NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Nadia Brazov and Max Plank sit across from me on the banket at the H-Bar.
The late afternoon sun shines through the bay window. Through that tiny gap between the top of the tree line and the bottom of the awning outside.
Nadia sips her wine and squints, turning to me.
“I always had my doubts about the law, in this country.”
“Being an activist, I am not surprised!”
“Too much depends on who you are.”
“So true, Nadia, you often get the justice you can afford.”
Max leans forward.
“Sometimes we have to pay for our rights.”
“Yeah, not in patriot’s gory glorious blood but in cash!”
“It varies, from state to state.”
“Fred, Sherman once pointed out the law is written but justice must be done.”
“You mean it’s a perception thing, Max?”
Max picks up his glass to catch the last drop of grape, which is too small to reach his mouth, and spreads across the slope inside his glass, exhausted.
“Yup, much of a lawyer’s work is weaseling around the writing.”
“There is also jury selection.”
“Yeah Nadia, and PR.”
Max holds out his glass. Tipping it toward the tabletop.
The waiter notices Max’s empty glass. He picks up the empty bottle.
“Another one sir?”
“Sure!”
The waiter takes our empty glasses and the bottle.
“Most cases are settled by plea deals; a lot of court cases go unnoticed but in the big cases use all means necessary to make the point.”
“Well, Fred my case is small, but a big deal to me.”
“See, we are back to, who you are!”
“I had a vain hope the law would protect us!”
“I would like to think it still could, though.”
Our waiter returns with a new bottle of Brunello, clean glasses, and puts down a big bowl of chips.
“On the house sir.”
Max looks up at him while Nadia pours.
“Thanks, buddy!’
We all pick up chips and chew the thirsty, salty mix.
Nadia speaks through her crunch.
“We are being attacked!”
“I thought Sherman Shroud had fixed you up.”
“So did we, but now there is more.”
“What?”
“Yes!”
Max pulls the top of his shaggy gray and white flecked sweater down over the collar of his shirt.
“It is too complicated and technical to explain, but Sherman says they want to go to court, and they won’t give up until we get there.”
“Who is after you now?”
“Day and Knight are litigating.”
“How did those barracudas get involved?”
“I don’t know who has hired them.”
“That has to be divulged.”
“Oh sure, but it is just a front, called IBI.”
Nadia is shading her eyes as the last sunbeams stream in from above the tree line.
“That stands for International Business Interests LLC., by the way.”
Nadia takes a gulp of wine and refills.
“Branch offices all over the world, no doubt.”
“You better check out your enemies, Max.”
“There are a few people out there still sore at me, Fred.”
“They must be big to pay Knight and Day’s outlandish fees.”
“They got around Sherman’s maneuvering, and he is the best around here.”
Max tugs his gray sweater again.
“Yeah,
“You sold your company, didn’t you?”
“Yup, a very nice deal.”
“So, what are they after?”
“Crypto!”
“Oh, what have you got to do with that stuff?”
“Good question, Fred. I have been into it from the beginning.”
“Well! Who da thought it! builder-Max has gone crypto!”
“Yeah, I got hacked about a year ago, too.”
Nadia yanks on his sweater.
“More like two years, now.”
“Right, it was early in 2020”
“You mean they got your codes?”
“No, they got some kind of evidence of my holdings that’s all.”
“Well good luck, FTX collapsed. Is there anything left?”
“Sure, Bitcoin is still well over $16 K.”
“Is it really?”
Nadia gulps some more wine. Stands and takes off her dark brown shearling coat. Folding it over and puts it on the seat next to Max.
“Well, that is the last time I looked, which was the twenty-second, I think!”
She walks over to the bar in her high felt lace-up boots with fitting jeans tucked into the tops. Max rubs the back of his head.
“I don’t watch the price much, too distracting.”
“Too dodgy for me!”
“FTX was an exchange, Fred. I have no connection with it.”
“Well, Max, what got you into speculating on Crypto?”
“It was Jake Trip.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“He is into a lot of stuff. I don’t know if he sold out or what.”
