by Lisa Lutz
“I’m not telling him.”
“Then I will,” I said. “But I think you can put a better spin on it.” Before I left, I held up the USB device. “Is this yours?”
“No. What is it?”
Was it my imagination, or was I getting everything wrong?
• • •
I returned to the Spellman compound and found D sitting behind his desk, running diagnostics on his computer. It was long past quitting time.
“D, what are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Why?”
“Things are slipping through the cracks.”
“I’m trying, D.”
“I know that Mr. Slayter is important to you, but you have family. They should be more important.”
“They are,” I said.
“Then start paying attention. You’re missing things.”
D got to his feet, nodding in the general direction of my desk, and left for the day.
The first thing I saw atop the mass of paperwork was Rae’s flimsy case files, which Vivien had assembled. After perusing them briefly I decided it was time to get some answers.
I drove to my sister’s apartment in the Inner Sunset and found a parking space a few blocks away. I knocked on her door. Fred Finkel answered.
“Fred.”
“Isabel.”
“Invite me in.”
“Please come in.”
I took a seat on their thrift-store couch. It had to be twenty years old, but during its previous occupancy it had likely been shrouded in plastic. Faded by the sun, but vigorously spotless. Rae has probably ten times as much money in her bank account now than I ever have, but she’d never blow it on luxuries like a previously unowned couch, a contradiction I’ve always found admirable to a certain extent.
“Where is she?”
“She should be back in about an hour. I’ll leave you two alone.”
“Fred, what is a conflict resolution specialist?”
“I don’t get involved in her business,” Fred said. “If you get hungry, there’s some leftover pizza in the fridge. It might be good for one more day. But I’d nuke it first. Don’t take any chances.”
As I waited for my sister to come home, I searched the apartment for booze. I found an open half bottle of Manischewitz wine. I poured myself a glass and returned to the couch. I sipped the saccharine beverage, slowly adjusting to its cloying aftertaste, finding that I almost liked it one hour later when I poured my third glass.
I heard my sister’s light steps on the stairwell, approaching her apartment. I flicked off the lights and waited until she entered.
I turned on the reading lamp by the couch as my sister dropped her book bag in the foyer.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, slowly turning around.
If I had startled her, she hid it well.
“We need to have a talk,” I said.
“You should have made an appointment,” Rae said.
“What kind of twenty-two-year-old doesn’t have any real booze in her house?”
“Is that what you want to talk about?”
Rae took a seat in another second- or third-generation chair across from me. This one they’d found on the street, so they’d covered it with a light blue sheet. I tossed Rae’s case files on top of several milk crates that doubled as a coffee table.
“What is a conflict resolution specialist?”
“It’s exactly what it sounds like.”
“Marcus Lorre. The man from the moving company. You whip-creamed slurs on his car. Is that what a conflict resolution specialist does?”
“He needed to understand that actions have consequences.”
“What else have you done?” I asked.
“Aside from at least twenty crank calls?”
“Yes.”
“I let out the air in his tires.”
“And what about those compromising photos of him with a woman who was not his wife?”
“I’m hanging on to those. I’m still hoping that I can reason with him.”
“So a conflict resolution specialist is a revenge artist, am I correct?”
“You’ve got the wrong idea,” Rae said. “Lorre was a special case. Mostly I help solve people’s problems.”
“With twelve cans of tear gas?”
“I never used the tear gas. I went with a stink bomb instead.”
Maybe it was the Manischewitz, or the afternoon waiting for my boss to be released from the psych ward, or the sudden realization that more and more questions were piling up as I remained completely in the dark, but I felt like I could have fallen asleep for days on their twenty-year-old couch. However, I managed to get to my feet and somehow reached the front door.
“For now, even though it doesn’t seem like it, I’m still the boss and I need to know exactly what my employees are up to. In twenty-four hours I want an exhaustive report on all of your recent activities as a conflict resolution specialist. I shouldn’t have to remind you of this, Rae. We’re private investigators. We report. We don’t mediate with whipped cream and stink bombs.”
“You know what a private investigator is?” Rae asked. “It’s a glorified snitch.”
* * *
1. I was bored and made a graph one day.
RAE SPELLMAN, CONFLICT RESOLUTION SPECIALIST
Mission Statement
Private investigators, for the most part, observe and inform. There are times when clients need more than data. I, Rae Spellman (hereafter referred to as the CRS), want to offer clients an alternative beyond the reaches of your average private investigator, a full-service operation, if you will.
As an investigator, I grew tired of passive observation. I wanted to take a more active role in achieving full resolution of my clients’ problems.
