Identity Thief (7 page)

I was a far better liar than I’d ever known I was, probably because I’d never really lied much before. It was as if at birth everyone was awarded a certain number of lies they could use through life, and since I was only beginning to tap into my supply, it was in mint condition.

A very attractive girl stood near me as I walked toward the exit door. She had exceptionally beautiful long hair. But I made a point of not noticing her much, in case my old friend the teller was watching. The door was all of twenty feet away, and I knew I’d feel immensely relieved once I made it outside.

There was a loud bang. All the bank chatter instantly stopped. For a fleeting, hopeful instant I thought it might have been a flat tire or fireworks. But obviously—as Scotty would have said—there were no fireworks or flat tires in banks. With a terrible sinking feeling, I realized it was a gunshot. It sounded like it was aimed at the ceiling.

“On the floor!” I heard a voice cry out, and as I instinctively obeyed, I saw three men in ski masks sporting machine guns. The pretty girl was lying near me; our eyes met. The door, the wondrous glass door that meant freedom, was maybe ten impossible feet away from me. Technically, it was the second time that day that someone was trying to kill me.

A security guard took aim at one of the thieves and was immediately shot down in a deluge of bullets. The poor guy jerked about as if he was being electrocuted, and his blood splattered in all directions. I got a sticky spray of red on my suit sleeve, and it gave off a salty smell.

“Give us all your money,” said one of the robbers to the terrified customers, waving around his machine gun while one of his partners approached the tellers. Lizabetty, the teller who helped me, called the robber a hooligan and attacked his face with pepper spray. But her timing was off, and the robber shot her down. Another female teller in the next window burst into tears while the third robber was shown his way inside the bank vault by yet another woman who I assumed was a bank officer.

Fuck,
I thought, with the machine gun poised an inch from my face. I handed over the check.

“Damn it,” said the robber. “What do I look like, a check-cashing service? I want
cash
. Clean, no-fucking-around cash.” He said this as if I were a delivery boy who brought him the wrong sandwich from the deli. “Goddamn certified bank check. Sit up. Are you a cop?”

I felt like I was in one of those dreams in which you need to speak, but you can’t. “Uh, no,” I managed to muster, scrambling to sit.

“Now stand up.” He pointed the gun a fraction away from my nose, and again, I immediately obeyed. “Me and you are going to cash this here check.”

Since he and his pals were already robbing the bank vault, I didn’t see why he needed to cash my check so badly, but I guessed that twenty grand was, after all, twenty grand. Maybe, too, he wanted to prove he was in charge.

I almost tripped over one of the people lying down as the robber led me relentlessly by the necktie to the teller’s window. The crying teller trembled as she took the check and gave the robber twenty grand plus everything else in her drawer. The teller methodically gave me a slip of paper, which I signed, “Dr. Jesse Falcon.” I was careful to use Jesse Falcon’s writing style. Then she stamped the check “void.”

“A doctor, huh? Guess your fancy-shmancy wife ain’t gettin’ no mink coat after all,” the robber said, pleased with his sarcasm.

“No, I guess not.” I didn’t know if he wanted me to smile—kind of one guy to another—but I decided not to.

“Hey, what are you lookin’ at?”

“Nothing, nothing at all.” Yet in spite of everything, I was looking toward the pretty girl. Though a total stranger, she seemed the one source of comfort in the world.

“You’re really full of lip,” said the bank robber. “Mr. Fancy-Talk Doctor.”

It’s hard to know what to say or do when a machine gun is pointed at you, but the task is not made easier when the conversation doesn’t even make sense. In truth, I’d said almost nothing, so how was I to keep this lunatic from killing me? I had a fleeting memory of a grade school bully who used to do this—he’d say anything to keep you off guard and scared.

“I, uh . . . um, I’m sorry.”

“
Sorry
? Don’t make me laugh. You rich doctors—you’re never sorry for anything.”

He aimed his gun, and I heard a ringing in my ears that seemed to drown out all other sounds. Time seemed to no longer exist. A burning pain came so intense I had to leave my body to escape it. My teeth chattered from a coldness that seemed to permeate the entire world, and I knew I was dying or maybe was already dead.

“Dr. Falcon?”

I was so weak that merely opening my eyes felt like I’d just finished the decathlon. It took a while to adjust to the light; in fact, it actually hurt. There seemed to be vague blotches of ugly colors everywhere, as if refuse from a nightmare had fallen off a phantom garbage truck. In the background was a terrible noise of people scurrying around. I wanted it to stop.

