Riches by Ronen Divon

The round-shouldered man, standing by the Diner doors, did not look much like a beggar. Yet there was something about his demeanor that reminded Dave of a person who no longer cared much for what other people might make of him. He seemed to be in his mid-fifties, his clothe were plain but wellmaintained, his face lightly unshaven, his hair neatly combed. As Dave approached, the man opened the door for him, sending his other hand in a motion indicating either a welcome, or a request for change. Dave hesitated; a stranger to this town, he only intended on stopping to use the bathroom and grab a quick cup of coffee. Unsure what to do, he lingered for a moment at the doorway. “Tell you what,” said the man in a pleasant inviting voice, “how about you buy me a cup of coffee and I tell you a story?” Dave inspected the man more closely: short graying hair, a forehead featuring wisdom wrinkles, kind eyes. He considered the offer for a moment as if debating a serious business transaction, and then said “Fair enough,” entering the neon-lit space. Sitting at one of the side booths, Dave waited for their server to approach. He wondered how his guest would be treated. Reaching the table, the waiter directed his words at Dave but his eyes did not leave the other man for a moment. “What can I get you, Sir?” his tone polite yet with a slight cold edge. “Jimmy,” Dave read the waiter’s nametag, “I’d like two cups of coffee please, one for me and one for this gentleman.” Jimmy nodded and was about to leave when Dave added, “And, can I also have dry whole-wheat toast with strawberry jam on the side?” “Will do,” said Jimmy without fully turning back. Dave looked at the man across the table, suddenly realizing he hadn't bothered to ask if he was hungry as well. Embarrassed, Dave started to call for the server but the guest, catching the gesture, just shook his head no. As Jimmy left, Dave said, “Sorry, but I didn't catch your name.” “Oh, yes, that is because I haven't given it to you yet. It's Richard Pendict, but please call me Rich.” Rich smiled. Dave thought he had an unusually warm smile, one that made you want to invite him to go fishing, even if fishing wasn't really your thing. Taking a moment to remove his coat, Dave relaxed his tie and looked around. It was a Diner typical to small-town USA; pinkish Formica tables that had seen better days, light yellow layer of grease coating the wall where the open frying griddle was, a stack of decorated cakes even flies steered clear of. Dave turned back to Rich, “You promised a story?” Rich nodded his head at Jimmy's direction. The waiter was just coming back with their coffee. “Your toast will be ready in a few minutes Sir,” said Jimmy, speaking to Dave but again staring at Rich. The waiter turned and left. Dave felt somewhat responsible for this -- inviting a bum to join him at the Diner; a clean bum but probably a bum all the same. Yet, a moment later, giving it some more thought, he felt somewhat infuriated. Rich had every right to sit at the Diner, just like anyone else. If the waiter doesn't like it, so be it; too bad for him. “An odd fellow, this waiter,” Dave felt compelled saying, “Do you know him?” © 2013 Ronen Divon, All Rights Reserved.

