The Fraud

by Brad Parks

  That might seem to be counterintuitive—what would a reporter possibly gain by withholding something from the paper?—but the real art came in leveraging off-the-record information from one source to get on-the-record stuff from another. Buster was a magician at it.

  Alas, the only way to get Buster to share these extra crumbs of information he had gathered was to go into the newsroom, genuflect a bit, and then grovel. What kind of mood he was in dictated just how much you’d have to prostrate yourself.

  I walked up his desk humbly, head down, eyes averted, as a harijan might approach the maharajah.

  He was slumped in his chair, wearing one of his stain-splattered paisley ties, beating on the keyboard with savage ferocity. Buster’s manual-typewriter-tuned fingers never had quite mastered the relatively light touch required by computer keyboards.

  Before I could even open my mouth, he looked up and, in his hundred-and-toidy-toid-street Bronx accent, declared, “Beat it, Ivy, I’m busy.”

  I am actually not a product of the Ivy Leagues. But I had stopped correcting Buster on this misconception. At my alma mater, Amherst, we pity those graduates of the Ancient Eight and try to be quietly unassuming about the superiority of the undergraduate education we received.

  “I didn’t even ask you for anything yet,” I protested.

  “Yeah, but you’re about to. I can tell by the way you’re slinking.”

  I sat on his desk—which I knew he didn’t like—and fired my first salvo. “If you don’t help me, I’m going to tell Tina you called her fat.”

  “Go ahead. Your head will be rolling down the hallway before she even thinks about taking off mine.”

  Thwarted, I attempted the attract-the-flies-with-sugar approach. “Okay, okay. If you help me, I’ll get you a sandwich from the deli down the street. Whatever you want.”

  “You trying to kill me? The pastrami in that place is older than I am.”

  Back to lemons. “Fine. You’re forcing me to pull out the big guns. If you don’t talk to me, I’m going to tell Chillax that for all your crustiness, you actually love nothing more than to mentor young people; and that therefore he ought to hang around you and tell you college lacrosse stories because you looooove college lacrosse stories.”

  Buster grimaced. He tolerated the interns even less than he tolerated me. And the fact was, with most of the reporters in their forties and fifties having been chased away, I was closer to his age than most anyone else around.

  “Jesus, Ivy, you’re like a bunion. Fine. The only thing I got that wasn’t part of the presser is that they actually caught the demise of Kevin Tiemeyer on camera. For whatever good it did them.”

  “Why isn’t that good?”

  “The shooter was wearing a mask. Good luck putting that on a poster. ‘Wanted: a black guy wearing a blue ski mask.’”

  “A blue ski mask,” I said.

  “Yeah, what does that matter?”

  I told him about the man who pulled the trigger on Joseph Okeke, who was also wearing a blue ski mask. It was, possibly, a coincidence. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt more like there was a carjacker who was escalating his level of violence. The longer he went without being caught, the worse it was going to get.

  “So what’s your deal, Ivy, you’re trying to be the Hunter Thompson of carjacking?” Buster cracked. Even though he reached maturity at a time when the so-called “New Journalism” was invented, Buster was a strict proponent of the old kind: everything was straight news, double-sourced, and written in inverted pyramid style with a minimum of imagination or creativity. He scoffed at anything narrative, experiential, or longer form.

  “You know we’ve been ignoring this problem too long,” I countered. “And if there really is a lunatic on the loose who gets his jollies shooting people while stealing their cars, that’s something our readers ought to know.”

  Not even Buster could dispute that one.

  “All right,” he huffed. “I got a guy on the carjacking task force who said he’d notify me whenever there was a new hit. I think they want to turn up the heat on the county to give them more resources. I’ll cut you in the loop.”

  “Thanks, Buster,” I said. “Damn decent of you.”

  “A fifth of Ballantine’s,” he said, summoning the name of his go-to scotch brand. “My desk. Tomorrow morning.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Blue Mask didn’t know the guy’s real name. No one, besides perhaps his momma, knew that. To everyone who dealt with him—which included no small part of Newark’s criminal underworld—he was the Fence. Or just Fence, for short.

