Tod Goldberg - The Bad Beat

Check fraud used to be the most popular form of financial malfeasance for low-level crooks with high-level ambitions. The easiest way to perpetuate this crime involved rental properties. A person would put on a nice outfit, rent a Mercedes, maybe even bring along some arm candy with a fake wedding ring to fill out the picture, and then the con man would make deposits on several medium-priced rental properties in a weekend, but only those that were being shown by the owners, not by real estate agents, so that no one would bother to check his credit. This was back when people assumed that if you had a Mercedes you had a good credit score.

It also used to be harder for real people to check someone’s credit or even a person’s simple identity. It took time and money, not like today where a simple Google search can usually reveal enough about a person for one to decide whether or not he’s a dirtbag. A savvy con man would pony up a check for the security deposit and the first month’s rent, maybe even a pet deposit, and hand-deliver it to the owner on a Saturday at four p.m. Everyone would shake hands. The owner would run off to his bank and deposit the check, only to learn on Monday that the new renter’s mother had died, or his wife had died, or maybe the renter himself had suddenly developed terminal cancer, and thus would ask to get his money back. Normal people have a hard time saying no to death and/or terminal cancer. The owner of the property would promptly write a check to the mournful owner, they’d shake hands and the owner would walk back into his home feeling like he’d done the right thing.

Of course, the con man’s check hadn’t cleared yet, probably wouldn’t clear for five to seven days, since if the con man was really smart, his stolen checks were from out of state, which would cause a longer hold and a longer processing time, all to figure out that the check was a fugazis all along. But the empathetic homeowner wouldn’t know that for many days.

The con man would take the owner’s check directly to the owner’s bank, cash it, and be off into the world, thousands of dollars richer.

It was a solid con for a very long time. Until people stopped writing checks. Until people started checking the identities of not just people they were doing business with, but every person they encountered, usually out of simple interest. Meet a person on the street, find them interesting or alluring, and two clicks later you’re looking at their vacation photos on Facebook, know where they went to kindergarten, elementary school, high school, junior college, college and whatever other clickable institution of learning one can imagine. In short, an entire involuntary database that can tell you whether or not the person you’re interested in is to be trusted with even your phone number.

So the world has become more cautious and, for the most part, no one accepts a check for a large purchase without first getting a DNA swab from the inside of your cheek, at least metaphorically speaking.

Except for charitable organizations. Charitable organizations accept checks every single day because they are created to be generous and forgiving. If you write a bad check to a charity, your karma suffers, but they usually won’t have you arrested. It just isn’t a charitable thing to do.

And when you show up with a cashier’s check for a million dollars, they tend to really turn on their warm and caring side. Or at least that’s what I was hoping would happen when I walked into the Moldovan Consulate with that check in my hand. Plus, warm and caring people tend not to blanch when you ask them to take you on a tour of their facility, even if they’re preparing for a black-tie gala.

So after Barry came back with the cashier’s check for me, I brought Sugar back to my loft and called Sam to let him know that I’d need a chauffeured ride over to the Moldovan Consulate. Preferably a chauffeur with a gun, if need be.

“What kind of car?” Sam asked.

“Big and American,” I said. “Something we can all fit in tonight.”

“Mikey,” Sam said, “you realize that the potential for snafus tonight is high.”

“I realize that,” I said.

“So, in that light, what are you going to do with Sugar?”

“I thought I’d have him sit in the car with the engine running,” I said.

“I like that idea,” Sam said. “You’re not thinking of arming him, are you?”

I was in my kitchen and Sugar was sitting at my counter watching YouTube videos of people getting smacked in the groin.

“No,” I said. I smiled at Sugar and then walked outside to my landing, where I wouldn’t have to hear Sugar’s cinema verite. “What do you have on Drubich and his ties to Moldova?”

“My sources tell me his mother is actually from there,” Sam said, “and that while he is Ukrainian he keeps a vacation home in beautiful Chisinau, where he regularly spends his afternoons reading Tolstoy in Stefan cel Mare Central Park.”

“He’ll have plenty of time to read at Leavenworth,” I said. “Where’d you get this?”

“I called the Moldovan Consulate and asked them how they could be so brash as to honor a dirty Ukrainian,” he said. “Except I said it in a really bad Russian accent. They transferred me to a very nice woman in the press office named Reva, who informed me that Mr. Drubich has deep, inalienable ties to the area and that in addition to all the time he’s spent sitting in the park reading, he also found time to meet his wife in Moldova, too, when they were both just children, which is why he’s so committed to the education of Moldova’s young ones.”

“What a heartwarming story,” I said.

“They didn’t mention anything about him earning most of his money selling technology to terrorists, but I thought that was probably just an oversight.”

“Maybe mention that in your speech,” I said. “See if he’s able to pat himself on the back with his arm in a cast.”

It would be harder still in a few days when he was wearing a waist chain, too, if I had any say in things.

An hour later, Sam and I pulled up in front of the consulate building (in a black Navigator Sam assured me was loaned to him by a very close friend who’d parked it in long-term parking at the Miami Airport) and parked in a space that was marked NO PARKING-RESERVED TONIGHT ONLY FOR MR. SIGAL. I was fairly certain that Mr. Sigal, whoever he was, wasn’t going to show up six hours early for anything, so his parking space seemed safe. If you’re important enough to have a one-night-only reserved parking spot, after all, you’re probably the kind of person who shows up right when the Chicken Kiev is being served and not a moment sooner.

“Mikey,” Sam said, “are you sure you should go in there alone?”

“We can’t risk both of us being seen ahead of time,” I said. “Besides, I want you listening in on those bugs I placed in Odessa.”

“Thus far, it’s just been a lot of people remarking on how good the butter cookies are when paired with the Prince Vladimir tea,” Sam said. “Unless that’s someone speaking in code.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. I got out of the Navigator and examined the street in front of the consulate. Even though it was hours before the event, already a valet service was getting set up at the corner, which meant it was going to be difficult to have a getaway car parked right where we’d need it, so I had to hope a million dollars was enough to get me a reserved space for the evening.

Unlike the consulates you might see in Washington, DC, or even Los Angeles or New York-the kind of big, ornate structures that announced the presence of an entire country, or at least the presence of a few key government and goodwill officials who were, most likely, spies themselves-the building that housed the Moldovan Consulate was more like a building that happened to house several very nice law firms, which in this case were called the Isle of Man, Morocco, Antigua and Moldova. There was a security presence in the outer foyer where three very large men who looked bored and tired and hot sat stuffed behind a sunken circular desk. All three wore black suits with white shirts and blue ties, and gold name badges, though no actual badges. They each had Bluetooth earpieces and matching BlackBerrys strapped to their belts, but no guns. Surrounding the men in the sunken area were a dozen closed-circuit televisions showing alternating shots of all sides of the building, including one that showed Sam sitting in his new Navigator. There were also several laptop computers open on the desk. One was running a program that controlled the closed-circuit cameras: Three of them showed open Facebook pages, two were on ESPN. com and the other one I could see appeared to be running an in-progress game of solitaire.