Once Again, Fraud, My Sweet-The Case Of
Internet Love-A Detective Phillip Larkin Now Expanded Tale
For this story it was hard to find a
Wikipedia entry or YouTube film clip to accompany the piece, to do it justice
but the more I thought about Tom Clary's situation the more I thought about
schoolboy stuff. Hence Frankie and the boys
By Zack James
[The first time a few months ago I had
my say about a case I was working on, Tom Clary’s case, make that Attorney Tom
Clary’s case, and not one in which he was the lawyer but one in which he was so
to speak “defending himself” just to rub it in a little, throw some well-placed
salt in the wound, Zack James complained that I had not properly introduced
myself in the beginning to let people know who and what I was about. You might
as well know right now that Tom Clary is not his real name and if there is a
Tom Clary on the Board of Bar Overseers’ active list this is not him so don’t
get ticked off if you have that name because this is a purely fictionalized use
of a name and everybody should know that from the get-go and know too that all
the facts of the case are real so the poor bugger of a lawyer needed to have an
alias in the worst way).
Zack, kind of a stickler for form like
that, said I just dived into the story like I was sitting in some ill-lighted
barroom sipping my tenth low-shelf scotch, telling some cronies, bar-flies
really, telling anybody who would listen, “war stories” and not the great
unwashed public who would not be familiar with my career, my professional as a
long-time private investigator, private eye, you know a detective for hire by
the hour or day just like in some other professions. Wouldn’t know that I am well-known
as a great advocate of “exposing” this whole cult of the hard-bitten, shoulder
to the wheel, crusader after truth and justice, chaser of windmills, don’t mind
taking a bump or two, a slug or seven in the cause and sex magnet of pulp crime
novel and splashy cinematic private detectives.
Well I hope Zack is satisfied, hope the
reader is satisfied that I now have my credentials in order and that I can tell
a real detective story with the best of them and that at the end of Tom Clary’s
case (as far as it is ever going to end since every time I think it is nailed
down tight some ill-begotten ghost) and that you will have seen for yourselves
why I speak the truth no matter how bitter. See you at the end. Okay
Zack.]
A while back I told you a short story
about this sex-bedazzled attorney from Massachusetts whom I called Tom Clary
who like a lot of guys who have been around for a while was looking for, well
looking for something in all the wrong places. Well maybe it wasn’t so much
about a wrong place as about him. See Tom had wound up “meeting” some young
dishy dame on an Internet sex site who took him “for a ride,” a cyber-ride thus
far since until this very day he has not actually met, real met, her (that’s
the “looking for something” here, sex, okay, as any guy over the age of twelve
might have figured when I mentioned “looking for something” and “all the wrong
places” in the same sentence). As a result of a few false notes, meaning that
he had finally wised up to something a twelve year old guy would have wised up
to after the second e-mail, Tom had actually asked me to help him when he
finally figured out that the dame was nothing but a scam artist, or an
alternative theory that he had was that she was crazy as a loon. Figures for
him as a “theory” so he could defend her even longer. Crazy like a fox more
like it.
Any way you want to cut it she took him
for a ride. I, in the end, or what we thought was the end couldn’t help him
because she had either never came back to America (from the Philippines to be
explained more fully below) or if she had come back had kept a low enough
profile that she had not been arrested. Yeah, it was that kind of dizzy case
that we finally figured was no longer worth pursuing and Tom let the matter drop, although I am sure he
brooded over the damn thing for a while after we gave up the ghost on the
thing. Then she re-surfaced, or rather, e-mailed him with some cock and bull
story about being kidnapped by some desperate political types or crazed dope
dealers, I don’t know all the details of that cock and bull story since I
stopped listening at the kidnap part because no way this cookie was kidnapped
by anybody in their right minds for any purpose whatsoever. Hit over the head
with a gong, yes, kidnap no. So I am wound up on the case to see if I could
find her, see if I could find what rock, what beautiful rock if Tom reads this
I could find her under. But the way don’t worry your head about whether I could
have found her the second time is only prelude since she would re-surface again
like some evil monster out of the Greek calends and who knows someday might
again.
[This is what that stickler Zack James
wanted me to start with like I mentioned above so here it is again just in case
you were too preoccupied or something to get the gist of what I was talking
about the first time.] You know I, I Phil Larkin, Private Investigator (not
that silly detective business that Zack James put in the title of this piece) like
I told you in that first part of what now will be a three- part story have done
plenty of work for lawyers, private lawyers not those public prosecutors who
couldn’t defend a case if they had the gun handed to them two seconds after
some sicko killed his wife because she decided she would rather play with some
hard dick than his stub, over my twenty plus years in the profession. Early on it
was mostly divorce work, what unkind people call key-hole peeping, to get the
goods on some adulterer, male or female what did I care as long as somebody
paid the freight, when the divorce laws were a lot tougher on people trying to
get out from under a bad marriage anyway they could. Lately though mainly
missing persons cases for a whole lot of reasons, a whole lot of reasons why
they went missing. An occasional looking for an heir about to inherit in a will
not trying to go missing. Maybe some investigative work in a criminal case
where a defense attorney has a client with enough dough to buy an alibi. Stuff
like that. Stuff that sounds good, sounds good enough to write about to inform
the public about what is what in real investigative work until you realize to
the average reader it would be their hum-drum lives which they have in their
own ho-hum lives had their fill of.
In what is now the first part of the Internet Love caper though the lawyer,
Tom Clary, working out of Lowell, Jack Kerouac’s old town, Jack the
self-proclaimed “king of the beats” from what I heard, they have a little
memorial park near the old mills near the Merrimack that says that exact thing,
an old mill town that still has seen better days no matter what hype they put
on the publicity charts needed my help to get out from under some silly fraud
thing he had gotten himself into when his “member” (okay, we are all adults,
his cock, his woody, penis whatever) did his thinking for him and not his
brain. And the second twist shaped up to be another version, part two, of that
same bummer from the look of things at the time-the way Tom spent every waking
minute it seemed trying to soft-soap his part in the caper and had also been thinking
about six different ways to finally “meet” her if I am any judge of aging
sex-addled guys. Probably despite the later part three of the caper still is
putting paid to my judgment about aging sex-addled guys.
That first caper was just another
example of how whatever you read in the detective pulp magazines, in the high
gloss hardcover novels that you can barely read through once, can barely follow
they are so full of silly scientific stuff that defies logic and good sense, at
twenty plus bucks a copy, or watch on television or the movies real life private
investigator is absolutely nothing like that-even when sex is involved, or the
dream of sex as here. Usually I lay out the story that I get from my client
(naturally discounted about fifty percent for lies even from lawyers, maybe
especially for lawyers since they go to school for that kind of stuff) and then
tell the good reader how I used my skill and experience to work out the case,
sometimes successfully, sometimes no so good just like in real life.
On Tom Clary’s case though I wanted to
start out with the last e-mail he sent the bimbo to let you know how he let it
get all out of hand in a short time, how he almost lost his ticket, his license
to practice, for that silly cock instead of brain reason. Let you too wonder
whether the days of snail mail were so bad after all when dealing with sex, or
anything important. Here goes:
“Katerina sweetie I will have to pass
on helping you financially with your rent and living expenses problem since I
am, no, we are in some trouble around the previous help I tried to give you paying
for that life insurance premium to cash in on the policy which I will describe
below.
