THE REWARDS OF GOING STRAIGHT

by JoAnn Baca

A sultry female voice answered the phone. “Wells Cargo. How may I direct your call?”

Catherine rolled her eyes. Devin’s impishness apparently extended to the naming of his businesses. What would be next? A construction company he would call General Mortars?

With a patient attitude, she responded, “I’d like to speak to the person in charge, please.” She had no idea what name Devin might be using, and the message on her answering machine provided no clue, only the phone number expressed in his distinctive voice, and a plea to “Call me…soon.”

“Certainly,” the voice purred. This time Catherine shook her head and stifled a laugh, her mind conjuring an image of the woman on the other end of the telephone as a model type with masses of flowing auburn hair and perfect white teeth…and questionable office skills.

There was a click and then a familiar male voice barked, “What?”

Catherine’s eyebrows rose. “‘What,’ indeed. You called me, Mr. Whatever-Your-Name-Is-Today.”

The voice turned warm. “Cathy, thank goodness! I need you!”

“What have you done now?” she asked warily, knowing how closely he skated to…and sometimes went over…the edge of legality.

“Nothing, I swear! It’s not what you think.” His voice grew hushed as he added, “I need you…as in your presence. Just for an hour or so.”

Frowning, Catherine dreaded the answer but asked anyway. “Do I need to co-sign a loan? Or represent you with the IRS?”

His responding chuckle eased her mind…just a little. “Just come? Now? I’ll explain when I see you.” He gave her an address in Brooklyn, then hung up before she could ask anything else.

Sighing, she replaced the handset in the cradle. What was Devin up to now? Guessing was a fool’s game; he was bound to surprise her. Reluctantly, she rose from her desk and went in to ask for some emergency time off from Joe. She was lucky she had no pressing deadlines because, although Devin needed her, she was under no illusions that “just for an hour” was true.

* * *

The cab left her at the entrance to an industrial park, the driveway leading in blocked by a locked gate. Nobody was in sight, and Catherine had no idea where Devin was inside the large complex. She crossed her arms to try to counter the effects of the breeze that was swirling dust clouds and candy wrappers around her ankles, thankful she at least was wearing slacks and not a dress. Still, the cool temperature was making her shiver and she was silently cursing herself for forgetting her gloves at the office.

A woman exited the door of a building off to her left. Catherine watched her as she approached. The heavyset older woman labored toward her, quite out of breath by the time she got to the gate. Her bright red hair – a color not found in nature – was piled in a haphazard knot atop her head, and the matching lipstick she wore had apparently been distributed without benefit of a mirror, causing it to meander a bit outside the perimeter of her lips. Heavy blue eye shadow was caked in the creases of her eyelids, giving her a slightly clown-like look.

“Are you Catherine?”

It was the sultry purr Catherine had heard on the telephone. She stifled a surprised laugh at the dissimilarity of the woman before her compared to what her imagination had conjured. Yep, Devin was full of surprises.

“I am, yes.” She waited for the woman to open the gate for her, then put out her hand. “Catherine Chandler.”

The woman took her hand and shook it so hard, Catherine’s teeth nearly rattled. “Mr. Wells has told me so much about you! I’m Lorelei.” The sensual voice nearly undid Catherine, who strove not to grin. She finally managed to choke out, “Pleased to meet you.”

The formal reply seemed to satisfy Lorelei, who turned and lumbered back to the building she had so recently left, huffing and puffing all the way. Catherine could hear her grumbling about having to go out into the cold, but it was all spoken in such sexy tones that it sounded like foreplay, not complaining.

“Cathy!” Devin was inside the office, a phone receiver cradled between head and shoulder. As soon as he saw her, he dropped the phone and bounded from behind his desk to grab her in a bear hug. Surprised, Catherine patted his shoulders as she said, “Good to see you, too.”

Lorelei didn’t seem surprised by the enthusiastic welcome. She ignored the reunion, squeezed herself behind a battered desk piled high with paperwork, and picked up a pencil. Then the phone on her desk rang and Catherine heard her purr a greeting.

“What’s the story there?” she murmured to Devin, flicking her gaze in Lorelei’s direction.

“Auntie El? She’s a keeper!” And Catherine apparently had to be satisfied with that cryptic remark, as he pulled her in the direction of a back room, saying, “Thanks for coming. It’s in here.”

“Here” was a warehouse that contained a number of large cartons on pallets, a row of canisters stacked three high and four deep, and a massive covered box-like structure which filled perhaps a tenth of the space. Devin pointed to the latter. Catherine couldn’t fathom what might be under the tarp, nor why she was needed right away because of it.

“Before we get to ‘it,’ whatever that may be,” she pointed to the mysterious object, “fill me in on a few things.”

Devin leaned against the closed office door, arms crossed casually, a devilish grin on his face. “Like what?”

