unfiltered shout.
“Like that,” said Casper.
“Excuse me, Mr. Potash?”
He opened his eyes, and for a split second, in the perfect hush before sense returned, dwelled happily in the hope that all this had happened to someone else.
“Yes?” he asked groggily.
“Agent Bortz will see you now.”
And then he remembered.
“Thank you.”
Getting to his feet, Potash followed the receptionist down a long back hallway, where he was ushered into the appropriate office. As he stood a moment on the threshold, his initial impression of the individual who held the last, best hope for his fiscal future was that, in contradistinction to his cow-calling name, Agent Hiram Bortz was a strikingly handsome man.
“Mr. Potash,” he said by way of introduction, greeting him across a large, meticulously clean desk, “come in. It seems you fell in with some bad folks.”
“You might say,” said Potash, walking forward and sitting down while attempting a medium smile of his own.
Bortz, who was in his midthirties, had cropped dark hair, sharp blue eyes and the manner of someone studying you for the fault line in your outlook.
He dropped his eyes to the folder in front of him and squinted for a second. “I won’t gild the lily here.”
He raised the freezing blue eyes.
“I received your intake complaint a few days ago and have done a little investigation. In the process, I’ve contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District, and will be pitching the case to them as a wire fraud later today. If they agree, the two of us would take it up together. Bear in mind that we’re looking at a minimum six months before anything happens. Also, let’s face it, Mr. Potash, these people are obviously professionals. This wasn’t a simple penny-stock scam or a pump and dump, but rather a coordinated and extremely professional effort to wipe you and a group of other, uh, investors out.”
Potash, with a lump in his throat, nodded.
“And you should also remember that recovery rates of assets through court actions in cases of large-level fraud of this sort are pretty low.”
“Mr. Bortz?”
“Sir?”
“I’ve been kind of destroyed here. There’s gotta be some legal recourse.”
“Well,” Bortz looked at him with an ironic twinkle, “there is a tax break called a Section 165, which will allow you to deduct your loss, but I suspect that’s not what you’re talking about.”
But Potash, deep in his misery, said only, “I keep wondering what I did wrong, why they zeroed in on me.”
“That’s not really my department,” said Bortz, “but let me turn it around for you and ask: Can you think of any obvious way in which you might have made yourself publicly vulnerable—showing off at parties, talking about your nest egg?”
“No, that’s not my way.”
“Okay. Were there any public announcements regarding your arrival here, anything that might have indicated to a watchful eye that you’d come to invest money in the area?”
“That’s the thing. No. I mean, there might have been a small notice somewhere in some educational journal, but my moving here was in no way a public event.”
“I see. Well, let me ask you this. Have you been married recently?”
Potash was surprised.
“Married? Well, yes. But what does that . . .”
Bortz leaned his head forward as if to allow Potash to come to his own conclusions. When he didn’t, he went on to say, very calmly, “Did you take out an announcement?”
From the center out, Potash felt a slow, burning crumpling feeling.
“Yes,” he said.
“Maybe mentioning your relocation to an affluent neighborhood?”
Unable to speak, he simply nodded.
“Real estate transactions,” said Bortz, “are public domain.”
Ruefully, he recalled Anabella’s girlish joy in the wedding announcement, and his own somewhat reluctant participation in something that, in the broadest terms, simply embarrassed him a little. But she’d been having so much fun that he’d gone
“Like that,” said Casper.
“Excuse me, Mr. Potash?”
He opened his eyes, and for a split second, in the perfect hush before sense returned, dwelled happily in the hope that all this had happened to someone else.
“Yes?” he asked groggily.
“Agent Bortz will see you now.”
And then he remembered.
“Thank you.”
Getting to his feet, Potash followed the receptionist down a long back hallway, where he was ushered into the appropriate office. As he stood a moment on the threshold, his initial impression of the individual who held the last, best hope for his fiscal future was that, in contradistinction to his cow-calling name, Agent Hiram Bortz was a strikingly handsome man.
“Mr. Potash,” he said by way of introduction, greeting him across a large, meticulously clean desk, “come in. It seems you fell in with some bad folks.”
“You might say,” said Potash, walking forward and sitting down while attempting a medium smile of his own.
Bortz, who was in his midthirties, had cropped dark hair, sharp blue eyes and the manner of someone studying you for the fault line in your outlook.
He dropped his eyes to the folder in front of him and squinted for a second. “I won’t gild the lily here.”
He raised the freezing blue eyes.
“I received your intake complaint a few days ago and have done a little investigation. In the process, I’ve contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District, and will be pitching the case to them as a wire fraud later today. If they agree, the two of us would take it up together. Bear in mind that we’re looking at a minimum six months before anything happens. Also, let’s face it, Mr. Potash, these people are obviously professionals. This wasn’t a simple penny-stock scam or a pump and dump, but rather a coordinated and extremely professional effort to wipe you and a group of other, uh, investors out.”
Potash, with a lump in his throat, nodded.
“And you should also remember that recovery rates of assets through court actions in cases of large-level fraud of this sort are pretty low.”
“Mr. Bortz?”
“Sir?”
“I’ve been kind of destroyed here. There’s gotta be some legal recourse.”
“Well,” Bortz looked at him with an ironic twinkle, “there is a tax break called a Section 165, which will allow you to deduct your loss, but I suspect that’s not what you’re talking about.”
But Potash, deep in his misery, said only, “I keep wondering what I did wrong, why they zeroed in on me.”
“That’s not really my department,” said Bortz, “but let me turn it around for you and ask: Can you think of any obvious way in which you might have made yourself publicly vulnerable—showing off at parties, talking about your nest egg?”
“No, that’s not my way.”
“Okay. Were there any public announcements regarding your arrival here, anything that might have indicated to a watchful eye that you’d come to invest money in the area?”
“That’s the thing. No. I mean, there might have been a small notice somewhere in some educational journal, but my moving here was in no way a public event.”
“I see. Well, let me ask you this. Have you been married recently?”
Potash was surprised.
“Married? Well, yes. But what does that . . .”
Bortz leaned his head forward as if to allow Potash to come to his own conclusions. When he didn’t, he went on to say, very calmly, “Did you take out an announcement?”
From the center out, Potash felt a slow, burning crumpling feeling.
“Yes,” he said.
“Maybe mentioning your relocation to an affluent neighborhood?”
Unable to speak, he simply nodded.
“Real estate transactions,” said Bortz, “are public domain.”
Ruefully, he recalled Anabella’s girlish joy in the wedding announcement, and his own somewhat reluctant participation in something that, in the broadest terms, simply embarrassed him a little. But she’d been having so much fun that he’d gone
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