The Rabbit and The Salamander

Most people won’t believe this story, but it doesn’t matter. I know what I saw.

As I sit here on my bunk in FCI Lompoc, writing this all out, the memory itself seems like the culmination of a fever dream. Perhaps that’s why I’m writing it out. Trying to fix the details of it in my mind before they slip away.

It was the third week in October. I remember the exact moment I got the phone call. I only caught it on the last ring, owing to the fact that I had to peel off my Tyvec coverall to get to my pockets underneath. I stepped into the next room of the warehouse and closed the door. The noise of the pill press faded as it shut, and I peeled off the sweaty gas mask whose outer surface was coated with a fine dust.

“Hello?”

“Come have dinner with me tonight.”

It was Rabbit.

“That sounds more like an order than a question.”

“Because it is. I’ve got someone here you need to meet.”

I rubbed my forehead with one gloved hand. I could feel the powdery residue of MDMA and binder being smeared across my skin, but I was too tired to care.

“I’m busy, Rabbit. We’re not even a third of the way done with this run.”

“Look, this is a big money maneuver. I promise you, you’re gonna kick yourself in the nuts every day until you die if you don’t come through. In fact, I’m willing to bet that when you find out what you’ve missed out on you’ll kick yourself in the nuts so hard you die right on the spot.”

I looked back through the window at the pill press as it hammered away, throwing dozens of little Tesla shaped tablets into a plastic bin every few seconds. If he hadn’t made such a good criminal Rabbit would have excelled hustling used cars in Pasadena or as a late night infomercial host. The problem was, just enough of his ideas really were money-makers that it was an existential risk to pass on any Rabbit-related enterprises. Rabbit knew this and relished it.

“Alright… but this idea had better blow my mind. I can be at your place by eight, does that work?”

“Make it seven, and it’ll be at Nicks over on Broadway. Drop yourself off down the street and bag your phone up before you come in.”

I hung up the phone and checked the time. It was five forty-five. I figured that I might as well leave now and try to catch an Uber. San Francisco traffic being what it was, I would be lucky to get there by midnight. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a wad of twenties half the thickness of my fist and portioned them into three piles, then I put my coveralls and my gas mask back on and re-entered the room. I paid the three people who were working that day, told them to make sure they bagged everything up and scrubbed the room before they left. Then I departed, leaving my coverall and mask behind.

I was in luck tonight, as my Uber driver effortlessly wove through the remnants of rush hour and in no time we were on our way across the Bay Bridge and leaving Oakland behind. We pulled up to the curb two blocks from Nicks only ten minutes late, and I tipped the driver handsomely. As I stepped onto the pavement I pulled a small black fabric envelope out of my pocket as well. I took my phone out of my pocket, removed the case and took the battery out, then I placed it inside the bag and slid it back into my pocket. Faraday cages are overkill for most purposes, but it never hurts to be careful, and at very least the knowledge that your smartphone is momentarily dead to the world is a deeply comforting one. Moments later I was sitting down next to Rabbit. Rabbit had just turned thirty, but gave off the aura of an overgrown teenager. He wore a baseball cap over his greasy blonde hair and below that, a pair of jeans and a rumpled hoodie with a skateboard company logo on it. He had a rather pronounced pair of front teeth and an overbite, from which the moniker “Rabbit” was born. Appearances were deceiving, though. Rabbit was one of the best independent fraudsters in the business. Carding. Hacking. Spoofing. Forging. The lot.

“About time you showed up.”

“I’m only ten minutes late.” I retorted, “By your standards that’s an hour early.”

Sitting across from us, and looking distinctly out of place and slightly nervous, was a Japanese man. His age was hard to place, but if I had to say I would’ve pegged him at about 45.

“Sal, I’d like to introduce you to my friend... Satoshi Nakamoto.”

Now, I’m a polite person. I pride myself on being courteous in all situations.

“Get the fuck out of here.”

The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them. The man’s eyes widened a bit and he glanced towards the exit, as though pondering if what I had just said was a figure of speech or a set of instructions. I turned to Rabbit.

“You’re not serious. You mean to tell me that this is THE Sato-”

“SHHHHHH!” Rabbit hissed, glancing around.

We were at a table in the corner and there was a gentle hum of conversation all around us. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention.

“Yes. THAT Nakamoto. Keep your voice down.”

I turned my gaze back to the Japanese man and extended a hand.

“Well, if it really is you then it’s a pleasure to meet you sir, I’m a big fan of your work.”

“Thank you.” Satoshi said, softly.

“Mr. Nakamoto, this is Sal.” Rabbit said. “He’s been my friend for ages, I trust him with my life.”