“I’m not Dr. Anybody,” I hoarsely managed to whisper. Whoever was speaking to me said, “Hmm. There’s no indication of memory loss on the chart.” As I turned to look, I saw it was some sort of doctor or nurse; it took an extra moment to focus enough to tell that it was a woman. I figured she was a doctor because nurses usually were not this detached in how they spoke to you. But what was I doing here?

Then I remembered. Identity theft, bank robbers, gunshots. “Yes, I’m Dr. Falcon.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“I’m guessing a hospital. It doesn’t look much like heaven.”

“Yes, quite amusing.” The woman faked an unconvincing grin. “According to your chart, you are very lucky. Of the four bullets that struck you, only one struck major organs. Two bullets were removed from your buttocks and the last grazed your elbow. That was three days ago. Your stomach and spleen were salvageable, but you will be on a restricted diet for one month. You should be able to go home in a week.” She looked at me as though I should kiss her feet for bothering with me. “Any questions?”

I rubbed my sore elbow. “Yeah, as a matter of fact. How’d I get shot twice in the ass?”

“Because God is just.” It was the unmistakable voice of Mom, who’d entered the room—that is to say, my curtained-off half of the room. “And you never could tell your ass from your elbow.”

“I’ll be going now,” said the indifferent doctor.

I was connected to a bunch of tubes and monitors, but the first thing my mom did when we were alone was punch me in the nose. “How dare you,” she began, “stick me and your own son—your
own son
—in such a crapper full of shit.” She double-checked that the bed on the other side of the curtain was empty.

“I—”

“Don’t even start with me. Don’t even
try
.” She sat down on the one chair and took out a Butterfinger candy bar from her purse. “No, you can’t have any,” she said, reading my thoughts. “You have to eat all this fucked up shit like farina for the next month. Serves you right. But I wouldn’t give you some anyway. I don’t give candy to two-bit criminals.”

I realized I’d turned a corner in my life because instead of feeling nothing but guilty for having been caught, I was equally curious to know how much she knew. “What do you mean, Mom?”

“That ‘Who, me?’ look didn’t work when you were five years old, and it doesn’t work now. What made you think you could steal someone’s identity? And the asshole who used to own my own home? How stupid are you?”

I was relieved that at least she didn’t know about Biff. “Did you—?”

“Of course I didn’t tell the cops.” She angrily munched on her chocolate. “Oh, great. You think your own mother is a snitch. Even when you were teething like there was no tomorrow, I let you suck the milk from my tits. And look at the thanks I get. Am I a canary? Do I flap my yellow wings and sing away the day to the cops?”

Despite how rotten I felt, I was salivating for a bite of candy bar. “But how did you figure all this out?”

She finished the last bite and tossed the crumbled wrapper in the wastebasket. “With something called a brain, though I realize you were born without one. I knew you went to see that shyster lawyer. When you didn’t come home by evening, I called her. She said you went to the bank. The TV was going bananas over this big local bank robbery, so I figured it was just your lousy luck to be there. At first I thought you were stupid enough to rob the damn place. But I figured I should find out what was what before asking the cops anything. I looked up the last web pages you went to on your computer. Yep, that’s right. You, the great computer whiz, didn’t delete the wookie-cookies or whatever the hell they call them. Dr. Jesse Falcon! Are you nuts? They told me you were here. Anyway, I called the nephew of this nice lady who’s my neighbor. He works for the crummy town newspaper, and he told me that Dr. Jesse Fuckhead Falcon was shot in the bank robbery. One of those bank robbers was turning you into Swiss cheese when the cops broke in and shot him right through his dumbfuck head. That’s what saved you. A teller ID’d you as the Good Doctor. When you’re out of this dumpy hospital, you should light a candle in a house of worship and thank the good Lord God.”

“Where’s Scotty?”

“With me, you idiot. What did you think, that I sold him to pirates? My neighbor is watching him now. A nice, law-abiding old bag like his grandma. I don’t want him seeing you this way. I don’t know if he should see you ever again. But his mother is such a fuck, I suppose you’re the lesser of two evils.” She took out a nail clipper from her purse. “Hold out your hands.”

I obeyed, as she clipped my fingernails. “You should always maintain a clean appearance. Surely I raised you to know that much.”

