Free The Ruse by Jonas Saul

The Ruse

    What’s life, but a river of tears? The chase for the almighty dollar. There are more billionaires in the world today than there has ever been in the history of man. I used to be like those people: money hungry. I didn’t care who was in my way. If I could make a buck, I’d do it. Until I learned a lesson only life and death could teach. And now I do the right thing.
     
    Be a stand-up guy? Or fall down?
     
    Decisions, decisions.
     
    But first, let me tell you how I got here.
     

     
    #
     
    My life changed forever with one text message.
     
    I was a real estate agent. I played on the stock market. I watched the penny stocks, waiting for one to strike gold and be worth hundreds, or even thousands, overnight. I was the guy that handled the million-dollar homes in our little community on the Bay. The commissions were huge. I lived well, even if I only sold one house every three months.
     
    Then I got a text message, reading simply: “ John Turnbull” .
     
    At the time, that name meant nothing to me. I checked to see who’d sent it. The first red flag was planted: no return number. I’d never seen that before. There’s always a number to reply to.
     
    I’m usually a pretty organized guy. I use a day timer, a calendar, a notebook, an appointment book, and two computers at home to track everything about my clients. My cell phone is a mini computer, detailing my day’s routine, activities, and meetings. Each morning I’d sync it with my computer, and off I went to do its bidding.
     
    I’d never heard of a John Turnbull, though.
     
    Two hours after I received the text, I was sitting at my desk in my little office. Jessica, my company secretary, buzzed me to say I had a call waiting on line two. She said the caller wouldn’t identify himself. That’s Jessica, always fucking around. She’s got issues, man. I mean, serious parent issues. They’re dead, she’s not. That’s the issue.
     
    I picked up line two to discover that I was talking to John Turnbull.
     
    Now, of course, I asked him if he’d sent the text, and he denied it. Apparently, he doesn’t even own a cell. John and his wife are in their late seventies. They’d won the lottery six months ago. After they’d won millions of dollars, everyone started visiting and calling, looking for money. It drove them crazy. John said he wanted to buy a house on the lake, but he wanted to do it discreetly. That’s why he didn’t own a cell anymore, and he refused to say his name when he called the office.
     
    A week later, I sold an expensive house to Mr. and Mrs. Turnbull. They probably didn’t need one that pricey, but a little charm, and smooth salesman talk, will do it every time. They overspent, but what did I care? The commission was worth it. Fuck ‘em.
     
    The mysterious text stayed unsolved though. It started to piss me off. I wish I knew who warned me about the Turnbulls. But in the end, was it a warning? At the time, I didn’t think so. I soon forgot about the stupid text. It was as if it hadn’t happened.
     
    Two months later, I received another text. A name again. This one I knew: my sister’s name. I hadn’t seen my sister in over ten years. After our parents died, their will was not divided evenly. She got everything. I hated her for it. I still do. I refused to speak to her. Then she moved away.
     
    I wondered if the text was another prophecy. I decided to block all my calls. I still didn’t want to talk to her. I also realized at that moment that I was giving more credence to those ridiculous texts than I wanted to.
     
    I decided that I could completely avoid incoming calls by leaving the office. I told Jessica I felt ill. She smiled at me in her usual, stupid way. Like she knew what I was up to. At twenty-three, she thought she had the world figured out. She couldn’t even figure out her own fucked-up head, let alone the world.
     
    She was driving the car the night her parents died in the accident. To this day, she