Confessions of a Tax Collector (31 page)

Beth said, “I ran it by Howard.” Howard Stevens was the manager of the CI group in Tampa, which covered our post-of-duty’s territory.

“Did you?
You
did, Beth? Excuse me, I’m confused. I thought this was Rick’s case.”

“It is Rick’s case.”

“Rick is a full-fledged revenue officer now. He doesn’t need an OJI.” She turned to me. “Why isn’t CI in on this, Rick?”

“We want to move fast,” I said. “You know the red tape we have to wade through to get approval on an armed escort.”

“Wade through tape? You’re mixing metaphors, Mr. English major. Well, we could always call in the locals.” She was referring to the Lakeside police department.

“It’s overkill,” Beth argued. “And imagine what the papers will do with it, the IRS and cops swooping down on this little old man.”

“So what’s the plan? You and Rick show up, confront him, ask for consent, and leave?”

“He may sign.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’ve gotten them to sign before,” Beth said.

“Not under my watch you haven’t.”

“I haven’t always been under your watch, Gina.”

“What do they say in the movies? I just don’t want anything to go hinky.”

“Come with us,” Beth said, knowing what Gina’s answer would be.

“I’d rather have a root canal.” Gina laughed. “Hey, I made a dental joke!”

She signed the levy. Her signature was an illegible scrawl. “Rick,” she said, “I want you to white out my name on this form. These people
will not
know who I am.”

After we left her office, Beth turned to me and said, “Our fearless leader.”

It was the height of summer, the temperature in the mid-eighties by ten o’clock. I lugged the seizure kit to my car. Beth walked beside me with the case file.

“They may try to goad you into losing your temper or saying something you’ll regret later,” she advised. “Stay professional. If they get personal, don’t you get personal. If they refuse consent, don’t argue or try to trick them. Just tell them you’ll be back with a writ. Are you nervous?”

“A little.”

“There’d be something wrong with you if you weren’t. I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you and I still get nervous. You never really know.”

I cleared a place in the debris inside my trunk for the seizure kit. The chains within it clattered as I set it down.

“Don’t pull right into the parking lot,” Beth said. “We’ll circle the building first.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Escape routes.”

By ten-forty, I was circling the parking lot of the dentist’s office. There were three cars in the lot. Beth told me to drive slowly so she could jot down the license plate numbers. Later, if we survived, we would run them through the DMV records to identify other possible protestors. She explained protestors often rallied to one another’s defense when the Service called. Strength in numbers.

“Don’t pull into a space,” she told me. “Back into it, that one right over there, closest to the road. And don’t lock the car.”

“Should I leave the keys in the ignition?” I asked, imagining fumbling in my pockets as I sprinted to safety.

“No.” She had her keys in her fist, the door key to the federal building poking up between her index and middle fingers. For the first time, I was seized with real fear.
They give us H-bombs to take out anthills.
No, they deny us any reasonable means of self-preservation. I backed into the parking space she had pointed out and turned off the car. A silence descended. The morning was sunny. The warm air shimmered over the asphalt. A blue jay sitting in a live-oak tree beside the car turned its head in our direction and studied us with black, lidless eyes. The adrenaline was making me light-headed.

I asked, “You ever hear those stories about mothers being so hopped up on adrenaline, they’re able to lift cars off children?”

“No.”

We got out of the car. Dear God, I remember thinking, how beautiful the world is! My heart was pounding, my palms were sweating, my eyes were watering behind my sunglasses, but I felt like Lazarus emerging from the tomb after three days of darkness, light bursting through the linen wrappings over his eyes. Most of humanity, I thought, sleep-walked through life, brains muddled by petty concerns, daydreams, the numbing mediocrities of the day-to-day. Most of us, if not already in the tomb, waver on the threshold, afraid to step into the light, afraid we might actually prefer being half-dead to fully alive.

I started toward the building. Beth said, “Rick, you forgot the seizure kit.‘

“Oh, right.”

I had not forgotten it. It weighed at least forty pounds, and I couldn’t imagine myself sprinting across the parking lot with it.

On the glass door was a hand-printed sign that read,

“That’s redundant,” I said. “By definition, trespassing is entering without permission.” I was trying to comfort myself as best I could.

“Okay, good point, Rick,” Beth said. “There’s someone right on the other side of the door. I count three bodies.”

“We’re outnumbered,” I said.