Sal wasn’t my real name of course, but Salamander was a name I had picked up on the street. It had stemmed from my early days when I was constantly high on LSD and sweating profusely. Often I had also been handling LSD, so consequently when I touched a handle or a phone or a doorknob and someone else then touched it, they might catch a little secondhand zap from the poisonous sweat left behind.

“Mr. Nakamoto here has a problem and he could use some help.”

Satoshi paused and took a deep breath.

“I am being extorted. One of the people who was there in the early days and who helped develop Bitcoin has discovered proof of who I am, and he is trying to blackmail me. I already lived through this ordeal four years ago, there were reporters outside my house, it was a mob… it took me ages to convince them I wasn’t Satoshi, and many still don’t believe my denial. I can’t go through that all again. I am a very private person. I just want to be left alone.”

I glanced at Rabbit. Rabbit was already looking at me, gauging my reaction.

“What does he want? Money?” I said, turning my gaze back to Nakamoto.

“No, he has thousands of bitcoin. He does not need money. He wants me to hand over my accounts to him. He wants to claim credit for creating Bitcoin.”

“Alright, and what exactly are we supposed to do about that?” I asked, glancing back to Rabbit, “I’m a drug dealer, I’m not a hitman. Neither is Rabbit. I’m not sure what we can do for you.”

“No, no-” Nakamoto said, holding up his hand, “I don’t want you to kill him. I need someone to break into his apartment. Take his computers, destroy them. Erase all the data on the disks, anything in the cloud, everything. Confront him if you can. Don’t hurt him, just rough him up a bit, convince him to drop this stupid game.”

“We’re not burglars or enforcers either. Look, no disrespect Mr. Nakamoto but I think you have the wrong people for the job, I’m sure we can send you to someone who can-”

There was a sharp pain in my foot as Rabbit stomped on it. I looked over for the third time and saw a murderous expression on his face.

“Hear. Him. Out.” He hissed through gritted teeth.

I frowned. This was easily the most hair-brained shit Rabbit had tried to rope me into in a cool minute, and the competition for that title was stiff.

“In exchange for your help-” Nakamoto continued, “-I would give you three million dollars in bitcoin.”

The words had a visceral reaction on me. It was remarkable. My face went slack, my frown abandoned me. I felt oddly blank, yet at the same time a part of my mind was racing, thinking about how many different ways I could put that kind of money to use. Where it would take me. How my life would change. Don’t get me wrong, I was already a millionaire at that point, but it had been a long, hard slog. It had taken me nearly a decade to put that kind of money together, and now I was sitting in a taqueria listening to some middle-aged asian guy offering me that for one job.

“I’ll take two million, obviously, since it’s my job I’m bringing you in on, but if you help me pull this off, you can have the other million dollars. Sound fair?”

“Yeah… yes… that’s more than fair. Thank you.”

Rabbit gripped my shoulder and shook me gently, chuckling.

“I never want to hear you say I don’t have love for you ever again you bastard. Never.”

“So how do we find this guy? Do you know his real name?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got his real name, address, usernames and passwords, everything.” Rabbit said. “He’s a chubby heroin addict named Greg. He lives in the Tenderloin.”

“So you will do this for me then?” Nakamoto said.

I thought about it for a moment longer, and then extended my hand once more.

“We’ll get it done.”

Eleven hours later we were both sitting in a 1992 Toyota Corolla that looked and sounded like it was on its last legs. Rabbit had informed me that it was registered to one of his ex-girlfriends in Richmond. The only modification was the maximum legal window tint. Rabbit was holding a nasal spray bottle which proclaimed that it provided 24-hour allergy relief. He was giving each nostril about a half dozen squirts, snuffling between each one. We were parked near the intersection of Hyde and Turk, and the open air drug market swirled all around us. Junkies, young and old, came by skateboard, by foot, by walker and wheelchair to buy from one of the Honduran teenagers manning the corner. The Tenderloin was a lot of things, but it was rarely boring.

“Not to sound ungrateful but, why did you bring me in on this?” I was saying.

“I needed a second set of hands. Someone I could trust.” Rabbit replied, passing the bottle back to me. “Plus, I’m pretty out of shape. So is this guy, but I don’t want it to be a fair fight.”

I wiped the tip of the nasal spray off and proceeded to coat the inside of my nostrils as well. The taste of ketamine dripped down the back of my throat. Somehow it reminded me of a chlorinated pool…

“You want to fight him?”

