The Last Day

George's buddy has what looks like a sure-fire get-rich-quick scheme

Approximately 4300 words

The Last Day
Alternate title: The Grindr Prophecy

By

Max Griffin

Day One

         George Benedict surveyed the lunch choices in the vending machine that Bonaventure Investments thoughtfully provided its day-trader drones. His mouth soured at the prospect of another soggy ham and cheese sandwich.  At least the cheese, cracker, and salami tray would be crunchy, if not fresh.  He pushed the button, retrieved the packet, and headed back to his cubicle.

         His path took him past dozens of other workers, all eating lunch in their cubicles while they hovered over consoles and chatted with rich clients via headsets.  He paused at his buddy Johnnie Grimes’ workstation.  Instead of spreadsheets and data entry screens, Johnnie’s attention was on the Grindr app window showing a shirtless guy with ribbed abs and a movie-star handsome face.

         George permitted himself a little snort and said, “Don’t let old man Marsh catch you trolling Grindr on company time.”

         Johnnie glanced at him and said, “That tight ass can bite me.  It’s lunch hour. Contract says they have to give us thirty minutes.”

         “Yeah, but you still need to be careful.  It’s not like anyone gives a crap about us peons.”  George cocked an eyebrow at the image on his screen. “Who’s the himbo?”

         “It’s just some dude named Chris. He messaged me from an AI outfit that’s in one of the other warehouses around here.”

         George pretended to be interested.  “You gonna hook up after work?  He looks hot.”

         Johhnie shrugged.  “I don’t think so.  He seems more interested in where I work.  He thinks I must be rich, what with working for an investment firm.”

         George grinned.  “So he’s stupid as well as hot.  Figures.”

         Johnnie shrugged.  “I don’t think that’s his real photo, either.”

         George avoided rolling his eyes. “I don’t know why you keep screwing around with Grindr. They’re all fakes and losers. Not worth the risk.”

         Johnnie scowled. “I’m not a fake or a loser and I’m on Grindr.  Besides, it’s not risky. Lotsa guys here use it at lunch.  That Guy Carl for example.  He used to be all over it.” 

         George winced at the memory of the stuck-up That Guy Carl dissing him for being over thirty. “Another loser.  You know he got fired, right?”

         Johnnie continued to peer at himbo Chris’s image in the app.  “I heard he got canned. Couldn’t have been over Grindr, though. If it had been, old man Marsh would have used it as an excuse to dump more hate on gays.”

         “True that.  I heard that he’d been skimming from client accounts to cover his rent and then paying it back after getting his paycheck.”

         That got Johnie’s attention—at least, his eyes lit up as he turned his gaze from Himbo Chris to George.  “No shit?  You gotta admit, that’d be tempting. It’d be easy enough to do. No one checks our shit—Marsh is too busy Bible-thumping, and all that’s left is the so-called AI to monitor us.”

         “Yeah, AI is worthless for true.  Anyways, apparently That Guy Carl had been skimming like that for months, and eventually the human auditors at corporate caught it.”

         At that, the light in Johnnie’s eyes dimmed. “So that’s why they fired him.  He’s in jail, then?”

         “Nope,  Just fired him. I guess they figured he never really stole anything since he put it all back.  Besides, if they’d charged him with a crime, he would have crapped all over them on X and Facebook about their nonexistent security.  Bean counters didn’t file charges to avoid bad PR.”

         “Yeah.  That’d be just like those assholes.”  Johnnie glanced back at his screen.  “Speaking of AI, this Chris dude says he’s got an AI app that can predict whether a stock will be higher or lower at the close of each day’s trading.”

         George raised an eyebrow.  “Yeah?  If it’s accurate, I suppose that could be useful to know.  At least for the rich jerks who have actual money to invest.”

         Johnnie nodded.  “You got that right.  Anyway, he says this one stock, NKST, is going to be higher at the close of trading today."

         “I don’t recognize that ticker.”

