The Crimes of Jordan Wise Read online

Annalise gave in finally. She'd be home tomorrow night, she said, I could come by for a few minutes then. I said I'd be there at seven.

  "You'd better not make me regret this, Jordan."

  "If anybody regrets it," I said, "it'll be me."

  She wasn't wearing white this time. Blue jeans, an old blue sweater, floppy slippers. Face scrubbed free of makeup, hair tousled. A large glass of white wine in one hand and a flush to her skin and shine to her eyes that told me at least two other glasses had preceded it. All a calculated effort, I was sure, to make herself appear unattractive to me. It didn't work. She could have been caked with dirt and wearing a sack and I still would have wanted her.

  Music throbbed through the apartment, the kind of heavy rock I'd told her I didn't much care for. That was intentional, too. She didn't look at me directly when she let me in, didn't ask if I wanted a drink. Just went straight to one of the chairs and sat down. The chair was separated from the other furniture, so that I couldn't sit next to her if that was my intention.

  It wasn't. I sat on the couch across from her. "Could you turn the music down a little?"

  "It's not that loud."

  "It is for what I have to say."

  She shrugged and got up to lower the volume on her stereo. When she came back to the chair, she looked at me directly for the first time and what she saw seemed to surprise her. "You look . . . different," she said.

  "I am different," I said. "That's why I'm here."

  "Well, go ahead, then. I'm listening."

  I had already worked out the best approach to take, and on the basis of what she'd told me at Perry's I was reasonably sure I knew how she'd react. But I could have been wrong. People are seldom as predictable as they seem to be; I was living proof of that. It depended on how much she cared for me, if she still cared for me at all, and on just how much larcency there was in her. If she took it badly and sent me packing, I would have to admit she was lost to me and learn to deal with it. And scrap the entire scheme, or revise it to exclude her. To this day, I'm not sure which I would've done.

  I said, "The last time we saw each other, you said you were fond of me. Did you mean that?"

  "Of course I meant it. I don't say things I don't mean."

  "How fond?"

  "I can't answer that. Fond is fond."

  "Fond enough to be with me if I could give you money, luxury, travel, excitement?"

  "Be with you?"

  "Long-term. Exclusively."

  "Oh, God, I don't know. What difference does it make?"

  "Answer the question, Annalise."

  I said it sharply, more sharply than I'd ever spoken to her. She narrowed her eyes and bit her lip before she said, "I don't love you the way you love me, you know that. I don't know that I ever could."

  "But you could try. Given the right circumstances."

  "Will it make you feel better if I say yes?"

  "If you mean it."

  "All right. Yes, I could be with you. It just isn't possible."

  "It is possible."

  "I don't see how."

  "You said you'd didn't care what you had to do to get the things you want, as long as you got them. Did you mean that?"

  "I meant it."

  "What would you do for more than half a million dollars?"

  Her mouth came open. "Did you say . . . half a million?"

  "More. Enough to keep both of us in style for the rest of our lives."

  "My God," she said.

  "Would you go away with me?"

  "Go away where?"

  "Anywhere a long way from here. The tropics. Tahiti, the Caribbean." She was interested by this time. Puzzled, wary, but definitely interested. Leaning forward in the chair, the tip of her tongue moving back and forth over her upper lip. "If you had that much money . . . yes, I'd go away with you."

  "Would you wait twelve to fifteen months for the opportunity?"

  "Why so long?"

  "It's necessary. No more than fifteen months."

  "I'd wait longer," Annalise said. "I've waited for something like that all my life."

  "Would you make an unbreakable commitment to me during that year?"

  "What do you mean, unbreakable commitment?"

  "I'm not talking about dating. In fact, I'd want you to keep on seeing other men."

  "I don't understand."

  "You will. What I mean is a commitment of trust. Mutual trust. Yours would be to trust me to make all the decisions and to do exactly as I say without question."

  "As long as I knew what was happening and I had input into where we'd go to live."

  "You'll know. And we'll decide together on the destination."

  "Then yes. I'd do anything you told me to."

  "Would you marry me?"

  Her expression changed. She said, "Oh, shit, Jordan. Is that what this is all about? Some devious way of proposing?"

  "No. It's part of the larger proposal, another necessary part."

  "How can marriage be necessary?"

  "In order to make the rest of it work."

  "The rest of what? Can't you get to the point?"

  "I am getting to it. Just answer the question: would you marry me for more than half a million dollars and a brand-new life?"

  "Yes." Without hesitation.

  "Would you become an accessory to a major crime?"

  Long stare. "What kind of crime? What have you done?"

