“I spoke with Damon Finn, he’s on the third or fourth tier of the Chase credit card division. I hate to admit this, but I had to bribe him to get the information he was willing to part with, and, like I said, it isn’t much. Two years ago they, meaning Chase, had a promotion for their people for signing up new accounts, then they brought them all here to Vegas as a thank-you. We met, nothing out of the ordinary, just a meeting. Nice guy. His people were nice, no drunkenness, no rude behavior. That’s all I had to go on when I spoke to him. I laid it out, told the truth, and promised him and his wife a week at the Babylon, fully comped, plane fare, food, chips for $100 a day. I’m not sure his information is worth what it cost us, but I’ll let you be the judge.
“In October of last year, a young woman by the name of Bethany Nolan was hired. The reason her name came to his attention was because of the strange hiring requirements she insisted on.”
Lizzie frowned. “Which were?”
“She said she was a law student and was just a hair away from taking the bar, and could only work two full weekends a month. But she was willing to work double shifts and once in a while maybe a Friday or a Monday if she could arrange it, so in essence it was the equivalent of a four-day or five-day workweek. She didn’t care that she wasn’t eligible for health benefits, said she was covered under her husband’s policy where he worked, so she was hired with Finn’s approval.
“She was everything you could want in an employee, according to Finn. She came in, worked sixteen hours a day, then they had to hire someone else to process all the new accounts she brought in. She stayed until the end of February, when she said she had to quit. She said she was run-down and needed to fall back and regroup so she could study for the bar. She sent a lovely letter thanking them for giving her the chance to work for such a wonderful company. On her last day she bought her fellow workers, six of them, pizza and gave them all a little token gift and promised to stay in touch. She even offered free legal advice in the future. No one ever heard from her again.”
“And this means what, Cricket?”
“Check Bonnie’s employment records when she worked at East Coast Savings. Fax Finn a picture of Sara Brickman. Isn’t that the name you told me she used when this all came to light? I told him to expect one.”
“But, Cricket, that isn’t going to tell us anything. So what if she worked weekends? She didn’t work weekends at the bank here, so there won’t be a record of her taking off.”
“Finn did say on occasion she would work a third day, depending if she needed extra money. Sometimes she would work a Friday or a Monday. That you can check. But it will be the clincher if the picture of your person matches up with Finn’s employee.
“Finn just thought you might be interested in this because you comped a trip to Vegas?” Lizzie’s fingers tapped on the kitchen table. She’d been hoping for so much more.
Cricket laughed, the sound booming over the wire. “Not exactly. The Post started to run articles on identity theft along with human-interest stories, and, lo and behold, most of those cases were Chase card holders. Finn said at first he thought it was just something they had to deal with, and the next time it would be American Express or Citi. This time they had to take the hit. They brought in a forensic CPA to do an audit, and that’s when they found out that all the new accounts that Bethany Nolan set up were fraudulent. Moreover, remember telling me something about minor foster children being targeted? Well, twenty percent of those accounts were for minor children in the foster care system.
“They tried to find her, even hired private detectives. Nolan was not a law student, they found out to their dismay. She didn’t live where she said she lived. She had no past beyond five years, just like your Sara Brickman. He said he would help but don’t count on it. Chase doesn’t want the exposure a full-court press will bring. He said as much. Finn is afraid people would stop using their Chase credit cards, turn them in, go to other cards because Chase doesn’t protect their interests, that kind of thing.”
Lizzie chewed on her bottom lip as she digested her husband’s information. “What’s your gut feeling, Cricket?”
“My gut says Bethany Nolan is your Sara Brickman and all the other names you said she used. My advice would be to fax Finn the woman’s picture and wait to see what he does. I did mention that I heard through the grapevine that the vigilantes were hot on her trail.”
Lizzie found herself smiling at what Cosmo Cricket probably thought was a hushed whisper. “What did Mr. Finn say?”
Cosmo chuckled. “I can give it to you verbatim. ‘Good Christ, don’t tell me that!’”
