Wing Girl

by Nic Tatano

  Suddenly Willis sat up straight. “Hey, check it out. This guy’s got a duffel bag,” he said, pointing to the monitor. We’d been keeping an eye out for anyone like that, since you wouldn’t carry six hundred envelopes in your arms. A slender, dark-haired man was heading toward the envelope-filled box carrying a large black bag. We could only see him from the back, as the camera was trained right on the box.

  “C’mon, five-oh-four,” I said, blowing on my fist like I was about to shoot craps. “Mama needs a new exclusive.” Frank crouched down next to his camera and grabbed the handle.

  Willis got on the two-way radio to all the agents outside. “Possible suspect in sight. Stand by for confirmation.”

  The man continued down the hall, heading directly for our box. My heart pounded, the adrenaline kicking in big time.

  Frank picked up his camera and turned it on. “Get ready,” he said to me, as he handed me a wireless microphone. I flicked the switch on the bottom to turn it on. The little red button lit up to confirm it was working. I heard the tape engage in Frank’s camera. We were ready to roll.

  Number 504 was on the bottom of the bank of boxes. The man reached the end of the hall, dropped the duffle bag, and kneeled down.

  We heard a whisper over the radio from the agent on the other side of the boxes. “Box is being opened.”

  Willis keyed the two-way. “Target confirmed. White male, slight build, five-eleven. Jeans and black long-sleeved shirt. Carrying a black duffel bag. Stand by.” Then he said to himself, “Geez, this guy’s pretty ballsy. Not even a hat and sunglasses.”

  Frank stood up and headed to the door, ready to jump out. I was right behind him as I kept an eye on the monitor. The man opened the box and started sliding the bundles of envelopes into the bag. A beeping noise came from the console, which told me the GPS had been activated by the tech guy. The suspect closed the box, locked it, zipped the bag, stood up, and headed toward the door.

  We had a clear shot of his face.

  “No!” I yelled. I dropped my microphone, which hit the floor with a thud. “No, no, no!”

  “What?” said Frank as he opened the door. “C’mon, we gotta move!”

  “No!”

  “Waddaya mean, no?” He picked up the microphone, put it in my hand and grabbed my arm. “Let’s go! Now!”

  I barely had enough energy to speak, as the adrenaline all but drained from my body. “No.” The word came out softly. I was paralyzed, unable to move. My eyes were locked on the monitor as Scott’s face filled the screen.

  ***

  Frank had practically dragged me out to the car which was waiting to transport the thief back to the FBI office. The microphone was at my side, not in front of me, as Scott was escorted to the car by two agents, one holding each arm, his hands zip-tied behind his back. Another agent followed with the duffel bag and tossed it in the trunk.

  Frank trained his lens on Scott as he approached the car. Scott spotted me and our eyes connected.

  I said nothing as Scott grew closer. Frank noticed. “Ask a question!” he whispered.

  My mouth hung open, but nothing came out. And suddenly I wasn’t a reporter any more. The FBI, Frank, the camera, none of it was there. I tried my best to look deep into Scott’s soul, to ask the questions with my eyes that had nothing to do with stealing money. But his eyes were lifeless, vacant, and showed no emotion. He looked at me as if I were a stranger.

  Finally Frank shouted at him, “Why did you steal the money?”

  No response as he grew closer to the car.

  “How many millions did you take?”

  Scott said nothing as an agent pushed his head down and he got into back seat of the car, which immediately drove off. Frank followed the car with his camera until it was out of sight, then turned it off, put it on his hip and glared at me. “Seriously, you go into vapor lock on a story like this?”

  I kept staring at the empty spot vacated by the car and said nothing as Agent Willis came up to us. “Guys, let’s head back—” he noticed the vacant look in my eyes. “Belinda, you okay?”

  Frank put his camera on the ground, took my shoulders and turned me so I was facing him. “Cupcake, what’s wrong?”

  I bit my lower lip as my eyes welled up, then forced out the words. “I … I know him.”

  “Really?” said Willis. “Who is he?”

