I M What I M
Warren Shapiro’s heart beat a little faster when he saw there was an Instant Message waiting for him. It might be spam (it usually was), but he had a feeling it was from Wendy, the spectacularly beautiful woman from Brisbane, Australia, that he’d met on Facebook and was now hopelessly in love with.
And she loved him too. They’d connected at once. It was amazing how many things on his profile coincided exactly with hers, particularly their love of poetry.
She not only read poetry, she wrote it as well, beautiful poems, much better than he could ever manage. But he tried. Over this past magical month, they’d exchanged poem after poem, posting them back and forth on I M. He’d printed out all of hers and planned to have them framed and displayed on his apartment walls when she finally arrived.
He had one slight qualm, however, about what her reaction would be when she saw him in person. The photo on his Facebook page was over ten years old. But, hey, a little more weight and a little less hair shouldn’t make a difference, he thought, not when they were, so obviously, soul mates.
No, the major problem was the air fare from Brisbane. It was prohibitively expensive, much more than she could afford. So he had to help her out, which he had more than enough money to do.
But he couldn’t just send it to her directly. It had to be in a way that her family wouldn’t discover. So, she was setting up a private account.
The message that was waiting for him now might be the news that she had done it. Saying a little prayer, he opened Instant Messenger.
It was from her! There was another love poem—one of her best, actually, which he devoured in sheer ecstasy—followed by an account number from Deutsche Bank. Giddily, he switched over to his online Wells Fargo account and wired ten thousand dollars into it.
***
“Cha CHING!” Freddie Reynolds shouted as he saw the transfer appear on his laptop screen. “Ten thousand, baby! I knew I could get this guy!”
He sprang out of the recliner and did a little victory dance in the middle of the room, holding the laptop. Then he put his lips to the screen and gave it a big kiss.
“Is this the poetry guy?” his buddy Mel asked from the couch as he dipped another Dorito into the salsa.
“Yep.” Freddie could not stop grinning. “Good old A I. Plug in some personal information, pick your poetic style, and you’re an instant Shakespeare.”
“I think it’s stupid,” Mel said, speaking around the Dorito. “You’re totally gonna get caught.”
“Says the meth dealer who has to worry about getting caught even more than I do. And getting killed.”
Mel laughed, spraying Dorito bits into the air. “You been watching way too much Breaking Bad, dude.”
Freddie sat back down in the recliner, flipped it back, and sighed contentedly. Then he transferred the money to his Cayman Islands account and closed out this one. “Invisible money, invisible me,” he proclaimed.
Another Instant Message alert popped up on his screen. He clicked on it.
“Hey, it’s my opera guy! I’m getting real close on this one. A week more, at the most.”
“Are we watching the game?” Mel gestured toward the TV screen, where the Yankees were batting in the seventh. “Or are you just screwing around?”
“Business is business.” Freddie began to type in his response. Then he paused. “Wait, who am I supposed to be?”
Mel cracked up laughing. “You are so feeble.”
“Fuck you. I’ve got a lot to keep track of.”
Mel took another swig of Corona.
“Opera guy, Jesus! You’ve sure got some cultured suckers there, don’t you?”
“They’re the easiest ones. Because they think they know so much. Francoise, that’s who I am,” he remembered. “Françoise Villet from Saint-Tropez, in a teeny bikini.”
“They’re gonna catch you, man, I’m telling you.”
“Oh, mais non, mon ami,” said Freddie, settling even further into the recliner. “Ils ne m’aurant pas. Jamais!”
Mel just shook his head and finished the Corona.
***
“Yes!” FBI Special Agent Wayne Sutton pumped his fist in the air. “Got you, you bastard!”
“Which one?” asked Special Agent Andy McNeese, sitting one desk away. The two of them had been working for more than a year as part of the FBI’s “MetaSting Project” to catch cybercriminals on Facebook.
“Freddie Fucking Reynolds, that’s who.”
