You Will Soon Be Receiving An Important Email

Crime Fiction by Brenda Kilianski

To: Claudia Valentine
From: Dmitry Panchenko <Dmitry.Panchenko@fub.com.ua>
Subject:  $6,000,000 Dollars
Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2020 10:31 p.m.

Dear Miss Claudia,

I hope this email finds you well.  I wanted to inform you of a sum of considerable funds that could be yours by order of our First Ukrainian Bank and the US Customs Department.  You have relative that bequeathed you the total of $6 million American dollars.  If I would just be able to meet you for the transfer to a US Bank via a check deposit.  I will be arriving at the JFK International Airport in Queens, New York on a date in the near future we can mutually determine together.  Would you please respond your interest for your inheritance as soon as possible?  Warmest regards, Dmitry Panchenko, Vice-President, First Ukrainian Bank.

Inheritance?  From whom?  I’m Irish, Italian and German.  There’s not a drop of Ukrainian blood in me, but who the hell was I to quibble about a $6 million dollar inheritance from the Vice-President of the First Ukrainian Bank.  OK.  So, I know you’re thinking, Claudia Valentine, and you would know my name from the email if nothing else, Claudia Valentine, you can’t seriously believe you’re the genuine recipient of $6 million American dollars?  It’s the classic example of cyber fraud, right? Catfishing?  You know about that, don’t you?  I may be a librarian, but I don’t live under a rock.  In fact, I’m trained to look under rocks, in the stacks, above the fold. Yes!  I can spot someone phishing a mile away. But after telecommuting for the last eight months, away from my colleagues, living alone except for two cats and ten thousand books, with no family or friends nearby, any human contact, even a con, seemed, well, tempting. And what’s a little temptation for a spinster librarian (an old-fashioned term for an old fashioned gal). But hey, Marian the Librarian found love with her con artist Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man.  Maybe it was my time to shine.  Yeah. And maybe Dmitry had six million bucks for me.  But I just could not hit the delete key.

To: Panchenko, Dmitry
From: Valentine, Claudia <claudiavalentinelibrarian@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: $6,000,000 Dollars
Date: Thursday, November 5, 2020 6:42 a.m.

Dear Mr. Panchenko,

I am very well, thank you.  But I am curious if you have the right person.  If you do a Google search you will find that there are several Claudia Valentines across the country.  Are you sure you have the right one?  I would hate to take another Claudia Valentine’s money, her future.  How can you be certain it is me?  Also, would you provide me some identification that you are indeed a bank vice-president.  I want to make sure I’m speaking with upper management, not just a teller. Looking forward to your response.  CV.

Of course, I didn’t expect to receive a response from Mr. Dmitry Panchenko.  I didn’t expect to receive $6 million American dollars either. And the way the dollar was looking in the currency exchange, I would have been better off getting it in Euros instead.  I also didn’t expect him to provide me with identification – that was what he planned on asking me – for my social security number, my bank account.  But knowing that I was being phished actually raised the excitement quotient.  Knowing I was being scammed had me questioning whether I could string along the stringer, play the player, let him think he had me when I was the one who’d be looking for the first exit. I’d been on the receiving end of a few one-sided relationships in my lifetime, relationships the result of which turned me into that middle-aged spinster librarian.  If I had been a better Catholic, I should have been a nun.  But I wasn’t as good as I should have been, so the sin of deception felt like a new hobby I decided to take up out of boredom.  Everyone else was picking up new hobbies during this pandemic – sewing, crafting, working on puzzles, remodeling their homes – I was counter-phishing my phisher. Not that I expected anything to happen.  Like a five-hundred-piece puzzle, when it’s finished, it’s still five hundred pieces and then you throw them all back in the box.  I assumed the same level of excitement from hitting send would dissipate as soon as my response reached its destination.  Because these men never call back.  Or respond to emails.

