The Millionaires (5 page)

“Get out of my bathroom,” I call out from my bed, where I’ve already opened my briefcase to flip through some paperwork.

“Don’t you ever stop?” Charlie asks. “It’s the weekend—relax already.”

“I need to finish this,” I shoot back.

“Listen, I’m sorry about the vanilla joke…”

“
I need to finish this,
” I insist.

He knows that tone. Letting the silence sink in, he curls up on the foot of the bed.

Two minutes later, the lack of noise does the trick. “Sometimes I hate rich people,” I finally moan.

“No, you don’t,” he teases. “You love ’em. You’ve always loved ’em. The more money, the merrier.”

“I’m serious,” I say. “It’s like, once they get some cash—bam!—there goes their grasp of reality. I mean, look at this guy…”
I pull the top sheet from the paper pile and wing it his way. “This moron misplaces three million dollars for five years.
Five years
he’s forgotten about it! But when we tell him we’re about to take it away from him—that’s when he wakes up and wants it back.”

He reads the letter signed by someone named Marty Duckworth—“
Thank you for your correspondence… please be aware that I’ve opened a new account at the following New York bank… please forward
the balance of my funds there.
”—but to Charlie, it still looks like just another normal wire request. “I don’t understand.”

I wave the short paper stack in front of him. “It’s an abandoned account.” Knowing he’s lost, I add, “Under New York law,
when a customer doesn’t use an account for five years, the money gets turned over to the state.”

“That doesn’t make sense—who would ever abandon their own cash?”

“Mostly dead people,” I say. “It happens in every bank in the country—when someone dies, or gets sick, sometimes they forget
to tell their family about their account. The cash just sits there for years—and if there’s no activity on the account, it
eventually gets labeled
inactive.
”

“So after year five, we just ship that money to the government?”

“That’s part of what I’m working on. When it hits year four and a half, we’re required to send out a warning letter saying
‘
Your account’s going to be turned over to the state.
’ At that point, anyone who’s still alive usually responds, which is better for us, since it keeps the money in the bank.”

“So that’s your responsibility? Dealing with dead people? Man, and I thought my customer service skills were bad.”

“Don’t laugh—some of these folks are still alive. They just forget where they put their cash.”

“Y’mean like Mr. Three-Million-Dollar Duckworth over here.”

“That’s our boy,” I say. “The only bad part is, he wants to transfer it somewhere else.”

Looking down, Charlie rereads the grainy type on the faxed letter. He runs his fingers across the blurry signature. Then,
his eyes shoot to the top of the page. Something catches his eye. I follow his fingers. The phone number on the top of the
fax. He makes that face like he smells sewage.

“When’d you get this letter again?” Charlie asks.

“Sometime today, why?”

“And when does the money get turned over to the state?”

“Monday—which is why I assume he sent it by fax.”

“Yeah,” Charlie nods, though I can tell he’s barely listening. His whole face flushes red. Here we go.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Lookie here,” he says, pointing to the return fax number at the top of the letter. “Does this number look familiar to you?”

I grab the sheet and study it close. “Never seen it before in my life. Why? You know it?”

“You could say that…”

“Charlie, get to the point—tell me what’s—”

“It’s the Kinko’s around the corner from the bank.”

I force a nervous laugh. “What’re you talking about?”

“I’m telling you—the bank doesn’t let us use the fax for personal business—so when Franklin or Royce need to send me sheet
music, it goes straight to Kinko’s—and straight to that number.”

I look down at the letter. “Why would a millionaire, who can buy ten thousand fax machines of his own, and can walk right
into the bank, send us a fax from a copy shop that’s right around the corner?”

Charlie shoots me a way-too-excited grin. “Maybe we’re not dealing with a millionaire.”

“What’re you saying? You think Duckworth didn’t send this letter?”

“You tell me—have you spoken to him lately?”

