Casey's Slip

by Richard L. Wren

  “The best advice I can give you is that you should start filing, even if you have no taxes to pay. And based on what you’ve told me I doubt very much that you’d be paying any taxes at all.” Her tone was dismissive. She handed me some papers and a couple of brochures, and we were done.

  As she started to escort me out, I told the lovely Rachel that I could find my own way. She ignored me. I got my pen out again, but carefully kept it clear of her field of vision. I succeeded in getting the offices on the camcorder. That plus the recording of everything she’d said should work for Gus, at least for the fourth floor.

  “So – do you hold all your interviews on the fourth floor?” I asked, like I was making small talk.

  “No, we use the third floor too– but not for people like you,” she said, her tone now distinctly dismissive. “Most personal interviews are done on the fourth. The third floor is mainly task force offices.” Whatever those are.

  With that she thanked me for coming in, told me she’d be “happy” to see me anytime again and said goodbye at the elevator door. All in all, a rather nice lady.

  I wondered if Smitty was going to report my hundred a week salary to the IRS.

  Smitty was double-parked in front of the building.

  “Jesus, Casey, what took you so long? It’s been almost an hour.” I thought I’d pulled it off fairly quickly.

  “Hey, Smitty, you can’t hurry the IRS. Wait’ll you and Gus get all the information and the pictures. You’ll love ’em. I got a regular travelogue for you here.”

  Back at the house, Smitty grabbed the “pen” out of my shirt pocket and said, “Okay. Let’s download this baby and see what you got.”

  In a short time he agreed with me that the fourth floor was our target of choice.

  “So you think we can use one of those empty offices?”

  “Should be easy.” I said. “I got the impression that any of the agents might grab one of them and use it, if they had more people than they could handle in their cubicles.”

  “You think if we grabbed one and closed the door, anyone would bother us?”

  “I don’t think so. If anyone pokes their head in you can say one of the agents told you to meet him there. Something generic. Should work.”

  “Yeah, I think so too. Let me tell you what Gus and I’ve come up with for getting the lady at the AG’s office to come in.”

  “Uh – does the lady have a name yet?”

  “Oh, yeah, forgot to tell you. She’s a Mrs. Jane DeHaven. A fortyish widow and guilty as hell.”

  “I sure hope she’s the one. She’s the only lead we’ve got,” I said.

  “What we’re planning on doing is a little complicated, but we can’t think of any other way to get her in. We’re planning on calling her at the AG’s office and telling her just enough so she’d almost have to come to the IRS offices. Not so much that she’d panic, but enough so that she knows if she calls her boyfriend it could get worse for her. Okay so far?”

  “Guess so.”

  “Okay. So we call Mrs. DeHaven at the AG’s office and advise her that she’s under investigation by the IRS and that we need to see her at the local IRS office either this afternoon or tomorrow morning, latest. We’ll tell her that she may not be in any trouble, as long as she can explain away some apparent unreported income.”

  “Sounds like it might work. Who’s ‘we’? Who’s making the call?”

  Josie spoke up, “I am.”

  “We thought it’d sound more convincing, and maybe a little less threatening, having a woman call,” added Smitty.

  Just then Gus came waltzing in wearing his new suit, shirt and tie combo. He looked perfect, every inch the business employee. Good shoes but slightly scuffed. A pair of glasses. He’d even had his hair cut short. His normal dapper look was completely gone.

  “You look like a new man” Smitty said, “A regular nine-to-fiver, ready to take the family car home to the wife and three kids in the ’burbs. Maybe a little old for the three kids…”

  “Second marriage.” Gus said. “Cripes, I look like an old man!”

  “Third,” I said.

  As a finishing touch Gus showed us an old but expensive looking briefcase packed with important looking papers.

  I asked him about IRS identification. He whipped out an official-looking badge case from his inner jacket pocket and flipped it opened displaying a very official-looking badge and ID card.

  “Will it pass a close inspection? Remember she works for the state and may really look at your ID.”