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Report on activities from August 2012 to September 2012
Client #00000011
Vivien Blake, college student and part-time employee of Spellman Investigations, hired Lightning Fast Moving Company, located in San Bruno, California, to store her belongings for one month and then move them into her new apartment in Berkeley, California, at the beginning of July of this year. When the movers arrived, they added two surplus charges to the bill (one charge was for items going above the two-thousand-pound weight limit and the other charge for a short flight of stairs). The movers refused to deliver or release her property until she paid two thousand seven hundred fifty dollars and twenty-five cents. Vivien paid the fee, and her property was delivered. But several items were damaged, destroyed, or missing. Vivien left several unanswered messages for the representative at the company whom she first made contact with in spring, Marcus Lorre (a.k.a. Owen Lukas). After fifteen calls, he eventually answered the phone and firmly suggested that Vivien review the contract.
Vivien showed the contract to the CRS, who reviewed it for inconsistencies. The issue of the property’s being over the weight limit would now be impossible to prove without the items being removed from the apartment and put on a scale, and no one would be able to confirm which items had originally been in the van. As for the flight of stairs, the language in the contract is extremely vague (a s
urplus might be added for any additional stairs).
Ultimately, extraneous and unjust charges can be added at the discretion of the company. An investigation into LFMC revealed that many clients had similar complaints without avenues of remuneration. There were twelve small-claims court filings against the company. It’s worth noting that women were the plaintiffs in ten out of twelve of the cases. It is believed that LFMC targets females who are alone when the movers arrive.
The CRS paid a visit to Marcus Lorre at his place of business with Vivien’s contract in hand. CRS went over in detail every issue that client had, pointed out the gender bias in the way clients were handled, and firmly suggested that company reimburse client for the surplus charge paid under duress.
Lorre repeated after every comment or request, “Please review the contract.”
A letter to the company and to Lorre on the letterhead of David Spellman, attorney at law,2 received no response.
After reviewing the results of previous legal claims against the company, matter was discussed with client, who did not wish to pursue the case in court. Vivien was mostly concerned with sending a message to Marcus Lorre. The money did not concern her; she wanted the morally bankrupt slimeball to understand the sense of being violated and powerless.
On 8/2 CRS freed the air in the tires of Lorre’s BMW.
On 8/4 CRS took compromising photos of Lorre and unknown not-his-wife female.
On 8/25 CRS painted in whipped cream character-identifying words on Lorre’s vehicle.
CRS has also maintained a consistent tail on Lorre to assemble any more intelligence on compromising behavior and to remind him that he is under constant supervision. Lorre has confronted CRS, who has denied any wrongdoing. He has also threatened CRS with legal recourse, but CRS knows that he has no evidence.
Case Status: Pending.
Dissemination of the compromising photos will be last resort. Vivien and CRS are willing to give Lorre one more chance at redemption.
Job #0000002
Marshall Greenblatt contacted CRS through an advertising campaign. He had an unusual problem. His girlfriend, Yvonne LaPlante (Aquarius), an intelligent woman in many ways, had become increasingly obsessed with her astrological forecast. She would pay for subscriptions to daily newsletters, read the forecasts in every circulation available, and adjust her day accordingly.
If her favorite astrologer suggested that she needed a day to recharge her batteries and remain thoughtful, Yvonne would call in sick to work and spend the day at home making a dream collage and watching television. Should her forecast suggest that a business opportunity might be coming her way, she would actively consider every spam mail opportunity presented to her. Should her forecast suggest that she needed to create more lines of communication in her relationship, she and Marshall would have a marathon session discussing their future.
When Marshall confronted his girlfriend about his discomfort with her obsession, she cited several esteemed men in history who strongly believed in astrology, including Sir Isaac Newton. Marshall, an educated man, reminded her that Newton also devoted an extraordinary amount of time to trying to discover the elusive and impossible philosopher’s stone, a fabled substance that could turn base materials into gold. Yvonne’s response was that just because the philosopher’s stone hadn’t yet been discovered didn’t mean it wouldn’t eventually be.
At his wits’ end, Marshall contacted the CRS at Spellman Investigations and worked up a plan to deal with his situation. CRS, with the aid of a graphic designer, jumbled the forecasts in the astrological newsletter Stardance, to which Yvonne was most devoted. Marshall would print out the newsletter for Yvonne every morning in an act of conciliation, he explained (their fights on the subject had put an extraordinary stress on their relationship). For a full week Yvonne strictly adhered to the guidelines for a Taurus (Monday), a Libra (Tuesday), a Pisces (Wednesday), a Leo (Thursday), a Capricorn (Friday), a Gemini (Saturday), and a Virgo (Sunday).
Once Subject’s experimental week was complete, Marshall informed his girlfriend of the educational ruse. Yvonne became outraged at the deception and claimed that she had felt discombobulated the entire week and now she knew why. Marshall insisted that Yvonne never mentioned feeling discombobulated and an astrological war of words ensued. Marshall brought in CRS to mediate and CRS attempted to reason with Subject. CRS came prepared with astrological quizzes at the ready to try to persuade Subject that astrology is the mild-mannered equivalent of witchcraft, the guidance for each sign merely the whims of astrologers who have no accreditation beyond a talent for their conviction.
