CON TEST: Double Life

  Finally, he could not take it. “My class begins soon and I cannot be late for this professor’s class. After he takes roll, he locks the door until he gives a break. It’s a three hour class, Ms. Miller.”

  “I see, Mr. Lorenzo,” M & M said. “Unfortunately, you will be missing class today.”

  Justice’s brow furrowed and he wondered what the evil bitch meant. He was always polite and cordial when speaking to her. That was usually on a level that she could easily comprehend. He knew that she and most of her colleagues were intellectually inferior to him. It sickened him that he had to placate his intelligence for the sake of his freedom. Tardiness and absence from class was only used when it came to reporting to her office staffed with pompous swine. The two were never in the equation when it came time to sponge knowledge from the prodigious scholars who taught at Villanova University.

  In an innocent attempt to browbeat, Justice stood and pulled on his jacket. “Nice joke,” he quipped, smiling.

  She stood and beat him to the door. She signaled for someone to join them before she galloped her big teeth ass back to her desk. Confused, Justice could not decide if he should keep his eyes on her or the door. He was not a man who adored fictional characters, nor over-the-top powers; but, he wanted to activate the eyes in the back of his head. With M & M’s portly figure perched at her desk, Justice focused his attention to the doorway.

  Like superheroes, ghosts did not rank high on Justice’s favorite list, but he saw two. One male, black, mid-thirties. One female, Demi Moore-esque. Both donned Secret Service badges on their waist bands. M & M introduced them, “Justice, meet Mr. and Mrs. Williams. You remember them.” Sure he did, and they were not ghosts. They were the same agents from Justice’s first federal case.

  Cute introduction, he thought. Naturally, he was uncomfortable. The two agents stood side by side, both dressed beggarly. They blatantly invaded his space, like they wanted to take something from him. No gun, so that was no ordinary robbery. No knife, either. They planned to strong arm him for his freedom.

  Agent Jared Williams sported a bushy, cropped top and had the flattest face Justice had ever encountered. His eyes were poppy and wide apart.

  In that moment, Justice’s thoughts were marred with the notion that his cover was blown. His career as a nefarious identity thief was out of vogue. Resigning from a career—no, lifestyle—of conning was never a thought. At that instant, the idea that he was forced to retire engulfed him like a fish fed to a dolphin after a show. Just when he thought he would get started again.

  “Justice Lorenzo, you’re under arrest,” Agent Delia Williams claimed in a more husky voice than allowed for a woman. “Falsifying securities is the charge,” she said, and then added, “There is more. A whole laundry list where that came from. I’ll save all of that for the interrogation, though.”

  Justice looked at the cops somberly. He gathered mettle to deal with the thugs before him. His mind swirled from zip code to zip code in an attempt to figure out which one they had fingered him for ravaging. He was responsible for a lot of licks. Certainly, they did not have them all. They never did. Like his first federal conviction, the agents could have a co-conspirators word-of-mouth based case. That would suck, Justice thought.

  Justice recalled how his uncle’s girlfriend was arrested at Macy’s department store for using a stolen credit card. When asked how she came into possession of the card, she told the agents that her boyfriend stole them from the post office that he worked at, and that her step-nephew taught her how to get the cards activated. She exposed a scheme that took the agents eight months to solve with her help. She had been arrested and pled guilty to four months house arrest. A slap on the wrist.

  Justice had a habit of helping those who wanted help, and more importantly needed the help to survive. The pressure of interrogation favored a confession for the police, which had driven the federal conviction rate like a veteran NASCAR driver. It was amazing that the feds allowed a murderous mobster to jump on the witness stand to testify that he was hired by a mob boss to murder. The boss went off to the US penitentiary, while the killer was let loose into witness protective custody and to commit another crime. With that fact, why did Justice help the needy? Deadly sin number one: Greed.

  “Well, let us see here. There is mail fraud, embezzlement, wire fraud, credit card fraud. I heard it all before,” Justice said, as he mockingly held out his hands to be cuffed. Good thing he had stashed the money from the job that he did that morning.

