. Just wanted to stop by and see how Destin was doing.”
“He’s getting around, but he’s on his way to bed right now.”
“Just wanted to say how sorry we are. I was so shocked to hear about his accident.”
Jared pulled the door closed behind him. He stared eye to eye at Greg. “No accident, Singer. These weren’t stray bullets. My boys were the targets.”
“What? Oh, man. That’s terrible.” Thoughts swirled through Greg’s mind of gang paybacks. “How could they be caught up in something like that?”
Jasper’s eyes narrowed and his expression hardened. “Like what?”
“Oh, I didn’t meaning anything by that,” Greg said hastily. “I’d just always seen them as, you know, really wholesome kids. Not the kind who’d end up as targets.” Oh, man, he should shut up. He was getting himself in deeper with every word.
“You really don’t know, do you?” Jared’s jaw clenched, his eyes still narrowed.
“Know what?”
“They were shot selling your . . . your stupid energy drink.” Jared spat out the words.
“What?”
“That’s right. Your energy drink. That SlowBurn junk you got him involved in.”
“Now wait a minute. You’re not suggesting—”
“No, you wait a minute, and answer me this. Did you tell my boy he needed to find a new location, some place where kids hang out?”
“No! I mean, he wasn’t getting anywhere trying to sell it to his sports friends, so maybe I suggested he look for a new market or something, but I never—”
“You know where he found it—this ‘new market,’ as you call it—and took his younger brother with him?”
Greg just shook his head.
“A street corner near Hamlin Park. They were lookin’ for a place where kids hung out, and they found ’em. Only problem was, some gangbangers saw them passing out stuff from their backpacks and thought it was drugs, thought my boys were trying to jump their territory. That’s why they got shot! Now do you understand?”
Greg didn’t know what to say to the man who was getting right up in his face. “I . . . I’m sorry. But I didn’t tell Destin to go down there. I don’t even know anything about that neighborhood.”
Jared tapped an angry finger on Greg’s chest. “It’s obvious you don’t know anything, but you’re the one who got my boy so deep in debt with all those cans you sold him that he was desperate to unload ’em, even in a place that wasn’t safe. And my baby boy got pulled into it too. Do you realize, they both could’ve been killed?!”
Greg threw up his hands. “Look, Jasper, De
stin came to me because he needed a job to earn money for a basketball camp you wouldn’t spring for. So you can’t put it all on me.”
The muscles on the sides of Jared’s jaws were pulsing as he stared at Greg. Suddenly, he turned, went into the house, and slammed the door behind him.
Greg stood rooted for a moment, his own anger flaring. What just happened? He’d come here out of kindness to see how Destin was doing. Hadn’t expected to be verbally attacked and blamed for the shooting.
Going slowly down the steps, he turned toward home, his thoughts churning. Jasper hadn’t said anything about the shooting taking place near a 7-Eleven, but Destin had obviously found a corner where guys hung out, just like he’d suggested.
He heard the Jaspers’ door open again behind him. “Hey, Singer! My kid used his college money to buy that junk from you. The least you could do is buy it back, ya know!”
Greg waved his hand without looking back and kept on walking.
Chapter 36
Greg’s bidding on TopOps went well Tuesday morning, increasing the available funds in his online account. But he couldn’t escape the feeling that he was being attacked on all sides. Jared Singer’s accusations from the night before nagged at him, along with Nicole’s conclusion that binary trading was just gambling—not to mention that he hadn’t yet hit it big on TopOps. He didn’t even want to think about SlowBurn anymore.
Wasn’t anyone on his side? All he needed was that breakthrough!
He kept rehearsing arguments against Nicole’s opinions . . . while catching himself referring to his money as “winnings.” If he was going to convince her, he’d have to revise his terminology. Still, he knew his “investments” didn’t buy stock in TopOps or in any company that produced a product or service. When it came down to it, binary options involved a zero-sum game where no real wealth was created. When he won, TopOps lost. When he lost, they won. And simple logic told him that since there were so many binary companies out there, it had to be profitable for the owners, which meant that the players—oops, “investors”—lost often enough for the companies to stay in business. He gritted his teeth. Was Nicole right? Was he just gambling against the “house”?
But he’d been gaining . . . with a potential for even bigger gains as he increased the size of his bids. He’d started with hundred-dollar bids, but now he’d increased them to two hundred dollars, which meant $140 in profit every time he won. And he distinctly felt he was getting the knack for when to “call” and when to “put.” It might be time to go to the next level, perhaps three hundred per bid.
By noon, he again had a thousand dollars in his online account. If the trend continued, he could withdraw double what he’d taken out on Monday and still have sufficient seed money for Wednesday . . . or perhaps he’d leave it all in and go for really big returns.
Then he hit a losing streak. By three o’clock he’d drained his balance. Slapping the desk with his hand, he got up and paced around the living room. “Argh! I hate losing even more than I hate not winning!” Had he said that aloud? He stopped pacing a moment and listened. Neither Nicole nor the kids were on the first floor. Good. He didn’t want them knowing about the losses. He stood at the front window, hands jammed in his pockets. The words he’d muttered seemed illogical . . . but as he thought about it, he realized when he was on an upswing, he could handle some losses. But when he was going into the hole, he began to feel desperate—desperate enough to do anything, take any risk, to win back what he considered to be “his.”
That’s where he was right now. He had to do something. Anything. Press through, get beyond this losing streak. Okay. He’d go back to his credit card and withdraw the five hundred he’d deposited the day before. It’d only be temporary, right? He’d told himself he wouldn’t do it just to make larger bids, but he couldn’t end the day with a loss.