“As you may know, or maybe you don’t
know since you seem kind of naïve or not knowledgeable about a lot of things,
lawyers when they are in trouble or need legal advice will not depend on their
own understandings of the law but seek opinions from other lawyers. You might
have heard the expression about how ‘any lawyer who defends himself has a fool
for a lawyer.’ That is what I am talking about. So lawyers use another lawyer
as their lawyer when they need serious legal advice. So what I am about to tell
you is done under advice from my lawyer who has told me that I have had to do
the following based on my situation.
Since you have not been able to provide
me with receipts, the front page of the insurance policy and a copy of your
mother’s death certificate for that policy you said you were supposed to
collect on and for which I loaned you one thousand dollars in United States
currency via Western Union money transfer to the Philippines I have had to
protect my law practice and myself by having a warrant sworn for your arrest
when, and if, you come back inside the jurisdiction of the United States. I did
this Monday April 4, 2016 with Assistant United States Attorney Emma Wright for
the Federal District Court of New Hampshire in Concord as you told me your home
town and last known address was in Manchester which falls under that court’s
jurisdiction charging you with Internet fraud (18 U.S. Code, section 1030 fraud
using a computer, four counts, the drug bill, the hospital bill, the funeral
expenses and the insurance premium payment) and telecommunications fraud (using Western
Union for the money transfers which is regulated under the Federal Communications
Commission and a violation of 18 U.S. Code, section 1343, five counts, the
previous four on section 1030 plus an additional count on the insurance payment
when I had to re-sent at your request after the first time it “bounced.” I let
the later ‘attempted” frauds slide since we have enough on you with the actual
acts of fraud-you can thank me for that anyway.).
“You can do what you want when you come
back to the United States but you should probably get in touch with Assistant
United Attorney Wright who is handling the case to tell your side of the story,
if any. You should be aware though that the “feds” don’t issue warrants without
some pretty good reason, enough for some judge to rule favorably on going
forward. In your case it was more the number of occasions you allegedly
committed fraud and the ways you did it that gave them enough reason to pursue the
case further. I assume you still will be out of the United States when you
receive this e-mail so if you have trouble at U.S. Customs upon trying to
re-enter the country and are detained then please call meet at 781-247-8236 and
I will contact Attorney Wright and we will come to where you are being detained
and can settle the matter there. Or at least figure out what to do with you.
“All of this is not as terrible as it
sounds and we, you and I, will be able to get out from under this problem if
you are more forthcoming than you have been in the past about the fate of that
insurance premium and the others. Restitution or arrangements for restitution
of the three thousand three hundred dollars I lent you over the four valid
money transfers could settle the matter although not if the “feds” want to make
an example of you. What triggered all of this legal necessity was when I put
the money that I borrowed for you (the one thousand dollars for the funeral
expenses and then the insurance premiums) back into the office funds without
explaining how or why it had been taken out and why it had been returned
without explanation. My accountant informed that what I had done was both
legally wrong and a violation of my legal responsibilities as a professional
lawyer which would trigger an investigation from the Massachusetts Board of Bar
Overseers, the organization that regulates lawyers in this state. My accountant
said I would at least be, no question, in some kind of legal trouble from them.
“Since I acted in good faith with you
and I need to keep my professional standing as a lawyer to earn a living for
some time longer I have had to do the above action to show that I acted in good
faith and that you did not. I have had to “throw you under the wheels of a bus”
to use a current expression. That arranging for a warrant for your arrest will
clear me, hopefully. I am sorry that I had to take this action but since I
don’t really know you and whatever has motivated you through all of this I have
had to think of myself.
“Sweetie I
don’t know if it will do any good, do any damn good at all but I want to
explain why I have had to do what I have had to do whatever your reasons for
not coming clean with me. Want to give you an idea of the bad feeling I get
about this situation whatever I think about you. Hell I don’t half know how
explain it to myself let alone to you but here goes because we are both in
trouble, both sitting under the gallows if you want to be dramatic about it.
Which you are often enough when you want something want something from me and
get all school-girlish and “pretty please” about it which I have learned to
pick up from the tone of your e-mails when you want something. All that “can’t
wait until we can get together” in some distant non-specified futures stuff and
I am supposed to drop everything and jump through hoops for you. Yeah, I bought
into that come hither in the distant future bit for a while until I realized,
remember that e-mail I sent about us going our separate ways and forgetting
whatever was driving us together, you and I were never going to meet. That I
had played the fool for you. Maybe I liked you and maybe you liked me as
cyber-pals and me as the ever ready dough guy but that was it.
“Well, the way things look now which is not what you or I
thought was going to be the future as little as a few weeks ago when you sprang
that whole life insurance business on me and that was going to be your ticket
to a better life, if you get a good break, you'll be out of Danbury in six
years ...and you can come back to me then. I’ll promise to be waiting.
“I hope they don't throw the whole book at you, sweetie, take
all that sweet and innocent face of yours and turn it kind of rough, give you
that prison pallor some of my tougher clients have developed from repeated
incarceration. Have some bull dyke turning you off men, turning you into some
girl toy. Yes, sweetie, I'm going to send you over.
The chances are you'll get off with that six years on concurrent
sentences since you are probably a first-time offender and if not then you had
better have a fast-talking lawyer. If you're a good girl, you'll be out in four
or five years. You’ll be a ripe old thirty-something, the time when women look
their best. If they let me visit you I will come down as often as I can. If not
I'll be waiting for you. If they tact on the sentences for each count
consecutively well then I'll always remember you. But believe me you are taking
the fall, taking the big step-off on this one.
“Now I know you’re going to say that I have been playing with
you, pretending I cared about you, trying to trap and maybe I have a little.
Get this though through your pretty little head-I will not play
the sap, the sucker, the mark, the fall guy for you. You have never played it
square with me once since I “met” you going back to that silly fake sex website
“come on” that brought us together a few months ago. Right now I don’t care who
likes or doesn’t like who I won’t be your fall guy. I will not walk in I don’t
know how many other guy’s footsteps-you probably have been playing this same
foul game since you were about sixteen, since you “graduated” from a high
school that didn’t exist at the time. Jesus I should have dropped you then when
I had that sneaking suspicion that you weren’t on the level if you weren’t on
the level about your freaking high school. A freaking throw-way thing like that
which you didn’t have to fake. You played me for a sucker and you are going
over for it.
“Ah, hell, why am I wasting my time trying to explain what you
didn’t given a damn about anyway once the money dried up. I know this won’t do
any good, any more than trying to explain what was happening to me and my
health and other concerns in those six million e-mails you purposely always
took what you want from, what served your evil purposes. You’ll never
understand me but I’ll try once and then give it up.
“When a man seeks a woman, no matter how, where, or why they met
and she knives him in the back for no good reason, for nothing other than her
own whims and pleasures he is supposed to do something. That goes double for
lawyers because we are supposed to be wise to the ways of the world, supposed
to automatically discount fifty percent of what we hear and see. Even from
friends and family, yeah, maybe especially then. It makes no difference what
you think of yourself, or what others think of you. You have to do something to
get that rock off your back, that rock that will crash your career, leave you
in the office alone and desolate doing cross-word puzzles and drinking low-rent
gin from a desk bottom drawer. Like I
say especially lawyers who have to appear pure and simple. When a lawyer, any
lawyer not just me, gets stabbed in the back by a piece of fluff he has to do
something about that. It’s bad business frankly to let the dame get away with
it, bad for the lawyer, bad for the profession.
