by Andrew Price
“So what happened with the bank?”
“Nothing. They didn’t even blink. I was in and out in five minutes.”
“I take it you weren’t nervous?” Corbin’s lack of nervousness had become a point of frustration for Beckett.
“Not for a second.”
Beckett smiled through gritted teeth. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
Corbin chuckled. “I’ll take your word for it. By the way, take another look at the fake social. Do you see anything just below the seal?”
Beckett put the card to his eye. “There’s some dirt or something, but I can’t make it out.”
Corbin pulled a magnifying glass from his desk. “Here, use this.”
“It looks like a number. . . a credit card number?”
“When I scanned my social into the computer, I discovered the number from one of my credit cards imprinted on the social security card itself, probably from being pressed together in my wallet. I used the image editor to rearrange the number and then transfer the new number to the fake social. Now, if the cops examine the social, they’ll find a partial credit card number imprint. No doubt, they’ll assume the forger got careless. If this ever goes to trial, they’ll have to explain that investigation to the jury. Since none of us owns a card with that number, it’ll implicate someone other than us.”
“Whose number is it?”
“Kak’s.”
Beckett choked. “Are you crazy!”
“I’m kidding. I’m kidding. Trust me, the thought of pinning this on Kak might be viscerally satisfying, but it would also be very stupid.”
“Then whose number is it?”
“I have no idea. The first part of the number indicates a New York bank.”
“If you don’t know who the card belongs to, how do you know you aren’t setting somebody up to take the fall for us?”
“Listen to yourself. Do you understand the level of coincidence that would entail?”
Beckett looked at Corbin doubtfully. “You don’t do anything by random chance. Whose card is it?”
Corbin shrugged.
Beckett’s jaw suddenly dropped. “You’re setting somebody up, aren’t you?!”
Anger flashed across Corbin’s face. “What?! Who the fuck do you think I am, Evan?!”
Corbin’s outrage startled Beckett, and he instantly regretted his words. “I didn’t mean that! That came out wrong. I just don’t want anybody getting hurt because of this.”
“Neither do I, Evan,” Corbin spat out. “But get this straight, if it comes down to someone else or us, that choice is already made.”
Beckett didn’t respond.
Corbin rose and walked toward the door, but stopped before opening it. “As for framing someone, I left the last three digits off the card number. The cops can trace it to the bank, but that’s as far as they’ll get.” Corbin walked out.
Corbin sat in the downstairs coffee shop staring through the plate-glass window into the nearly-empty mall. He watched Molly approach. She had a distinctive, yet graceful walk, but she certainly took her time. The warming weather made this more apparent, as gone were the long coats and pantsuits and other heavy clothes. Her blouses were getting tighter, her necklines lower, and her skirts shorter. She’d already gone from calf length skirts to just above the knee, and if last summer was any indication, they would get significantly shorter yet. Today she wore a short gray skirt and tight black silk blouse. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she achieved a lot with what she had, and Corbin had to admit she was attractive.
“Your little plan not going so well?” Molly asked, as she joined Corbin.
Corbin smiled. “No, everything’s fine. We got the uranium last week, and this week we arranged a discount on a shipment of guns. I just have to figure out how we’re going to transport that much melted cheese.”
“You’re a funny guy. That’s what I like about you.”
“Be still my beating heart, was that a compliment?”
Molly visibly pondered Corbin’s question before responding. “Sure, why not?”
Corbin laughed. “In that event, thank you, and may I say I too enjoy our chats.”
“‘Enjoy’? Let’s not get carried away!” Molly laughed. “So, it must be frustrating working with your little friend?”
“Is that a dick joke?”
Molly choked, almost spitting coffee onto the table. “Uh. . . no.”
“Then I’d ask what you mean, but I suspect you’ll tell me anyways. Hence, I’ll save my breath.”
“He’s not the most reliable fellow, is he? At least, not for your scheme.” Molly meant Beckett, and she said “scheme” like she knew exactly what they had planned.
“Who would you recommend as a replacement?”
“If you’re asking?”
“Oh, I am.”
“I would rule out T, of course.” Molly referred to Theresa as “T” ever since she learned it deeply annoyed Theresa. “She’s a little too murderous.” Molly leaned toward Corbin and whispered, “plus I hear she drinks.” She resumed in her normal voice. “I wouldn’t use Kak either, at least not as your spokesman. Stuart follows instructions well. Of course, he’ll follow anyone’s instructions. That could become problematic once the cops start barking out commands. I wouldn’t use anyone from upstairs, unless you plan to infiltrate an old folks home.”
“What about you?”
“Me?! Oh, no, no, no, my schedule’s booked. Otherwise, I’d help. I’m sure you understand?”
“It is the thought that counts.”
“I like to think so,” Molly said, smiling broadly. She sipped her coffee.
“So, what’s your verdict?”
Molly laughed. “Oh, it won’t be my verdict you have to worry about.”
“Cute.”
“I sure am,” Molly replied, causing Corbin to groan. “How’s your friend taking his new-found fame? I hope I didn’t upset him too much,” Molly asked disingenuously.
