Confessions of a Tax Collector (22 page)

“What’s this guy’s deal?” she asked. She, too, seemed reluctant to abandon our little fortress.

“Owes about seven thousand dollars in self-employment tax,” I said.

“Let me guess. He’s a trucker.”

“That’s right.”

The Second Protocol: Track what they do.

“Is he married?”

“Files single on his 1040.”

“I don’t see his rig. Must be on the road.”

“I never assume anything,” I said, trying always to impress.

“Oh, you’re so... Culpepperish. Let’s go. I’ve got my Mace.”

I turned off the engine, unfolded myself from the car, into the blastfurnace heat. The sound of our doors closing echoed against the pines. We walked to the front porch. The wet ground pulled at our feet. On rare occasions, the benevolent universe hints to us, Be careful. I stood on the lowest concrete block and tried the screen door. Locked. We walked around to the carport. Another door on this side of the house. Gina stood on her tiptoes and pressed her nose against the glass. “The kitchen,” she said. “Disgusting. I counted twelve cockroaches.”

She walked over to the truck and squinted through the passenger window. “Rick, look.”

The cab reminded me of my car. Moldy coffee. Fast-food wrappers. Stacks of bills. Old newspapers. A spiderweb, looking impossibly delicate, spread over the steering wheel. A revenue officer quickly becomes a student of entropy.

“Do you see that?” She pressed the tip of her finger against the smudged glass.

“What?”

“It looks like a pay stub.”

“Sure does,” I lied. To me it appeared she was pointing at a half-eaten Egg McMuffin.

“What did you find on LEVYS?”
[18]

“I didn’t check LEVYS.”

“Always check LEVYS.”

“Well, I do. I just don’t check it before first contact.”

“Start.”

“Okay.”

“And that piece of paper on the floorboard—doesn’t that look like a bank statement?”

She pulled gently on the door handle. The truck was unlocked. She turned to me, her cheeks flushed.

“What do you think?”

I thought of Melissa digging through a taxpayer’s garbage, of revenue officers glancing in half-opened mailboxes or examining the letters on the desktop for levy sources while the taxpayer steps out to make copies, of altered histories, of the edge needed to stand out, of passing this test, of being promoted, of foreplay and her flushed cheeks, of the orgiastic Fourth Protocol, of ladybugs and how their delicate wings were protected by tough exoskeleton.

I said, “Don’t we need a writ or warrant or something?”

She laughed. “Good answer. It doesn’t matter anyway. I can read the bank’s name from here.”

I wrote down the tag number and drove to the nearest gas station. Gina waited in the car while I called the office on the payphone outside. Henry answered the phone.

“Henry, this is Rick.”

“You’re alive!”

“Henry, I need you to pull a tag for me.”

“Where’s Gina?”

“Right here. You ready for the number?”

“What number?”

“I have a tag number and I need you to pull the owner’s name for me.”

There was a long pause.

“Henry, I’ll owe you one,” I said.

He whispered into the phone, “They looking for her.”

“Who’s looking for who?”

“For Gina. They want to know where she is.”

“Who wants to know?”

“I can’t talk. They right behind me.” He raised his voice. “All right, I’m ready, Rick Yancey! Ready for that tag number!”

I gave him the number. He told me to hold on. The line went dead. I called back. Bonny answered the phone. I told her Henry was pulling a tag for me. She put me on hold. I glanced at Gina, sitting in the car, and thought of those little bobble-head dogs you see riding in the back of cars. Henry came on the line.

“Hey, why’d you hang up?”

“I didn’t hang up, Henry. You cut me off.”

“You always playing games, aren’t you?”

“What’s the name, Henry?”

He gave me the name. It was my guy. The Third Protocol:
Learn what they have
.

“It’s him,” I told Gina when I returned to the car.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Okay. Where are we going?”

“To the bank, dumb-dumb. You have some blank levies with you, don’t you?”

Something else forgotten. She said, “What—didn’t you send him final notice?”

“It’s the first thing I do.”

“Good.”

“I’ll have to swing by the office for some blank levies, though.”