“I know you are going to say that is not enough of a reason to
send you over. Get this through that pretty head though. I have no earthy
reason to think I can trust you. If I forget this, forget that you played me
more than a couple of times, and let you get away with it, you’ll have
something on me that you can use whenever you want. Since I have this massive
amount of material on you I couldn’t ever be sure you wouldn’t cook something
else up again in that evil mind of yours. Maybe have somebody put me out of the
way, one of those of courier, bagman, “mule,” “cousins” of yours you kept
trying to have me sent dough to you through for some ill-spoken reason, if I
know you. Find myself in some funny dark corner somewhere. Hey, I am a lawyer
so let’s put all those things on one side like I do when I am trying to argue a
case. Okay maybe some of them are not important, I won’t argue that. But look
at the number. What have we got on the
other side? Maybe you like me, and maybe I like you. You’ll say maybe I do know
if I do like you and maybe I do. Sure I will have some sleepless nights about
what I have done after I sent you over but that will pass. Believe me that will
pass.
“If all I have said doesn’t mean anything to you then forget it
and let us make it just this: I won’t, because all of me wants to regardless of
consequences … and you counted on that….the same as you have probably counted
on that with all the others you have deceived. Don’t be so sure I am as addled
as I am supposed to be, acting kind of cock-simple, but such an aura helps in bringing
in clients, dough and making it easier to deal with opponents. But me having
more dough, especially the last bonanza Washington case I told you about can be
just added to the wrong side of the equation. And that is that. So long sweetie
and good luck.”
Jesus, you can imagine my snicker when
I saw this little tidbit. Saw he was under the influence of Bogie as Sam Spade
to Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon
including a few straight rip-off lines. This fluff of Tom’s would have Mary
Astor for lunch and have time for a swim after. What Attorney Clary, who I had
worked for before on a couple of missing persons cases that went nowhere (that
nowhere the result of the clients running out of dough, interest, or reason to
pursue the person further) needed as much background information on the bimbo
as I could find since he, as we shall see, in his love bug state neglected to
find out much about her except a few saucy and raw nude photographs (like I
said cock over brains). He knew my work, knew I could help him out-on the quiet.
But I needed the story-the whole story minus the fifty percent bullshit I
expected from lawyers and everybody else if I was to help get him out from
under his rock in one piece. Needed to find out why a guy who was just horny
which a lot of guys are, me included, had to send an e-mail telling some honey
she could wind up in the federal slammer as some bull-dyke’s girlfriend for
cooking up some two-bit scheme to defraud a love-addled attorney. To make him
look less stupid over some young sweet fluff than he really was if you wanted
to know the truth.
So he gave me this run-down before
giving me my marching orders and what little information he knew about
Katerina.
Tom Clary like a lot of fifty something
guys, me too, had been unlucky in love, had had three marriages ending in three
divorces and plenty of alimony and child support checks (me, two marriages, two
divorces and ditto on the checks), had given up on love as a no-win investment.
Had girlfriends and live-ins for various periods once he figured out that it
was cheaper that way than marrying them like some Podunk Catholic schoolboy.
However of late, the last couple of live-ins according to what Tom told me that
night at Jimmy’s Tavern on Merrimac Street where we sipped a couple while he
was telling his story had been “no-go” on the sex issue. Nice to be with but
had had it with sex and its discomforts (and pleasures he added). So he started,
as he had done periodically in the past, looking at the sex sites to see if he
could find a sex partner. And not any old sex partner but, as he said if he was
going to go to the time and expense of joining one of those sites, a younger
woman to make him feel young again. Not a bad idea if you can keep it
up.
Now this sex site thing with its million
fake “come hither” “come ons” and women ready to jump into bed with you at the
click of an icon is tricky, is mainly stuff to lure guys with some kind of
unspoken loneliness and sadness into buying all kinds of stuff but mostly
dreams and cash drain for no action. I had looked at them at one point myself
after my last divorce and kind of joined one site for “free” which meant
nothing since any “action” required a buy-in to some credit card plan for X
amount of months. I was saved from knowing a lot more about this racket by a
thirty-something blonde gal who came into my office looking for help to find
her missing teenage daughter who had run off with some carny grifter and she
didn’t mind spending a “little money” trying to find the daughter. When the
little money she really did have ran out
she persuaded me to continue for a little while longer with a barter offer I
couldn’t refuse. Eventually, while she was a wild one in the sack and worth the
barter, that trade-off didn’t get the daughter back, and I never did find her,
but that romp with the worried mother solved my immediate sex problem and so I
never had to get deeper into the sex site
racket.
Tom did, did get onto one of those
well-known sites where everybody is married (at least they say they are as Tom
did and I suppose you could say with three marriages he was married, if not
currently) and just on the site to have a fling or short affair. No foul, no
harm. He didn’t have much luck to begin with until he scrolled onto a profile
(this site stuff is all about profiles and half a million lies connected with
the profiles some for good reason on anonymous sites, some just pure bullshit)
without a photograph (a sure sign that whoever is not up to showing herself in
a photograph is some kind of Methuselah at best). But her “come on,” Katerina’s
come on was that you could contact her directly by figuring out her email
address which was in her greeting (it wasn’t hard and as Tom found out and I
could have told him that ruse is used by rival sex sites or “independent” sex
workers to either lure business to their sites or connect with guys for paid
sex-all this stuff where I say guys goes for gals too if they are looking for
sex okay).
So he did and Katerina responded
quickly. They did the usual asking this and that question including her telling
him she was a cam model ( a sex worker on video who does whatever the viewer
asks for sexually-for a price is the best way I can put it-one of the wonders
of the Internet). This is when she asked him to go to another sex site and this
is how he learned first-hand about the raiding of sex sites by rivals. Except
that the front of this sex site was so amateurish that even horny Tom could see
it was a scam (most sex sites even if they don’t deliver real sex or sex dreams
at least are “legitimate” sites and not total credit card or identity theft
rip-offs whatever their sexual dream shortcomings or ethics if for no other
reason than to stay in business and keep those credit payments rolling in when
people don’t opt out which is in small print on the application page-nice
rip-off right). That should have tipped him off-and it did for a while. Did
until a few days later (after he had blown Katerina off as a stooge for some
nefarious sex fraud bandits) she asked where he had been. That started another
“conversation” which was actually progressing, Tom said, to the stage of
meeting. (Meeting at a hotel somewhere outside of Nashua, New Hampshire since
he was from Lowell and she was from Nashua.) Then the axe fell.
Katerina from that point to the point
of that e-mail I showed you that Tom showed me which got his wise finally (I
think, you never know with guys who have the “rut” on) ran her “script” pretty
straightforwardly and intensely. This is the play. She had received word from a
cousin that her mother in the Philippines was sick and because she was poor
(although naturally good-hearted whore Katerina was sending dough along to help
out) the mother couldn’t afford the medicines necessary to save her. (This gag
as smart as Tom is as a lawyer has been pulled a million times-although not
always with the mother dying in the Philippines.) She pretty please asked Tom
to “lend” her five hundred dollars U.S. to help out until next pay-day when
Katerina would pay him back (that one has been played a billion times including
in the Philippines). This of course while they were making “arrangements” for
their assignation. So Tom bit. Sent the dough to the cousin via Western Union
(a money transfer that he had never done before which was interesting-the first
time). Done, and he figured that he was on the way to great blow-jobs and
whatever she had in her bag of sexual tricks.
