Page 77 of Man of the Year

I close my eyes, wanting to punch him in the face. I would’ve if he were here. Actually, no, I wouldn’t have. I would’ve cracked his ribs. I did once, when he got me pissed off by disappearing and binging for three days straight while we were supposed to do an online World Digital Forum presentation.

I’m so tired of that imbecile. He’s a mediocre actor and a pathetic person. The only reason he got this gig is pure luck and his uncanny resemblance to the actual Rosenberg. And the actual one? May his soul rest in peace in the backyard of a summer cabin in Vermont. The twenty-first century is all about the survival of the fittest, and the real Geoffrey Rosenberg didn’t make the cut.

FIFTY-NINE

NICK

I picked up Phil Crain when he was drunk as a skunk, in tears, telling the bartender at an Irish pub on the Lower East Side of Manhattan his sad life story. His sniffles were ruining my lunch, but one look at him gave me whiplash. Despite his blond hair and blue eyes, I swear he looked like Rosenberg’s doppelgänger. He just needed several tweaks to play the part—red hair dye, green eye lenses, expensive suit, proper attitude. I paid off his gambling debt, promised him a fortune for playing the best role in his life—he was an actor at some shitty off-Broadway place. I should’ve known he had more debt than he led me to believe. The guy can’t keep his life straight.

It’s been over a year with this parasite, and I’m about done with him. He thinks he’ll get a hefty paycheck, fake passport, and disappear to some South American paradise. As if I could trust an idiot like him. In a couple of days, he will be brain dead in a hospital.

“Listen to me,” I tell Phil on the phone. “You get ready, put on the outfit I chose for you, and read the document I sent you. I don’t want you to say anything stupid or sound like a moron in front of our biggest investors. I’ll pick you up in twenty. Not a drop of booze, you got me?”

“Jesus, I already told you?—”

“Shut! The fuck! Up!” I snap. “Get to work on that document. Practice like it’s the most important audition of your life. Itis, by the way.”

I cut the call and grunt in frustration.

He’s not any better than the actual Geoffrey Rosenberg. Now,thatguy was a genius, though also a doormat. I met him several years ago when he was working on a new online digital currency marketplace, which was brilliant, by the way. But he was a lousy networker, so he couldn’t find investors. An introvert, a loner, a weirdo—he should’ve listened to me and made a deal that day three years ago. Could’ve been still alive.

I had developed a new cryptocurrency, ErFi Crypto—nothing special, but big potential if played right. I’d just dumped my investment company which was a fraud and got away with hefty eight figures in my offshore account.

I believe that everything happens for a reason. I lived under a new identity, came to Rosenberg to offer him a collaboration. I don’t know if he simply didn’t like me or was too protective of his idealistic vision about his online baby, IxResearch. It didn’t matter. I wanted my hand in it, but he was stalling.

The evening he and I had an argument at his place, I didn’t mean to start a fight. If he’d kept his mouth shut, things would’ve turned out differently. But he kept on blabbering and blabbering, calling me a fraud, until I punched him in the face.

I know, I know, I have occasional spurts of anger. That one resulted in him falling, hitting his head against the edge of the table, and?—

Well, let’s just say that a dead body can be a nuisance if you don’t know how to dispose of it. Luckily, I had a perfect place, a remote cabin in Vermont that belonged to my grandparents’ friend who never used it.

Rosenberg being a recluse worked out fantastically for me. I had access to everything he owned—his apartment, his computers, his software. He didn’t have any friends. No family or relatives, his single mom long dead. No one was looking for him. I realized that it would be easy to continue with his project, feeding my own obscure ErFi Crypto into his new digital market.

No one knew that Rosenberg was dead. He didn’t have to be. But soon, I needed a face for IxResearch and a person who could take all the blame for it later on.

I’ve been working on this for three years. A year and a half ago, I found that doofus, Phil. It was time to take that enterprise up a notch. I didn’t expect it to explode like it did, with the company’s net worth skyrocketing to almost a billion.

I could’ve kept it up for longer. If it were mine, that is. Unfortunately, there’s too much mess with Rosenberg’s identity, so that will have to play out differently.

Today is a big day. The company is officially going public and releasing the shares onto the stock market. With the raging interest from the investors, it’s only a matter of days until the stock prices soar. I’ll transfer the rest of the IxResearch investments to my offshore accounts, and bye-bye! The thousands of idiots who invested in yet another crypto venture will be bankrupt. Serves them right. Bernie Madoff will pale in comparison, but unlike him, when the feds get a whiff of what’s happening, I’ll be across the world, sipping cocktails on the beach under a new identity.

SIXTY

NICK

I sit down at the desk and turn on the computer screens.

Here it is, my empire at a glance.

There are three computers at my place. It’s a joke calling this guest house at the back of The Splendors “my place,” but I had to keep a low profile, all the while living close to that imbecile, Phil, to curate his daily life and keep up the charade. That turned out to be harder than building a billion-dollar business. Stupid people should be lobotomized. But then I wouldn’t have my business.

I’m about done playing the driver. Trying to be humble. Smiling like a good boy. Following orders in public while wanting to cave in Phil’s face. Acting like I’m one of the staff, one of those gray mice who day to day clean other people’s mess.

Philtrulybelieves that playing Rosenberg is the biggest acting role of his life. It probably is, considering he’ll be dead as soon as I’m done with him.

I check the latest transfer of partial funds from IxResearch to one of my offshore accounts. That’s another ten million dollars. I launder in increments. I have over a dozen separate accounts all around the world, in the “gray list” countries that are tax havens.

I check the ErFi market price and smile in satisfaction—my baby is growing, gaining popularity thanks to IxResearch.

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