Page 54 of Conning the Billionaire
Micah tilted his head and nodded. “Yeah, okay. Look, I’ve already deposited money in a bank account for you. Move money from that account to another of your bank accounts.”
Kylie flipped her hands in the air, exasperated. “I’m poor, Micah. I don’t have ‘other bank accounts.’ I don’t have any bank account because they all want ID and will slap you with fees if you don’t keep at least a hundred dollars in your account. A lot of times, I don’t have a hundred dollars lying around to just sit in the bank. I cash my paltry paycheck from the Tropicana at one of those payday loan places that takes a cut of the amount. Most of my pay from my waitressing job is in tips, so that’s cash. But the IRS takes taxes out of my paycheck based on a percentage of how much food I serve and therefore what my tips must be, whether the customers give me that much or not. Sometimes my ‘paycheck’ is only five bucks. I make sure the marks give me cash so they can’t stop the check or suck the money back out of my account with an app or something, but Salvatore Grande’s operation gets a percentage of that. I pay my rent with cash because my landlord is cheating on his taxes, but he still hikes the rent every chance he gets. Everybody wants a piece of me, you know? It costs a lot to be poor in America.”
Micah walked over and sat on the bed beside her. “I can get the money for you in cash.”
Kylie scoffed at him, “You’re going to give me five hundred large in cash. You gonna buy me a Louis Vuitton suitcase to carry it around in, too? Or a forklift?”
Micah chuckled. “In C-notes, half a million dollars will only weigh slightly over ten pounds. You’ll just need a carry-on bag.”
“You sure know a lot about how much large sums of cash weigh for a guy who isn’t a criminal.”
“I’ll show you how to close out that account at Banque Ammann and wire the money back to me, and I’ll give you half a million dollars in cash.”
“You must be out of your frickin’ mind.”
“It might be easier to do a buck twenty-five per week.”
Kylie crossed her arms and stared at the door. “Just like a shoobie, thinking I have someplace to stash half a million dollars.”
He frowned, but he was smiling, too. “Okay, I know what a benny is, meaning a New Yorker who comes to New Jersey from the acronym from the first few stops on the train line that runs from New York down the shore—Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark, and New York—but what the hell is a shoobie?”
Kylie shrugged. “Tourists from Philadelphia who rode the train across Jersey to go down the shore for the last hundred years. They all brought their lunch in a shoebox. So, shoobie.”
“I’m not from Philadelphia,” Micah said.
Wow. Information. He must have slipped. “Evidently not if you’re going after Salvador Grande. Anyone local would know better than that.”
“The main question is, are you in, or are you out?” Micah asked.
What the frickin’ hell. “This goes against my better judgment, Micah Shine, but if you can pony up a buck twenty-five per week in cash, I’m in for all that we negotiated before.”
“Excellent.”
“But I want to see that first hundred and twenty-five large before I do a damn thing.”
“I’ll have the first installment soon.”
“And it better not be counterfeit.”
If she survived Micah’s scheme, five hundred thousand dollars would get her far away from Salvatore Grande to someplace where she could start a new life and look for her little sister.
If she didn’t gamble on this, Kylie would be trapped under Salvatore Grande’s thumb in Atlantic City forever.
It was worth the risk.
“So, what’s our next move?” she asked.
“How do you pass your contributions to Salvatore Grande?” Micah asked her.
Kylie shrugged. “I usually meet him at Mass in Philly on Sunday mornings and slip him an envelope. I didn’t meet my girls last night to know what their take for the week is. We usually meet on Saturday nights at two o’clock to discuss, but I texted them last night so they’d know I wasn’t coming. If I’m going to Mass, I’d better get moving and have some money to give him.”
“You said before that you’d been in his office.”
“If I can’t go to Philly for Mass on Sunday mornings, I have to go to his office on Monday or Tuesday afternoon to hand over our contribution to the cause.”
Micah raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s the cause?”
“I don’t know, this year’s Lamborghini? How should I know what he spends his money on?”