“One of them is holding something.”

“Let’s call the cops.” The safety manual I received in Basic Training had admonished us to observe no trespassing signs and consider returning with an armed escort.

“It looks like a box.”

“I’d be less than honest if I said I didn’t feel a little ridiculous standing here.”

“It’s your case, Rick. Your call.”

I took a deep breath. “We go in.”

The box turned out to be a stenographer’s machine. A card table had been set up in the middle of the waiting room, and the person holding the machine was a court reporter hired by the taxpayer to record our conversation. The two other people Beth had seen were the taxpayer and his wife.

“Halt!” the old man cried. “You are to cease and desist this illegal entry!”

Beth said, “We’re on official business.”

She handed the case file to me. I set the seizure kit on the floor behind me and pulled the consent-to-enter from the file.

“Doctor,” I said. “We’re here to place the assets of the business under seizure—”

“Like hell you are! You people are criminals—”

“—for nonpayment of internal revenue taxes—”

“—and you are perpetrating a criminal trespass against my sovereignty!”

The stenographer’s fingers flew over the keys. The taxpayer took a step toward us, his index finger extended toward my nose. From the safety manual:
Maintain at least an arm’s length distance from the taxpayer.
I backpedaled, my heels hitting the seizure kit behind me. I had placed it directly in front °f the door.
Leave yourself an escape route.
How was I going to hand him the form and maintain the proscribed distance between us? Slide it across the floor? Fold it into a paper airplane? I mentally rehearsed hopping over the kit, backward, in case he made a diving leap for my throat. Beth was on her own. An alternative fantasy presented itself: the taxpayer lunges at Beth and I heave the heavy seizure kit upside his head. This daydream was more satisfying.

I held up the form. “This is a consent-to-enter.”

“I’m not giving you bastards consent to do a goddamned thing!”

“Let’s go, Rick,” Beth said quietly.

“We’ll be back, Doctor,” I said, “with a court order.”

“Your kangaroo courts have no jurisdiction over me! I am a sovereign citizen of the state!”

“And the next time you won’t know we’re coming.” This was provocative, but my color was up.

“You come out here again and I will protect my property! I am warning you! I will exercise my inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!”

I picked up the seizure kit. Beth was behind me, holding the door open. It bothered me that I didn’t have a parting shot at hand; I wanted the last word. From the safety manual:
Don’t ask, “Is that a threat?” This question often incites violence.

“Let’s go, Rick,” Beth said again. “He’s denied consent.”

“You’re goddamned right I deny your consent! I categorically deny you and if you come out here again I will use force to protect my rights! You hear me, Yancey!
I will use force.
You have been warned!”

* * *

Howard Stevens folded his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the ceiling. The twenty-year-old piece of furniture groaned in protest. Howard Stevens was a big man, 210 pounds and most of it muscle. The first feature that struck me, however, was his enormous head. He had played football in college and at forty-two still worked out four times a week, at the government’s expense. Howard Stevens was the head of the Criminal Investigation office in Tampa. The night before, he had driven to Lakeside with another agent. He had taken a personal interest in the case and wanted to be in on the next phase of the campaign. It was seven a.m. We were meeting in the bullpen, now called “the war room” by Gina. Allison sat at her desk, pretending to work, and glowering.

“We ran a check on this guy,” Stevens told Gina. “He’s clean. No priors.”

“That’s encouraging.”

He turned to me. “What exactly did he say again?”

“He warned me that he intended to protect his property.”

“And he…” Howard Stevens consulted my three-page memo. “He shook his finger at you?”

“That’s right.”

“Did he do this?” Stevens pointed his index finger at me, thumb upright.

“I didn’t notice the thumb.”

“Okay. Okay.” He massaged the back of his neck. He was making sure there were no lingering jurisdictional issues. If a clear threat had been made, Inspection would be charged to escort us back into enemy territory. We had asked, but Inspection decided the threat had not been specific enough.

“There’s one thing that troubles me,” Stevens continued. “I know we’re going after the contents. The, um, X-ray machine and molding equipment and that, um, stuff, but what about the building?”

“What about the building?” Beth asked.

“Why aren’t we seizing the building, too?”

“There’s no equity,” I said.

“Then you can’t lock him down,” Stevens said. “You can’t secure what you’ve seized.” We could not deny the rightful owner access to his property. Beth, Gina, and I looked at one another. This minor point had totally escaped our attention. Allison hid a smile behind her hand.