The day before the big assignation
(remember that five hundred smackers was already sent along) Katerina e-mailed
that the cousin had informed her that her mother had died. RIP. The next thing
he knew, the next time he heard from her Katerina was on an airplane heading
for the Philippines to give her mother a final send-off (and Tom was holding
his sore cock, sore since he had taken some sex aid medication as a prelude to
that big “date”). Told Tom not to worry she would grease his skids when she got
back after the funeral.
End of story-right. Wrong. A few days
later Katerina send an e-mail about how she could not claim her mother’s body
until the hospital where she had been treated and had expired at was paid for
its services. The bill-eight hundred dollars. Could Tom “pretty please” sent
the dough to get her mother out of the deep freeze and into the ground. I am
just giving you the highlights here there was more to it but the reader can get
the drift. The drift here being another Western Union money transfer to her in
her name for eight big ones. (That money transfer process not so interesting
this time.)
Now end of story-right. No, still
wrong. Of course the mother needed a funeral and there was no money to do so.
Again a lot of back and forth and promises that this was the last hit (and subtly
mixed in promises by her about all she would do for him when she got back to
America) but in the end he did the Western Union money transfer (a total bummer
as to process this time but he was horny, he was love-bugged even though he had
never actually talked to her on the phone or seen more than some nice, and some
raw, photographs of her sent via e-mail) for, ouch, twelve hundred
smackeroos. Hell if it was that easy I would have liked to have gotten on Tom’s
gravy train myself.
Now finished. Well not quite because
she put the bite on him for a thousand bucks to pay some insurance premiums
that the mother had not paid and were overdue on a fifty-thousand dollar life
insurance policy that all of a sudden after the funeral had surfaced and which
would have left Katerina and her brother on “easy street” for a while anyway.
Except Tom as a lawyer who knew about life insurance policies and the fact that
those cold-hearted bastard insurance companies don’t like to pay out penny one
if they don’t have to knew something was wrong about this set-up if not exactly
what (to speak nothing of how all of a sudden a daughter who was living in the
mother’s old apartment “found” the policy which would have taken care of
everything Tom already paid for if it had been “discovered” earlier). Hence the
stinging e-mail and hence my employment.
Hence too after checking out that the
address Katerina had given him in Nashua and found it was bogus and few other
facts that surfaced as I looked into matters that I was not able to produce
much about her. In any case by the end of round one she had not surfaced in
America or if she had she has not come forward to clear her name-and probably
never will. So like I said forget about those smart lawyers on television and
in the bookstores and remember Tom Clary’s saga-that’s your average lawyer,
very average.
Here’s
part two which Zack James has called A
Con Artist Conned-With Katrina, The Girl With The Sparkling Eyes, In Mind but
I just call cock where the brain should be-finally. Since Zack James the “king
of the sticklers” bitched and moaned about not introducing myself properly when
I told you guys the first part of Attorney Tom Clary’s case I am repeating it
here for “literary effect” as they say. Here goes:
Hey,
Phil Larkin, P.I. private eye to you here to give you the low-done, oops low-down,
pardon me for being a little cynical but that must have been a Freudian slip as
they say, on my lawyer friend , Tom Clary, (and a guy whom I have worked for on
a contract basis for several years in the interest of full disclosure
investigating people’s troubles for him in order to get a little rough justice
in this wicked old world as he likes to put it on his more liberal and
expansive days), who has as usual let himself get in way over his head with a
dame, a young dame to boot, who has been leading him by the nose (or another
more private part if you ask me) for a few months now.
Usually
I like to make some commentary about the cases I am trying to tell you about,
to set you straight about what real cases in the private detection business are
about not that tripe, hell, that crap you get on television or the movies, get
in lurid half-dressed babe covered crime
novels. This time I will just let Tom bask in his glory, his maybe glory, since apparently this time, this “one last
time” as the dame, Katrina, has said right along every time she put the bite on
him he has finally got everything right-right for now anyway. This is the way
he told me the story one night at Nick’s on Merrimack Street in Lowell where he
has his one-man law office in the seen better days Orley Building when we were
discussing the details of another case (a missing person’s case where the wife
was looking for the left suddenly husband for alimony and child support whom I
never found at least under that name and social security number. That is the
way of such cases. Usually a client could save his or her money by filing a
“missing person’s report” with the public cops and be done with it for all the
good getting a private detective to do the work since people who seriously go
missing, go for a reason, and go deep down in the crevices). If I have
something to say, or the narrative needs a little explanation I will put what I
have to say in brackets. Hey Tom, good luck brother-and forget about anymore “one
last time” with this one, with this Katrina fox:
[If
you can believe this, although maybe today with all the social media, social
networking I think they call it, maybe it isn’t so unbelievable, Tom and this
Katrina have never met in the flesh. Have not for reasons that shall not detain
us here even talked on the cellphone. All of their communications has been
through a few hundred more or less short and almost business-like e-mails. So
what Tom was telling over drinks that night at Nick’s was about the details of
an e-mail that he had sent her after she had sent him yet another “request” for
dough, for money, this time to get her out of a hospital, Saint Tomas’ in
Manila, that’s in the Philippines. [The same hospital that he had “lent” this
frail to get her mother out of deep freeze and into the ground earlier in their
“relationship.” He had read the dispatch to her composed on his word processor
on his computer that he had brought with him so he could do some work at
home.]
“Sweetie-
some days it is great to be a lawyer, to actual help somebody, to help a damsel
in distress, you okay, and today is one of them. Yeah, to actually help
somebody without having to crush somebody else which is the usual case in our
adversarial legal system where in court one side wins and the other side loses
most of the time. Most days are like
that, dog eat dog, not at all like they tried to play with your head with in
law school about justice being blind and everybody is equal under the law.
“And
it is not just the court system that is screwed up but I remember back when I
was doing more criminal cases starting out like a lot of young hungry lawyers
looking to get a start in the business and some guy, usually they were guys,
was in court on a drug charge, maybe trafficking, maybe possession of too much
dope to not be prosecuted like for kilos or something who would get up on the
stand and act all innocent (like I told him to do) and then the prosecutor
starts talking about a couple of prior convictions for the same offenses that
had been “continued without a finding” (meaning they would go away if the guy
kept his nose, literally his nose in cocaine cases, clean for a period long
enough to say he was rehabilitated). Of course he never told me that little
piece of information when I had asked him about ‘priors’ so naturally I looked
like a fool when I went to the bench and asked for some kind of plea bargain
rather than the “not guilty” I was looking for. Or the time a guy in all
honesty (he was a little simple-minded but not as much as he pretended) thought
he had some kind of constitutional right to have a pistol in his hand when he
displayed it in a 7/11 store in Dracut and the clerk, scared out of her mind,
though it was an armed robbery as she handed over the money. It was, the guy
had about six “priors,” for various armed and unarmed robberies. Had a million cases like that.
