CON TEST: Double Life (2 page)

Cruising along the crowded avenue, he brooded over whether his family would find the same faith in him. He had become the biggest Lorenzo family fuck up. He was morbidly determined to lose that crown. He lowered the system and dialed his friend Amir, who answered on the first ring.

“
My dude, what was all that bullshit you said to me when I called a few minutes ago?”

“
I left my cell phone on, and I had to improvise,” Justice told him.

Amir let out a brief gasp. He could not believe that Justice could be so careless. Since Justice had retired, Amir had been his only thief-in-training. “So, the Twins was banging all in the bank?” Amir asked, laughing.

“
Man, that shit was scary and funny. That’s what I be tryin’a show you. You gotta be ready for anything. I kept thinking that them alphabet boys was going to run up in there. The same bitch that testified at my trial handled my transaction.”

“
Wow, that’s crazy. You’re back out and back at it and got the bitch that had you booked. You’re a bold nigga. Them boys was not gonna run up in there on Ms. Lavern Grisby,” Amir said, chuckling. Everything was comical to him with this game.

“
I’m tryin’a get this bitch bagged and tagged and burned, fo’ real, homie,” Justice said, unbuttoning a few buttons on his blouse. No one could see through his tinted windows. “This old lady has to go.”

“
They’re not going to link you to this shit later, are they?”

“
Naw. The teller filled out the slip, and I did not leave a thumbprint. So, no handwriting or fingerprint analysis.”

“
And definitely no video. You did a great job.”

“
Yeah! I am the teacher, remember?”

“
I remember. What you got planned today?”

“
Gotta run this crash dummy I met last week to the bank to cash this cashier’s check. Then
I’ma go to meet M&M. And after that, I have a class: forensic science.”

“
You swear you’re a smart nigga. Forensic science.”

“
I am smart dawg, that’s why I go to Villanova, and take electives like Forensic Science. That’s how I’ma beat ’em, and get revenge. We’re working on finding evidence on bodies today. I might kill a bitch.”

“
That’s crazy. Holla at a nigga when you leave M&M’s,” Amir said and hung up.

Justice drove and pondered that even if he did build a conglomerate that secured the lion’s share of the urban fiction industry, married, and lived on an estate as big as Oprah’s, would his mother accept his success, knowing that the seed money was illegally gained? He glanced up and saw Cheltenham Square Mall on his right. Then he turned left onto Washington Lane and ultimately back into Philadelphia County.

A few streets away, he turned onto the manicured lawns, tree-lined Briar Road. He pulled into the driveway and parked in his aunt’s garage. Safe in the garage, the large door quietly closed behind him. The adrenaline rush had subdued as he sat in the truck and peacefully contemplated his next job.
Bad Justice
, he thought.
Bad, bad Justice
.

He glanced into the rearview mirror. Lavern Grisby smiled back at him. She was proud of him. He thanked her and walked from the garage into his basement lair. Justice was back.

Well, after he murdered Ms. Lavern Grisby.

TWO

I
t was funny how things unanimously came to an end, Justice thought as he stared blankly at the credentials plastered on his federal probation officer’s wall. There he was parked in a wood chair as Mauve Miller—M & M, he had nicknamed her—typed answers to her ridiculously redundant questions into her computer.

“
Do you reside at the same address?”

Justice’s head shook “yes”. The answer was really no. His mind flashed to the four-bedroom home that he lived in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. There was no need to tell her that he lived 25miles out the district, as he moved from his aunt’s home in West Oak Lane months earlier.

Mauve then asked, “So, how’s school?”

“
Fine,” was the automated response. Majoring in Marketing at Villanova University was Justice’s way of avoiding a job while he served his one-year supervised release. That was the extension to his 18-month sentence served at FCI Allenwood in White Deer, Pennsylvania. Going to school meant that he did not have to work. No job meant that he did not have to make restitution payments to American Express. He had fraudulently used stolen corporate-platinum American Express cards over a two month period to the tune of $264,000. Having an uncle employed at the post office was a blessing. The uncle stole the cards, but the elaborate scheme to get the cards activated was the work of Justice. It was simple. Theft victims applied for the cards and expected them. So, when Justice called them—posing as the creditor—and explained that he needed to verify their social security numbers to approve the card, the victims spilled the number. It was such a simple thing, and worth the 18 months on vacation.

Upon release, Justice had been fired from one job, because his criminal background check came back as hot as a rat on the witness stand. M & M demanded that he quit another job, citing third party risk. Come on, if a bank hired him as a teller, let the man work. Justice was over the idea of working, and he knew that finishing college, relocating, and then starting his own company was the only tandem to create a prismatic future. M & M’s third party risk rule meant not even McDonald’s was an employment option, considering the food chain accepted credit cards as payment. The feds had a lien on his credit report for the money he owed. That deemed Justice extremely risky for a business loan. Ergo, he was in a life threatening catch-22.

No matter which questions M & M asked, and no matter the order she asked them, her finale remained the same: “Any new arrests?”

“
Of course not,” Justice usually replied with the truthfulness of a tyke. Had she asked whether he had committed a crime, she may have been on to something. He laughed at the response that he would have given her: “Now let’s see here. I drive an Escalade that was $700 a month. My mortgage was $800 a month. Seasonal clothing expenses were $4,000 a month.” That look on her face had he said that, priceless.

