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Chapter 132: This Is What You Call Smart
"The con artist is Marino Jenkins."
After a brief, uncomfortable silence, Bernie filled Agent Lombardi in on their progress, the First Precinct had deployed units near Jenkins's residence, but no word yet.
Lombardi looked genuinely surprised. Not just by their speed, but by their precision. Every move deliberate, every step landing exactly where it needed to. Like they were working backward from the solution, reverse-engineering the investigation.
It reminded Lombardi of rumors that had circulated back in January, whispers among the Legal Counsel staff that these two operated with almost supernatural accuracy, as if they'd consulted a crystal ball before making their moves.
The rumors had died down when they'd left for selection training.
Lombardi studied Bernie with renewed interest, then shifted to business. He outlined the day's Union Station deployment results before reluctantly mentioning he'd need to recall personnel for his new case.
"Pull them," Bernie said immediately. "We're done with locker 103. Our focus is now on Jenkins's residence. First Precinct can handle surveillance."
Lombardi clapped his shoulder in thanks and suggested drinks sometime.
Bernie thought of his last bar experience, before Ronald shipped out, and smiled awkwardly.
As a Texan, he still hadn't adjusted to D.C.'s bar culture. He preferred establishments with mechanical bulls, arm wrestling, darts, pool tables, and drinking games that didn't require discussing Sartre.
When Bernie returned to the office wearing an odd expression, Theodore was drafting a case brief for the First Precinct.
The standard procedure required the requesting agency to submit documentation when seeking FBI assistance. But since they'd commandeered this case from the First Precinct rather than being invited in, the paperwork fell on them.
So far, their only procedural document was the Federal Communications Commission Order No. 74 application Lombardi had completed on Friday. Which meant they now faced dozens of supplementary documents and hundreds of forms, applications, explanations, checklists, records, and reports. Enough bureaucratic tedium to induce optical migraines.
Bernie recounted his conversation with Lombardi, then pivoted abruptly: "Are all D.C. bars like the one we went to?" He struggled for the right descriptor, finally settling on comparison. "None like the Old Gun Bar back home?"
Theodore shook his head. He didn't know either.
The desk phone interrupted their cultural analysis.
First Precinct had Jenkins in custody, two patrol cars en route. But it was after five now, and Pennsylvania Avenue had thickened with commuter traffic. What normally took Bernie ten minutes was running thirty for the detectives.
When they finally arrived, Theodore and Bernie got their first look at Marino Jenkins.
He wore a faded Sears work uniform in institutional gray: short stature, rounded shoulders. Years of carrying a toolbox had left one shoulder noticeably higher than the other, his spine curved like a question mark.
Two detectives hauled Jenkins from the cruiser with unnecessary force. He stumbled, caught himself, and stood quietly to the side. Only when the detectives moved to retrieve his equipment did he speak, asking them to be careful, not to damage anything.
According to the detectives, Jenkins had appeared on his block half an hour ago, toolbox and equipment in plain view. They'd scooped him up without incident.
The post-arrest search had turned up a Jefferson nickel in his jacket pocket, a 1946 to 1953 vintage piece, per Bernie's specific instructions. The AT&T technician had identified those years as optimal for magnetized coins.
Theodore and Bernie escorted Jenkins to the interrogation room.
They planned to close this tonight, finish the interview, spend the next two days reviewing paperwork, and submit the final report by Monday at the latest.
This case wasn't nearly as complex as the one Hoover had dropped on them six months earlier, but the bureaucratic aftermath would be three times the volume. That case had only required coordination with the Fifth Precinct. This one sprawled across AT&T, Riggs National Bank, Agriculture, Commerce, the FCC, and GSA.
Before Bernie could spiral into document-induced despair, he shoved the magnetized nickel across the table. "What's this used for?"
Distraction by interrogation is the healthier alternative to assaulting suspects.
Jenkins sat ramrod straight. "A coin. Money." He glanced at the nickel, then at Bernie. "FBI lawyers don't know what money's for?"
Bernie picked up the coin. "This is a magnetized coin. Insert it halfway into a payphone slot, and you can make free calls."
Jenkins looked mildly surprised.
Bernie slid the coin forward. Jenkins reached instinctively to take it, but Bernie pulled back. "You used this to make calls from the phone booth east of Union Station."
He set the coin aside and produced several punch cards, arranging them chronologically before sliding them center-table. Jenkins's eyes tracked across them, but he said nothing.
Bernie isolated nine calls from Friday at noon. "Last Friday, you used this magnetized coin to make these nine extortion calls. You claimed you'd kidnapped their family members. Demanded ransom. Told them to put the money in green Western Union packages and leave them on the three P.M. train to Pittsburgh."
Theodore added the statements of the eight victims to the pile.
Jenkins barely glanced at them before shaking his head. "I didn't do that. I don't know what you're talking about."
Bernie made a soft sound, something between skepticism and amusement. Jenkins stared at him hard, but Bernie ignored it, rifling through documents until he found a stapled stack of work orders.
He tossed them over. "These are your orders from every outsourcing company you're registered with. You were free precisely when these nine calls were made."
Jenkins was silent a moment, still shaking his head. "I was eating."
"What did you eat? Where?"
No answer.
