Whistleblower, page 20
Inside my apartment, Bodie and I sat in the little IKEA chairs at my rickety dining table. I set my phone between us and began a recording.
“This is just for my records,” I told him. “You won’t be named unless you give me permission. Maybe you can start by telling me what your role was at the Vaughn Foundation?”
“I was an administrative intern over the summer. I helped with the calendar and bookkeeping.”
“And what did you see during your time there that led you to suspect funds might be being used in a way that wasn’t conducive to business?”
Bodie reached into his backpack and withdrew a Garland University folder—the one they sold at the bookstore for twice the cost of any off-brand ten pack you could find at Office Depot—that was stuffed with loose sheets of printer paper. As he laid them out across my dining room table, I realized they were his evidence—spreadsheets, bank statements, screenshots of online donation portals.
“This one,” Bodie said, handing me an invoice, “I noticed first. It’s a thirty-grand charge to some consulting company I can’t find any info about online—other than the fact that they’ve got a PO box in LA.”
“Can I borrow your phone for a sec?”
I typed Thomas Hagen Consulting Garland CA into Google and scrolled through the first page of results.
“Nothing. Wait, hold on. There’s a Tom Hagen.”
“Who is he?” Bodie asked, scooting his chair up against mine so he could read over my shoulder.
The page I clicked brought me to a blog article. “He’s . . . a character?”
“From what?”
I scrolled and scrolled, and then I stopped.
“The Godfather,” I croaked. “Tom Hagen, consigliere to the Corleone family.” Bodie and I exchanged a look in which we both silently agreed that neither of us knew what consigliere meant. When I had the definition pulled up, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or chuck Bodie’s phone across the kitchen.
“This—this bold motherfucker! It’s an advisor. ‘The right-hand man to the boss of an organized crime syndicate.’ Jesus Christ.
Vaughn isn’t even being subtle about it!”
Bodie looked pale. “You think Vaughn’s the one stealing money from the foundation?”
“How else do we explain this? A consultation firm with no online presence that just so happens to have the same name as a character from his favorite movies?”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Bodie said, shaking his head.
“Vaughn’s got money. Everyone on the board at the foundation has money. Why would any of them need to steal from a charity?”
My impulse was to say, Because Vaughn’s just that kind of asshole. But Bodie raised a good point.
“Maybe they weren’t stealing,” I murmured. “Maybe they were just moving it around. The Vaughn Foundation has a lot of big donors, right? People who give tens of thousands of dollars at a time for the tax write-offs. Maybe somebody at the foundation is helping somebody fuck with the IRS.”
Bodie sat back and looked at me, the oddest smile on his face.
“What?” I demanded, cheeks burning.
He shook his head. “You’re just so fucking good at this.
This is, like, James Bond shit.”
“Shut up,” I said, scrubbing my face for an excuse to shield my blush. I scanned the papers splayed out before us, looking for anything else out of the ordinary. My eyes landed on a Wells Fargo statement for the month of August. “What about these charges?”
“Those are legit. That’s all for the networking trip to San Diego.”
“Do you know anything about that trip?”
“I think they stayed at some yacht club—hold on.” Bodie riffled through his notes and pulled out an invoice stapled to a bank statement. “Yeah. The Alvarado Resort. He had three rooms booked for four nights. I think he spent a few nights on his boat too.”
“Who went with him? Coaching staff?”
“I think one of our trainers may have gone with him. He does a lot of the outreach to the schools they donate to. Other than that, it was probably some of the foundation staff.”
“What are these? Two seventy-five, two ninety . . . what were they spending like three hundred dollars a night on at this resort?”
Bodie shrugged. “Dinner, maybe? Maybe there was a restaurant.”
And a bar, I thought. “Is Vaughn still sober?”
“Yeah. For the last seven or eight years,” Bodie said.
He watched me for a moment before adding, more quietly,
“Why?”
I tapped my fingernails against the kitchen table, weighing my options, and then reached for my phone to retrieve Diana Cabrera’s email.
“I interviewed a few women who were in San Diego the same weekend as Vaughn.” I pulled up the group shot she’d sent me and zoomed in, so the Real Housewives were out of view and Vaughn, in all his shiny-faced, sweat-stained glory, was on full display.
When I flipped my phone around, Bodie leaned in.
“Holy shit,” he said, his face twisting up like he’d just watched an oblivious freshman crash their bike on the parkway and eat pavement. “He looks . . .”
“Drunk,” I finished.
“Wasted,” Bodie corrected. “This was over the summer?
This summer?”
I nodded. “At the Alvarado Resort. The women I talked to said they ran into him at the bar and he invited them onto his boat. Apparently, he was throwing a party.” I tried to phrase the next bit delicately, because I knew this was all difficult for Bodie. “They said he was really drunk. They think he might’ve been on something too.”