To: Claudia Valentine
From: Dmitry Panchenko <Dmitry.Panchenko@fub.com.ua> 
Subject: RE: RE:  $6,000,000 Dollars
Date: Thursday, November 5, 2020 9:16 p.m.
Attachment: Dmitry Panchenko.jpg

Dear Miss Claudia,

I am so happy that you responded very quickly.  And you are the one for me. I mean that you are the one I am looking for.  You live in Albany, NY and you lived in Chicago before for many years.  I was made aware of this from your uncle in Kiev.  He was very proud of the work you do and told me himself in a conference once.  It is wise for security purposes that you asked for my identification to see that I am the one true Dmitry Panchenko.  Please see that this is my badge for working in the First Ukrainian Bank.  If you are satisfied with this information, please respond and we can move forward with the transfer of funds. I will secure a lockbox and schedule our meeting at the airport. Yours, Dmitry.

OK.  I’ll have to admit.  He was good.  He was good looking too. If that picture was really him.  For all I knew, the person on the other end of the phishing line was actually Bayo Odoemene from Lagos, Nigeria.  But suspending disbelief just to relieve unrelenting lockdown ennui, I followed through with the idea that this guy really was the same one who sent the attachment, and his name really was Dmitry Panchenko.  And Dmitry . . . was a hunk. Not in the old-school cowboy Sam Elliott way, but more like the Anthony Zerbe with the villainous arched eyebrows and the killer smile who guest starred on every Quinn Martin television mystery series at least twice a season during the 1970s kind of look.  Yeah.  I was interested.  I examined the photo more closely, zooming in to see if there were any obvious typos, but the identification looked as professionally done as the badge I hadn’t used to enter my office building in the last eight months.  I could imagine this guy as a banker.  Or an Eastern European bagman for the Russian mob.  But in a post-Soviet world, wasn’t that the same thing? 

What did surprise me is that this guy really did his homework.  I mean, he had my email address and was able to correctly match it with the Claudia Valentine who currently lived in Albany and who used to live in Chicago.  Credit Karma was probably correct when they said my personal information was floating around the dark web – clearly having more fun than I was.  Perhaps I should have spent the $19.95 per month to have them monitor my credit more thoroughly.  What credit?  What to monitor?  Besides, hunky Dmitry wouldn’t have entered my life otherwise.  And I did have a LinkedIn profile I hadn’t updated in years.  Although I kept the account private, if he was resourceful enough to pay for membership, he could have found me in a quick search.  I know. . .who would use a Hotmail account on their LinkedIn page?  How about someone who stopped trying.

To: Panchenko, Dmitry
From: Valentine, Claudia <claudiavalentinelibrarian@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: RE: RE: $6,000,000 Dollars
Date: Friday, November 6, 2020 5:27 a.m.

Dear Dmitry,

Thank you for sharing your photo.  Yes. I am the Claudia Valentine who now lives in Albany, who once used to live in Chicago, a lifetime ago, actually.  Truthfully, it was so long ago, I don’t remember my Ukrainian uncle very well. I have a large family.  But I would never do anything to disrespect his wishes.  If he wants to gift me six million dollars, who am I to refuse? You mentioned JFK Airport.  You do know that Albany is not near New York City, right?  Waiting for your reply, Claudia.

So many lies in that email and only one truth.  I only moved back East four years prior, so there was more than a bit of exaggeration from a time standpoint.  My family is nuclear.  Two parents. One sibling. The former I’m in contact with daily. The latter I haven’t spoken to in years. Scattered aunts, uncles, and cousins across the continent whom I barely know. And Albany is only 150 miles from Manhattan, but to anyone south of Westchester County, the Capital District might as well be in Northern Ontario.  I wondered if I was sounding too pushy.  I was new to phishing and just like back in the day when I was dating – occasionally, rarely, almost never – I had to rein myself in from looking overeager. Desperate.  But Dmitry did not disappoint.

To: Claudia Valentine
From: Dmitry Panchenko <Dmitry.Panchenko@fub.com.ua> 
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: $6,000,000 Dollars
Date: Friday, November 6, 2020 9:41 p.m.

My dearest Claudia,

I can’t tell you how happy I am to fulfill your uncle Andriy’s last request.  He spoke of you fondly when you took him on a tour of the Art Institute of Chicago and ate a wonderful lunch at the Berghoff Café in the Loop.  He told me how you both laughed when he said he loved German food but not German people.  Even more than the Russians.

