“Most people don’t, but high-fashion counterfeiting rings have tentacles all over the world. The goods are distributed to upscale shops in resort areas such as the one you live in.”
Jancey and I looked at each other, and I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was: Which shops, and had we ever bought something there? Since my fashion choices are more likely to come from Target or JC Penney’s than a haute couture shop, I didn’t imagine I had bought any good fakes. Jancey shopped at those high-end shops, though, and she might very well have bought a fake and not known it.
Steven said, “Versace just won a twenty-two-million-dollar settlement in a Los Angeles counterfeiting lawsuit. We found seventy-two retail stores in California and Arizona passing off fake Versace merchandise and charging for the real thing.”
Jancey said, “Those stores knew the merchandise was fake?”
Steven smiled grimly. “Nobody sells counterfeit merchandise by mistake. If you sell a genuine Gucci watch, your profit margin is slim. If you sell a good counterfeit Gucci watch, your profit is large. For a lot of retailers, it isn’t a difficult decision to make.”
Jancey said, “What does all that have to do with a woman breaking into our house and killing somebody?”
Steven said, “That’s the big question, Mrs. Trillin. I was hoping Mr. Trillin might be able to shed some light on that.”
Like a scudding cloud, Cupcake’s face went from confusion to recognition to anger in about two seconds. “You think I have something to do with fake Nikes?”
“If you do, or if you know anybody who does, now would be the time to say so.”
Like a mother lion whose cub has been threatened, Jancey stood up. For a moment it looked like she might snatch the plate of cookies off the table.
“Don’t you dare imply that we’re criminals! We were in Italy on the first vacation we’ve had together in years. We got a call from Dixie saying a crazy woman had broken into our house. We cut our trip short and made reservations to come home, but then we got another call saying the woman was murdered before the cops could come and throw her out of our house. Except it wasn’t that woman, it was some other woman, and the first woman, the crazy model with one name, disappeared. Then we got to the Sarasota airport after twenty-two hours of worried travel, but Dixie couldn’t come get us because she was lying on her front porch knocked out by some thugs who ransacked her apartment. Now, to add icing to our cake, you waltz in here and hint that Cupcake is making fake sneakers! Talk about adding insult to injury!”
Steven’s eyes cut to me, and this time they weren’t flat. “What thugs?”
I said, “It happened last night. About nine o’clock. I stepped out my front door and somebody slammed me so hard I almost lost consciousness. Probably used a sap and an asp baton. I lay on the porch floor and drifted in and out of awareness while some men trashed my apartment. I don’t know what they were looking for. They left, and I got up and called Cupcake.”
“Did you report it?”
“I didn’t want to worry my brother. He was next door asleep, and he’s a little bit overprotective, so I didn’t want him to know. Besides, I didn’t have any evidence that it had happened. No bruises, no bumps. No broken bones. No scratches. My ribs weren’t even bruised.”
“But the pain was so great that you fell down semiconscious.”
I sank lower in my chair remembering it. “They were pros.”
“When those men were in your apartment, did you hear any conversation?”
“They spoke a foreign language I didn’t recognize.”
“Did they take anything?”
“I don’t think so. They threw things around, broke a teapot.”
“For effect? Or in a real search?”
“I don’t think they searched thoroughly. I don’t know if they left everything a mess to make it look like they had searched or if they were just incompetent.”
“Yet you thought they were professionals when it came to knowing how to incapacitate you without leaving evidence.”
“You think they weren’t really looking for anything? That they just wanted to hurt me?”
“I don’t know what their intent was, Ms. Hemingway, but if you meet them again, please report it. Even if it causes your brother worry.”
“Do you know who they could have been?”
“I have no idea.”
His eyes had gone flat and bleak again. I wondered if that was something he did on purpose to hide when he was lying.
Steven sat up straighter. “I want you all to listen very carefully. I’m not at liberty to give you particulars, but certain transnational criminals seem to believe that you are a threat to their business.”
With a nod toward Cupcake, he said, “Each of you has been thoroughly investigated. We have not found evidence linking you to any crime, but somebody believes you are, and you must be extremely careful until this investigation is resolved.”
In one voice, Cupcake, Jancey, and I said, “You investigated us?”
He met our angry glares with a shrug. “Don’t take it personally. Remember that FBI stands for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Jancey blew air like a horse snorting. “Don’t take it personally! How else can we take it?”
“Mrs. Trillin, get your priorities straight. You aren’t in danger because the FBI has investigated you. You’re in danger because a criminal organization believes you have information or property they want.”
Again in unison, we all said, “What information? What property?”
He looked from face to face as if he couldn’t believe he was in the company of such idiots. Personally, I was studying him with the same cautious scrutiny I’d give a strange dog whose tail wagged while his neck hairs bristled.
16
Steven took the Nikes with him when he left.
Cupcake and Jancey were confused and angry. I was confused and afraid.
We wasted several minutes asking one another what in the world international criminals could believe we had that they wanted. Then we wasted more minutes asking one another who the people could be. We knew they had to have something to do with selling fake merchandise. We knew the fake merchandise was most likely designer clothing or jewelry. And we knew that Briana had something to do with selling it.
I told them about the article Tom had found that linked Briana with a Serbian gangster who’d been sent to prison for shipping heroin in a crate of Gucci watches. They thought that was mildly interesting but couldn’t imagine what it had to do with them.
Then I gutted up and said what I’d been thinking ever since I saw those Nikes in the middle of the Trillins’ bed.
“Cupcake, when Briana told me that she robbed houses with you when you were kids, she said you mostly did it so you could buy a pair of Nikes.”
Jancey glared at him. “You do know her, don’t you?”
Cupcake stood up like a whale breaching. “I do not know a woman named Briana! I have never known a woman named Briana. The only kid I ever broke into a house with was a guy named Robbie Brasseaux. I never broke into any house with any girl.”
He was so obviously sincere that Jancey and I went silent and ashamed, like kids caught stealing money from a church collection plate.
Cupcake made a sudden involuntary movement, a tic so small that Jancey didn’t notice. I glanced at him as a spasm of pure despair floated down his face.
Under his breath, he whispered, “Sweet Jesus.”
At the same moment, Lucy trotted into the kitchen, and Jancey turned her head to watch Lucy hunker over her water bowl and lap water with her sticky little tongue. Lucy wiped her face with her paw as if it were a napkin and trotted out of the room.
Cupcake said, “I have to get some sleep.”