by Andrew Price
“Good news?” Corbin asked.
Beckett ran his hands through his hair before answering. “I’m not getting my promotion. . . I can go back to my old job, but there won’t be a pay raise. . . I’m going for a walk.” He never looked at Corbin.
Chapter 2
A testy Beckett returned to the office the following morning. The letter from his old boss weighed on him. Private school for two kids was expensive. His house was expensive. His wife refused to leave New Jersey. Commuting drained his finances, not that he could afford this job anyway. All of these problems would have been solved if he had gotten the promotion in New Jersey, but now he knew that would never happen. He had a serious problem, and as far as he could see, Corbin had the only solution. But that didn’t make him feel any better about committing a crime. It was wrong, he told himself, but maybe it was necessary.
“What’s your plan?” Beckett demanded, as he hung his winter jacket on the coat rack.
Corbin hesitated; Beckett’s foul mood would make this an uphill battle. “You sure you want to talk about this now?”
“Why not?”
Corbin paused. “All right. You know those ‘introductory’ checks they send you when you get a new credit card, the ones they want you to use to transfer your balances over?”
“Right.”
“You can use those to get cash advances.”
“Right.”
“The plan is simple. We apply for a large number of cards, open bank accounts, deposit the ‘introductory’ checks into the accounts, withdraw the money, and vanish.”
“Oh, that is simple,” the cranky Beckett said mockingly.
Corbin refused to take the bait. “Simple plans are the best plans.”
“I suppose you’ve thought about how much can go wrong with this plan?”
“We can talk about this later if you need to take a Midol or something.”
Corbin and Beckett glared at each other for several seconds. Finally, Beckett shrugged his shoulders and said, “Go ahead.”
“First, we need a third person.”
Beckett immediately became agitated. “Where do we get this third person?!”
“I have someone.”
“The more people you add, the greater the chance of us getting caught!”
“This guy is reliable. You can trust him,” Corbin said calmly.
“Trust him?!” Beckett laughed. “I don’t even trust you!”
Corbin let Beckett take a few short breaths before responding. “We need a third. If you can’t handle that, then we can stop right now. Do you want to hear this or not?” Corbin asked without emotion and without breaking eye contact with Beckett, who found it difficult to meet Corbin’s gaze.
“This has prison written all over it,” Beckett complained. His eyes darted between Corbin and the floor.
Corbin waited silently.
“This isn’t some joke! If I’m not satisfied this thing will work, I’m out! I need a guarantee I won’t get caught. I have a family, responsibilities. I can’t go to jail!”
“I wouldn’t suggest this if I thought any of us could end up in jail,” Corbin said, still without emotion. “I’ve worked out every aspect of this, not only how to avoid getting caught, but also how to avoid prosecution if we do get caught. If we do this right, it can never be traced to us and, even if it could, they can never prosecute us. You and I have the knowledge to pull that off. Now, do you want to hear what I’ve got or do you want to get back to living out your life in this dead-end job for a half-ass paycheck?”
Beckett dragged his hand over his chin. “Go. Continue. But I’m not committing to anything yet!”
“Fair enough. On date X, you and this third guy travel to a big city with a lot of banks. You travel by train, using cash to buy the tickets. I’m thinking Philly, but New York works too. We just need a city with lots of banks concentrated in a small area. On this trip, you and he obtain prepaid cell phones, open mail boxes, and open bank accounts.”
“How do we open bank accounts? You can’t just open an account as Joe Blow. Banks want identification, social security numbers, details like that. I’m not using my name and your friend better not use his name, because if they find him, they can find me, and I’m not going to jail for this.” Beckett’s voice rose as he spoke.
“Are you done?” Corbin asked calmly.
Beckett squinted at Corbin.
“We’re going to create fake documents. We’ll have phony drivers licenses, phony socials, phony leases and phony utility bills. One for each account.”
Beckett scratched the back of his neck. “How many accounts are you talking about?”
“As many as my friend can open.”
“If he can’t open enough?”
“Then we open more on a second day.”
Beckett ran his fingers through his hair and exhaled deeply. He looked downward. “That’s a lot of documentation. Keeping track of it will be difficult.”
“That’s your job. You’ll have a duffel bag containing all the documents and phones, organized into packets. You manage the bag so my friend doesn’t need to worry about keeping everything straight. Also, you stay outside the banks so no one inside sees a duffel bag overflowing with fake IDs and account paperwork from a dozen other banks.”
“That would look suspicious,” Beckett said to himself, still staring at the ground. “Can you make these documents?”
“Of course.”
Beckett looked up at Corbin. “I’ll want to see them first.”
“Naturally.”
“After your friend opens the bank accounts. . . ?”
“You and he return to Washington by train. You give me the duffel bag. I’ll apply for credit cards. A month later, my friend goes back to Philly, New York, wherever, and gets the cards from the mailboxes. We fill in the intro checks and deposit them. A week later, I take my friend back one more time and we withdraw most of the money.”
“Aren’t there limits on how much you can withdraw at any one time?”
“That’s why we need lots of accounts.”
