by Dale Wiley
“Give me some money,” she said, and I pulled out one of Stanky’s hundred dollar bills. I was still afraid.
“I’ll be right back,” she said and left without another word.
I tried to keep my mind off of things by looking again through the annual report. I wasn’t much of an accountant, but I could tell that what I was seeing looked about right. Of course, that was the whole point of embezzlement. Soon, I just put the book down and stared at the ceiling, trying to figure how someone could steal money thinking no one would notice that it was gone
I honestly didn’t think it would be that hard to steal from the government in the short-term. You could certainly nickel-and-dime them to death with things like office supplies and over-billing for mileage, but I also realized no one would shoot a Congressman over an extra box of paper clips.
This sort of graft could’ve gone on anywhere, including the NEA. I thought that any kind of theft above that would be harder at the NEA than other government agencies for one main reason: almost everyone—okay, Helper seemed to be an anomaly—worked at the NEA because they wanted to see artists get money. You didn’t work there if you were hoping to move up in other political circles, because we were Washington DC’s version of a political leper colony. So, because most workers actually cared about what they were doing and because our budget was so small, people tended to scrimp and save rather than over-spend, and this would make it harder for anyone looking to embezzle.
Of course, if the embezzler was the Chief Financial Officer himself, all bets were off. Still, I was sure Helper had considered this and would’ve tried to cover his tracks that much more carefully.
And I uncovered none of those tracks. After half an hour more of gazing blankly at long columns of numbers, Tabitha returned, breathless and holding a toy store package under her arm. She grinned at me and opened her bundle. Inside she had a new edition of Trivial Pursuit. I laughed and moved to the table, clearing a spot so we could play.
For whatever reason, the creators of Trivial Pursuit were Watergate freaks, and I could answer all of those questions—Donald Segretti, John Dean, and Charles Colson. I have also learned that if you don’t know the answer you should say either chlorophyll, Shakespeare, Lucille Ball, or The Beatles and you might well be right. Tabitha knew all about the movies, so she got questions about The Graduate right and also knew it was Greta Garbo who wanted to be alone. She even had a fairly decent knowledge of sports from having two brothers. As she secured her last piece of pie and headed toward the center of the board, I decided to ask her a science question once she got there. Of course, she nailed it, pumping her arms after her victory. I was gracious, shaking the hand of the victor while realizing she had just made me go more than an hour without concentrating on my problems.
Despite all of the heartache that the boob tube had caused me in the past few days, I turned it on again. And for once, I didn’t see my face on the screen; I saw Stephanie’s.
She was being interviewed by Sandy Springer, a perky, inquisitive journalist, who always reminded me of a blond Chihuahua. Stephanie’s face looked flat and cold, with very little make-up, probably an attempt by the producers to make her look even more sympathetic. Sandy—looking pert, blond, and wonderful—gazed intently at her, showing the audience her deep rapport with her subject, before beginning her questioning in a frank but gentle tone that annoyed the hell out of me.
“What was he like?” she asked, resting her chin on her knuckles.
Stephanie shrugged. “He seemed nice enough. I … I did not expect this.”
I glanced at Tabitha, who watched her friend closely.
“Any hints at all?”
She thought about it for a second. “None. I liked him.”
“You liked him?” Sandy didn’t want to hear that.
She nodded. “He was funny and thoughtful.”
I was reeling. It was very weird to hear Stephanie talk about me the way you might hear Liz Taylor talk about Husband Number Four. Funny and thoughtful. And deadly.
This probably sounded way too sympathetic to the killer as far as the show’s producers were concerned, so Sandy quit pursuing it and started a new line of questioning. “Were you straight with him about Roger? Did he know you had a previous boyfriend?”
She nodded. “I told him that I had been serious for a long time with Roger and that he had been my only really serious boyfriend.”
Okay. Every detail of my life that might have ever come back to haunt me had already surfaced to become dinnertime conversation for Middle America. Rumors, half-truths, and white lies were being bandied about on every talk show in the country. But there was something very naked and very wrong about someone interviewing Stephanie about our relationship. It just seemed really intimate, and it made me very uncomfortable.
The segment didn’t last much longer. Stephanie wasn’t the hysterical wailer or the vindictive vixen they were wanting; she was just an honest person who had been hurt in a variety of ways. Through a satellite hook-up, Sandy had found someone more to her liking. She was now talking to Jack Swanson, who she described as my “childhood friend.”
Trouble was Jack Swanson wasn’t a childhood friend. In fact, I hated him. He was the pot-bellied shit-head who picked on me in junior high. Last I knew, Jack had been “doing well” in the roofing business in Naples, Florida, where he was shacked up with Kellie Kingman, the girl who wore the biggest hair bow in the whole elementary. I had always loathed Jack, and Kellie hadn’t done me any favors, either. The bigger the bow, the bigger the ho, as my friend Kevin used to say. His enormous face filled up the screen like a ham hock, and when he laughed his lip nearly touched his nose. It had always done that.