“Not exactly. Look, here’s the plan- we stake out his house today, see if we can get in and up to his room easily, see what the inside layout is like. Then tomorrow we break in, hide, and wait for him to come home. When he comes home we beat the piss out of him, hogtie the bastard, and slap him around for a bit until he’s got enough of the fear of god in him to drop this whole thing. Then we search the whole apartment top to bottom, take anything that might have Nakamoto’s data on it, wipe his cloud storage accounts and dip out. I’ve got disguises ready and everything, nobody will see our faces, no fingerprints, no DNA, no phones, nothing.”

“How do you know he’s going to be gone long enough to break in?”

“I’ve hacked his phone. He leaves every afternoon like clockwork to go get more heroin, only he doesn’t buy it here in the TL, he walks over to Chinatown to get the good shit. I guess he’s too good for fentanyl or something, go figure.”

We took twenty minute shifts watching the doorway of the three story walk-up flat. One of us would stare fixedly at the front door, and then switch off so neither of us got tired. According to Rabbit the room number was 304. Two and a half hours into our vigil, Rabbit elbowed me hard in the ribs.

“Ow! What?”

“There he is.”

Greg was indeed out of shape, as Rabbit had said. His eyes were heavily lidded and there were stains on his grey shirt. A thin stripe of belly could be seen peeking out from underneath. Once he had ambled around the corner and out of sight, Rabbit peeled out and parked the car a block away. He popped the trunk, and we both hopped out.

Inside the trunk were two sets of bright orange construction vests, hardhats, dust masks, and a small duffle that I had seen before and knew to be Rabbit’s toolbag. Nobody paid us any mind as we sauntered back down the sidewalk and up to the buzzer that unlocked the front door. As Rabbit had long ago told me, after about eight beers and a half gram of cocaine, almost all door buzzer systems were made by two companies: DoorKing and Linear. Both of them had keys which could open their face and expose the guts inside, and these keys were available for purchase on Amazon for a few bucks. This one was a DoorKing, and within a few seconds Rabbit had placed his 16120 key into the lock and flipped the panel open. He then tapped an override button, and there was a long beep. Just as quickly as he had opened it, Rabbit closed and locked the panel again and we pushed our way inside.

The interior of the building was more well kept than the street, but only just. To the left, a narrow hallway extended forward, exposing several sets of doors, and on our right was a stairwell. The paint was a dull, eggshell white. The ceiling looked like a watercolor canvas of different shades of brown from old leaks that had never been properly cleaned up. The stairs creaked loudly as we made our way up to the third floor, putting our nerves on edge. The drywall was pockmarked with scuffs and cracks. No one was outside their apartment, thankfully, but we could hear someone playing music at top volume. We arrived on the third floor and made our way down to number 304. As we got closer Rabbit swore under his breath.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered, but then I saw what was wrong.

The door handle at 304 was quite a bit more sophisticated than it’s neighbors. It had a keypad and an RFID scanner on it, and no visible keyhole. Rabbit set his bag of tools down and rummaged through it, pulling out a small wedge. He tried for a minute or so to jimmy the door open, but it remained firmly closed.

“Fuck… alright, well I guess we’ll have to do it like this...”

He produced a Phillips head and began to unscrew the housing of the lock. It came loose and dangled by a set of wires. From a case within his bag he produced a small circuit board the size of his thumb. He popped a circular CR2032 battery into it, of the kind that might power a laser pen or cheap digital watch. A light flashed blue, and he stuck the thing inside the housing next to the RFID scanner using double-sided adhesive, then replaced the housing and screwed it back in to the lock.

Just as I had the previous night, I slept on Rabbit’s couch that evening, and in the morning we returned to the Tenderloin, although this time we had to move across the intersection as someone had taken our previous parking spot. The Honduran kids clearly seemed to think we were cops and were watching us just as intently as we were watching the front door of the building. I was nervous. Today was the day. It was hard to believe I was about to go hit a lick on behalf of the creator of Bitcoin. Whatever happened next, I would at least be able to tell my kids the story.

I leaned my head against the window and watched my breath fog up the glass. Then I drew a little smiley face in the condensation.

“I wonder if Nakamoto’s gonna stay underground for the rest of his life.” I said.

“Shit, I would, if I did what he did. You know how many people would be beating a path to his door if they knew who he was? The whole world would be breathing down his neck. Governments, organized crime, whackos, hedge funds, literally everyone.”

“I’m surprised he’s even active in the hacker scene. I’d be worried someone would sell me out.”

Rabbit cracked the windows and lit a cigarette.

“Sounds like he didn’t have a choice. I’m looking forward to knocking some sense into this cheap fuck who’s trying to blackmail him. Like, honestly, who does this asshole think he is anyway? Blackmailing Satoshi. What a bum-ass idea.”

