Sin City Greed

Book: Sin City Greed (2015). James C. Molet – This second Personal Finance Thriller follows a group of resilient retirees as they hatch a scheme to recover their stolen money. In the heat of the Las Vegas Valley, American Greed meets Ocean’s Eleven.

THE PROLOGUE

Las Vegas. Near the intersection of Paradise and East Flamingo Roads. From his second story office Carlton F. Morrison III, the founder and CEO of Blackstone Financial Services Group, watched as the sun set on the mid-June day. Soon the distant lights would shine bright and the world famous strip would come to life.

“Do you require anything else this evening, Mr. Morrison?” Darlene, his administrative assistant, asked as she rapped lightly on his open door and peeked through the doorway.

“No, Dear, nothing else tonight. I just need to tie up a few loose ends and then I will be out of here. Have a good night.”

“Thank you. You too, Mr. Morrison.”

He’d made the decision a few days ago but had put off actually doing it. Now there was no time. He had received the second notification from Bank of Las Vegas earlier today. If he didn’t get a significant infusion of capital soon, the boutique investment advisory firm he had spent 17 years building from nothing would wither and die here in the Nevada desert. He required additional capital and they required proof of liquid assets before they would increase his credit limit. He had three days.

“How did it come to this?” Carl asked the empty room. Predictably, no answer was forthcoming. It seemed like a lifetime ago that BFSG was humming right along. Both Divisions, Equities – where most of his client’s money was invested – and Real Estate – where most of the firm’s money was invested to fund internal operations – were performing spectacularly. That was no longer the case. While the Equities Division continued to post strong returns, the Real Estate Division had been devastated over the last few years as he had increased his real estate holdings, a mistake in hindsight, just as the meltdown in the Las Vegas housing market accelerated.

He had three days to increase the balance in his Bank of the West account and submit a statement to Bank of Las Vegas. He only had one source of capital at his disposal … client accounts from the Equities Division. Sitting down at his desk, he awoke his computer from sleep mode and opened the BFSG Client’s Accounts spreadsheet, the document containing all relevant data, including account holdings and balances. The first order of business? Copying the document, creating a shadow spreadsheet.

With the two spreadsheets open on his dual monitor setup, he pulled up the first client account, Jim and Phyllis Abbott, and placed their upcoming quarterly statement on the desktop with the original spreadsheet. With an account balance of $1,784,200.61 at the end of the previous month, they were among his more affluent clients. Next, he opened Photoshop, where it shared the second monitor with the shadow spreadsheet. Seven minutes later he had removed $75,000 from the Abbott’s account and deposited the money into BFSG’s corporate account with Bank of the West. The Abbott’s quarterly statement – the one scheduled to be mailed next Tuesday – was ‘updated’ to show a new balance of $1,892,935.93. That was just about in line with the 6% monthly return he guaranteed his clients.

Next up was Charles Bingman with an account balance of $1,082,369.29. “You’ve done pretty well for yourself at only 58, Charles,” Carl mumbled into the dimly lit room. Forty eight clients later, the Bank of the West account showed an updated balance of $3,831,527.03. A significant difference from the starting balance of $81,527.03. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was 1:26 a.m. God it was late. He needed to get home. He was absolutely drained. Saving all of his documents, with the shadow documents saved to an external hard drive, he placed his computer in sleep mode and made his way to the kitchenette area. With the external hard drive safely ensconced in the wall safe, he turned off the lights and locked the office door behind him.

Somewhere deep inside, Carl knew this was the beginning of the end.

The Kindle Edition of Sin City Greed is currently available at Amazon. The Paperback Edition is coming soon!

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