True Grift

by Jack Bunker

  Buddy found this show, Shark Tank that ran just about all night every night on CNBC. He’d watched it the first time just because that rich motherfucker who owned the Dallas Mavericks was on there. After that episode, he was hooked. But the more he watched, the more questions he had. Should he patent his invention and then sell it to golf courses? Was there a ready client base with existing salvage companies? What about licensing to another manufacturer? On the show, that bald cat in the middle was always squealing about royalties. Should he take on one of those big golf-course management companies as a partner?

  “You ain’t coming?” said Mack.

  “He was lookin’ at you when he said come to his office. I don’t think he meant me.” Then there was the question of initial capital. Where would that come from? Nobody in his family had any money. He didn’t even have a credit card.

  “’Sides,” Buddy continued, “I gotta take my auntie to the doctor on Monday for her diabetes.”

  “You don’t want to change that? This could be a big ticket, brother.”

  “My mama’d shit if she ever thought I was makin’ a porn movie, man.”

  Speaking of movies, should he put together a demonstration video? That could help sell it no matter which way he went.

  “We don’t know it’s gonna be porno. That’s just a theory. Could be something else. Maybe he needs, like, a fuckin’ assistant or something.”

  “Maybe a lawyer needs two golf course maintenance men to be his assistants. Maybe he want to send us to fucking cooking school too, at the cool-i-nary institute.” Buddy shook his head. “Bitch, please.”

  Dumbass always had his head in the clouds. Here Buddy was offering him a chance to get in on the ground floor, and this motherfucker’s talking some foolishness about running guns or laundering money or some crazy shit.

  “I still think you ought to check it out.”

  “Look here: you check it out for the both of us. He got some good-payin’ gig, you can turn around and invest in my company.”

  And that was another thing. What was he going to call his contraption? The ball grabber? The ball sack? Roboscrotum?

  He’d have to give this some thought.

  Mack parked his Firebird, piebald with matte blotches of primer, in the covered lot at the Inland Empire Tower on Orange Street. He lifted his chin as the clicks of his boot heels echoed when he strode across the wide terrazzo floor. Looking around the lobby, empty but for a few modern-style chrome chairs and a security guard losing his struggle to stay awake, Mack thought about how this might be his new office. He smiled at a girl watering an eight-foot Ficus tree by the plate-glass lobby wall. He got on the elevator alone and pressed the button for the seventh floor.

  When he stepped out of the elevator, the first thing he saw was a frosted-glass wall with EDWARDS & ASSOCIATES P.C. etched in some thick lettering that looked badass. He wondered if he was getting ready to be offered a job as an associate. That had a cool ring to it. A smoking-hot receptionist buzzed Mack in and told him Mr. Edwards was expecting him. She walked him down a hallway with some fucked-up art Mack was sure cost a fortune. The girl had long, thin legs. She smelled good too. Like lemonade.

  The carpet sank in just a little when Mack stepped on it. Kind of like the fringe around the greens, he thought. A cream-colored crisscross pattern in the carpet hypnotized him as he watched the receptionist’s pumps stride down the hall. After a couple of turns past empty offices, they came to the corner office of J.T. Edwards himself. Mack had never seen an office like this in real life. It was like Dallas or some shit.

  “Glad you could make it,” J.T. said, extending a hand. “Buddy didn’t come with you?”

  “No, sir. His aunt had some medical issues requiring him to attend to.”

  Mack knitted his brow in an effort to look composed and speak with what he figured should be his best grammar. He wondered if J.T. thought he was smooth enough to be EDWARDS & ASSOCIATES material.

  “That’s a shame,” said J.T. “Just as well. You never know. There might be some possibilities in the future.”

  Mack declined the receptionist’s offer of coffee.

  “Coke?” asked J.T. “Water?”

  “Do you all have any Dr Pepper by any chance? If not, then ice water will be satisfactorily,” Mack said, returning the girl’s smile.

  “Thank you, Shari,” J.T. said. He pointed to the overstuffed leather couch against the wall that looked out over the Inland Empire through a floor-to-ceiling smoked window. “Have a seat, Mack. Make yourself comfortable.”

