Stephen Cannell - Final Victim

Elena had been born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and in the evenings, she used to tell her children stories of the beautiful tree-shaded public squares in that mountaintop city. She would close her eyes and remember the colorful flowers and the children riding ponies in the park. She described the magnificent churches with their huge stained-glass windows and ornate Spanish arches. "Dios mio, son bonitas," she would sigh. Her family had all worked in one of the pottery plants there, and she told her children about the blown glass and clay artifacts that had won the city international fame.

To Malavida, it seemed a crime that she had left such a beautiful place to live in a two-room apartment in graffiti-ridden Pico Rivera. She had been only sixteen when she left that Mexican paradise to come to "El Norte" to work on her hands and knees, scrubbing floors. In an even worse turn of fate, she had married Juan Chacone. He was also an illegal alien, but was ropy and mean. His hometown was Chubasco, which he remembered with seething hatred. Elena had seven children by Juan, and Malavida was the youngest. Juan was a brawler and a drunk, who often came home on Saturday nights and took swings at Malavida's beloved mother. Malavida hated Juan with every fiber of his existence. He prayed that his father would be hit by a car or killed in some Saturday night brawl. And then, one day, Juan had simply gone to the store and hadn't come back. Malavida prayed every night that he would never return. As the days passed, it seemed that Malavida's prayers had been answered, but his mother was paralyzed by her husband's disappearance. She had been abused by him, but couldn't seem to face the idea of living without him. His mother had been afraid to go to the police, because she was sure they would send her back to Mexico and she would be separated from her children.

When Malavida was twelve years old, he had been given a used Apple computer by one of the people whose houses his mother cleaned. He was fascinated by its bright screen and beautiful graphics. He worked at it endlessly, and in five years, at the age of seventeen, he was already so adept that he was a legend on the Internet. His username was Snoopy. Long before that, however, he realized that his computer gave him immense power over a system that had held him down and enslaved his family. One day, he decided to use this new power, and that was the day he started out on his career of crime. His initial goal had been simple. He would get enough money so that he could send his mother back to Guadalajara in style. She had finally become a U. S. citizen by virtue of the Amnesty Act of 1987, so now she could come and go across the border. He decided he would fulfill her dream of going back to the beautiful city where children played in the shaded town square and rode ponies and ate gelato in the huge green parks.

His first computer scam had grown out of something very innocent. He had been up in La Habra Heights, helping his mother clean one of her houses, and saw a country-club membership book on a marble table. On impulse, he slipped it into his pocket. The book gave the addresses and occupations of the members, as well as the ages of their children. He thought such personal information surely must have some value. He turned the problem over in his mind for two days, and slowly a plan formed. He started reading The Wall Street Journal to pick up the terms he would need. He asked his sister's boyfriend, who was an artist, to design a letterhead. Then he wrote a letter to ten of the club members, each one selected by occupation. If the man was an insurance executive, the letter would say that an executive headhunting firm called Executive Research Foundation had been hired by an international insurance firm with headquarters in California to find a chief executive officer. This insurance company, the letter said, preferred to remain anonymous at this point, but the position it was offering paid approximately five hundred thousand dollars a year. The letter continued by telling the mark that his name now appeared on the short list of potential candidates as a result of his outstanding work at his current company. Then Malavida wrote that it was ERF's pleasure to inquire if he would be interested in taking an in-person meeting with the insurance company's Chairman when he was in town, to discuss the employment opportunity. He signed the letters "Dexter Freemantel, Vice-President of Human Resources." He sent them off and waited.

From ten letters, Malavida got four replies, all of them affirmative. Then he wrote each one back, asking the candidates for a few more details before the meeting could be arranged. He politely requested that they supply him with a Social Security number so that ERF could complete its background check, and could they also supply him with their mother's maiden name and their banking affiliation for a routine credit check? To this query, he got one reply… Mr. Gregory Clayton Smith said that he was looking to make a change and enthusiastically sent back all the information requested.

Then Malavida simply sat down in front of his computer and cracked Mr. Smith's bank, which happened to be the Bank of America. He hacked into Gregory Smith's account and then requested a wire transfer of two thousand dollars to an account he had set up at a bank in Fullerton under a bogus name. He took only two thousand because that was all he needed to buy airfare to Guadalajara for both himself and his mother, with a little left over for new clothes for the trip. When the B of A computer asked for Mr. Smith's Social Security number and mother's maiden name for the wire transfer confirmation, he sent the information.

The next morning was Thursday, December 16. Malavida rode his old ten-speed bike three miles to Fullerton and checked his balance. On that day, Malavida got an early Christmas present and completed his first successful computer theft… Sitting in Charles Brown's bank account was a wire transfer for two thousand dollars. He couldn't believe it had worked! With adrenaline coursing through his teenaged heart, he cashed in the account and took off. He smiled all the way back to his ramshackle apartment building in Pico Rivera, the twenty crisp hundred-dollar bills in a pocket of his school backpack. He was just thirteen years old.

He had taken his mother to Guadalajara, first class, on Aeronaves. She was wearing a brand-new peach-colored dress and shoes, and had a new leather purse and matching luggage-all of it bought at Kmart. He had told her he'd saved money from odd jobs to give her the trip.

"Dios mio," she had said; then she hugged him while tears streamed down both of their cheeks.

As the airliner circled for its landing at Guadalajara's airport, Malavida had been so proud he could barely contain himself. Elena had muttered quiet prayers of thanks as the plane touched down.

The trip had been a disaster. The tree-lined parks were dirty and brown. There were no ponies. Elena's family was poor; her aunt and uncle were sick, but still dragging themselves to the pottery plant, which now employed less than a third of the people it once had. There were poverty and sadness everywhere.

All Malavida had accomplished with his great gift to his mother was to steal the memories that had been sustaining her. Within days, she wanted to go home, and on the trip back to L. A. they said almost nothing.

Her life had always been a struggle, so after the disappointment of Guadalajara, Malavida determined he would use his newfound powers to make things better. He would program a new life for her. For a while, he succeeded. But then, five years later, he was arrested by John Lockwood-busted and cuffed right in his mother's living room. Malavida knew Lockwood had made the arrest there on purpose, right in front of his mother, to humiliate him. It was then that Elena realized that the gifts he had been giving her were all stolen. She gave everything back. It broke his heart that he had caused her such pain. All he had wanted to do was ease her burden. She would never again accept another gift from him.