  “Funny you should ask,” he said. “The case is a passport case, but nobody’ll notice the difference. The badge and ID are the real deal.”

  “You mean they’ll pass – real good forgeries, right?”

  I got back an indignant, “No sir, these papers and the ID are the real thing. The original owner may be dead or missing, but the papers are good as gold!”

  I decided I didn’t need to know the rest ofthat story.

  “Anyway, that’s how we intend to get her into the offices, maybe tomorrow if possible,” Smitty said

  “So you’re going to call her this afternoon and try to get her in tomorrow?”

  “Depends on Josie. If she’s ready to make the call, I’m ready.”

  Josie spoke up. “The longer we wait, the longer we wait. I can’t see any reason to not go ahead right now. Let’s find out if our plan’s going to work or not.”

  Her dad spoke up. “You sure what you’re gonna say, honey? You have to sound very sure of yourself, like a professional IRS agent would. Seems to me an agent would fully expect people’s cooperation and her attitude on the phone would reflect that. You ready to do that?”

  “Da-a-ad,” she said, dragging the word out peevishly, “I reallyam an IRS agent.”

  “Damn, that’s the right attitude! Take a deep breath and let’s do it.”

  Smitty kicked everyone out of the kitchen except the four of us, sat Josie down at the table, and had her dial the AG’s office.

  “Attorney General’s office. How may I direct your call?” Josie had no trouble getting Mrs. DeHaven on the phone after she said it was a call from the IRS.

  As soon as Josie identified herself as an agent and said that the IRS would like her to appear at their office to talk about some perceived irregularities in her income reporting, our gal started sounding antsy.

  However, none of our anticipated problems surfaced. She agreed almost immediately to come to the IRS offices at ten-thirty the next morning. She became more and more agitated as the conversation continued, but seemed afraid to say no to an appointment.

  Josie calmly confirmed the ten-thirty appointment once again and told her that her appointment would be with Agent Levy. She told her she should bypass the information kiosk on the main floor and proceed directly to the IRS offices on the fourth floor. Agent Levy would meet her there. She also told her to not speak to anyone except Agent Levy. “We want to keep this as low a profile as possible,” Josie said. “For your sake, ma’am.”

  Believe it or not, Mrs. DeHaven thanked her for calling.

  Josie hung up and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  “Wow,” Gus said. “Wow! It went so easy! Josie! You were spectacular! Tomorrow should be a breeze!”

  “Well, Mr. Levy, the rest is up to you,” Josie grinned at him. “I got her in. The ball’s in your court now.”

  “I wonder what the real Levy looked like. It’s a good thing his ID didn’t have a picture on it. Now I got overnight to become an IRS agent.”

  “Method acting,” I said.

  “For Christ’s sake guys,” Smitty interjected. “Quit fartin’ around. It’s damn serious. Gus, if you blow this, if we lose her we don’t got nothin’. You got tonight and tomorrow morning to think about it and you gotta be letter perfect. You got me?”

  CHAPTER 72

  Josie grabbed my arm and said, “Let’s get out of here. Gus is going to be busy rehearsing and we don’t really have anythi
ng to do. Let’s do something together tonight. Maybe a play or a movie. Just the two of us.”

  We ended up going to a live play. Shakespeare! I’d never seen any Shakespeare before except that movie about him falling for Gwyneth Paltrow. This play was fun. They said they were gonna summarize every Shakespeare play in ninety minutes. Actually it was hilarious and we both enjoyed the heck out of it. Josie told me I still hadn’t really seen Shakespeare yet and, “don’t claim you have!”

  After the play, we found a spot that made waffles 24/7, shared a strawberry cream one, had coffee and went back to the hotel.

  In the lobby it suddenly became awkward. I think we both were getting close to sharing a room but neither of us actually vocalized it. I ended up escorting her to her room, got a very warm good-night kiss and went to my room. Alone. Again.

  Next morning, surprise, we weren’t awakened by Smitty. Josie called me about seven and asked if I was ready for breakfast. Kiddingly, I asked her if she wanted another cosmo like the other night.

