Agents of Change

  Chapter Four

  Inside the room, Ginger and the Frat Boy are still keeping watch over the monitors. The girl jots down a few notes on a pad. The boy, meanwhile, holds a yellow folder.

  Richardson clears his throat, immediately breaking the youngsters’ attention away from their work and onto me.

  “We have a new agent,” Jimenez tells the youngsters. “Listen up.”

  “This is Agent Calvin Newsome,” the old man says. “He’ll be working in the field and will be on the Carla Andrews case to start.” The two intelligence agents give the customary nod and grin. “Cal, this is Agent Steve Seville. He just earned his MBA at Penn State and was working at a marketing firm before joining us.”

  As I shake hands with Seville, I notice him sizing me up. I also notice the light reflecting off of the guy’s scalp, through the uber-moussed spikes in his hair. Sporting a pair of dimples amongst his chiseled facial features, Agent Seville strikes me as a playboy.

  “You play basketball, man?” he says with a confident grin.

  “No,” I say, straight faced. “Which frat were you in?”

  Steve furrows his brow with confusion as he shakes his head. “I—I wasn’t in a frat.”

  One of my biggest pet peeves is being asked if I ever played basketball—or football, for that matter—especially by someone I just met.

  I let go of Seville’s hand and turn my attention to the redhead. She sports a cute pixie hair cut with blue eyes and faint freckles.

  “And this is Agent Valerie Darling,” Richardson says.

  She greets my outstretched hand with a hearty shake and a heartwarming smile. If Jimenez is the emotionless Hollywood leading lady, jaded by the wandering eyes and the unwanted, misogynistic advances of the male species, then the ironically-named Agent Darling is the understated supporting actress, one of America’s sweethearts.

  “She graduated last spring from DeSales and was waiting tables when Jimenez found her, but we expect big things from her all the same,” the old man says, patting her on the back.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say.

  “Welcome aboard,” she says with a pleasant tone and a bob of the head. “I’m sure you’ll do great.”

  “As we told you before,” Jimenez says, cutting into my moment with Darling, “Carla Andrews lives in Nicetown.”

  “Yeah, I know where that is,” I say. “What a misnomer.”

  “Dude,” Hamilton says, “where do you come up with these words?”

  I shrug. “Sorry. I read.”

  “Gentlemen,” Jimenez says sharply. “Don’t interrupt me again.”

  “My bad.”

  “Sorry,” Hamilton says.

  “Ms. Andrews lives in Nicetown. Calvin, you and I are going to get to her house around 0900 tomorrow. We believe she’s going grocery shopping.”

  “She just made out her grocery list,” Seville says.

  “You’re going to engage her at the store,” Jimenez says. “Be nice to her, make her feel good about herself, do whatever you need to do. Just convince her not to leave her kids.”

  “How do we know she’s going to leave her kids?” I say.

  “We’ve recorded a phone conversation she had with a friend,” Darling says. She pushes a few buttons on the control panel in front of her.

  “I can’t do this shit anymore,” a woman’s voice says from a speaker in the ceiling above us.

  “What are you going do, Carla?” another woman’s voice says.

  “I don’t know, I …” Her voice catches.

  “It’s okay.”

  Carla’s end of the line falls silent, just before one of her kids lets out a brief yelp. “I can’t live like this anymore,” she manages between sobs.

  “Do you need me to call someone? I—”

  “No. I don’t want nobody coming here. They’ll put me away, child.”

  “You need help, Carla.”

  “No! I don’t want no damn help!”

  Carla’s friend only manages a helpless sigh and waits for another response.

  “I need to go.”

  “Fine. Call me later,” the friend says.

  “No. I mean, I need to go.”

  “Carla … don’t you leave those kids.”

  “Why not? It might do them some good.”

  “You are their mother. Those kids need you.”

  “Not me. They don’t need me.”

  Another sigh from the friend.

  “I’m gonna go.”

  “Promise me you won’t leave those kids.”

  “I promise.” You can almost hear Carla’s fingers crossed behind her back. Agent Darling stops the recording.

  “Shouldn’t we just call child protective services?” I say.

  “We checked her out,” Hamilton says. “She’s not unfit, just overwhelmed.”

  “Our policy,” Richardson says, “is to try to keep children with their parents whenever possible. I’m sure you of all people can appreciate that.”

  I sure can. Despite the current, tenuous relationship I have with my mom, I wouldn’t be who I am without her. Besides, I can recall too many foster family horror stories to place my faith in that system.

  The old man interrupts my train of thought. “I’m surprised you aren’t more enthusiastic about this assignment.”

  I shrug. “I just—I don’t know. You guys make it sound so easy. This isn’t a cut and dry kind of situation.”

  “You’re right. I just thought that, with your background—”

  “What about my background?” I say.