  "I haven't done anything yet."

  "What are you thinking of doing?"

  "I've as much as told you," I said. "Commit a major crime for all that money."

  "Steal half a million dollars?"

  "Yes."

  "For God's sake, how? Not with a gun or anything like that?"

  "Absolutely not. No violence of any kind."

  "Then how?"

  "I have a plan. A detailed, mostly risk-free plan."

  " . . . You're serious, aren't you."

  "Very serious. Dead serious."

  She emptied her glass, got up and went to a sideboard to refill it.

  I said, "Do you want to hear the rest of it?"

  "Yes."

  When she sat down again she looked at me in a new way, with a kind of awe, as if she were seeing me for the first time. Her face was flushed, but now it wasn't all the result of the wine. What I'd told her so far hadn't turned her off; she'd taken it just as I'd hoped she would. Excited, eager. Hooked. I could see it in her eyes.

  "Half a million dollars," she said. "You really think you can get your hands on that much money?"

  "I know I can. That's the easy part. The hard part is getting away with it, disappearing without a trace."

  "And you know how to do that?"

  "Yes. I can get the money on my own, but I can't do the rest without help. Your help. There's no other way."

  She was too restless to sit still; she got up again and paced the room, taking sips of wine, thinking about it. After a time she said, "We'd go to prison if we were cought. I couldn't stand to be locked up."

  "I won't lie to you," I said. "Something could go wrong. But I don't believe it will. Not the way I have it worked out."

  "Famous last words."

  "The risk to you is much less than it is to me. Even if we were cought, you wouldn't know the details of the theft because I won't reveal them to you; you could plead ignorance and I'd back you up, swear you had no prior knowledge that I was going to commit a crime. The most you'd be charged with is aiding and abetting. A good lawyer would probably be able to get you off with a suspended sentence."

  She kept pacing. Her glass was empty again; she drained the bottle into it.

  "How long have you been hatching this scheme?"

  "Not long," I said. "Three weeks."

  "Since the last time we saw each other."

  "About that."

  "So you could have me? That's why, isn't it?"

  "Yes. For you and for the money."

  "You want me that much?"

  "I've never wanted anyth
ing more in my life."

  She sat down beside me, set the wineglass on the table. Her eyes were very bright, like a bird's eyes, and smoky hot.

  "Half a million dollars," she said again.

  "More."

  "For me."

  "Yes."

  "You're crazy," she said and took my face between her hands and kissed me, hard. Then she drew back and her eyes burned into mine.

  "My God!" she said.

  "Annalise," I said.

  "For me."

  "Yes."

  "More than half a million dollars."

  "Yes."

  She kissed me again, hard enough this time to draw blood from my lower lip, pressing close, her arms tight around my neck, her tongue exploring my mouth. She was trembling, her body quivering as if controlled by invisible electrodes.

  That kiss went on for a long time, hot and wet, her breathing coming faster. Then she twisted away and took my hands and pulled us both to our feet. "Crazy," she said again, and led me into the bedroom.

  She had a marvelous body. Taut-muscled thighs, large nipples and aureoles on the small hard breasts, skin soft as a baby's. I was so excited that first time I came in less than a minute. She couldn't have been satisfied—her body was still quivering—but she didn't seem to mind. She held me with arms and legs, tight. It was a long time before either of us spoke.

  "Jordan?"

  "Yes."

  "You weren't lying just to get me into bed? You can do it?"

  "I can do it."

  "Will you? Go through with it, I mean?"

  "Yes. Will you?"

  "Yes. Jesus, yes!"

  Her hands moved on me again. Expert hands, expert mouth, expert body, guiding me, showing me new things, making it last until release was an excruciating mixture of pleasure and pain. Sounds trite, I know, putting it like that, but that was how it was for me.

  And that's another thing love is. Bottom line.

  Love is the best fuck you ever had.

  SAN FRANCISCO

  1977-1978

  IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND my plan, you have to look at it in historical perspective. The two linked equations were designed according to the laws and business practices existing in the late seventies, and my own experiences in the years preceding 1977. They were flawless in that regard, and that was why they worked. They wouldn't work today. Since 1978, laws have been changed and computerization has completely revamped the way in which large corporations like Amthor Associates and their accounting and comptroller departments operate.

  Would I be able to commit and get away with the same crime today, given those changes?

  Oh, yes, I think so. If now were then, I would be as proficient in the use of computers and accounting technology as I was in adding machines and ledger books. And there are always loopholes in the law to be ferreted out and utilized. It might take me longer now to devise a foolproof scheme to steal more than half a million dollars, and to establish a new and untraceable identity, but it could be done. If you're deliberate enough, resourceful enough, shrewd enough, almost anything is possible.

