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Max broached his plan obliquely with Charity over the rare indulgence of a sushi dinner. “Which institutions would you say deserve to be punished the most?” he asked.

He had the answer ready: the moneylenders. The greedy banks and credit card companies who saddle consumers with $400 billion in debt each year while charging usurious interest and hooking kids on plastic before they’ve graduated college. And because consumers were never held directly liable for fraudulent charges—by law they could only be billed for the first $50, and most banks waived even that—credit card fraud was a victimless crime, costing only these soulless institutions money.

Credit wasn’t real, Max reasoned, just an abstract concept; he would be stealing numbers in a system, not dollars in someone’s pocket. The financial institutions would be left holding the bag, and they deserved it.

Charity had learned to accept the bitterness Max brought back from prison: Living with him meant never again watching a crime drama on TV, because any depiction of the police as good guys set Max fuming. She wasn’t entirely sure what Max had in mind now, and she didn’t want to know. But one thing was clear. Max had decided he was going to be Robin Hood.