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CHAPTER 24
CHARLIE SCHWAB DROVE HOME to his regular Monday night te
Mostly Charlie was supporting his neighbor's dream to be a real American in possession of a sport, sports equipment, clothes, and a club of his own, with all the outrageous monthly expenses the endeavor necessitated. Every bill was a joy to him. Every weakness on the part of his U.S. government agent neighbor thrilled him even more. He nagged Charlie about his beat-up car almost as much as he nagged Sonia about her te
Charlie's old Buick was coughing again. For the last week the muffler had been attached to the underside of the car in a complicated way that involved a piece of laundry rope provided by his father, Ogden. But now the laundry rope had come loose, and the muffler was sparking along on the highway to a chorus of honking from other drivers to let him know about it. As if he didn't know about it. His car was a sore point with everyone. Disgruntled taxpayers were always doing things to it, and he couldn't get the Service to compensate him for the damages. Still, as long as the car got bashed and he didn't, he was cool. A car was just the means to get around.
But it was not the car or the ridiculous te
He was such a fine detective, in fact, that the Brooklyn District Director, Mel Arrighi, was always telling him he should transfer to the special agent branch and top the ranks there. As a special agent, he'd have a lot more power in the field. He'd have bigger cases, mob related, drug related. He'd get more juice. He'd be on the road all the time. That was a plus. And life would be exciting. That was another plus. Special agents who worked for the Treasury and the Justice Departments had almost unlimited power stalking their prey, much more power than FBI agents.
But Charlie couldn't do it. He had to stay close to home for Ogden. He hopped around the tristate area with no problem, but treks to God-knew-where every single week would be too stressful for his father. Charles Schwab was one of 120,000 employees of the IRS. As a revenue agent, he was part of the main snooping body in the federal tax force. Revenue agents carried out routine audits and tax examinations. When they suspected tax evasion or fraud, they worked with special agents and the CID to build the cases that the Justice Department would prosecute. His was a safe path for a careful person who had sustained a couple of losses so great that even an accountant such as he could not calculate the damage.
Charlie's special skills involved the alchemy of turning disappeared assets into found ones. Over the years he'd learned the ten thousand ways that people shaded the truth, used their stories like sleds in the snow, slid all over the place, hid their assets, schemed, played with the numbers. He knew how honest people shielded their money from taxes in relatively i
He loved playing te
Although Charlie fantasized about excitement every day of his life, longing for something more that he couldn't really name, he actually counted on the status quo. He didn't want to fall in love and risk his life like last time. Years ago he'd married young to an unremarkable girl of ordinary attractions he'd thought he loved well enough to last a lifetime. Her name was Ingrid, and he'd never in a million years thought she would leave him. They'd had a baby. The baby died when it was two weeks old. Soon after that, Ingrid left him for a podiatrist she'd consulted a year earlier about her bunions. Ingrid's sudden departure raised a doubt in Charlie's mind that the baby he'd anticipated with such excitement and loved with all his heart had really been his. After both mother and child were gone, it was too late to investigate. Charlie went on to investigate other puzzles.
His personal tragedy occurred so long ago that torment had long since been replaced with cynicism about the opposite sex. Just as really bad dental experiences leave behind perpetual anxiety about all practitioners in the field, Charlie's experience with Ingrid left him skittish about women. His name and occupation were an added catastrophe. It was always the same thing: When women thought he was the financial giant, they threw themselves at him. Literally. The bodies flew at him the way Mona's had when she'd tripped on nothing and tried to fall into his arms, breathing hard with mint-freshened breath.
Then everything changed the second they found out he was not the "real" Charles Schwab. As soon as he told them he was a revenue agent with the IRS, he suddenly became the "fake" Charles Schwab, less than a nothing, a poisonous toad. A dangerous enemy. But this had not always been the case. Once the "real" Charles Schwab had been an unknown and the "fake" Charles Schwab had been young and handsome. And it was not completely true that Charlie was a total loser now. He just felt like one. The Beech Avenue strip of bars in Long Beach was near Ke
Charlie was still smoldering and obsessing about his humiliating experiences with the strange duo of Cassie Sales and Mona Whitman. He drove east toward his house in Long Beach. He didn't know what was up with the two women, but something definitely was. Cassie had looked crazy to him even before Mona had tipped him off. With the sunglasses and the scarf on her head at eight in the morning? Come on. And the story about the stroke? Please. Cassie was a borderline personality like Livia in The Sopranos.