  The tears rolled down my face. “His name is Scott. Scott Shepard.”

  Frank’s eyes grew wide. “Holy shit.” My head dropped.

  “What?” asked Willis.

  Frank tilted my head up so I was looking at him. “Is this the guy you’ve been dating?”

  I nodded and the dam holding my emotions broke. I began to sob, Frank pulled me close and I buried my face in his chest.

  As it turns out, there is crying in news.

  ***

  The sound of a soda can popping behind me and the fizz that followed broke me out of my trance. Agent Willis placed the can on the corner of his desk, then sat down behind it. “Drink,” he said. “You look like a rookie who’s seen his first dead body. You need some sugar before you crash.”

  “Thank you.” I grabbed the cold can and took a long swig of what turned out to be an ice-cold Dr. Brown’s root beer. I savored the sharp taste as the bubbles bounced around in my mouth like pinballs.

  “From my own personal stash,” said Willis. He was as kind a federal agent as you could find. I’d briefed him on my relationship with Scott and he assured me I wasn’t in any kind of trouble, not that I had any doubt. Of course, that was the farthest thing from my mind as I wanted to a: get an explanation from Scott about our relationship, and b: wring the sonofabitch’s neck. Willis adjusted his chair, then looked up at me and Frank, sitting on the other side of his desk. “He’s declined an interview with you.”

  “What a surprise.” I said.

  “But he’s ready to cut a deal as soon as his attorney gets here.”

  “When will that be?” asked Frank.

  “About an hour. Oh, by the way, thanks to you we got him just in time. He had two tickets to Switzerland in his bag. He was flying out tonight.”

  The dagger already in my heart twisted. Not that I had much of a heart left at this point. “Let me talk to him.”

  Willis shook his head and put up his hands. “He said no interview. Nothing I can do.”

  “Let me talk to him without a camera. This isn’t about the story. Please, Agent Willis. I have to know … ” My eyes silently begged for a favor.

  He nodded slowly. “I, uh, understand where you’re coming from. I have to admit this is a unique situation.” He exhaled deeply and looked to the side, then back at me. “Okay.”

  “And no cameras of yours either, no one-way glass, no one else in the room. No one can know about my personal involvement with this guy. It would kill my career if this got out. It would be a scandal—”

  “Understood. I’ll put you two in an empty office. I’ve got one with no windows at all. But I’m putting him in shackles and bolting him to the chair.”

  “Not necessary, Agent Willis. The way I feel right now I could kick his ass, and I wouldn’t fight fair.”

  ***

  “I’ll be right outside,” said Frank, who then gave me a soft pat on the back.

  “Thanks. This won’t take long.” I nodded at Agent Willis, who opened the door for me.

  “I’ll be right here, Ms. Carson,” he said, loud enough for Scott to hear.

  I took a deep breath, tried to summon my “prosecutor from hell” mood and it occurred to me this might be the hardest “interview” I’d ever done. I moved through the door. The sight took me aback for a moment. Scott was in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffed to the arms of a metal chair, ankles in irons that were attached to the chair legs. He sat next to the only other pieces of furniture in the room, a small steel table with an empty chair on the other side. Twelve hours ago this was the man I thought I loved, the man who was about to prove his love for me. Now he was a
common criminal. He looked up at me, then turned away. “I told them no interviews.”

  I closed the door behind me, sat down opposite him and pulled the chair close to the table. We were as close as we’d been eating dinner last night. My knees slightly brushed his and I slid back a touch. I tried my best to remain calm, though my heart raced. He still wasn’t looking at me. “This isn’t about my story. There are no hidden cameras or microphones in here, so you’re going to talk to me, you sonofabitch. You owe me that.” He continued to look down. I slammed my hands on the table. “Look at me, goddamit!”

  Well, so much for calm.

  He lifted his head and looked at me with dead eyes, like he didn’t even care. “What?”

  “Is Scott Shepard even your real name?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. That part’s real.”

  “Wow, a bit of truth.” I folded my hands and rested them on the table. “Explain yourself.”

