Vanishing Act (4 page)

I
t was almost seven o’clock when Harry, with Jack’s help, finished settling into the guest bedroom. It was a pretty room, Jack thought, with the lavender spread that matched the wisteria on the wallpaper in the room. Crispy white curtains fluttered in the early-evening breeze. A woman’s room because this was Nikki’s house, which she’d deeded to Jack when she and the other vigilantes had to run for their lives. Jack’s house now, with the understanding that if things ever worked out for her and the vigilantes, and she was able to return to society, he could deed it back to her.

Harry looked around, his toes wiggling in the pale lavender carpet. His eyes still looked glazed, and his shoulders slumped. The Armani suit had been tossed on the bed, along with the silk shirt and tie. The offending shoes, which he hated, were under the bed. He now wore thong sandals and an outfit that resembled hospital scrubs. “It’s a nice room, Jack. Yoko would love it. Lavender is her favorite color. The bed looks comfortable.”

Jack knew that most nights when he was alone, Harry slept on a mat on the floor. For the life of him he couldn’t remember if he’d brought the mat or not. He asked.

“Yeah, it was in the big duffel. You rolled it up. Thanks.”

“You hungry?”

Harry thought about the question. “Yeah, I guess I am. I had an apple at Quantico, but I was nervous about the meeting at the bank, so I thought it would be better if I didn’t eat. Good thing, or I would have lost it.”

Jack gripped his friend’s arm tightly when it looked like Harry was going to go into a trance. “Listen, we’re going to make this right. Think of this as a blip on the screen, a bump in the road. Let’s go downstairs. I cooked a pot roast the other night, and there’s a lot left over. No sprouts, but I have some of that shitty tea you like, and I know how to cook rice. C’mon, let’s go.”

As an added enticement, he said, “I have a pecan pie one of the girls at the office baked for me yesterday. With ice cream to go on top.” But he wasn’t kidding himself—it was the shitty green tea that made Harry pick up his feet.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Jack popped a beer and brewed tea for Harry. He bustled about the kitchen, slicing the leftover pot roast, adding it to the gravy. He set the oven timer for fifteen minutes. The rice cooker would offer up perfect rice in less than that. He slid the pecan pie into the oven, next to the meat.

“Jack, the perfect host. When did you
really
learn to cook?” Harry asked. His tone said he didn’t care about the answer one way or the other, he was simply making conversation, doing his best to lift the pall that was settling over the kitchen.

Jack chose to answer anyway. “When I took over this house. I used to spend all day Sunday cooking, then parceling it out for weeks. I made a lot of mistakes, but it was a lot cheaper than eating out every night. The money I saved I put into my 401k. Mine’s a little down right now, how is yours doing?”

“It’s gone, Jack. The son of a bitch who did this to me cleaned that out, too.”

“Oh, fuck! How much did you have in there?”

“Almost two hundred grand. That includes my IRAs, too. The bastard took it all. I’ve been putting in the max and doing without because I wanted to make sure I had enough to take care of Yoko in our golden years—if it should happen that the girls get a pardon. I had another $78,000 in CDs that’s also gone. I had a small savings account with $8,300 to draw on for emergencies and $1,600 in my checking account. It wasn’t enough to steal all that; the bastard applied for credit cards and put me in hock for over a hundred grand. I used to have an 820 credit score. Now I’m homeless and penniless,” Harry said pitifully.

Jack struggled to find comforting words, but none came. All he could do was put his hand on Harry’s shoulder and squeeze it.

“What did Lizzie say when you called?” Harry asked.

“Messages were going straight to voice mail, and I didn’t want to leave that kind of message. We’ll call her after dinner, and Maggie, too. After we hear what they have to say, I think we should call the mountain and ask for the vigilantes’ help.”

Harry turned around in his chair and looked up at Jack. “I’m not sure I want to do that, Jack. What the hell is Yoko going to think?”

“She’s going to think just the way I’m thinking. The same way anyone else who hears this is going to think. Identity theft is a big problem in this country. Just go on the Net, and you’ll see it’s actually rampant. As soon as institutions get plans in place, those bastards manage to get around them. I promise you one thing, Harry. If the girls get on this, that son of a bitch is toast, and you’ll get all your money back. Then if you want to…kill that son of a bitch, I don’t think anyone will stop you. But the flip side to that is you’ll go to jail and won’t be able to spend any of that money the girls get back for you. Then Yoko will start to hate you because you made her a widow even before you married her.”

