The Name of the Game

The Name of the Game

Psst! Hey. Got a story for you. A little ex-po-zay. 

Who am I? Just call me Flatiron. Can’t give my real identity. It’d be too risky. For me, for my cohorts and allies. Maybe for you, too. 

Anyway, here’s the scoop. There’s some shady dealing going on. I got involved by default. I’m confiding in you because:

  A. You look trustworthy, and 

  2. You're a neutral party. 

See, there’s a few rival factions around here. I don’t like to say gangs, per se, but—definitely controlling elements. Besides me, there’s three other main players. (I should mention here that I have to use aliases for all parties involved.)

Me and Racecar—we’re low-key rivals. She’s more of an ally, if you get my drift. Yes, I said she. And by the way, her name is ironic. Like calling a large man “Tiny”. She drives like an old grandma.

And Scottie “The Dog”—to be honest, Scottie is a bit of a pushover. Rolls over and plays dead. Avoids conflict and all that. Top Hat? Different story entirely. He’s full of himself, a flash dresser, drives fast cars. Plural. Top Hat is shifty. If you ask me, he’s a psychopath.

See, here’s what went down. We all have our particular interests. I happen to control, er, oversee—shall we say, the seedier part of town. Wrong side of the tracks is what some people call it. 

So, I own a lot of property. And I admit I’ve maximized my assets by putting as many cheap houses as I can cram onto the lots. Some people call me a slumlord. Maybe that’s what it looks like, but I prefer to think of it as giving opportunities to the less fortunate. It’s still the lowest rent district in town. Without my good-heartedness, tenants would be living under the railroad bridge. I even accept Section 8 housing vouchers; that’s the kind of person I am. And I prefer to stick to my own business.

I’ll let you in on a pet peeve of mine though. See, I work hard to make a more or less honest living. I keep my dealings clean enough they don’t attract the wrong kind of attention, you know? But I feel like, sometimes, I get the shaft.

On the other hand, Top Hat has his fingers in many pies, understand? The city knows about his, well, affiliations, to put it nicely. But they often turn a blind eye, because he has certain connections and makes contributions to the right people. He gets contracts, and takes out contracts. If you know what I mean. Not that I’d accuse him of outright disposing of people. He just has a way of getting them out of his way. Which applies to The Dog.

I haven’t said much yet about The Dog. He does have some relevance to the story, so I’ll clue you in about him real quick. He was just plodding along with what came to him by inheritance, keeping everything status quo. See, he had what you might call “old money”. His granddaddy had built up quite an empire, and his daddy made some timely investments. Mostly luck. Which seemed to run out before Scottie took over. You might say The Dog got the wrong end of the stick. Didn’t really have the temperament for doing business, if you get me. His properties weren’t as upmarket as Top Hat’s, but they were plenty classy. He was too softhearted to charge the market value, and he was losing money on the upkeep. I don’t blame him for nothing. It was all Top Hat’s doing.

What happened was, my properties got tagged by the city. Certain renovations had to be made, see. Naturally, I raised the rent to recoup some of the expense. And that’s where Top Hat comes in. See, I’d gone and hired cheap labor to do the work I needed done. They may not have been licensed contractors, but let me tell you, they worked fast. Meanwhile, Top Hat wanted to do some upgrades on his luxury properties just so he could charge more rent. So he hired the rest of the contractors. Every single one available. Paid them top dollar. He even tried to hijack my crew.

Well, there’s something Mister Top Hat didn’t take into account. Property improvement taxes. Hefty ones. And he couldn’t pay them. It was partly due to some investments he made in one of my umbrella companies. 

I did mention that Top Hat dabbles in a slew of different businesses, didn’t I? Well, the truth is, so do I. It’s all on the up-and-up. To protect my assets, I keep them separate from my real estate, under a company which shall remain nameless. Not knowing my connection, Top Hat bought a lot of stock in this state-of-the-art microfiber umbrella factory, and it folded. He lost beaucoup bucks.

Now, understand, Top Hat cares nothing for rewarding people for their work. His whole objective is to get as much control as he can. Here's the thing. Top Hat is always making bids to do work for the city. He undercuts all the other offers with lowball bids and gets funding for this, that, and the other project. I’m sure he bribes them under the table, you know what I mean? It’s all a big game. The rest of the applicants might get a bone once in a great while, just to make it look fair. 