Subject remained unresponsive. Marshall informed CRS that they broke up two days later.
Status: Unresolved (50 percent refund offered)
Job #0000003
Client, Emma Lighthouse, contacted the CRS branch of Spellman Investigations via referral. She had recently broken up with her live-in boyfriend, Cameron Berg. Emma had taken over a rent-controlled apartment in Berkeley, one mile from campus, from her friend Tanya Grey a year before. The lease remained in Tanya’s name. Three months after Emma and Cameron began dating, Cameron moved in. Five months later, when Emma decided to break up with Cameron, she asked him to move out. Two weeks later, Emma noticed that Cameron was making no effort to find a new apartment. She repeated her request and gave him a timeline, which he verbally agreed to but then did nothing to facilitate. When client realized that her ex-boyfriend had no plans to move out of residence, she threatened Cameron and explained that the next time he went out, she would have the locks changed.
Cameron responded by refusing to leave the apartment. His friends brought him class notes and food and since there was a washer-dryer in the apartment, he was able to remain self-sufficient. Finals were still two months away and Emma did not wish to continue this farce until Cameron had no choice but to leave. She appealed to Cameron’s friends and family and found no assistance in this matter. Finally she contacted CRS.
CRS took possession of the apartment keys and suggested Emma find another place to stay for a few days. The CRS first attempted to reason with Subject. Subject was beyond reason. CRS realized that the situation called for extreme measures. She considered how military and police might handle a similar situation and considered (briefly!) tear gas.
CRS then considered that there might be a compound similar to tear gas, without the extreme side effects, that would encourage Subject to vacate premises. CRS went to a survivalist shop and asked for such an item. The store clerk insisted that real tear gas was a better option. CRS then discovered how easy it was to buy tear gas and decided to purchase the entire stock for no other reason than the simple fact that she could. And it seemed wise to take it off the market.
[This is only to explain why there was tear gas in the trunk of the CRS’s vehicle. Please note it was never used. It is now located in David Spellman’s garage. Next to a box of disposable diapers.]
CRS continued to contemplate the client’s predicament and eventually came upon an idea. She recalled a book she’d read some years ago, War Is Smell,3 about the use of stench warfare in combat zones. CRS went to Misdirections, a novelty gift shop on Fillmore Street, and purchased five stink bombs.
CRS phoned Subject one last time, requested that he vacate premises, and attempted one final negotiation. Subject hung up on CRS.
CRS entered apartment with leaseholder’s approval and set off five stink bombs throughout. CRS waited outside front door. Subject lasted fifteen minutes and finally departed with a small bag of clothing. CRS, an adept locksmith, then changed the locks and gave a copy of the new key to the client. After the apartment was aerated for three days, Client returned to her apartment, where she currently resides alone. Smell hasn’t entirely dissipated.
Status: Resolved.
* * *
1. The zeroes seemed unusually ambitious.
2. Rae apparently has a stack of his letterhead, which she uses, she claims, only in extenuating circumstances.
MISDIAGNOSIS
When I arrived at the office the next morning, my brain felt as foggy as a San Francisco summer. As I waited for the second pot of coffee to brew in the kitchen, I replayed the conversation with Agent Bledsoe in my head. I needed to figure out who’d tipped him off. I had been so sure it was Ethan, but in light of his impending incarceration, he didn’t have a great deal of motive or time to set in motion the series of events.
And then I let my imagination run loose like a large boulder down a hill and began to wonder what would happen if I couldn’t beat these charges and the FBI decided to set an example with me. Innocent people go to prison all the time. How well would I survive in a federal prison? Martha Stewart set the standard pretty high, and you know you can’t live up to that. And you wonder what kind of ridiculous hobbies you might take up. Ceramics? Gardening? Creative writing? That shit is not for me. So, if I would need to flee the country, I had to get my affairs in order.
My dad got to the coffee first and kindly poured me a cup, and sat down at the table next to me.
“How are you doing, Isabel?”
“Honestly? I’ve been better. You?” I asked.
“Things can only go up from here.”
“Dad, your nose is bleeding.”
I grabbed a paper towel and squeezed Dad’s nostrils together, but it wasn’t quite doing the trick. Blood began pooling on top of the kitchen table. Dad picked up a dishrag and leaned his head back.
“Damn, that’s a lot of blood,” I said.
Rae came out of the office and into the kitchen about then.
“Shit,” she said. “Izzy, call nine-one-one.”
“Rae, it’s just a nosebleed. I think ice helps.”
“Call nine-one-one,” she repeated assertively.
