by Sara Forbes
I’m as much to blame as my sisters for our lack of meaningful contact—as eldest, even more so, but lately, survival in the business is taking everything I’ve got. Friends have meandered off and even online friendships have gone stale. I like the idea of a boyfriend, but when it comes down to it, I never feel that I have that much to give. And they don’t ask for much either. Dates comes and go with no discernable consequences. I leave that to my sister Laila who’s got the happy, hippy outlook on life that attracts men like flies, bringing enough drama with them to put anyone off serious dating for life.
Someday I may get a chance to be more sociable but right now, I owe it to Dad, and to myself, to be twice as good as the next PI and get a footing in more demanding investigations. Otherwise, the world will overlook me and I’ll spend my thirties and forties tailing cheating men in trench coats. Clients like dear old Mr. Goodman are not going to live forever. And chances like this only come once in a lifetime.
2
FELIX
THE DRIVER PULLS INTO A PARKING space in front of a two-story Georgian house in a street of two-story houses, all with that well-preserved sheen of Southeast London. Even the ivy looks polished as it rambles over the wrought iron gates and tumbles artfully onto the sumptuous lawns. I always love coming to London—this is my tenth time or so. It’s so lush and refined compared to LA
“This it?” My brother Jack asks the driver, a burly Navy Seal type you definitely wouldn’t want to mess with who has barely uttered a word since he picked us up at Heathrow and not for lack of encouragement from me.
The driver gives us another of his curt nods which I take to mean yes. I jump out and wait for Jack and Mia at the open gate. We stand there, all three of us flight-weary and disorientated, watching the driver pull off.
“You still in, Felix?” Jack asks. “Last chance to bail.”
“Yep.” I scuff my shoes on the designer-looking gravel. “Let’s go check out this dump.”
I’m first to reach the glossy black front door and I read off the elegant calligraphy on the gleaming brass plaque. “‘Belgrave London Gentleman’s Club.’ Whoa.”
“I can’t believe they actually advertise that it’s men only.” Mia says, snapping a photo with her phone.
“Like it’s something to be proud of,” Jack says.
“Well you better scram, girl, before they throw you in a dungeon,” I say to Mia.
Jack frowns at me. “And you better button up that shirt, Felix. Why aren’t you wearing a tie?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” I shoot back.
Mia slides her arm around my brother’s waist. “Hey, you guys, I’m going to check out the Tate. The map says it’s within walking distance from here. God, I love Europe.”
Jack smooths his hand down her shoulder. “Okay, meet you back at the Radisson, babe. No telling how long this is going to take. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“More than.” She’s waving as she skitters off.
Jack’s still following her with his gaze, poor lost puppy that he is. She’s more than capable of looking after herself but his protectiveness is cute. Although I constantly tease him, I am envious of their steady relationship. The women I’ve tended to date don’t want much from me apart from dinner in a glitzy place and an energetic fuck thereafter and the feeling is mutual. Of the few who were more serious, they invariably started to try to “reform” me, usually around the same time I got introduced to their parents. It came in subtle, insidious ways, “oh, by the way, Felix, Peter-my-great-uncle is a CEO of blah-blah-blah who are looking for a good accountant,” or some such bullshit. I learnt to never hang around long enough for that to happen. If people can’t accept me for who I am then I can’t accept them in my life either.
Jack is frowning at the doorbell.
“You gonna press that,” I ask him, “or just stand there staring at it like it’s eye-ball activated?”
Jack punches the bell with his thumb. “Seriously, Felix, why does it always have to be me?”
We appear as two almost identical shimmering white-chested ghosts in the polished planes of the door, except his ghost is dark topped whereas mine is gold topped. I’m grinding my teeth.
Jack shoots me a bracing smile. He actually has a reason to be here, namely he can report on his business, his success, even if he’s scaled back everything now. At least he’s still successful as a creative and has something to show for his thirty-five years on the planet. I, on the other hand, can only boast of fleeting successes if you can call them that—big wins but also big losses. I’m pretty sure this British lot won’t want to hear about my poker prowess or my world class partying efforts.