  Jared jerked Justice out the chair and pushed him against the wall. Justice was 5’11” when erect, and he could feel the wrath of the small-man’s-complex in the push. Jared was a black man on a white man’s force, and was 5’5”. Justice knew that he was in for a show. After Jared instructed Justice to “spread ‘em,” he pulled Justice’s hands behind his back—palms together. Jared choked Justice’s pinky fingers together and kicked his legs wider. Justice stumbled. Jared began to frisk Justice, as Delia read his Miranda warning.

  “You do not have to crush my fucking fingers together,” Justice snapped. His stare cut down Agent Jared Williams’ rogue behavior with scythes.

  For revenge, Jared slammed his palm into Justice’s crotch; a search requirement usually not favored by police. Justice winced. His testicles felt like they had been pushed into his six-pack.

  “Watch the language in front of the ladies. You’re not around your homies,” Jared said mockingly.

  “I’m not watching shit,” Justice screeched, as he was cuffed behind his back.

  “Definitely not on that 80-inch plasma you ordered a week ago, that’s for sure,” Delia barked and raised an eyebrow. Delia had the most beautiful chestnut eyes. Her make-up was expertly applied and she had heart shaped kissable lips, but she could not dress. “Get him out of here,” she said to Jared. To M & M she said, “We’ll be in touch. His arraignment is at one. We will request no bail.”

  M & M nodded and shook her head as she look disgustedly at Justice. He gave her a look that told his story: I did what I had to do to make it in this world. Holding his elbow, Jared pulled Justice out the office. In the waiting area of the office, other probationers watched in horror as they witnessed Justice being taken away. They sat and knew that they could face the same fate if their crimes were discovered. The recidivism rate proved a large number of probationers violated the ridiculous conditions. Was there a desire of all these men to be warehoused in prison? Or could they return to the same environment that they left, guaranteeing a bunk saved for them at their paroling institution?

  The corridor in the federal building was filled with government employees. Justice walked with his head held high flanked by Agents Idiot and Idiotte. It amazed Justice that he was looked at as the fool. He looked at the onlookers’ dumb stares and thought, you’re the stupid ingrates. They are putting in 40-plus hour weeks at a job with benefits that barely meet the lowest standards, and a retirement pension worth lemonade at a five-year-old’s stand.

  * * *

  The office they ushered Justice into screamed of shabbiness. He fingered off the immeasurable flaws. The exaggerated artificial light cast a gloomy effect that complimented the dinginess of the beige walls. He noted that the walls would be white if not for the tobacco soot that clung to them from years of pumping arrestees with cancer sticks. The cigarettes were a cheap effort to relax suspects, so that they continued to sing without calling for a professional mouth-piece. He was seated on a metal chair at a cheap folding table. Delia removed one of the cuffs and cuffed Justice to a hook on the wall.

  Mr. and Mrs. Agent Williams sat across from him. They sifted through mounds of documents as if Justice was not there. They peeked at the paperwork to refresh their memories. Justice captured a picture in his mind of anything that stayed still long enough for his eyes to flash. He committed the still frames to his memory. The man was good at that. He could easily memorize a person’s credit card number, name and address, like a toddler learning to say “da-da.??
? To his estimation, the agents had a rather petty case; hardly the type of case that warranted Secret Service attention.

  “So, Mr. Lorenzo,” Jared began. “We see you have an affection for checks. What the credit card business went sour?”

  Justice quickly snapped, “I am sure you have local and international informants that scour the land seeking information regarding the latest fraud scams. What, Barack took the rat breeding budget and shifted it to bailing out the motor industry?” He had become quite tactical during interrogations. His motto: Answer questions with questions, or say nothing at all.

  “Don’t be a wise ass. We have you booked solid,” Delia said. She slid copies of a few personal checks over to Justice. “How ‘bout you come clean about these and we can—”

  “Save it!” Justice said, interrupting her. He stared at the checks blankly and was glad that he was able to feign surprise. He read the names: Donald Sawyer, Christopher Davis, and Matthew Donnelly. All names that he had had phony identification and check books under. All the checks were made payable to the same store. All were written in his fraudulent script, with dates going back three months. “I know you’d love a confession, so that you can close this case in the first 48. Wow! That would be nice, huh?” Justice asked and leaned across the table.