Of course, my imaginary Ukrainian uncle would be insulting the German side of my family.  Even in the midst of fraud, I still managed to get sucked into a family drama that was every bit as imaginary.  I took a sip of my Earl Grey tea mixed with a dash of John Henry Single Malt Whiskey, washing down the leftover Kung Pao chicken and another fortune cookie delivered earlier in the week. I was telecommuting like more than half the world, so no one in the office knew I was drinking on the job – just like that same half of the world. Based on a few recent Zoom meetings, I assumed all my co-workers were in various stages of alcoholism during this lockdown. Half the time, many of my colleagues didn’t even bother to turn on their cameras for our daily check-in, and that included management.  I sat up and reread the email exchanges between me and my new Ukrainian ‘boyfriend’ – a cringeworthy term used by any adult woman, but certainly one over fifty – and one who should have known better. I always spent the afternoon researching new client requests, but a security upgrade interrupted my access to the office server, so I figured this would be as good a time as any to start weeding through my junk mail and that’s how I first stumbled upon the letter from Dmitry. I still had a Hotmail account from 1997 and I was always hovering around 97% storage capacity.  I was at 99 percent. It was time to purge.

Yeah. I know.  Everyone always asks me Why do you still have a Hotmail account? Why do we keep anything seemingly worthless to others but for sentimental reasons? I can filter my posts from 1997 – the year I first moved to Chicago; or 2001 – 9/11 to be precise, when I was working for the paper and I kept getting emails from people asking are you ok? like they didn’t remember I worked in the Tribune Tower not the World Trade Center. But that was back when anyone cared. Or when I let them. But it could also be a professional quirk. Keeping that Hotmail account, I mean. I’m a librarian by trade. Got my MLS, baby! Archiving is my specialty, where being OCD isn’t a character flaw but a job requirement. So yeah. Owning up to the fact that I still maintain a Hotmail account is just my signaling to the world – hoarder! – of the digital kind. And since I lived alone – except for those two cats and ten thousand books – what was two and a half decades worth of email in the scope of life and death anyway? Purging Hotmail would be like purging my memories. There were gaps and years I couldn’t, wouldn’t remember if I didn’t have that account. And no! I wasn’t going to transfer it to a zip file I’d never open again. I needed my memories a mouse-click away, when my work was done, and my cats didn’t want to play.

And Hotmail did bring me Dmitry. So as my laptop hummed like the Siamese on my lap when I stroked under his chin, I pointed the mouse on the scroll bar, slowly rereading Dmitry’s plea that I meet him – well, his millions of dollars anyhow – at JFK airport. Of course, I hadn’t been down to the city since COVID landed. I wasn’t sure of the protocol. Most New Yorkers thought Albany was in a different state.  Would I need to get a COVID test to cross the five boroughs or quarantine myself afterwards? Truthfully, it might be easier to meet Dmitry in the Ukraine where even less was happening there what with their own lockdowns. I could ask him in person what made his damn country so special that it required a definite article like the United States.  And immediately, I felt I had lived too long alone in my apartment as my xenophobia was showing.  So, in the spirit of diplomacy, I replied to my Ukrainian sweetie.

To: Panchenko, Dmitry
From: Valentine, Claudia <claudiavalentinelibrarian@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: $6,000,000 Dollars
Date: Saturday, November 7, 2020 6:38 a.m.

Hello Dmitry,

Your email is very enticing.  But I’m not sure if I will be able to meet you at the airport.  And about those lockers.   I thought they junked them after 9/11. Security issues.  Is there another way we can exchange . . . whatever we’re exchanging?  Best regards, Claudia.

Of course, I didn’t expect a reply now that we were getting to the nitty gritty details of an actual meetup.  I assumed that Dmitry was casting his net far and wide, across Eastern Europe, across the Atlantic, maybe the seven continents.  How many bored, lonely, half-in-the-bag middle-aged women working from home were going to respond as well?  Apparently only one, because I got another response later that afternoon.

To: Claudia Valentine
From: Dmitry Panchenko <Dmitry.Panchenko@fub.com.ua> 
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: $6,000,000 Dollars
Date: Saturday, November 7, 2020 2:13 p.m.

My dearest Claudia,

It is so lovely that you are enticed by my offer.  I know that we can do splendid together and mutually exclusive arrangement with many benefits.  I understand too your trepidation about security at airports. I am currently in the U.K. making my way to the U.S., so Heathrow is also full of security. No worries. We shall meet elsewhere.  Would the Port Authority work for you?  Please respond quickly. My heart beats. Dmitry.

