Friday, 3 p. m.
The woman on the phone wept. Her words came between the tightly controlled sobs. “But I got a refund! How did they send me a refund if I owe?”
“You made an error on your return. It was caught during a routine audit,” Shanaya said, trying to sound sympathetic. She had been trained to stay firm, keep up the pressure, but she preferred to sound like a kindly government employee just doing her job. It added realism. It also took less energy, and she often lacked energy. Shifts at the center lasted twelve, sixteen, and sometimes eighteen hours when a worker didn’t show up and their phone had to be covered. And workers often didn’t show up—they moved on, got a different job, went on a bender or developed empathy for real.
Then when she finally got into her bed, Evani would come in from the check cashing store and wake her again. Shanaya couldn’t remember the last time she’d had an uninterrupted night of sleep. But it would all be worth it if they stuck to their plan.
Problem was, Evani hadn’t stuck to the plan.
Now she said into her headset, “Don’t worry too much. This can still be fixed if you take care of it immediately. You might not have to go to jail if you can make up the funds right away.”
A shuddering breath. The woman—what was her name again?—tried to get herself under control before entering the bank. “Okay. I’ve got it. Four thousand dollars, right?”
“Yes,” Shanaya said, then added, since this had been going so well, “you might want to get four thousand five hundred, in case there are extra charges for paying by phone.” She heard a car door slam and an increased wind, other engines and background noise as her victim now stood outside in her bank’s parking lot.
The victim didn’t ask why Shanaya, in charge of taking the payment by phone, wouldn’t already know if there were charges for paying by phone. But then, she hadn’t asked why the Internal Revenue Service wanted her to pay back taxes using iTunes gift cards. She hadn’t asked why the IRS made first contact by phone instead of a registered letter. She hadn’t asked why she should immediately get in the car and drive to her bank to get four thousand dollars in cash, then afterward take that cash to a Walgreens or CVS and use it to purchase gift cards, the numbers of which she would relay over the phone to a complete stranger. All the woman thought about, obviously, was staving off that knock at the door where U.S. Marshals would take her into custody, seize all her assets, and drag her off to the federal penitentiary.
Which suited Shanaya fine. Especially since she didn’t have particularly good answers to any of those questions and didn’t even know where the nearest federal penitentiary might be located. She hadn’t heard of any in the Cleveland area, but she’d only been there about three years.
Through her headset she heard a chime in the background of the woman’s world, perhaps from the bank’s door as she entered. “Remember, don’t tell the people at the bank why you want the money. Just withdraw it.” She had told Mrs. Whoever that before, but who knew how much the frazzled woman heard or retained?
“Why not?”
“They will freeze your accounts if they learn you are under indictment by the IRS. Then you won’t get the money to fix this situation and we will have no choice but to arrest you.”
“Oh my God.”
“Don’t worry.” It wouldn’t do Shanaya any good for the woman to have a heart attack on the marble floor of Fifth Third. “I will help you fix this today, and you won’t have to be scared anymore.”
“Oh, thank you.”
No, Shanaya thought, thank you for making it an easy day for me. A decent haul would get her pit boss off her back. The guy was relentless, patrolling the aisles like a junkyard dog, ready to bite anybody who hung up without immediately connecting the next call in the queue, who spent too much time on a bathroom break, who took four or five seconds to check their personal phone, who sounded as if they were going soft on a customer. The big boss’s pit bull, trained to attack.
“If they weren’t guilty of something, they wouldn’t give in so quickly,” he told his staff over and over. “If they didn’t have money to spare, they wouldn’t hand it over because of a phone call. They are the haves. We are the have-nots.”
So even when, for instance, the last Mr. Whoever insisted that he had only four hundred dollars in the bank and had already fallen a month behind in his rent, Shanaya didn’t falter. “Would you rather deal with your landlord or the U.S. Marshal service?” Yes, she told him, it seemed awful that one child languished in jail and the other had died of leukemia, and he had no siblings or even friends that might give him a place to sleep, but that did not change the fact that this money had to be repaid to the government or the criminal charges would stand. And he had, after what seemed like two solid hours of wheedling—on his part, not hers—given her the four hundred dollars via an Apple Pay card.
They are the haves. Because surely, if losing the funds would cripple them so much, they wouldn’t do it. Right?
“I’m waiting in line,” Mrs. Whoever said, as if Shanaya might be getting impatient.
“I understand,” she said, with a clear undertone of as long as you understand in turn that the U.S. government doesn’t have all day. The trips to the bank or the Western Union or the CVS or the ATM were the most nerve-wracking part of this. Not only was it pure downtime without any money coming in, it gave the person a chance to think without Shanaya barking in their ear. For that reason Shanaya preferred women with children. Children provided enough distraction to bamboozle a brain surgeon. They whined, cried, argued, or simply talked nonstop. Plus they formed the greatest combination stick/carrot in the universe. “What will happen to your children if you go to jail?” The very image broke the most savvy target.
So glad she didn’t have any.