“Nah, what’s a little schadenfreude among friends?”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Did you say ‘glad’ or ‘sad’?”
Molly shrugged her shoulders. “Tomato, tomahto.”
Corbin looked at his watch. “I should probably get back to the office. You coming?”
“Sure, I can’t wait to see what kind of trouble your buddy’s causing now.”
That night Corbin sat on his couch practicing his guitar. An ancient Roman landscape hung over the couch. A book shelf spanned the opposite wall, before ending at the television, which sat diagonally in the corner before the glass door leading to the balcony. It was a warm night, so the door to his balcony was open. He was practicing a piece he often thought of playing at Blue’s bar, but never had. While Blue never told Corbin what he could or couldn’t play, Corbin refrained from playing music the audience wouldn’t recognize, and no one knew this piece. No one, that is, except Corbin and Mrs. Tuttle, who occasionally heard it through her walls.
The phone rang. Corbin knew who it was without looking. “Vez. Did you get my message?”
“What is it with this guy?” Alvarez sounded annoyed.
“He’s stressed out.”
“He doesn’t hold the franchise.”
“He’s got a family, a wife and two kids, so he’s not used to taking risks. He’s worked himself up about what’ll happen if he gets caught. It’s making him manic, lots of highs and lows. He just needs to blow off some steam. He’ll be ok.”
Alvarez remained unconvinced. “He’s a loose cannon. We can’t have that. I won’t have that.”
“He’ll get over it,” Corbin stated.
“He better get over it, and soon.”
“He will.”
“I mean it. This guy better be reliable. I won’t go to jail because he can’t carry his own weight,” Alvarez growled.
Corbin became annoyed. “I’ve said he’s reliable and that’s that.”
“That’s not that—”
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“That is that, end of discussion,” Corbin said, cutting Alvarez off.
“No! Not this time. He better get his shit together or I swear I’ll—”
“You’ll what?!” Corbin demanded.
“If he screws this up, I swear I’ll kill him.”
“What the hell is wrong with you two?!” Corbin’s voice grew deep and menacing. “I’m sick of these games! It’s time to get serious. I don’t want to hear any more crap from either of you about setting anyone up or killing anyone. That’s bullshit, and it tells me you’re not taking this seriously.” Corbin paused before suddenly continuing: “I don’t know if you’ve been watching too many movies or playing too many video games, but this isn’t some fucking B-movie melodrama. In real life, you don’t solve your problems with murder. Death is the fucking end.”
Alvarez started to speak, but stopped himself.
“Listen man,” Corbin’s tone became more conciliatory, “when you say you want to kill him, that tells me you’re not grasping how seriously we need to take this project if we’re going to pull this off. If we start playing around, we’re gonna make all our worst fears come true. I can guarantee that. Now, can I trust you?”
An uncomfortable silence passed before Alvarez replied. “You can trust me. I’ll do my job. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Cool. And I’ll take care of Beckett. You have my word.”
“Good enough. Hey, what do you think about getting the cell phones in D.C. the day before? That could save us time and give us a chance to open more bank accounts.”
“I thought about that, but we need phones with local numbers to match the local addresses. I’ve seen phones that let you choose a number, but you have to sign up for those. We’re better off picking up anonymous prepaid phones locally.”
“How many do we need?”
“I figure we can get away with six total. I’ve drawn up a color-coded matrix. When you buy the phones, mark them with the colored stickers I’ll give you. Then, when you go into each bank, use the matrix to decide which phone to take with you.”
“I’m never going to remember six new numbers,” Alvarez said doubtfully.
“You don’t have to. Write the phone number for each phone on the colored sticker.”
“Won’t that look suspicious if I don’t know my own phone number?”
“You’re new in town. That’s why you’re opening the new account. That’s also why all the lease agreements and utility bills will be dated from the end of May, same with the licenses.”
“I’ve got a question. What do I do if Beckett comes into the bank while I’m in there?”
“If he does that, then you have my permission to kill him. Just make sure it’s a painful death.”
Alvarez laughed. “Seriously, what do I do if he freaks out?”
“If he freaks out, you’ve got to calm him down. Make eye contact and hold it. Speak firmly and directly with no emotion. He plays off emotion. Keep telling him to calm down. Don’t threaten him or swear at him. He reacts poorly to that.”
“Got it.”
“If he walks into a bank and you haven’t opened the account yet, excuse yourself. Walk over and shake his hand like he’s some old friend you haven’t seen in a while. Then escort him out. Do not open the account. Once he’s on video, that bank becomes poison to us.”
“What if he walks in after I get the account open?” Alvarez asked.
“Just walk him outside and mark the form so we know which bank it was. We’ll close the account through the mail. Hopefully, no one will figure out that account was part of the project.”
“Do you still want me to run the credit scores? Collette’s out of the office this week, and I know where she keeps her password.”
“Are you sure this won’t stand out on their credit reports?” Corbin asked.