         “It’s some holding company that specializes in cleaning supplies.  Urinal cakes.  Crap like that.  Not much volatility, although it trades every day.  It’s down a few points at the moment.”

         “Doesn’t sound like a particularly useful prediction, then, not unless he says how much higher it’ll be.”

         “He just said it’s going to be higher at close today.”

         Worthless then.  George glanced at his watch and at his cheese-and-cracker packet.  “I guess I should take off.  Later.”

         Johnnie turned back to his computer and opened what looked like a travel ad for a tropical resort.  Probably Bora Bora, since he’d been fantasizing since forever about escaping there.  They'd even both gotten passports last year.  George had humored his buddy, even though they'd never afford such an impossibly expensive trip.  Without looking at George, Johnnie mumbled, “Later.”

Day Two

         George sighed.  Another day, another crappy vending machine meal for lunch.  This time he settled for pizza.  Cold pizza, since the microwave in the vending room was busted.  He trudged back to the cubicle farm.

         Johnnie was again at his desk.  George paused and leaned against the half-wall divider.  It looked like Johnnie had ordered from the local deli since he was munching on what appeared to be a Reuben. Johnnie chewed with his mouth open while gazing at his computer.  George glanced at the screen and said,  “You still at it with that Grindr dude? Did you hook up with him after all?”

         Johnnie glanced at him. “Nah. We’s just shootin’ the bull.  I think he wanted to show off.”

         George scrutinized the screen, hoping for a bit of skin.  No such luck.  “That’s the same image as yesterday.”

         Johnnie rolled his eyes. “No, not show off like that. He wanted to brag about his prediction.  You know.  The one about that stock.”

         “Oh, yeah.  The urinal cake company.  So it turned out to be right?”

         “Yeah.  It was down a bit most of the day, but in the last three minutes before close, it went up. It finished about a buck fifty to the good.”

         “Not very impressive.  What’s it trade at?”

         Johhnie’s fingers waggled on his keyboard and he peered at the screen. “Currently 206.85.  It’s up another 1.36 at the moment.”

         George shrugged.  “So, less than a point change in price.  Wouldn’t even cover brokerage fees.  No profit in knowing that.”

         “I guess not.  He says it’s going to be down at close today.”

         “Still doesn’t say how much?”

         “Nope.”

         George snorted.  “Like flipping a coin.  I don’t need no fancy AI to make a prediction like that.”

         Johnnie shrugged. “I know.  Still, if he’s flipping a coin, there’s only a one-in-four chance that today’s prediction will be right.”

         “Aren’t you the smart one.”  George narrowed his eyes, remembering something he’d seen in a movie.  “Besides, I don’t think that’s how it works.  The next coin flip is still fifty-fifty, no matter what happened on the prior flip.”

         Johnnie’s brow wrinkled.  “We’ll see.  He seems pretty confident he’s right.”

         “Yeah. Like everything on Grindr is accurate.”

         “You want to bet?  Tell you what, if his prediction is right, I’ll spring for your lunch tomorrow.  If it’s wrong, you buy my lunch.”

         George curled his upper lip. “Like another vending machine lunch is tempting.”

         Johnnie pointed to his sandwich.  “I wasn’t talking about vending machine crap. I meant a real meal, from a restaurant.”

         George narrowed his eyes.  If he lost, he could always pick up something at MacDonalds on the way to work in the morning. “Done.  I’ll check the ticker before I go home. NKST, you said?”

         “That’s the one.”

         By close-of-trading that day, George had forgotten all about their wager.  He was starting to shut down his workstation when he got a text from Johnnie.

         Don’t forget our bet!  I’ll have another Reuben.  You can order from GrubHub.

         Crap. George checked the NKST ticker and, sure enough, it was down eighty-three cents.  He wasn’t about to spring for no fancy deli sandwich though.  MacDonald’s was on his morning commute, and Johnnie would have to settle for a cold Big Mac.