“Oh, that one.” Andy took off his glasses and wiped them with the bottom of his untucked shirt, as he did a dozen times a day. “He finally gave you a dollar amount, huh?”
“Twelve thousand. Can you imagine the balls on this guy? Twelve thousand dollars to fly to L.A. from Saint-Tropez because of ‘administrative fees for Visa clearance.’ It’s amazing how people fall for this shit.”
“Well, he did post exceptionally hot photos of this imaginary babe,” said Andy. “Never underestimate the male libido.”
“And never underestimate the stupidity of greed. You can’t volunteer the dollar amount. Say the price, pay the price, Freddie.”
Wayne clicked on his desktop screen for a report form and began to fill it out.
“And no matter how much googling he did, he still doesn’t know dick about opera. Au revoir, ma cherie. Your ass belongs to me.”
Twenty minutes later, after performing the electronic equivalent of dotting all the “i’s” and crossing all the “t’s,” Wayne Sutton hit “Send,” logged out, and went home.
***
Pamela Sutton sat across the dinner table from her husband, observing as he picked at his salad, removing pieces of avocado and placing them to the side.
“You don’t like avocado, all of a sudden?” she said.
“I’ve never liked avocado; it’s like baby-food salad. I’ve told you this before, but you insist on putting it in.” Wayne removed two more pieces, then checked under a large slice of tomato for more.
“You never told me that. This is the first I’ve ever heard of it.”
“Whatever.”
Pamela was used to her husband thinking he told her something when, in fact, he never did. It was part of the private world he lived in. She guessed it was because of all those FBI secrets he carried around in his head.
“Do you remember Anne Freeman?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Vaguely. Wasn’t she one of your dormmates way back when?”
“Yeah, in fact we were very close. She used to call me Pam a Lam a Ding Dong. I hadn’t heard from her in over ten years, but today I got a Friend request from her on Facebook.”
Wayne looked up sharply.
“You didn’t accept it, did you?”
“Actually, I did. I was curious.”
“Cancel it,” he said. “Cancel it right now.”
“You mean, before I serve the main course?”
If he realized she was kidding, he gave no sign of it.
“Cancel it,” he repeated.
“But that would be incredibly rude. I’ve already responded. We’ve been Instant Messaging each other all day.”
He banged his fist against the table. It startled her.
“God damn it, Pam, what’s the matter with you? We’re busting people like that every day.”
“People like what?”
“Scammers, for Chrissake! How do you know it’s really her? You don’t. You have no way of knowing.”
“Well, it sure sounded like it was her. We remembered all sorts of stuff from back then.”
“That’s what they do; they research you,” he explained wearily. “You’ve probably put half your life on social media, so they know all kinds of things about you. Will you please cancel it?”
She took a moment, then said, “Okay, if you insist.”
“Good,” he said, and went back to eating his now-avocado-free salad.
They were quiet as they ate. Then, she finally broke the silence.
“I think you’re being paranoid.”
That made him chuckle. “Ask Freddie Reynolds if I’m being paranoid.”
“Who’s that?” She stood up and started to remove the salad bowls.
“Freddie Reynolds, aka Françoise Villet from Saint-Tropez, aka Wendy Randle from Brisbane, Australia, and who knows how many more? Maybe he’s your Anne Freeman too.”
“Okay, okay,” she said, continuing into the kitchen. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
Later that evening, while Wayne was watching a ballgame, she checked her Facebook feed and saw another I M from Anne.
She was going to delete it, as he’d want her to, but she paused. She’d been delighted to hear from Anne Freeman. She’d missed her all these years, and the memories they’d exchanged today were wonderful memories. Screw it, she thought.
She typed in, “My husband doesn’t think you’re real.”
***
In a Chicago basement apartment, Howard Munger laughed when he saw it pop up on the screen. He reached into his right nostril and picked out a good one, which he admired for a moment before flicking it away. Then he grabbed the laptop.
“Tell him that’s ridiculous, girl. How can I not be real? Of course, I’m real, Pam a Lam a Ding Dong,” he typed. “I’m as real as it gets.”