Is my role here to be the joker? The symbol of disgrace? The example of what not to do when handed three million dollars on a silver platter? For the other guys to smugly tell me that I maybe shouldn’t have gambled it all away? I have a scathing speech prepared for them in that case, one in which I call them out for being the greatest gamblers of our time.
The only reason I agreed to come was because I was curious. Curious to finally meet the mysterious people that Egan, the leader, seems to have gathered around him. I thought it would be nice and casual, like a drink in a bar near the houses of Parliament. Somewhere I could escape from if it got too stuffy. But no. Egan’s got us cooped up here in this gentleman’s club. He doesn’t even want us to carry cellphones into the meeting for fear of…well, what I don’t know. It’s all very high intrigue and I suspect someone’s been watching too much James Bond or Jason Bourne.
The door ekes open with an impressive squeak. A dumpy, bespectacled mid-fifties man in a mohair, beige cardigan nods and says, “The Palmers?”
“That’s us,” I say cheerfully, extending a hand for him to shake. He recoils in surprise but takes my hand limply in his cool papery one. “Follow me.”
Jack and I shrug at each other. I let him go first as we traipse after the man down a thickly carpeted hallway that feels so wrong to be sullying with outdoor shoes. Our pace is too fast to take in the décor as much as I’d like to. It’s very olde-worlde England with ornate plasterwork on the ceilings, sumptuous crimson drapes, beige and silver stripes and duck-egg blues on the walls.
We descend stairs and into a long, slightly crooked, underground corridor. The even numbers are displayed on the left in tasteful, gold calligraphy, odd ones on the right.
“It’s not number seventeen by any chance?” I ask the man. My unlucky number.
“No.”
“Get over that,” Jack says under his breath.
“Just making conversation,” I say.
“Here we go,” says the man, whom I’m calling “George” seeing as he hasn’t introduced himself and he looks like a George.
Suddenly self-conscious, Jack and I hover at each side of the doorway and peer in to the brightly-lit conference room. The space is dominated by a large, oval conference table, around which five men sit, leaving two spaces vacant nearest the door. There’s a moment of utter stillness as ten eyes land on us. From the particular sheen of the light off the dark fabrics and the subtle scents of colognes, I sense a definite well-to-do-ness. It’s shockingly homogeneous—all guys, all our age, mid-thirties, fair to tanned skin-toned.
Egan, I recognize from eight years ago. He’s lost some of the youthfulness from his square-jawed face but retained all his insufferable air of authority. He’s the only one standing and has clearly just been speaking.
Paul, slumped in the chair beside him, is also recognizable from that one time, though his face is craggier than I remember it, and dark shadows bloom under his eyes. He’s not wearing a tie and his black button-down shirt is rolled up at the sleeves to reveal a medley of interlaced tattoos that are definitely way off the “business casual” dress code specified in the invitation. He looks more like your typical biker gang member whose mother forced him to put on a shirt. My grin widens.
The room suddenly explodes, chairs are pitched back, all men r
ising and speaking at once. I shake hands and get introduced to Paul (“nice to see you again”), Sean (“from Limerick”) and Liam (“also”)—Irishmen who turn out to be brothers too, though not twins like us, and a Hispanic guy, Axel (“so pleased to meet you”) whose quick grin and ironic tone make me feel I’ve found a kindred spirit.
“No phones, gentlemen?” Egan asks.
“We followed instructions,” Jack says. Only I can hear the subtle irritation in his tone. It’s fun to see my two-minute older twin dealing with someone bossier than himself. It doesn’t happen too often.
“Why the precaution?” I ask Egan.
“GPS triangulation,” Paul answers for him.
“Right,” I say, like that explained it.
