by Bill Evans
The car drove for about five miles and ended up in a garage storage area. Five to seven minutes passed and the four people pulled out in a new Lexus SUV. The reporters and cameraman almost missed them, except the new SUV pulled right by their car and Tommy recognized the occupants. He yelled to John to follow them.
The Lexus eventually ended up going through a gated community entrance. John had stayed well behind so he wouldn’t get detected following their subjects. Once they got to the gate John got right behind.
“This is unbelievable,” Tommy said.
“This has to be at least a five or six hundred thousand dollar home,” Carlos said.
“What do you want to do?” John asked.
“I think it’s time we ask William some questions.” Carlos lived for these moments. John was hoping he’d get to ask the questions.
The three piled out of their car as the Lexus pulled into a driveway. The occupants were surprised to see the three people coming up behind them. They were especially surprised because of the camera that was pointed in their direction. “William!” Carlos called.
The driver responded with a quick look as the four people tried to get to the front door as quickly as possible. Carlos persisted, “William, Carlos Hernandez with CBS News. Can we speak to you? We have some questions about your panhandling.”
The word panhandling got everyone’s attention. “I don’t have anything to say,” William Spencer answered.
“William, we’re going to be doing a story on people who panhandle and we’d like to get your side of the story,” Carlos interjected.
“I don’t have anything to say. There isn’t any story. We’re not doing anything illegal,” William answered hurriedly. “Now get off my property.”
Carlos, John, and Tommy walked back to their car stopped in front of the driveway where the Lexus had pulled in. There was a noise on the side of the house that got their attention. One of the three other individuals had come out the back door and made his way to the side of the house.
“Tommy, go ahead and put your equipment away. I’ll be back in a minute,” Carlos said.
John quickly touched Carlos’s arm. “Let me do this one. It’s my story, too.”
Carlos was impressed with the young cub reporter’s enthusiasm. He thought for a moment and decided to let the newbie take a turn. “Go ahead. But be careful.”
John carefully walked over to the side of the house trying to make sure that if someone was watching inside they wouldn’t see him.
“Who are you?” he asked as he approached a younger male.
“I’m Chad. Look, Bill can’t see me talking to you, but I want to talk. Meet me tomorrow at the Siders Café on Eleventh Street at nine.” Chad disappeared to the back of the house.
***
Nine in the morning couldn’t come fast enough for John, Carlos, and Tommy. They had never been to the Siders Café. Then again, they hadn’t traveled to this neighborhood before. Tommy drove the station van this time and pulled up in front right at 9:00. There was Chad waiting for them. He walked over to the station’s van as it pulled into the café parking lot. “We can’t stay here,” Chad said as he reached to open the side door of the van. He quickly stepped in. “Go. I can’t take a chance on being seen.”
“Chad, what’s going on here?” Carlos was a little annoyed.
“Bill is pissed that you guys are doing something. He’s been run out of at least two other towns after similar pieces showed up on the local news,” Chad explained.
“So, what can you tell us?” John asked, not bothering to formally introduce Carols or Tommy.
Carlos had a smaller, hand-held camera shooting all the action while Tommy drove.
“Bill found me at a homeless shelter six months ago and offered me a job. He told me I could make some good money to get back on my feet. All I had to do was stand on a corner. He offered me a room and food,” Chad explained.
“So why are you talking to us? It sounds like you have a pretty good set up right now,” John said while noticing how Carlos was doing the best he could to hold his camera steady. It was awkward sitting in the front seat with Chad in the back alongside of John. He hoped the video would be useable.
“Bill is a crook, plain and simple. I was a law student before I had an accident and had to leave school. Then I lost my job and ended up at the shelter. Bill liked me because of my limp. He said it would make us a lot of money. It’s not right, though, and I can’t keep doing this. I’m glad you came along.”
“Chad, we followed you guys to a storage area where you exchanged cars. What is that about?” It seemed to Carlos that John was asking the right questions.
“Bill thought it would be better to have an old beater to drive to our corners so if anyone saw us they would believe our sad stories.” Chad got louder, “Do you know he pays cash for everything? He actually owns that house and the bastard charges us rent. Rent, do you believe that?”
“So you pay for your room?” Carlos asked.
“We pay for our room, the gas to get us to our corners, the food we eat, and a percentage of our corner as well,” Chad continued.
“How much of a percent?” asked Tommy.
“Who are the other two people that were with you yesterday?” Carolos added.
“That’s Sarah and Chester. They have a story like mine. They were down on their luck and Bill found them at different shelters. We all pay Bill.”
“We need to tell this story, Chad. We need to tell your story. You okay with that?” Carlos asked.
Chad was nervous. “I don’t know. Bill will kill me. No, it’s okay. He needs to be stopped. He takes everyone’s pennies, nickels, whatever they will give him.”
Carlos, John, and Tommy had their story. It would be better if they could get Bill on camera.
The trio returned to the station to edit the piece shot in the van. They had enough for three parts if Barry would agree to give them that much time. Once it was put together, they showed the piece to Barry.
