Air Time

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  Stepping into the living room, I smile my way confidently to a clear section of one of the card tables. Welcome to Burberry City. Shoulder bags, coin purses, umbrellas, tote bags, pouches and wallets, all with the well-known camel, black, red and white plaid. Placing my purse carefully on the table, lens aimed toward me, I choose a small shoulder bag and pretend to examine it. I’m actually checking for the Burberry tell—a distinctive and never-changing pattern in the plaid. With a glance to confirm no one is noticing and a secret smile of triumph, I casually hold the bag up in front of my hidden lens. These babies are fakes.

  I put my camera purse on my shoulder again. Keeping my hand near the lens just in case I need to cover it, I aim for the table, recording the intently calculating faces of the bargain hunters, each focused on selecting from the still enormous assortment of designer doubles.

  “Amazing, huh?” I put a little squeak in my voice, pitching it high and feminine. How Elsa talks. I’ve got to get some usable info, and my time is running out. I carefully tilt my purse in hopes of getting her face on camera, even though I’m not allowed to record her voice. “Have you been here before?”

  The woman beside me, hair chopped in a bob and wearing a baby-blue twinset reaches her acrylic red fingernails toward a Gucci-looking leather bag decorated with interlocking G’s.

  I know the G’s are in the wrong place.

  Blue-twinset apparently doesn’t. Or doesn’t care. “Nope, friend told me about it. Perfect, huh?” She never takes her eyes off her catch, opening the not-really-gold-plated clasp and checking the inside with an appreciative nod. She snaps it closed, tucks it under her arm, and reaches into the pile again.

  “My husband would die if he knew I was here,” she says, scrutinizing a Chanel wannabe. “But I say, I can get five or six bags like this for the price of one real one, you know? And wouldn’t he be more upset if I bought the real one?”

  “So, everyone here knows they’re, um, copies?” I ask. Elsa is so naive.

  “Well, of course.” She still hasn’t looked at me as she considers her choices, keeping up a stream of chat. “But I figure there’s nothing wrong with it, as long as they don’t say they’re genuine. Right? Don’t ask, don’t tell. And it’s all cash, of course. So I just take it out of the grocery money.” She cocks her head. “You pay in the kitchen.”

  “Ah,” I say. Putting my purse on the table again, I pretend to examine a Fendi clutch, holding it up as the camera—cross fingers—rolls. I’m oh-so-casual, hoping this next question won’t set off any intruder alarms. Talking like Elsa. “Do you know our hostess? I’d love to meet her.”

  “Kitchen,” she says.

  “Thanks,” I say. This is working. I’m pretty sure I’m getting good stuff. Franklin is going to be thrilled, and turns out he’d have been quite a sore thumb here. There’s not a man in the place.

  The table closer to the kitchen is all Delleton-Marachelle, from their iconic short-handled doctor’s bag to their newest suede sling, sleek and oversized, dripping with fringe and tagged with a heavy brass D. Like the ones the Prada P.I. sent Franklin. I lift my hand from the lens and aim at the display. I can’t even calculate how much this collection would cost if they were authentic. That might be a fun element for our story, putting a price tag on this shot.

  “Charlie?”

  The voice is coming from behind me. Friendly and welcoming. And devastating.

  I carefully lower my hand over the lens and begin to turn around. This is going to be difficult to explain. This is, actually, going to be impossible to explain. This is going to be a mess.

  Then I remember. I’m not Charlie. Someone named Elsa would not acknowledge a shout-out to someone named Charlie. Knees jelly and tingles of sweat forming across my upper lip, I summon my inner Elsa and continue shopping the phony bags. I don’t budge. I don’t respond. In about two seconds, either my cover is going to be blown. Or not. I race through my options. One: Leave. Two: Leave very quickly.

  Three: Calm down. Even if someone recognizes me, they wouldn’t know I have a camera in my bag. Probably. And if they ask whether I’m a TV reporter, I’ll just say no. If they demand to see what’s in my purse, I’ll just say goodbye. Option three it is.

  “Charlie Sue Wanamaker? Is that you?” There’s a hoot of greeting, “girlfriend!” and some other shopper named Charlie turns, arms wide, to embrace the woman who almost caused my heart attack. As they kiss the air, I whisper a silent thanks to the journalism gods.