This time Lizzie laughed out loud. “What did you say to that?”
“I just wished him luck, then he hung up.”
“Thanks, sweetie. Talk to you later.”
Lizzie sat for a few minutes longer as she ran the conversation with Cricket over and over in her mind. When she was satisfied she had it clear, she called Maggie, reported in. She rattled off the information Cosmo had given her. “Just fax the picture to Finn, and call me as soon as you hear something. The fact that the Post is on it might make Finn a little more cooperative. I think I just gave you your next headline, Maggie. And kudos on your following up on the foster child angle. Imagine, twenty percent of those accounts for kids in foster care. Talk about lowlife scum.”
Lizzie broke the connection and called Myra and Annie and relayed the same information, with instructions to call Charles immediately.
Charles Martin looked at the blizzard of papers spewing out of his fax machine. His e-mail pinged and zinged as if vying for attention over the faxes coming through. Two phones started buzzing as they, too, wanted their fifteen minutes of fame. Charles knew in his gut that something was wrong even before he answered the phone or checked his faxes and e-mails. He shrugged; that was what he was there for, to deal with each crisis and resolve it.
He listened to one of Avery Snowden’s operatives, a seasoned professional, as a frown built between his brows. “But you aren’t sure is what you’re telling me, is that correct?” He listened again. “You know what to do, Leigh. Call me when your replacement is in place. Check in with Avery and stay out of sight.”
Charles pressed a button and took the second call. He listened, the frown growing deeper. “If she’s in the garage and about to take her car out, she’s going somewhere. Stay with her. What do you mean she changed her mind? She’s going back to the elevator? Can you see what floor she punched in? Six? Did she act like she forgot something, or is she spooked? Leigh just called in, and she thinks Bonnie is spooked. Said Bonnie looked around, then right at her. A new face, and Bonnie can’t decide if she recognizes it or not. Anything is possible. Where’s Clyde? Usually he’s right on her heels. Okay, stake out the sixth floor, the stairwell, and make sure that the GPS you attached to the vehicle is on good and tight. Can you dismantle the locking system and dust the steering wheel for fingerprints?” He listened a moment longer, then said, “Get someone there to do it ASAP.”
Charles’s next call was to Myra, and it was short and sweet. “Get down to the fifth floor and walk up to six. Keep your cell phone on and do your power walk. The second you get to the sixth floor, call me, and we’ll keep the line open.” He cursed loudly and ripely as he attacked the stack of papers still coming through the fax machine. The e-mail was pinging so loudly he wished he had earplugs.
Murphy let loose with a loud bark, which triggered one from Grady. Both dogs were on their feet before Charles could turn around.
“It’s okay. I know I don’t usually use language like that, but there’s a first time for everything.”
Charles took a moment to wonder if he’d put too many operatives on this particular case. Never one to voice self-doubt, he shook his head to clear it. He needed every single operative and probably should have assigned a dozen more to Bonnie and Clyde. He closed his eyes for a moment as he tried to figure out what the couple’s next move would be.
First and foremost
, Charles now realized, the couple was suddenly seeing too many new faces in a short span of time. No operative was perfect, sometimes no matter how they disguised themselves, no matter how nonchalant they appeared, a subject would pick up on it. Maybe they were too close, the clothing didn’t sit right with the subject, or the operative made eye contact. Whatever it was, Charles knew that Bonnie and Clyde were now on the alert.
He also knew that if either Bonnie or Clyde left the Watergate, there was a good chance they could successfully elude his people. It happened all the time, and it didn’t matter how good the operative was. Bonnie and Clyde were pros, and there was too much money at stake for them to suddenly get sloppy. In addition, most criminals had Plan B, C, D, and, if necessary, the rest of the alphabet in place. Right now, he knew, they were kicking Plan B into place. All it took was one little thing to warn the subject that things weren’t quite right. People like Bonnie and Clyde had built-in antennae that were always on alert for possible trouble.