“No. I’ll call Bonny. She can type one up and meet us at the bank.” She got out of the car. “Always have blank levies with you, Rick.”

Gina directed me to a buffet restaurant for lunch, a feeding trough frequented by retirees and others forced to live on fixed incomes. She loaded her plate with mashed potatoes, bread, sausage gravy, and banana pudding. The all-white diet. I picked at my food. Gina pointed out I was picking at my food.

“No wonder you’re so skinny,” she said.

They were looking for her. They were standing right behind Henry, looking for her. The fear in his voice told me “they” could only be one thing: Inspection. Now I understood why she had insisted on going to the field: she knew they were coming. She probably wasn’t supposed to know they were coming, but someone tipped her off. Gina had friends in high Places. She had dirt on everyone. She had
leverage.
Culpepper said it was how she kept her job.

“Something on your mind, Rick?”

“Rarely.”

Gina had been reported to Inspection in the past. It upset her employees, how they were expected to account for every moment of their workday when she would disappear for hours, and even Bonny didn’t know where she was. There had been other, more serious, allegations. That she had cozy relationships with one or two of the more prominent powers-of-attorney in town, to whom she gave her private number and for whom she would pressure revenue officers to abate penalties or release liens. That she developed office “pets” who received the choice assignments and special awards, grooming them for advancement within the Service. That she favored women, hence Melissa had moved into management before Culpepper.

“You’re doing fine,” she said. “You know that.”

“Most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and what might happen to me if I do—or don’t.”

“That’s normal. Believe me, a day will come when you attain enlightenment. A door will open in your mind. And every day after that, you won’t believe the amount of money we’re paying you to do what little you do.”

Only Gina could encourage and belittle in the same breath. She had stirred the contents of her plate into a single quivering, Jell-O-like blob.

“That’s what Jim Neyland told me in my final interview.”

She made a face. “Jim Neyland.” He was the branch chief, her immediate supervisor. “Jim Neyland is a pig.”

“He doesn’t seem to be the only one.”

“Oh, I guess not. But the world is full of pigs, Rick; we just happen to have our fair share.”

She sipped her water and looked out the window. “It’s easy to become cynical in this job. We tend to believe the worst of people because day after day we see the worst
in
people. We enter into these strangers’ lives at their lowest point, at the height of their desperation, when lies and trickery and betrayal are not only easy but sometimes necessary. Don’t be fooled by all the rumors that fly around. Not everyone in the Service is a depraved sex maniac. It’s just that the power they give us can twist us into shapes we could not otherwise become.”

She turned and leveled her eyes at me.

“We have been given great power, Rick. And to exercise power without responsibility is madness. It’s worse than madness. For the ancients, the greatest sin was not lust or murder, but pride.”

“Think of your inventory,” she said. “There’s probably one or two taxpayers who have a crush on you.”

“I doubt that.”

“Owing taxes is rarely the only problem these people have. Owing taxes is usually a symptom of some underlying neurosis. They are overwhelmed, going down the tubes, flaying around in the dark, and then you come along, and you have all this power, and you’re going to tell them how to basically live their lives so they can take care of their tax obligation. Some people can’t resist that. You’re father figure, shrink, bartender, social worker, priest, and white knight rolled into one.”

I thought of Laura Marsh, who had been calling me faithfully every week. At first our conversations were strictly business. She told me what adjustments she had made to her expenses, so gross payroll could be met. We discussed logistics of making the required monthly payment. But over the last few weeks she had called with no real issue to discuss. She talked about her ex-husband, who had reentered her life and was making unreasonable demands for visitation with the kids. She asked me for legal advice that had nothing to do with tax law. She invited me by, if I was ever in the neighborhood, for a cup of coffee. Once she burst into tears, asking repeatedly,
I am going to make it, aren’t I? Aren’t I?
Culpepper overheard my end of one of these exchanges and said afterward, “How much do you charge per session?”

Gina asked, “Did you know that sex is the second most offered form of currency in bribery cases?”

“What’s the first?”