“Hell
later the civil case clients would still goof with me sometimes like when I did
a few divorce cases before I gave that up as too scary once I realized that I
would rather defend the low-rent criminals who at least were half honest when
they would lie, male or female it didn’t matter, about why they wanted a
divorce. Worse when it came to dividing up the property. Christ they fought
tooth and nail over a television set or some foolish piece of furniture. I
won’t even go into the “civil wars” when there were lawsuits between two
unrelated parties about ownership of land, or chattels. Worse when there were
personal injury cases (although “win or lose” I made good money on those cases
I will admit) and one party would almost ask the judge for the death penalty
beside money damages in the case for some car dent or whiplash back deal.
Jesus.
“You
will appreciate this one. I have to chuckle every time I think about Harry’s
case, or rather cases. Harry was from up your way, up in Bedford if I recall,
who had a small printing business in Lowell over on Merrimack Street by the
river in the Taylor Building (now converted to condos at some outrageous price
just because they had a river view but they were poorly constructed and I
wouldn’t live in one if you paid me). He was always coming to me to “negotiate”
with some customer who was not paying his or her bills. One time a big
customer, an independent book publisher, got behind on his payments, had as it
turned out made a bunch of bad decisions about what books would sell in the
consumers’ market, and got so far behind in his bills that Harry took him to
court, rightfully so. When Harry got up on the stand to say his piece he, on
his own, started talking about putting the poor guy in now non-existent
debtor’s prison like something out of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations which you probably read in school. Like Harry had never heard of bankruptcy laws
(that the guy finally had to go to which was sad in a way because he had in his
younger days published some very good if not exactly best-seller books which is
always worthwhile). When I asked you about your situation in the hospital and
whether you could leave or were being held before you explained everything to
my satisfaction I thought of you as a Harry’s case for real.
[I
remember Harry, Harry Argos, a good guy but had been as an immigrant too
trusting of what he had heard told to him in those classes he took to become a
citizen and so thought justice was on the side of the little guy. Got all riled
up when some “native” tried to pull the wool over his eyes and so wound up in
Tim’s office half the time for no reason that any court of law could, or would,
do anything about.]
“You
know even this big deal case from Washington I am working on now that I keep
telling you I am busy on is a “one side wins, the other side loses” situation
(except me because I am getting paid, paid a lot, or I should say I shall get
paid a lot since I am working by the hour on the thing and so not dependent on
winning like in some cases I have had, some cases when I put a lot of time in
and got nothing for it when the client lost). It is about land, or really land
use which people come to me about since I won a case a while back, a big case
in Massachusetts, on appeal about who owned the land. Not a big case like the
U.S. Supreme Court case in Miranda, the
give you your rights case, or Lawrence,
the gay civil rights case, but a big land use case that lawyers still refer to
when they have what are called “adverse possession” cases. What that means in
laymen’s terms is that one guy used land for a long time, over twenty years,
thinking it was his but on the land deed it was really another guy’s. That
other guy showed no proof of active ownership so the first guy got possession.
What was important to the first guy, my guy, was that he have that land to sell
because a huge condo developer wanted the land but only if he could have all of
it undisputed. That is what the D.C. case is all about but the land use size is
much bigger, the developer wants to put 160 condos/townhouses up but needs a
disputed strip for a street between sections. Without that-no go.
“But
enough of these law court ‘war stories’ let’s get to why you should be happy
that I feel good to be a lawyer today. [I agree-why the hell is he telling some
bimbo who could care less except maybe for the dollar signs lure that might be
brought in about these old and new cases. Like she gave a fuck except for her
own capers, her own screwball antics.] Last night I was talking to my
accountant about your situation, about the blizzard of e-mails we had sent back
and forth earlier in the day in order to made a plan to move forward and get
you out of ‘jail,’ about what had been happening to you over the past couple of
weeks since you paid off that late insurance premium on your mother’s life
insurance policy. See I need his authorization from the law office accounts,
especially for a large sum like $2100. I have been keeping him ‘out of the loop’
on those bank transfer things that didn’t work because they were being drawn
off my credit cards which he doesn’t have control over (meaning he doesn’t have
to authorize use although he does need the monthly statements for tax purposes,
Christ, he always as you know wants some damn receipt for every little thing).
[Of
course this whole “imaginary’ conversation with his accountant, with Sal
Manning, who really has kept Tim out of more trouble with more authorities than
you can shake a stick at, and that is exactly what it was, had been nothing but
a lie. A lie for a lie. See Tim had finally figured out that Katrina, if that
was even her real name, had been “scamming” him, had been leading him on a
classic scam build-up which at this point involved the idea that Tim was
supposed to send dough, a couple of thousand dollars, United States Dollars, to
her bank in the Philippine, the Banco de Oro, BOD, to get her out of the
hospital she had entered the night before she was supposed to go to an
insurance company, Sun Life, and collect about fifty thousand dollars from a
life insurance policy her recently deceased mother had left for her and her
brother. Tim by the way had paid the “late” premium on that policy otherwise
the policy would have lapsed. As I tell you these details you can see what our
Katrina was all about and why I said that nasty remark about Tim being led by
something more than his nose. The deal she was putting was down at that point
was that she needed dough to pay the hospital bills, and her back rent. That
hospital part was the key-supposedly she couldn’t leave the hospital until she
paid her bill and so couldn’t get to the insurance company to pick up that
sweet fifty thousand-in cash. She needed “babe,” her term of endearment for
him, to “one last time” help her out. And Jesus he was still ready to.]
“By
the way when I told him [Sal Manning, the accountant] about the failed bank
transfers from my bank, Bank of America (hereafter B of A), to your bank, Banco
de Or, especially from Xoom which he uses all the time and likes and which you
said you were not in favor of using he had the problem solved in a jiffy. That
paperwork BOD (Banco de Oro) wanted you to sign was because you had a savings
account and not a checking account. According to him there was no way Xoom or
Bank of America (I mean B of A) could transfer money from my bank account to
yours because you didn’t have a routing number. So what that local branch of
BOD (Banco de Ora, okay) would have wanted from you if you could have contacted
them was to sign off on paperwork to allow international bank transfers into
your savings account. That was all.
[This,
again for the gullible or easily misled, was all a lie as mentioned in the previous
brackets. Never let it be said that once Tim got on his own high horse that he
could lie with the best of them, tell a tale as good as he received. Hell he
was born on the hard-edged working class section of Riverdale about twenty
miles away from Lowell so he was no stranger to the “lie,” the non-professional
lie once he saw the light. He did say that night at Nick’s that he had gotten
“rusty,” had not seen the tell-tale signs of the scam. I already made my
statement about why that was, what he was being led by.]
“But
that wasn’t the reason he, my accountant, called me, although while I had him
the line I told him about your situation. You know about you being in the
hospital for stomach ulcers since you had not been eating, or had been fasting
for some reason, I don’t remember off-hand which it was, the former I think,
but basically not taking care of yourself because you had no dough to live on
until you cashed in on the $50,000 (sorry I don’t know how many pesos, Philippine
pesos that was, about 2,000,000 if I remember the conversion rate correctly)
insurance policy we had paid the premium on. That you had gone to the hospital,
taken I think by your brother and two cousins, Rufus, no, Ricky, and Jonathan
the night before you were supposed to get the big insurance pay-out you were
entitled too. Damn getting sick just when you were going to get financially
well. (Did you ever tell me your brother’s name I know he is a student and is
about seventeen, right?). They had taken you to the same hospital, Saint Tomas,
where your mother had been taken to before she passed away and which we had had
to buy off for $800 USD (United States dollars, 35,000 pesos right) in medical
bills before they would let you give her a proper burial.