Well my head hurt.  Lockdowns will do that to you.   I know. Everyone is struggling. And it’s not like I should complain. Two cats. Ten thousand books. But I live in Albany, NY. Smalbany. The lockdowns only magnified my isolated and miniaturized existence.  That’s the only explanation for thinking a meetup with a Ukrainian gangster in the Port Authority was anything but a bad idea.  Even before COVID, my dating life was about as paltry as my savings account.  Age had reduced me to trying such online dating options as Silver Singles and Our Time. No!  It is not our time!  Not anymore. It should be called Past Our Time.  Both sites consisted of old geezers looking for either twenty-four hour caretakers or twenty-four- year-old trophy wives. I was neither.

To: Panchenko, Dmitry
From: Valentine, Claudia <claudiavalentinelibrarian@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: $6,000,000 Dollars
Date: Saturday, November 7, 2020 3:31 p.m.

Hi Dmitry. 

Sorry. We Americans are always a bit too informal. And overeager.  But I could possibly meet you in Midtown when you arrive.  The bus from Albany goes directly to the Port Authority.  And I think they still have lockers. Cheers, Claudia.

And then I added Dmitry’s email to my Safe Sender file so I wouldn’t have to look for him in my junk folder again.  I don’t give my trust away that easily, but what the hell.  Romance seemed to beckon.  And so did the millions of dollars he was promising. Now if you think I’m that gullible, expecting true love and unlimited wealth from a series of email exchanges, let me set the record straight now.  I hadn’t worked as a news researcher for so many years without knowing the scope and breadth of fraud out in cyberspace.  I knew extensively about those women who had been bilked out of thousands of dollars by guys just like Dmitry from the Ukraine.  Except they were Donal from Ireland, Klaus from Austria, Jorge from Guatemala – all promising hearts and riches if only you a) cash this check b) wire money or c) deposit this check and wire the money.  And the stories were the same. Checks cashed, money wired, checks deposited, bank accounts drained, hearts broken.  But not me.  I had no money. And I had no heart. But just as Cyndi Lauper sang my theme song when I was in college, her words still held true today as the soundtrack for my lonely middle age: Girls Just Want To Have Fun.

To: Claudia Valentine
From: Dmitry Panchenko <Dmitry.Panchenko@fub.com.ua> 
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: $6,000,000 Dollars
Date: Saturday, November 7, 2020 9:17 p.m.

Dear, sweet Claudia. 

I am beyond words excited and thrilled that we should meet. My plane arrives at JFK International Airport on Thursday next week.  I can arrange to see you that day after going through customs.  Would you recommend a taxi to Manhattan or is the subway safe?  I haven’t been to New York since Mr. Giuliani was Mayor and I heard things may have changed. Any suggestions would be appreciated.  And one question. Where do you bank?  Chase? Wells Fargo? Or Bank of America?  With much love, Dmitry.

Much love? How much? I could see we were getting to the heart of the matter. And for one brief moment, I thought I might be wrong about Dmitry.  Maybe he was in love. Maybe he was as lonely as I was.  Maybe he was willing to fly from the Ukraine to the U.K. to the U.S. just to exchange words, glances, kisses, and bank account numbers with Claudia Valentine. Yes.  I not only wear my heart on my sleeve, it’s printed on my credit cards too. I looked at my calendar on Outlook, requested the day off and started searching for a cheap round trip ticket to the Port Authority for the following Thursday.  I mean, it’s not like anyone in my office would have cared anyway.  We were all keeping ourselves Available on Teams even when we were running errands.  It was a scam, just like this rendezvous with Dmitry, but I think everyone in my office was less honest about their telecommuting work habits than anything Dmitry could offer me.

