Lost December (18 page)

“It came up declined again,” she said. “Do you have another card?”

“No, just that one,” I said. “Something’s wrong. I need to make a call.” With them watching me, I took out my cell phone and dialed Semken’s office. His receptionist answered.

“Semken Holmes Accounting.”

“I need to speak with Mike.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Semken is in a meeting with a client.”

“I’m a client,” I snapped. “Look, this is Luke Crisp and this is urgent. You’re going to have to interrupt his meeting.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Semken asked me not to interrupt him.”

“This is an emergency,” I shouted. “Tell him that.”

She said, “I’ll see if he’ll take your call.”

It was nearly five minutes before Semken answered.

“This is Mike.”

“Mike, it’s Luke Crisp.”

“Luke,” he said. “Where in the world are you? And what’s the problem?”

“I’m in Vegas.”

“There’s your problem,” he said.

“Look, I just tried to use my debit card and it was declined.”

“Let me see what’s going on.” I could hear him typing on a computer keyboard. “That’s because you’ve exceeded your credit limit.”

“Credit limit. It’s a debit account. Didn’t you transfer all my trust funds?”

“I transferred the balance as you directed. The account is overdrawn. Let’s see, you have been making some sizable withdrawals. Here’s one alone for two hundred seventy-two thousand seven hundred forty-seven dollars and thirty-two cents.”

“But I had more than a million dollars in my trust.”

“That’s not quite true. You had nine hundred sixty-two thousand, two hundred seventy-four gross, but you had taxes of course, so you really had seven hundred twenty-four thousand five hundred sixty-five.”

I knew there would be taxes, but I hadn’t really computed it into my behavior—the truth was I hadn’t thought that hard about anything.

“… Then with the fall in the market, you were down to four hundred seventy-nine thousand three hundred sixty-two.” He was silent as he reviewed my account. “Looks like you’ve been traveling in Europe. The dollar’s so weak now, the exchange rate was killing you.”

I sat in stunned silence. “You’re telling me that I’m broke?”

“No, just this account.”

“Do I have any other accounts?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do I have anything I can access with money in it? An emergency fund?”

“I have nothing with your name. Your father has accounts, but he would have to authorize the release of those funds. Perhaps you should call your father.”

I breathed out heavily, trying not to hyperventilate. “I need your help. I need ten grand right now.”

“Of course I’ll help you, Luke. Just tell me where to get the money.”

“Can you loan me something from one of my father’s accounts?”

He laughed. “You know I can’t do that.”

“My father has invested millions with you.”

“And that’s because he knows I’ll protect his money. I suggest you give him a call. Good luck.” He hung up. My father’s words came back to me.
Money always runs out
.

The security guard looked angry.
Paris all over again
, I thought. Only this time there was no card to swipe. “I’ve got a problem,” I said.

Dot grimaced. “I’m dead.”

“Maybe if you try the card for a lesser amount,” I said.

“How much?”

“I don’t know. Maybe seven or eight thousand.”

“I can try.” She came back a few minutes later. “It cleared
for seventy-five hundred. That leaves a balance of two thousand three hundred and fifty-five.”

I checked my wallet. All I had was $232. “I need to call some people. I need to go back to my room.”

“You’re not leaving,” the guard said.

“It would be best …”

He cut me off. “The only way you leave this place without paying your bill is in a police cruiser,” he said.

I pointed at Sean. “Why don’t you take him, he’s the one doing all the drinking.”

“Cabana’s in your name, sir,” the guard said.

“I got you seventy-five hundred dollars. I’ll get you the rest.”

“It’s resort policy.”

As I tried to think of a solution, I remembered my new Rolex. “Can you take my watch as collateral?”

The guard shook his head. “We’re not a pawnshop.”

“Can I take it back? It will only take me a few minutes.”

“You can’t leave the resort, sir.”

“Can someone come with me?”

“We can’t leave the resort, sir.”

I looked around, exasperated. I shouted to Sean, “Sean, do you have any money?”

He was kissing one of the women.

“Sean,” I shouted again.

He turned to me looking annoyed. “What?”

“Do you have any money?”

“Yeah, right,” he said. He turned back to the woman.

I didn’t even consider asking him to take my watch back. He was too hammered and I doubted I would actually see the money. “Let me call my girlfriend and have her return my watch.” I telephoned Candace, but she didn’t answer. I tried five more times over the next twenty minutes. The security guard was losing his patience.

“Okay, maybe someone will buy my watch.”

The guard followed me as I walked to the cabana next to ours. I pulled the watch from my arm. “I need to raise some cash,” I said loudly. “I’ve got a Rolex President I bought this morning. It’s a twenty-two-thousand-dollar watch. I’ll sell it for half that.”

They all turned away from me.

“I’ll sell it for seven thousand dollars.”

“Get lost,” someone said.

“Thirty-five hundred,” I said.

“Thirty-five hundred,” a young man said. “Let me see it.”

I couldn’t believe I was that desperate. I took the watch off and handed it to him. He looked it over. “How do I know it’s real?”

