“What if we go for modified off-the-record,” I offer. “We could say: ‘we have learned.’ Or: ‘sources close to the FBI say.’ Something along those lines. Not reveal where we got the information, but still be able to use it.” It’s juggling bubbles to haggle over information we don’t have. Make the wrong move and it all disappears.
“Sorry, Charlie,” Keresey says.
Franklin hides a smile with what I know is a fake cough. He knows I hate the tuna-fish line from the old TV commercial.
“But-” I say. I still have more compromises in mind.
“Take it or leave it,” Lattimer points to his watch. “I’ve got another meeting.”
What is this, ultimatum week?
“Okay.” I wave a hand. Defeated. I quickly confirm with Franklin. “Okay?”
He shrugs, and gives me the floor.
“Okay,” I repeat. “Deal. We won’t use it unless we can find out about it on our own.” I mentally cross my fingers. At least that will be easier now because we’ll know what to look for.
“What we can tell you, and this is all we can tell you,” Keresey begins, “is our focus is on the distribution system. The middle men. How the bags get to the parties and to the street dealers. And that’s what we haven’t cracked.”
“Yet.” Lattimer interrupts.
“Yet.” Keresey agrees. “As of this date, there have been two E-As. Both based on CIs. Not in Massachusetts.”
I nod. Enforcement actions. Confidential informants.
“They were both no-go’s,” Keresey continues. “Empty warehouses. Both times. Old barns. Nothing inside. The informant’s info was bogus.” She swallows, then her face goes uncharacteristically somber. She looks at Lattimer.
“We lost two of our agents,” Lattimer says.
“One was killed. One was-”
“Classified.” Lattimer brusquely interrupts her.
“Do you think you received counterfeit information?” I say. “You think someone was trying to lure your agents into a trap?”
“Your question is duly noted,” the SAC replies. “But, I repeat, classified. But now you know Operation Knockoff is no walk in the park. It’s deadly. We’re following big money. International smuggling. Child labor. Legitimate companies ripped off for millions. These bags may be beautiful on the outside, but that’s the ugly reality.”
He picks up what looks like a Burberry shoulder bag with the trademark red-and-camel plaid. Holds it out with two fingers, as if the touch of it is poison. “Greed rules the world,” he says. “It’s a dirty business.”
Franklin and I exchange silent glances as Lattimer turns back to his secret safe. I raise an eyebrow, and know Franklin understands. A dirty business is just what good journalists are looking for. We’re the ones who can help clean it up.
Bring it on.
Chapter Six
I spear a piece of lettuce, consider it, then reject it. I’m just not hungry. And I can’t remember the last time that happened. Franklin and I are discussing our FBI info in the lunchtime bustle of the Kinsale Restaurant, a faux Irish burger and salad joint favored by clerks, lawyers and blue-uniformed officers from the New Chardon Street Courthouse around the corner. Walking here from FBI headquarters, the Josh-fight memory slithered unpleasantly back into my brain. Now I’ve got my sunglasses back on.
“We’re in a window seat,” I explained unnecessarily to Colleen, our server. As if she cared. “There’s glare.”
Franklin’s focused on his usual double cheeseburger, squirting concentric circles of ketchup on his toasted bun. He arranges the tomato, then the lettuce, then carefully places the bun on top of the whole teetering stack. If I tried to eat that, rivulets of ketchup would drip onto my silk blouse, followed by splurting tomato seeds and oozing cheese hitting my pearl necklace then splattering down onto my just dry-cleaned black wool skirt.
Franklin picks up his creation and takes a bite. Nothing happens to his pristine yellow shirt. The charcoal cashmere sweater tied around his shoulders remains immaculate.
“Let’s say, okay, we can doll you up-or doll you down, I suppose is more like it-so you won’t be recognized,” Franklin continues. “And I agree, Great Barrington is so far west, almost to the New York border, it’s out of our viewing area. And that does make our odds of pulling this off even better. But, Charlotte, are we contributing to the problem? If we give them money?”
We’re silent, considering this.
“What if I just don’t buy anything? Just get the video?” I offer. “That’s one solution.”
I push the lettuce around on my plate, half my mind consumed with my impending attendance at tomorrow’s purse party, the other half consumed with my impending lifetime of loneliness. I shake my head. Back to the present.
“Look, look, look,” I say, waving off Franklin’s concerns with my fork. “How many women do you know who have fake purses? I mean, it’s everywhere. Walk down the halls at the station. Check out the women here at lunch.”
I take off my sunglasses, and follow my own instructions, pointing as I pick each one out. “There’s a fake Prada, there in the red booth. That bag doesn’t even come in that color. That Fendi coming through the door? Look at the strap. No tassels. Phony as they come.”
Franklin and I scan the room. I’m right. Counterfeit couture is as popular here as an afternoon cappuccino.
“Plus…” I’m warming to my own argument now “…the feds buy the purses. Right? Keresey must be handing over cash-taxpayers’ money-to make her undercover buys. So if they’re saying payments for fake bags are contributing to terrorism, which I must say I have my doubts about, doesn’t that mean our own government is doing the same thing?”
“And they would answer, it’s all about stopping the flow.” Franklin nods, picking up a forkful of french fries. “Like Lattimer said. ‘It’s a dirty business.’”
I push my plate away and deposit my napkin on top of it. “Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Keresey were undercover at the same party I’m going to? Or someone else on her team? I mean, she’d recognize me. And I’d sure recognize her. I considered telling them our plans-”
“Me, too,” Franklin says. “But-”
“Right,” I interrupt. “They’d clearly try to stop us. Huge can of worms. And they don’t need to know what we’re doing.”
“Still, though, Charlotte.” Franklin looks uncertain. “A dead FBI agent.”
“It’s a purse party, not a raid,” I reply. “You don’t hear about suburban homemakers getting killed because they bought a fake Chanel tote bag. We’d hear about it, you know? It’s perfectly safe. This is the little-fish level.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Franklin agrees.
“As always,” I say.
A few hours later, Franklin appears in my office with a miniature suitcase, aluminum with a black handle. He places it on the corner of my desk, and flips two snaps on the side. He opens the cover with a flourish.
“The new Sony HC-43,” he says. “Tiny, silent, almost invisible. Your new best friend.”
He takes out a thin metal rectangle, about the size of a playing card, attached to a narrow black electrical cord. He points to a glass dot in the center of the card, smaller in circumference than a pencil eraser.
“See this dot? It’s the lens,” he says. “You tape it in position so it shows through, say, a buttonhole. Maybe wear a work shirt with a patch pocket? And we can tuck this card into the pocket. Then we’ll make a little hole in the shirt behind it, and snake the cord down underneath.”
He holds up the cord, and I see it’s attached to a camera, miniature, no bigger than a paperback book. “You can wear the guts of the camera, the recorder, in a fanny pack or something,” he says. “No one will ever see it.”