  His place of business was alongside Chancellor Avenue in the South Ward, in an ancient concrete block warehouse that didn’t have a front entrance. With that Rolex-shaped lump secure in his pocket, Blue Mask went around to the back and pressed the doorbell.

  Five grand. Blue Mask needed to get his nut to five grand. Then he could get the hell out of his great-aunt Birdie’s place and put down the deposit on his own. No more church. No more cat.

  He was, as of his current accounting, at $4,217. That was the amount hidden in the brown paper sack he had stuffed in a high shelf in Birdie’s kitchen, behind the cornstarch, in a place where a little bit of a thing like Birdie couldn’t reach. It wasn’t an ideal stashing place. But he couldn’t figure any place better, and he didn’t want to be walking the street with so much cash. Yet another reason he needed his own crib.

  He had earned more than five G’s in his three carjackings, of course. But a man had expenses. And needs. Especially a man who had spent his last fifteen months in prison.

  But that was taken care of now. So he was focused on getting the most he could for the watch. A new Rolex went for, what, twenty? Twenty-five? Blue Mask didn’t know. But he figured a used one would go for ten. Which meant he might be able to work Fence for three grand. Maybe five.

  The door buzzed. Blue Mask entered. Halfway down the hallway, there was a window—probably bulletproof—with a small slot. Blue Mask stood in front of it. The slot opened. From inside, he could see the Fence, a black guy so obese that he even had fat rolls on the back of his neck.

  “Yo, ’sup, Fence?”

  “Ain’t got time for small talk, young ’un. What you want?”

  “Got a Rolex, yo.”

  Blue Mask went into his pocket, pulled out the watch, dangled it where Fence could see it.

  “Yeah. So?”

  “It’s a real one,” Blue Mask said.

  “What do I care?”

  “Wanna buy it?”

  “Lemme see it.”

  Blue Mask held it closer. Fence’s first response was to belch. His second was to say, “I can’t sell that.”

  “What you mean? It’s a Rolex.”

  “Let me ask you something, young ’un, what time is it?”

  Blue Mask was automatically reaching into his pocket to check the time on his cell phone.

  And then he stopped himself. He got the point.

  “Yeah, see?” Fence said. “Maybe—maybe—if it was a new model, I might be able to unload it on some Wall Streeter looking for a status symbol. But there ain’t no call for no busted ass old model like that.”

  Blue Mask just stood there.

  “You ought to start rippin’ off people with better taste,” Fence said, laughing at his own joke.

  Fence started closing the window slot.

  “Wait, wait,” Blue Mask said. “It’s gotta be worth something.”

  He hated the desperation he heard in his own voice. But he also didn’t have a choice. He didn’t know anyone else who took merchandise like this. And going downtown and trying to sell it on the street was not an option. There were too many “Rolexes” there already. And if, on the off chance, he got stopped by a cop who knew it was a real Rolex—and who started wanting to know where this one came from—things could get bad in a hurry.

  “I could melt it down for the gold,” Fence said. “Give you three hundred for it.”

  �
�Three hundred? Come on, man, it—”

  The window slot began closing again.

  “Fine, fine. Three hundred.”

  Blue Mask shoved the watch through the slot. Moments later, three wrinkled hundred-dollar bills came back out.

  “Next time, go after some lady and get yourself something sparkly,” Fence said. “Brothers don’t wear no watches no more. But ladies always like jewelry, you feel me?”

  CHAPTER 10

  Since I was in the newsroom anyway, I decided to check in on my unborn child and future wife.

  When I met Tina Thompson nine years earlier, she was the nightside assignment editor and I was interviewing for a job at the Eagle-Examiner. Through some unusual circumstances, we ended up working together on a story that resulted in the resignation of a powerful state senator.