“Eat shit, Jack!”

Ah, the Harry he knew and loved had finally emerged from the sad-sack imposter he had found sitting in front of the
dojo
.

“Soup’s on. How come you didn’t set the table, Harry?”

Harry clenched his teeth. “Because you didn’t tell me to set the damn table, that’s why. Furthermore, I’m a guest, and you’re supposed to wait on me hand and foot. That’s what a good host does.”

“Yeah, well, don’t go pushing your luck, Harry. We divide everything up here. I cook, you clean up. You do your own laundry. I vacuum, and you dust. We take turns doing the shopping. Yeah, I know you don’t have any money, so I’ll pay for the groceries, but then if I do that, you should cook. None of that alfalfa shit you eat or those sprouts that grow other sprouts right under your eyes and make you poop green. Deal?”

“I hate you, Jack,” Harry said, slamming a plate with purple flowers on it in front of Jack. “Where are the candles?”

“Oh, dear God, mercy me, good heavens, how could I have been so stupid as to forget the candles? You’re an asshole, Harry,” Jack said as he reached into one of the cabinets for a fat yellow candle, which was supposed to smell like warm summer sunshine, and set it in the middle of the table.

“It doesn’t go with the dishes, Jack. It should be lavender.”

“Harry! Shut the fuck up and eat!”

Lizzie clicked on her cell phone. There was a smile in her voice when she said, “Talk to me, Jack. I was in the shower when you called. Cosmo is taking me out to dinner. Why didn’t you leave a message?”

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave this particular message. Listen, Lizzie, something terrible has happened to Harry, so that makes this a personal call. That’s why I didn’t want to leave a message. Someone managed to steal Harry’s identity. He’s been evicted. All his money, all his accounts…gone. He’s staying with me right now and has seventeen bucks to his name and his Ducati. And that’s it. I’m going to tell you now that I broke into the
dojo
and got his stuff, and, no, I didn’t leave fingerprints. There’s yellow
CAUTION
tape all around the
dojo
. One more thing, the person or persons who did this also applied for over a dozen credit cards and ran them up to the max. Harry has over two hundred grand now in credit card debt. He has two cards that he pays off every month. He rarely uses them but will buy something or charge a meal just to keep them active.”

“I got it, Jack. I’ll be on the first plane out tomorrow. Tell Harry to sit tight, okay? Also tell him he’s not the only one this has happened to, and it might make him feel a little better. Forty million Americans get their identity stolen every year.”

“Yeah, well, that isn’t going to make Harry or me feel any better to know that, Lizzie.”

“I know. But it’s a fact that we have to recognize and deal with. Call the mountain, and I’ll call Maggie. We need to get on this
ASAP
. Now, relax. I’m going out to dinner with my husband. I’ll check in with you the minute I get back to D.C.”

“Gotcha. Thanks, Lizzie.”

Jack turned to Harry. “You ready for your pie now? Lizzie’s on it. She told me that forty million Americans have their identities stolen every year.”

“Yeah, I’ll take the pie and the ice cream. More tea, too. I don’t want to be the forty million and first American who has his identity stolen.”

“Look at it this way, Harry. Lizzie has that long flight back to D.C. to map out a strategy. Boy, I can almost feel sympathy for the president of that bank when he goes up against Lizzie. By the way, what’s the name of the bank?”

“East Coast Savings.”

“Shit! That’s where my accounts are,” Jack snarled. “Damn it, wouldn’t you know this would happen on a Friday, so we have to sweat the weekend? First thing Monday morning, I’m out of that bank, and my money is going into a sock under my mattress.” Jack knew he wouldn’t do anything that stupid, but he was going to do something. Getting out of the bank was the first thing he had to do. And he wouldn’t mince any words when he told them why he was moving his funds.

Harry got up and opened the refrigerator. He popped two beers and handed one to Jack. He clinked his bottle against Jack’s, and said, “Here’s to the bastard that stole my identity and his imminent death, preceded by total dismemberment and anything else the girls can come up with.”