Going back to his computer, he made the transfer. With a new infusion of money, his first two bids won . . . but then the losing streak returned. Fighting panic, he called on his credit card for another three hundred and got a message: “Card not acknowledged. Contact bank.”
What? How could that be? He’d just used it not thirty minutes before. He dug out his wallet to find the card and call the number on the back. Wait . . . why not check his balance online, so when he called he could talk specific numbers. It took him a few minutes to log in, and then he saw the problem: He was within $238 of his maximum.
Rats! He hadn’t known they were that close to their $5,000 limit. He stared at the screen a few moments. Should he quit? But if he did . . . he hated to think of how much he’d lost. He couldn’t accept that. All he needed was one more chance!
And there was still one way to get it . . .
Back on TopOps, he charged two hundred bucks against his credit card, and it went through. With a sigh of relief, he set up his next bid. Only twenty minutes before the site closed. Could he recoup his losses in so little time? He bid all two hundred—and won . . . and won . . . then won again. All right! That put him up by $420, and there was still time for one more bid. If he put the whole $620 that was in his account on the next bid and won, he’d end the day with $1,054—certainly nowhere near his morning high, but at least he’d be able to sleep that night, not having gone in the hole for the day.
He watched the trend of the ticker. It had been declining over the last hour, but now it was just bobbing up and down. He set up his bid as a “put”—predicting the US dollar would go down—with all $620 on the line for a one-minute run. At three minutes before closing, he clicked and waited, watching the second hand go around and the value frame change from green to red to green. His heart was pounding as the seconds counted down . . . and when the bell sounded, it was red. The value of the US dollar had slightly declined against the euro.
He’d won.
“All right!” He leaped from his chair and jumped around the living room.
“What happened, Daddy? Why are you yelling?” Becky and Nate came thundering down the stairs like a pair of wildebeests.
Laughing, Greg went down on one knee and held his arms wide to embrace his kids as they ran into the living room. “Oh, nothing. Daddy just . . . just earned a little money at a very important time. It wasn’t that much, but it was exciting.” He gave them another squeeze. “I love you both.”
Standing up, Greg wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. “Where’s Mom?” He didn’t really want to tell her how desperate he’d gotten or how excited he’d become at climbing out of the hole he’d gotten himself in that day. “Is she downstairs?”
“No. She said she was going over to talk to Mrs. Bentley.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, you guys can run back up and play some more.”
“Can’t we watch TV?” Nate stuck out his lip. “I’m bored.”
“Have you watched any yet today?”
“Only a little, not my full time.”
“I don’t want to watch TV,” Becky said. “I’m going back upstairs.” And she darted out of the room.
“Please, Daddy.”
“Well, all right. But when Mom gets home, if she says stop, that means stop. Agreed?”
“O-o-ka-a-y.” Nate left for the basement, head down, as if Greg had given him a punishment rather than a privilege.
Greg returned to his computer. Without sitting down, he noted his balance with TopOps had indeed returned to $1,054. What a relief. He exited the site and shut down his computer. It was, indeed, time to quit, and he felt wasted.
But the thought of Nicole talking to Estelle Bentley reminded him that this was Tuesday night, and Harry would probably be asking if he wanted to attend his men’s Bible study. He didn’t really feel like going. If Harry called, he’d come up with some kind of excuse.
* * * *
Greg was still feeling good when Nicole called them to the dinner table. As he reached for Nate’s hand on one side of him and Becky’s on the other before blessing the food, Nicole spoke up. “As we thank God for our food, I think
we should pray for Tabby’s brothers. Okay?”
“Sounds good to me.” Greg said, and he added Destin and Tavis to his usual mealtime prayer.
“An’ help them get better so Tabby can come babysit us s’more,” Nate added before Greg said his “Amen.”
Greg and Nicole exchanged glances as the kids dived into the individual pizzas they’d helped their mom make. Nicole cleared her throat. “Estelle told me some more about what happened to the Jasper boys.”
The way she said it made Greg tense. “Oh, yeah?” He tried to keep his voice casual as he reached for the salad dressing. “What’d she say?”
“Turns out the boys weren’t selling drugs. Have to admit that’s what I thought at first. But police said they were clean, and the only thing in Destin’s backpack was that energy drink of yours and some homework. But apparently, there’s a turf war going on in that area between rival gangs. One of the gangs probably thought Destin and Tavis were trying to take over their corner, and that’s why they got shot.”
That energy drink of yours . . . Greg frowned.
Becky—always the one with the big ears—spoke up. “But if they weren’t selling drugs, why did the gangbangers shoot them?”
“Well, maybe they just thought the Jasper boys were selling drugs.” Nicole kept her eyes on Greg. “I suppose if they were selling SlowBurn on a corner like that, it’d be pretty easy for someone to mistake that for peddling drugs. You know, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, somebody’s going to think it’s a duck.”
Greg frowned. It was the same argument Jared had used the night before. “You’re making it sound like SlowBurn was at fault.” He knew his voice sounded testy. “But I never told those boys to take over some drug dealer’s spot. And I’m sure Destin wasn’t trying to do that either. It was an accident. Wrong place at the wrong time, is all.”
Nicole suddenly looked flustered. “Oh, Greg, I’m not suggesting it was your fault. Like you said, wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all.” Her voice trailed off as she pushed back her chair and headed for the kitchen. “Uh, there are a couple more little pizzas. Who’s ready for more?”