  I check my watch. Ten minutes, maybe, until I have to hit the bathroom and change batteries. Time to check out the kitchen. Follow the money.

  Chest-high swinging doors, like in some John Wayne western, block the entrance to the kitchen. I take a Delleton-Marachelle suede tote from the table, the one with the fringe. The price tag says one hundred thirty-five dollars. By my calculation, if this honey is real, that would be an eighteen-hundred-dollar discount. I can tell it’s a phony. The fringe is attached under a suede flap, as it should be. But it’s not stitched, it’s glued. Fake.

  I carry my prize through the doors, digging in the pocket of my skirt for my wallet. This is the tricky part. And almost funny. Of course I can’t open my hidden camera purse to pay for the counterfeit purse.

  Okay, Elsa. You’re on.

  I pause at the door, risking a wide shot. There’s only the two of us in the room, so there’s no one to distract her from my surreptitious photographic activity.

  “Do I pay you for this?” Elsa-me squeaks, chirpy and chatty. I hold up the D-M, waving it a bit to draw her eye away from my camera-purse. “This is so wonderful. You have so many nice things.”

  The woman at the kitchen table has a gray metal box, shoebox size, in front of her. It’s closed, and as I approach her, she puts her hand on top of it.

  “That’s all you found?” she asks. “Or would you like me to hold this for you? So you can keep shopping?” She takes the purse from me, putting it on top of the strongbox, and examines the price tag. Her lipstick is probably named Killer Copper, or Molten Metal, and her hyper-permed hair pretty much matches. Her tank top T-shirt, too skimpy for someone her age, proclaims “When the going gets tough…” on the front. I can predict the back.

  Elsa is congenial. I hold out one hand, covering the lens with the other. “Elsa,” I say, stepping into reporter waters. Let’s see how she handles my first test question. “Thank you so much for inviting me.” Did she invite me? And will she say her name?

  “Just call me Sally,” the woman says. “And no problem, I have my little gatherings all the time. That’s one hundred thirty five dollars. Cash only. Sure you don’t want to keep shopping?”

  I open my wallet, peel out three fifty dollar bills, and hand “Sally” the cash. “Just-call-me-Sally” means “Sally” is probably the only name that isn’t hers. I carefully lift my hand away from the lens. “Sally” has opened her cash box and I need that shot.

  “I, um, well,” I give Elsa an embarrassed look and lean in closer to Sally as the purse proprietor adds the bills to her stash. The cash box is Fort Knox. The mint. Crammed with cash. I hope the camera stays in focus this close.

  “Well, I’d adore to keep shopping of course. And thank you for offering to hold my darling bag, but I’m afraid first, I…” Elsa drops her voice to a whisper, scrunches up her shoulders, points the camera right at the boxful of bills “…have to go to the ladies. Could you point me?”

  “The bathroom.” Sally hands me my change, then closes her box and looks around the room. Almost scanning. Maybe she’s wondering why people aren’t arriving with more cash and purses. I suddenly wonder if there’s some kind of security system out there. Making certain the desperate housewives don’t abscond with their purses without paying. “Of course, it’s, uh…” she brightens “…upstairs. Top of the stairs.”

  I click the bathroom door closed, and twist the little latch on the door handle. Just to make sure, I lean against the door, my back padded by a set of yellow towel
s hanging over a rack. I open my purse.

  Come on, video. Show me the money. And the loot.

  I push Rewind and watch a chaotically jerky mishmash of colors flash and flicker backward. That’s all I needed to see. If I watched it forward, I know it would be pictures.

  I click out the tape and search for a pen to mark the label tape one. Damn. I don’t have a pen. This isn’t my real purse. Inside is only a camera. I touch my finger to my pink lipstick, then touch the finger to the tape label. Tape one is pink.

  Just in case someone is waiting outside, I flush the toilet, then turn on the water in the sink. I click off the almost dead battery and click on a new one. I insert a new cassette, push Play, and watch the tiny cassette start to reel forward. I’m back in business.

  I turn off the water, pause a beat, and open the door.

  And there’s just-call-me-Sally. Standing, feet apart, hands on hips, three inches from me.