Rich didn't answer. He just smiled one of his warm smiles and got himself busy adding milk to his coffee. Taking a sip from his cup, he let Dave's question fade into the dim Diner space before starting. “The tale I am about to tell you will sound fictitious, but let me assure you, it’s absolutely true. It's true because I was part of it.” The man paused, lifting his cup but not drinking. He just waited for Jimmy, who was heading their way to bring Dave his toast, to clear the area. Once Jimmy left, Rich continued. “About ten years ago I was employed as a junior executive at Fiscal Bank International. I used to manage operations in the Western New York region.” Dave's interest picked up. “Really?” he said. “I think my company did some work with them years ago. Aren't they out of business?” “They were acquired by a larger bank,” replied Rich, “but ten years ago, they were still thriving. “Anyhow, I was married, had a kid enrolled in very prestigious private college, carried a large mortgage, college loans for my boy and some health expenses related to my wife.” He paused for a moment, reflecting, his face clouding at the memory. “It wasn't easy. I put more hours at work, as much as the bank allowed me, took a weekend job as a sales person at a shoe-store at the mall – would you believe that? But whatever I made barely made a dent in my growing debts.” “I hear you,” responded Dave, generously spreading jam over his toast. “Banking doesn't pay as much as people think, at least not until you make it much higher in management.” Rich nodded his head in agreement and continued. “One day, during lunch break, I ran into a fellow at the local Diner where I used to grab a quick bite. We said hello a few times but that was about it. “I should probably mention here that the health issues my wife had, were due to cancer in quite a progressive stage --” “Had?” jumped Dave in. “Yes,” answered Rich, “unfortunately she passed away a few years ago.” “I am so sorry,” said Dave, his face contorted in sincere empathy. The two men sat in silence for a few moments. “Anyways, where was I?” asked Rich as if waking from a dream. “You were hardly making ends meet,” said Dave, “and you met a new friend at the local Diner.” “Yes,” said Rich. “A short time after I met Kevin – it's not his real name, but I'll just call him Kevin, I run into him again, but this time it was in the waiting area of the clinic where my wife was being treated. “Turned out his wife was also going through health issues, not the same cancer type as my wife and not as progressive but still, this shared burden sealed our friendship. We started meeting regularly for lunch and building trust of the type that comes from sharing personal details of each other’s lives. Kevin was an IT guy, a computer tech. He had his small shop not far from where I used to work. “Kevin's financial difficulties were not much different than mine. This was back in 2009. Unless you were very wealthy, you were quickly becoming very un-wealthy... “His problem, on top of a slow economy, was that he had to pay the very large clinic expenses out of pocket as he was self-employed. I at least had my health expenses, at the time, paid by my job’s insurance. “One day, this was about two or three months after we first met, Kevin called and asked to meet after work, which was somewhat unusual because until then we used to only meet for lunch. Furthermore, he wanted to meet me at my office, at the bank. I saw no reason to refuse --” Rich stopped abruptly, looking © 2013 Ronen Divon, All Rights Reserved.

at Jimmy who was approaching their booth. Jimmy ignored him this time and asked Dave, “is everything okay? Can I get you anything else?” “Anything you want?” Dave asked Rich. “How about a refill?” asked Rich pointing at his empty cup. Jimmy, who was carrying a pot of coffee, filled up both cups and moved on, his face emotionless. “So you were saying?” said Dave. “Yes,” continued Rich, “Kevin wanted to come to my office after work. I agreed. I had no reason not to. By that time our friendship was only growing stronger. “The following day I found an excuse to stay late at the office. Kevin showed up around 5:30pm. He seemed a little edgy but otherwise there was nothing special to it. We sat and chatted for a while about this and that. Being that he was an IT guy he showed interest in my computer desktop; how it connects to the network, and had a few other questions, but nothing you wouldn't expect a tech person to ask. He then suggested we go out to the local pub for a quick drink. I called my wife, told her I would be a little late but will still make it home for dinner, and we headed out. “Over a pint of beer, Kevin revealed to me he had an extensive knowledge of how a banking network works. One of his clients was another mid-size bank – I rather not mention which by name, and he said he helped them create their security system. He believed most medium-size banks, at least at the time, used the same sort of encryption protocols, and was considering a simple, yet ingenious scheme, to drain small amounts of money into a private account.” Dave stopped chewing his toast and stared at Rich. Rich paused, reflecting, and a moment later continued. “I told him I wasn't interested. First of all, as friendly as we were, I didn't know Kevin that well. For all I knew, this could have been a sting operation. Secondly, I am an honest person. I mean, I may cheat here and there, like most people do, but only on small things, never something as serious as this. Yet, I didn't want to fracture this newly formed friendship with Kevin, whom I started seeing as a close friend. So even though I refused in my mind, I told him I would think about it.” Dave swallowed the remaining toast and took a sip from his coffee. “In the following days,” continued Rich, “I could not stop thinking about it. This was once in a lifetime opportunity to make some real money, to be really rich. It would have solved much, if not all, of my financial issues. “I thought of sharing this with my wife but knew it would just upset her. And as sick as she already was, I didn't want to add more stress. So I just kept pondering on it. Meanwhile I was still seeing Kevin for lunch, and we acted as if nothing was ever said. But, undeniably, there was tension in the air. “Some days later we received a huge bill from the hospital. It came as a total surprise. Though we had a decent health insurance from the bank – that was actually one of the main reasons I stayed at my job, it turned out that the insurance company investigated and determined that my wife's cancer fell under ‘pre-existing condition’, and some underwriter in some corporate office somewhere decided to deny it.” “This is so freaking typical!” interrupted Dave visibly upset, “You pay them a fortune but when you need them, good luck...” Rich let Dave finish and then continued calmly. “At that time I was with the bank for about 8 years and felt confident they would help me. But the HR guys from corporate could care less. I mean, yes, they were nice to me on the phone, promising to try, but kept on coming back with 'Sorry Mr. Pendict but © 2013 Ronen Divon, All Rights Reserved.