Dmitry. Dmitry Panchenko.  OK.  It could have been the boredom. It could have been the bourbon. It could have been I was once a world class researcher and wished I still had access to those fancy databases I used when I worked for the newspaper.  But I started googling his name, wondering if maybe he did exist beyond the boundaries of cyber fraud and catfishing. Images of Omar Shariff starring in films like Dr. Zhivago or The Tamarind Seed emerged from my subconscious. OK. The actor was Egyptian. He often played Russians. And Ukrainians would tell you they’re anything but that. Suddenly, I saw myself as Julie Christie or Julie Andrews, rescuing my beloved from the clutches of the KGB or the Cossacks or . . . in the Port Authority?!? Good luck with that!  OK. Fantasy destroyed. Reality resumes.  But I did discover that Panchenko is ridiculously common Ukrainian name – like Smith or Jones (I’ve yet to meet a person with either last name, so really, how common is it?)  According to Wikipedia (for librarians – not the most reliable of sources, just sayin’), celebrity Panchenkos include chess players, athletes, poets, and scientists. Did my Dmitry fit in any of those categories?  Was he a Grand Master? A goalie? A lyric? A quantum physicist?  Or was he just a guy on the make?  I’d find out Thursday.

I had five days to make myself presentable, difficult in the time of COVID.  It took me six months to get my dentist to agree to a teeth cleaning; I doubted that I could book an appointment at a hair salon on such short notice, but I gave it the old college try and managed to get not only a haircut but a brow waxing too. Good thing.  Impressions are most important on a first date. I couldn’t have my Ukrainian boyfriend thinking I was the long-lost granddaughter of Leonid Brezhnev.  Dmitry, meanwhile, was still wooing me via Hotmail.  I admired his persistence.  And while his language wasn’t explicit, I saw where he and I were eventually headed.

To: Claudia Valentine
From: Dmitry Panchenko <Dmitry.Panchenko@fub.com.ua> 
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: $6,000,000 Dollars
Date: Sunday, November 8, 2020 10:22 a.m.

My sweet Claudia.

I’m flying from Heathrow to Munich on Monday and will be landing at your JFK International Airport Thursday as planned.  Per your suggestion, I will take Uber.  It sounds German, so I assume it’s efficient.  Thank you.  You do have identification, correct?  I know in the U.S. it is not necessary to carry your passport at all times like it is in the E.U. but it might be a good idea, especially for business transactions.  I am just suggesting this so we can commence a more personal relationship as soon as we have completed our business.  All my love, Dmitry.

So now it’s all his love?  Yeah . . . I could feel the line being reeled in, but I felt confident I could swim away.  If I had friends, I’m sure they would have told me not to go.  Stop immediately. Contact the police.  I booked my ticket for Thursday thinking I better get a move on before they sell out over the weekend, or the prices go up as demand does too.  Buses from Albany to Manhattan were notoriously expensive but still half the price of an Amtrak to Penn Station.  And just like that, I forgot about COVID.  I forgot that everyone in Brooklyn moved to either Kingston, or Hudson, or Troy. Personally, I’d rather deal with a global pandemic than a hipster invasion; I was ready to book it back to Chicago.  But I scored a one-way to the Port Authority for seventeen bucks instead, deciding to take a chance and see how things played out before buying the return trip. That price would have been unheard of a year ago, but obviously, the transportation business was hurting.  I disliked the idea of scavenging, but a girl’s gotta follow her heart, even when she’s over fifty.  The money I saved on bus tickets I put towards the haircut and brow waxing, even throwing in for a little work on the upper lip.  You can usually find digital ways to cover blemishes for a Zoom meeting, but face-to-face encounters always require depilatory solutions.  Hey. I wanted to look good for Dmitry.

Four days passed before my bus ride down to the city.  I could barely concentrate on my research requests, I was so excited.  And for what? To be scammed? To have my heart broken? Maybe just for the chance to be back in a real city. A few years earlier, I was making weekly trips down to Manhattan, thinking I still had a career as a playwright, taking workshops, seeing shows, networking with theatre folk.  And now? Broadway is just a long stretch of plywood running perpendicular to 42^nd Street and Times Square.  I hadn’t been to the Big Apple since the pandemic hit, but I suspected the city looked like the zombie apocalypse had truly arrived.  And then I scoffed at the idea. Ludicrous, actually.  If the Wall Street types were trading from their Connecticut McMansions, I suspected there was still a little life left in Manhattan, perhaps more.  I was looking forward to exploring her without the crowds, especially if my encounter with Dmitry went bust.