Charles’s cell phone was at his ear the instant it rang. It was Myra announcing she and Annie were on the sixth floor and starting their power walk. “Remember, Myra, only German when you and Annie are walking. Don’t talk loud, keep your voice normal. I’ll be able to hear everything with my earbud. Be careful.”
He was already calling Jack and Harry as he spread out the stack of faxes on the table: reports on all the people who had attended Bonnie and Clyde’s seminars at various hotels over the past two weeks. As he scanned the reports, viewed the attendees’ credit histories, their mundane jobs, and unimpressive work performances, he understood how easy it would be for Bonnie and Clyde to recruit them to the identity theft ring. The number of cash advances was staggering.
Charles suddenly knew how it all worked: Bonnie and Clyde stole the victim’s identity, farmed out the identities to the people who attended the seminars. Probably each person was assigned, at the most, a dozen victims. They’d charge up a storm, buying merchandise that was sent to various drop zones, then sold on the black market. Before they moved on to the next victim, they would take a cash advance in whatever amount the card would allow. He knew now that the couple wasn’t running a big operation, they were running a huge operation. They had to have a quality forger in place, along with people whom they trusted to monitor the drop zones and peddle the merchandise. Even with a seventy/thirty split, they were racking up huge profits, stealing money from unsuspecting people at the speed of light.
The big money, he knew, came from the second mortgages and home equity loans they perpetrated. Timing was everything, Charles knew, which meant from the moment Bonnie or Clyde applied for either a mortgage or home equity loan they had to have dozens of people and various bank accounts in place so they could cash the checks and move on. Just the banking alone was a mind boggler. Having only two people working the financial end of it bothered him. Would they trust a financial man, or did they do it all themselves? His gut told him it was a two-person operation. Where were the records? Was there a set of books? Unlikely. Was it all done on the computer and transferred to a memory stick? Probably.
If their real apartment was on the sixth floor, was that where the computer was? Or did they have yet another place where they actually conducted business? An office of some kind with electronic equipment? The Watergate had thousands of office units for rent. Another needle in the haystack for him to find. He sighed mightily as he listened to Myra and Annie jabbering on the open cell phone line.
Annie stopped by the elevator, and Myra bumped into her. “Listen, Myra, as long as there is no one in the hallway, we don’t have to do that long-legged stride with our arms wind-milling. If we hear the elevator, we go into action; otherwise, I say we just walk up and down this hall. We could listen at doorways to see how many people are actually home. You know, the sound of televisions, radios. We might even get a whiff of food cooking. There aren’t any cameras on these floors, which I find very strange. What good are cameras in the stairwells if you get mugged in the hallway?”
That was all Myra had to hear. She pointed to the cell in her hand, then put her finger to her lips, the signal to Annie that she should whisper so Charles couldn’t hear what they were saying. Annie nodded as she trotted to the nearest door, Myra on the other side of the hallway.
Uptown, downtown, and in midtown, on orders from Charles, the Sisters moved as one even though they were separated by blocks, if not miles.
In Georgetown, Nikki donned her cleaning-lady attire and waved good-bye to Jack, who stood in the doorway of the bathroom dripping wet, a towel around his waist. “I’ll call you.”
Outside, Nikki headed to the green car she’d arrived in and slid behind the wheel. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Kathryn, dressed in jogging clothes, climb into a champagne-colored Honda Civic.
In the dojo at the other end of town, Yoko’s cell phone pealed at the same time Harry’s rang. Yoko was up, dressed, with a backpack on her shoulders and almost out the door before Harry knew what was happening. He pretended to catch the kiss Yoko blew at him before she raced out of the bedroom, answering her call on the way. Harry waited a few seconds.
“What the hell is going on, Jack? Yoko just blew out of here like a hurricane.”
“What’s in it for me if I tell you?”
“Your life!”
“Yeah, well, Mr. Martial Arts Expert who has pink towels in his bathroom and who sleeps under a pink comforter and I have the pictures to prove it, what makes you think I know what’s going on?”