“Money, Rick. Money.” She laughed and shook her head. Silly ol‘ Rick. “I’m sure Billy’s told you about his bribery case. He tells everyone. It really made a name for him in the district. He leaves out some details, though. In reality, it was kind of pitiful. He was working this car salesman, and one day he asks if there’s any way he can take care of his tax problem informally.’ After six or seven conversations like this, with Billy pressing ”im, he finally gets the man to offer him a bribe of five thousand dollars. Only he can’t pay it up front. So Billy agrees to accept the bribe on an installment basis. He gave the guy a bribery payment plan. Well, since most car Salesrnen are delinquents, soon everyone on the lot was calling Billy, asking him if he can help them out, too. So Inspection wires him up. He meets with these poor losers in cheap hotel rooms, exchanging abatement forms for paper bags full of ten-dollar bills, while Inspection sits outside and takes Polaroids of their comings and goings. They pleaded out and not one served any time, but Billy impressed the hell out of the division chief—and Inspection.“

We drove to the bank directly from the restaurant. Bonny was waiting for us in the parking lot, levy in hand. Gina said to me, “Wait for me by the door.” I waited by the door and watched Bonny whispering urgently into Gina’s ear. Gina was standing with her head bowed and Bonny, who was three inches taller, had to bend over to relay her message. Gina nodded, patted Bonny on the arm as if consoling her, and joined me in front of the door. Her color was up. I misinterpreted this to mean she was upset by the news Inspection had arrived to cart off her head.

“God, I love this part of the job! It’s better than sex. Though not as good as chocolate ice cream.”

I showed my commission to the teller and handed her the levy form. I explained what it was: we were seizing all cash in any account under the name and Social Security number listed on the form. The teller tapped into her system and informed us we had seized the full amount: $7,514.34. Full payment. Gina squealed like a schoolgirl and clapped her hands.

Outside, she gave me a high five. “Doesn’t it feel great? Pick up a new case and in half a day have full payment. I wish I could be there when the bank lets him know, just to see the look on his face.”

The Fourth Protocol:
Execute what they fear
.

Gina’s high lasted the rest of the afternoon. It set her afire. It loosened her tongue. We dropped off the summons I had to serve, taping it to the taxpayer’s door. Affixing it to the door was important if we chose to take the taxpayer to court. We had to be able to attest with reasonable certainty that he received it. On his appearance date, I would give the usual spiel.
Nov, this is your last chance to file these returns before we refer the matter to federal court. You will have to explain to a judge why three hundred million taxpayers have to file their returns every year, but you don’t.

Gina said, “There was one taxpayer. He became obsessed with me. For months after I closed his case he called me. When I stopped taking his calls, he would show up at the office. Sometimes he’d camp on the steps at seven in the morning. He was very nice about it, right up to the creepy line, but he never crossed it. He called me ‘his little Gina.’ I was a lot younger and skinnier then. Have you seen pictures of me? There’s a scrapbook in the office; I’ll show you when we get back. I looked like a miniature version of Cher. Imagine Cher, about ten years ago, and boil her down a couple inches—well, four or five inches, and you have me. I’m one-eighth Cherokee, hence the Pike’s Peak cheekbones and black hair. You know, Culpepper was stalked once, by a hermaphrodite.”

“By a what?”

“A hermaphrodite. You know what a hermaphrodite is. Someone with both, um, sex organs. Culpepper talked to him-slash-her on the phone before they met. He thought he was talking to a woman with a very bad head cold. He had decided to become all-woman, so he was going through the operations and those hormone shots—the taxpayer, not Billy—and he was still married. His wife was struggling with the decision whether to stay with him or not. He was prettier than she was, and plus she didn’t like to think of herself as a lesbian. Anyway, he came in for the interview with the whole family in tow, including the two little kids. He was already dressing like a woman, so the interview was like a PBS special, you know, ‘My Two Moms.’ The taxpayer fell head over heals for Billy, kept talking about how ripped he was and how his eyes seem to pierce right to her very soul. ‘You have ice blue soul,’ he told him. It really freaked Billy out. If you ever want to really get him, tell him he has ice blue soul.”

The clouds had gathered into a dark, angry mass above us. Gina breathed deep the moist air.

“The rains are coming,” she said.