“We’re not required to—” I cut myself off, suddenly seeing what he’s driving at. “All we do is send a letter to his last known
address, and one to his family,” I begin. “But if we want to be safe, there’s one place open late…” I sit up in bed, flick
on the speakerphone, and start dialing.

“Who’re you calling?”

The first thing we hear is a recorded voice. “Welcome to Social Se—”

Without even listening, I hit one, then zero, then two on the phone. I’ve been here before. The speaker fills with Muzak.

“The Beatles. ‘Let It Be,’” Charlie points out.

“Shhh,” I hiss.

“Thank you for calling Social Security,” a female voice eventually picks up. “How can I help you?”

“Hi, this is Oliver Caruso calling from Greene & Greene Bank in New York,” I say in that overly sweet voice I know turns Charlie’s
stomach. It’s the tone I save for customer service reps—and no matter how much Charlie despises it, deep down, he knows it
works. “I’m wondering if you can help us out,” I continue. “We have a loan application that we’re working on, and we just
wanted to verify the applicant’s Social Security number.”

“Do you have a routing number?” the woman asks.

I give her the bank’s nine-digit ID. Once they get that, we get all the private info. That’s the law. God bless America.

Waiting for clearance and unable to sit still, I pick at the seams of my sage green comforter. It doesn’t take long to come
undone.

“And the number you’d like to check?” the woman asks.

Reading from the printout of abandoned accounts, I give her Duckworth’s Social Security number. “It’s under the name Marty
or Martin.”

A second passes. Then another. “Did you say this was for a loan application?” the woman asks, confused.

“Yeah,” I say anxiously. “Why?”

“Because according to our files here, I have a June twelfth date of death.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m just telling you what it says, sir. If you’re looking for Martin Duckworth, he died six months ago.”

I
hang up the phone, and Charlie and I stare down at the fax. “I don’t believe this.”

“Me either,” Charlie sings. “How
X-Files
is this moment?”

“It’s not a joke,” I insist. “Whoever sent this—they almost walked away with three million dollars.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“It’s a perfect crime when you think about it. Pose as a dead person, ask for his money, and once the account’s reactivated,
you close up shop and disappear. It’s not like Marty Duckworth’s going to complain.”

“But what about the government?” Charlie asks. “Won’t they notice their money’s missing?”

“They have no idea,” I say, waving the master list of abandoned accounts. “We send them a printout, minus anything that’s
been reactivated. They’re just happy to get some free cash.”

Charlie bounces restlessly on the bed, and I can see his wheels spinning. When you eat the dandelions, everything’s a thrill
ride. “Who do you think did it?” he blurts.

“Got me—but it has to be someone in the bank.”

Now his eyes go wide. “You think?”

“Who else would know when we sent out the final notice letters? Not to mention the fact that they’re faxing from a Kinko’s
around the corner…”

Charlie nods his head in steady rhythm. “So what do we do now?”

“Are you kidding? We wait until Monday, and then we turn this bastard in.”

No more nodding. “Are you sure?”

“What do you mean,
Am I sure?
What else are we gonna do? Take it ourselves?”

“I’m not saying that, but…” Once again, Charlie’s face flushes red. “How cool would it be to have three million dollars? I
mean, that’d be like… it’d be like—”

“It’d be like having money,” I interrupt.

“And not just any money—we’re talkin’ three million monies.” Charlie jumps to his feet and his voice picks up speed. “You
give me cash like that and I’d… I’d get me a white suit and hold up a glass of red wine and say things like, ‘I’m having an
old friend for dinner…’”

“Not me,” I say, shaking my head. “I’d pay off the hospital, take care of the bills, then take every last penny and invest
it.”

“Oh, c’mon, Scrooge—what’s wrong with you? You have to have some insane wastefulness… do the full Elvis… now what would you
buy?”

“And I have to buy something?” I think about it for a moment. “I’d get wall-to-wall carpeting…”

“
Wall-to-wall carpeting?
That’s the best you can…?”

“For my blimp!” I shout. “A blimp that we’d keep chained in the yard.”