Aside from those annoyances and the grueling schedule, her job had a few perks. Free parking or discounted bus/rapid transit passes. A day-care center on site for those who had small children (though anyone who left their desks to check on those kids for more than five minutes each hour would be fired—and bathroom and meal breaks came out of that same pool of break time). Quality headsets attached to the phones. Best of all were the meals—breakfast served during a ten-minute window each morning, forcing her to get to work on time, and then a fifteen-minute lunch. These perks worked to the management’s advantage, keeping employees from having any excuse to arrive late, go home early, or leave the building at all, but still free food was free food. They had comfortable chairs, at least, and personal things like photos could be taped to the cubicle walls to personalize the place a bit, which Shanaya never did. A tiny sticker depicting a pair of cherries on the stem fixed to the edge of her monitor represented the only piece of whimsy in her workspace and she hadn’t even put it there. Comfortable didn’t mean homey, but she didn’t need it to. And the pay was good. Very good, especially the way Shanaya did it.
A rustling sound, and Mrs. Whoever’s voice became muffled. She had dropped her phone into a pocket or purse or might be holding it against her shoulder while she carried on a conversation with the bank teller. It seemed to go on longer than a simple “I wish to make a withdrawal” should.
Shanaya exhaled in a sharp, frustrated breath. “What’s she saying? What are you doing?” she demanded of the pocket, or purse, or shoulder.
A pause, and then as if she had heard her, Mrs. Whoever came back on the line. “The teller says she has to check something.”
“Check what? Don’t you have enough money in the account?”
“I should.”
“I’m very sorry, but that may not be good enough to dismiss the warrant. You will still be subject to arrest if the amount is not paid in full.” The pit bull hovered behind her, Shanaya knew. Like a bell on a cat, his aftershave announced his presence. She kept her voice calm but insistent, her computer screen open to what they called the code reception page, the blank boxes ready for the gift card, credit card, wire transfer numbers as soon as she could pry them out of this deadbeat.
“No, I have it. I know I have it. Unless—”
“Unless what?” Shanaya asked without wanting to know. She had already had to listen to the sad tale of the woman’s dead daughter, whom she had raised single-handedly after her husband went off to make a career in the military and got killed by an IED. (Mrs. Whoever described that as an IUD. Shanaya didn’t correct her.) And to have that daughter murdered by her own no-good husband twenty years to the day after her daddy had bought it. Yes, Shanaya had agreed, very sad, figuring that now she didn’t need that much money, with only herself to look after. Right?
“Unless . . . wait.” Muffling again, the phone stashed out of sight, the woman doing her level best to keep her fugitive status a secret from the bank personnel.
More low tones. Try as she might—and it wasn’t easy because the chubby guy in the next cubicle who always seemed to eat things with cabbage in them kept shouting as if unaware that the headset mouthpiece rested only one inch from his lips—Shanaya couldn’t make out any of the words of the conversation.
Mrs. Whoever returned. “She’s getting a manager.”
No, no, no! “Why?”
“She says she has to clear it with him.”
“Clear what?”
“She says this could be a scam. That this happens a lot.”
“This is not a scam.” Shanaya spoke in a level tone. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t already said like a million and three times. She could speak that lie as smoothly as she could say her own name.
“She says there’s been a lot of people in here saying the IRS is after them and I’ve done my banking here for almost ten years and she wouldn’t want to see anything bad happen to me.”
“That’s what we’re trying to do here. Keep anything bad from happening to you.”
“She says—”
“I’m sure she knows her job as a bank teller”—Shanaya pronounced teller with the tone often reserved for used car salesmen—“but I know my job as a federal agent. So who would know more about tax arrears and arrest warrants?”
“I know. I get it, but—”
“I’m afraid I may have let sympathy hold me back from doing my job for too long a time. I must tell my boss that the funds are not forthcoming and the warrant will be enforced.”
“No! Wait! I’m sure I can make them see—okay, a man is coming over here.” She stashed the phone before Shanaya could protest. More muffled conversation ensued. The words weren’t discernible, but clearly the bank manager didn’t feel the need for diplomacy as the teller had.
Over Mrs. Whoever’s protests, the muting vanished as if the manager had pulled the phone from the woman’s hand.
“Who is this?”
Shanaya made her voice as stern as his, knowing that she would probably lose this one. Once the element of doubt crept in, it required a miracle to keep the thing on track. She rattled off the name she used at the shop, along with the random number she quoted as her federal agent identification number. She had stared down suspicious daughters-in-law and neighbors and bank tellers before. She wouldn’t give up until absolutely no hope remained. Especially not with the pit bull at her shoulder.
The bank manager barely let her finish before sneering, “Oh really? And you’re telling this woman that she’s under arrest for—what, exactly?”
“I can’t violate the citizen’s privacy by discussing her case with you. Please put her back on the phone.”
“You have this sweet old lady scared out of her wits, all so you can steal her money. As if the IRS wants payments made by Apple Pay cards? You seriously expect anyone to believe that?”
You’d be amazed, she thought, then recited the line about that form of payment was “allowed” in order to be “more convenient for the citizen.”