“The one thing you can count on with protestors,” Stevens said, “is they know the law as well as we do. You’re going to have to make arrangements to move the stuff out.”

“It’ll eat up the equity,” Beth said. She meant the cost of moving and storing the meager contents of the dental office would offset any profit the government might hope to realize at sale.

Stevens shrugged. “As far as I know, Beth, the manual still prohibits no-equity seizures. If we can’t take the building, this one’s a no-go.”

“You could have told us that over the phone,” Gina said.

“I would have, but this is a protestor,” Stevens said in a mild tone. “You sure we can’t find some equity?”

“Rick.” Gina turned to me. “Where’s your workup on the building?”

I handed her my calculations on the real estate, the comparison of what the building was worth to what was owed on it. Stevens studied it over Gina’s shoulder.

“This is zoned commercial?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“How did you arrive at the value?”

“Tax assessor’s, plus twenty percent,” I said. This was the rule of thumb and the minimum Gina required.

Stevens shook his head. “Good location?”

“Yes.”

“What about comparative sales?”

“No,” I answered.

“I think maybe we’ve lowballed this,” Gina said. “The tax value is good as a starting point, but it is a good location and they’re usually low when it comes to commercial property.”

“I’d up it at least thirty percent,” Stevens said.

“Forty,” Gina said.

“Let’s go with thirty-five,” Stevens said.

“Thirty-five, Rick,” Gina instructed me. I punched the numbers into the calculator.

“Well?” Stevens asked. “Do we have equity now?”

“Not much,” I said.

“But it’s there.”

“With a magnifying glass.” I recalled Culpepper’s words:
Remember, we can always
make
equity.

“I’ll type up another B,” Beth said. Procedure required two levy forms, one for the real estate and another for the personal assets.

“Then we’re a go?” Stevens asked.

“We’re a go,” Gina said. Stevens looked at me. His eyes were deep-set and dark, almost black. I nodded.

“You and Beth are there for the assets,” he told me. “The taxpayer is mine. The only contact you’re going to have is handing him the forms, the writ-of-entry, the levy, and the Notice of Seizure. Do not engage him otherwise. Let us do the talking. If things go sour, your job is to find the nearest exit and get the hell out of there. If you’re not near an exit, hit the floor, find cover. Wait for an all clear from me before you do anything else. We’ve notified the locals and they’re on standby, but we want to avoid bringing them in; it just muddies the waters. These people need to understand it’s the federal government they’re screwing with. He’s got no registered weapons, but that doesn’t mean granddaddy’s shotgun isn’t behind the counter. We did a drive-by last night, and there’s only two ways out of there: that glass door in the front and the door in the back.” He nodded to the man in the dark suit standing by the doorway, who had not spoken a word during the meeting. “Greg will cover that door and I’ll go in with you and Beth. I’m going to introduce myself and let him know why I’m there, and then you do your thing. Are you absolutely sure he has no knowledge of us coming today?”

“I told him we’d be back.”

“But he doesn’t know it’s today.”

“Not unless we have a double agent in the office.”

Stevens glanced at Allison. It was an extremely gratifying moment. Stevens rose from the chair, and kept rising until I had the impression the top of his head would brush the ceiling. His coat came open and I glimpsed his shoulder holster. It hit me then that it was entirely possible we might be walking into an ambush. Jim Neyland had told me in my final interview that I would come to see the job as a game, a battle of wits between the taxpayer and me. He was wrong. The gun hanging under Howard Stevens’s left arm meant this was no game. I wondered, if I had known in the beginning this was coming, would I still have taken the job? It was impossible to answer that question. The person who had said yes to Jim Neyland almost two years ago was not the same person who now followed Howard Stevens out the door and to his Ford Taurus, illegally parked in the loading zone. It was probable that the person who existed two years ago would have been paralyzed with fear. I had the odd sensation of being outside my own body, watching myself slip into the passenger seat beside Stevens. Rick Yancey pulling the dark glasses from his coat pocket. Rick Yancey checking his pocket commission. Rick Yancey with the sky-blue eyes and dark goatee and curly, slicked-back hair and brand-new silver-coated ballpoint in his pocket and Florsheim shoes shined to a mirror finish. Rick Yancey, like Richard Cory of the poem, glittering as he walks.