  “What do you want to know? How I stole the money?”

  I shook my head. “I already know that, down to the smallest detail. I want to know why.”

  “Why I stole money? You’re kidding, right?” He shook his head and laughed a bit. “Because I’m a thief and I wanted to be rich. I wanted to live a life of luxury on a secluded island and never work a day in my life after I was done with this.”

  “That part I get. I want to know the other why. Why you led me on, why you talked about love, why we had a relationship that I thought was leading … I want to know all of it. Tell me why.”

  Scott shook his head and exhaled. “Ah, what the hell, I’m going to prison anyway.” He paused a moment, looked at the ceiling, then back at me. “You were necessary for the scam to keep working a while longer.”

  “I was necessary?”

  He nodded. “We’ve had Jagger’s office and phone bugged for the past two years. Things were rolling along without a hitch until the Councilman somehow noticed money was missing. And when we heard him talking to his secretary about calling you, I knew our days were numbered. But I wanted to get a few more paydays. I needed a little more to make my future totally secure. You can argue I got greedy and you’d be right. Anyway, in order to do that I needed a relationship with you. I found out you volunteered at the cat shelter, so I figured that was a good way to meet you without using the obvious tactic of hitting on you in a bar or something like that.”

  “But you were there at the shelter before Jagger called me.”

  He nodded. “Right. As I said, we heard him talking about calling you before he actually did, so it was a preventive measure. The worst that could happen is that I’d be out a few Sunday mornings. And then when he really did call you, I was already in place.”

  “Do you even like cats?”

  “Actually, I do. I have one of my own.”

  “How nice of you to be truthful about something. You still haven’t explained why I was necessary.”

  “Once Jagger called you I needed you to either back off the story or look in the wrong direction. I knew your reputation as a reporter and figured you weren’t going to give up on it, that eventually you’d crack the case if left alone. So when you asked me to look at the books, I told you nothing was there and continued to string you along, telling you I was going to have other people look at it. I had to stall you. We needed to pick up this month’s checks and then we were going to end the thing.”

  “And then you were leaving the country for good.”

  He nodded. “Yep. Never to return.”

  “With no goodbye.”

  “Like I said, you were simply necessary. I never felt anything for you.”

  My head snapped back as that hit me like a shot to the heart. The words suddenly grew thick in my throat as my anger morphed into hurt. “None of it was real? What about our dates, the weekend in Connecticut?” My voice was cracking with emotion. “We got along so well and had everything in common.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. We had nothing in common.” He shook his head, not reacting to my emotion, showing none of his own. “You know, for such a supposedly smart reporter I was surprised you were such an easy mark. You never connected the dots. You never noticed I feel asleep during that science fiction movie, never questioned all my trips out of town, never wanted to see where I lived. It was all I could do not to crack up when I met you at the airport. I thought I’d really screwed up that time. I mean, I told you I was away for two weeks and all I had was a carry-on bag. Talk about missing the obvious.”

  “You never traveled to all those places?”

  “I’ve hardly left town since I met you. That particular time was a same-day trip. You know, for someone who asks questions for a living you simply took everything I said as gospel. I was frankly amazed at some of the stuff you said on the phone.”

  I sat up straight and leaned forward. “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, yeah, I cloned your cell phone. Remember that night at dinner when I borrowed your phone and went outside to make a call? My accomplice was waiting and cloned your phone. Which really came in handy when Jagger bought a burner phone and stopped using the one in his office.”

  I felt violated and the anger rushed back, though it was quickly approaching hate status. “You heard everything I said? My personal calls—”

  “Yeah. Man, I knew you were falling for me, but you were head over heels like a teenager. I particularly enjoyed your playing hard to get strategy.”

  “I’m guessing the thing about you being a virgin was a lie.”

  He nodded. “Hard to believe you bought that one, but you did.”

  “You seemed to enjoy things when we got physical. Considering you’re such a scumbag, I’m surprised you didn’t screw me that way as well.”

  “That was part of the plan my wife didn’t agree to.”

  My eyes widened. “Your wife?”

