Love and Lies: A Jake Badger Mystery Thriller

by Glenn Rogers

  “Nothing like that,” I said.

  “What, then?”

  “I used to be an FBI agent. A sting operation I planned went bad. People died. The reason it went bad is that someone in our agency told the bad guys what was going down.” I looked at her. “The mob has an informant inside the FBI. We're working with the FBI to discover who it is.”

  A.J. thought for a moment. “Okay, what's that got to do with me?”

  “We want to know who the informant is,” I said.

  “Sure,” A.J. said. “I get that. But what's it got to do with me?”

  “You do accounting for the syndicate.”

  “I certainly do not,” she said.

  “Yes, you do,” I said, more harshly perhaps than I meant to. “Don't waste time denying it. You do accounts payable. You pay people who provide services for the mob. Informants don't inform for free. They do it for the money. You move money from mob accounts into the accounts of the people being paid. You know what you're paying them for and you know who they are. So who is it inside the FBI that is selling information to the syndicate?”

  “I don't know,” she said emphatically.

  “Sure you do. The mob knows how much they're paying and who they're paying it to.”

  “Yes, but I don't.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Okay, look. I do some very minimal accounting for the syndicate,” A.J. said. “But my role is very small. I get a list of account numbers and dollar amounts. Specifically, I get four numbers that identify the bank, a login, an account number and the amount. That’s all I get. I transfer the designated amount of money into the designated account on the designated day. I don't know what the payment is for or who the payment is going to. It’s just numbers on a computer screen.”

  I looked in the rearview mirror at Monica. We were both trying to decide whether or not we believed Angela Josephine.

  “I really don't have the information you want,” she said.

  “Got any way to prove that?” Monica asked.

  “Yes. Here in my computer. I can show you the email I get with the account numbers and the amounts. I can also show you the records of transfer.”

  “All right,” I said. “When we get to my office, you can show us.”

  It took fifteen minutes to get back to Studio City. No one had much to say while we drove.

  When we parked, I told A.J. to wait until I got around the car to help her out. What that really meant was that she was to stay put until I got around to her door to make sure she didn't take off running when she got out. She did what she was told. After she got out, I held onto her arm and watched Monica climb out of the back of the Jeep. It was not easy to be ladylike in the short skirt she was wearing. I smiled. Monica stuck her tongue out at me.

  “What's going on with you two?” A.J. asked.

  “Nothing,” Monica said.

  “Is that the way you normally dress?” A.J. asked her, as we started toward the front door.

  “Definitely not,” Monica said. “We thought A.J. Loftus was a man.”

  As I put the key in my office door, A.J. said to Monica, “So originally it was your job to go in and pick me up. That's why the slutty dress and the hooker look.”

  “Slutty dress and hooker look?” Monica said.

  “And here we are,” I said, opening the front door, trying to move things along before Monica took A.J.'s head off.

  “Right on through there,” I said to A.J., pointing to my side of the office.

  A.J. went in and I turned to face Monica. “I promised her she wouldn't get hurt.”

  “You promised. I didn't,” Monica said, pushing past me, mumbling slutty hooker as she went by.

  Chapter 46

  Monica and A.J. sat in my guest chairs, although Monica had moved her chair several additional feet away from A.J.'s. I sat behind my desk. Once we were all in place, I said, “Okay, A.J., show us the files you referred to.”

  A.J. took her computer from her bag and opened it. She clicked the mouse a couple of times and said, “Here.”

  She slid the computer across my desk to me. I looked at the file. It was an email that consisted of seven line entries, three long numbers and an amount. The amounts ranged from twenty-five thousand to one hundred and eleven thousand.

  “You see? That's all I get. Account numbers and amounts.”

  I shoved the computer in Monica's direction. She leaned forward and looked at the screen. Satisfied, she leaned back.

  I slid it back to A.J. She pulled it the rest of the way back to her and retrieved another file.

  “Here is the confirmation of the transfers,” she said. “Still just account numbers and amounts.”

  I looked at it; Monica looked at it. We were both satisfied.

  “Sorry I can't help you,” A.J. said. “Can you take me back to my car now?”

  “No.”

  “But I can't help you. Why hold me?”

  “We're going to trade you for the information we want.”

  Her demeanor changed dramatically. For the first time, she appeared scared.

  “No, no. You can't do that,” she said, almost in a panic. “They'll kill me. The only chance I have of surviving this is to go back to work and act as if this never happened. If they find out you've taken me and questioned me, they'll assume I talked and they'll kill me.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We heard the same story from Theodor.”

  “Theodor. That bastard set me up, didn't he?”

  “He didn't have a choice.”

  “You're going to get both of us killed. You know that? Our blood's going to be on your hands. Who do you people think you are?”

  “Excuse me,” Monica said. “You're an accountant for the mob. There's not really any way you're going to be able to claim the moral high-ground here.”

  A.J. started to respond. “Hey ...”

  I cut her off. “A.J.,” I said loudly.

  Startled, she looked at me.