  Rule one of carrying hidden camera. The person you are shooting does not know you have it. No matter what they say, no matter how they behave. The most ordinary remarks will sound suspicious and threatening. But they don’t know. Rule one is banging through my brain as I size up the situation.

  “Hi, Sally,” I say, in my chirpy Elsa voice. “Need the bathroom? Hey, where’s my beautiful new bag?”

  “Looks like you already have a pretty nice bag,” she replies, pointing. She makes no move to go inside.

  Rule one, rule one.

  “Oh, this old thing?” I reply. “I think my mother bought it for me. I use it to carry around my art supplies. That’s why I think its time to splurge on a new one. Oh, don’t tell me. The party’s not over, is it?”

  “How did you find out about our little get together?” she asks.

  Rule one, rule one.

  “Oh, golly, I met a lovely girl in the airport, gosh, I think maybe Baltimore?” I reel off the whole story of Regine, and her card, and the Web site. Gauging her reaction the whole time. She backs away a bit. Seems to relax.

  Rule two of carrying a hidden camera. The best defense is a good offense.

  “You have such a wonderful turnout today. Of course, you have all those wonderful purses. I can’t believe they’re so inexpensive,” I say. Then I tilt my head as if I’d just had an offhand thought. “How does this all work? I mean…” I pause, and glance both ways down the hall, as if confirming the coast is clear and we’re alone. I lower my voice. “Does your husband know about this?”

  Sally laughs, quietly, and shakes her head. Her coppery curls don’t budge. “My husband—my ex-husband—is God knows where. If he did know about my side business, he’d probably try to take back the alimony checks. Such as they are. Anyway, are you finished in the bathroom?”

  Rule one rules. And has also provided me a way into Sally’s confidence and into purse world. “Oh, don’t I know it,” I say. I hold out my left hand, showing it’s ringless. “I’m in just the same boat. Men. The worst.”

  “I hear that, girlfriend,” she says. She eyes me. Up. And down.

  I don’t even flinch.

  “How does all this work, you wanted to know,” she says. “Why’d you want to know that?”

  “Oh, you know.” I try to make Elsa sound calculating but uncertain. “Money. You know. My guy left me with nothing. In fact, took most of what I had. You know.”

  “Poor thing,” she says, nodding. “And you like purses, huh? Like I do.”

  I look up and down the hall again, then put on a conspiratorial face. Now that we’re sisters in man-hating, perhaps she’ll think we can also be sisters in crime. “Can I—talk to you briefly? Go for coffee, maybe? Somewhere? I’m thinking maybe you could help me get started on my own.”

  “Yes, she’s meeting me here at the mall,” I explain to Franklin. I’m holding my cell with one hand, and with the other, I’m trying to jam sugar packets under the annoyingly uneven table at the food court in the Lee Discount Mall. My disgusting faux-latte from Coffee King has already almost tipped over several times. They can copy a complicated purse for cheap. Why is perfectly simple coffee so tough?

  “I told her I was interested in getting into the purse biz, and she seemed open to discussing it. So, we’ll see.” I sit back up and rescue my latte once again. Watching both ways down the halls of the bustling mall, I scout for Sally. She’s almost late.

  “I’ll see if I can get some kind of a lead from her, you know? Find out her source. Listen, anything new on Katie Harkins? Have you heard from Detective Yens?”

  “Nothing,” Franklin replies. “Are you on your cell? You’re breaking up. Just tell me, before I completely lose you. Did you get the shots? Purses?”

  “Yup. Can you hear me now? I got a great D-M copy, just like the ones we have, and the fakest Burberry you’ve ever seen. The place was a madhouse. Money out the wazoo.”

  “Did you get the money shots?”

  “Are you kidding me? You’re talking to the undercover queen.” Then, down by the entrance to Macy’s, I spot an unmistakable copper mop of curls. “She’s here,” I whisper to Franklin. “Bingo.”

  By the time Sally arrives at my table, my cell is tucked into my bag. My bag is sitting on a chair. The lens is carefully pointed right where I hoped Sally would sit.

  She yanks her chair to the right, right out of range. I scoot around, pretending to give her more room, moving my purse at the same time. She’s already in full sales pitch, a nonstop, slang-heavy staccato. I can’t record her audio of course, but this video could cover the part of our script that’ll say “One woman who admitted she’s made thousands of dollars selling counterfeit bags told us…”

  “Legal? We don’t even go there,” Sally is saying. “We’re talking purses, ya know? It’s not like we’re selling, I don’t know, guns or something. This is harmless, right? What’s a purse or two going to hurt?”