“My
accountant asked about which wing of the hospital you were being held at, the
low-rent charity ward or the “plush suites,” his terms since he knew the
hospital from trips to Manila on business, and I told him because we had pieced
off the place in your mother’s case with
that 800 clams (35,000 peso clams) before they let you be treated with the
Mayfair swells, you know the upper crust, in the nicer section (his saying
“being held at” like you were a prisoner which is as you know I thought until
just yesterday when you straightened me out and so I did the same for him about
your wanting to do everything by the book, legally).
“Like
I said the real reason my accountant called was because he had received an
e-mail by some parish priest from that Quinpo (sorry if I misspelt it) church
your mother belonged to thanking me for sending the five years Mass Card who
although not familiar with your mother’s name, didn’t know her from Adam or Eve
from what my accountant said, was pleased that I had thought of her, one of
God’s children, and that of course on
her death anniversary day they would do their duty to her by saying a Mass in
her name. (I gave February 27th as her death date since that was the
day you left I think and if that is not right then that will still count for
her as her remembrance time anyway.) Of course you know I only did that out of
respect for you (and indirectly your brother whose name I don’t know, is it
Angel, maybe you did tell me). I have mentioned my feelings as an old-time
sinner myself about the Church before and I don’t want to get started on that
because that is not what this message to you is about. About great news not
ancient Catholic childhood mental wounds that have never properly healed. But
just be aware that as for your mother somebody is looking out for her when you
are away elsewhere.
[Again
why the big build up, why would she give a fuck about his traumatic rigid and
distorting Catholic that she, we, had suffered through.]
“Of
course since I have known my accountant for a long time and except when he goes
crazy over receipts and invoices he and I get along, and he has after all kept
me out of trouble, out of serious trouble anyway, he felt free to make his
usual “pussy-whipped” comment after I told him about your sad ass tale and your
various post insurance premium- related capers. You remember I hope that e-mail
I sent you one time about his comment about “thinking with cock, not my brain,”
in dealing with you once he saw how pretty you were and how nice too. Here is a
copy just in case you forgot what with your other worries and stuff:
“Hi Sweetie-hope things are going
well with you-thanks for the revealing photos of you. They certainly had my
woodie getting hard just thinking about those beautiful tits of yours (“Woodie”
that’s your word for cock right-I remember you calling it that once time when
we were talking before you left for the Philippines). Of course I would have to
have a closer inspection, a much closer inspection in order to confirm how nice
they are.
[Now you finally in detail get what I
am talking about in this “relationship” between an older man and a younger
woman-right. Forget all the “business’ stuff this is the hard-core truth coming
out. The stuff that should half make you think Tim, however innocent, deserved
all he got from this vixen. I told him so many times so I am not telling and
tales out of school.]
“Now that the business stuff is over
let me tell you a story about why I was asking for revealing photos of you.
During this last insurance premium go-round my accountant said I was thinking
with “my cock and not my brain” in dealing with you what with all the zigzags
we went through. He didn’t exactly put
it that way but you know how guys talk about good-looking women and their desire
for them what he meant was that I was
pussy-whipped, “cyber-pussy-whipped” by you because every little request by you
for anything and I was calling him up day and night to see if it could be done
without getting into trouble. That got me to thinking back to the previous
photos that you had sent me of you before you went away. I was thinking that if
I was pussy-whipped (which you and I know I am not but rather just trying to
help a damsel in distress and will in the future too if necessary and we will
work out some kind of thing that will be okay for both of us so we are on the
same page) then I might as well have a look at the pussy I am being whipped by.
Sometime when you get a chance I would not mind a little photo like that. This
would be just between us but I would be able to laugh every time he [Sam
Manning] went on and on about stuff like that. You could do that for me sweetie
I hope.
“As usual when I have gone to
Washington I always get behind and so I have been working today to get caught
up on an interesting case I will tell you about sometime. I also jogged this
morning before the rain started here. If you can believe this and this is no
April Fools’ joke tomorrow and the day after (Sunday and Monday here) it is
supposed to snow-not much but what the heck it is April. I am also finishing up
an interesting novel by Ernest Hemingway-do you know who he is-or remember
reading anything by him in high school-about Paris in the 1920s during the Jazz
Age. I would like to go Paris this year in the fall so I am reading stuff like
that to get motivated to go –Of course Paris is a place you don’t want to go
alone if you know what I mean.
“I often think about what you are
reading about, what you are doing over there while you are waiting for your
fortunes to change. Tell me some stuff like that, what kind of food do they
have there, did you go any place of interest. You know stuff like that so we
can “reconnect.”
“I have learned the basics of sexting
(oops) texting but it takes me a long time to put a message together. I haven’t
got all the symbols and shorthand down. As you can tell it is much easier (and
faster) for me to write a bunch of stuff in an e-mail-Let me hear from you and
what you are up to and remember I will continue to be your amigo as things go
forward-Later.”
Then I sent you another e-mail which went like
this:
“Hi
sweetie- thanks for note- I sent you a note about sending your photos to g-mail
address but that can wait until you have a phone-Will you have a phone before
you leave the Philippines or wait until you get back to America. I sure
would like to have a voice to put with that lovely face. I hope you don't
mind me being a little sexy with you- all I know is that “woodie” was pretty
hard when I saw those photos-kind of got hard just like that but I am sure you
know that would happen when I saw them and I hope you are glad about it-I don't
think you do mind about the little sexy stuff but everything I say is just
between us.
[Need I say more.]
“As far as my accountant goes if he had
seen those photos of you and the ones you sent before he would have the
same reaction I did. Then who would be cyber-pussy-whipped. He's a good guy and
like I said he has kept me out of trouble for a while and so that is good but
he would never understand why I like a nice younger woman like you
and have gone out of my way to help you even though we haven't met in
person. But accountants are like that-never take a risk because it
might throw their balance sheets off. You know the only sheets I am
worrying about taking off-I hope.
“It is funny when you say you would never let
me down because all through this business stuff whatever was going on
I think in the back of my mind I had a feeling you would not, you just seemed
to be that way. Maybe it was our both growing up kind of poor, kind
of from the wrong side of the tracks as they say that made me feel that
way. We can take about that some other time but we should talk about it.
“You know you might know that guy Hemingway
although not his name did you ever read about a story called the Old Man and the Sea where this old-time
Cuban fisherman is out by himself and sees a huge fish that will put him
on easy street if he can catch it and bring it back to port and sell
it. He catches the fish but along the way back to port about seven things
happen and when he gets to port there is nothing to sell, the fish is
nothing but bones. So much for easy street…”
You had such a great response-remember. If not
here’s the way that went:
“Hello babe thank you so much
again I’m glad you like my photos! I know Woodie will like it too xoxoxo! Don't
mind your accountant once we meet in person we will both show him and laugh in
him for calling you that way! I know you're not that kind of guy he's just
bitter because you will be with a fine lady and he won't! I appreciated all
your good deeds for me babe and I promise I will never let you down! Speaking
of down I can show you my down stairs of course but right after I get a phone
with camera xoxo! Lol really? No I don't know that person but I love to read
what you been writing! We will both go to the place I wanted so much and see
the still constructing church together!! I've been reading a lot of space
lately just bunch of random facts about universe and galaxy! I have never been
to any nice place here since I don’t have money yet I have been eating more of
Philippine foods and I kind of like it its call tinolang manok and pork sisig!