“It shows up like a generic request for a total score, not a full credit check. You get three or four of these on your credit report every month. There’s nothing suspicious about it. You know those credit card offers you get in the mail? They run one of these before sending you the offer. Our office does it all the time.”
“Can they trace it to your office?”
“I’ll do it from our Baltimore office. I work up there once in a while.”
“What do we get out of this?”
“We get a credit score. It’s not the most precise information, but it’s good enough. It’ll tell us if there are any red flags on the credit or if they’ve blocked access to their credit. Also, combined with the salary information we have, the score should let us estimate, roughly at least, how much credit they have available. The higher the credit score, the higher the credit limit.”
“All right, do it.”
“Your wish is my command. Have you thought about the route we’re going to take for day two?”
Knowing the amount of cash they could withdraw from each account at any one time was limited, Corbin and Alvarez planned to return the following week and open additional bank accounts to increase the size of the take. This trip would be undertaken by car and would stretch far beyond Philadelphia.
“I’m thinking we just blast up I-95. We can hit Delaware, Newark, even the New York suburbs, before we turn around.”
“It’s your gas. What about withdrawal day?”
“We start up north and work our way south, just in case they match up the receipts to try to figure out where we came from. I don’t want it to look like we started in Baltimore both times.”
“Fine by me. Any more thoughts on alibis for the later days?”
“Yeah. Keep in mind though, our alibis from the first day are enough to protect us completely. That’s why Beckett’s so important. He helps us establish unbreakable alibis which will protect us throughout the project.”
“I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll have to trust you on that one.”
“It’s simple. If the prosecutor claims you or I did this crime, then he has to show how we opened the accounts on June 14th. Since we have unbreakable alibis, he can’t do that.”
“What if he just doesn’t mention the 14th?”
“Then we introduce the evidence of June 14th to show he’s trying to set us up.”
“How would we know about the 14th? Wouldn’t we incriminate ourselves by bringing it up?”
“No. We would ask for information like complete credit reports on the victims. Then we would ‘discover’ the crime actually began on June 14th, a day we couldn’t possibly have been involved.”
“What if this clever prosecutor decides we got someone else to open the accounts on the 14th?”
“Then he has to prove who it was and connect us to that person. If he can’t do that, which he can’t, the jury will see this as nothing more than a prosecutor trying to hang his case on us when he should be after the mystery guy he can’t produce.”
“Ok, so we’re not even going to set up alibis for the later days?”
“No, no, of course we are. I’m just saying, we don’t need to. But since I’m a lawyer, I like to be ultra cautious – belt and suspenders, my friend, belt and suspenders,” Corbin said, repeating an expression used by several of his law school professors.
“So what do we do?”
“I’ve got this modem I can program to make phone calls. Actually, I’ve got two of them. I’ll hook one up at my place and one at your place. They can call each other throughout the day. I’m also thinking of loaning my credit card to a friend who goes to a farmers market in Manassas each week and asking him to pick something up for me. That puts me in Manassas and Arlington throughout the day and you in Arlington. With both of us here, we couldn’t have been flying up 95 touring banks.”
“You know, I do have one concern.”
“What?”
“When we go pick up the money, how do we know some Sherlock Holmes banker hasn’t figured us out and flagged the account?”
“We can’t be absolutely sure, so you should be ready to make a break
for it if necessary.”
“That’s comforting,” Alvarez said sarcastically.
“What? Not givin’ you a warm fuzzy?”
“Can’t say that it is.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan to reduce the chances of that happening. Before you go into a bank, we’ll find an ATM. If the ATM allows us to withdraw money from the account, we can take that as a sign everything’s cool, and you can go inside the bank and withdraw more. If the ATM gives us grief, then we walk away and consider the account spoiled.”
“Makes sense.”
“Can’t guarantee the plan is perfect, but we’ve done our best.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“All right, give me a call tomorrow when you get the credit scores. I’ll bring over the salary sheets, and we can decide whose credit to tap.”
The following day would find Corbin and Alvarez staring in stunned silence at the results of their credit calculations. Neither expected numbers on the order of magnitude as those revealed by the credit check.
“We’re gonna need a bigger bag,” Alvarez said.
“Bag?” Corbin laughed. “We’re gonna need a bigger car.”
Alvarez shot a glance at Corbin. “There’s an old joke about lawyers. It involves a client who goes to a lawyer’s office to pay his bill. He owes the lawyer one hundred dollars. In his haste, he mistakenly hands the lawyer two one hundred dollar bills. The lawyer, realizing the mistake, is confronted with an ethical question: does he tell his partner?”
“You and your lawyer jokes. If I ever find out what you do for a living. . . let’s just say, you’ll rue the day.”
“What do you mean ‘if you ever find out.’ I’m an associate supervisor. What more do you need to know?”
Corbin laughed. Then his tone became serious. “And I get the meaning of your joke. We’re not cheating Beckett.”
Now Alvarez laughed. “What kind of lawyer are you?”
“The honest kind.”
Chapter 8
“There’s one thing we haven’t thought about?” Beckett said as he walked into the office and closed the door.
“What’s that?” Corbin peered over the top of his book.