Charles suddenly knew how it all worked: Bonnie and Clyde stole the victim’s identity, farmed out the identities to the people who attended the seminars. Probably each person was assigned, at the most, a dozen victims. They’d charge up a storm, buying merchandise that was sent to various drop zones, then sold on the black market. Before they moved on to the next victim, they would take a cash advance in whatever amount the card would allow. He knew now that the couple wasn’t running a big operation, they were running a huge operation. They had to have a quality forger in place, along with people whom they trusted to monitor the drop zones and peddle the merchandise. Even with a seventy/thirty split, they were racking up huge profits, stealing money from unsuspecting people at the speed of light.

The big money, he knew, came from the second mortgages and home equity loans they perpetrated. Timing was everything, Charles knew, which meant from the moment Bonnie or Clyde applied for either a mortgage or home equity loan they had to have dozens of people and various bank accounts in place so they could cash the checks and move on. Just the banking alone was a mind boggler. Having only two people working the financial end of it bothered him. Would they trust a financial man, or did they do it all themselves? His gut told him it was a two-person operation. Where were the records? Was there a set of books? Unlikely. Was it all done on the computer and transferred to a memory stick? Probably.

If their real apartment was on the sixth floor, was that where the computer was? Or did they have yet another place where they actually conducted business? An office of some kind with electronic equipment? The Watergate had thousands of office units for rent. Another needle in the haystack for him to find. He sighed mightily as he listened to Myra and Annie jabbering on the open cell phone line.

Annie stopped by the elevator, and Myra bumped into her. “Listen, Myra, as long as there is no one in the hallway, we don’t have to do that long-legged stride with our arms wind-milling. If we hear the elevator, we go into action; otherwise, I say we just walk up and down this hall. We could listen at doorways to see how many people are actually home. You know, the sound of televisions, radios. We might even get a whiff of food cooking. There aren’t any cameras on these floors, which I find very strange. What good are cameras in the stairwells if you get mugged in the hallway?”

That was all Myra had to hear. She pointed to the cell in her hand, then put her finger to her lips, the signal to Annie that she should whisper so Charles couldn’t hear what they were saying. Annie nodded as she trotted to the nearest door, Myra on the other side of the hallway.