The bartender arrived with a Bud Light and a chilled glass.

“Put that on my tab,” Ted said.

Richie ignored the glass and took a hefty swallow from the longneck. “She’s always trying to get me to up my game. You see that? Trying to get me to show some class.”

“Yeah, well, she’s young. She’ll get over it.”

They had met four years earlier when Ted was coming out the door of the Capital One bank near the courthouse and Richie had approached him with his sad face and a story. Ted had let him spin his whole pitch about having lost his wallet and needing help to cash two checks from his employer and how he’d gladly pay 10 percent—$200—for assistance. It was an old con, and Richie, though glib enough, was unlikely to inspire confidence in anyone in possession of either eyes or brain.

But Ted was new to the surplus-money game and already disheartened by the amount of time he was spending on research, both online and at the courthouse. He bought the hapless con man a few beers, and by the end of the day, they had arrived at a working arrangement. A year later, when Richie was arrested for scamming senior citizens with an IRS spiel, Ted bailed him out, found him a good lawyer, and put him back to work. Ted didn’t think of it as either altruism or heroism. He didn’t want to waste time finding and training some other researcher.

“What do I owe you?” Ted asked.

“I got eleven. All winners.”

“So, that’s two seventy-five.” Ted passed him the cash and reached for the top case file. “Anything I should know about these?”

“The one in your hand. You read that and tell me it’s not solid gold.”

He flipped it open. The top page listed the property address, the defendant, the claimant, the amounts sought by claimant, and the sale price. Ted slammed it closed.

“Gimme back twenty-five,” he said. “You know I don’t hunt elephants.”

“You gotta read it first.”

“I read it. It’s a million-two. That’s all I need to know.”

There were no guarantees in his business. People who fail to appear at their own foreclosure hearings may be confused, angry, disorganized, broken, or, in some cases, just nuts. It could be a little like juggling rattlesnakes. The process itself could be devastating for the defendants, or for any number of reasons, they could be victims of their own design. Early on, Ted had made some rules to protect himself, and he observed them more religiously than he had ever followed the Ten Commandments.