Is he a bad guy though?
— The Claire Of Éclairs
I found Terry Ellis at the library.
Anyplace with books about Bitcoin was a place to look for marks. Who reads books about Bitcoin? Marks do.
Terry was reading several books, one of which was Internet Money.
He was sitting at a long table with a stack of paper spread way the hell out. I saw charts and graphs, and he was taking notes, using multiple colored pens, which made it clear he knew somethin' about somethin'.
I was just about to leave the library when Terry got up. He gathered his papers and walked to a room at the back of the second floor. I stood in the hall and listened for a bit, as he led what turned out to be a creative writers' group.
I sent Claire to join them, the next week.
"His name is Terry, and he wasn't wearing a ring. Say you're a writer but you're just there to check out the group, to see if it's something you'd be interested in, blah blah drinks, blah blah hot tub."
"Is he a bad guy though?"
Why would Claire ask a question like that? They're all bad.
I said, "I have reason to believe he's sitting on over a million dollars in Bitcoin, so yeah, he's a mark."
"Oh, fuck."
One of Terry's papers had a QR code. I snapped a picture with my phone when he wasn't looking. I never use my phone for pictures of anything related to marks, but I made an exception because the library was too fucking quiet, even for a Polaroid.
My phone didn't take a picture though. Instead, it gave me a link to a Bitcoin wallet with over 50 Bitcoin. I thought, "Mega-MARK!!!" But I would later learn it wasn't his. It was an old lost wallet, which means it wasn't anyone's, anymore.
Fun fact: Over 20% of all Bitcoin have been lost, forever, because the owners lost their keys, or the owners died and didn't pass on their keys. So, maybe I'm preventing Bitcoin from being lost, by finding it and stealing it. Maybe I'm doing a public service.
Right?
I know, I know. That was a joke. Fuck you too.
I'm just saying, these idiots write their seed words down on paper and they think they're smart because they hide a fucking sticky note under a mousepad? Are you kidding me? One clown hid his under his mattress. Talk about cliche. I had to slither under the bed with a camera and a flashlight to get that pic. Oof.
It was a sunny Saturday afternoon when Claire finally got Terry back to our place. I made sure the garage door was open. I'd never spied on Claire while she was doing her thing, but I couldn't help being curious after her comment about Terry being a good guy. Was she really committed to this job?
Once I snapped a picture of Terry's driver's license and made a copy of everything on his keychain, I snuck out the back door and sat in the shade by the side of the house, where I could hear their conversation. I got there right as Claire was asking him about his work.
"So, you're a writer," Claire said.
"I am, but really, I'm more of a teacher."
"Oh?"
"I'm an adjunct professor at Indiana University, and I freelance for a publishing house. I like to read, and I'm good at finding young talent, y'know? Basically, I go through tons of manuscripts, looking for potential diamonds in the slush pile. Sometimes, I help clean 'em up."
"Manuscripts?"
"Novels, screenplays, short stories. That sort of thing."
"When you write, what do you write about?"
"Honestly? I write what I know. That's what I teach my students to do, too. Everybody's got a story. You probably do interesting things all the time. I'm sure you've got stories to tell."
Oh, Terry. If only he knew.
"And you're an investor?" Claire asked.
"Me? No. I mean, I know I should, but I'm not there yet. Why?"
"At the writers' group, you were talking to that one guy about crypto stuff."
"Oh, that. Yeah, he submitted an article about surviving a financial collapse. Parts of it were good, but a lot of it went over my head. I spent quite a bit of time trying to decipher it, but the more I read, the less I understood. He's brilliant, though."
I was impressed. Claire was good at steering the conversation, weaving Terry in and out of topics to see if he was worth the effort. And she'd just realized he wasn't.
"Oh, shoot. Can you hang on a sec, Terry? I almost forgot, my sister's coming over for breakfast tomorrow. I need her to pick up something from the bakery."
Then the text came:
"Butterless Bagels. No cheese. No Tapenade."
Anything from the bakery means it's a bust. No Cheese was obvious. No Tapenade was pure WTF. Whatever.
Then, I heard her say, "Irish coffee has alcohol in it, right?"
"Whiskey, usually."
"Great. I'll tell her to bring some."
"Whiskey too."
And alcohol was the code for All Cool. We were done for the night.
The system had quirks, but the system worked. Mostly.
"And what about you," Terry asked. "You came to the writers' group. Are you working on anything?"
"Oh, uhm, I don't know if I should say. It'll sound stupid."
"Go for it."
"It's the story of... a former prostitute... who starts a bakery. The story is called... Éclairs."
Oh, guuurl.
With that, I left, because I knew we were done. I figured she'd wrap it up soon. He wasn't a mark.
An hour later, while I was organizing my workshop, which was still mostly just a desk and a beat-up file cabinet... Claire came downstairs to deliver the news I already knew.
"So, that was a bust," she said. "I could try with another guy next week though. He mentioned somebody else from his writers' group when I asked about crypto stuff. I know who he means. I think his name is Lance."
"Lance? Who the fuck does that to a kid?"
"I know, right? It's a bad name, but it's also a rich tech-bro name. It could be worth a shot."
Our hit rate with marks was surprisingly good. Almost half of them had Bitcoin, but most only had a few thousand dollars worth. Every now and then, though, we'd hit a big fish worth a hundred thousand or more. So, we kept fishing. My Bitcoin wallet was worth well over a million dollars, but I never told Claire. Instead, I split coins between multiple wallets, so I'd have something to show her if she asked, but really, as long as the cash kept coming in, she was glad to be living the easy life.
She'd gone from living in her car and working the streets, to living in a house, rent-free. And instead of fucking guys for money, she was going out for drinks and spending a few hours in a hot tub, a few nights a week. She was getting good at finding potential marks, too.
"So, listen," I said. "I've been thinking about refining our method. This is working, and it's great. We're getting better and better at it, but I feel like we're missing something bigger."
"Bigger?"
"It's like we're at the ocean and we're wasting our time with too many shrimp. Shrimps? Whatever. I wanna harpoon a whale."
"Do you have a plan, or are you just thinking out loud here?"
"I don't know."
"Sounds like you need food for thought. I'm gonna do a pizza run."
"Hell yeah. Pepperoni. None of that veggie shit."
"Yeah, I figured. Can I borrow your car?"
"What's up with yours?"
"I gotta take it to the shop. I meant to yesterday, but I'm a little light on cash."
Subtlety is dead. But I got the hint. Her car was shit.
"Y'know what, Claire? Guys can't be seeing you show up in a rust bucket. Let's get you an upgrade this weekend, yeah?"
"Thanks, Shay. Need me to pick up anything while I'm out? Or just pizza."
"What I need is an idea. I mean, what we're doing works, but I want more."
I hated feeling like I was stumped, but defining a problem is always the best place to start looking for a solution.
Where do you find bigger fish in Garyfuckingindiana?
Editor's Note:
The book is actually titled The Internet of Money by Andreas M. Antonopoulos. It is a three-volume series, and each volume is very highly recommended for anyone interested in the philosophy and mechanics of Bitcoin.
Terry was reading "The Five Pillars of Open Blockchain," an essay from Volume Two. It explains the principles that make Bitcoin resilient and trustworthy: openness, public verification, neutrality, borderless operation, and resistance to censorship.