Grifted

By s.d. ruffer

Just released after doing a "deuce" in prison, swindler Myung-jin Chang is resolved to "go straight," rejecting her hacker boyfriend's offer to set her up with an "easy-peasy" scam. When her grandmother's dementia advances to the point where she needs to be in an assisted living facility, however, MJ reluctantly decides the only way her family can afford the care is for her to run another con.

Razor Robbins, a skilled hacker, sets MJ up with fake credentials and helps her establish a new identity:  Dr. Cassandra Kim, a child psychologist who makes housecalls, serving the severely dysfunctional families of affluent Westchester County.

 

Doing her best not to be distracted by the traditional Korean family values embraced by her mother and stern suitor, Dr. Kim finds herself unexpectedly skilled at helping adolescents in distress, despite her lack of training.

The new scam ultimately lands her back in jail, but not before she establishes a special bond with a 13-year-old violin prodigy who is just as lost as she is.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: s.d. ruffer
• Release date: Dec 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201008468

s.d. ruffer

S.D. Ruffer writes novels and screenplays. His comedies, thrillers and erotica share a common theme:  human frailty. He writes about good people who make questionable choices and the what they do to live with the consequences.

Book preview

The clock on the wall of the administrative office at Taconic Correctional Facility read five-thirty, time to begin processing those inmates who were scheduled for release.

Taconic, New York State's largest prison for women, is a medium security level institution situated directly across from the infamous Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, a maximum security prison that has housed such notable felons as Amy Fisher - the Long Island Lolita - who at 16 shot the wife of her 36-year-old lover in the face, and Jean Harris, who murdered Herman Tarnower, the doctor and author who'd created The Scarsdale Diet.

Officials at Taconic had established the procedure of releasing inmates as early in the day as possible in order to avoid creating commotion among the rest of the prison population, and this morning the prison was quiet, nearly all of its inmates still sleeping.

Steve Hedley, a twenty-year veteran of the Correctional Officers force and Dianne Altmann, who'd been there nearly as long, had a light processing schedule that morning - in fact, only one prisoner, Myung-Jin Chang, who'd completed a deuce for fraud - was on the list for release.

Hedley reviewed the Chang file to ensure all required documentation for the release had been submitted and approved by the appropriate officials then gave a nod to Altmann. She took the cue and headed out of the office to Cell Block B, where Chang and her cellmate, DeeDee Portilla, shared cell 163B.

Chang. Chang! Come on, thought you'd be up and dressed by now, Altmann bellowed as she started to unlock the entrance to MJ's house.

Both MJ and DeeDee feigned sleep, desiring as little interaction with the corrections officer as possible. MJ took a couple of deep breaths, then, slowly twisting and turning under her gray prison-issue cloth blanket, spoke groggily.

Mmmmm...can't you do this at a reasonable hour? MJ whined.

We're doing it now, Altmann said, come on, time to get processed, collect your gate money and get out of here.

Keep your fifty dollars and let me sleep another hour, huh?

Move it.

Reluctantly, MJ rose from her cot and stepped to the steel, one-piece toilet, giving Altmann a stark, open-jawed stare as she began to undo her pants. Altmann turned around, facing the cavernous, empty chamber of the prison, so quiet now that MJ's relieving herself sounded almost like a steady rain.

As MJ finished DeeDee climbed down from her top bunk and gave her now-former cellmate a heartfelt hug.

Proud of you, baby, DeeDee said, with an envious smile.

You be good, replied MJ, you'll be outta this bitch before you know it.

Their long embrace tested Altmann's patience.

Let's go, she barked. MJ smiled at DeeDee, kissed her on the cheek and turned to leave without another word.

On their way to the prison's processing center a few inmates, awake and already restless yelled sarcastic catcalls at Altmann and an odd good luck, MJ or you'll be back here in a week, bitch!

Welp, you're who they say you are, said Walt Glantz, the elderly, lone processing officer on duty as he handed MJ one envelope with her release papers and another with a pre-paid debit card. Courtesy of the New York State Department of Corrections. Don't spend it all in one place, huh?

MJ, now wearing neon green eyeshadow and an intense orange lipstick and dressed in prison issue jeans and drab olive pullover so that she looked like a modern day Dragon Lady doing a J.C. Penney catalogue shoot, took the envelopes and followed Altmann through a dreary labyrinth of prison corridors.

As they exited the building and stepped onto the walkway, surrounded by metal fences topped with barbed-wire, MJ became animated.

Hey! How 'bout you let me scale the wall out of here? Come on! I'm being released, it's not like I'd be escaping. You could even send the dogs after me! Then, as an afterthought, just don't let the guys in the rifle towers shoot me in the ass.

Exasperated, Altmann shook her head. Get moving.