Yet there was something gnawing at me, something I could just barely pull from my subconscious, something tapping on my memory like a poltergeist loose in the house.  And eventually it showed its hand.  A pair of jokers. A pair of hearts. Because experience had taught me that worse than being played for a fool, more tragic than losing money, was the humiliation of losing face. What if Dmitry didn’t show up? Seriously, I’d rather lose the couple of hundred dollars I had in my rainy day savings account in exchange for a few hours of human contact – even if the guy was out to fleece me.  Virtual reality was not real life and flesh and blood Ukrainian scoundrels were preferable to Zoom encounters any day of the week.  Screw the masks, screw the handwashing, screw the social distancing.  If Dmitry wanted to take me for a ride, take my money, take me to dinner – and now that nobody was living or working in Manhattan, we might actually get a good table – I was willing to take the risks, walk only a foot apart from him, hold hands, kiss.  Some sage philosopher said it – a Greek, a Roman – well, someone who watched their empire fall, that cultures unwilling to take risks are dying cultures, as were their people.  Well, I wasn’t dead yet.

To: Panchenko, Dmitry
From: Valentine, Claudia <claudiavalentinelibrarian@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: $6,000,000 Dollars
Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2020 11:11 a.m.

Dear Dmitry. 

I will be arriving on the bus from Albany at 2:20 p.m. at the Port Authority.  I will meet you by the Dunkin’ Donuts on the second level.  I will be wearing a blue blouse and drinking a black coffee. Love, Claudia.

There is a surprising upside to all this COVID crap.  I’ve never been on a cleaner bus.  Seriously. The Trailways could have been sanitized for surgery. Usually, the ride from the New York State Thruway south to Route 17 in Jersey and then under the Lincoln Tunnel to Manhattan is nothing put a floating piss and diaper fest, the stench of urine wafting through the aisle every time the bathroom door opens at the back of the bus. Not this ride.  There were only three of us besides the driver, masks on, of course, but we all slid them down from time to time to eat and drink and breathe. And because the traffic was so light, we made record time to the Port Authority.  If you’ve never been to this mother of all bus terminals, do understand it runs about four city blocks long and two avenues wide and about four levels below ground. Buses arriving and departing from the Tri-State area (which comprises four states – New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania – but who’s counting?) at all hours of the day and night. And it never fails that the bus coming from Albany always ends up parking at the farthest end of the Port Authority from wherever I need to be.  Even though we got in at 1:50, I still needed the time to run across the concourse, up the escalator, find a bathroom, pee, freshen up, and get in line at Dunkin’ so that I looked poised and casual for Dmitry’s arrival.

I was sipping away at 2:15. 2:20. 2:30. Maybe his flight from Munich was delayed.  I checked my Hotmail.  Nothing.  2:45. 3:00.  I craved a second cup but then I would have had to pee again, and I didn’t want to miss Dmitry. I was tempted to hit the bar located just kitty corner from the escalators but figured booze would go down better later. 3:15. Screw it.  And then I remembered. The Port Authority didn’t have lockers! I scrolled through my Dmitry folder (yes, I archived our emails) and found this jewel: 

To: Claudia Valentine
From: Dmitry Panchenko <Dmitry.Panchenko@fub.com.ua> 
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: $6,000,000 Dollars
Date: Thursday, November 12, 2020 2:22 p.m.
Attachment: LuggageHero_241144.PDF

Sweet Claudia.

I have secured locker 26 at the Luggage Hero on 9^th Avenue between West 39^th & West 40^th Streets so that I won’t have to carry luggage around Manhattan.  My uncle in Jackson Heights has provided this to me. Looking forward to seeing your lovely face so soon. Yours, Dmitry.

Of course. Your uncle who won’t let you stay with him in Queens but is willing to send you a locker reservation.  Got it. 

I tossed out my Styrofoam cup (not very green of you Dunkin’) and ran down the escalator to the ground level, past the Duane Reade drugstore and before reaching the ticket counters.  Another escalator another level lower.  And no crowds. A handful of people, masks up, eyes down. This could have been the bus terminal in Albany not Midtown.  No lines either.  I looked up at the destination signs. Mahwah. Cinnaminson. Bayonne. Paramus. OK.  Not everything is about COVID. Nobody wants to go to Jersey.  I knew all the exits around the Port and found the quickest route back out to 9^th Avenue.  Running down a half dozen steps and back out into the street, I turned right, looking for a hero…Luggage Hero. It was a half block up.  Crossing against the light, I dodged a taxi on my left and a messenger on a bike, hoping I didn’t in fact miss Dmitry.  Seriously.  For those few brief minutes, I was thinking maybe I missed out on $6 million or a Ukrainian boyfriend or both. Delusion happens to the best of us, I guess.

