Corridor Man: Auditor

by Nick James

  “And you’ll bankroll this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Any chance on getting a little bit of an advance? I’m a couple of days late on my rent and I got a landlord who’s a real jerk.”

  It was already the twenty-second of the month which seemed to stretch the term ‘a couple of days late’. He’d driven past her apartment building, a three story building from about 1950 consisting of thirty-six efficiency units. “Sure, how much you thinking?”

  “Thirteen hundred should cover it.”

  Two months rent. She was probably facing eviction. “I think I can do that. Why don’t I bring it over to you at the end of the day?”

  “Come over here? To my place?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be over around six. Hey, I got a client on the other line. I gotta grab this, see you around six.”

  “But…”

  He hung up. Thirteen hundred, if she was any good he’d have it back in a week, plus interest.

  Chapter Five

  They were almost a half-hour late by the time Miguel pulled up in front of her building. Three little kids were chasing one another across the front yard. The yard wasn’t so much grass as it was dandelions and creeping charlie. Two large patches of pounded dirt sat on either side of the sidewalk leading up to the building. As the kids ran across the dirt they kicked up a good deal of dust. Bobby let himself out then reached into the back seat and pulled out four boxes. “Wait for me, I shouldn’t be more than ten minutes.”

  A blonde woman with the ends of her hair dyed blue sat on the front steps smoking. She wore extremely short cut-offs and a black, strappy-lace top that left nothing to the imagination. As he grew closer the severity of her makeup became apparent. Bright red lipstick, rouged cheeks, sky-blue eye shadow and heavy mascara. A lot of mascara. She took a long drag on her cigarette, exhaled and said, “You my six-thirty date?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “God, I gotta get going. You looking to party? I’ll give you a discount.”

  “Maybe later.”

  “Don’t wait too long, I ain’t gonna be here much more than twenty minutes,” she said.

  He reached for the security door. From the looks of the metal frame someone had attempted to pry it open, probably more than once. The door was unlocked, so much for security. Three rows of metal mail boxes identified by apartment numbers were inset in the wall and beyond them a hallway. He took the threadbare stairs up to the second floor then walked down the hall to Mira’s apartment. The hall was stuffy and dimly lit by two flickering lights. It smelled of various items on the stove, none of them very appealing. Two apartments had plastic trash bags sitting in the hall next to the door. They smelled like they may have been there for awhile.

  Mira’s door was at the far end of the hall. The wooden door looked to be original. It was oak, and probably stained a blonde finish at one time, although it was difficult to tell with the decades of grime coating it. He knocked, then waited. A door opened down the hall and a woman stuck their head out before disappearing back inside just as quickly.

  Mira opened the door a moment later. “So, you finally made it,” she said and stepped aside.

  Bobby entered the small unit. The room had two windows that looked out onto the street. What looked like a bed sheet was nailed to the wood trim and served as a curtain. A cream colored leather couch littered with files and winter coats sat against one wall. To the immediate right was a small kitchen area with a stove, a refrigerator, top and bottom cabinets painted grey, and about three feet of counter space. A card table stood against the wall opposite the couch holding a small flat screen TV, a laptop, and what looked like a printer. A tiny bathroom was off to one side and a bedroom just large enough for a double bed was beyond that. The bed was unmade and piled with clothes.

  “Welcome to my humble abode,” Mira said.

  Bobby set the stack of boxes on the card table next to a mound of what looked like two weeks of mail. A number of the envelopes were edged in red. The two he could read had “Open Immediately” printed across the front. Collection notices.

  “I brought you letters and envelopes and there’s three books of stamps in the box with the envelopes. You got a hundred, two-page contracts that your clients can sign, you’ll have to staple them together. That should keep you going for a few days. How’d it go at county?”

  “The usual, a pain, but I got a laundry list of names and there’s plenty more where that came from. I knew one of the women behind the counter, so that’ll help in the future. Let me see what the letters look like.”

  Bobby opened one of the boxes. “I had five hundred of these printed off.” he handed her a copy of the letter. “It has the PO Box and the cellphone number I got for you.”

  “Mortgage Trust LLC. Is that actually registered?” she asked reading the letterhead.

  “Registered? Oh, it’s in the process,” he said dodging the question. “Should be a couple of days, maybe a week and we’ll have the okay. It’s going to take some time to get these in the mail and in people’s hands so I figured we might as well get started. I’ve got the form letter set up so you can input the date and the individuals name and address then print it off. For the time being sign on the bottom. Just your signature, without a signature block, that’ll make it seem a little more personal. They’ll call, you just set up the appointment, get them to sign the contract, give you a check, and we’re good to go.”

  “You make it sound so simple.”

  “It is, you’ll see. I set this up at the printer under your name, so if you need more of anything you can just call up there.”

  “Did you pay the invoice?”

  “Yeah, not to worry. Receipt is in the box, might as well start thinking tax deduction, right?”

  “So, I can start sending these out, the letters?”