A couple hundred yards later the dour corrections officer unlocked the gate where a few steps away an idling, black, two-year-old Chrysler 300C was waiting. As they passed through the exit of the prison facility, Raymond Razor Robbins, a self-described nice, Jewish crook in his late thirties, stepped out from the driver's side and grinned.

MJ started to run toward Razor, but then abruptly stopped and turned back to face the officer who no longer had any authority over her.

I don't usually give advice, MJ taunted, but you need a little of this. She stuck out her tongue and flicked it rapidly up and down. Razor smiled as he held the door for her, shrugging as he kept his gaze on Altmann.

Officer, he said, closing the passenger door behind MJ then getting back behind the wheel, MJ feeling liberated.

There's a joint in the console. Fire it up, Razor said to MJ as they sped off.

Yeah, when I meet my parole officer tomorrow I'll just ask her if I can do the pee test next time, she said.

Razor chuckled. There's a gift for you in the glove compartment.

Gift?

Without taking his eyes off the road he reached across her lap and opened the glove box. Atop several CDs, a box of hand wipes and a small clear plastic container holding his registration, insurance card and other car-related documentation, there was an envelope addressed to her. She opened it and withdrew a note typed on the letterhead of Dr. Ramesh Patel. MJ read the note and squinted and shook her head.

What the hell is - I don't suffer from chronic back pain, she said.

You do if you wanna get high and not be in violation of your parole.

Oh, my God, she said.

Now open the console.

She did so and lit up the joint he'd left there. After taking a long draw she passed the joint to Razor, and noticed an open bag of potato chips on the back seat. She reached into it, stuffed a handful in her mouth, then grimaced.

When'd you get these chips? When I was sentenced?

I don't know, he laughed, next time check the date before you stuff your face.

So how've you been, Raze?

Busy. Got a nice set up for you.

Oh, yeah?

How's this for easy-peasy? he said with self-satisfaction. You're gonna be a child psychologist.

Fuck your mama.

Well, some of your patients might want to fuck theirs.

Whaddya mean I'm gonna be a - are you crazy?

It's a great idea, right? Fuck the streets and the bars and the violent assholes. This is an easy game.

A child psychologist.

Who makes house calls. For the filthy rich. You're good with kids, right?

Uh, I hate to break this to you, but I never went to college, let alone med school.

I've got several diplomas say different. But now that you mention that, I gotta ask you - how'd a pretty Asian girl like you not go to college? There even a statistic for that?

WHAT?

Just asking.

"Know what I don't get? You can do all this hacking, why don't you just cyber-rob a bank and be done with it?"

My face is too pretty for that, baby. Get caught stealing money, you're doing serious time. Get caught printing up a few fake diplomas? Probation in da house, mothafucka!

MJ rolled her eyes at his very white stab at Ebonics, and closed her window as they picked up speed, savoring the green hillscapes as they cruised east through northern Westchester County.

Later that afternoon, Razor and MJ were sharing another joint, relaxing on the worn sofa in his living room, a couple of empty light green Heineken bottles on the coffee table.

Come on, he said plaintively, you kidding me?

Not even. I done been scared straight.

Well, that's 'cause you were running scams on drunk sailors, baby. Course it caught up with you.

So now you want me to scam little boys with mommy issues.

Good money in it. Not much risk. Yeah, why not?

MJ drew a long hit off the joint, then rose from the sofa.

Sorry, babydoll. This girl's goin' legit.

You spent the last two years in prison. What're you gonna do?

MJ replied in a heavily exaggerated Korean accent. I go kan-koh-koo lestuhlant. I wash-a-dish and some day dey ret me make a bee-beem-bap.

She started toward his front door.

All right, he said, change your mind -

Ciao, baby. See ya on the other side. And she blew him a kiss and walked out his door, leaving Razor smirking, knowing she'd be back soon.

You don't have dishwasher hands, he said as from his living room he watched her wave when her Uber approached, then fetched another Heineken and drained it.

CHAPTER TWO

Connected to New York City by the George Washington Bridge, Fort Lee, New Jersey is a densely populated micro-urban center that for decades has been a rung for immigrants and first-generation Americans, mostly from Asia, on their ascendance from struggling to prosperous.

The town is home to small businesses and box stores, five-story red brick walkups and multi-family homes on three-quarter acre lots.  Much of Fort Lee had been in a rust belt-type tailspin during the 70s and 80s but the city has enjoyed something of a rebirth in the last couple of decades. That notwithstanding, you still wouldn't want your grandma sitting alone on a bench on Martha Washington Way in the middle of the night.

Which is where seventy-nine year-old Yong Hee Park, suffering from a rapidly advancing case of dementia, was when her daughter, Yoonah Chang, pulled up in her ten-year-old Camry.