I lifted the mask away from my face, trying to catch my breath before going inside.  There were a few tourists waiting in line to check their luggage. A couple of international students with stickered backpacks. But I didn’t see anyone who looked remotely like Dmitry.  I scanned the lockers.  Like the animals on Noah’s ark, everything was in pairs – two rows, two lockers – one atop the other, two-toned – black and beige.  I scanned the metal tags at the top for the numbers.  26.  Locker 26 was shut tight. I scrolled through my phone and opened up the attachments. Dmitry had provided me a code for the keypad – 241144.  I punched in the six numbers and the locker opened. Empty. Natch.

“Can I help you with something?”

That voice didn’t sound the least bit Eastern European. I turned around. An identification badge was dangling in my face. Detective Luis Santiago, NYPD.  Not Ukrainian. My best guess. Puerto Rican.  From the Bronx. Damn. But he was kind of cute in that slightly balding, over-fifty goateed middle-aged kind of way. Like, I don’t know. Maybe Hector Elizondo in The Princess Diaries. And Julie Andrews was in that movie too. Played his Queen Clarisse. Hmmm.

“I didn’t do anything, officer.”

“Not yet.”

He tugged at his own mask, revealing more of his face. I forgot what Dmitry looked like.

“It’s just . . . well, I was supposed to meet this guy, uh –”

“Dmitry Panchenko.”

“Yeah. But how did you –”

He held his badge up a little closer to my face. Tapped underneath his name. Cybersecurity and Intelligence. Damn.

“I’m not in any kind of trouble, am I?  I mean.  I wasn’t going to do anything.”

I glanced around Luggage Hero and then turned back to Detective Santiago. 
“Dmitry.  What was he involved in?  Ransomware? Counterfeit currency?”

“Cocaine. And his real name is David Finch. Traffics his wares between Southern Dutchess County and South Florida. We’ve been trying to hook him for months but couldn’t get a bead on him until you answered his emails.  You reeled him in better than a professional. My colleagues are jealous.”

“I would never get involved in drugs.  For that matter, I wouldn’t get involved in anything illegal or shady.”

“I know that.  We ran a background check.  Except for a speeding ticket in Poughkeepsie back in 1996.  And your credit score. Could be a little higher.  You need to cut back on the spending. But otherwise, you’re clean.  Just another bored librarian during a pandemic.  I’ve met a few.”

That was a little too cocky for my taste. Even Dmitry held back the testosterone before the first date.

“How do you know I’m a librarian?  Is that on my nonexistent record too?”

“LinkedIn profile. Nice picture.”

I looked over his shoulder at the Port Authority looming behind him. I bet there was a bus boarding for Paramus just about ready for me to jump on. Even Jersey was looking better at the moment. And I didn’t think it would be wise to slap a cop, no matter how cute. Because I knew a David Finch back when and I didn’t want to explain that. My head hurt. My stomach grumbled.

“Lunch?”

I glanced back at the empty, open locker never rented by a guy who didn’t exist, like my Ukrainian uncle and a six million dollar inheritance.  I turned and glared at Detective Santiago. Then surrendered.

“Sure. But someplace we don’t have to wear masks.”

---

Bio: Brenda’s play, Free Radicals, was published by Chicago Dramaworks, its world premiere produced by Stockyards Theatre Project. Her work has been published in Brava! Chronogram, HalfHourToKill, ONTHEBUS, Shotgun Honey, Spillway, and The Yard: Crime Blog. She was recently awarded an artist’s residency from Ragdale and was a finalist for the Edith Wharton-Straw Dog Writers Guild Writers-In-Residence Program. A recipient of a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, Brenda holds an MA in Writing from DePaul University and currently lives in Albany, NY with two cats and ten thousand books and works as a reference librarian, the closest she could get to becoming Nancy Drew. Visit her profiles at the Dramatists Guild and the New Play Exchange for more information.

You can read her story “No Kill Shelter” on The Yard. HERE

Read more Criminal Fiction on The Yard: Crime Blog

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