Before long Greg was making his way down the steps and off towards Chinatown. Just as yesterday we parked a block away and donned our disguises. Just as yesterday the panel of the DoorKing popped open and we buzzed ourselves in. A couple of tweakers were having a very animated argument in the stairwell, but they barely even glanced at us as we walked past them. Rabbit had his duffle and I had a clipboard that Rabbit had given me to hold. Both of us looked like we belonged there.

The third floor corridor was once again vacant, much to our relief. Rabbit reached down for a small circular device on a keychain that was hooked to one of his belt loops. He held it up to the RFID lock, pressed a button, and the bug reprogrammed the device with the door code it had sniffed. Then he pressed another button and the spoofing device beamed that code back at the door. There was a click, and we both hurried into the apartment and closed the door behind us.

The smell was the first thing I noticed. The rest of the building didn’t smell that great either, but this was actually quite upsetting. The combined living room and kitchen was bare except for a couch, a coffee table, and a desk with a computer and chair. The kitchen counter was almost completely full of pizza boxes and Chinese take out, and the sink was overflowing with dirty dishes. A handful of flies chased each other around and around. On the coffee table was a plate, a couple lighters and dirty spoons, a needle and a length of rubber tubing.

Rabbit ushered me into the bathroom and sat down on the lid of the toilet, shaking his head. I reluctantly took a seat on the carpet that was lain across the floor.

“What a fuckin’ sicko...” Rabbit said, taking his hand away from his mouth and nose.

It smelled a little better in here, but not by much. To cope, and to replace the scent of decaying food with the scent of pool cleaner, we passed the ketamine nasal spray back and forth a couple times. Rabbit retrieved a roll of duct tape from the bag, tore a couple strips off of it and formed them into a big rectangular patch. He handed them to me gingerly and I took them, taking care to keep it unfolded.

“I’ll knock him out and then you shut him up, sound good?”

I nodded. My anxiety was growing by the minute, and it continued to do so for two more hours, until at last, we heard the door to the apartment open. Immediately a warm surge of adrenaline shot into my gut and began climbing up my spine. Rabbit slid silently off the toilet and stood near the door with his ear against it. Suddenly he drew back from the door, and I could hear why. The footsteps were getting louder, approaching us, and before I had a chance to think there was a rattle as the doorknob turned.

Before Greg had a chance to pull the door open, Rabbit kicked it hard and it flew outward, smashing the man in the face. He took two steps backward, clutching at his nose. By the time he had straightened up halfway, Rabbit’s fist was smashing into his eye socket. The man let out a yelp and lost his footing, falling flat on his back. Rabbit was on him immediately, putting a knee on his bicep, and I rushed forward, kneeling on his other arm to immobilize him. I slapped the duct tape over his mouth, muffling his cries and then rabbit held a knife to his throat.

“Shhh! Shut up! Shut the fuck up!”

When Greg had calmed down enough and stopped trying to shout through the duct tape, Rabbit tapped the knife on his chin.

“Listen to me carefully. If you do what I say, I won’t hurt a hair on your head. If you struggle, or make noise, or try to fight us, its over for you. Understand?”

Greg nodded as vigorously as he could with Rabbit’s knife so close to his puffy neck.

“Good. Now lie still.”

I went and retrieved the computer chair from the desk, spun it around, and with some difficulty we both lifted Greg up by his arms and sat him down in it. A pungent smell of ammonia rose above the ambient scent of garbage, and I realized that there was a large wet spot in Greg’s shorts.

“Jesus Christ! He pissed himself!”

Rabbit laughed nervously as he unspooled a generous length of duct tape and bound Greg’s hands and feet to the chair. Once he was secured by several layers of tape, we split up and began to search. Rabbit unplugged his computer and opened the case, unscrewing the data drives and tossing them into the bag. As a precaution I checked the inside of every kitchen cupboard including and every clever little nook where someone might hide something. I found nothing except a few spiders who were clearly enjoying an easy life feasting on a steady stream of flies. Reluctantly I made my way into the bedroom. Thankfully there were no plates of food in here and it was a little more tidy. There were several sets of shelves with books and various trinkets on them. The bed was a tangled mess of sheets and blankets. I checked underneath it but there was nothing. I threw all the sheets onto the floor and then peeled the mattress back, and looked behind the headboard. Nothing.

Halfway through pulling all his drawers out of his dresser and emptying the contents onto the floor it occurred to me that we were behaving exactly like a couple of cops on a drug raid. Oh the irony. I briefly entertained the idea of cutting open his mattress to make the scene complete, but quickly discounted it. He clearly wasn’t much for hiding things. He didn’t have much to hide, either. Inside his closet were a few sets of fancier clothes that looked like they had never been worn and on the floor, a couple boxes of old computer parts. I rummaged through, grabbing anything that could store data, and I came away with a pair of hard drives. In the other room I heard Rabbit looking through the bathroom cupboards. When he came into the bedroom I was in the process of turning over all the books and leafing through them for anything that might be tucked between the pages.