  “Don't let the way Monica's dressed fool you. I know what she's capable of. You don't want to piss her off. So be quiet and listen to me.”

  She was angry, but she tried to rein it in.

  “Because we're working with the FBI,” I said, “and because they want to discover who the informant is, if you help us the way Theodor has, we can give you protection.”

  “The witness protection program?” she said. “Relocation?”

  “Yes.”

  Her reply had something to do with excrement. To say she was unhappy would be something of an understatement. But she realized it was her only real option.

  “I don't know the name of the informant,” she said. “I can't give you what I don't have.”

  “Can you get it?”

  She paused to consider the possibilities.

  I thought that if I could channel her energy into gathering information instead of being angry over having to be put into the witness protection program, I could lower everyone's stress level and move us one step closer to discovering the identity of the informant.

  “You can get the name,” I said. “And the FBI would be very appreciative.”

  She eyed me speculatively, weighing her options. Finally, she said, “They won't give me the names. But I might be able to get the names from the banks.”

  “How?” Monica asked.

  A.J. looked at her. “By pretending that there was a big screw up on my end. That the wrong amounts got transferred into the accounts. I might be able to get the account names by telling them I need to cross reference the numbers with a name in order to straighten everything out.”

  “Okay,” I said. “First thing in the morning, you can give that a try.”

  “In the morning,” she said. “And what about tonight?”

  “We have a place you can stay,” I said.

  I called Alex. He said, “The more the merrier.”

  A.J. was not happy with her accommodations for the evening. “What about my car?” she
asked.

  “Give me the keys,” I said. “We'll take care of it.”

  She gave me her keys.

  “Phone, too,” I said. “And your computer.”

  She handed them over, but grudgingly.

  In return, I gave her some snacks and reading material. Then I went to see Theodor, who was in a holding cell further down the hall.

  “Witness protection program?” he said.

  “Or we can cut you loose and you can take your chances.”

  He brooded on his options for a moment, then said, “Do I get to choose where I live and what I do for a living?”

  “No.”

  He got sulky again. It was one of his best things.

  “You've got the night to think about it,” I said. “In the morning, you have to make a decision.”

  Monica and I drove back to Rustic Canyon and she drove A.J.'s car back to my office. Then I took her home.

  “Thank you for your help tonight,” I said. “I get the feeling that this would have turned out very differently if you hadn’t been along.”

  She smiled. “Your welcome. You did learn how to pick up chicks, didn’t you?”

  “Is that what I did?”

  We looked at each other for a moment.

  “You look very nice,” I said.

  “Slutty?”

  “No. Not slutty. I think women say that kind of crap when they are jealous. A.J. Loftus could never look as beautiful as you look tonight. Few women could.”

  Monica's expression softened as she looked into my eyes. She touched my cheek and said, “Elaine was so lucky to have found you.”

  I shook my head. “I always figured I was the lucky one.”

  “Maybe you were both lucky. All I know is, I'm the one who lost out.”

  She turned away and got out. “I'll see you tomorrow,” she said. She closed the jeep door and walked up to her door. She went inside without looking back.

  Chapter 47

  It had rained overnight and the morning sky, washed clean, was a rich, deep shade of blue. At six a.m., it was sixty-eight degrees. Perfect for running. Wilson and I did an extra mile. I waited at the office for Mildred. We hadn't had much time to visit in the last couple of days. Perhaps she needed to talk with me about something. While I waited for her, my father called.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  Typing.

  “Morning Jake. Have I caught you at a convenient time?”

  “Sure, Dad. What’s up?”

  “One of our clients suspects that her husband is having an affair,” the electronic said. “She wants us to determine whether or not he is. Can you get started on it right away?”

  “Um, actually, Dad, I don't do divorce work.”

  Typing.

  “Why not?”

  “The sleaze factor.”

  “The sleaze factor?”

  I suspect that if he could have made the computer laugh, he would have.

  There was more typing.

  “Son, I have employed private detectives for over thirty years in this law firm. Other than doing a simple background check, nearly everything they've been involved in has, to one degree or another, involved a sleaze factor.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out. “That may be, Dad. But I never have and never will do divorce work. I turn down at least one job a week because it is divorce work. You’ll have to find someone else, Dad.”

  Typing.

  “I do not have someone else on retainer.”

  “Well, if you want divorce work done, you're going to have to put someone else on retainer.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. No typing.

  “I'm sorry, Dad. It's a professional decision I made when I started this agency. I'm not trying to be difficult or disrespectful. I hope you can understand.”

  Now there was typing.

  “I do understand,” the voice said. “You are a man of principle and resolve. I can respect that. But I will have to talk with the partners and see how they want to respond.”

  “I understand.”

  “I will get back to you,” he said, and clicked off.

  “Great,” I said to Wilson. “I may have just lost my only regular source of income … And I haven’t even gotten my first paycheck yet.”

  He woofed at me and waged his tail.

  “Yeah, easy for you to say.”

