Cash Back Tycoon: Spend Big, Earn Bigger

The man behind the man

Manager Harris had been fidgeting in a damp shirt since noon, and in his glass-walled office at Hartwell Financial, he stared blindly at the telephone as it rang. When it finally stopped ringing, he answered the call himself before the other end could cut in.

"Mr. Whitmore," he said, "I'm afraid there's a problem. The boy saw my authorization code on the transfers."

Victor Whitmore, chairman of the Whitmore Group and the largest private investor in Hartwell, was not a man to be trifled with. "What boy?"

Ethan Vance, the junior analyst whom Harris had just fired this morning. "His name is Ethan Vance. The one my son's fiancée left behind." A brittle sigh crackled into the static. "Has he seen copies of the reports?"

"Luckily, these accounts are locked up, but the boy worked on the reconciliation sheets for years. He could have backed it up somewhere."

"Then it will not matter to you."

That was not a threat , it was a warning, but the older man's voice did not betray a shred of its usual poise. "Detective Rourke owes me a deal, and he'll put that obnoxious little punk in jail tonight. A thief behind bars cannot blackmail anybody, and the word of one petty criminal does not hold against the other, do you understand?"

"And if Ethan has enough money to hire a good lawyer?"

"He won't. Fix this, Harris. Forty thousand dollars for a stolen sum is ridiculous, but Meridian's finances flow directly through three of my other companies. If the boy finds a way to twist this into leverage, you will answer to me alone."

The line cut, and Harris leaned toward the glowing screen, his throat dry. Harris had stolen that money for his gambling debts, and Harris thought the amount was monstrous until now.

He unclipped his tie and picked up the receiver, this time dialing a different number. On the fortieth floor of Grand Regency, Ethan reached the end of a guest list for the third time.

The paper shook in his trembling fingers, though not in terror, but in a righteous fury. Across the desk, Alden Pryce stood, his palms folded in a single silent demand, staring at the new owner of the establishment like the trigger-happy madman that he was.

It was the engagement party of Chad Whitmore and Lily Moreau that had been advertised in the Grand Ballroom at ten o'clock. An official RSVP had read: "Six weeks after its confirmation, the Whitmore family has formally paid a two hundred thousand dollar deposit, and Mr. Victor Whitmore will personally give a speech."

"The speech was confirmed six weeks ago."

The new owner, Chad Whitmore, turned around to face the young man. "The engagement was confirmed six weeks ago as well. I just didn't bother telling you that Lily always planned to marry me while still eating her dinners outside every night."

Lily always planned to marry me while still eating her dinners outside every night. Ethan turned to his best friend in the world, Marcus, who sat on the leather couch by the window, holding a tumbler of water since he refused to accept any of the lounge's liquor.

"Ethan, I don't blame you for wanting to see this through to the very end," said Marcus, "but do you really want to pick this fight tonight?"

"I don't want revenge", replied Ethan, "I want those people to say it in public, out loud where everybody laughs."

He stood up from the table to look out at the city, where the lights of the harbor danced gently in the rain. The first priority was to get the evidence against Harris, but where was it? Hidden in a secret account, protected by God knows what security measures, lying around in a place Ethan could not reach anymore. Wait, there was one single detail that he remembered from three weeks ago. While looking through those reconciliations, one particular line in a routine report had raised his suspicion. So a tiny inner voice told him to keep the backup copies somewhere safe. He forwarded those files into a secondary email, one that he had hardly used since, the client account that he set up in his teenage years.

"Marcus, give me your laptop, please!"

The other man opened his bag and handed over the device, and Ethan booted it up in a minute. The forty-one unread emails filled the screen, the old attachments waiting patiently where he left them, and Ethan opened the first spreadsheet.

It showed an authorization code on the supposedly fraudulent operations, a single combination for all forty-one lines, and it was Harris's code. "He signed his own execution," said Ethan with a grin, "the man never thought anyone would be watching him steal that amount of money."

"You mean you're going to take that to the police?"

"They're the reason why I need it in the first place. Earlier today, Harris got someone to come to the hotel and arrest me this evening. They probably want me off the streets so that nobody will hear my voice in the middle of the ballroom."

Ethan opened the wallet icon on the edge of his peripheral vision and the window popped up. [ HOST QUERY: IS THERE A LEGAL SERVICE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE? ]

[ SEARCHING... ]

[ RESULT: CALLAWAY AND FROST, THE FIRM THAT PROCESSED THE HOST'S PROPERTY TRANSFERS, IS AVAILABLE FOR RETAINER AT $5,000. ]

[ NOTE: CASHBACK TIER ONE APPLIES TO PROFESSIONAL SERVICES ]

Ethan smiled again, and this time, he knew that the system did not give rewards for luxury goods. He thought that there was a good amount of revenge in a lawsuit against Hartwell Financial. He retained the five thousand dollars in that very second, and a confirmation message appeared on his corner.

[ DING! ]

[ PURCHASE CONFIRMED: $5,000.]

[ REWARD: A TEN PERSON PRIVATE LEGAL TEAM WITH FULL ACCESS TO FORENSIC ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT WILL BE ASSIGNED TO THE HOST FOR THE NEXT NINETY DAYS ]

Ethan looked back at the window, and the familiar sound of a ringing phone greeted his ears. It was the internal line of the hotel, and Mr. Pryce answered it with his back straight and his hands clasped together.

His face turned pale half-way through the conversation. "Sir," he said when he hanged up, "the front desk has just informed us that two police officers. A gentleman in a gray coat, are here to see you."

"Of course the one day that they decide to come is the day we're having this meeting," said Marcus. He stood up so fast that the glass in his hand spilled backward. "They should not be here yet! It was only six hours since that call!"

"That is Detective Rourke," said Ethan. He closed the laptop with practiced ease and stood up from the table. "Harris wanted to catch me off-guard and he almost did."

"What are we going to do?" Asked Pryce.

Ethan buttoned up his brand new suit-jacket as he faced the dark windows, studying his reflection. The man that stared back at him was anything but repentant. "I'm going to meet him- no, I'm going to give him his confession myself."

"Sir, if you allow them to arrest you in this establishment, the Whitmores will hear about it in less than an hour. The party starts in an hour."

"Then let them come", said Ethan, "let the fun begin," and he left to the elevator with Marcus and Pryce at his sides. In the confines of its walls, he exhaled slowly, letting the numbers climb steadily downwards, starting from the fortieth floor, then twenty and ten, until the elevator doors opened in the middle of an opulent marble hall. A tall man stood before them, surrounded by two officers and a folder of documents in his hand. His eyes met Ethan's the second the doors had opened.

"Ethan Vance," said Detective Rourke, "is hereby under arrest for embezzlement.