there is really nothing we can do.' I asked them if I were the bank's CEO would they have the same answer.” “And what did they answer to that?” inquired Dave. “As much as I recall,” replied Rich, “they just repeated the same boxed response of 'Sorry but there is nothing we can do.'” “Bastards!” offered Dave, his voice rising again in anger. Rich waited again, letting Dave's response fade, acting like an orchestra conductor anticipating a prolong violin note before waving his hands to continue. “I was becoming desperate,” Dave went on. “The bills coming from the hospital weren't just large, they were impossible.” “At that point, did your wife know?” asked Dave. “No, hell no. She had cancer stage four and--” Rich stumbled upon his words for a moment, “she was,” he pauses again, “very honest. Always. Too honest for her own good. I knew she wouldn't hear of it.” The two men sat in silence for a few moments. “Anyhow,” Rich finally continued, “Where was I?” “Your wife? Stage four cancer?” hesitated Dave, not sure if he should really remind Rich. “Yes,” said Rich, “As I mentioned earlier, the last thing I wanted was to add stress to her life.” He took a deep breath and continued. “And so it came to be that I agreed to participate in Kevin's scheme. My part was rather simple – I was to provide Kevin with my bank network access. He assured me that he will use it briefly to create an alias and that from there on, my name would never be used again, nor will anyone be able to trace it down to me.” “What was the scheme?” wondered Dave. “The gist of it had to do with rounding fractions of pennies and routing them to a set of off-shore accounts Kevin had already opened under various identities. The transactions were so tiny, it would go unnoticed. Kevin was quite smart and cautious. He was also not too greedy. He planned tapping into various commercial accounts – never going after private people as we didn't want any individuals to pay for this – just large behemoth corporations who could afford losing a tiny fraction of their fat. So Kevin was planning to tap into these accounts but only for a limited time. It was the perfect cyber-crime,” exhaled Rich. “You know that cyber-crime,” said Dave, “is a federal offense...” “Yes,” said Rich, “but when you are as desperate as I was, that wasn't enough to scare me off. This was to generate for each one of us $100,000 monthly for 6 months. We figured out we will give it a test run, see how it goes, get half a mil each, and if no eyebrows are raise, repeat it in the future.” “So what happened next?” asked Dave, “you don't exactly strike me as a person of wealth at current; nor are you in jail. Does that mean your partner screwed you up?” Rich's face filled with an agonized smile. “No, he didn't.” “So?” wondered Dave, “why am I buying you coffee and it's not the other way around?” “I pulled out last minute,” confessed Rich, his voice harsh and somewhat painful. “Kevin was initially upset and our friendship quickly fell apart. When I saw him in the passing some time later, he seemed well to do. I suspect he found another person to collaborate with, and pulled it off all the same. I, however, never saw a dime. Meanwhile my wife passed away, my kid had to drop out of college and, for a while, wasn't speaking with me, and my house was foreclosed. The bank downsized ahead of the © 2013 Ronen Divon, All Rights Reserved.