  “You’ll plead guilty. You’re a pussy,” Jared said.

  “You always deal. Take this to trial so that we can house you in a comfy nine-by-nine for quite some time,” Delia added.

  “Oh, I am so damn scared. What am I accused of? Certainly, you have no surveillance. Company’s keep their security tapes two weeks tops before they’re recycled. I know you have not found my prints on a check, or a crime scene. And a store employee is subject to Ravonne Lemmelle growling at them and frightening them on the witness stand. I’m not pressed. Believe me.” Justice paused to scrutinize one of the checks, and then continued. “These checks are from May. It’s October. You could have been locked me up if you really had me but you don’t. You just wasted tax payers’ dollars and let me roam around committing crime for three months. Sorry guys, no deal.”

  “Oh, Mr. Lorenzo, you have no idea how our response to crimes evolve with time. I thought that you knew that,” Delia said, smiling. “You’re so brilliant going to Villanova and all. Someone there should have told you that you do the crime, you do the time.”

  Justice wanted to wipe that smile from her face by requesting his lawyer. He stuck it out, though. “No, enlighten me. Pretty please with sugar on top. Or in your case, donuts.”

  Delia stood and walked to the interrogation room door. She called for someone to join them. Justice imagined who joined the Justice-Bar-B-Cue. Out of the shadow a tall man with icy blue eyes stepped into the light. He took a seat, placed a two-inch binder and two CDs on the table.

  “Justice Lorenzo, meet Bill Donahue,” Delia said, and then added, “Head of Loss Prevention for the Marrmaxx Corp. They own Marshall’s and TJ Maxx.”

  “As she said, I’m in charge of security for Marmaxx, which is a company that you are very familiar with, Mr. Lorenzo.”

  Justice scanned him from head-to-toe and then smirked. He said, “Nice observation, but I am dressed in all Neiman’s, definitely not Marshall’s.” He loved the pain that ran across the Williams twins faces.

  “You guys said that he was a wise ass. Moving along—”

  “Yes, please,” Justice said interrupting Bill. “Places to go, and people to steal from.”

  “You started locally which made it easy to take a frozen surveillance photo of you and compare it to the Philadelphia Police criminal photo log. That informed me that you were not new to this,” Bill said and paused to look at the binder. “Enclosed are over 700 checks that you’ve written to the stores that I mentioned. You wrote them all over the country the past few months. We estimate the total at 325K.” Bill paused and grabbed the two CDs. He held them in the air. “These here make a lovely courtroom drama of your crimes.”

  “Is that so? Then I am cooked,” Justice said with a very comical grin, comparable to that of the Grinch that stole Christmas. Both agents wanted to smack his face straight.

  “See Loss Prevention wanted to nail you in the Conshohocken store. And by nail I mean chase you out the store and tackle you with ferocious force. They hated to see you on camera. As soon as you wrote a check, or made a return, they removed the tape, and I have taken the liberty to compile them all on these CDs,” Bill said, and chuckled.

  “So much for your no surveillance defense,” Delia said, sardonically.

  “I should have let them pummel you. They begged me to once we got involved,” Jared sneered.

  “I guess your half-watt light bulb told you to let me continue my duty. Did your investigation lead to you to finding that your little eye in the sky is practically blind? Well, when it comes to trial anyway. And we know that a blind man can’t testify to what they saw.” Justice let out a mocking chuckle, and then blurted, “Knowing all that, would you have let me continue to rack up free goods and services on your watch.” Justice had an ace in the hole, too. The agents had no idea that he worked at two different Marshalls under alias names and he was very familiar with the ineffective surveillance system. He had mockingly worn the same outfit each time that he went into the stores. Certainly, they were not ready for the sinister courtroom spectacle that he had up his sleeves.