  Mildred, her usual punctual self, arrived right at nine. We chatted a few minutes. There was no agency business she needed to discuss with me. The last few days, she said, had been quiet. I thought about asking her if there was anything new on the daughter-in-law front, but thought better of it. If there was something she wanted me to know, she'd tell me.

  It was getting too hot to take Wilson with me and leave him in the Jeep while I was busy, so I knelt down and told him to stay with Mildred and that I'd see him later. He gave me a couple of good licks on the side of my face and then went to his big pillow in the corner of my office. I told Mildred that I didn't know when I'd be back.

  “I just want out,” Theodor said. “I don't want to live in some small town in Utah or New Mexico selling nails and plumbing supplies in some hardware store. That's no kind of life, man. I don't want that.”

  “And if the syndicates finds out that you helped us?” I asked. “What kind of life are you going to have?”

  “I'll take my chances.”

  “Your call, Theodor,” Alex said. “Good luck.”

  We gave him his phone and Alex gave him five hundred dollars out of petty cash.

  “Need a ride anywhere?” I asked him.

  “Be nice if I could get a ride back to my car, assuming it's still in the lot at Haywire.”

  Alex said, “I'll have an agent make a couple of calls. If it's still there we'll take you there. If it's been towed, we'll get it released and take you to where it is.”

  Theodor was nodding. “Yeah, sure. Okay”

  Alex summoned an agent to his office and instructed him regarding Theodor. Theodor followed the agent out without saying good-bye.

  “Okay,” Alex said, “let's see what A.J. Loftus can get for us.” He dialed an extension and asked that Loftus be brought in. In a moment, an agent escorted her into Alex's office. She didn't appear to be as sulky as Theodor had been, but neither was she happy.

  “Okay,” she said, “let's get to it.”

  I looked at Alex and smiled. A.J. Loftus was used to being in charge.

  Alex retrieved her computer from the credenza behind his desk and took it to a worktable on the right side of his office. The four-person table sat next to a window that, eleven stories up, provided a nice view of Santa Monica and the ocean beyond.

  A.J. and Alex sat, and Alex asked, “What's you plan?”

  A.J. said, “First, I want a signed agreement that puts me in the witness protection program.”

  Alex looked at me. I shrugged.

  “First tell me what you have to offer,” Alex said.

  “I'm going to give you a list of names of people who got paid by the syndicate for services rendered. The name you're looking for may or may not be there. I've no way of knowing if it is or not. Neither will I be able to tell you what services the people provided. I don't have that information.”

  A.J. had obviously spent her time in the holding cell thinking about the details of this arrangement. Smart lady.

  Alex considered what she’d said, nodded, and went to his phone. “Coleen, I need you to pull together a witness protection agreement for Angela Josephine Loftus.”

  When he'd hung up, he turned back to A.J. “It'll take just a few minutes to fill in the blanks. You want to go ahead and get started?”

  She looked at him and then at me. She wasn't sure. “I'd rather wait until I’ve read and we've signed the document.”

  “Okay,” Alex said. “Want some coffee while we wait? Donuts?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I'd like a donut,” I said.

  “You know where the
y are,” Alex said.

  I went to the break room, fixed myself a cup of tea, grabbed a couple of Krispy Kreme glazed donuts—best donuts on the planet—and headed back to Alex's office.

  A.J. was sitting with her arms crossed, gazing out the window. It was a nice view. I don't know if she was seeing it or not. She was probably angry and frightened, and trying not to be overwhelmed by either emotion. Her life as she had known it had slipped away and she was, at the moment, existing in the in-between, neither her old life nor her new one, whatever that new one would be. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be in her situation. None of us really knows what our reality will be in twenty-four or forty-eight hours. It may be drastically different from how it has been. But for most of us, there is a continuity, a continuous unfolding reality with which we are familiar, with which we have made peace, and in which we manage to function. At the moment, A.J. Loftus was adrift in a sea of uncertainty. It had to be unnerving.

  In a few minutes, Coleen came in with the agreement, and A.J. read it. Satisfied, she signed it. Alex signed it and had Coleen take it to the Executive Assistant Director for his signature.

  We waited some more until the signed document was returned for A.J.'s inspection. When she was satisfied, she opened her computer and went to work.

  Chapter 48

  A.J. went to work on her computer, cross referencing numbers in emails she'd received for the past three months, building a list of banks, credit unions, and brokerage houses where payments were being made. The numbers designated not only institutional names, but local branch numbers or addresses as well. We knew where the mob was sending payments, now we needed to discover who owned the accounts the payments were going into.

  “The only way I can figure to get the names of the account holders,” A.J. said, “is to contact the local institutions, explain that the wrong amounts were deposited, and claim that we need to talk to the account holders to straighten out the mistake. They may or may not give us the names.”

  “Can't hurt to ask,” Alex said.

  After an hour of lying, cajoling, and a little flirting, A.J. had half of the accountholder names. None of them were people who worked for the FBI. Two hours later, A.J. said a name. “Lydia Quantino.”