“What should I do, Mom?”

“Get the hell out of town, dummy,” she replied, cutting my nails neatly to the quick. “Let’s see if it blows over. I’ll keep Scotty for now. We’ll tell him Daddy’s busy. It’s not like Betsy McBitch is dying to take care of him. We’ll tell the lawyer lady that you’re setting up a job someplace. I threw your laptop in the trash—in a plastic bag full of Porky’s stinking hamster shit and piss litter. If the cops come around, I’ll pretend to be some senile old lady. I already complained to the post office about not getting my mail, just in case.”

“Uh, what about, you know . . . money?”

“I paid the lawyer her retainer and then some. Why couldn’t you take money from me in the first place? I’m your
mother
, damn it. What made you think you could get away with anything? Criminals are smart.”

I looked at my freshly clipped nails. “I’m smart. You always said so.”

“I didn’t say it so you’d become a
crook
. I thought you’d be a doctor. Someone who’d take care of his poor, weak mother in her old age. Someone I could’ve been proud of.”

“Apparently I have a strong spleen. Isn’t that something to be proud of?” I noticed my morphine drip was running low. I buzzed for the nurse, who quickly filled it back up.

“Are you feeling any better, Dr. Falcon?” asked the nurse.

“He’s a dear,” Mom answered on my behalf, smiling pleasantly.

“I’ve never understood your sense of humor,” Mom complained, after the nurse left. “Now, Don Knotts, he was funny. Anyway, I have enough money to take care of Scotty. And I’ll give you five G’s to settle yourself in and find a J-O-B. Then that’s
it.
I’m not cashing in another annuity to keep your stupid, penny-ante criminal ass out of the slammer.”

“I have to get my stuff.”

“Like hell you do. I moved your car to a scrap heap. You’ll never see it again and hopefully, neither will the cops. If anything comes addressed to Jesse Falcon, I’ll burn it. I already burned your clothes and suitcase, except for one change of clothes, which I left with the nurses. And don’t do anything stupid like calling me on your cell phone. One time, your louse of a grandfather—” She stopped herself from continuing.

“What about Granddad?” I sat up in bed, anxious to hear more.

“None of your damn business. Your grandfather is in heaven, where good people go.”

“I love you, Mom.”

She grunted dismissively. “Yeah, right. Tell it to a pile of dog shit. Tell it to your prison cellmate when he wants to make you his sweet little mama’s boy.”

The week went by in a haze of morphine drips, nurses male and female who reminded me of flight attendants, and snooty doctors male and female who confused me with other patients.

Technically, I couldn’t get discharged without someone to pick me up, but since I supposedly was a doctor myself, the hospital finally relented and said I could go home in a cab. The problem was that I had no home. A nurse helped me get dressed, since I was still in a lot of pain. The same nurse was about to call me a cab.

“Jesse!” a melodious voice called out. I turned, and saw . . .
who was it? Oh God, yes. It was that pretty girl at the bank robbery. I recognized her beautiful long hair. A sight for sore eyes, as the old saying goes. Only what the hell was she doing here? I had a passing thought that my mother somehow arranged it to make fun of me later.

“Jesse, thank God you’re alive.” The girl kissed my cheek. “Is it okay if I give you a hug?”

“Uh, sure.” She hugged me warmly but with an awareness of my injuries. “Nurse, I heard you calling a cab. Please cancel it. I’ll drive Dr. Falcon home.”

When the nurse left, I opened my mouth to ask about a million questions, but the girl beat me to it. “No, of course I don’t
know you
know you. And yet, the way we looked at each other during the robbery. I can’t explain it—the life and death of it all. It was so . . . so everything all at once. When you got shot . . . I don’t even have the words for it. I went to the police and found out your name and that my prayers had been answered. You were still alive. I can’t explain it without sounding like some lunatic, but I
had
to see you. And I knew I would.”

Out of everything I’d been through, was something positive occurring? Maybe life was a trade-off. Something bad happened—or in my case about a million bad things happened—but then along came something good. Or at least something that
seemed
good, which was more than could be said for Betsy and Biff. I figured I had nothing to lose. Even if I never saw her again, I’d get a free ride from the hospital. Of course, she thought I was Jesse Falcon, and I had no idea how to handle that. But one thing at a time. For now it was simply a free ride home. Or so I told myself.