Day Eleven

         At noon two weeks later, George trudged into the vending machine room for another crappy lunch.  His lunch breaks had been even more whacked than usual these last two weeks. He’d been avoiding Johnnie after his buddy had cussed him out over that cold Big Mac.  George had to admit, he missed the guy, even if he was kind of a loser. 

         Yet Johnnie was right there, in the vending machine room, leaning against the wall like he was waiting to pounce.  A chill ran down George’s spine and settled in his gut.  He forced a smile and tried to sound hearty, “Johnnie, my man.  How’s it hangin’?”

         Johnnie’s mouth was a thin white line. “We need to talk.” He bit his lip, then said, “I need to talk.”

         “Hey, man, I’m sorry about that Big Mac thing.  I did you wrong.”

         Johnnie frowned.  “What?  Oh, our bet.  That’s nothing. Forgotten.  But I need to talk to you. It’s about Chris.”

         “Chris?” Who the F was Chris?  Johnnie was always hooking up with someone new.

         “You know.  The guy with the predictions.”

         “Oh.”  That Chris.  The Grindr himbo.  “What about him?”

         Johnnie glanced around the empty break room, then said, “Not here.  Outside.”

         “You mean smoker’s hell?”  That was the last place George wanted to go. It was inevitable someone would offer him a joint, and then he’d be messed up for the rest of the day.

         Johnnie shook his head. “Not there. In the parking lot, where no one is around.”

         This sounded serious. At least Johnnie wasn’t mad at him any more. “Sure.  I’m here for ya, buddy.”  George tried to imagine why Johnnie seemed so nervous. “You didn’t hook up with that Chris loser, did you?  Did he hurt you?”

         “No.  I’ll tell what this is about, but not here.” 

         He strode away, and George rushed to catch up.  “You been okay, dude?  I’ve missed shootin’ the bull with you.”

         “I’ve been fine. I’ve missed you, too.”  Another worker passed them, walking toward the vending room, and Johnnie shook his head at George.  The guy was really tweaked out.

         The chill late fall breeze made George’s skin prickle and he shivered. The overcast sky didn’t exactly do anything for his mood, either.  Bumming a joint from one of the smokers was sounding better all the time.  Johnnie seemed even tighter than before, jittering around like a tweaker after a fresh hit. “What’s up, man?”

         “You remember those predictions about that stock?”

         “The urine cake stock. How could I forget?”

         “Yeah, that one.  He’s sent me predictions about that stock each of the last ten working days.”

         “So?  They’re useless.”

         Johnnie took a deep breath. “They were all correct.  Every last one of them.  Ten in a row.”

         George frowned.  “Well, that’s not very likely, I agree.”  He paused to dredge up memories. “Dude claimed to have an AI program making the predictions, right?”

         “Exactly. Ten straight predictions, all correct.  There’s one chance in a thousand of that happening.”

         That was impressive, for sure. “Hey, it’s not likely, I agree.  But not impossible.  It’s like coin flips, right? Like getting ten consecutive heads.”

         “Exactly.  There is precisely one chance in 1,024 of ten consecutive heads. I looked it up.  His AI program must really work.”

         George quirked an eyebrow and tried to remember what the guy in that movie had said.  But it didn’t really matter.  “So what?  The up-down differences in that stock have been too trivial to matter.”

         “Yeah, but that’s not the only stock he’s been following.  He told me this morning there’s a stock that going to double in tomorrow’s trading.”

         George rolled his eyes. “Great. Tell me the stock. Oh, wait.  I’ve only got a hundred bucks in checking. Not enough for even a minimum trade.”

         “He hasn’t told me the stock.  Yet.  He’ll tell me, but only after I send him ten thousand dollars so he make his own trades.  He’ll tell me the stock, and then I can make trades, too. We both win.”

         George snorted.  “Dude, you ain’t got ten thousand dollars.”

         Johnnie bit his lip.  “I know.  But there’s a way I could kind of borrow it.”