But he wasn’t laughing now. He was shaking his head, filled with remorse for his friend who had, in Jack’s words, “strayed from the path.” He told Sandy that I never was quite right, and the only slight pleasure I could manage out of the whole painful minute that he was on camera was when I noticed that he was going bald quickly. He misquoted the Bible and then earnestly asked me to give myself up to the proper authorities. I flipped him off, even though I knew he couldn’t see me.
I was just going to have to swear off TV. First, I had been embarrassed about the truth being aired. Now, I was embarrassed that the whole friggin’ nation would now believe I had ever liked Jack Swanson. Tabitha turned off the set and chuckled quietly.
“Did you really like that guy?”
I realized I hadn’t spoken throughout the whole show. I was sure, though, that my expressions had said plenty. “He pantsed me in gym.”
She laughed. Loudly. She was way too happy about this.
“Quit laughing,” I said.
“Pantsed,” she pointed.
Her laugh was so loud and so annoying that I finally cracked a smile. After I explained the exact logistics of my junior high humiliation and after she laughed for quite a while longer, Tabitha and I began to map out just exactly how we were going to accomplish this daring break-in. I told her what I remembered about how the building was set up and that there was a single security guard at the front desk. I knew the building held such covert operations as Easter Seals and Save the Children and was fairly sure they didn’t have major problems with espionage or burglary, and, thus, we could probably catch the watchman off-guard—pardon the pun. Because of growing up around two older brothers, Tabitha knew a good deal about cars, and she told me of some doohickey in the engine that she could remove which would keep the car from starting. This was good, I told her, because I knew lots about computers compared to what I knew about cars.
By the time we were ready to move, it was after ten. We once again traipsed silently down the hall, and I was still terrified that the parking attendant would spot me. I had brought the flashlight and the lock-pick set provided by Phillip as well as his gun, more as a prop than anything else. I thought about that old saying, you should be ready to use a gun, or it would probably end up being used against you.
&nbs
p; Despite everything, I didn’t believe I was to the trigger-pulling point; I wasn’t going to bring anyone down—with the possible exception of Mark Helper—to get myself off the hook. Looking back on it, this decision on my part was both courageous and dumb. But, then again, that could almost be the title of my whole adventure.
Other than the monuments and monoliths, which are all lit up like electrified snowmen every night of the year, DC at night isn’t much to behold. You see street lights and tail lights and rats scurrying across lanes of traffic. So I didn’t mind slinking down in my seat and listening to Buddy Holly on the radio until we got nearer to our target. Tabitha watched as I pointed it out, a metallic ten-story building which looked like no one had ever taken the time to finish it. She drove past it, and I got out, running under the building’s overhang and sneaking along the side. The street was empty.
Tabitha circled back around the block and parked in the middle of the street, fifty feet from the door. I moved closer to the entrance. She turned on her hazard lights and popped the hood, checking to make sure she wasn’t going to be mugged. I pointed to the pistol tucked under my shirt to remind her that I had her covered. She raised the hood and grabbed something small, wrapped it in a tissue, and put it in her pocket. Then she ran into the front of the building, looking hysterical. Her clients, I thought, would believe absolutely anything that she told them. I was hoping the guard would too.
I wanted to hear what she was saying, still slightly scared that she might try to turn me in. But then I realized she had just let me out of the car and could’ve driven to Montana before I would’ve even known she was gone. So I put this worry aside and waited.
Tabitha came out the door with a gaunt, middle-aged man, who looked like he hadn’t stood up all night. She was standing close and talking briskly, and I slipped into the open door while his back was turned. I knew the McHolland Foundation was on the third floor, so I eased myself into the stairwell and up the stairs. I sprinted, realizing my time on the lam was getting me in excellent physical condition—I wasn’t even breathing hard.
The glass door which stood between me and the documents which might free me proved to be a little more of a challenge than the piddly little door at Helper’s. It took me almost a minute to get it open. I stuck the flashlight in my mouth and then turned and fumbled and pushed and twisted until I finally heard something click. I took the flashlight out of my mouth and went in.
The streetlights provided just enough light to plaster my shadow to the far wall. I didn’t think anyone could see this from the ground, but it made me even more nervous. I chewed on my lip and wondered where to start. There were several desks in the middle of the room, but I wondered if they would have access to what I needed. Still, they were there, and I could also see the printer to which they were connected. I swore in several languages when I realized I had forgotten gloves and wondered how many fingerprints I had left already. But I quickly decided I might as well not even worry about that—this escapade was pretty insignificant compared to all the rest of my crimes. I switched on the printer with one of my knuckles and examined the desktops to see which computer to use.
At the NEA, we had to watch a really lame video before we could get a computer password. It starred a big fat guy who cackled a lot and told you he was a computer hacker. At the end, they gave you a long list of places not to write your password, and I decided this must mean that those places were where people were most likely to write it. I checked the monitors and the papers on the desktops, and, in the second desk just inside the top drawer, I found the letters “dres” followed by “90hR42.” Bingo. It had to be a password. Unless it was an old one, I was in.