“You mean Jake advised you on it.”
Nadia is back sitting in a vacant chair, next to me. Her coat has taken her place next to Max on the banket. She swigs some more Brunello.
“No, he ended up paying me for my work on his house with crypto.”
“Yeah, and you thought you were getting gypped!”
“Sure did, Nadia.”
Nadia is crunching chips by the handful.
“What was it worth when he paid you?”
“Oh, Bitcoins were about a thousand bucks a piece, I think.”
“He must have paid you a bundle of them!”
“I wish!”
“So, he underpaid you.”
“At that time, he underpaid me by about ninety percent.”
“You might have gone after him for that.”
“I thought about it but, didn’t.”
“He figured it would cost more to sue than he could get back.”
“Yeah Nadia, Jake was in a bad patch at that time. I was willing to give him a break.”
Nadia has relaxed in the shade of the darkening room. The house lights come on.
“Those coins were worth about $65 K, a year ago and I sold a few.”
“Maybe they will go up again!”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“You see Fred, I think Day and Knight are trying to squeeze him to sell the rest.”
“No Nadia, they are going to want me to hand them over.”
“You mean they believe the coins will go up again?”
“Who knows what those people believe.”
“So why are they after you?”
“Who knows?”
“Well, there is a cap of 21 million coins that can be mined.”
“Okay, I remember now. They were supposed to be like gold. Holding value through scarcity.”
“That’s it. Their blockchain only goes so far.”
“What is a blockchain, anyway?”
“Fred, Sherman explained it as a mathematical organism.”
“And what did that tell you, Nadia?”
“Its life is constantly recalculating every transaction in every block in the chain.”
“Okay, so that’s why it eats up so much power.”
“Right, the more coins there are the more blocks there are to work through.”
“Well, I still don’t get it.”
“No Fred, it is all complex math. That is all I can say because that is all Sherman said.”
“How far has it got to go before they do the last one?”
Max eats the last of the chips.
“I think about 90% have been mined so far. Big computer farms are working on it. That is a huge investment of real money.”
“Those people think there is something to it, then.”
“They could be disappointed!”
“Yes, they might.”
“You know what Lou told me?”
“What, Max?”
“I never said this, okay?”
“My God! okay.”
The waiter returns with a plate of sandwiches. We clear a space on the small table and pick up our glasses. He places them carefully in front of us, leaving no room for the glasses in our hands.
Then he removes the empty chip bowl.
“Your order Ma’am, ham, and cheese on sourdough and roast beef on rye.”
Max looks up, with a sourdough ham and cheese in his free hand.
“Thanks, buddy.”
“Lou thinks the whole Bitcoin thing is an intelligence operation.”
He takes a bite and a swig.
“I think Lou is a freelance intelligence operative.”
“Lou has a lot of interesting sources.”
“The idea has been growing on me for years.”
“Why?”
“I have built a lot of houses around here for people with interesting connections and lots of money.”
“I get it.”
“How about that! Satoshi Nakamoto might be a team at the CIA!”
“Or FSB or, pick your acronym!”
Nadia pushes back her thick black hair. The thin grey streak is still prominent.
“It would be a slick way to know who has hidden money.”
“You want a sandwich, Fred?”
“No thanks, my stomach won’t take kindly to it.”
“You know that thing could be a source of all kinds of power!”
“Maybe a foreign government is after you.”
“Yeah, Fred comingled with organized crime, I’ll bet.”
Nadia is nodding slowly.
“That is Day and Knight!”
“I mean, who knows where Jake got his coins from?”
“Macadamia is mixed up in this somewhere.”
“I heard Jake snuggled up to Mac, years ago.”
“Fred, Mac bailed him out, you know.”
“That’s right, I remember hearing that too.
“He has a long history of business in Russia.”
“I often wonder how much money Mac really has.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, he may just sit on top of a huge debt pyramid.”
“Like the person who keeps getting new credit cards to pay off the old ones!”
“Right, he’s got a Saudi card and a Russia card, a real-estate card, and a whole bunch of other cards.”
“Well, he sure knows how to play them!”