  Jared was tired of the Justice Show. He told Bill, “We have to get him printed and things for arraignment. We will request remand.”

  “Ah…the power of Justice,” Justice said, smiling. He told Bill, “I will be out in a few. We can chat at JG Domestic over a whole chicken at say six tonight.”

  “I doubt that,” Delia said, as she re-handcuffed him behind his back.

  * * *

  Delia escorted Justice to a room with a finger printing machine. A camera hung from the ceiling. The room had enough bright lights to be a photographer’s studio. She took all his cash and personals and placed them in a plastic bag before she took his finger and palm prints. She then printed the side of Justice’s hand. That new printing technique was now in effect to capture criminals who had rested their hands on the side of documents, i.e. a check. Justice had never done that.

  After taking his prints and mug shot, Delia escorted Justice through a tunnel to the federal court prisoner holding tanks. Justice passed inmates housed at the Federal Detention Center and hoped that he would not join them. He had no desire to wear the ever-green one-piece jumpsuit. Obviously, the inmates didn’t either, which explained why they gawked at his Paul Smith sneakers. The sneakers had cost $300 at Barney’s New York, so Justice doubted that they had seen them.

  The United States Marshal stuck Justice in a cell alone. A few moments passed and another Marshal took his prints a second time, photo, and personal information.

  At 12:50 p.m., Justice sat in a federal magistrate courtroom. He was represented by a federal public pretender. The defense had waived formal reading of the charges, and then the pretender handed Justice a form to sign. The form listed a checklist of things that Justice had to follow while on ROR—release on own recognizance—bail. The magistrate formally told Justice that he was not to leave the Philadelphia city limits. He had to report to his PO immediately upon release, and he must report to M&M once a week versus once every three months. After the proceeding, Justice was taken back to the holding tank.

  Justice waited and feared that he would not be released. The Department of Justice may have been the only system in the land that allowed probation violators to be free while on bail for a new case. Justice also knew he was on probation in two counties that would have taken him into custody if they found out about his new arrest.

  After a ten minute wait for NCIC to verify that Justice was not wanted in any other zip code, a marshal allowed Justice to walk into the free world. He was relieved, but knew if he wanted to remain free, M&M was not getting that court ordered immediate visit. Are they kidding me, he thought. Mauve sur
ely had the Bucks County and Montgomery probation departments on speed dial. She wouldn’t hesitate to have both counties waiting outside fighting for his custody. Shame on them for the thought that he would turn himself in. Ha! Imagine that! Silly rabbits.

  Justice raced to the parking garage where he had his truck and realized that his property bag was cashless. Then it hit him. The marshal had told Delia that the cash could not be in the prisoner holding area, so she had pocketed his cash. Shit, he mumbled. Shit! Shit! Shit! Things could not have gotten worse. Where’s that talisman, now, he thought.

  He calmed down and walked to his trunk. He had stolen, conned and deceived many entities to get expensive things in his 24 years. Certainly, he could get his car out of a parking garage with a small explanation of lies.

  Not!

  Frustrated, Justice found himself backing the truck up the exit ramp. He parked in the first available space, despite the sign that read: HANDICAP PARKING ONLY. What the hell? At this moment I am handicapped. Surely being in Center City with no money qualified, he thought.

  Cops were everywhere. He had to leave the area. Fast. It would have taken Mauve no time to have an APB out for him if he hadn’t walked into her office anytime soon. He went into his trunk and pulled out his gym bag. He swapped his clean street-wear for a sweaty Nike sweat suit to alter his appearance. He grabbed a Sixers fitted ball cap to further perpetuate his disguise. He then walked out of the parking garage onto 7th Street.

  He walked down 7th and dialed Amir to come to the rescue. After a brief description of the events that had taken place at 601 Market Street, Amir confessed that he had money and use of a neighbor’s 10-speed bicycle. Amir lived about 18 blocks west, and an additional 20 blocks south. Justice decided that he would walk south on 7th until he reached South Street. Then he would go west until they met.