I turned on the computer. It beeped loudly, and I frantically searched to find the source of the noise, sure I had set off some alarm. But it started booting up, whizzing, and whirring—thankfully, it quit beeping. Theirs were newer than the ones at the NEA. But I was betting that everyone in DC had a computer newer than those at the NEA. While it continued to boot up, I turned off my flashlight and stuck it in my pocket. From my desk I could look out into the hall, so I quickly checked to make sure no one was there. The coast was clear. I logged in. The password worked. Now I just had to find the financial reports.
I looked in several different network folders and finally found them. There were two versions, the short one for those who just wanted the big picture and then an actual line-by-line budget. But it was over a thousand pages. I knew Tabitha couldn’t stretch out her performance long enough for me to print all of that. This made me want to smack my head into the desk again and again.
Instead, I took a deep breath and began frantically searching for numbers that wouldn’t add up.
I printed out the salary pages, because I thought some answer might lie there. I looked through administrative expenses, and I quickly printed some of the grants, thinking for the first time that maybe they had been inventing fake artists and getting grants for them. And then, under travel expenses, I saw a name that looked familiar—Daedalus Travel. That was the same agency we used. As I saw this, I remembered Ann telling me about her crowded flight into the conference on NationAir. As Ann had mentioned, everyone flew NationAir because it was cheaper than dirt. They flew planes that were older than Jesus, but they got you there for pocket change. But all of these flights—ninety percent of which seemed to be NationAir—were costing the Foundation anywhere from $700 to a thousand bucks, probably twice as much as they should have. My heart leaped—maybe this was it! I hit the print button, but as I did, I saw the hall door open. I knew I was dead.
Chapter
* * *
Twenty-One
The monitor was on, as was the printer light. The printer now seemed incredibly loud to me. I thought about hiding under the desk, but I was afraid he had already seen all he needed to. I rushed to the door, pointed the gun at him, and screamed, “Freeze!”
It was a different security guard, rounder and shorter than the first one, and he was out of practice. He didn’t even try to pull his gun, instead just putting his hands up and looking at me like I was chewing through steel. As I looked at his forehead through the gun sight, I realized I had no idea what I should do with him. I motioned to the door and stepped back so he could get by. “Come in here and get my papers.” He did as he was told, pushing through the glass door slowly, keeping his eyes on me the whole time. I wanted to ask him if he recognized me but knew that would be really, really dumb. If he hadn’t, I didn’t want to add another crime to my list. “Pick them up and don’t look at them,” I said, and he handed them to me without so much as peeking.
There were probably twenty sheets, and I was now challenged with what to do with them. I couldn’t fold them up and put them anywhere because that would involve putting down the gun. And I didn’t like him having a gun. I told him to take off his holster slowly. He did.
Now what was I going to do with this? It would be nice to have an extra gun, one for Tab, and he also had a walkie-talkie and some handcuffs. Handcuffs! That’s what I would do with him. I bent down, keeping the gun pointed at the guard, and picked up the handcuffs. I wanted to cuff him to something but couldn’t find anything suitable in the office. I figured there would be a storage closet in the hall. There’s always a storage closet in the hall.
And, true to form, there was one two doors down from the Foundation. I told him to march to it and then opened the door and let him walk in. Against one wall, there were tall metal shelves filled with ballpoint pen boxes and aerosol cans. The shelves weren’t nearly sturdy enough to keep this big guy hostage for very long, but they would probably hold him for long enough for my escape. I snapped those suckers on him and shut the door behind me as I left. Of course, it didn’t lock. I comforted myself, thinking it wouldn’t hold him long anyway as I sprinted back down the steps.
I had no idea whether he had talked to his partner or anyone on his walkie-talkie before entering my hall. I doubted it, but there was still a chance that he ha
d radioed before opening the door. I was praying Tabitha was safe as I burst out of the stairwell and then shot out of the front door.
The guard was bent over, examining the engine with a small flashlight, and Tabitha was turned so she could see me. She slipped the doo-hickey out of her pocket and was trying to replace it just as I came up behind the guy and pistol-whipped him as hard as I could right between the shoulder blades, just knowing that would knock him out.
“Hey!” he said, half-turning in my direction. Oh shit. It didn’t work! But it always worked. I tried again. I hit him at the base of the skull, and he started moving for his gun, still not knocked out. I quickly gave up that idea and turned the gun around and pointed it three inches from his temple. Tabitha had replaced the engine part and was going back around to the driver’s side, and I couldn’t let this guy radio for help. Since he wasn’t smart enough to just get knocked out and get it over with, he would to have to come with us. “Get in,” I yelled. He stared at the gun.
I shoved him in the back seat and got right in beside him, throwing his partner’s gun and my papers into the front seat as Tabitha lit out down the street. “What happened?” she asked.
“Another security guard,” I said. The guard, by now, had recognized me. I nodded, as I pointed the gun right at his nose and told him to take off his gun belt slowly. My reputation obviously preceded me, and he did so very carefully. I threw it in the front seat as well.