  I put my plan into operation immediately after that first night with Annalise. You might think I was taking a lot on faith, going forward based on a verbal agreement and a single night of sex, and I suppose I was. She might have changed her mind, backed out at any time before she became an actual accessory. But our involvement together, as I'd told her, had to be based on mutual trust. She had to believe I would be able to embezzle the money and that we'd get away with it safely; I had to believe that she wanted the life I'd promised her enough, and cared for me enough, not to back out and to do exactly as she was told. That was the key to the success of the plan.

  The fact that I worked in the accounts payable section of Amthor's accounting department was what made the theft viable. Amthor was a large firm, with branches in three other cities and literally hundreds of subcontractors and suppliers spread out across the country and in Mexico and Central America. All of the accounting was done in the San Francisco office, and invoices poured in in large quantities every month. Part of my job, and that of two other accountants, was to check these invoices against existing bids and allocations and, if all was in order, to stamp them with a payment authorization and pass them on to the comptroller's office. Some of the invoices were paid by check, others through direct bank deposit by invoice number. The choice was up to the individual supplier or contractor.

  So then, step one: After work on three consecutive evenings I drove to one of the photocopy and job printing stores that dotted the city. In each I ordered a small quantity of invoice forms in different styles and formats, imprinted with six different company names. I still remember all of them, and that the three primaries were Darwin Electrical Contractors, M. & D. Supply, Inc., and West Valley Construction. I provided Bay Area addresses for each—three in San Francisco, two in the East Bay, one on the Peninsula; the cities were genuine, the street addresses made up. There was virtually no risk in this, because I saw to it the addresses never had cause to be checked. Once I had the printed invoices, I took two days of sick leave and went around to various banks in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Mateo and opened business accounts in each of the company names. On the bank forms I listed myself, under my own name, as sole proprietor and requested that all statements and notifications of deposit be sent to my home address.

  Step two: On the next Friday after close of business, I flew to Portland, Oregon, and spent the night in a downtown motel. I picked Portland because it was the nearest good-sized city in another state and yet still relatively close to San Francisco. I paid for the ticket in cash and gave the airline a false name; in those days, remember, you weren't required to show identification to airline or airport personnel and so you could fly under any name you chose. I used the same alias at the motel. These precautions probably weren't necessary, but I took them to ensure that no investigator could ever place me in Portland, a city I hadn't been to before and never visited again.

  That Saturday morning I went to the main library, where I requested microfilm files of the Portland Oregonian for 1943, the year of my birth. I spent four hours combing through the obituary notices in every issue from January through July before I found what I was looking for. On July 19, a five-month-old infant named Richard James Laidlaw, the son of Carl and Amanda Laidlaw, had died in the Portland suburb of Beaverton. The birth date and place of birth were also listed as Beaverton. I copied down all the relevant information. Before I left the library for the airport, I looked up the address of the office of vital statistics for Multnomah County, in which both Portland and Beaverton were located, and added it to the data sheet.

  Step three: I checked the current San Francisco papers for advertisements for mail receiving and forwarding services, made a list, and then went around to check them out in person. The third one impressed me as the most discreet. I paid their standard fee, giving my name as Richard Laidlaw and asking that any mail addressed to me be held for pickup.

  Step four: I wrote a letter to the Multnomah County office of vital statistics requesting a copy of "my" birth certificate and providing all the necessary names and dates. I signed the letter Richard James Laidlaw and gave the mail drop's address as my own. The vital stats office had no reason to cross-check the name against their death records and no legal reason at that time to turn down the request. I wasn't the first to use this method of obtaining a birth certificate in order to establish a false identity, of course. I got the idea from reading about a similar case in Detroit that had come to light the year before. The method was used often enough, in fact, for the regulations and requirements covering the issuance of copies of birth certificates to be eventually changed in most if not all states.

  Step five: I bought a secondhand IBM typewriter, the kind that had a ball element and came with extra elements in different type faces. At night in my apartment, I manufactured half a dozen detailed invoices, one for each of the dummy companies, keying each to specific job
sites that Amthor was currently operating in various parts of northern and central California and that were guaranteed by size to last more than a year. In two cases there was a distance of several hundred miles between the job sites and the bogus company addresses, but this was not unusual. Amthor hired its subcontractors on a bid basis and its suppliers on a price-break basis, and the costs of relocating workmen and equipment and of long-haul shipping were always factored in.