Lol I’m glad you learning how to text if you can you can shoot me one sometimes
and I will reply back! I only have less than $10 to survive the week and I hope
I can get the money by this coming week or next week once I do I will let you
know and will keeping you update of my comeback! I miss talking stuff like this
with you!”
Remember too how my accountant
went crazy looking for that Sun Life insurance premium invoice or there was
going to be hell for me to pay (and you bailed me out by sending the copy which
was hard for you do to do when you were hospital and which I haven’t forgotten
about, believe me I haven’t forgotten). Here’s a refresher:
“Desperate situation-HELP
Sweetie this is why the situation is
desperate and I need your help. I, you maybe, we, are in trouble about that
money I loaned you out of my pocket to pay your insurance premium of $1000 or
whatever it was. I told my accountant who handles both the law office and my
personal financial accounts about my sending you the WU money transfer and when
I told him I had lent you from my pocket (what he called “behind his back”) he
flipped out-again. Said didn’t I realize that lending the dough for the
insurance premiums on top of paying the medical bills and funeral expenses made
it look like I had an interest in the insurance money. Make it look like I was
in with you on the insurance deal since I am the guy who sent the WU money
transfers. In any case lawyers involved with client’s (that was the way the
previous medical and funeral expenses went on the books in the law office ) is
a big no-no-not legal, not ethical and he will be forced to report that to the
Massachusetts Board Of Bar Overseers-the people who make sure lawyers don’t do
stuff like that. Where you could be in trouble is that you knew I was a lawyer,
knew the money for the medical expenses and funeral expenses and that first
time I tried to send you the insurance money where I made a mistake on the
name-remember was coming from a lawyer.
“He is not going to lose HIS job or
get in trouble with the CPA (Certified Public Accountants) guys who license him
so I need to get that damn insurance receipt and fast to show that I just
loaned you the money to help you out. Otherwise he will be forced to turn his
information over to the Bar Overseers and who knows what will happen. They do
not like and there are plenty of cases about it seeing lawyers even looking
like they are benefitting from third-party (you) insurance claim. I need to
keep my license clean in order to practice law (and help you in the future when
you get back to America and your nursing career or whatever else you want to
do.
“So sweetie can you please, please,
please find another computer place there must be more than one in Manila to
scan that receipt and send it quickly-very quickly. You can do that sweetie
right-I have stood by you and done the best I could by you but now, right now,
I need you to help me out.
“After that is done, after we can
show that the insurance premium money was just a personal loan, then everything
will look right and I can help you with the other stuff like the rent and all
and it will just be personal and all right. You can do that for me sweetie-yes.
After we get this behind us then I will help you to the best of my ability. “And
you know that’s true because I have a track record of helping you that you can
depend on.
“Right now though nothing else
matters but that receipt so let’s get to that. My lawyer said I shouldn’t even
be communicating with you except to ask for the receipt but I felt I had to
tell what I was up against so you would know how serious the situation is. I
will abide by what he says though-no communication- until I get that receipt- I
will be glad when this is behind us-su amigo” [Jesus.]
All of this rehashing of e-mails has
a purpose though, a purpose that will make you realize what a good guy my
accountant really is, how much you and I owe him, and why I am happy to be a
lawyer today. I mentioned to my accountant as we were talking last night that
because you were, in effect, under house arrest you couldn’t leave the hospital
under penalty of arrest and incarceration in a real slammer (jail) and so
couldn’t get to your bank to take care of that international money transfer
issue that I mentioned above that he had solved for us by cluing us in about
what BOD (Banco de Oro) wanted from you. Also that your relationship with Sun Life
was thwarted when you got sick the night before you were to complete the deal
and couldn’t get over to their offices to get your hands on what I then thought
before you straightened me out otherwise was an insurance check you could
deposit in your BOD (Banco de Oro) savings account. After you had told me that
Sun Life only deals in cash pay-outs on insurance policies, even large ones
like $50,000 USD (United States dollars and about 2,000, 000 Philippine pesos)
I told him the same thing,
Told him that was why you couldn’t
draw the dough out since you had to go there in person. That because you were
in gaol (jail) you needed my help for one last time to pay off your jailers
(they really are when you think about it since you, trying to act legally,
can’t leave except under severe penalty). Needed me to sent you $2100 USD
(United States dollars, around 9000 or 10,000 pesos right?) via Moneygram in care of your cousin Rickey,
no, Jonathan, Jonathan Mateo because Rickey had either lost his driver’s
license or had failed to renew it (that’s right isn’t it, lost it for speeding
or something-did he, Ricky, ever get it back).
That’s when my accountant “flipped”
out but also when he came back to earth and “saved” us. He told me and I quote,
“ What are you crazy, didn’t you know that Moneygram
had been involved in settling a big
fraud claims case a few months ago where they had let scammers use their site
for illegal actions?” I said no, and that I wasn’t until recently in dealing
with you up to speed on all this electronic money transfer stuff. He answered,
“I wouldn’t use Moneygram in a million years.” Period.
When he settled down, after I asked
him, pretty please, asked him how was I to help you if that avenue was closed
off, he, once again, came up with the solution. Here is where it is good to
know a few people in key places. See, as you might expect of a business
accountant who works for lawyers, he deals with insurance companies all the
time, so he knows, Sam Larkin, the Vice-President for International Affairs at
Sun Life in America, which Sun Life in the Philippines is a subsidiary of. My
accountant called Sam this morning and told him my/your/our story. No problem.
Sam has ordered an agent in the Philippines, Tomas Ramos, to go to you at Saint
Tomas Monday or any day you want if
Monday is no good and on giving him your insurance policy and premium invoice
do whatever you need done. If you want cash or a check, done. He will arrange
it. Sam suggested a check because $50, 000 USD (United States dollars, or what did
I say before a couple of million Philippines pesos) is a lot of money to be
carrying around the Philippines these days and he is right I think from what
you have said about not going out at night or just being around that dangerous
drug-infested neighborhood you live in with the batos locos hanging out right
on that street you live on doing their dirty deeds just like in Manchester [the
town that when Tim and Katrina first “met” on a sex site Katrina claimed she
lived in ] or Lowell. Damn. If you need a ride to your bank, done. Anything you
need to get you right just tell me what day and what time you want Tomas Ramos to
come and take care of business I will call Tomas direct and it is done.
[Remember please that all the above
is all bullshit, all set up to eventually “catch” Katrina out, or if necessary
bring some kindof legal action against her knowing Tim’s wont in such matters.
More likely if Katrina ever comes back to America, and that is iffy, I will be
“contracted” to find her and bring her to “justice.” The less said about that
possibility right now in theory the better.]
So you can see why I like being a
lawyer today. You win, I win, Angel (I think that is his name now that I think
about it) wins, Jonathan and Ricky win.
My accountant, a good guy right, wins. Great news-right.