  Mack sat down and gazed out the window. He wondered whether J.T. was going to sit on the couch. It hadn’t even occurred to him that the guy might be gay. Holy shit. No wonder Buddy didn’t want to come. I bet that fucker picked up on some kind of signal the guy was giving out. The door was still open. J.T. hadn’t sat down yet. Besides, the girl still had to come back with his Dr Pepper. Holy shit.

  “You look nervous,” J.T. said.

  “No, sir. Just not used to a view this high.” Nice recovery.

  The girl returned with a tall, thin, sweating glass of ice water. “Sorry. We didn’t have any Dr Pepper. I can run down and get some, though, if you’d like.”

  “No, ma’am, that’s okay.” I don’t want you leaving the room, much less the building.

  “Thanks, Shari. That’ll be all for now.”

  Shari backed out of the office and closed the door. Mack gulped his water. To his relief, J.T. didn’t sit next to him on the couch, but in an overstuffed wing chair that matched the sofa. Mack swallowed his water and exhaled.

  “So tell me,” said J.T. “What do you like to do?”

  Mack wasn’t sure where this was headed, but then it occurred to him he was at least twenty years younger than J.T. and in a lot better shape. Shit went down, he’d be able to handle himself.

  “I’m into lots of stuff, I guess. Like to go out in the desert. ATVs. Hang gliding. Skydiving. Whitewater rafting. Dirt bikes. Been building my own hybrid ATV in my spare time.”

  “Is that right?”

  “What I really want to do is save up to get my pilot’s license.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, sir. That’ll be part of my plan.”

  “That’s right, you mentioned the other night you had a plan. Can I ask what it is?”

  “Yes, sir. Two words: Coast Guard.”

  J.T. nodded and rested his chin on his knuckle. “No kidding, the Coast Guard. Hunh.”

  “Yes, sir. Semper Paratus, that’s their motto,” said Mack. “Means ‘Born Ready.’ Kinda my own personal motto too.”

  “How about that. A man in uniform.”

  That sounds fucking weird. Mack just nodded back at J.T.

  “And pilot’s lessons, you say? I understand that’s kind of expensive.”

  “Yes, sir. Been saving to get a new truck too. Kinda slow going.”

  “I see,” J.T. said. “Let me ask you: Do you by any chance have any acting experience?”

  Holy shit! It is porno! I’ll be goddamned. Better not be gay shit or I’m out of here. “Um, no, sir. Not exactly.”

  “That’s okay. Ever thought about it?”

  “You mean like porno movies and stuff? I seen ’em. I guess if the setup was right…”

  “I’m not talking about porn. I mean acting. Never in any plays in school or anything?”

  “Not really.”

  “Here’s the thing. I might be looking for someone to help me with a project. A lack of formal acting training isn’t a drawback. In fact, just the opposite.”

  “Okay.”

  “If you ask me, it’s a scandal what our military personnel are paid. I’d think a young man getting ready to put his life on the line for his country might be able to use a few bucks, you know what I mean?”

  “Well, when you say ‘a few bucks,’ what are we talkin’ about?”

  “How does fifteen thousand dollars hit you?”

  Like a big, sloppy blow job from a h
igh school cheerleader. “Sounds pretty good to me, J.T.”

  FIVE

  Al stopped by Mira Chiste after work. He pulled the small slip of paper with two phone numbers on it from his pocket. He’d bought two throwaway cell phones like J.T. had said. He didn’t really understand why one wasn’t good enough, but they were only twenty bucks, so he wasn’t going to squawk. He went back and sat inside his car with the air conditioning on and called one of the numbers.

  “Al?” said J.T.

  “Yeah. So how’d it go?”

  “Mack’s in.”

  “He’ll do it for forty?”

  “Locked in,” J.T. said, not missing a beat. “Now that we got our plaintiff lined up, we need to figure out who’s going to be our defendant.”

  “Well, we’ve got a number of possibilities, but I think the best one is Van Slaters.”

  “The supermarket?”

  “Massive reserves. So many locations, the corporate policy’s huge.”

  “I’d have thought they’d be self-insured. Good for us, I guess.”