  He holds up both hands. “Calvin, this has nothing to do with race. You and Carla have been presented with very similar life obstacles. You’d be a good example for her.”

  Save for the fact that I haven’t fathered any children yet, I know what he’s getting at. The ghetto presents many temptations to the young African-American. I managed to ignore them, though others will have you believe I climbed Mount Everest or something.

  “What did she used to do for work?” I say.

  “Food services,” Seville says, “before she was fired for attendance.”

  “Any education?” I say.

  “She dropped out of high school,” Darling says.

  “No GED?”

  Darling shakes her head.

  This will definitely be tougher than these guys realize. Carla’s been dealt a difficult hand, to be sure. But she needs to get her life in order before she can appreciate or even handle being a mother. The best way she can go about doing that, at least to start, is to further her education so that she can get out of the house and earn some money.

  “Any other questions, Agent Newsome?” Richardson says.

  “How do you identify your case subjects? Out of so many people, I mean.”

  “Cell phones, cameras,” Hamilton says. “We can hear and see just about everything. Our intelligence agents monitor all of this 24/7.”

  “We especially look in places where people go to vent their frustrations and problems,” Darling says.

  “Like bars and churches,” I say.

  “Right.”

  “Anything else?” the old man says.

  I shake my head.

  “Good. You’ll be needing this.” Richardson reaches into a shelf behind him and hands me a binder. “It’s your Agent of Influence manual. Everything you need to know about pretty much every situation you’ll encounter as an A of I.”

  “Awesome.” The weight of the binder surprises me.

  “Your contract is in there as well. Give it to Jimenez tomorrow and we’ll take care of the rest.”

  Hamilton waves for me to follow him. “I’m going to drive you back to your car at Agent Richardson’s house.”

  “Wait, that was your house?” I say, looking back at the old man.

  Richardson nods with a wink and a smile.

  As I leave the Control Room with Hamilton and walk down the other end of the hallway, I think about the fact that this is all more than a lit
tle surreal. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t think I’d have a new job, let alone one that added ‘Agent’ as a prefix to my name.

  I’m not even really sure I would call this a job. Jobs are those things you dread when the alarm sounds in the morning. They, and the people who tell you what to do while you’re at them, are the banes of human existence. Ever notice how people who work crappy jobs can talk about nothing other than their crappy jobs while on their lunch breaks? Or at home? Or at happy hour? This isn’t like that. This is different. Everyday will be different.

  Down the hallway, Hamilton and I pass the room in which I was held captive, its ominous light still buzzing. At the end of the hallway is another door. Hamilton opens it, revealing a small parking garage.

  “How many people work at this branch?” I say.

  “About twenty.” Hamilton holds up a car remote and unlocks his black Ford Explorer.

  “Twenty? I thought it’d be more than that.”

  Hamilton shrugs. “That includes our hospitality services staff.”

  “Your what staff?”

  “Hospitality services,” Hamilton says with a smile. “Sometimes agents stay here overnight. We always have rooms and food available.”

  “Nice.”

  Hamilton opens the driver’s side door and climbs in. The black coat of the car shines brightly under the much less annoying fluorescent lights in the garage. The tires on the car are well maintained, giving them more of a leather look as opposed to rubber. Dude takes care of his car.

  “Nice wheels,” I say as I climb in.

  “Thanks,” he says. Hamilton turns the ignition and drives toward a gate as I peruse all of the gadgets and gizmos lining the dash.

  “Are those two the only agents working in intelligence?”

  “No, we have four others. They work in shifts.”

  I nod as we approach the gate. Hamilton comes to a stop as we wait for the gate to open.

  “There a code to get in?”

  “No. They place a sensor in your glove compartment.”

  I’m so accustomed to codes. They’re what our lives now revolve around, isn’t it? I use a code to make purchases with my bank card and I use keyless entry to get into my townhouse. After the gate slides open, we drive into a dark, two-way tunnel. My ears pop as we gradually climb to the surface.

  “Where are we?” I say.

  “FDR Park.”

  “In South Philly? How do you build a place like this?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Nearing the end of the tunnel and the gate at its entrance, I see nothing but a wooded area, lit only by the city’s waning twilight. Once again, we wait for the gate to open.

  “Anyone ever find this place?”

  “You get a group of kids who play around out here every once in a while,” Hamilton says, “but that’s it.” Out of the tunnel, we drive down a narrow, winding path in a wooded area, tall trees hovering over us on both sides. “Have to look out for deer, though.”

  As the ride gets a little bumpy, I see a single car up ahead, driving on a road perpendicular to the wooded path. We then turn right onto the road, following the car. One look around and I can see why the branch would be difficult to find. This area of FDR Park is inconspicuous. No pools, no golf courses, no gazebos, or picnic areas that would otherwise attract a lot of traffic. It would be easy to slip in and out undetected.