  She said, “About that. Did I propose to you?”

  “I’m not sure, did I answer yes?”

  “The last thing I remember is you knocking your drink over.”

  “We need to continue that conversation, don’t we?”

  “How about now for breakfast?”

  We met a short time later in the hotel dining room and unfortunately had Gus sharing our table.

  On the way to Little Georges’ house we talked about Gus.

  “I get the impression that Gus is looking forward to his acting debut,” I ventured.

  “Gus? He’s a real hambone at heart.”

  Bustle, bustle, bustle. Gus was getting dressed with lots of friendly ribbing from the other guys. Things like “Hey, Gus, you got a little gut there, wanna’ borrow a girdle?” and “Good God, Gus, you color blind or something? That tie’s bilious.” and “I think accountants always wear white socks with their suits. You should change!”

  Gus just laughed and kept on dressing. Well ahead of the time he planned to leave, he was fully dressed and into his a final crowning touch: a pair of horned-rimmed glasses. In spite of all the ribbing, he certainly did look the part.

  Smitty said, “Okay. Talk accountant to me.”

  “Debit is the side toward the window.”

  Silence.

  “It’s an old accountants joke,” Gus said. Nobody laughed.

  “Don’t worry about the CPA talk. I used to be an accountant in a previous life. Not for long, I was just out of college. It’s too boring. That’s the real reason I volunteered for this gig. I get to revisit my inner CPA.

  “Hell, Gus. As long as I’ve known you, I never knew that!” Smitty said, looking pretty impressed.

  “Ah, and who knows what all else you don’t know about me,” Gus said, enjoying his role as mystery man. But then it was back to business. “I need to borrow a car and get over there pretty soon. The pictures are great but I’d like to reconnoiter the place on my own before our Mrs. DeHaven gets there.”

  Smitty told me to drive him over and wait for him.

  “So what do you expect will happen?” I asked Gus. “Well, I’m going to’ hit her with a shit load of scare tactics. I’ll tell her we know all about her pilfering information from her office. At the very least we can prosecute her for income tax evasion, but that’s the least of her worries. Whoever she’s been feeding this stuff to has committed murder. All of which makes her an accessory to murder. I’ll tell her that the FBI is interested in her too!”

  “That’d scare the heck out of me,” Josie said.

  “But that’s just the hook. When I give her an out, I think she’ll jump at it.”

  “An out?”

  “Yep, I’ll tell her we think she’s been a somewhat innocent pawn in this thing. I’ll start with we know you’re guilty of stealing information. Then I’ll follow with we don’t think you’re involved in the way the information was used. Also we don’t think you knew anything about the murders. Then I’ll tell her, if she’ll ID the guy and testify against him we can probably get her off the hook on accessory charges.”

  “You think she’ll cave?”

  You know what I expect? I expect I’ll emerge from the IRS building with Mrs. Demavend in tow, and that I’ll be dropping her off at a safe house for her protection within the hour.”

  Safe house? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had to say it. “Safe house? Who has a safe house?”

  “We’re talkin’ makeshift,” Smitty said with a patient sigh, like having to constantly educate me was wearing him out. “We have to get her off the street while we decide what to do with the dope she gives us. Little George has some empty real estate we can use to get her out of sight, and one of the wives is gonna play ‘matron.’ It’s all set.”

  I was silent for a couple of minutes, digesting this information.

  “Gus, that’s kidnapping.”

  “Not if it’s her idea. She’ll ask for protection. I just have to play her right.”

  We got to the IRS building about nine forty-five, over a half hour early.

  “Perfect,” Gus said. “Try to get a parking space where you can watch the front door. You’ll have to be on your toes. I’m gonna be improvising when she and I leave. I might take a taxi instead of using you. Somehow I feel that’d be more in character with what she thinks we’re doing than using our car. It doesn’t look very official. If I do take a cab, follow me.”

  With that he left. From behind he looked mighty convincing to me. Wading into a sea of suited and briefcased men, he fit right in. What a ham!”