Before the interrogation began, Theodore and Bernie had strategized briefly. Theodore assessed Jenkins's psychological defenses as weak. Present the evidence, demonstrate the futility of denial, and he'd confess voluntarily. All they needed to do was corner him.
Bernie found the bank employee's statement. "Last Wednesday, you applied for a three-thousand-dollar loan at Riggs National Bank's Pennsylvania Avenue branch. You were rejected. True?"
"Your application failed because you have no job and no fixed income."
"I have a job!" Jenkins snapped.
Bernie pointed at the outsourcing work orders.
Jenkins's lips moved. "I have a job. The General Services Administration fired us. Outsourced the work to AT&T just to cut their budget." His resentment toward GSA bubbled to the surface. "We still do the work, same work, but they pay us less than half what we made before."
Bernie just smiled without arguing.
The silence made Jenkins squirm, shifting his weight in the chair.
Bernie slid the attendant's statement over. "You didn't make this call either?"
Jenkins read it, shock registering across his features. He clearly hadn't expected his reliable confederate to flip so completely.
Theodore caught the reaction and passed the fingerprint report to Bernie.
Bernie pulled out the three punch cards from last night and picked up the magnetized coin again. "Did you make these three calls?"
Jenkins, still reeling from the attendant's betrayal, shook his head reflexively. "My line analyzer broke down last night. I went home early."
Bernie let silence hang for a beat, then opened the fingerprint report. "If you were home, how did your fingerprints get into the phone booth?"
He walked Jenkins through the report methodically. "After these three calls occurred last night, the phone booth DC-1708 east of Union Station was never used again. We lifted your fingerprints from DC-1708. You made all three calls."
Jenkins gripped the report, eyes fixed on the text, unmoving.
He tried to construct an excuse, but his mind kept circling back to one truth: They know everything.
He was cornered.
Now they just needed to give him a reason to talk, and he wouldn't be able to stop.
Bernie slapped the document stack in front of him, snapping Jenkins's attention back. "You used specialized communications methods to extort nine government employees. Total attempted theft: sixty thousand dollars. After the extortion failed, you even tried to provoke an FBI lawyer."
He checked his watch. "I have more evidence here. Actually, you don't need to confess. This evidence convicts you on its own."
"The choice is yours: cooperate now for leniency, or we fill out a few more forms, and your sentence gets severe. Up to you."
Long silence.
Then: "I just made a few calls."
Bernie pulled out the nine Friday punch cards. "These?"
Jenkins sifted through them, one by one, then nodded.
"What did you say in the calls?"
After a brief hesitation, Jenkins repeated his script and even matched the original tone.
At that point, Bernie no longer needed to guide him. Jenkins couldn't stop talking.
Like countless criminals before him, once confession started, it flowed.
He admitted calling and extorting nine government employees. Got the phone numbers from GSA, the agency managing the Communications Technology Department, didn't know the first thing about actual technology, only handled customer service. Confidential information, such as internal numbers, sat completely unguarded against outsourced workers like Jenkins.
He admitted to using green packages, recruiting the attendant as an accomplice, and arranging the coin locker for fund collection.
He'd overheard the attendant's number from a client. Green packages were an old habit from his GSA days; government employees had used that method for years.
The target list came from a premium client roster at the main branch.
But Bernie's name hadn't come from the bank. Jenkins had been at GSA doing maintenance when the FBI reported new phone numbers. He'd written Bernie's number down casually. The twenty-thousand-dollar amount? Arbitrary. He had no idea about Bernie's actual loan.
Just as Theodore had analyzed, this scheme had been percolating in Jenkins's mind for a long time. Started as an idle thought, evolved during downtime into something increasingly refined. Transformed from fantasy into a feasible plan.
That Wednesday at the bank, when he'd tried to apply for a loan to buy a new portable line analyzer, the clerk hadn't even let him complete an application. Heard the amount and rejected him outright.
It had stung.
And in that moment, the extortion plan he'd been idly polishing suddenly crystallized with perfect clarity.
One phone call could net tens of thousands. No one would get hurt. Even if no one fell for it, the cost was zero.
"Did you choose victims from the same premium client list to punish the bank for rejecting your loan?" Theodore asked.
"They didn't even let me fill out an application!" Jenkins corrected sharply. "Kicked me out without listening." He thought for a moment, then shook his head. "But no. I didn't think that much about it."
"Why did you choose an FBI lawyer?"
Jenkins considered this seriously for a long time, then shook his head with what looked like genuine confusion. "I don't know. I didn't think that much."
Theodore stared at him, then shook his own head.
He didn't ask any more questions for the rest of the interrogation.
He was beginning to doubt his earlier assessment.
Bernie, sitting beside him, watched Theodore's silent recalibration and barely suppressed a laugh.
'Smart. This is what you call smart.'
The Jenkins interrogation consumed nearly three hours.
Mostly because his confession came wrapped in extensive complaints, grievances, and unprompted demonstrations of his expertise, he'd even volunteered a detailed explanation of how magnetized coins enabled free calls.
By the time they finished, it was past nine P.M.
They dumped the interrogation documents in the office and headed straight for the parking lot.
Theodore wanted to fly directly back to his apartment. Bernie refused.
Bernie chose to honor his promise, discussing the case while driving at lawful speeds.
He stretched the ten-minute drive into a quarter of an hour.
[End of Chapter]