The man laughed. She pictured a skinny guy in a three-piece suit in his stupid little local branch with Formica counters and weak coffee in the lobby. This might be the most exciting thing he did all week, berating an unseen girl long distance. “You’re a damn scam artist, is what you are. How do you sleep at night?”
Not that great, she wanted to say, but not because of you or the Mrs. Whoevers of the world. “I am a federal agent—”
“Where’s your office? Who’s your supervisor?”
She read an address in Washington, D.C., and name, both printed on a card taped to the metal cubicle wall, and debated whether she should hang up and keep from wasting any more of the day’s time. Shanaya had engineered some stunning reversals, but not many. Once third parties got involved—
“You should be ashamed of yourself! Taking advantage of innocent, vulnerable people—”
The best defense is a good offense. “You’re the one interfering with this woman’s right to her own bank account. She is going to suffer because of your”—her mind went temporarily blank—“busybodyness!”
A peal of genuine laughter came over the phone’s tinny receiver, and Shanaya could hear Mrs. Whoever in the background, laughing as well. Then the “bank manager” said, “Oh my God, you bitch, can’t you figure it out? You’re blown. We know you’re full of shit. We’re going to trace this call and have the cops at your door—”
Shanaya’s heart sank, but not because there could be any chance of Joe Stupid Citizen tracing the number that had been spoofed and routed through a second server so that it appeared to be coming from D.C. And even if she’d accidentally connected to NORAD or some other super-sophisticated security agency, the phone didn’t belong to her. Not the phone, the desk, the cheap cubicle walls, or the proceeds of illegally obtained gift card numbers. That all belonged to the big boss, and surely he hid behind a wall of fake names and transferred accounts.
No, her heart slumped because this case had been lost and there would not be any last-minute windfalls. Hang up now, don’t waste another second on losers that could be spent on a payoff—
The guy was talking, oh so proud of getting her hopes up and wasting nearly forty minutes of her time. “We stuck the phone out the window to sound like outdoors and thumped a table to sound like a car door. How do you like it, you bitch? You like someone playing you?”
Shanaya knew she shouldn’t take it personally. It was only business, and like any business you had good days and bad days. But she couldn’t stop the wave of white-hot rage that washed over her, making her hand grip the headset and a string of expletives to well up in her mouth. “You have that cash now? Do you?”
The abrupt non sequitur confused the man. “No, of course not—”
She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Then what I want you to do is roll it all up in a tight little stick, got it? Roll it tight. Then bend over and shove it up your—”
“Shanaya,” the pit bull said at her elbow.
She disconnected the phone.
“Don’t waste time,” he barked, but without his usual heat.
She pulled the headset off. “What is wrong with these people that they’ll waste over a half hour of their lives just to screw with someone?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking aloud. A tear pricked her eyeball in uncharacteristic self-pity. “That’s just so—mean.”
“Don’t worry about it. Take a break.” He put a hand on her shoulder and she instinctively flinched. He might be acting nice because Shanaya regularly appeared in the top ten most productive in the room and he didn’t want her to burn out, or he might figure that a soft answer turneth into some job perks of his own that she sure as hell didn’t care to provide. She managed to stand up and move past him with any two parts of their relative anatomies actually touching, mumbled some thanks, and trotted toward the ladies’ room. The pit bull had been right about one thing. She needed a break.
She passed the day care room, where a harried young woman carried an infant in her arms while two toddlers pulled at her shirt, one crying while the other tried to show her a toy. Of three other kids in the room, one used crayons in a tattered book, one played with a toy truck, and the third simply dashed from one end of the small room to the other, touching the wall at either end. Shanaya saw only very small children; school-age kids would be in class somewhere. On the weekends, the day care room got completely crazy.
After using the toilet she stood at the sink, letting cold water wash over her wrists, something her mother had always told her to do when she got “sweated up” running around with her cousins. According to ancient family wisdom, drinking cold water in such a state would make you sick. But running it over the skin where blood vessels congregated would accomplish the same goal more gently.
Even as a child she had scoffed at this, but now the coolness comforted her.
Perhaps she had abandoned the apartment too hastily. It saved her this month’s rent, and a girlfriend had taken her in, but the friend’s boyfriend hadn’t seemed too friendly and Shanaya didn’t think it would last. If Evani’s killers had wanted to track him to his source, they had had all night and the next morning to do so. They had time to make her suffer the same fate as Evani, and yet no one had taken his key card and paid her a midnight visit. No one was after her.
A good thing, and it bought her some time. Without her partner to plan with, she did not feel sure of what her next step should be. They’d been so close to their goal.
She dried her hands, took a breath, and went back out into the foray.
She worked on the second floor, but it had a staircase and a section open to the first above the entrance and what could be called a lobby. This didn’t separate the noise between the nearly fifty people working phones, only multiplied it. Avoiding eye contact with her coworkers—never a good idea to get close to unnecessary people—she glanced over the railing, down through the hole in the floor to what would be a reception desk if there were ever a receptionist manning it.
And her breath gasped out of her.