Charlie laughs out loud at that one. The game is on. His eyes squint at the challenge. “I’d buy a circus.”

“I’d buy Cirque du Soleil.”

“I’d buy Cirque du Soleil and rename it Cirque du Sole. It’d be a three-ring all-fish extravaganza.”

I fight a smile, refusing to give up. “In my bathrooms, I’d get fur-covered toilet seats—the really good kind—like you’re
crapping right on top of an expensive rodent.”

“Those’re sweet,” Charlie agrees. “But not as sweet as my
gold-plated pasta!
”

“Diamond-crusted mondel-bread.”

“Sapphire-studded blueberry muffins.”

“Lobsters stuffed with spare-ribs… or spare-ribs stuffed with lobsters! Maybe even both!” I shout.

Charlie nods. “I’d buy me the Internet—and all the porn sites.”

“Nice. Very tasteful.”

“I try.”

“I know you do—that’s why I’d buy you Orlando.”

“We talking
Tony Orlando,
or we talking
Florida?
” Charlie asks.

I look him straight in the eye. “Both.”

“Both?” Charlie laughs, finally impressed.

“There’s the pause! Count it right there!” I shout. It’s been a long time since he’s been the first to give up. Still, I’ll
take it. It’s not every day you get to beat a master at his own game.

“See, now that’s what I’m talking about,” he eventually says. “Why would we spend another day busting our humps at the bank
when we can get ourselves blimps and Internets and lobsters?”

“You’re so right, Charles,” I say in my best British accent. “And the best part is, no one would know the money was gone.”

Charlie stops. “They wouldn’t, would they?”

I come out of character. “What’re you talking about?”

“Is it really that crazy, Ollie?” he asks, his voice now serious. “I mean, who’s really gonna miss that cash? The owner’s
dead… it’s about to be stolen by someone else… and if the government gets it… oh, they’ll really put the funds to good use.”

Just like that, I sit up straight. “Charlie, I hate to burst your seventeenth fantasy for the day, but what you’re talking
about is
illegal.
Say it out loud…
illll-eeeeeegal.”

He shoots me a look that I haven’t seen since our last fight about mom. Son of a bitch. He’s not joking.

“You said it yourself, Oliver—it’s the perfect crime—”

“That doesn’t mean it’s right!”

“Don’t talk to me about right—rich people… big companies… they steal from the government all day long and no one says a word—but
instead of
stealing,
we just call ’em
loopholes
and
corporate welfare.
”

Typical dreamer. “C’mon, Charlie, you know the world’s not perfect…”

“I’m not asking for perfect—but you know how many breaks the tax code has for the rich? Or for a big corporation that can
afford a good lobbyist? When people like Tanner Drew file their 1040EZ, they barely pay a dollar in income tax. But mom—who’s
barely making twenty-eight grand a year—half of what she owns goes straight to Uncle Sam.”

“That’s not true; I had the planners at the bank—”

“Don’t tell me they’re saving her a few bucks, Oliver. It’s not gonna make a difference. Between the mortgage, and the credit
cards, and everything else dad stuck us with when he left—you have any idea how long that’ll take to pay off? And that’s not
even including what we owe the hospital. What’s that at now? Eighty thousand? Eighty-two thousand?”

“Eighty-one thousand four hundred and fifty dollars,” I clarify. “But just because you feel guilty about the hospital, doesn’t
mean we have to—”

“It’s not about guilt—it’s about eighty thousand dollars, Ollie! Do you even realize how much that is? And it’s still growing
every time we head back to the doctor!”

“I have a plan—”

“Oh, that’s right, your great, fifty-step plan! How’s it go again? Lapidus and the bank bring you to business school, which’ll
bring you up the ladder, which’ll make all our debt disappear? Does that about cover it? ’Cause I hate to break it to you,
Ollie, but you’ve been there four years and mom’s still breathing hospital fumes. We’re barely making a dent—this is our chance
to set her free. Think about how many years that’ll add to her life! She doesn’t have to be second-class anymore…”