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THE STARLIGHT ROOM

ange County. At the end of a quiet, winding cul-de-sac, painted an Umbrian orange with Spanish tiles combing the roof, the “Tea House,” as he dubbed it, was a world away from the Mongolian city where Tea grew up.

They made love on her new bed, and afterward, Chris left $40 on the nightstand so she could get her nails done. Tea’s feelings were hurt. She wasn’t a hooker. She was falling in love.

Chris and his team moved his card-printing gear from Villa Siena into the Dana Point apartment’s attached garage—the Tea House would be his new plant and party house, as well as the base of operations for Tea’s twenty-four-hour-a-day job on Carders Market. Her task would be to haunt the Eastern European carder forums, like Mazafaka and Carding-world, and summarize what was happening there for the Russian section of Carders Market.

She’d need a “nick,” Chris explained, a handle or nickname for her online alter-ego. She decided on “Alenka,” the name of a Russian candy.

Alenka went to work at once, glued to the monitor at the Tea House day and night, doing her best to lure the high-powered Russians onto the site run by Chris and “Sam,” the Whiz.