Bodie sat back in my tiny IKEA chair and rubbed his hands over his eyes. When he leaned forward again, elbows on his knees and head hung, the defeated look on his face made my hand twitch to reach out for him.
“I think he needs help,” he said, resolved.
He needs to be in jail, I corrected in my head. But Bodie saw the best in Vaughn—in people. And Bodie didn’t know what I knew, and it wasn’t my place to tell him. But when Bodie met my eyes, for one horrifying moment, I felt that he could read my thoughts like they were written across my cheeks in permanent marker.
“What else do you have on him, Laurel?” he asked quietly.
“I can’t tell you,” I said, shaking my head. “Not yet. I’m sorry. Our job—the media’s job—is to relay the facts. Not to sensationalize. Not to skew. And I can’t present the facts to you just yet. You’re not the only person I need to protect, okay?”
He exhaled a shaky breath and, with a nod, said, “Okay.
I trust you.”
I trust you.
It was not the time to get emotional. If anything, it was the time to channel Ellison Michaels, queen regnant of competence and composure. But tears were prickling in my eyes and a lump was lodged in my throat that made it very, very difficult to stay cool. I hadn’t known how big of a relief—how big of a comfort—it would be to have Bodie St. James on our side.
Chapter 20
I assumed Bodie St. James would take us to La Ventana in a truck. I don’t know why. I guess I just figured that white guys from Texas who played football were precisely the demo-graphic to drive around in a mud-splattered Ford F-150 with the windows down and country music blasting. So it came as a real slap in the face when I spotted a familiar black Tesla.
We’d agreed to meet in a little parking lot outside of one of the older and grungier freshmen dorms. The asphalt was littered with cigarette butts and—poetically—one old, used glow-stick bracelet. I’d run into Ryan on my way to campus. He was telling me about the time he’d broken his wrist attempting to skateboard along the edge of the fountain outside the student union, but I was a little preoccupied with eyeing our method of transportation for the evening.
Bodie stood with his back against the driver’s-side door, his head down as he scrolled through his phone. He’d had practice that afternoon (I knew this because Andre had complained about all the conditioning, not because I was, like, a stalker). His hair was damp from the shower and the bridge of his nose was sunburned.
It took me a solid four seconds to notice that Olivia was standing next to him, flipping through her notebook and jotting down last-minute notes.
Ryan announced our arrival with a loud and drawn out,
“Let’s gooo!”
Olivia looked up.
Bodie smiled and said, “So, whose funeral is it?”
We’d all somehow worn black. Olivia looked, as she always did, like she was on her way to an outdoor music festival—just a somber one. Ryan was in jeans so tight I wondered if he had any feeling at all in his feet, which were encased in a pair of faux alligator sneakers. I’d just borrowed Hanna’s black corduroy overall dress again (lame) and Bodie was in black jeans and a denim jacket. A perfectly unremarkable outfit. There was absolutely no reason for me to stare at him. None at all.
Olivia sighed. “At least we’re coordinated.”
“Go team,” I quipped.
“Shotgun!” Ryan hollered.
There was also no good reason for me to want to elbow Ryan out of the way as he jogged around the car, but I tried not to think about that as Olivia and I climbed into the back seat together through the stupid falcon-wing doors.
“Nice car,” I muttered.
“It’s Kyle’s,” Bodie said, his eyes meeting mine in the rearview mirror.
I know, I thought as the engine turned on with a low, eco-friendly rumble. The fact that Fogarty drove an electric car made him no less of an asshole. The vegan leather seats were soft as butter. I wanted to cut right through them with my fingernails.
—
The closer we got to Los Angeles, the worse the traffic on the I-10 became. Ryan was in charge of navigation and music selection, to the detriment of everyone’s happiness. He had a flare for incredibly grating techno music and 1960s throwbacks.
It was a small relief when we finally pulled off the freeway and navigated into a more upscale neighborhood dotted with boutiques and furniture stores. We passed two burger places and a BBQ joint before we spotted La Ventana—a saturated sunset-orange building with a roof made of arched clay tiles, like russet scales, and an outdoor patio in the front that was partially hidden behind several thick-trunked palm trees.
Parking was a nightmare, naturally. We eventually settled for a spot along the narrow sidewalk bordering a soccer pitch almost five blocks from the restaurant. The field was a sharp neon green—turf, probably—and corralled by a high chain-link fence coated in black rubber. We climbed out of the car.
Out on the field, a pair of teenage boys were passing a ball around.
“Kick with your left foot, coward!” one shouted to the other in Spanish.
I snorted. Bodie glanced at me sideways.
Ryan ducked his head to read the meter and announced that it was two hours max.
“Someone can come back out and top it up later,” Olivia said, already inching down the sidewalk. “Let’s just go, I don’t want Carla to get there before us.”