“We can start.” Egan gives a distinctly obey-me-or-else smile and points to the table. The chatter dies and the only sound is the whump of expensively-clad asses dropping onto seats
“Thank you all for coming. I’ll be brief,” Egan says, eyeing each of us in turn. “Current cryptocurrency market capitalization is five hundred billion dollars. Between us, we own 50 billion of that. So, one tenth.”
I lurch forward grabbing the edge of the table for support. Fifty freaking billion dollars?
I twist my head to Jack. His chest’s all puffed up because he’s inhaled but forgotten to exhale. Oh yeah, breathing. I forgot that too.
“If we were just one individual,” Egan continues, “we’d slot in at number eleven on the richest people lists, but because we’re not, and because it’s Bitcoin, we’re not famous at all. We’re not even known. And we want to keep it that way. In our anonymity, we have the freedom to influence the price as we see fit and like no other single investor group can do and at the same time keep unwanted attention away.
“Paul here has done all your trading for you since 2008, slaving tirelessly to keep our trade action profitable and anonymous. Even if some of you have drawn attention to yourselves by cashing out to US dollars,”—here he glances at Jack, me, and Axel.
I swallow. I’m nowhere near ready to respond because that figure of fifty billion dollars has eaten up major sections of my brain, sections needed for speech and language processing and other basic functions besides.
“Every day, Paul builds on this investment. Whether the market goes up or down, we have trading algorithms in place to benefit. Today you will be choosing whether to stay in the group committed to this growth and this anonymity, or to take a cut and move on without us.”
He pauses for a quick breath. “Many investors would love to get rid of us. And the feeling’s mutual. But, as far as I know, none of them plan to put their money to good use.”
He lets that hang there. I badly want to ask, “and you do?” but my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth and he’s already talking again.
“Our goal as the Bitcoin Billionaires is first and foremost survival in the market at a time when everyone is trying to figure out who we are and root us out. The next is market stability—we shoot down anyone else’s attempts to crash the market because that will do nobody any good. Any profits we make will go to special projects, run by Liam here.”
He points to the more tanned of the two Irish brothers who gives a curt nod. This Irish pair are not the smiling Guinness-guzzling redheads propping up the bar that you see in the commercials. They’re well-built, intense looking. Probably teetotalers.
“Liam’s organization helps people when there’s been a miscarriage of justice, those cases in which the government is too slow or unwilling or unable to react. He helps whistleblowers and journalists. This is no fluffy Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. We work strictly in the background. We use our own moral judgement and we answer to nobody.
“To be a part of our group going forward you shall agree to abiding by my rules and to Paul continuing to manage your Bitcoin.”
More shifting around the table. Guess I’m not the only ones who finds his bossy tone grating. In fact, all these men look like they’re more used to being the boss.
“Egan,” I say into the silence, and all six heads swivel to stare at me. “Look man, much as I appreciate all these ambitious plans, I don’t see how I can be part of it. See, not to point out the obvious here, but I blew my investment. It’s kind of…gone.”
Egan’s smile tightens as if there’s something blindingly obvious I’m missing. “Paul?”
Paul clears his throat, sitting forward. “Yeah, you gambled away the three million we actually told you about. But your initial investment of five hundred dollars turned into somewhat more, so you’re definitely still part of this if you choose to be.”
“Somewhat more?” I ask.
“Closer to half a billion.”
There’s that word again. Billion. Do they know how much that is? The combined pots of the world’s poker tournaments don’t even amount to that. It takes huge companies years to reach that level of valuation. And somehow, I own half a billion?
The years flash before my eyes—some of them poverty-stricken and guilt-ridden when Jack had to bail me out after I lost bad on a poker game. If I’d known this all along…
“In dollars?” I ask, “not some worthless shitcoin?”
Jack nudges my ankle under the table.
Paul grins. “Yes. And if you’re wondering how I did it, let’s just say we had early mover advantages. Many coins—not Bitcoin, but the smaller coins—had hundred-fold returns if you knew what you were doing—and I did. It’s not so easy now, of course, with the market reaching maturity, but there are still tricks I can use to keep us growing.”