Beckett furrowed his brow. “So why do you need me?”
“You manage the duffel bag.”
“Why can’t you manage the duffel bag?” Beckett asked.
“Because I’m the alibi. While you’re gone, I’ll run interference for you. I’ll send e-mails from your computer. I’ll tell people they just missed you. I’ll even put a cup of coffee on your desk. I’ll also tap your computer every twenty minutes to keep your screensaver from coming on. That way, Kak’s log will show both of us being here all day except for lunch. At lunch, I’ll go to Fiddeja’s and order something that looks like the meal you and I normally order. I’ll put it on your card, and I’ll keep the receipt. The waitress knows us and won’t look at the card I give her or the signature I use. That gives us written proof that you and I had our usual lunch that day.”
“What if somebody calls the waitress to verify the alibi, and she remembers you eating alone?”
“She won’t remember any particular day. And since we have the receipt showing us eating there, she’ll conform her memory to the receipt. Also, the day before, you and I will go for lunch, but we’ll order what looks like only one meal on the receipt. That way, we can show her that her memory is off by one day. If she still refuses to change her mind, we can use the two receipts to impeach her testimony.”
“That would play well with a jury,” Beckett conceded.
Beckett often marveled at Corbin’s grasp of criminal law and his understanding of the art of jury persuasion. Although his practical experience was limited to working for his uncle’s practice during the summers and one year clerking for a District of Columbia judge, Corbin possessed an impressive theoretical knowledge of both law and psychology. Beckett, by comparison, honed his knowledge of the nuts and bolts of criminal procedure through years of actual trial experience, but he lacked the depth of Corbin’s raw knowledge, and he could never match Corbin’s creat
ivity or his writing skill. Together, Beckett often mused, they would have made a formidable legal team. Sadly, their current job was entirely administrative.
Corbin continued: “The minute I’m done at Fiddeja’s, I’ll race down the street and order a meal at a different restaurant using my friend’s card. That gives him proof he was in D.C. as well. I then return to the office and use your phone card to call your house in the afternoon. That’ll create a phone record of you calling from here. When you come back, we make a very obvious tour around the office to reinforce the idea that you were here all day. All in all, that gives us computer proof, credit card receipt proof, phone card proof and eyewitness proof that each of us was in Washington the entire day. If we were here, we couldn’t have been up north.”
“That would be one heck of an alibi to break,” Beckett agreed, scratching his chin as he spoke. “Still, why can’t I arrange the alibi and you go north?”
“Because, of the three of us, I’m the only one who can vouch for the other two. You can’t provide an alibi for my friend and he can’t provide one for you, because you two don’t know each other. I, on the other hand, can provide an alibi for both of you.”
“What if the prosecutor decides you’re part of the plan?”
“How? I’ll have overwhelming proof I was here all day. It’ll sound like desperation to the jury if they try to link me to the crime. And if they can’t break my alibi, they can’t break your alibi.”
“Unless they grab us the first day?”
“But that’s the beauty of this: no one’s looking for you on the first day. When you guys do this, no one will have any idea yet that a crime is being committed.”
Beckett nodded.
“And if they can’t grab you the first day, they’ll never be able to link the two of you. You don’t work together. You didn’t go to the same schools. You don’t even live in the same state. After this, you’ll never see each other again. The only connection between you two is me, and I’m not giving that connection up. I’m a dead end for the cops, and as long as I’m a dead end, you two have perfect alibis. It’s like a reverse catch 22.”
Corbin waited patiently as Beckett contemplated Corbin’s plan. “This might work,” Beckett finally said. “Will your friend do it? He’s taking the most risk.”
“He’s ready.”
“Well, don’t ever tell him my name!” Beckett exclaimed, pointing at Corbin for emphasis. “I’m serious about this. I don’t want to know his name, and he never gets to know mine!”
“Agreed.”
Beckett looked out the window. “You said we’re only taking some of the money?”
“That’s to keep anyone from investigating. Credit card companies don’t realize right away they’ve been taken. They typically give you thirty days to pay a bill and another thirty before their collection people start calling. If you pay anything, not even the minimum, just anything, they start the clock all over again. Do you see where I’m headed?”
“I think so.”
“One month after we deposit the checks, I’ll send the minimum payment to each card. I’ll also send change of address letters for somewhere across the country, like Texas. Then I wait sixty days and send another payment. That buys us at least 180 days before they start looking, and hopefully when they do start looking, they’ll look in the wrong state.”
Beckett cracked his first smile. “Nice. We get 180 days for memories to fade and videotapes to be erased. When I was a public defender, the Chief of Detectives once told me that crimes that aren’t solved within a few days are never solved.”
“So I understand. What’s more, they won’t even know if this was a crime. If we make two payments before we stop, this’ll appear to be a bad debt, not fraud. I doubt they can even get the cops to look into it once they admit the accounts had positive payment histories.”
“You devious bastard,” Beckett chuckled. “Wait a minute. What if the real people pull their credit and see these accounts? Won’t they call the cops?”
“Actually, there was something interesting about that on TV recently.”