         What the F was he talking about?  A rich uncle? Then George remembered That Guy Carl.  “You mean embezzle it.  Not worth the risk.”

         Johnnie’s mouth firmed.  “Think about it. I made a 500K transaction this morning for a rich dude. His account has like twenty mill in it. The transfer just went right through, no problem.  We do shit like that all the time.”

         “So you’re thinking of embezzling five thou for this Grindr dude and, what?  Five thou for yourself?  They’ll still find out eventually, and you’ll lose your job.”

         “Five thousand for Chris is just to get the stock’s ticker.  I was thinking more like a couple million for me.  I can move it to a shell account I’ve created, and make the investment there.  The stock doubles tomorrow, and the day after I put the money back in the original account. I wind up with a couple million clear in my account, and no one will know for months.”

         “At which time you wind up with no job and maybe in jail.”

         “More like I wind up disappearing to Bora Bora.  Besides, if I put the money back, it’s just like That Guy Carl. No harm, no foul. The bean-counters will hush it up.”

         George pursed his lips. “Seems to me a couple of mill is different from a month’s rent.  Besides, what if this prediction is wrong?”

         “There’s a thousand to one it’s right. I’m willing to take those odds.  What do you think?  You want in, too?”

         “No way!  It’s gotta be a scam, somehow.  He’s just after your money.  Except it ain’t your money he’ll get.”

         Johnnie reached out and squeezed George’s hand, sending goose bumps up his arm. “I was kind of hoping you’d go into this with me.  Imagine the two of us, on the beach in Bora Bora. We could disappear with that kind of money.”

         It sure sounded tempting.  But, “That’s the first place they’d look.  Everybody knows you’ve fantasized about Bora Bora.”

         “I’ve been using my VPN at home, so they can’t track where I’ve been looking or what I’ve done. Bora Bora is just an example. I’ve scoped out some alternatives. I even created a numbered account at an overseas bank to stash my earnings.”

         Earnings.  Ill-gotten gains was more like it.  Still, it was tempting.  George imagined the two of them on a remote beach, richer than god, with all the hunky guys they could want.  Then he thought about prison.  “I’d love it, but there’s no way it’ll work out that way.  Don’t do it, man!”

         Johnnie narrowed his eyes and released George’s hand.  “I guess you’re right.  I’ll tell Chris to forget it.  Thanks.”  He turned and headed back inside, leaving George alone and forlorn in the parking lot.

Day 21

         George squirmed in the soft leather conference room chair.  The two cops sat at stiff attention across from him.  The scent of coffee filled the room, and a box of jelly donuts sat between them on the conference table.  Afternoon sun streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

         The woman cop simpered at him and said, “Thank you for joining us, Mr. Benedict. I’m Agent Sheila Rutherford.”  She nodded at her beefy companion. “This is Agent Steve Willoughby.  We’re with the FBI.”  They both flashed credentials at him.  She wore her black hair in a tight bun behind her head.  Her pallid features looked like she’d soaked them in lemons this morning.  Or vinegar.  The Willoughby dude had the beginnings of a beer gut and looked like a candidate for Hair Club for Men. 

         The credentials weren’t there long enough for him to read them, not that it mattered.  Talking to the FBI, though, that couldn’t possibly be a good thing. Especially since Johnnie had vanished two weeks ago. “What’s this about?”

         “We’re trying to locate your colleague, Mr. John Grimes. Can you help us out?”

         A chill jittered down George’s back.  “Johnnie?  We hung out some at work, but I guess he quit or something. I don't know what happened to him.”  If Johnnie had actually made a fortune, he wasn’t about to say anything that would screw it up for him.

         “You have no idea where he might have gone?”

         George thought about their last conversation.  It coulcn't hurt to mention Bora Bora, since Johnnie clearly had other plans. “Nope.  He was always talking about going to the South Seas.  Bora Bora, I think.  Is he in trouble?”

