She stayed there for another second or two. Then she said something into the camera. I couldn't hear her, but I could read her lips.
"I'm sorry," my dead wife mouthed.
And then she walked away.
Chapter 4
Vic Letty looked both ways before he limped inside the strip mall's Mail Boxes Etc. His gaze slid across the room. Nobody was watching. Perfect. Vic couldn't help but smile. His scam was foolproof. There was no way to trace it back to him, and now it was going to make him big-time rich.
The key, Vic realized, was preparation. That was what separated the good from the great. The greats covered their tracks. The greats prepared for every eventuality.
The first thing Vic did was get a fake ID from that loser cousin of his, Tony. Then, using the fake ID, Vic rented a mailbox under the pseudonym UYS Enterprises. See the brilliance? Use a fake ID and a pseudonym. So even if someone bribed the bozo behind the desk, even if someone could find out who rented the UYS Enterprises box, all you'd come up with was the name Roscoe Taylor, the one on Vic's fake ID.
No way to trace it back to Vic himself.
From across the room, Vic tried to see in the little window for Box 417. Hard to make out much, but there was something there for sure. Beautiful. Vic accepted only cash or money orders. No checks, of course. Nothing that could be traced back to him. And whenever he picked up the money, he wore a disguise. Like right now. He had on a baseball cap and a fake mustache. He also pretended to have a limp. He read somewhere that people notice limps, so if a witness was asked to identify the guy using Box 417, what would the witness say? Simple. The man had a mustache and a limp. And if you bribed the dumb-ass clerk, you'd conclude some guy named Roscoe Taylor had a mustache and a limp.
And the real Vic Letty had neither.
But Vic took other precautions too. He never opened the box when other people were around. Never. If someone else was getting his mail or in the general vicinity, he'd act as though he was opening another box or pretend he was filling out a mailing form, something like that. When the coast was clear - and only when the coast was clear - would Vic go over to Box 417.
Vic knew that you could never, ever be too careful.
Even when it came to getting here, Vic took precautions. He'd parked his work truck - Vic handled repairs and installations for Cable Eye the East Coast's biggest cable TV operator - four blocks away. He'd ducked through two alleys on his way here. He wore a black windbreaker over his uniform coverall so no one would be able to see the "Vic" sewn over the shirt's right pocket.
He thought now about the huge payday that was probably in Box 417, not ten feet from where he now stood. His fingers felt antsy. He checked the room again.
There were two women opening their boxes. One turned and smiled absently at him. Vic moved toward the boxes on the other side of the room and grabbed his key chain - he had one of those key chains that jangled off his belt - and pretended to be sorting through them. He kept his face down and away from them.
More caution.
Two minutes later, the two women had their mail and were gone. Vic was alone. He quickly crossed the room and opened his box.
Oh wow.
One package addressed to UYS Enterprises. Wrapped in brown. No return address. And thick enough to hold some serious green.
Vic smiled and wondered: Is that what fifty grand looks like?
He reached out with trembling hands and picked up the package. It felt comfortably heavy in his hand. Vic's heart started jack hammering Oh, sweet Jesus. He'd been running this scam for four months now. He'd been casting that net and landing some pretty decent fish. But oh lordy, now he'd landed a friggin' whale!
Checking his surroundings again, Vic stuffed the package into the pocket of his windbreaker and hurried outside. He took a different route back to his work truck and started for the plant. His fingers found the package and stroked it. Fifty grand. Fifty thousand dollars. The number totally blew his mind.