For instance, I already mentioned Section 8. When City Hall made allowance for more housing, who won the spots? Top Hat. I got my application back with a note thanking me for applying, and regretting that my business model wasn’t a good fit. Does that not sound flimsy, my friend?  I specialize in low-income lodging.

Where was I? Bones… Oh, the tragedy of Scottie “The Dog”. So, yeah. Top Hat had bought up all the laborers and had them tied up with his projects. Then—I’m sure it was his doing—he paid off an inspector from the city to give multiple citations to The Dog. And of course, there were no workmen to do what needed to be done. All The Dog’s tenants skedaddled, and he went bust. 

Now, Top Hat stepped in, all helpful like, and offered to buy The Dog’s assets. The Dog was so desperate, he jumped at it. If I’d known about it in time, I would’ve gone silent partners with poor old Scottie. See, I’m a softie. By the time I found out though, it was already done.

You remember I said that The Dog had a tendency to roll over and play dead? Not long after Top Hat cleaned him out, The Dog was found actually for-real dead on the street in front of what used to be his own property. Of course, the fact it now belonged to Top Hat put the suspicion on him, but he claimed he was framed. He was happy to sit in jail collecting rent for a while. But the law had nothing to hold him on, so they had to let him go. Then he sued for damages and continued his dirty dealing. Including questionable tax write offs.

Here’s where Racecar comes in. Top Hat was out to get her because she held major shares in all four of the railroads and the utilities. Vital stuff, if you depend on the grid. That should’ve given her some clout, right? Yeah, you’d think so. But you notice I said held. Past tense, if I remember my grammar.

I still feel guilty about what happened to Racecar, even though she doesn’t hold it against me. On my part, maybe it was a little thoughtless. On Top Hat’s part, it was intentional. 

In any case, we were using the entire workforce of carpenters and contractors, leaving not one for Racecar. She only had a few properties, needed to do some maintenance on them, and there were no workers available. Nothing. Not even illegal ones. 

So Top Hat tried his usual sketchy tactics and put the squeeze on her, like he did with The Dog. He wanted to buy her out cheap. But Racecar is more perceptive than The Dog is. Was. She’s savvy enough to approach me for a partnership deal. 

“Let’s go for a walk,” she suggests, looking around my office suspiciously. 

“Sure,” I agree, thinking she feels the need for fresh air. To clear her head. She seems a little jumpy.  

When we get a ways away, she glances around again before hissing through clenched jaws,

“Flatiron. I wanted to come out here in case your office is bugged.” I raise my eyebrows.

“You think…Top Hat?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t put it past him. At. All. But I can trust you. Right?” 

I nod. “Of course. You seem on edge. What do you need?” 

Racecar coughs.

“I’m about to break down. I’d like to offer my properties to you as collateral for a loan. That way, you could use your work crew to improve them, thus keeping—”

“—Top Hat out of it!” I exclaim. “I’m in!”

We shake hands and continue our walk.

So now it was me and Racecar against Top Hat. We were determined to beat him at his own game. I paid off Racecar’s debts and bought the controlling interest she had in the utilities. Did that put a stop to Top Hat? Fat chance. He was still buddy-buddy with the city officials, offering them deals and whatnot. 

There’s something Top Hat had that I really, really wanted. Especially now that me and Racecar had teamed up. I’d made a few investments that turned out well, and my capital just kept growing. Until Top Hat realized what I was up to and started whittling away at it.

Now, it’s become a habit that whenever we need to have a private conversation, me and Racecar go for a walk. 

“Something on your mind?” she guesses. We’re halfway down the block, so I suppose it’s safe to speak.

“Racecar, have you noticed lately, I keep getting pulled over for speeding? Repeatedly. Me, in my silver, twenty-something-year-old, used Ford Escort. That I drive so as not to stand out like a sore thumb.” 

Her jaw muscles twitch, and fire lights her eyes. 

“That’s absurd! Top Hat is behind it, I have no doubt. We’ve got to take him down.”

Before we had a chance, I got hit with a doozy. I was arrested and taken directly to jail. 

“What’s this for?” I demand. “What did I do?”

The arresting officer juts out his jaw and shoves a whole stack of papers in my face.

“Marked ‘Undeliverable-Return to Sender’. Nine unpaid speeding tickets, plus interest at five percent per day, plus fines for evasion of payment.”

