Free The Bad Beat by Tod Goldberg Page A

fake named Yuri Drubich who typically does business with Chech-nyans and the odd Afghan warlord moving poppy seeds.”
    “Cool,” Brent said.
    “No,” I said. “Not cool. Not cool at all.”
    “I didn’t mean it was cool literally. I just, I guess, think it’s kinda crazy that I’m involved with people like that. It was just a Web site.”
    It was just a Web site, true, but it was also a fantastic idea for a new way to move information, even if it was one born out of total fantasy. That someone like Drubich found it and wanted a piece of it said a lot about Brent’s idea and about his actual smarts. Even if his smarts didn’t exactly pop up on display in casual conversation.
    It occurred to me that I’d failed to ask him perhaps the most important question. “How did Drubich know to send his men to your father’s office?”
    Brent stopped typing for a moment, but didn’t look up from his computer. “I made another mistake,” he said quietly.
    “Let’s just settle on the fact that this is all one huge mistake and be honest with each other, okay?” I said. “I need you to be a man, Brent. And that means owning up to your mistakes. Don’t be your father.”
    I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. I sounded . . . parental. And certainly nothing like my own father.
    “All right,” he said.
    I walked over and closed his laptop. “Now,” I said, “look me in the eye and speak.”
    “One of the last times I e-mailed them back,” he said, “I did it from the wrong e-mail address. I used the one I have through my dad’s business, so when all of this fell apart, they sent me a message saying they’d be there yesterday at three and I’d better have their money or the specs for the Kineoptic Transference devices, because they were beginning to think they’d been had. I assured them they weren’t and then, you know, I called Sugar.”
    “And he called me,” Sam said. “He ever talk to you about any Dolphins tickets, Brent?”
    “No,” Brent said.
    “Mikey,” Sam said, “remind me to never do any favors for Sugar ever again. Did you know he even promised me parking? Who promises parking and doesn’t even really have tickets?”
    “A liar,” I said.
    Sam didn’t like that answer. He went into my kitchen and opened the fridge, pulled out three beers and set them on the counter. “You got any limes?” he asked.
    “All out from the last time you got disappointed by life,” I said. “Tell me about this Big Lumpy.”
    “Yeah,” Sam said, “about that. I was under the impression that maybe he was some New York wise guy slumming in Miami. You know, one of those guys who gives himself a nice, threatening nickname but is mostly a businessman now?”
    “And he’s not that?” I said.
    “No,” Sam said. “You want to know how he got his nickname? His professors at MIT gave it to him. He apparently has one of the largest brains in history. So, you know, they got cute and called him Big Lumpy.”
    “MIT?”
    “Yeeeeeah,” Sam said. He opened his first beer and drained it in a few swallows. “About that . Turns out Big Lumpy is actually a guy named Mark McGregor. That name mean anything to you?”
    “Should it?” I said.
    “No,” Sam said. “No. That would be easy. Mark McGregor graduated at age nineteen, top of his class, from MIT in 1989. Worked for seven years in the NSA, then left to gamble professionally. Took down most of Las Vegas. This ringing any bells?”
    “Only alarms,” I said. “What did he do in NSA?”
    “Computer security, intelligence analysis, game theory as warfare, that sort of thing,” Sam said. “His IQ is supposed to be two hundred. That’s even higher than that ‘Ask Marilyn’ lady in Parade. ”
    “And now he’s a bookie?” I said.
    “He’s been banned from every casino in the world,” Sam said. “Might as well make his own odds, I guess.”
    “So he sounds like someone we can reason with,” I said.
    “Hmm, no,” Sam said. “I