         Willoughby snarled, “We’ll ask the questions, Mr. Grimes. We have video of the two of you talking in the parking lot two weeks ago.  What was that about?”

         “He wanted to talk to me about some dude he met on Grindr.”

         The Sheila woman pulled a photo from a folder in front of her and slid it across the table.  “Do you recognize this person?”

         George glanced at it. Shit. It was that Chris dude for sure. “Could be.”

         Her eyes drilled into him.  “It’s a photo from Grindr.  Please look again.”

         George pretended to stare at it. “The abs look kind of familiar.  Looks like any of a thousand Grindr ads.  Most of ‘em are fake.”

         A tiny grin flashed on her lips, or at least what passed for lips.  “A certain Philip Strauss used this one on Grindr and, yes, you’re right, it’s not of him.  Strauss is in custody, charged with wire fraud among other crimes.  We have reason to believe your friend, Mr. Grimes, was one of his victims.”

         “He wasn’t my friend, exactly,” George lied.  “Like I said, we just kind of hung out.  I was right about this dude being a scammer, then?”

         “So you do recognize him?”

         “I said he looked familiar. I take it Johnnie’s not in trouble?”

         “We understand his employer found some…irregularities in his accounts. But, we're mostly interested in him as one of Strauss's victims.  We’d just like to talk to him.  Strauss’s scam was especially ingenious.”

         George narrowed his eyes. “What exactly was he doing?  I mean, using a fake hookup photo on Grindr isn’t exactly a federal offense.”

         “No, but using it to extort money from unsuspecting victims is. He started with over ten thousand online messages and wound up with six victims.”

         “That doesn't sound like a very efficient scam.”

         “That attrition was basic to his plan.  He never expected to end up with more than a dozen marks. In fact, each day of the scam he cut the number of potential victims in half.  Did Mr. Grimes tell you about Strauss’s messages?”

         “I recall some stupid prediction about whether a stock would close higher or lower at the end of the day. That’s a useless prediction. There’s not enough information to use it to make money.”

         She nodded. “Here’s what Strauss did.  On the first day, he sent out over ten thousand messages, all about the same stock.  Half of them predicted the stock would close higher, half predicted it would close lower.  Of course, half of the predictions turned out to be correct and half incorrect.  Stocks go up and down all the time.”

         “Yeah.  A single prediction has a fifty-fifty chance of being right, unless you’ve got insider information.” George tried to keep the tension out of his voice.  Where the F was this headed?

         Sheila continued, “He claimed to have an AI program that made the prediction. Of course, he was just randomly assigning up or down calls to potential victims.  What do you suppose he did the second day of the scam?”

         George shrugged. “Got me. Send out another ten thousand messages?” She obviously knew the answer and was just playing with him.

         “On the second day, he only sent messages to the five thousand recipients who’d gotten a correct prediction on the first day.  He never sent another message to the ones who got an incorrect predction.”

         George frowned. “What’s the point?”

         “Half of those five thousand will get a prediction that turns out to be right on the second day. What do you suppose happens on the third day?”

         George leaned back and caught his breath.  “Those twenty-five hundred with correct predictions get messaged again.  And half of them will get a message that turns out to be correct.  And so on.”  She was right.  This was clever in spades.

         She nodded. “After ten days, he’s left with about ten victims who have gotten a string of ten correct predictions.  To them, it looks like his so-called AI program is accurate.”

         “So that’s when he hits them up for money.  It'll look like a sure thing to them.” It all made sense now. 

         She leaned back with a satisfied expression. “Exactly. We know that Mr. Grimes wired Strauss five thousand dollars on October eleventh.  He was one of the victims.”

         George rubbed a finger under his nose. “But then Johnnie’s not done anything wrong.  Why is the FBI looking for him?”

         Shiela said, “Here’s the thing, Mr. Benedict.  Do you know how Strauss lured his victims into giving him money?”

         George remembered, but he just shrugged. It was pretty obvious, after all. “Probably some bogus prediction about making a killing in the market. Maybe give him a stake, and he’ll split the profits with them.”