  “Yeah, you can start today, but I’d just do ten or twenty a day. You start getting calls, taking time to meet with folks, you’re liable to get swamped pretty fast.”

  “I’m anxious to get started.”

  “I got you this,” he said then pulled a small cellphone out of his pocket. “It’s a pay-as-you-go. Use it for the business, the phone number is on the letterhead. Virtually untraceable. I got one for both of us.”

  “Great, I can’t wait.”

  “Well, like I said, you close just four-hundred of these over the course of a year and you’re already at a hundred-grand, the sky’s the limit. I got you some business cards to enclose with the letter, it’ll add a little more credibility.”

  “A hundred-grand sounds like a very nice neighborhood to me. Say, umm, we were talking about maybe a little advance? You know just till I get rolling.”

  “Yeah, I have the check in my pocket.”

  “Oh, wonderful. I want to get that damn landlord off my ass. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “No, thanks, I’ve got to meet with clients back at the office,” he lied. “I’ll take a rain-check, if that’s okay.”

  She nodded and said, “I can’t thank you enough for helping me out.”

  “We’re helping each other. I better get going. If you could give me a deposit slip my next stop will be your bank and I’ll put that advance deposit in your account.”

  “A deposit slip?” She didn’t sound too sure.

  “Yeah, you told me you were at First Grand, didn’t you?” He remembered the bank name from the checks he’d taken the other night. “I have to go right past there, I’ll save you the trip.”

  She seemed to think about that for half a second, then dug her purse out from between two stacks of files on the couch. She pulled a deposit slip out of her check book, handed it to him and walked him to the door.

  “Thanks again,” she said, then closed the door. He waited for a moment until he heard what sounded like ice cubes clinking as they dropped into a glass then he headed down the hallway. As promised, Miguel drove him to her bank where he deposited thirteen hundred dollars in her account, all in cash so it couldn
’t be traced. He phoned her on the pay-as-you-go phone.

  “Hello?” she answered on the third ring, sounding surprised that someone was even calling.

  “Hi, Mira, Bobby. Just testing the phones and letting you know I made that deposit. Thirteen hundred dollars, you’re paid in advance so get to work my genius.”

  He heard ice cubes rattling, maybe a quick swallow before she said, “Oh thanks, I really appreciate it. I’ll send the first letters out tonight.”

  Chapter Six

  He called her twice a day for the better part of the next week. On the afternoon of the fifth day his pay-as-you-go cellphone rang.

  “Hello.”

  “Bobby?”

  “Yes.”

  “I got my first appointment tonight. A woman, sounded really anxious to talk with me. I’m meeting with her at seven.”

  “That’s great news. Soft sell, remember you’re just there to help. Make sure you tell her not to contact…”

  “I know, don’t contact her lender or an attorney. I’ll handle all that. God, I’ve rehearsed it a few dozen times. It’s like presenting a closing argument.”

  “You know who she makes the check out to?”

  “You think I just got off the boat? Mortgage Trust, LLC.”

  “I’ll swing by tomorrow, pick up you and the check. We’ll open up the account and deposit it. If for some reason you don’t get paid just let me know.”

  “I’ll get it, I can feel it.”

  “Good girl, thanks for the call, and good luck tonight,” he said and hung up. He made a quick calculation. It would have been three days before the first set of letters were received and here on day five she already had an appointment. Now, if she could just close the deal.

  * * *

  She did close the deal, and the one after that and the two following that. They were on a roll. They had set up a business checking account for Mortgage Trust, leaving off the LLC on the account name and letting Mira sign the checks. Bobby figured she might have caught on to the fact that he hadn’t registered the organization with the state, but she was about to get cash in hand and that seemed to override any need to ask a question. He had a rubber stamp made with her signature and cut her a check for fifty percent of the retainer fee, two-hundred-and-fifty-dollars once the clients check cleared and Mira returned the two grand to the client along with a letter that said she couldn’t help. He also began collecting the names, addresses and phone numbers of everyone who wrote her a check.

  “We keep it short and sweet. No point in getting greedy,” he told her.

  The first week she earned five hundred dollars, the second week seven-fifty. Week three she made fifteen hundred. “I’m meeting three people today, two tomorrow and four on Saturday. Do the math, that’s twenty-two-fifty in three days, for both of us,” she said.

  “I’d say it’s working pretty well,” Bobby replied. They were giving her a ride back from the printers where she’d picked up another five hundred introductory letters. She hadn’t said anything, but he guessed her car was still uninsured and he was pretty sure her license had been suspended.

  “If this keeps up, I’m going to be pretty well booked in a couple more weeks. Have you given any thought to adding someone?” she asked.

  “I think if we found the right person it might work.”

  “What do you mean by the right person?”

  “Well, for starters, someone who can be, umm, discrete. Someone with enough fundamental knowledge to know more than the whomever they’re talking to. Someone who can close the deal. Someone the clients will trust, in short, someone like you, Mira.”