“Now you’re clicking, Harry. I think we should just cripple him, make him pee through a straw and poop into a bag. After we break every bone in his body. We could treat ourselves to his misery and go visit him in whatever nuthouse they put him in after we’re done with him.”

Harry’s almond-shaped eyes almost widened. “You’d help me do that, Jack?”

“Hell, yes.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.

“You’re the best, Jack. Listen, I don’t understand any of this. Every January, I pay all my bills ahead for a full year because I don’t want to be late on a payment. I even leave a small cushion in case I make a mistake. Like an extra hundred in each account. You know how I hate getting bills. This is just the beginning of July. If I had known, had a clue, I would have done something.”

Jack looked over at the cardboard box that held Harry’s old mail, the box that he’d dumped by the kitchen door. He pointed to it. “I bet we find something in that box that’s a clue.”

Both men dived for the box at the same time. Before they could go through the contents, however, both men’s cell phones rang. Jack looked at the ID. Maggie.

Harry looked at his ID. Yoko. His shoulders sagged as he got to his feet and walked out of the kitchen to take his call, leaving Jack to talk with Maggie.

“Jack, Lizzie just called me. I’ve had my people on this for almost three months, and we’ve come up dry. Identity theft is a big thing these days. It’s the new way for the computer super-literate to fund their retirements. I’m leaving tomorrow, and we’ll all meet for dinner with you and Harry. Lizzie said she’d cook dinner for us. I didn’t know she knew how to cook, but she volunteered. I think Cosmo must like home cooking. If it was just us, we’d probably get Chinese takeout.”

Jack groaned. He wasn’t the least bit interested in Lizzie’s culinary expertise. “Maggie, tell me there’s something we can do. Harry’s beside himself, and so am I because I bank at that goddamn place myself.”

“It’s an identity theft ring, Jack. If you’d read my paper, you’d know we’ve been doing a series on this for months, but it’s been mostly profiles of people and what’s happened to their lives since their identities were stolen. It’s heartbreaking, and there’s no one out there to help them. They don’t have the funds to hire lawyers. They try on their own, but in most cases, it’s taking
YEARS
, Jack.”

“I want you to ratchet this up and go full bore. I haven’t called the mountain yet. I’ve been kind of busy trying to get Harry into a better mind-set. We were just going to go through his box. You know, that box where he throws all his mail that he considers junk mail. Harry definitely has a thing about getting mail. We might find a clue in the box somewhere. So, I guess I’ll see you at Lizzie’s tomorrow. Did she say what time?”

“Yes, seven o’clock, but she said to come early if we want. Ted wants to leave tonight, so we might do that. I’m not sure yet. You know Ted, he worries about Mickey and Minnie if he’s away too long. Espinosa will be back by noon tomorrow. I’m on it, Jack. Call the mountain.”

“Harry is on the phone with Yoko right now. I have a feeling he’s not going to tell her. He really is an odd duck when it comes to Yoko. He thinks she might think he’s stupid or something dumb like that. I’ll call Nikki when I hang up. What do you think about Charles coming back to the mountain?”

“I think with all this going on, we can use all the help we can get. I’m going to call Abner Tookus and have him hack into the bank’s accounts. You didn’t hear me say that, right, Jack?”

“I absolutely did not hear you say you were going to call Abner Tookus to crack into the bank’s accounts. Absolutely I did not hear that.”

“If Harry doesn’t kill you, I will. Night, Jack. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, tomorrow,” Jack said, his eyes on the huge cardboard carton.

M
yra stopped watering the potted plants on the porch to watch Yoko, who was across the compound sitting on a bench under a fragrant pine tree. Something was wrong, she could tell by the set of Yoko’s shoulders, the way she was clenching the cell phone to her ear. She looked behind her to see if the others were anywhere near, but she had the porch to herself.

Myra dropped to her knees and started plucking the yellow leaves from a vibrant scarlet geranium, but her eyes never left the little Asian girl sitting on the bench. Myra stood up when she saw Yoko get up and run to the bell. Yoko reached for the round ball, pulled back, and gave it a resounding smack against the side of the huge bell. As the sound reverberated over the mountain, she stepped back and threw her arms wide. Myra had seen Yoko do that on other occasions, and when asked what she was doing, she’d calmly said, “I’m throwing my concerns out to the universe.”

The Sisters came from all directions, with Murphy and Grady leading the way.