He sat as she typed the last keystroke. He waited for her to spin from her computer station and consult her desk calendar to give him a new date to report. She did her spin, but she did not consult her calendar. He analyzed her body language, but she gave away no hints. She turned from her computer and clapped her hands together on her desk. She stared at him quizzically. The seconds of silence was louder than kids on the street screaming after an ice cream truck.
Talk bitch
, he yelled in his head.

Finally, he could not take it. “My class begins soon and I cannot be late for this professor’s class. After he takes roll, he locks the door until he gives a break. It’s a three hour class, Ms. Miller.”

“
I see, Mr. Lorenzo,” M & M said. “Unfortunately, you will be missing class today.”

Justice’s brow furrowed and he wondered what the evil bitch meant. He was always polite and cordial when speaking to her. That was usually on a level that she could easily comprehend. He knew that she and most of her colleagues were intellectually inferior to him. It sickened him that he had to placate his intelligence for the sake of his freedom. Tardiness and absence from class was only used when it came to reporting to her office staffed with pompous swine. The two were never in the equation when it came time to sponge knowledge from the prodigious scholars who taught at Villanova University.

In an innocent attempt to browbeat, Justice stood and pulled on his jacket. “Nice joke,” he quipped, smiling.

She stood and beat him to the door. She signaled for someone to join them before she galloped her big teeth ass back to her desk. Confused, Justice could not decide if he should keep his eyes on her or the door. He was not a man who adored fictional characters, nor over-the-top powers; but, he wanted to activate the eyes in the back of his head. With M & M’s portly figure perched at her desk, Justice focused his attention to the doorway.

Like superheroes, ghosts did not rank high on Justice’s favorite list, but he saw two. One male, black, mid-thirties. One female, Demi Moore-esque. Both donned Secret Service badges on their waist bands. M & M introduced them, “Justice, meet Mr. and Mrs. Williams. You remember them.” Sure he did, and they were not ghosts. They were the same agents from Justice’s first federal case.

Cute introduction
, he thought. Naturally, he was uncomfortable. The two agents stood side by side, both dressed beggarly. They blatantly invaded his space, like they wanted to take something from him. No gun, so that was no ordinary robbery. No knife, either. They planned to strong arm him for his freedom.

Agent Jared Williams sported a bushy, cropped top and had the flattest face Justice had ever encountered. His eyes were poppy and wide apart.

In that moment, Justice’s thoughts were marred with the notion that his cover was blown. His career as a nefarious identity thief was out of vogue. Resigning from a career—no, lifestyle—of conning was never a thought. At that instant, the idea that he was forced to retire engulfed him like a fish fed to a dolphin after a show. Just when he thought he would get started again.

“
Justice Lorenzo, you’re under arrest,” Agent Delia Williams claimed in a more husky voice than allowed for a woman. “Falsifying securities is the charge,” she said, and then added, “There is more. A whole laundry list where that came from. I’ll save all of that for the interrogation, though.”

Justice looked at the cops somberly. He gathered mettle to deal with the thugs before him. His mind swirled from zip code to zip code in an attempt to figure out which one they had fingered him for ravaging. He was responsible for a lot of licks. Certainly, they did not have them all. They never did. Like his first federal conviction, the agents could have a co-conspirators word-of-mouth based case.
That would suck
, Justice thought.

Justice recalled how his uncle’s girlfriend was arrested at Macy’s department store for using a stolen credit card. When asked how she came into possession of the card, she told the agents that her boyfriend stole them from the post office that he worked at, and that her step-nephew taught her how to get the cards activated. She exposed a scheme that took the agents eight months to solve with her help. She had been arrested and pled guilty to four months house arrest. A slap on the wrist.

Justice had a habit of helping those who wanted help, and more importantly needed the help to survive. The pressure of interrogation favored a confession for the police, which had driven the federal conviction rate like a veteran NASCAR driver. It was amazing that the feds allowed a murderous mobster to jump on the witness stand to testify that he was hired by a mob boss to murder. The boss went off to the US penitentiary, while the killer was let loose into witness protective custody and to commit another crime. With that fact, why did Justice help the needy? Deadly sin number one: Greed.

“
Well, let us see here. There is mail fraud, embezzlement, wire fraud, credit card fraud. I heard it all before,” Justice said, as he mockingly held out his hands to be cuffed. Good thing he had stashed the money from the job that he did that morning.

Jared jerked Justice out the chair and pushed him against the wall. Justice was 5’11” when erect, and he could feel the wrath of the small-man’s-complex in the push. Jared was a black man on a white man’s force, and was 5’5”. Justice knew that he was in for a show. After Jared instructed Justice to “spread ‘em,” he pulled Justice’s hands behind his back—palms together. Jared choked Justice’s pinky fingers together and kicked his legs wider. Justice stumbled. Jared began to frisk Justice, as Delia read his Miranda warning.

“
You do not have to crush my fucking fingers together,” Justice snapped. His stare cut down Agent Jared Williams’ rogue behavior with scythes.

For revenge, Jared slammed his palm into Justice’s crotch; a search requirement usually not favored by police. Justice winced. His testicles felt like they had been pushed into his six-pack.

“
Watch the language in front of the ladies. You’re not around your homies,” Jared said mockingly.

“
I’m not watching shit,” Justice screeched, as he was cuffed behind his back.

“
Definitely not on that 80-inch plasma you ordered a week ago, that’s for sure,” Delia barked and raised an eyebrow. Delia had the most beautiful chestnut eyes. Her make-up was expertly applied and she had heart shaped kissable lips, but she could not dress. “Get him out of here,” she said to Jared. To M & M she said, “We’ll be in touch. His arraignment is at one. We will request no bail.”