The speeding tickets were all unfair in the first place. Well, to be honest, maybe I deserved one of them. I know Top Hat had something to do with the other eight. But that’s all beside the point. I’m sitting pretty with my finances, and I would have paid those tickets. But I never got them. Something was very, very fishy.

There was no way to prove I’d never seen those papers. So I paid the fines, which didn’t make a dent in my considerable capital. But, see, it irked me. Made me all the more determined to take down Top Hat.

“We can play Top Hat’s game,” I assure Racecar. “But before we try to strike a deal with him, we need to position ourselves better. See, what he has, that I—er, we—want, is a certain exclusive property. You know which one I’m talking about.” I’m careful, even though we’re out in the open. “The one right next to it is in pre-foreclosure. The minute it goes up for auction, we’ll start bidding. If we can get it, we’ll have leverage.”

You understand, we knew Top Hat would bid against us. He drove the price up to a crazy level, but we refused to give in. Finally, it got so high he couldn’t afford it, and we snapped it up. Then we put the builders to work remodeling it. Like a slap in Top Hat’s smug face. He was furious, and we knew that put us on slippery ground. But we couldn’t stop there. We had to get the one property he still owned.

Then I heard some news through a friend of a friend, if you get my meaning, and I had to share it with Racecar.

“Nice day,” I say, pointing out the window. “Care for a stroll around the block?”

Racecar catches my drift and heads for the door. 

“Sure! About now, I feel all revved up. Let’s go!” Down the block, she turns to me. “Spill it!”

Now, you may be thinking that it was an unwise business decision to partner up with someone who has gone broke. But, see, I know Racecar. I can trust her.

“I was told that Top Hat is nearly wiped out, down to thirty-eight dollars. And he got found out for some of his interesting business practices, see? Now he’s spending some time in the pokey. But he’s not going down easy. He’s already mortgaged his property.”

Racecar purses her lips and squints at me.

“Do you think we have a chance?”

Now, under normal circumstances we’d have been glad to see Top Hat enjoying some down time as a guest of the “Crowbar Hotel”. But what with the prospect of, you might say, helping him out of his financial hole, we were waiting to pounce the moment he was sprung.

We did not anticipate what happened next. He was released from jail, immediately got his suspiciously large tax refund, and was sitting plump and flush. He would not deal, so we had to change our tactics. Go to Plan B, you might say.

“Racecar, you would agree that Top Hat is greedy. Would you not?”

Racecar nods. “Full to the brim with avarice, Flatiron.” She’s always coming up with these fancy words.

“Well, what say we offer him ten times the property value?”

“What?! Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“We have the wherewithal.” I can use big words too. 

Top Hat was stubborn. He refused our more than generous offer.

But we couldn’t back down. We almost had that property within our grasp!

Then something happened that was none of our doing. Something that changed our circumstances. The building inspector retired and moved to Florida. Now, see, me and Racecar recognized an opportunity when the new inspector came on the scene. We invited him on a tour of our holdings, and all but begged him to let us know what needed fixing. Then we suggested that it would only be fair to do the same for our colleague, Top Hat. And I gave him a friendly present of some shares in an investment company I happen to own.

Now, this inspector was eager to prove his worth. He went for it. He was, I may say, extremely thorough with Top Hat and hit him with a list of code violations. Me and Racecar were disappointed to see Top Hat on track to fulfill every one of them and pass the inspections, but—that’s where our inspector friend stepped in. See, he gave Top Hat a real strict deadline to finish the work, and came back the very day the time was up. Top Hat was counting on a little more wiggle room, like he’d had with the last inspector, but he was out of luck. 

Our inspector friend took the opportunity to throw the steepest fines he could. Of course, Top Hat didn’t like that any. It used up his rainy day fund and then some. 

Seeing his bank account—or, at least his legal one—at a big fat zero, he disappeared, poof! With no trace. I would not be surprised if he has an offshore bank account in the Bahamas or Cayman Islands. Maybe he’s living there, too. But I guarantee, his associates are still around and they keep in touch with him. He’ll rear his head again.

Now, naturally, I’m telling you all this because I need you to do something for me. Leak the story to the public. If you win any prizes for your writing, I won’t ask for a cut. I’ll even give you some premium stock.

As for me and Racecar, we feel like we’ve won! We have a monopoly. That’s the name of the game.