  “I’m guilty of many things, including loving my wife. The one thing I could never do is cheat on her.”

  “How very noble of you. So our dinner last night—”

  “Just had to keep you on the edge till Wednesday, since I was going to fly outta here tonight. Oh, by the way, don’t bother getting that necklace insured. It’s a fake.”

  “Sort of like the person who gave it to me.” I felt the Brass Cupcake returning, pushing my feelings for him out of the way, starting to look at him like a story instead of a boyfriend. I paused a moment, trying to sort all of it out. He sat there, with a sick grin on his face. Like he’d won. He was sitting there in irons and acting like a winner. “You trying to tell me you never felt anything? Nothing at all?”

  “Sorry, Belinda. You were so easy, so … desperate. But I didn’t feel a thing. I may as well have been kissing a prostitute.”

  My anger boiled over as I stood up, reached across the table and slugged him so hard on the chin his chair went backwards and landed with a loud bang. The door flew open as Frank and Agent Willis ran into the room.

  “You all right?” asked Frank.

  “Fine,” I said, as I shook my hand, which was already hurting.

  “Geez, Belinda, you can’t assault my suspect,” said Willis, who moved behind Scott and lifted his chair into the sitting position.

  “She didn’t,” said Scott, stretching his jaw. “I leaned back too far and fell over. My face broke my fall.”

  I looked at him and our eyes connected for the last time. He gave me a sly wink.

  “And even if she did,” said Scott, “I would have had it coming. I was trying to provoke her.”

  “We’re done here,” said Willis, not looking terribly pleased as he led me out of the room.

  “Hey, Belinda,” said Scott.

  I turned to look at him. “What?”

  “I’ve got one question for you.”

  “What?”

  “I gotta know. How did you ever figure out how I was stealing the money?”

  “Simple, Scott. I’m smarter than you.”

  “But how did you figure out how I did it?”


  Finally, I had a chance to smile and did my best to copy his. “Well, Scott, from what I hear you’ll have about twenty-five years to solve that riddle.”

  ***

  Frank followed me into Harry’s office and closed the door. We both took a seat as Harry finished up a phone call.

  “So, get him?”

  I nodded, not looking at him. “Yeah.” My voice was without emotion and barely above a whisper.

  “Great!” Harry smiled until he obviously noticed the shell-shocked look I was wearing. “You okay, Cupcake?”

  “Harry, there’s a slight problem,” said Frank. “Well, more than slight.”

  Harry furrowed his brow. “You got the story, right?”

  Frank looked at me and since I didn’t say anything he picked up the ball. “We got the story and it’s solid. Exclusive. But there’s a, well, there’s what you might call a conflict of interest.”

  “I can’t be associated with the story,” I said, staring vacantly at the stack of business cards on Harry’s desk.

  “What’s the conflict?” asked Harry.

  “The guy who was caught stealing,” I said. “I’ve, uh … been dating him.”

  “You were dating an embezzler?” asked Harry.

  “She obviously didn’t know that,” said Frank. “He was using her. He found out Jagger had her investigating the story and was trying to send her down dead ends. She’s not implicated in any way, but obviously her name can’t be associated with the story.”

  I felt Harry looking at me and raised my eyes to meet his. “I’m so sorry, Harry.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  “I screwed up—”

  “Stop it,” said Frank. “You don’t need to beat yourself up over this. You had no way of knowing and you didn’t screw up.” He turned toward Harry. “I can turn this into an anchor package for Jenna to voice-over. Treat it as a regular news story. It’s still an exclusive and a damn good one.”

  “That’ll work,” said Harry, looking at me. “And Frank’s right, you didn’t screw up. I’m sorry you’re losing a good story.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve had plenty of big stories, Harry. And I’ll have a lot more, but I won’t if this ends up in the tabloids. If it got out I was dating a criminal and he was using me, my credibility would be shot and I’d be the town joke. No one would ever trust me again. Talk about sleeping with the enemy.” Harry’s eyes widened a bit. “Figure of speech, Harry. I never had sex with the guy.”