  I wish I could report that my initial attraction to her came when I stared deep into her eyes and my soul recognized its own mate. Alas, I’m not a Hallmark card writer. I’m a guy. So mostly what drew me to her was that she was smoking hot. It was only slightly later that I discovered she was also feisty and fun, smart and—I know this makes me something of a newspaper nerd—incredibly good at her job. What can I say? Competence is sexy.

  I’m also drawn to challenging women, and in that regard I really hit the jackpot with Tina. She’s like the LSATs, MCATs, and GMATs all rolled into one.

  I would have thought that nine years after our first meeting, she would be wearing my ring on her finger, not telling me to keep it stowed in my pocket. But at least so far, events had conspired against that.

  For a number of years, back when we were both unpregnant, she wanted me to be the father of her baby—but nothing else. I kept pressing for an arrangement that involved more than just insemination. She refused, citing the demands of her job and a history of wrecked relationships. We dated other people, even as she continued to press for procreation.

  Eventually, she gave up on the idea of parenthood with me or anyone else, declaring that motherhood had passed her by. Then a seemingly innocent dinner at her house, along with the unintentionally sloppy administration of her birth control pills, wound up with her getting pregnant. I was still debating whether I should someday tell the kid he owed his existence to a leg massage that got out of hand.

  Since then, we have returned to our historic roles. I keep pressing for a committed relationship. She keeps putting me off. I realize this sort of makes me the girl in this whole scenario. Yet I’m secure in my manhood and have not let her hesitance deter me from thinking we’ll eventually be together. The way I see it, I beat out roughly thirty million other guys on the night I was conceived. I’ve had a winning attitude ever since.

  Tina had just returned from the eleven o’clock story meeting and was still trying to find a comfortable position in her desk chair when I appeared in her doorway.

  “Hey, how are you feeling?” I asked.

  “You already asked me that today. I told you, you only get to ask once per each twenty-four-hour period.”

  “No, I asked how C-3PO was feeling,” I corrected her. “Your well-being is still unexplored territory.”

  “Well, I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Can I get you anything? Water? Juice? A nonprocessed food snack?”

  “No. Stop being nice.”

  Much as certain indigenous groups believe having their picture taken will rob them of their spirit, Tina acted as if accepting help from a man would imperil hers. It should be stated she was a firstborn child.

  “Want to do Indian take-out at my place and then have a sleepover?” I asked. “You can inspect the crib and make sure it holds together.”

  “Can’t. I’m putting the paper to bed tonight.”

  Tina was one of our three managing editors, along with Rich Eberhardt and Chuck Looper. They rotated responsibility for the paper’s production. On a normal night, when no major news was breaking, it involved staying until ten or so and then being on call thereafter. It didn’t lend itself to romantic dinners.

  “I thought it was Eberhardt’s turn tonight.”

  “Yeah, and then he got a vicious case of food poisoning. He’s on the shelf for today.”

  “And Looper is—”

  “Golfing in Arizona, I think. Brodie has volunteered to help pick up the slack until Looper gets back from vacation and Eberhardt is back on his feet, but I’m on tonight and I can’t ask Brodie to cover for me because you have a hankering for chicken tikka biryani.”

  I shook my head. “Look, I know every other important person at this paper seems to be a man over the age of sixty so they might not understand the implications of your condition. But have any of them noticed that you’re about to bring forth life? What are they going to do when you’re on maternity leave?”

  We had yet to discuss the exact contours of Tina’s leave. The paper had a generous policy that allowed new parents to take up to three months paid leave. But I knew Tina was worried how her high standing with corporate might be compromised if she disappeared for that long. Even though we were supposed to be living in more enlightened times, Tina had the fear—shared by working women everywhere—that maternity leave would count against her.

  This had caused me to worry that she was going to take a three-month leave and cut it short after three days. Every time I talked about how lucky we were to have such a kind employer—between the two of us, we could stay at home with Baby Boy Ross for his first six months—she changed the subject.

  I pressed on. “And while I’m bringing up subjects you’re trying to avoid, we really need to start moving some of your stuff over to my place. At least some clothes. It’s going to get a lot harder once C-3PO makes his arrival.”