“You have to get Bill on camera. Get him to say something. Then we’ll run the piece. Show the exchange of cars and see if this Chad guy will show you the signs and tell you how they make them.” Barry loved the piece.
The three decided to try and get Bill standing on the island. First they would talk to Chad again. John gave Chad a pre-paid cell phone that only accepted calls. Chad agreed to take it knowing that John would be the only one calling.
“Chad, we need to meet again. Anyway we can come by the house and talk to you there when William is gone?” John asked.
“Wow, you’re trying to get me killed. I can’t meet with you again. I gave you too much as it is.” Chad was now starting to panic.
“Chad, we need to ask you a few more questions, and if Chester or Sarah want to talk that would be great. Just a few questions, that’s all. It’s the only way we can get the story done,” John said trying to convince Chad.
There was a long pause. It was hard for John, who was so new, so anxious, not to just say something. Then Chad spoke up.
“Okay, but not at the house. Meet me at the storage area at five tonight. William is working the island at that time.” Chad finally caved to the idea of another meeting.
“We’ll be there.” John, Carlos, and Tommy thought of one more part to the story. They wanted to get the city council to comment. They already knew the viewers would be giving the city an earful once these stories ran.
Chad was at the storage facility when Tommy pulled the CBS van up. Chad waved for the van to follow him into a row of garages. About halfway down the garage line there was a double unit with its doors open. Chad signaled them to stop.
Tommy got out of the van first to get his camera set up. Carlos pretended to be on his cell phone in order to give Tommy time. Carlos wanted to capture as much of this on tape as possible. Carlos had the handheld camera as well. John greeted Chad.
“Chad, what do we have here?” asked the reporter when his photographer was ready
. “How’d you get the car?” Carlos recognized the old beater as the car they first followed to the storage area a few days ago.
“I dropped everyone off and then had to refurbish our supplies.” Chad gave a wave of his hand as if he were Vanna White displaying letters.
Carlos and Tommy were surprised by what was in the garage area next to the old car. John was stunned and could hardly contain the excitement of his first major sweep piece. There was what looked like a couple of dozen old signs and cardboard to make new signs. There was even an art table so they could lay out the cardboard. In the corner was a pile of dirt. “So what’s the dirt for?” Carlos was stunned, and he gave Tommy a hand signal to make sure he shot everything.
“That’s what we use to dirty up the cardboard so the signs don’t look too new,” Chad explained.
“Why?” John asked the obvious question.
“William has determined several things that make the difference in getting money from people. New signs don’t work as well as old signs. It probably has to do with the attitude that if you’re homeless and down, how could you have a new sign?” Chad continued.
“That makes sense. Show us how it’s done.” Carlos wanted it on camera and he couldn’t believe he was going to get it. This would be something else to show William when they met up with him. The plan was to give William one more opportunity to talk.
Chad grabbed a piece of cardboard and placed it on the table. He then opened a drawer and took out one of the black marking pens. He made one of the familiar signs that the three station people had seen on the streets this past week. “Watch this,” Chad said as he pulled out what were specially-designed scissors that had rough teeth. “This gives the sign a ragged and torn look.” The last thing was to apply the dirt. Tommy was capturing all of it on tape. Chad walked over and grabbed two handfuls of dirt and rubbed it into the sign, spreading it all over.
“This is just one of several tricks that William has taught me. He told me that if I worked at this he would set me up with my own territory.” Chad made it sound like they were franchises.
“Territory? What are you talking about? You make it sound as if he has franchises set up,” Carlos said.
Chad smiled. “Now you’re beginning to see how big this is.”
“Seriously, how many territories does William have? And how can he control people from not doing this on their own?” Carlos asked.
“I don’t know, but he does. He has people up and down the central coasts all the way up to Monterey. That’s a great territory for him because of all the rich people there,” Chad stated.
Chad was no longer shy talking about this. I’m in it this far, I need to tell the whole story now, he thought to himself. He was no dummy. He was thinking once this story got out he could write a book about it.
“What’s this stuff on the wall?” Carlos pointed to Tommy to shoot video of the items on the wall. There were a few hooks that looked like the kind at the end of a pirate’s hand. There were several different pants that looked lopsided from one leg to the other.
Chad walked over to the wall and picked up one of the pants and started to slip it on. One pant leg was bigger than the other so the person could fold a leg up inside to make it look like the person only had one leg. Inside the larger pant leg were straps sewed in to make this as easy as possible. Within minutes, Chad looked like a one-legged cripple.
Carlos, John, and Tommy couldn’t believe what they were seeing. This story was bigger than Barry even thought. This could be a national story, thought Carlos. 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, or maybe 20/20. All the networks would want this. This could be Carlos’s ticket to the big time. John was hoping it would mean a full-time reporter’s job for him.
Carlos walked outside and got on the phone. “Barry, we can’t go with this story just yet. This is bigger than you ever imagined. You’re not going to believe what we’ve discovered. We’re coming back in a few minutes to show you this shit.”
Carlos walked back into the garage. “Chad, how much money do you think William is pulling down with his operation?”