“Checked everything?”

“Just about.” I said.

“Leave the books. If you’ve searched the rest of the room I think we’ve got everything.”

“What did you find?” I asked, picking up the two hard drives and tossing them into his tool bag.

“Not much. Couple thumb sticks, an external SSD. I got his phone from him, got it bagged up.”

“And the cloud data?”

“Wiped.” Rabbit said.

I leaned in close and whispered in his ear.

“Let me do the talking before we leave.”

Rabbit nodded.

On the way back to the living room I retrieved my clipboard from the bathroom sink. Greg was just as we left him, except the wet mark on his shorts had widened significantly.

“If you can hear me, nod your head.”

Greg nodded, and I stooped down slightly so that I was at eye level with him.

“Here’s the deal. You’re getting off easy, this time, but there is a catch. If you ever whisper the word Nakamoto out loud, if you so much as mumble it to yourself in your sleep, It’ll be the last thing you ever do. It doesn’t matter how far you run or how well you hide, we will find you, and as God is my witness you will vanish from the face of the earth and not one tooth or toenail of your body will ever turn up. You will be an unsolved mystery.”

I paused, letting him digest what I’d just said.

“I hope I have made myself absolutely, crystal-clear.”

Greg nodded furiously.

We both took one last look around the ransacked apartment, then we departed. Before we could take our leave of the building, Rabbit had to unscrew the cover of the RFID lock and retrieve his bug, so as not to leave any clues behind. While he was in the process of doing this, the female half of the tweaker couple we had seen arguing earlier stepped out of her room.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

My adrenaline was already up, but this was too much. A single bead of sweat rolled down the back of my neck. I let Rabbit do the talking. Social engineering was one of his hobbies.

“Fixing the card reader. It’s been freezing randomly and the whole lock is stuck in place.”

This seemed to make her quite annoyed.

“Well let me know when it’s fixed, I need to talk to Greg!”

“Absolutely, will do.”

As soon as she had gone back into her room and shut the door, Rabbit frantically replaced all the screws, pocketed the bug, and we left as quickly as we could without running.

When we got to the car, Rabbit hopped in the passenger seat and ripped off his dust mask and hard hat.

“You drive. Take us to 3520 Harlan Street in Oakland.”

“Why, what do you need in Oakland?”

“My friend Dan has a junkyard. We’re gonna throw this car in the crusher and take the train home.”

Despite all the dead ends Rabbit had led me down over the years, sometimes I couldn’t help but admire him. It wasn’t until we were clear of San Francisco that we started to laugh. It began with a giggle from Rabbit, and we weren’t able to breath right again until we had crossed the Bay Bridge.

“Whooooooooo!” Rabbit exclaimed. “Now was that fun or what?”

“That was terrifying!” I replied. “I never want to do that again. Pass me the nose juice, my allergies are acting up.”

We arrived at the junkyard and left the car with Dan, instructing him to leave the bag of electronics in the trunk when he crushed it, and that was that. A few days later Rabbit sent me a username and password to a Coinbase account he had set up in someone else’s name. Inside was a million dollars worth of Bitcoin. Well, a million five hundred and fifty six dollars. Apparently it had gone up.

Two weeks after that a joint DEA/Homeland Security task force simultaneously kicked down the door of my warehouse and my condo. A few days after that, I was sitting in Santa Rita wearing a rough blue shirt several sizes too large for me. I was handed my indictment paperwork for manufacturing, possession and conspiracy. Thankfully, it seemed that my work for Nakamoto had flown under the radar.

Looking back, I’m almost glad I was raided when I was. Right now that million dollars has turned into more than 50 million, and it looks like half a billion or more by the time I get out is a pretty safe bet. It does a lot to ease my mind knowing that even though I have four years of my sentence left, I’ll be set for life. In that light, my sentence is almost like a vacation. A very long day camp with shitty food and annoying people where I can focus on my art, my writing, my education, and forget about the constant strain and paranoia of running a drug ring.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with this letter. I can’t send it. I’ll probably tear it into tiny bits and flush it down the toilet. Probably should never have written it in the first place, but as I sit here on my bunk, waiting on my release date to roll down the calendar and into the present moment, I have to tell someone, even if the only thing I can confide in is a piece of lined paper.

That’s all for now I suppose.

Respectfully Yours,

Salamander