         “Exactly.  We have a record of exactly that conversation with one of the victims. Strauss predicted a particular stock would double during the trading day ending on October twelfth. In the recording, he asked the victim for a stake in an investment and offered to share the earnings.  It was an entirely bogus prediction of course, and he had no intention of making an investment.  What do you suppose happened?”

         George thought for a second, then said, “A bunch of poor suckers lost money.”

         Her tone was relentless. “What else?”

         George hesitated, then said, “I suppose some of the victims might try to profit off the fake tip rather than trusting him to share.  Just goes to show greedy dumbasses will fall anything.” 

         That was certainly what Johnnie had talked about doing.  Given that he’d disappeared, George figured he’d done it and maybe even gotten rich.  Now he just felt sorry for poor Johnnie, but at least George had been smart enough to not join him in his folly.

         Her smile turned grim. “That’s what you’d expect, wouldn’t you?  Except, by the purest chance, the stock he picked turned out to increase by more than double that day.  Some of his victims wound up making a fortune.”

         Willoughby grunted.  “Some of them even committed crimes to make those fortunes.  And they hid the millions they stole in numbered accounts in Cyprus.”

         Sheila’s eyes glinted.  “So you understand why we are interested in your friend, Mr. Grimes. And why we are interested in you.  Tell us again what you know about thelocation of your friend, Mr. Benedict  Be truthful  We'll know if you're lying, and we can make your life hell.” 

Day 24

         George slouched in his cubicle and stared at his screen.  It was lunchtime, but he couldn't bring himself to choke down another day of vending machine chow.  He really should start brown-bagging it, except that would require actual planning.  Maybe he just should order something, like Johnnie used to sometimes do.  Except that would require money.

         He heaved a sigh.  Thinking about Johnnie brought regret, but it made him smile, too.  He should have taken the risk and gone with him when he had the chance.  Too late now.

         At least those asshole FBI agents didn't get anything out of him, not that he had anything to tell them.  He just hoped Johnnie really had followed through and managed to escape with millions of dollars.  He deserved to be happy.

         A shadow fell across his computer, and he turned to face a pudgy, bewhiskered dude wearing a FEDEX uniform.  The guy said, "You George Benedict?"

         "That's me. What's up?"

         "I got a delivery for ya.  Ya gotta sign for it and I gotta check your ID."

         "I didn't order anything."

         The man shrugged.  "All's I know is that I got an envelope with your name on it.  You want it, or not?"

         George hesitated.  He didn't owe anyone money, and the guy couldn't be a process server.  "Sure, why not?"  He showed his driver's license to the delivery guy.

         "Can you take it out of your wallet, please."

         George rolled his eyes, but pulled it out handed it to the jerk.  He inspected it, glancing from the photo to George's face and back.  "Ok, you're you."  He handed it back to George and held out his his electronic notepad. "Sign here. Just use your finger."

         George scrawled his name on the pad, then accepted a bulky eight-by-ten envelope.  He waited a moment for the delivery guy to leave before he ripped it open.  Inside was a travel brochure and a confirmed reservation at a beachfront resort in a place called 'Scenic SIthonia,' apparently somewhere in Greece. There was also an innner envelope with a first-class, one-way ticket to Athens, including a connecting flight to Thessaloniki, and ten crisp, one-hundred dollar bills. The last thing was a tourist visa, complete with his name and photo.

         That was it.  Nothing else.  No note.  No explanation. 

         The flight left tomorrow at ten. 

         It occurred to George that, with enough money, anything was possible.  Even a magical tourist visa. 

         Johnnie had asked him to go along.  Maybe it wasn't too late after all.

         He grinned.  Today would be the last day at this dead-end job, and of his dead-end life. 

         Tomorrow would be the first day of something new.  Something interesting.

         Maybe even something special.

---

This is loosely based on an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode from the 1950s.