📸 Photo

32

The Mall

Chris pulled his Tahoe into the garage at Fashion Island Mall in New-port Beach, parked, and got out with his new partner, twenty-three-year-old Guy Shitrit. They walked toward the Bloomingdale's, fake American Express cards in their wallets.

Originally from Israel, Shitrit was a handsome guitar player and ladies' man whom Chris had met on Carders Market. Shitrit had been running a skimming operation in Miami, recruiting professional strippers at work and equipping them with exceedingly small skimming devices to steal patrons' magstripe data. When the strip-club managers found out, Shitrit had to get out of town in a hurry. He'd landed in Orange County, where Chris hooked him up with a fake ID, a rental car, and an apartment at the Archstone. Then they hit the stores.

Chris was close now, so close, to getting out. His wife, Clara, had brought in $780,000 on eBay in a little over three years: 2,609 Coach bags, iPods, Michele watches, and Juicy Couture clothes. She had an employee working twenty hours a week just shipping the ill-gotten merchandise. Chris added to the take with his sales of plastics and novelties on Carders Market, an enterprise that wasn't helped by Th3C0rrupted0ne's nitpicking review.

Max, he felt, was ignoring the Whiz List, their blueprint for building one big score and getting out. Chris had finally figured it out: Max didn't