communicate it to Dana that he'd forgotten where he was. Now he saw that it was getting late, past six anyway, the venetian blinds pregnant with color, thin fingers of sunlight marking the wall like the vestiges of a thief. He thought of Radko. He thought of Drex III. He'd have to go back after dinner, he was thinking, and that thought--of dinner--made his stomach churn in an anticipatory way. When was the last time he'd eaten?
“You see, the reason I ask,” the woman went on, holding Bridger's eyes a moment before shifting back to Dana, just to be sure he was with them so that none of this--her spiel, her words, her professional empathy--would be wasted, “is because the vast majority of identity fraud cases come from a lost or stolen wallet or misappropriated mail. In fact, one of the thieves' favorite modus operandi is to get your name and address--out of the phone book, off your business card--and put in a change of address request with the post office. Then they get your mail sent to a drop box in Mailboxes R Us or some such, and there's all your financial information, credit card bills, bank statements, paychecks and what have you.”
She paused to see what effect she was having. The fingers of light crept higher up the wall. On her face was a look of transport or maybe of triumph--she knew the ropes and she was in no danger and never would be. “Then all they have to do is make up a driver's license in your name, order new checks, replacement Visa cards, and voilà--you're out an average of something like five thousand dollars nationwide.”
Bridger was thinking about his own mailbox, just a slot with his apartment number under it, and how many times had the cretins at the U.S. Postal Service stuffed it with his neighbors' mail by mistake? Or what about the time he wound up with half a dozen mutual fund statements addressed to a woman on the other side of town who had only a street address--196 Berton instead of 196 Manzanita--and a zip code in common with him? What if he'd been a crook? What then?
Dana broke into his reverie. She was getting impatient. She wanted action. That was Dana: cut to the chase, no time to spare. “Yeah,” she said, her voice even hollower and more startling than usual, “but what do I do now, that's what we want to know.”
The woman looked flustered a moment--this was a departure from the orthodoxy, from the ritual that soothed and absolved--but she recovered herself. “Well, you'll want to file a police report right away and you'll need to include that in any correspondence with creditors, and the credit reporting agencies should be notified if there are any irregularities. Your credit reports. You should order copies and check them over carefully--your Visa and MasterCard and what-have-you as well. But we'll get to all that. What I want you to know, what I want to tell you, is how these things happen--so you'll be prepared next time around.” The look of rapture again. She arched her back and gazed into Dana's eyes. “An ounce of prevention, right?”
She held them there for half an hour more, and by the end of it Bridger began to wonder exactly what she was trying to convey. Or even how she felt about it. Her eyes seemed to flare and she became increasingly animated as she trotted out one horror story after another: the woman who had her rental application swiped from the desk in her landlord's office and wound up with some thirty thousand dollars in charges for elaborate meals and services in a hotel in a city she'd never been to, as well as the lease on a new Cadillac, the purchase price and registry of two standard poodles and $4,500 for liposuction; the twelve-year-old whose mother's boyfriend assumed his identity till the kid turned sixteen and was arrested when he applied for a driver's license for crimes the boyfriend had committed; the retiree whose mail mysteriously stopped coming and who eventually discovered that thieves had not only filed a change of address but
“You see, the reason I ask,” the woman went on, holding Bridger's eyes a moment before shifting back to Dana, just to be sure he was with them so that none of this--her spiel, her words, her professional empathy--would be wasted, “is because the vast majority of identity fraud cases come from a lost or stolen wallet or misappropriated mail. In fact, one of the thieves' favorite modus operandi is to get your name and address--out of the phone book, off your business card--and put in a change of address request with the post office. Then they get your mail sent to a drop box in Mailboxes R Us or some such, and there's all your financial information, credit card bills, bank statements, paychecks and what have you.”
She paused to see what effect she was having. The fingers of light crept higher up the wall. On her face was a look of transport or maybe of triumph--she knew the ropes and she was in no danger and never would be. “Then all they have to do is make up a driver's license in your name, order new checks, replacement Visa cards, and voilà--you're out an average of something like five thousand dollars nationwide.”
Bridger was thinking about his own mailbox, just a slot with his apartment number under it, and how many times had the cretins at the U.S. Postal Service stuffed it with his neighbors' mail by mistake? Or what about the time he wound up with half a dozen mutual fund statements addressed to a woman on the other side of town who had only a street address--196 Berton instead of 196 Manzanita--and a zip code in common with him? What if he'd been a crook? What then?
Dana broke into his reverie. She was getting impatient. She wanted action. That was Dana: cut to the chase, no time to spare. “Yeah,” she said, her voice even hollower and more startling than usual, “but what do I do now, that's what we want to know.”
The woman looked flustered a moment--this was a departure from the orthodoxy, from the ritual that soothed and absolved--but she recovered herself. “Well, you'll want to file a police report right away and you'll need to include that in any correspondence with creditors, and the credit reporting agencies should be notified if there are any irregularities. Your credit reports. You should order copies and check them over carefully--your Visa and MasterCard and what-have-you as well. But we'll get to all that. What I want you to know, what I want to tell you, is how these things happen--so you'll be prepared next time around.” The look of rapture again. She arched her back and gazed into Dana's eyes. “An ounce of prevention, right?”
She held them there for half an hour more, and by the end of it Bridger began to wonder exactly what she was trying to convey. Or even how she felt about it. Her eyes seemed to flare and she became increasingly animated as she trotted out one horror story after another: the woman who had her rental application swiped from the desk in her landlord's office and wound up with some thirty thousand dollars in charges for elaborate meals and services in a hotel in a city she'd never been to, as well as the lease on a new Cadillac, the purchase price and registry of two standard poodles and $4,500 for liposuction; the twelve-year-old whose mother's boyfriend assumed his identity till the kid turned sixteen and was arrested when he applied for a driver's license for crimes the boyfriend had committed; the retiree whose mail mysteriously stopped coming and who eventually discovered that thieves had not only filed a change of address but
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