“TV is real life?”
“This was the news, that’s close enough. It turns out the big problem identity theft victims have is the cops don’t consider them victims because they’re only liable for the first $50. So unless the credit card company reports it, the cops won’t even look into it. But credit card companies don’t like reporting this because of the accounting consequences of reporting fraud.”
“So they might just want it to go away,” Beckett added.
“Also, keep in mind, by the time this hits people’s credit reports, no one can find us anymore. After we withdraw the money, we never go back to the banks or the mailboxes. Thus, they can’t just stake out a bank to catch us. They actually need to trace this to our doors, and that’s impossible.”
“What about the documents your buddy gives the banks? They’ll have his photo on file.”
“Yeah, but he’s non-descript. He can pass as either Hispanic or Asian or possibly even Italian. Also, I’m going to digitally manipulate his photo to alter key structural features. Anyone using that photo to identify him will never be able to pick him out of a line up. By the same token, if we somehow end up in court, we can use that same photo to show they have the wrong guy.”
“So, you made fake IDs in a past life?”
“Among other things.” Corbin smiled.
Beckett sighed and nodded his head. He strummed his fingers on his desk. “It’s workable, but let’s talk about this friend of yours. . . can we give him a name?”
“What do you suggest?”
“I don’t care. How about ‘Joe Nobody’?”
“Overly dramatic, but fine.”
“Is he any good under pressure?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?” Beckett asked.
“I know.”
“Does he have a criminal record?”
“No record, and he’s never been fingerprinted.”
“So he’s not a lawyer?” Beckett reasoned, knowing that lawyers get fingerprinted as part of their bar applications; Corbin didn’t confirm Beckett’s supposition. “Can he keep his mouth shut?”
“Yes,” Corbin said.
“How do you know?”
“Same reason I know he’s good under pressure.”
“Extreme pressure changes people. Have you seen him under extreme pressure or just normal pressure?”
“I can vouch for him.” It was clear Corbin wouldn’t divulge further details.
Beckett didn’t speak for a several seconds. When he did, his enthusiasm was plain: “I say we pick Philly, it’s closer! That gives us more time to do this and get back. I do think though, we should limit the number of cards we apply for at each mailbox. The last thing we need is some suspicious mail clerk calling the cops.”
“I’m planning three occupants per box, three cards per occupant. Where necessary, Joe Nobody can give the clerk a story about being a college student who was sent by his two roommates to get a mailbox because their mail keeps disappearing.”
“Is he young enough to pass for a student?”
“Grad student.”
Beckett tilted back in his brown leather chair. “One final question.”
“I wondered when you’d ask.” Corbin rose and walked toward his filing cabinet.
“What am I going to ask?” Beckett asked, somewhat taken aback.
Corbin flipped through a folder and pulled out a photocopy of a computer printout. “You were going to ask about this.” He handed Beckett the printout.
Beckett’s jaw dropped. “Where did you get this?” he whispered hoarsely. “Holy crud! They’re all on here!”
“Everyone from the office: all seventy-five senior executive appointees, plus every attorney, every staff member, and everyone in the mailroom. Obviously, we’re only interested in the big earners.”
“Where did you get this?” Beckett repeated, as he scanned th
e printout, which contained financial information on everyone in the office, from salaries to social security numbers to home addresses and more.
Corbin smiled. “Stuart.”
“Somebody trusted Stuart with this?!”
Corbin laughed. “It’s his job to carry this little gem to the payroll department on M Street once a month.”
“How did you get it?”
“Do you remember that day you and Theresa were cutting up the newspaper? Do you remember Stuart coming in and dropping off the mail? He was holding this. I followed him down the hallway and liberated it from his mail cart long enough to make copies.”
“Did he see you take it?”
“Doubt it. If he did, he never said anything.”
Beckett looked at the printout again. “Full names, dates of birth, socials, salaries. Incredible! Hey, you make as much as I do! I thought I made more.”
“Life is full of surprises, Cecil.”
“That’s a family name, long story.” Beckett handed the printout back to Corbin. “Do you think these guys have good enough credit for our purposes?”
“Are you kidding? They’re untapped wells of credit. If any of them ever spent a penny, they did it kicking and screaming. Look at Kak, he drives a ’74 Dodge, lives in a run down shack, hasn’t taken a vacation in seven years, buys his suits at Wal-Mart, and hasn’t left a tip in living memory. The rest of them are just as tight, except for maybe Wilson and Nesbit. Nesbit’s got the coke problem, and Wilson’s got an expensive divorce habit. The rest should be fine.”
“I’d still feel better if we surveyed their houses.”
“Not a problem! We have their addresses,” Corbin laughed, holding up the printout.
Corbin sat on his couch in the dark eating cold Chinese food from the container. Through the big glass door leading to his apartment’s balcony, he could see endless lines of headlights inching their way across the bridges from the District. It was raining. His phone rang. He checked the caller ID before answering.
“Hey Vez.” Corbin knew Tobias Alvarez, or “Vez” as Corbin called him, since college.
“Hey Corbin, you had dinner yet?”