  “So how’d you get to be an Agent of Influence?” I say.

  “Richardson,” Hamilton says. “I’ve known him since I was fifteen.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, he was kind of a father figure to me.”

  “Oh. What did you do before you were recruited?”

  “Nothing,” he says. Eyes fixed on the road.

  “No job?”

  “No job, no college. Nothing.”

  I look at Hamilton. There is a lot more to these agents than meets the eye. I think he can sense my curiosity as to his transformation from do-nothing to Agent of Influence. He turns to look at me, as though pondering whether to change the subject.

  “Despite what you might think,” he says, “I was not a good kid.”

  “We all have our faults.”

  “I was in a detox program when I was twenty.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Everyone’s surprised by that part of my life.”

  “When did you get straight?”

  “Richardson sought me out. He told me what he really did for a living. I thought he was a fool to recruit me.” Instead, he was a genius. It was another shrewd hiring decision on Richardson’s part. Who better to talk someone off the proverbial ledge than a person who’s already been there? “He gave me a job, gave me food and clothes, and made me promise to leave all the drugs and booze behind.”

  “I’m sure that was hard.”

  “It still is.”

  I’m amazed he didn’t fall off the wagon when his case subject died on the subway tracks. I chalk that up to what must be a very good support system. Having a guy like Richardson by your side never hurts. We all need someone like that for those important turning points in our lives.

  “What do you do at the branch?” I say.

  “I oversee all the administrative stuff. Selection of recruits and finances, mostly.”

  I nod before asking the next question on my mind. “Hey, what’s up with Jimenez?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s like she’s got something stuck up her ass.”

  Hamilton smiles and nods in agreement. “She has her reasons, I guess.”

  As we travel along the expressway, back toward my car in East Falls, I think about the events of the day. Suddenly, I remember: Ronni. I told her we would hang out at her place tonight.

  “You mind if I make a call?” I say.

  “Be my guest.”

  I pull out my phone and notice that I have no missed calls. Surely, at least Paula would have noticed I never returned from my lunch break.

  “We had an agent cover for you,” Hamilton says.

  “What?” I say, an open-mouthed expression on my face.

  Hamilton grins as though daring me to not be impressed. I pull up Ronnie’s number on my phone and listen to it ring as I dream up different scenarios in my mind. Before I can decide which lie is the best to tell, I hear her voice on the other end.

  “Calvin, where have you been?” she says, angry and relieved.

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  “It’s fine. I’m just glad you’re okay. Did you have a matchmaking appointment?” That’s the Ronni I know and love. Never mind that I stood her up twice in one day. She chose my lie for me. That’s far less awkward.

  “I did, actually. And I think I have a match for her,” I say, sensing Hamilton’s eyes on me.

  “That’s awesome, Calvin. When do I get to see you? Are you still coming over?”

  “Um,” I say, looking over at Hamilton, “I don’t think tonight’s good for me.”

  “Oh. Well … have a good night, I guess.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Ronnie is an actuary at a corporate insurance firm in Center City. She lives close to her family in Northeast Philly, not terribly far from me—maybe twenty minutes in good traffic—but far enough where we generally need to plan our get-togethers a few days in advance.

  “You guys ever go out?” Hamilton says.

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  I look at Hamilton, wanting him to elaborate further.

  He only shrugs. “I’m just a little surprised, that’s all. I mean, I’ve seen the two of you together.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Just saying.”

  The truth is, I love Ronni but I don’t love Ronni. And, no, we’ve never done the friends with benefits thing, either. It’s not that she’s not attractive. Ronni’s a beautiful girl, far more attractive than I. She has skin as smooth as porcelain and a smile bright enough to
illuminate this burnt-out burg. It’s just that, if we cross that path, there are only two things that could potentially happen: we would live happily ever after or we break up and our friendship becomes a train wreck. Call me strange—hell, call me gay if you want—but I just like what we have too much.

  As we drive through East Falls towards Richardson’s house, I look at some of the people walking down the street, some confident, some beaten down by life’s jackhammer. I wonder if those people will ever need a visit from their neighborhood Agent of Influence. Hamilton pulls up next to my car and triggers the power locks.

  “Remember,” Hamilton says, “Jimenez will be by to pick you up at nine tomorrow morning.”

  I nod my head.

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hop out of the car and watch Hamilton drive away before I climb into my car. I throw the manual on the passenger seat and begin to laugh at myself as I sit in a pool of reality.

  What am I doing?

  I’ve just taken these people at their word. No training program, no shadowing, nothing. Mr. Grace always accuses of me being too quick to trust people. I’m beginning to agree with him. Maybe I’ll just call out sick at Maxwell tomorrow, just to be safe.

  I start the car and begin driving home.