Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Thirty-Four

Sandy Lipton, retired hedge-fund guy, might not have been the richest man in Paradise, Mass. But Jesse knew that Sandy at least had to be in the conversation.

But what set him apart from the others, at least in Jesse’s mind, was that he was far and away the richest guy in town who Jesse liked this much.

He had cashed out of his fund a few years earlier, before COVID. Now all he wanted to do was have fun, travel the world with his wife, Rose, before the next goddamn variant came along, and play enough golf to finally lower his handicap. It was an endless mystery to Jesse, the fascination guys like Sandy Lipton had with a sport that had them all talking as much as they did about handicaps. There it was, anyway.

They met in the dining room at Paradise Country Club, still flying the flag in front of the clubhouse at half-mast in Charlie Farrell’s honor.

Sandy was waiting for Jesse at a table overlooking the eighteenth green. He was around sixty, curly hair still more brown than gray, wire-rimmed glasses. Smiling. But then he was almost always smiling. He had once told Jesse that while it was true that money might not buy happiness, it could sure as blue-chip stocks put down a sizable down payment.

“Still playing a lot of golf?” Jesse said after he had sat down and the waitress had taken their orders for iced tea, Sandy’s with lemonade.

“Only when it’s light out,” Sandy said.

When they’d set up the lunch, Jesse had explained to Sandy that his sudden interest in crypto and Bitcoin and NFTs was because of what he’d discovered on Charlie’s laptop, and could think of no better person to ask.

“You blowing smoke up my ass?” Sandy said.

“Totally.”

“Never hoits,” Sandy said.

He ate some of a breadstick. “Sounds like you don’t have much to go on, other than websites and supposition. Like blue smoke and mirrors.”

“And scam calls making Charlie as angry as I’d ever seen him.”

“You obviously believe the two might be connected.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily bet on that yet,” Jesse said. “My old man always told me never to bet the way you’re rooting.”

“Happens to me all the time on the golf course,” Sandy said.

“Charlie was looking into crypto, something I would have bet he’d previously had zero interest in,” Jesse said. “And I know he was trying to track those calls. It’s not a great leap to think that whatever he found out poked a bear. And then had somebody go after his grandson after Charlie was gone.”

“You think it’s the same person?”

“You’re an analytics guy,” Jesse said. “What do you think?”

“I agree with you,” Sandy said. “I think maybe a nice old man somehow got sideways with bad men.”

“Tell me about crypto.”

“Invisible money that’s real, if you can wrap your mind around a concept like that,” Sandy said. “But it’s like crack to bad guys, to the point where they probably wish they’d invented it themselves. Put it this way: If you’ve stolen something of value, converting it to crypto not only keeps your profit safe, it makes it undetectable to the government.”

Jesse told Sandy Lipton that all he really knew about it came from the brief crash course Nicholas Farrell had given him.

“Sounds to me,” Jesse said, “as if crypto and all that other shit is a way for bad guys to launder money without going through the process to do it the old-fashioned way.”

Sandy gave Jesse a crisp two-fingered salute.

“Well done, soldier,” he said. He grinned. “I’m assuming you don’t want my tutorial to include digital wallets and the cloud and blockchains.”

“Not unless you want me to arrest you,” Jesse said.

Their club sandwiches arrived. When the waitress had walked away Sandy said, “The first crooks to embrace crypto were your basic drug dealers and porn dudes. People who really were used to being old-school money launderers, no matter how young they were. Move the money around, leave no tracks or fingerprints, everybody was living scummily ever after.”

“Sounds like the Wild West.”

“Before the sheriff showed up in town.”

“Meaning the government.”

“Realizing it still needs to build a better mousetrap for the rats,” Sandy said. “Listen to me: Crypto isn’t going away, even if the bubble seems to have burst for now. There’s still a war going on between good guys and bad guys over there on the dark side, with the good guys hoping the bad guys stay greedy, keep looking for creative ways to make the value of their ill-gotten gains go up while they wait for a market adjustment they know will come. Because trust me on this: Anybody who thinks that crypto ain’t gonna rise from the ashes again is bananas.”

He grinned again. “You following this?”

“Somewhat,” Jesse said.

“Bottom line?” Sandy said. “There’s a shitload of profit to be made if you can manage not to get caught. All you need is a computer and a low moral compass.”

“Could we be talking about enough money to kill over?” Jesse said.

“Everybody’s got a different price, Chief. Except you, pretty sure.”

Sandy Lipton talked more about crypto then, marveling at how it had gone from the dark web to television commercials with big stars doing them.

Finally the waitress brought Sandy the check, telling him there was no rush.

“You got a final piece of advice for me?” Jesse asked him.

“Yeah,” Sandy Lipton said. “Follow the funny money.”