  Time went by. I did a crossword puzzle. Then I did another crossword puzzle. Finally he came through the double brass doors. I’d never seen our Mrs. DeHaven but had to assume that the lady he was escorting was her. No police right behind him, just her. I breathed a sigh of relief over that. He completely ignored me and hailed a taxi.

  I pulled out two cars behind the cab. I’d never tailed anyone in my life so I did like the detective books said, stayed back a couple of cars. I followed the cab to what I assumed was her place. She and Gus went in. After a ten-minute wait she came out with a couple of suitcases and I followed them to a small tract home on the north side of the city. Gus dismissed the cab and took her and the suitcases in. After a few minutes, he came out and jumped in our car.

  “Like clockwork! She’s really a simple woman. All I had to do was prime her and she started unloading. In fact, I think she was relieved to be caught. She said she’d started doing a couple of small favors for this senator and then he wouldn’t let her quit. He’s been sleeping with her for years. Anyway, he’s our guy. He’s the bastard behind all this stuff!”

  “Back to the house?”

  “Yeah. Let’s get everybody together so I don’t have to tell it over and over.” We called ahead.

  Approaching Little George’s house, there were a lot more motorcycles than had been there in the morning. Inside, Smitty told us he’d called down to Oakland and asked several of his guys to come up. They were all waiting to hear from Gus.

  “Okay, Gus,” Smitty said, “get to the meat. What’d you find out?”

  “Well, first off, you were completely right. She was the one feeding information out of the AG’s office. She said she fielded most of the tips and complaints that came into their office, and was the one who kept the records, so she had no trouble siphoning off an occasional tidbit and getting it to her friend. Once she got a tip to him, all he had to do was a little private investigation of his own. Voila – blackmail material.”

  “Did you get the name of her friend?”

  “Of course,” Gus said. “What do you think I am? An amateur? Our guy’s a senator, just like we thought. In fact he’s a long-time, senior senator.”

  Little George said, “If I were a bettin’ man, I’d say it’s Senator Goldberg.”

  “You know him?”

  “I don’t know him. I knowofhim. Everybody does. That son of a bi
tch!”

  I flashed back to when I’d read his name a few days ago in the San Francisco newspaper. It seemed like a year ago.

  Gus continued. “She told me she’d been doing it for years and had no idea how the tips were being used. She’d been told that because the information was being passed on to someone high up in the government, it was okay. When I told her how the information had really been used, she burst into tears. She said she had no idea.”

  Smitty said, “She’s that gullible?”

  “I reminded her that she’d been receiving expensive gifts plus cash and travel perks for many years, she must have suspected something. She told me that the senator was a ‘personal friend’ and that she’d separated the gifts and the tips in her mind. I said, ‘Come on. How could you possibly do that?’ That’s when she finally admitted she’d been sleeping with the guy. She thought he loved her. Which was when she completely caved in. She wanted to know what she could do.

  I told her what we’d agreed on and it worked like a charm. The senator was gonna be investigated for murder. She’d be charged too unless her skirts were clean. Our investigation was leading us to believe that he’d kept her and his blackmail empire completely separate. If she’d help us, we’d help her. Anyway, it worked. She jumped at the chance to get out from under the senator.”

  One of the guys snickered. “Yeah. Out from under!”

  “The rest was easy. I pretended to make a call and set up a safe house for her protection. She went with me to her house; grabbed some personal stuff and I took her to Little George’s place. And, to date, that’s where we are!”

  “Gus,” I said. “I still think that’s kidnapping! And she’s a government employee! And she works for the Attorney General! She can put us all in jail.”

  Gus looked over at me and said, “Going to the safe house was entirely her idea. I just told her it was available.”

  At least we now knew for sure about the senator.

  CHAPTER 73

  Little George was still furious. “That lousy bastard! I knew he was dirty. He’s been screwing the public for years. We need to get rid of that guy. And you know what? The Senate won’t do it. Something should happen to him!”