Chad thought for a long time. “I don’t know. I know he funnels the cash through several different channels so it would be hard to trace it. It’s an all-cash business. I know in Santa Barbara we collect sometimes as much as five thousand dollars a week between the four of us.”
“And what do you get to keep?” Carlos asked.
“After William takes out our rent, gas money, food, and a business license fee for the corners we work, we keep about 20 percent of our take. Not the group take, but our individual take.”
“How does he keep his records?” John asked.
“What records?” Chad laughed. “That’s my problem with all this. There are no records. I’ve kept my own set of records from keeping count of the money I collect and I’ve determined that he’s shorting me close to another 20 to 30 percent.”
“What about the others? How do they feel about this?” Carlos had Edward R. Murrow Awards dancing in his head. Maybe a Peabody. News Emmys for sure.
“The others don’t ever want to rock the boat. They were truly plucked from being homeless and distraught. They’ve never had it so good. I know better. I’ve had better. I was going to be a lawyer. I’m here because of circumstance.” Chad was pissed.
15
BARRY BURKE MET HIS news team in the parking lot. The four headed for the first edit bay they could find empty. The raw footage played on the screen with the audio. Barry was stunned.
“I think we’ve got an organized panhandling operation here that who knows how big it really is.” Barry saw something on the screen. “Wait. Roll that video back.” Tommy replayed the video. “Hold on a minute.”
Barry ran out of the edit bay to his office and straight to a filing cabinet. Inside was a history of his work. He pulled out a beta tape and headed back to the edit bay. “Put this in and play it. Leave your footage on the screen over here”
Tommy did as instructed. “Holy shit!” said Carlos. “It’s the same person. This William is in your story as well.”
“He’s apparently been doing this a long time. Oh my god. This changes everything,” Barry said. “You might need more time on this before we blow the lid off it. I want to show this to the Santa Barbara police as well.”
The four agreed. Barry would get his detective friends in as soon as possible. Carlos, John, and Tommy would start putting everything together to tell the story so far. Barry thought that this might be a bigger story than the two dead station people. This is going to be a great November sweeps! Then came another welcomed surprise: a phone call from Phil Roberts, the ABC anchor.
“Barry, Phil here. Let’s do it. Prepare the contract. I’ll sign it, and you have a new anchor.” Phil was happy with his decision.
“That’s great news, Phil. When can you start?”
“Barry, I’m off the air as of last night, but I can’t go to work for anyone until January 1.”
“Wow, they’re not going to use you for the November sweeps?”
“I guess not. It’s pretty weird,” Roberts said.
“Not really. They probably feel they would be promoting you only for us to take advantage of it when you make the switch. I get it. I wouldn’t have done it that way. I would have made you work through the sweeps and then taken you off the air for the month of December. That’s just me. I’ll draw up the papers.”
“Great. Let me know when they’re ready to be signed and I’ll come by,” Phil said.
“Let me ask you something. Would you be willing to do an interview with us? It’s news that ABC is dropping their main anchor. It’s also news that you’ll be coming over here January 1. So let’s do a story on it and get your comments. You okay with that?”
“I’m okay with that, but you should check with your attorneys to make sure I wouldn’t be violating my contract.”
“Good idea, Phil. Let me check with counsel. I’ll have Billie do the story herself. She’ll call you to set up
the interview. This is great stuff, Phil. I’m excited.”
“Me to, Barry.”
Barry couldn’t believe how things were shaping up at CBS for him.
***
Carlos, John, and Tommy were in the edit room when Barry walked in with the two detectives. Barry had laid the ground work for what they were about to see. As the video played, you could see in the detectives’ eyes just how amazing this story might be.
“You know we’ve always turned a blind eye to these guys on the street thinking they were just in bad shape and needed some help,” Reynolds said. “We didn’t think they ever bothered anyone and figured how much could they really be making?”
“We now have an idea as to how much money they are taking in. We might want to get the FBI and the IRS involved.” Richard then added with a chuckle, “I wonder if he has a corner for me?”
“We’re running this story next week,” Barry said.
“You might have to hold off,” Reynolds shot back. “We may need some time so we can round up as much of this syndicate as possible.”
“Syndicate?” Barry questioned.
“We really don’t know how big this really is yet, but it seems to be well organized. You think Chad would wear a wire for us?”
“I don’t know, but I need to run this story,” Barry insisted. “This story will air next week. We’ll do everything we can to cooperate with you. Hell, I brought you in on this, but I need to run the story.”
Barry was concerned that the longer this investigation went on—and now that the local police were involved—a competitor could scoop him on his own story. He knew he wasn’t the only one that had police connections. This was his story and he wasn’t going to lose it because he sat on it. Barry set out a plan with his team and dispatched them to get William on camera.
***
Tommy stood across the street shooting video of the cars coming up to the island where William was working. Carlos walked to the center and stopped. John watched, standing next to Tommy. William recognized the reporter from the other day at his house. He wasn’t happy that his work was being interrupted. William took his sign and waved it at him as if to say “go away.” He was noticeably disturbed, and then he saw Tommy across the street with the camera.