Page 32 of Scammed

“No. No, no, no! What the hell? What did you do? What’s happening?” she screamed.

“Problem…” started Angel, coming in the back door.

“Brandi Buckwalter,” said Spencer. “That’s her name. It’s not a nice name. Oh, she’s been in jail before. Credit card fraud, bank fraud, and identity theft.”

“Problem, Brandi Buckwalter?” asked Angel.

“How do you know my name? Who the hell are you?” she said, suddenly panicked.

“Who wrote the program you’re running?” asked Gaspar. She stared at him, then at the other men, now six strong, standing in her living room.

“What does it matter to you?”

“You’re stealing money from non-profits. Organizations that are trying to help the less fortunate.”

“Oh, please! Don’t give me some sob story. My family was nothing but trailer park trash. We were the definition of it before it became a term thrown around like peanut butter and jelly. My father was a drunk, my mother whored for drug money, and she was more than happy to let them use me and my sister.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to do this,” said Tailor. “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

“Whatever,” said the woman, waving them off. “I won’t go to jail again. I’m not doing anything except running a program for a client.”

“Who is your client?” asked Nine.

“He’s anonymous,” she smiled.

“Well, then. Let’s see if your anonymous employer will bail you out of jail,” he said, gripping her arm.

“No! No, I won’t go,” she said, trying to shove the men away from her.

“I don’t want to hurt you, lady. But you’re going to jail, or you’re going to tell us who your employer is.”

“I don’t know! Okay, I don’t know. He contacted me through my consulting company on the web. He never gave me a name. Just told me what he needed me to create. All I had to do was run the program and identify multi-million-dollar donors for non-profits worldwide. That’s it. I built the program, and that’s what I’m doing.”

“I do not believe that’s all,” said Marcel, standing in the entry of the hallway. He pointed down the hallway, and the woman tried to run, Tailor easily holding her in place. “She has four bedrooms back there, none of which are for sleeping. They are crammed with merchandise, expensive merchandise, I believe.”

Angel eyed the woman, then went down the hallway, looking in each of the rooms. When he returned, he nodded to Nine and Gaspar.

“My guess is Brandi here has been purchasing merchandise on someone else’s account. There are gaming systems, televisions, luxury watches, and five mountain bikes. No offense, Brandi old girl, but you don’t strike me as the mountain bike type.”

After a few phone calls, the LVPD arrived to place Brandi under arrest. In a box beneath her bed were dozens of stolen credit cards.

“You’d think with all the technology available, people would turn off their cards the minute that they discover them lost,” said the officer. “Tourists aren’t paying attention and don’t notice it for a day or so. We see it all the time.”

“Well, she’s done some damage,” said Angel. “By my estimates, there’s about forty grand worth of merchandise in there. Her garage was open when we arrived, so it makes me wonder if she wasn’t selling it, and someone had just made a pickup.”

“We’ll look into it,” said the officer. “Thanks again for the tip. Hey, you three must be brothers.” He pointed to Alec, Gaspar, and Marcel. They all smiled, nodding, Gaspar and Alec staring at one another.

As they drove out of the subdivision, Gaspar turned toward the city and took the team to the Venetian for a late afternoon lunch. His ulterior motive was to also show Marcel what Las Vegas was really about.

Turned out, Marcel didn’t care for the noise, sounds, congestion, or people snapping their cards on the street, only to hand him something with naked women and a phone number on it. Once in the air, headed home, he felt more relaxed.

“Lesson learned, Marcel. You do not care for Las Vegas,” smirked Gaspar.

“Not in the least.”

“I do have a question,” said Alec. “Gaspar is older than me by almost seventeen years. Technically, I’m older than Marcel by at least thirty. How did that cop think we were brothers? I mean, we have the same features, but the age disparity is big. He should have guessed that we were maybe father and son or something.”

“I don’t know. That’s a good one.”

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