merger and I was laid off.” Rich sighed heavily. “I had a chance at riches, and I blew it. But,” a tone of irony sipping into his voice, “I suppose I should say I sleep well at night – my conscience is clean.” Rich smile a weary smile. “There you have it, the story I promised.” “It's quite a story,” said Dave, “I heard a good number of stories during this economic downturn, but I guess yours tops them all.” Jimmy came by, filled up their cups and left without a word. “Tell me,” asked Rich, “what do you think you would have done if you were in my shoes?” Dave considered it for a long while. “By trade,” he finally told Rich, “I am an insurance fraud investigator. I have seen it all, well, maybe not all but I have seen a lot of schemes of all sorts. What I can tell you is that as much as it is hard to believe, things could have gone even worse for you.” “Worse? How come?” asked Dave. “Imagine,” answered Dave, “that you would have participated, and, as much as it seemed to you the prefect crime, you would have got caught. If so you can add jail time to the list of hardships that followed.” “I guess you are right,” said Rich, “but, for argument's sake, presuming this would have been the perfect crime, would you have done it?” Dave scratched the back of his head. Wrinkles appeared on his forehead as he considered his reply. “I want to say I wouldn’t – that I wouldn't have been tempted,” he finally said, “but, in all honesty it's impossible to judge a situation until you are in the exact same shoes.” “You see,” said Rich, “I gave this a lot of thought over the years that passed. In the books and movies, it all seems so easy -- cut and dry morals; the hero stands his ground at the face of horrible trials and somehow, at the end, gets rewarded. But I found that, in real life, we are tested daily.” Rich paused. Silence lingered. “I found,” continued Rich, “that there are two possible scenarios. We either fail, even if we tell ourselves stories about why it's okay to cheat here and there, or, in my case, I stood my grounds, was tested, but unlike the biblical story of Job, there was no happy ending.” “Still,” asked Dave, “didn’t you mention you sleep better at night, knowing you didn't steal?” “I only wish I did,” said Rich, sadness in his voice. “When you have your wife’s death on your conscious, a son that had to drop out of college and take whatever job he could get, when you have lost your house, your livelihood, then no, I do not.” He smiles a bitter smile. Dave looked at his wristwatch wearing an alarmed face. “I didn't realize how late it is! Please excuse me but I must be on my way.” He got up and sent a hand out to Rich. Rich remained seated but shook hands with Dave. “I wish I knew what to say,” added Dave, “you are brave. And, if it is of any comfort, you have my fullest sympathy. For me, who sees mostly deceit and fraud, it is refreshing to meet someone like you. It's actually quite inspiring. I wish you well.” Rich nodded and smiled a sincere, even if a tired smile. Dave exited the diner. Outside he saw Jimmy, the young waiter, smoking a cigarette. “Excuse me Sir,” said Jimmy, “can I have a word?” Dave nodded his head in agreement. © 2013 Ronen Divon, All Rights Reserved.

“I don’t know what you were told,” said Jimmy, “but just that you know, this man is not what he pretends to be.” Dave looked puzzled. Jimmy continued, “He is a local writer. He likes to test story ideas on people out of town. It is not the first time I have seen him coming to the diner. I can’t really stop him but I always see people he speaks with, leaving heavyhearted. So just that you know, whatever he told you is fiction.” Dave took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I am not sure how I feel about it,” he said, “it all sounded so real.” “He is a very good storyteller,” nodded Jimmy in agreement, “maybe the best.” Dave still looked confused. “On one hand,” he said, “it’s a relief to know the story is just fiction, but for some reason it's also a bit of a disappointment. But thank you for telling me all the same. Good day.” Dave got into his car and took off. Jimmy stepped on the remaining cigarette butt and stepped in. Back at the diner, the young waiter sat opposite Rich. “You should stop doing this dad,” said Jimmy. Rich shook his head. “You don’t understand, you never really did.” “Mom is dead,” said Jimmy, “Nothing will bring her back, including not you telling the story time and again to every passing stranger.” Rich kept silent. “Look,” continued Jimmy, “I know I was very angry at you for a very long time. I am not any more. I disagree with some decisions you had made, but I accept it. Can't you just let it go?” “No,” answered Rich, “I can’t. This has nothing to do with you. I need to know if I made the right choice.” “But you know you never will,” said Jimmy, “never.” Rich lowered his head. They sat in silence for a few more moments. A bell rang. Jimmy got up and started towards the kitchen. He then stopped as he passed by his father, placing his hand on his dad's shoulder before moving on. Rich reached out to his cup, picked it up and took a long sip from what was now a cold cup of coffee.