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.
"C'mon, Claire. Catch Me If You Can. 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 with multiple colored pens, which made it clear he knew somethin' about somethin'.
I was about to call Claire, to have her come and flirt with him, but he got up. He gathered his papers and headed for one of the meeting rooms at the back of the second floor. I followed him and stood by the door to listen as he led what turned out to be a weekly creative writers' group.
I had Claire 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 she ask a question like that? They're all bad.
I said, "Listen, when I was scouting this guy? I saw a Bitcoin wallet worth over a million bucks."
"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 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, "This guy's a mega-mark!!!"
Sadly, the Bitcoin wasn't his. It was a lost wallet, which means it wasn't anyone's, anymore.
Fun fact: Over 10% of all Bitcoin have been lost, forever. In some cases, the keys were lost. ("Fuck you, Chad!") In other cases, the owners died without passing on their keys. So, maybe, by finding and stealing Bitcoin, I was preventing coins from being lost. Yes! I was 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 toast. Burnt toast. Or flooded toast, which is not a thing, but 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? Could I trust her to do her part of the job?
Once I snapped a picture of Elliott's driver's license and made a copy of all ten keys 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. When I got there, they were talking about philosophy, I think. Then, Claire asked 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."
Elliott, Elliott. If oh you 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."
"How did I now know that? 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 rope wrangler who... solves crimes and... runs a bakery. The story is called... Ensnared Éclairs."
Oh, guuurl.
"But really," she said, "it's a metaphor."
"That sounds fascinating," Elliott said.
That sounded like buuullshit, but he bought it. 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.
"He's a bagel," she said.
"Did I hear you talking philosophy?"
"Hey, you're the one who wanted me to read 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. He was there too."
"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."
Our hit rate with marks was surprisingly good. Small fries keep their coins on an exchange, like Coinbase, but we were targeting our marks. Around fifty percent of them owned enough Bitcoin to make it worth their effort to do self custody, which made it worth my effort to rob them.
So, even though I often found nothing, I also hit some big fish worth a hundred grand or more. So, Claire and I kept fishing.
By this point, I'd snatched almost a million dollars worth of Bitcoin, but I never told Claire. No way. I even set up a decoy wallet, just in case she asked to see something. 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 marks, too. And she knew how to get personal details from them while making it sound like casual conversation.
We were both getting really good at this, and it was easy, but took time. Elliott was a bust who led to another mark that might turn out to be another bust. There had to be a better way. But how?
I looked at Claire as she twirled her hair, and realized she was watching me.
"The only time you're quiet is when you're thinking," she said. "What's the thought?"
"Maybe it's time to think about refining our method. I feel like we're missing something."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Something better. And bigger."
"Bigger?"
"It's like we're at the ocean. Why are we wasting our time on so many shrimp? I'm a shark! I wanna harpoon a whale!"
"Sharks don't do that."
"They do something! They're vicious."
"You just thinking out loud here? Or does this talk about sharks and whales mean your making changes?"
"For now, I'm just thinking."
"Y'know what you need? Food for thought. How about if I do a pizza run? That place you like doesn't deliver."
"Needza Pizza! Hell yeah. Get the meat lover's. None of that veggie shit."
"Yeah yeah. Nothing healthy, ever. Can I use 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, but I got the hint.
"Claire, you need Jesus."
"Hold up. Since when are you religious?"
"What the hell?! I'm talking about Jesus Alonzo. He runs a chop shop over in Westside. Bro can fix anything."
"His name is pronounced Hay-Sus, Shay. Jesus."
"Whatever! Take my car. We'll take care of yours tomorrow."
"Thanks. Need me to pick up anything else while I'm out? Or just pizza."
"I need an idea. I'm stumped. Our way works, but I want more."
"Gotcha. You need an extra greasy pizza and a bottle of something wicked. Be back in a bit."
I hated feeling like I was stuck, but you have to spot a problem before you can find a solution. Where's The Allegory when you need it? Quinn's almost-absinth was extra wicked.
And where were the bigger fish? Surely, they were deeper in Chicagoland. I knew there had to be a better 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.