On Friday, June 9, I carried a cushion cover into Harbor Stitch Workshop so I would have something to do with my hands. The zipper needed replacing, which was true, although I could have done it at home. Della Rusk, who owned the workshop, cleared a corner of the cutting table without asking why I had brought such a small job.
Amos Verran was sorting donated buckles into a biscuit tin. He was a retired delivery driver, seventy-one, and usually had a story about an address nobody could find. That morning I asked him whether he had ever heard of paying a bond to get stolen money back. He stopped sorting. Della lowered the radio before I had to ask.
"Someone called you?" Amos said. I nodded. "Don't tell me anything you don't want me knowing."
That made it easier to tell him. I gave him the amount of the new demand, not every humiliation of the first one. Della moved to the far end of the table and began measuring lining, near enough to be company and far enough not to make a circle around me.
"I've been doing some volunteer work," Amos said. "Supervised work. Telephone fraud. There's an FBI contact. I can tell you how I got in touch."
I looked at his biscuit tin. Yesterday he had been a man who knew where to buy inexpensive buttons. Now I wanted him to tell me what the caller meant, whether the money existed, whether my foolishness had a remedy. He must have seen some of that expectation, because he shook his head before I asked.
"I can't investigate yours," he said. "I can't tell you who called. I could offer an introduction, if you want one. That's all."
"Would you telephone them for me?"
"I could sit with you while you do it. But it's your report." He put a buckle down. "And you ought to find the public number yourself. Don't take mine on faith because you know my face."
Della looked over then. "There's a directory under the counter. Take your time. Nobody needs that zipper before lunch."
I almost laughed at the permission. Time had been the caller's chief instrument: tonight, noon, other claimants waiting. Here was a woman telling me the cushion could wait. I fetched the directory, found the public FBI listing, and copied it onto a scrap that had no number supplied by the caller on it.
I did not make the call from the workshop. I wanted my papers beside me, and I wanted to speak without watching two kind people try not to listen. Amos offered to accompany me another day if an appointment resulted. I thanked him without accepting anything further. Della asked whether I wanted the zipper left open for fitting. It was a relief to answer an ordinary question.
At home I laid out the electric bill and the copy of my loss figures. When someone answered the public number, I said I wanted to report a telephone demand connected with an earlier loss. My voice sounded formal and rather thin. I had rehearsed saying fraud victim and found I could not get those words past my teeth.
The person who took my information asked what the caller had requested and what I had provided. I read from the bill. Where my notes were incomplete, I said so. I explained that the caller had supplied a name and number, but that I had no way to verify either. I had made no payment and had not called him back.
"Do you still have your notes?" I was asked.
"Yes. The original."
I was told how to make them available through the official contact. I wrote down those directions separately. When I asked whether the supposed recovered funds were real, I was not given a promise. The absence of reassurance disappointed me, although it was the first answer all week that had not tried to hurry me toward something.
Before we finished, I asked about the supervised volunteer work Amos had mentioned. The person said an inquiry could be passed along; participation was not something Amos could arrange himself. I said I understood. After hanging up, I wrote the date beneath my report and closed the directory. Nothing had been recovered. But I had chosen whom to call, and the choice had led somewhere other than a demand.