Jack had a vision of Harry clenching his teeth and banging something with his fist and wishing it was Jack’s head he was banging. “Well, yeah, but like I said, what’s in it for me if I tell you what I know, assuming I know anything?”
Harry sighed. “Name it.”
“I know that cost you, Harry, and in your heart you didn’t mean it, but since I love you like a brother, I’m going to tell you. I-do-not-know. All I know is Nikki got a call, and she barreled out of here and didn’t look back. She didn’t say anything other than that she would call me. However…before you punch a hole in the wall, Charles did call right before I headed for the shower. He said they think, think, Harry, that Bonnie and Clyde are in an apartment on the sixth floor of the Watergate. One of his operatives was on her trail and something spooked Bonnie and she went back inside. That’s it. Don’t even think about acting independently, Harry. Your time will come with those two. The girls will make sure that happens.
“Look, I have court this morning, but I can leave around noon. I’ll come by the dojo and pick you up. In the meantime, Myra and Annie are power walking the sixth floor. Dive back under that pink comforter and catch some more sleep.”
Jack blanched at what he heard next before the connection was broken. Harry’s speech could be so colorful sometimes. Ten minutes later, Jack was out the door and on his way to court to file a motion to suppress something or other on a case he couldn’t even remember.
Alexis Thorne walked down the street after she exited Joseph Espinosa’s apartment. She was smiling as she walked along, remembering the stunned look on Joseph’s face when she hopped out of bed, donned her Tyra Banks outfit, and winked at him. “I have to tell you, Joseph, that was some really good sex. Time permitting, I’ll be back for an encore.”
Alexis stepped to the curb and hailed a cab, gave the address of the Watergate, and leaned back to enjoy the ride. Her BlackBerry vibrated. She looked down at the text message from Isabelle, announcing she was safely inside Myra and Annie’s apartment awaiting her arrival.
Thirty minutes later, on the mountain Charles’s closed fist shot into the air. All his chicks were accounted for and were safely in their nest. As far as he was concerned, the Watergate was as good as in lockdown mode. Snowden had assured him every single exit was manned, the garages covered, and, unless Bonnie and Clyde had wings, they weren’t going anywhere.
Charles realized then that he was talking to Murphy and Grady, who surprisingly looked inter
ested in what he was saying. “I think we deserve a break and a treat, gentlemen. Let’s take a walk; I have some bacon strips.”
Both dogs barked their approval as they trotted to the door, where they knew Charles would not only walk them but would throw a ball for Murphy and a stick for Grady.
The warm summer day wrapped its arms around Charles when the old-fashioned screen door closed behind him. The golden sun immediately warmed him all over as he walked to the bench under a giant hemlock tree, where he liked to sit late at night to contemplate life. Today, though, he wasn’t contemplating his life; he was trying to figure out how Bonnie and Clyde would evade his people. He was certain they would get out one way or the other.
Chapter 16
Huffing and puffing, Myra looked at Annie, and said, “I can’t keep walking these halls any longer. There has been absolutely no activity. It’s like no one lives on this floor, and I can’t believe this building is so acoustically wonderful that all noise is blocked. These people work. In my opinion, Bonnie gave Charles’s operatives the slip, and she’s not anywhere near this floor.”
Equally winded, Annie leaned up against a wall and took deep breaths. “I couldn’t agree more. I say we head back to our apartment, all the girls should be there by now. We need to make a plan since this one doesn’t seem to be working.” Annie heaved herself away from the wall and was about to follow Myra when the door to the stairwell banged open. Both women almost jumped out of their skins.
“Ladies!” a man dressed in blue coveralls said by way of a greeting. “I’m here at Mr. Snowden’s request.”
“Oh!” Myra and Annie said as one. “We were just leaving.”
“Not yet, I need your help.” He handed each of them a clipboard and pens. “This,” he said, holding up a square box, “is a heat sensor. It will detect the presence of humans, even animals, in these apartments. We’ll know soon enough if our subject is inside hiding. The only exits to these apartments are the doors to the hall.
15. Vanishing Act Page 12
