Is he a bad guy though?
— The Claire Of Éclairs
Claire talked me into getting a library card. Actually, she told me I was getting a library card because it made no sense to buy books I wasn't going to read.
"Catch Me If You Can, Claire. The movie's great. I bet the book's better. It's practically my life story."
"Nobody wants to read your life story, Shay. Sorry."
"Fuck you."
What does she know.
Getting a library card was a good idea, though. People forget, libraries have more than just books. You can find all kinds of things there. I found a mark there.
His name was Elliott Edison, and he was at the Hammond Public Library reading a bunch of books, one of which was Internet Money.
I spotted him 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 about to call in Claire, to flirt with him, when he got up. He gathered his papers and headed for one of the meeting rooms at the back of the second floor. I stood nearby and listened for a bit, as he led what turned out to be a weekly creative writers' group.
I had her join them the next week.
"Say you want to be a writer and you're just there to check out the group. He wasn't wearing a ring, so... 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, "Listen, when I was scouting this guy? I saw a wallet worth over a million dollars."
"Oh, shit."
"Oh yeah."
One of Elliott'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 goddamn 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!!!"
Sadly, it wasn't his. It was a lost wallet, which means it wasn't anyone's, anymore.
Fun fact: Over 20% of all Bitcoin have been lost, forever. In some cases, the keys were lost. (P.S. Fuck you, Chad!) In other cases, the owners died without passing on their keys. So, maybe, by finding and stealing Bitcoin, I'm preventing coins from being lost. Maybe I'm doing a public service.
Right?
I know, I know. That's 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? Spill some coffee and it's fucked.
Anyway...
It was a sunny Saturday afternoon when Claire finally got Elliott back to our place. Early June. The weather was perfect.
I made sure the garage door was open, so I could sit outside and eavesdrop. I'd never spied on Claire while she was doing her thing, but I couldn't help being curious. Why'd she ask if he was a good guy? Was she really committed to this job?
Once I snapped a picture of Elliott'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."
"A publishing house?"
"Well, I like to read, and I'm good at finding young talent. 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."
"You write too, right? 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. Write what you know."
Oh, Elliott. If only he knew.
"And you're an investor?" Claire asked.
"Me? No. I know I should. Everybody should, right? 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 wanted feedback on an article he wrote about how to survive a financial apocalypse. Doomsday stuff. Parts of it were good, but some of it made my head spin. The more I read, the less I believed any of it. But, hey, what do I know? I teach creative writing, not economics."
I was impressed. Claire was good at steering the conversation, weaving a mark 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, Elliott? 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 meant 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."
Alcohol was the code for All Cool, which meant we were done.
The system had quirks, but the system worked. Mostly.
"And what about you, Claire," Elliott 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.
"But really," she said, "it's a metaphor for... spiritual nourishment and... philosophical growth."
"That sounds fascinating," Elliott said.
That sounded like bullshit. The pauses proved it was bullshit, but he bought it, so... good job, Claire.
I figured she'd wrap it up soon, so I left. This guy 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.
"That was a bust," she said.
"Did I hear you talking philosophy with him?"
"Hey, you're the one who wanted me to read about that stuff, to impress the marks. But yeah, it's fun to think about. And speakin' of thinkin', I think I'll go back to his writers' group. He mentioned somebody else who's into crypto. I'm pretty sure he was talking about a guy named Lance."
"Lance?! What kind of parent does that to a kid?"
"I know, right? It's a bad name, but it's a rich tech-bro name. Could be worth a shot. He's in the writer's group too."
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.
By this point, I had almost a million dollars worth of Bitcoin, but I never told Claire. No way. I split the coins between multiple wallets, just in case she asked to see anything. But as long as the cash kept coming in, she enjoyed living on easy street.
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. And she knew how to get them to feed her tons of personal details without realizing they were doing it.
We were both getting really good at this, and it was easy, but was also time consuming. All of the effort to get Elliott only led to another mark who might turn out to not be a mark at all. There had to be a better way. But how?
"So, Claire," I said. "Maybe it's time to think about refining our method. What we're doing definitely works. We're getting better and better at it, but it's so hit or miss. I feel like we're missing something."
"Missing something?"
"Something better. And bigger."
"Bigger?"
"It's like we're at the ocean and we're wasting our time with too many shrimp. I'm a shark! I wanna harpoon a whale."
"Sharks don't do that, Shay."
"You know what I'm saying."
"Do you have a plan, or are you just thinking out loud here?"
"I don't know."
"Well, it sounds like you need food for thought. I'm gonna do a pizza run."
"Hell yeah. Sausage and pepperoni. None of that veggie shit."
"Yeah yeah, I know. Nothing healthy, ever. Can I borrow your car?"
"What's the matter with yours?"
"I gotta take it to the shop. I wanted to yesterday, but I'm a little light on cash."
So much for subtlety. Her car was shit. I got the hint.
"Sure. And y'know what? You need something nicer to drive. Let's take care of that this weekend. Marks can't see Claire Jenkins showing up in a rust bucket. You're elegant, remember?"
"Fuckin' A, yeah I am, and don't you forget it!"
"Nice."
"Need me to pick up anything else while I'm out? Or just pizza."
"What I need is an idea. I'm stumped. Our system works, but I want more."
"In other words, you need pizza and a bottle of something wicked. Got it. Be back in a bit."
I hated feeling like I was stuck, but defining a problem is always the best place to start looking for a solution. Where's The Allegory when you need it? Quinn's almost-absinth was definitely wicked.
There had to be bigger fish, deeper in Chicagoland. Surely, there was a way to get 'em.
Editor's Note:
The book referred to here as "Internet Money" 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.
Elliott was reading an essay from Volume Two, titled The Five Pillars of Open Blockchain, which explains the principles that make Bitcoin resilient and trustworthy.
The five pillars are: openness, public verification, neutrality, borderless operation, and resistance to censorship.