Trying hard to glower at him, she ticked off her questions on the fingers of one hand. “Like…what name are you going by these days? Like…what exactly is Wells Cargo’s business? Like…why hasn’t anyone heard from you these past months? Like…why did you call that woman ‘Auntie El’?”

Devin pushed away from the door. As he responded, he lifted a finger in answer to each query. First his thumb went up.

“I’m using my real name – you can find me in the telephone book and everything.”

His index finger followed. “I’m a freight forwarder, with a genuine government forwarding license. Even if my letters of reference were forged, I do actually have experience in the field.”

His middle finger lifted, and he waggled it a bit, earning a smile from Catherine. “I wanted to establish myself before letting anyone in the family know, to avoid the obvious ‘concerns’ the Old Man would express.”

His ring finger lifted halfway. He looked at it and shrugged. “Sorry, that’s as far as that one can go. Anyway, Auntie El is the woman who answered my ad for clerical help. She asked me to call her that, and I’m not going to argue with her. She’s working for peanuts, handles most of the paperwork, works well with customers… I’m pretty lucky to have her!”

Smugly, Devin raised his little finger and made a flourish with his open hand toward the covered structure in the warehouse. “Now, can we get to why I needed you to come?”

Catherine nodded, mollified for now but still a bit suspicious. She felt a healthy dose of skepticism would always serve her well where Devin was concerned. “All right, Mr. Freight Forwarder, what’s that?”

In response, he tugged at the tarp until it slipped to the floor. “It” proved to be a container, what the shipping lines called an FEU – a forty-foot equivalent unit, the kind commonly used by companies worldwide to ship their goods.

“Auntie El accepted delivery this morning,” Devin advised. “Our business is to manage the distribution of a container’s contents, delivering them as requested. My problem is…this.” As he explained, he undid the container’s locking system and pulled open one of its doors. Catherine’s eyes grew large as she took note of its contents: stacks of gold bars, some of which had spilled over during the cargo lifting operation on board whatever container ship it had come in on.

“The trucker dropped it off, along with the manifest and delivery schedule for the contents.” The crooning voice behind her was unmistakably that of Auntie El. Catherine turned to look at her, surprised she had entered the warehouse so quietly. “Once we realized what was inside, I tried to contract the trucking company. It’s a ghost. The address and phone numbers we were given were fake.”

“We also contacted the shipping line that supposedly brought the container into port on the ship listed on the manifest. They say there’s no record of this container actually being on their ship.”

“You figure it’s contraband?” Catherine asked, addressing Devin.

He shrugged. “What else? You can’t import large amounts of bullion without tons of paperwork, not to mention security, not to mention the Federal government is usually involved. None of that was in play with this shipment. It got dropped off like any other container that might hold fake Christmas trees or boxed bedroom furniture. And there’s no way in heck I would deliver this stuff, even if the recipient on the delivery schedule was a real entity…which we checked, and it’s not.”

“The company listed as the original shipper in Hong Kong?” Auntie El waved the fax she held. “They don’t have any record of this shipment or container.”

“Same with the trucking company listed as moving the freight to the ship in Hong Kong,” Devin added. “Frankly, we’re out of options to track it. Who sent it…if it even was on a ship…and why it was delivered to us specifically…” He shrugged.

“Why not just call U.S. Customs and let them deal with it?” Catherine couldn’t imagine why she was needed when Devin could simply hand over his problem to the authorities.

He answered with a raised eyebrow. “I work best under the radar, Cathy, you know that.”

Catherine racked her brain. “Nobody has contacted you about the shipment?”

Auntie El shook her head.

“Can you just truck it back to the port and leave it there, somewhere on the dock?”

“Not without a shipping manifest. The docks are pretty well regulated, mostly to avoid people taking anything out without permission. But that also makes bringing anything in without proper shipping documents impossible. Even if I faked a manifest…” Catherine had no doubt he could. “…there’d be a paper trail from the trucker I’d have to hire to deliver the container.”

Auntie El spoke up. “I told Dev we could just wait. It seems pretty obvious this gold was delivered here by mistake. Whoever made that mistake will figure it out pretty quick, don’t you think? Let them come get it. Ask no questions. Problem solved.”

Her sultry voice made her suggestion sound so seductive, so easy. Catherine was thankful that the smeared lipstick and caked eye shadow undercut the appeal, so that Devin, a master at taking advantage of opportunities, couldn’t quite seem to agree with his employee.

“If I’d wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have gotten Catherine involved,” he reminded her, making Catherine think they had had this discussion…or perhaps an argument…before she arrived.

Auntie El sighed, then said, “You’re right, boss man. Best thing is to get the authorities involved, wash our hands of this mess.”

The phone ringing in the office caught their attention, and Auntie El groaned and waddled back through the door. When she had answered the call, Devin pulled Catherine aside and murmured, “The trouble is, doing the right thing carries a risk for me, same as trying to send the container back to the docks. Any deep dive into my background…”

Catherine nodded, understanding. “If the Feds dig a bit into your life, they will uncover more than the properly licensed owner of Wells Cargo. Possibly enough to get you into a little trouble.”