  “These guys get slip and falls, bullshit claims for dead mice in their cornflakes, fingertips in the hamburger, you name it. Unless it’s one of the managers cornholing the bagboys, they just want us to handle it fast and keep the premiums down.”

  “You think slip and fall’s the way to go? I mean, remember, this kid’s in pretty good shape. Told me he’s joining the fucking Coast Guard. Might be a tough sell.”

  Al turned down the air conditioning in the car. He wished he’d thought to stop and bring a beer with him. “I was thinking more like the parking lot.”

  J.T. was silent on the other end. Al could tell he was using his personal-injury abacus to calculate a plausible scenario.

  “Shopping carts,” J.T. said.

  “They stack those things up, they could get pretty heavy. A big cluster breaks away…gets a little momentum, could easily knock you into a car…knock you down, run over your ankle.”

  “You ever get a claim like that before?”

  “I did a search on the database. We’ve had a couple over the years. Once with an old lady. Once with a little black kid. Can get some nice bruising for pictures, but a kid like Mack could probably flop and make it look good.”

  J.T. sighed. “You did a search on the database.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “On your computer.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did I tell you about being paranoid?”

  Fuck! Fucking shyster was right. This was careless. This could get him busted. “Shit. I’m sorry, man. I’m not used to this.”

  “Listen, here’s what you’re going to do,” said J.T. “You’re going to go back and do a shitload of searches. Make sure the searches are for old ladies and black kids, you got it?” J.T. sighed loudly into the phone. “Anybody ever asks any questions, you were being proactive. Looking into patterns involving black minors. Looking for trends involving elderly claimants.”

  “Okay.”

  “You gotta do a shitload of searches, you hear? It’s got to look like the ones you saw just happened to be part of a bigger research project you were doing on your own. Like you were going to write a report or something.”

  “Sure, okay.”

  “Do searches for nursing homes, fast-food joints, shopping malls—anywhere there’s likely to be lots of old people or little kids, you got it?”

  “Okay, I got it.” Fuck, this guy was patronizing.

  “Let me tell you, this gets fucked up, it’s not going to end well, you hear me? I need to know you’re one hundred percent on board with what I’m talking about. Para-fucking-noid. You got me?”

  “I got you. It won’t happen again.” Al wanted a quick excuse to change the subject. “Where are we with the doc?”

  “I’ve got a couple of prospects. Need to go back and see who owes me some favors and evaluate.”

  Al could hear the sound of J.T. clacking away on a keyboard.

  “Rotate between phones,” said J.T., “yours and mine. I’ll check my locker once a day too.”

  “Okay.” Al hung up, deflated. He was pissed at being yelled at by a fucking PI lawyer. Then he felt wet under his armpits. J.T. was right. He was risking going to jail for a lousy forty grand. If they were lucky.

  Which they wouldn’t be if he didn’t start thinking like a scumbag.

  J.T. scrolled through his computer. He’d helped out Dr. Mel Phillips with his divorce, suggesting casino chips offered an excellent way to shelter liquid assets. Especially with the Cabazon reservation being just down the 10…didn’t even need to arouse suspicion with a trip to Vegas anymore.

  He’d lined up expert testimony depositions for Dr. Jeff Cashdan, which was basically free money. J.T. had gotten an injunction against a developer who’d planned to create a subdivision from an orange grove adjacent to Dr. Charles Barber’s property. He’d gotten Dr. Willis Thompson off on a second DUI by digging up e-mails from the breathalyzer manufacturer that suggested the machine’s readings became less reliable when a patient was obese. He’d put the doc on a steady diet of french fries for two weeks before the evidentiary hearing.

  J.T. looked at all these doctors as owing him a favor, but none of them was the kind to approach with this situation. It occurred to J.T. that in spite of the fact that there were now plenty of women practicing medicine, they didn’t get sued nearly as often as male doctors. They never went to jail for selling their script pads. Probably because they weren’t stupid enough to be degenerate gamblers, drug addicts, or sex fiends themselves.

  Which brought him to Sonu Chugh, MD. He’d helped Dr. Chugh close a quick settlement after his receptionist claimed he was walking around her desk with his dick hanging out of his fly. Fucking idiot didn’t realize cell phones had cameras in them now.