  She looked over at him for a moment and smiled. “I think I know a woman, she’d be a good fit.”

  “If we bring her on, I don’t want her paid at the same scale as you. She gets a hundred bucks and you get a hundred for every deal she closes.”

  “Give her one-twenty-five, that makes it just that more attractive. It’ll be a sure thing once she closes a couple of clients and finds out how easy it is.”

  “I’d want you to continue to maintain all the files, and cut the checks returning their two grand. We don’t need the attorney general’s office coming after us.”

  “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “And I don’t want to meet her.”

  “What?”

  “I want to fade into the background, a silent partner more or less. I’ll still make the deposits, you don’t need to be screwing with that stuff. You’re doing a good job, let’s just keep it that way.”

  “Thanks,” she said then seemed to stare out the window and smile to herself. “You ready for an idea?”

  “An idea?”

  “Yeah. I’d say at this stage we’ve perfected the process. We’re meeting with almost ten percent of the people we contact and I’m closing close to half of those meetings. That’s nothing short of phenomenal.”

  Bobby glanced over with a surprised look on his face.

  “Come on, you start tracking this and you can really see the potential. With all these desperate people out there what we really need is a web site.”

  “A web site?”

  “Yeah. I’ll continue to research county records, but that’s a real time drain. If I put up a web site, people would contact us. I can do it all online, access their records, take credit card payments. We’re sitting on a goldmine here.”

  “I’m not opposed to that,” he said. “I think first let’s bring another auditor on board, you said you have someone in mind.”

  “Yeah, I do,” she sounded surprised he had agreed so quickly.

  “Let’s get her up and running, there are bound to be some difficulties, let’s get those ironed out. In the meantime, we can research what the competition is doing, learn from their mistakes. Sound like a plan?” he said pulling to the curb in front of her building.

  “It sounds like a real good plan. I’ll call Dee Dee tonight.”

  “Dee Dee? That’s the woman you think would be a good fit?”

  “Yeah, she’s hungry. Been out of work for four or five months.”

  “Does she have children?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Two reasons, she’s going to be working nights. You know meetings between five and nine o’clock. Just like you’ve had to do. And, quite frankly you have done wonderfully, you’re making us some nice money, but there’s a downside. This could dry up overnight and I’m always worried about the attorney general’s office. I think it would be a lot of pressure on someone with kids. By the way, I think a woman in the position would be more effective than a man.”

  “I’ll call her and let you know. I’ll have some more checks for deposit tomorrow.”

  “Music to my ears,” he said.

  Chapter Seven

  The new hire, Dee Dee turned out to be just as productive as Mira had promised. So productive, in fact, that they had to add another auditor, and a third one after that. Mira was effectively running the business and Bobby’s only function was to make deposits and pass out pay envelopes at the end of the week. Everyone was paid in cash.

  “You keep doing the numbers, Mira you seem to have a handle on it. I’m just the errand boy running back and forth to the bank,” he said. He began to notice a slight decrease in deposits the following day.

  Mira moved to a new apartment. She rented a two bedroom unit in a trendy renovated building downtown. Along with the bedrooms, it had a nice kitchen and dining area with a porch over looking the river that was just large enough to seat two. Bobby was also aware that she had curtailed her drinking, somewhat. She seemed more put together, more on top of things. Now, when he picked up the deposit her place was neat and tidy. The bed, a new queen size by the way, was made. The floor wasn’t littered with clothing. The kitchen counters were clean and the sink wasn’t overflowing with a week’s worth of dishes.

  He took her out to lunch the previous week in celebration of her business success and the new apartment. It took a little doing, but he got h
er drunk, very drunk. While she dosed in the back seat of the Mercedes he had Miguel run into a hardware store and have copies made of her keys.

  Just now he was leaning against the door frame of the bedroom she used as an office. “I’ve been thinking about your website idea,” he said. She was placing the checks for the day’s deposit into an envelope. He noted she was drinking from a bottle of mineral water. He also noticed that she’d dropped a few pounds and was beginning to look halfway decent.

  “Thinking about it? And what did you come up with?”

  “I think it makes sense. One of the key issues I have is maintaining the anonymity of the operation. You getting any feedback, any irate clients?”

  “Surprisingly, no. I get the occasional call from someone upset. But they’re upset because we couldn’t find anything wrong with the loan. Well, other than it was probably more money than they had any business borrowing in the first place. They all seem to hope for that wrong signature or an interest rate that would be ninety-five percent lower than the rate they agreed to pay. At the end of the day they gambled, lost and deep down they all know that.”

  “You’re mailing the paper work and the refund back to them, right.”

  “Yes, the only personal interaction we have is that first meeting where they sign the contract and hand over the check. We’re just too busy to fool around with anything else. I’m not going to sit there and negotiate with people and no, we won’t cut our fee or work on a contingency basis.”

  “You’ve got four people reporting to you now?”