“Or more than a little.” He shrugged, a wry smile on his face. “You see why I asked you to come right away.”

“Thanks so much,” she replied sarcastically. “Well, I can see no way around calling in the government. A mis-delivered cache of gold isn’t something to sit on for long.”

They stood in silence for a while, both contemplating the problem. Auntie El poked her head around the doorframe to announce she was going for lunch and asking if they wanted her to pick up something for them, making it sound like an illicit proposal merely by the sensual tone of her voice. Catherine didn’t know how Devin could work with her sounding like that all the time, but then she figured it did wonders for their business…as long as potential customers didn’t ever meet the owner of that voice.

They migrated into the office to sit down while Auntie El was gone. The ticking of the office clock was the only sound as Catherine and Devin sat deep in thought. Finally, Catherine said, “Can we move the gold a little? Just into the industrial park’s parking lot? It gives you deniability once I call in the Feds.”

Devin nodded slowly. “I do have a forklift. I could move the gold late at night after the other businesses have closed. Just dump it in a big pile, like it fell off a truck or something.”

Catherine added, “We could get an ‘anonymous tip’ at the office in the morning, and I could pass it on.”

“The container would be sitting in our warehouse empty, but since we’re forwarders, that’s not unusual. No reason to check my business other than to ask if we know about the gold, same as they’d ask every other business in this complex. I’ll keep the container here for now, and have it moved…somewhere…later. What’s one more abandoned container in…say…New Jersey? Probably get stolen within minutes of drop-off.”

Catherine sighed. “I suppose that’ll do.” She rose to leave. “If you come up with a better idea, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll wait for that ‘anonymous call’ and pass the message along.”

“Thanks, Cath.” Devin’s relief was evident in his voice.

* * *

The call Catherine got from Devin the next morning was not the one she expected. When she arrived at her office, the message he had left on her phone was nearly the same as yesterday’s, with a troubling twist: “Call me. NOT anyone else.”

She had been ready with the phone numbers she would need in order to set their plan in motion, but clearly that plan was to be abandoned. She dialed Wells Cargo’s number.

Auntie El did not answer this time. Instead, Devin, his voice tense, dispensed with a greeting, saying only, “Catherine?”

“What’s happened?” She was determined to be careful, not knowing who might be eavesdropping on her side of the call.

“Can you come? Just you.”

She frowned. She’d already given a fairly lame excuse for leaving suddenly yesterday. “Can it wait until lunchtime? I can maybe stretch that without getting into too many explanations.”

He sighed. “It’ll have to. But…take an early lunch, OK?” Then he hung up.

It was Catherine’s turn to sigh. Well, Joe had to know by now that she was dependable enough in most things that he could allow the occasional unexplained, sudden…and unusual…request. Even two days in a row.

While tugging on her coat, she popped her head into Joe’s office. He was on the phone but put his hand over the mouthpiece and gave her a questioning look.

She mouthed “Early lunch” and his eyebrows rose. He glanced at his watch, which showed the earliness of the hour, but then he shrugged, nodded, and went back to his call.

Catherine was in a cab headed to Brooklyn within ten minutes.

* * *

The lock on the gate was unfastened, so Catherine could walk right up to the Wells Cargo office. Devin was alone inside when she opened the door.

“Gone!!” he roared. Devin was beside himself, pacing the office like a panther. “I can’t believe this happened to me!” he groused.

She had half expected this. Still, she asked, “The gold? Well, you had to have entertained the possibility that whoever directed the shipment to your warehouse might come for it before we could get the authorities involved. That was the risk we took to try to protect you.”

“Yes, the gold’s gone, but it’s not that.” He turned and looked at her in outraged agony. “I got conned!”

At her confused look, he explained. “Auntie…that Lorelei person…which apparently isn’t even her real name… She brought me coffee last night while we were waiting for the industrial park to empty. Next thing I know, it’s morning, I’m drooling all over my shirt, and…I find THIS!”

Catherine looked at the neat stacks of paperwork Devin was pointing at accusingly. It looked like the woman who had called herself Lorelei had finished up a bunch of paperwork, either before or after dosing Devin. There were bright yellow Post-It notes with instructions on files, a folder with “Important! Handle These Today!” written on it, and…a note atop one of the tidy piles.

She picked up the note, which was addressed to “Mr. Whoever-You-Are-Really” ~

Thanks for being the most unsuspecting patsy I’ve dealt with yet, sweetheart!

You’d be a “‘keeper” too, if I was so inclined!

I may have used you, but at least I haven’t left you in the lurch. You’re welcome!

As you by now have realized…Yes, I’m a fraud. But I’m a good fraud!

Love,
Auntie El/Lorelei/Wouldn’t-You-Like-To-Know