I bob my head at Paul. I guess that explained it.
“Show of hands, who’s in?” Egan asks, looking around. Amazingly, everyone else at the table seems to be finding this decision easy, raising their hands like he’s asking who wants to go for a picnic in Hyde Park this afternoon. Jack, in fairness, hesitates, but then lifts his paw too.
When Egan’s eyes land on me, I sigh. Part of me wants to run, far, far away from these crazies. I’ve seen what winning big can do to people, especially people who take themselves too seriously. There’s no way these people can be normal if they control that amount of money. And these guys definitely take themselves too seriously.
On the other hand, only for Paul and Egan, I wouldn’t have had the lifestyle I enjoyed in my late twenties and early thirties. Three million may only be a fraction of the half billion generated from my seed money, but it’s still three fucking million that was handed to me when I badly needed it, and I had a ride.
And on the third hand, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. I just can’t see this lot letting me walk free. Nope. They’d just as soon become my enemy and that wouldn’t be good. It’s better to be on the friendly side of powerful people. Gain their confidence. Be in the know. That’s another life lesson I’ve learned in the world poker school of hard knocks.
I slowly raise my hand.
“Good. And Felix, I have a special role for you.”
“Me?”
“Jack told me about a PI tailing him while on set with his last movie? Cara Cole? Ring any bells?”
I shrug. “The name’s vaguely familiar.”
“She’s not government, SEC or IRS. I’ve just figured out that she’s working for some other Bitcoin whale who’s trying to manipulate the market against us, and I mean specifically us. They’re former hedge-fund traders that we’ve been watching for some time who’ve got into futures contracts.” His jaw tightens. “These people are ruthless. They’ve swung the market against us more than once. I will not have that. We need to know who they are and what prices they’re trying to get next, and when, so we can stamp on them.”
I smirk, “Yeah, that would be handy.” Geez, does this guy really think he can eliminate the competition? Cos I’ve got news for him.
“The twist is, Cara Cole already seems to think our group is actually you, working alone.”
“Me?” I splutter. “Whoa, whoa, now hang on a minute—”
>
“She believes poker’s just your way of throwing people off the scent. That you play poker badly to lull your enemies into a false sense of security.”
Ouch.
“And she’s already been following you for weeks. As you may have guessed.”
I laugh. “No-one’s following me. I’d know.”
Egan takes a step toward me. “She knows where you go, what you win, what you lose, whom you sleep with, and what you eat for breakfast afterward.”
“At least there’s no dirt on me there,” I say. “All my ladies are of legal age, consensual, and no money changes hands. And I don’t do breakfast afterward.”
My joke doesn’t seem to register with Egan. “You keep playing. Enter all the tournaments as you normally would. Ramp up your schedule. We’ll provide you with the necessary budget.”
I dart a look at Jack. I know what he’s thinking. That Egan wouldn’t sound out of place in Godfather III. Jack always thinks in movies. He’s probably also thinking that Egan is enabling my bad behavior with a proposal like this. It’s no secret that Jack would love me to give up the gambling lifestyle.
“I can live with that,” I say. The budget part especially.”
“Most importantly,” Egan pauses for dramatic effect. “Gain her confidence. Find out the motivations of the whale she’s working for. Use your charm, your assets—you know what I’m talking about.”
Why do I get the feeling he’s turning me into honey trap? Oh yeah, because that’s exactly what he’s doing.
“I’ll need a lambo.” I say.
Egan’s eyes narrow. “What?”
“A Lamborghini. I can’t be a crypto asshole without one. Come on, Egan, it’s a trope.”
There are muted snickers around the table. Guess those Irishmen aren’t as dour as they look after all.
Egan exhales a long breath.
“Blue,” I add. “I want it metallic blue. With tan leather interior finishing and hazelnut—”
“Good God, I’ll give you my assistant’s details. He’ll sort all that out with you.”
