And Herein Lies the Gold

Jacob French did the financial work. But no one did any of the work without Big Sal being close by. And especially the money side of things.

“How is the transfers going, Jacob?”

“Gorko wants to place some of the digital information. He doesn’t want to sell on the general market.”

“That must mean Gorko knows this guy has more money than we thought he had.” Her heart was flush with the news.

“Yes, Sally, it’s exactly that. That man is worth over $30 million. So, it’s going to take time the way Gorko wants to work it. Piecemeal.”

“No, that ain’t gonna work Jacob. I don’t want to flush more than we have to, but this has got away from us a little.”

“What do you mean?” Jacob was giving her a look no one else could.

“That very millionaire got away from us. If you were here more often, then you woulda heard the noise.” The insinuation was clear, and irresponsible.

“Wait a minute, Sally. I don’t work here… for you. Right? I’m an independent contractor that brought you fantastic resources. You have the product, shall we say, and a delivery system, but I use my resources…” and for emphasis, repeated, “… my resources to liquidate what we can, sell digital signatures and profiles and access, and release to that unique market where buyers keep picking over a very long haul, paying you and me all the while. Not to mention identifying and hacking into his pools of cash. And Gorko is my resource in Turkey to help us complete the worst of it. Don’t forget! You got anybody in Turkey?”

Big Sal was rolling her eyes and her hand in theatric reflection, nodding her head in trite impatience because she had heard it many times before. “I know all this, Jacob, but I don’t see you leaving me and my girls, do I? The spiffs you get here with my girls…” in contemptuous mockery, she replicated the man’s words, “…my resources! So, let’s check our nuts at the door going forward and you and I can be arms-length business associates, and you can be an independent contractor.” She finished with her hands on her hips and her lips about 18 inches away from the financial wizard’s face.

Jacob was a feeble creation since birth, and all his bullied life he admired the beauty of womanhood; and while his timorous corporeal make-up made him a laughing stock to most beautiful women – the others never had the chance to know him – he still had a planet-sized libido. It grew severe enough that he contemplated kidnapping and murder as a last resort to getting what he needed – what he wanted. But hookers finally answered that need and kept him out of prison or the early grave. His own technological prowess made him a platinum rated IT guy, and he started taking advisement work… until he got a call from Big Sally Burroughs… and a match was made in purgatory. Five years running, Jacob would hash out her victim’s assets after Jack, Cecily and Clarence vetted them as The Zanzibar Club material. Jack’s people would pass along the target’s information; the Hopscotch drive to the whorehouse would follow, and if the guys’ assets were substantial enough, their fates were sealed. Their assets would be stolen and or sold to the black market for chronic exploitation, leaving a fare residual dripping into encrypted accounts in the Virgin Islands. It was magical, and mostly Jacob’s divine creation. Big Sal just provided the beautiful women and the dirty bulk work that disposed of the empty vessels off lone dusty roads into the nowhere of the desert.

Then Jacob would retreat from existence in all the technological resources they exploited using encrypted virtual private networks. Being that there were hundreds-of-thousands of miscreants doing the same, the authorities would be searching in a cane field for that one bit of cane that was perpetrating more than just costly mischief but real full-fledged crime… in a swamp of criminal cane. Soon, those victim’s stories would sit in FBI files with no real humans they could connect to the thievery, or the ongoing exploitation, with only a cliché bit of bad news offered, “You’ve been hacked. All your shit is gone.”

You could say Jacob did it for the money, but he didn’t. He did it for the pussy, and he made no distinction between those on this or that side of a street, railroad tracks or murder.

“So what are you telling me, Sally?”

“I’m telling you to get Gorko to take it all down for one price, I don’t care. 10%, 15%, whatever you think you can get done with him, because we have the Pahrump Sheriff’s Office already interviewing us, and the millionaire is nowhere. Leonard and his guys have been searching the desert. Can’t find him.”

“That’s not fucking good, Sally. You know what that could mean?”

“Of course I know what that means. So we have to get our noses out of that Yankovich’s shit. Will Gorko do that?”

He was shaking his head in poor estimation, “He won’t like it. Like you’re giving him an FBI agent in the deal.”

“Goddammit, Jacob, no one likes it. Who would? But we still have to set things right or we’re all on the run. You don’t get freebies and I lose the everything I've created here.”

Big Sal was groaning inside; she hated the taciturn nature of the skinny runt, as valuable as he was, while he rode riot in his arrogance because of his technical gifts. She’d love to haul off on him with Leonard’s mallet!

“I’ll call Gorko. See what I can do.”

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