[You now know why Tom is “on a
mission,” or will be once I explain that Katrina told Tom that it was
“impossible” for her to meet with Tomas Ramos, the representative from Sun Life
in the Philippines that Sam Manning had arranged to meet Katrina in the
hospital, no fuss, no muss because the hospital would not “let him in” where
she was being held pending payment of her mounting hospital bills, brought on
not by continuing care for whatever condition, unknown and never revealed to Tom,
but in Catch-22 fashion be her inability to pay. That refusal, a “last straw”
for Tom, since no hospital is going to refuse to let an agent in who is going
to bring dough to pay them off if nothing else prompted another “lie” feast by
him to finally “blow her off” pending whatever else legally or via my
investigative prowess he might deem appropriate.]
Sweetie-I hate to write a note like
this but I am really up against it, or could be. I hate to ask for money from
anybody since I usually have my own resources but like I said in my last e-mail
I am in immediate trouble. I particularly hate to ask girls for money but I
figure that we are beyond that, you are my best friend of late and I hope I am
yours so it is okay. I know you would never let me down if you could help it
and you already know I have not let you down when the deal when down. Another
reason I don’t like asking you for money is because I don’t want you to get the
idea that I am just hanging around you because you have that $50, 000 USD
(United States Dollars, okay, which is what, about two million Philippine
pesos, right) just sitting there waiting to be spent or invested (we can talk
about that investing later which is a good idea even if like with me it ties up
dough so you can’t get to it quickly sometimes). But I figure there is no harm in trying to
see if you can help me since I am the guy that got you the dough to pay the
life insurance premium on your late mother’s, RIP, policy in the first
place.
[Tom had the day before written a
“distressing” short e-mail about his own mounting bills which had to be paid
and which thus made it impossible for him to send that couple of thousand,
$2100 USD, United States Dollars, Katrina “needed” to pay out the hospital bills
and the back rent. Her response “could he sent say $1500 USD.” Jesus what a
vulture.]
Here is the score and remember this
stuff is only something I am telling you about to try to have you do something
about to help if other things don’t work out. On May 1st (our time,
May 2nd your time), or really May 2nd (May 3rd
your time, right) since May 1st falls on a Sunday this year my
yearly health insurance premium of $4462. 53 USD (United States Dollars, about
two hundred thousand Philippine pesos, right) is due. Yeah, I know I should pay
by the month like everybody else but stuff like that, stuff that you have to
pay anyway, I like to pay in one lump sum. What happens is that Harvard Pilgrim
takes that out automatically from my checking account (the one I control but
which my accountant monitors for tax purposes and the never-ending freaking
receipts and invoices that you know he is crazy for, that makes his day for
crying out loud even if he is a good guy otherwise).
The problem like I told you earlier
is that with one thing and another I only have about two thousand ($2015 USD,
United States Dollars, about a hundred thousand Philippine pesos, right) in the
bank as of today, and that includes the one thousand bucks ($1000 USD, United
States Dollars) you are not supposed to go below or they whack you with a
penalty. So I am short, way short and if some dough I am expecting doesn’t come
in from the various accounts (as you know, or maybe you don’t know but I will
tell you now, we sent out invoices on monthly billing on the 15th of
the month [our time, the 16th your time]) I am cooked because that
bill will bounce from here to China, or maybe the Philippines anyway.
You know with my recent health
problems which means I better have health insurance or go directly to the poor
farm and the requirements of the Affordable Health Care Act to keep health
insured (you might know that Act as Obamacare but that is the official name,
okay) I cannot afford to let my health insurance lapse-even short term-since
they double whack you with a premium hike and a penalty on your state/federal
taxes. So I need to make sure I have dough to cover to be on the safe side by
Friday April 29th (Saturday April 30th your time). That
is why I need your help. That is why I know you will not let me down, no way,
you are not built that way. I know that
already.
Here’s the way out, here is the caper
that depends on you and your help. I know you are in that dirty dungeon of a
hospital, (where are you being held now - in the charity wards with the geeks
and “lost souls” –damn those bastards holding you like this was the 19th
century and you were in some debtor’s prison out of a Charles Dickens novel). I
know too that you have no dough to pay off your freaking mounting hospital bills
since you can’t get over to Sun Life to get your hands on that real dough, that
$45,000 USD in cash (United States Dollars) that will set you, your brother,
your cousins Rudy and Jonathan and ME too up for a while. I know too because
you told me and because you are a young woman who is both responsible enough to
want to pay her bills as best she can and do stuff legally you don’t want to
just “jail break” out of that hellhole. But this is what I want you to do first
thing Monday morning your time (Sunday our time)-and it is perfectly legal-just
go to the hospital administrator or the head of the billing/accounting
department and tell them your story. Tell them (and show them that paid up
invoice and the insurance policy too) you need to get out to do business with
Sun Life. Let them have somebody go with you if they say they don’t trust you
to come back. Tell them you will have dough, cash, dollars to pay off that
hospital bill in full (don’t get pesos because as I will tell you in a minute
how much I need they don’t help me in the United States, okay). Cry, flirt, go
into a fit of despair, threaten them with a lawsuit, mention you have a lawyer
(me) who will get to the bottom of this sordid business but make them do the
right (and smart for them) thing.
With that done (with or without some
escort-does it really matter to you, I hope not because you are up against it
and I am too remember) and with your money safely in that BOD savings account
(Banco de Oro) you can sent me say $1500 USD (United States Dollars, please),
maybe $2000 USD (you know what that USD means now, right) by the best available
method. A thousand ($1000 USD) might be enough if a check for $2500 USD comes
in from a guy I did work for last month but figure the two numbers I quoted
you-okay. You know more about all the aspects of international money transfers
than I do so that is up to you-you know my name and address I think and if not
I will sent it to you after you do this wonderful deed. I know you are a good
girl and that you can do this for me, please. But I need it by Friday okay. You
can do this, I know you can and if for some reason I don’t need the dough I
will let you know before Friday because like I said I don’t like the idea that
you might get the idea that I am just looking for a hand-out since right now
you have a ton of dough just waiting to help you out and I am up against
it.
If there is a snag on this perfectly
reasonable plan for some reason here is what I ask you to do. Doesn’t your
cousin Rudy, no, Ricky owe me five hundred buck ($500 USD) from back a couple
of months ago when I sent him dough from Washington to cover a speeding ticket
or some problem he had. Tell him I will settle for say $250 or $300 USD and
forget the rest. Your cousin Jonathan sounds like a helpful guy can you hit him
up for say another $250-300 USD (maybe he and Ricky have to do it in Philippine
pesos but that is okay I will take that and convert it here). How about your
brother, I forget his name but I think it was Angel, or maybe I hope he is an
angel, he must have few bucks saved up somewhere, say maybe $100 USD (or the
peso equivalent). Maybe they can sell some books, or a television or something.
Of course with Johnathan and our angel brother I will pay them back-asap-you know
that, right. Let’s say they can put together $1000 USD together- that would
help. Like I say you know all the money transfer routes so I will leave it up
to you what way you sent it but please do so by Friday-okay.
I know you can do that first plan
sweetie-do it for your good friend okay and when you get back to America
believe me you won’t regret it-no at all.
**************
Lawyer Timothy Clary, despite due
diligence and the hire of a private investigator, me, to “track her down like a dog” as he put it to
me after, long after he got wise to what she was pulling on him, never heard
about or from her again after that e-mail. Surprise-surprise. Good riddance-that’s me, Phil Larkin
talking.
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