  “Sure,” I reply, playing along, remembering what Lattimer said. “That’s what I thought, too. And you know how it is, money and all. Anyway, I’m so glad you could meet me. Because, you know I was wondering…”

  I was actually wondering how one casually asks a person engaged in a criminal enterprise how you sign up to be part of it. Especially how you have that discussion in the center of a crowded discount mall, surrounded by bargain-hunting tourists and drooling babies and teenagers showing off their piercings. It seems outrageous. And, then, suddenly, I’m clutched by fear.

  What if Sally’s FBI? And they, of course, don’t know anything about me, Charlie, being undercover. Sally thinks I’m Elsa. So wouldn’t it be one for the books if I’m secretly taping her? And she’s secretly taping me? And the real bad guys are getting away with it? Laughing all the way to the bank?

  “We don’t say outright the bags are fake.” Sally’s talking right over me. “So that makes it legal. Ya know? The way the law works, if you don’t make a promise, you can’t break a promise. And everyone is happy.”

  I mentally hold my nose and jump in. What Sally’s saying of course, is absurd. And wrong.

  “So, do you have more of the bags? Do you ever let—do you ever let anyone else sell them for you? Split the, um…” I pretend to be nervous, which isn’t all that difficult, since I’m still not one hundred percent sure I’m not the one being set up.

  I lean toward her, almost covering my mouth with one hand, speaking through my fingers. “Do you worry about being…” I look both ways, as if making sure we’re not overheard “…arrested?” I whisper.

  Sally eyes me, cagey. She crosses her arms in front of her T-shirted chest and tilts back in her chair, almost hitting the iPod-wearing teen in the chair behind her.

  “Where do you live?” she asks, flipping the heel of one high-heeled strappy mule against the sole of her foot. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  “Connecticut. Hartford. I’m an artist, just visiting the Berkshires, you know, for the fall colors.” I shrug, embellishing my cover story. “Can’t make much money doing watercolors, you know? And my ex-husband�
��”

  “What’s your phone number? Write it down for me.”

  Ah. Now I’m going to have to think of a reason why I don’t look in my purse. Although why should I necessarily have a pen? I’m not a reporter.

  “I—” I begin.

  “Look. Don’t make a big deal out of this,” Sally says. Her voice gets tough, dismissive. She clunks her chair back down onto all four legs, and plops her purse—a fake Coach, I can tell—on the table. “You ever hear of some mom in the suburbs hauled away to the slammer for selling purses? It’s like Tupperware, ya know? Don’t get hot over it. You want to sell purses?”

  That phony Coach had better not contain a hidden camera. She’d better not be taking my picture.

  Before I can decide on my answer, she yanks open the drawstring, and digs around inside, talking the whole time. “Listen. Who cares if those snazzy purse makers lose a little profit? We wouldn’t be buying their overpriced stuff, anyway. It’s not our money they’re losing.” Apparently not finding what she wants, she turns the bag on its side and shakes the contents out onto the table.

  And voilà. There’s no camera. She’s just purse-pushing Sally, suburban entrepreneur, and I’m the only one undercover. I feel my shoulders relax, and glance at my own purse. Even if the battery runs out now, I’ve got the shots we need.

  Sally plows through her belongings, and finally finds a slim black plastic cardholder. She extracts two business cards. They look like the one Regine gave me.

  She then selects a pencil, and offers it to me, eyebrows raised. “You want to work for me? Here’s the deal. I’m getting into this full-time. Frankly, it’s a gold mine. And perfect timing for you. I’m dumping my supplier and going on my own. You don’t need to know more than that. But if this all works out, there’ll be plenty for everyone. So. Write your number on one card. Keep the other. So you have my number.”

  She nods as I follow her instructions. One card has a phone number on the back, local area code, written in marker. I tuck that in my pocket. On the other, I write the number for the safe phone line Franklin and I have set up for exactly these occasions. And now, my “name.” Elsa, um. I consider using the last name Murrow, just for a little in-joke, then decide on Walters. Barbara won’t know.