  J.T. made an appointment with Dr. Chugh’s office, complaining of a mysterious GI condition. He noticed the new receptionist on duty was every bit as alluring as her predecessor, the one who’d charmed the dusky cobra from the Karachi-born loins of Sonu Chugh.

  After taking J.T.’s blood pressure, a still-sexier nurse told J.T. to take off his trousers and wait for the doctor. J.T. ignored her and kept his pants on and hopped up on the paper-covered examining table.

  “Johnny!” cried a smiling Chugh as he entered the examination room. “How are you? All is good?”

  “All good, Doc. How’s the practice?” No sense wasting time.

  “Ack! My partners. They steal from me!” He shook his head. “From me!”

  “It’s a hell of a thing when a healer like yourself can’t even depend on his fellow physicians to do the right thing.”

  “The right thing, yes! It is not the right thing, Johnny, the way they steal from me.”

  J.T. nodded, trying to muster all the empathy he could fake.

  “So tell me, you are having gastrointestinal distress? Did you bring a stool sample?”

  I’m looking at one. “No, not this time.” J.T. felt like an idiot sitting on the table, so he hopped down and leaned in toward Chugh. “Actually, I was wondering if I might be able to refer a patient your way.”

  “Of course, of course. Always have time to examine a friend of yours.”

  “This friend of mine…he doesn’t use insurance.”

  “So you have friends on Medi-Cal, Johnny? I am surprised by this.”

  “No, no, nothing like that.” God, he hated being called Johnny. “It’s just that my friend likes to pay cash.” J.T. leaned in still closer toward Chugh. “That won’t be a problem, will it? I mean, your billing department is set up to handle a cash payment, right?”

  Sonu Chugh, MD, sniffed and cleared his throat. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure the door was closed. “Most of our billing is done with credit cards and insurance. But you’re a good friend, so I’m happy to make an exception for you.” Big smile. “Just have your friend bring the cash with him and tell the receptionist you referred him.”

 
; “That’s great, thanks.”

  J.T. shook hands with Chugh and made his way toward the door of the examination room.

  “Not at all, Johnny. Not at all. May I ask what is the nature of your friend’s medical issue?”

  J.T. opened the door and turned around to face Chugh. “Tell you the truth, Doc, I’m not altogether sure myself.”

  SIX

  J.T. swung by Mira Chiste after leaving Chugh’s office. He couldn’t help but notice Frankie’s empty Navigator idling in the parking lot just to keep the air conditioning running.

  J.T. had picked up a few toiletries, giving him a pretense for stopping in the locker room just in case anyone was watching. He knew he was being a little over the top, but better too much than too little. He couldn’t afford to slip up. Bad enough he was up to his armpits in half-wits. He never got used to it.

  He opened the wooden door of his locker. No note from Al. He left the bag of deodorant and talcum powder on the shelf and locked up the cabinet. He looked through the mesh screen and complimented himself on the idea of using the club’s lockers as a dead drop.

  Wanda was working when he stopped in the 19th Hole for a club sandwich and a beer. She gave him a big smile and almost hugged him when he sat on the barstool. J.T. hoped it hadn’t been a mistake to give her such a big tip. Thirty bucks would’ve been a phenomenal tip on that check, but J.T. had wanted the kid to notice, and the fifty had done the trick.

  J.T. watched Frankie Fresh make the rounds. Laughing at this table; whispering at that. The whole time, all J.T. could think about was the fat fuck’s Navigator out in the parking lot burning five gallons of gas an hour. That, and when Al had stepped up with the fucked-up windshield.

  Finishing his beer, J.T. signed his check for Wanda. He couldn’t drop fifty every time he had a club sandwich, but it didn’t cost that much to be a hero. He duked her a ten and grabbed a peppermint on his way out the door, passing Frankie on the way as the walking goiter thundered toward the locker room.

  Steve Estep, the club’s pro, bumped into J.T. in the parking lot, and the two exchanged banalities for a couple of minutes before J.T. climbed into his Mercedes. As he dropped the car into gear and began backing out of the parking space, one of his cell phones reserved for Al rang. He pulled the car back into the space and picked up the phone.