Oma! Again! Yoonah cried in Korean as her mother, wearing two cardigan sweaters, smiled at her from the bench.

Annyeonghaseyo, Yong Hee said, speaking the Korean for hello.

Oma! Come! Come on, let's go home.

I have to wait for the bus to the center, Yong Hee protested.

Come on, Oma. I'll take you to the center tomorrow. That's tomorrow. Let's go.

Yong Hee's wrinkled face cracked into a fragile smile. Okay, she said in English. She rose and her frustrated daughter helped her into the car, heat on full blast.

The next morning Yoonah sat at her small kitchen table eating jook with kimchi - a common Korean breakfast of rice porridge and fermented cabbage - when she heard a rustling sound that she soon realized was coming from the front door of her apartment. There'd been, according to neighborhood-centric apps, a recent spike in home invasions and her heart began to race as she quietly as possible rose from the table and retrieved a long kitchen knife from a drawer.

Yoonah slowly crept toward the foyer, holding the knife high, as the door slowly opened to reveal her daughter, MJ, with streaked hair and near-blinding lipstick, and a huge smile on her face.

She felt joy cascading over her as she stepped forward to hug her only child.

Myung-jin-ahhhh! Ohhhhhh, Myung-jin-ahhhh!

Oma! MJ answered through tears, it's so good to see you, Oma! They hugged, in place, swaying and crying, Yoonah grinning ear-to-ear, until MJ finally pulled away.

Oma, the knife.

Yoonah laughed and started to turn toward the kitchen, but was stopped in her tracks by the sight of her seventy-nine-year-old mother in the stairway, wearing nothing but an unbelted terry cloth robe and a big smile.  It was all MJ could do to keep from bursting out in laughter.

Halmonee! she cried, using the Korean for grandmother, and flung her arms wide at the same time Yoonah yelled go upstairs and put clothes on!

Swim time at the center! Yong Hee responded gleefully.

MJ turned to her mother. The center?

It's a daycare for seniors with....dementia. The church runs it. But they can't handle her anymore. She can't go there. And she's too much for me. I'm sorry, Yoonah tried but could not stave off the tears. I'm so sorry! She's my mother and I can not take care of her! I can't afford the nursing home, so she must stay with me. It's so bad!

MJ and her mother embraced tightly, and then Yong Hee joined them, crying in sympathy, unsure why.

Two hours later, MJ knocked forcefully at Razor's front door, banging as if she were being chased. From inside and very hung over, Razor yelled, all right! Jesus! as he quickly put on sweatpants and opened the door.

What the - what happened? he asked, his head throbbing, his face flush.

Still looking for a social worker? MJ asked as she hurried inside, indifferent to his pain.

Razor took a deep breath and collapsed onto his sofa.

Child psychologist. But...I thought you were gonna bake kimchi muffins or whatever the fuck the rest of your life. Didn't work out for ya?

MJ didn't need to answer - he could see the resignation on her face. She'd made her choices and now was left with none. The need for money - now - overshadowed everything else, and if the only way to ensure her grandmother's proper care was by pretending to offer mental health services to the dysfunctional families of Westchester County, then that was what she was prepared to do.

Razor nodded and rose to go to his kitchen, then returned to the living room with two cups of black coffee. He lit a cigarette and took a deep draw, then exhaled slowly and asked MJ, so...what's your name?

Huh?

Your name, doc. What do you want your name to be? Experts the world over frown on using your real name when you're scamming distraught suburban mommies.

MJ's face lit up.

When I was a little girl I always wished my name was Cassandra.

Cassandra. Hmmm. I like that. All right.

Cassandra Kim. Has a nice ring to it, right?

All right, Sandy. You've done your undergrad work. Tell you what - there's half a pizza in the fridge. Pop it in the microwave for three minutes and bring back a couple of plates, and that'll earn you a PhD, yeah?

MJ did just that, and as they sat on his sofa to being strategizing he mused, what is it about day-old pizza that's so much better than when it's delivered to you? Now, he continued, this is gonna take a while, probably the rest of the day. Gotta finish your credentials, get you licensed, set up the insurance bullshit. You don't have to wait here if you need to go.

Well, why does it take so long? MJ asked. Instead of New York how about I get licensed in a different state? Is there anyplace easier?

Well, in Mississippi all you have to do is promise not to fuck farm animals, but I don't think it's safe for your kind down there.

My kind.

MJ stood over Razor's shoulder and watched him punch his keyboard, hacking into this system or that to guide him toward generating authentic seeming documentation that would change her life. Then a discomfiting thought struck her. What if I get a client and I really fuck up the kid? The kid their family wants help for?

Razor scoffed. "This is Westchester, honey. There's not a functional family from here to the Hudson, all right? Don't worry so much! You'll give