  She absentmindedly rested a hand on her belly.

  “Yeah,” is all she said and she stared out the glass wall of her office into the newsroom beyond.

  “What?” I said.

  “Huh? Nothing.”

  “No. It’s not nothing. You’re gazing off into the distance with a contemplative look. I’m a highly trained newspaper reporter, you know. I notice things like that.”

  “It’s nothing,” she said again. “Have you heard from Chillax lately?”

  “And now you’re dodging my question. Didn’t I just mention I’m a newspaper reporter?”

  “Yes, but I’m not one of your sources, Carter Ross. I’m your girlfriend. So drop it, okay?”

  I have to admit, I was so warmed that she described herself as my girlfriend—most of the time she resisted labels that might suggest attachment—I let it go.

  “All right, fine,” I said. “To answer your question, I dispatched Chillax to Scotch Plains this morning and haven’t heard from him since.”

  “Could you please make sure he hasn’t fallen in a hole or something?”

  “Yeah, you got it,” I said, and shoved myself away from her door frame, against which I had been leaning. I had my shoulder turned to walk away when she spoke up.

  “Hey, Carter. I’m sorry about dinner. You know I wish I could spend time with you tonight, right?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, smiling at her. “And you know I love you.”

  She smiled back. I quickly glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then blew her a kiss.

  * * *

  My stomach was starting to do its predictable 12:15 P.M. rumble and as I left Tina’s office I scanned the newsroom for Tommy Hernandez, my partner in pizza. Not seeing him, I settled into my desk and dialed Chillax’s number.

  After two rings, I heard, “Hey, dude.”

  “Hey, Chillax, it’s Carter Ross.”

  “What’s up, brah?”

  I clenched my teeth. It was an effort to unclench them enough to be able to speak. “I was just calling to see how things were going out there.”

  “It’s good, brah. I’m outside the dude’s house. There’s, like, a billion TV trucks here. You’d think the president was holed up inside. It’s pretty boss.”

  I realize
d he was using “boss” not as a noun or verb, but as an adjective. I took it to mean that the young man was impressed by the spectacle spread before him.

  “Have you gotten any good stuff?” I asked.

  “Not really. The word is that a family spokesman is going to give a statement sometime this afternoon. But no one knows when.”

  “What about the neighbors?”

  “I think we’ve scared them all away. Any time someone walks by, they get jumped by all the TV people. I’m talking tigers on raw meat. It’s totally Animal Planet.”

  “Did any of them give us any insight into Mr. Tiemeyer before they got devoured?”

  “Nah, brah. But I got a little bit of color for you.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “I’m not going to say he was a fat slob who needed to lose weight,” Chillax said, parroting my earlier description of what color was. “I’m going to say he recently stopped using a lawn service and had started mowing his own lawn to get more exercise. And he and his wife had stopped going out for dinner three or four nights a week and cut it back to one.”

  “Okay. That’s good. What else?” I asked.

  “Not much. You asked for color. This dude’s color was, like, neutral off-white. I mean, he played golf. Woo-hoo. What rich white guy doesn’t? I got a bunch of the ‘Oh, he was such a nice person,’ and ‘Oh, everyone liked him.’ But I don’t think anyone in this neighborhood really hangs out, you know? It’s like McMansion heaven out here. I think the only reason the neighbors mentioned the lawn-mowing thing is that they didn’t realize white people knew how to mow lawns. They act like that’s why Mexicans were invented.”

  “Yeah, I hear you,” I said, somewhat surprised to hear Chillax voice such a social conscience.

  “Really, the only thing the neighbors knew was that he grinded out a lot of hours at work. It wasn’t unusual for him to come home late. That’s all I got.”

  Young Chillax’s energies needed to be better directed. He was clearly wasting his time where he was. I knew I was going to eventually get good stuff on Joseph Okeke. If he didn’t come through with an equal measure of Kevin Tiemeyer, our story would be unbalanced.