“It’s real.”

“I can tell,” another man standing next to him said. He held it up, studying its movement. “It’s real.” He handed the watch back to his friend. The man looked at it again, then handed it back to me. “I’ll give you twenty-eight hundred.”

“Come on,” I said. “Thirty-five was ridiculously low.”

The man shrugged. “Sorry, it’s all I got. Take it or leave it.” He turned away.

I looked around. Dot and the security man were staring at me. “All right,” I said in exasperation. “Twenty-eight.”

The man turned back and said, “Deal.” He took out his wallet and counted out a stack of hundreds. I noticed he had more bills in his wallet after counting out the money.

I counted out $2,355 and handed it to Dot. She counted it out as well, then turned to the guard and nodded. He glanced at me and walked away. Dot looked back at me with indignity. “No tip?”

I handed her a $100 bill, which was suddenly a fortune to me but did little to please her since she expected much more from a $10,000 bar tab.

“A hundred dollars?”

“Get the rest from him,” I said, pointing at Sean.

She approached Sean. Sean said something to her I couldn’t hear, but I saw her throw up her arms, then walk away angrily. Sean must have tried to order a drink from her because he immediately approached me. “What gives, Crispy? She said they’ve cut off our bar tab.”

“I shut it down,” I said. “I’m out of money.”

“You’ve got to do something, man. The girls will leave.”

“You didn’t hear me. I’m
out of money”
.

“Then transfer some more into your account.”

“There’s nothing left to transfer. It’s gone. All of it.”

He looked at me as if I were speaking Chinese. “You blew through your entire trust fund?” he said, as if he’d had nothing to do with it.

“You owe me money. You need to get it.”

“I told you I’d get it.”

“I need it now.”

“I can’t get it right now,” he said. “Why don’t you just call your dad?”

“Why don’t
you
call your dad?” I snapped back.

“I don’t have one,” Sean said.

“Then call your uncle. You need to call him
now”
.

He looked at me with a bizarre grin. “I don’t have one of those either.”

It was as if the scales fell from my eyes. For the first time I saw Sean for who he really was. I slammed my fist into his face and he dropped to the ground. “You stinking thief,” I shouted. “You lying, stinking user.”

He held his hand to his bleeding nose. “You hit me.” He looked at me from the ground with a twisted grin. “You’re a hypocrite, Crisp. Where did you get your money? It was no sweat off your back, man. You used your old man—I used you. It’s the circle of life.”

“You’ve got an excuse for everything, don’t you, you dirtbag.”

Even with blood on his face he smiled. “I told you when we first met,” he said. “Cardboard soul, man. Cardboard soul.” He stood up, then stumbled off away from me.

Up to that point I hadn’t realized I had the capacity to hate someone that much.

I have pulled the mask from Sean’s face to reveal the real man,
only to learn that I preferred him with the mask
.

Luke Crisp’s Diary

I had $577 to my name. I took a $12 cab back to the hotel—it was the first time in six months that I’d actually paid attention to the amount—and went up to our room. Candace was lying on the bed.

“Hey,” she said as I walked in. “Sorry I missed your calls. I was in the shower.”

“We’ve got to go,” I said.

She looked at me quizzically. “Go where?”

“I don’t know,” I said, sitting on the bed.

She sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“Sean’s gone,” I said. “For good.” I rubbed my fist.

“Did he pay you back?”

I grinned darkly. “Yeah, right.”

“What about his uncle? Did he call him?”

“Sean doesn’t have an uncle.”

“What?”

I looked into her eyes. “Candace, I ran out of money.”

“What do you mean?”

“My entire trust fund is gone.”

She looked at me in shock. “We couldn’t possibly have spent that much.”

“I didn’t have as much as I thought. And between the stock market, the five-star hotels, thirty-dollar martinis, Sean’s gambling and the exchange rate, I’m broke.”

For a moment she was speechless. “What are we going to do?”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t know. Do you have any money?”

“Only a couple hundred. Where’s your watch?” she asked.

“I sold it at the Rehab. It’s the only way they’d let me out of there,” I said. “Do you have any money at home?”

“I’ve got a couple thousand in an IRA.”

“That won’t get us far.”

Candace looked terrified. “You have to call your father.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

I exploded. “Because, I can’t.”

“So he won’t know you failed?”

“He already knows I failed. I failed the minute I left him. And no, I don’t want him to see me like this.”

Candace stood there mulling over our dilemma. Finally she said, “What are we supposed to do, Luke? Live on your pride?”

“What makes you think he would even want to talk to me?”

“You could at least try.”

I sat there looking at her and then threw my hands up in surrender. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll call.”

I took out my phone and dialed my father’s cell phone. I wasn’t even sure what to say. I didn’t have to find out. There
was no answer except a recorded message telling me that the number I’d dialed had been disconnected. It made no sense. My father had had the same cellular number since cell phones were the size of lunch boxes. Few people had his personal number. I could think of no reason he would disconnect his phone.