Ryan jammed in a handful of quarters, and then we were off. I glanced over my shoulder before we turned the corner.
Something about the sight of Fogarty’s Tesla parked against the curb spurred in me the sudden and violent urge to march back up to it and smash my fist down on the hood. But I didn’t.
La Ventana was comfortably buzzing—not too empty, not too packed. The square terra-cotta tiles on the floor were polished to a glossy shine. Painted ceramic plates and sombreros hung on the textured walls alongside a collection of framed and autographed photos of performers in drag—towering wigs, false eyelashes, sequined minidresses, lipsticked smiles, and fierce pouts. Brightly colored papel picado banners were strung from the ceiling above us. They swayed and fluttered in the air conditioning.
The hostess tucked four menus under her arm and led us through the main dining area, down a narrow hall lined with bathroom doors, and into a back room dominated by a low stage with a projector screen and an elaborate speaker system. It was darker than the main dining area, the windows shuttered and fake candles flickering on the tables.
I knew we were close to the kitchen because the scent of roasting chiles and jalapeños made my mouth and eyes water. Our booth sat on the far side of the room from the stage. Olivia and I slid onto the padded bench against the wall while the boys took the distressed wooden chairs. As Bodie scooted forward, his knee knocked mine under the table. I pretended to suddenly be very intrigued by the drinks menu, despite the fact that I couldn’t legally order anything from it.
“Ooh,” Olivia said, “they do sangria by the pitcher, if we’re all in the mood to get shit-faced.”
Boy, did that sound tempting. Something about Bodie St. James in artificial candlelight made me want to chug alcoholic beverages. The football team had been practicing in the afternoons recently, and it showed—the hair on top of his head was kissed the color of whiskey and his face was developing a tan beneath the traces of sunburn. He looked like he’d shaved a few hours ago too. I wondered if his skin felt as smooth as it looked.
It was a small blessing when the fresh guacamole and tortilla chips arrived, giving me something to occupy my thoughts (and hands) with that wasn’t Bodie’s jawline. All conversation at the table died as we shoveled God’s chosen condiment into our mouths. Even Olivia relented and put down her extensive prep notes and indulged.
It took us all of sixty seconds to empty the basket. Bodie flagged down our waiter and asked for two more. We killed those too.
“Oh, this is them!” Olivia said.
I think I’d been expecting Carla Asada to show up in drag, which was dumb, because it wasn’t like potters constantly walked around in clay-splattered smocks. Also, I’d seen pictures of Carla both in and out of drag. But they were somehow more beautiful in person—all perfectly manicured eyebrows and skin glowing under the warm light of the restaurant.
We introduced ourselves and shook hands, the pleasantries walking an awkward line between formal (because this was an academic excursion) and casual (because it wasn’t every day you got to go to a drag show for research). Carla pulled up a chair from the empty table beside ours. I noticed, for the first time, that there was a peach emoji patch ironed onto the lapel of their army-green jacket.
“Thank you so much for this,” Olivia gushed.
“Don’t mention it,” Carla said, reaching out to pluck a chip from the basket (our fourth now) in the middle of the table. “Do you mind if I steal some guac? I had an audition out in Santa Monica. Got stuck in traffic. All I had in my car were some raw almonds.”
“Go for it,” I said, pushing the stone mortar down the table.
Carla shoveled guacamole in their mouth while Olivia gave them a brief recap of our class and the requirements for our project—the thirty-minute presentation and the fifteen-page paper. After this rundown, Carla sat forward and dusted tortilla chip crumbs off their hands, turning their attention to Ryan, Bodie, and me.
“All right, so, first things first. How familiar are you with drag?” they asked us. “I don’t want to treat you like a bunch of first graders, but I also don’t want you to be totally lost.”
I had no experience with drag, other than the time sophomore year Hanna and I had gotten the flu at the same time and had spent an entire week bingeing RuPaul’s Drag Race and chugging DayQuil. And given the number of Spanish telenovelas I watched, I knew one show was far from a comprehensive representation of the community. It was tricky to try to appreciate a larger culture through the filter of visual media.
“We’ve been doing a lot of research,” Bodie said.
“Have you been to any shows, though?” Carla asked. “Or met anyone who performs?”
“I saw The Rocky Picture Horror Show,” Ryan said. “Does that count?”
Carla opened their mouth to answer.
“Wait!” Olivia interrupted, then turned to me and said solemnly, “The recordy thingy.”
“We’ll be taking an audio recording of this conversation,”
I explained to Carla, setting my phone on the table and tipping the screen toward them so they could see the app I was using. “It’s just to be sure we don’t misquote you.”
Carla smiled. “I know the drill.”
“Oh, perfect.” I tapped open the settings on the app and toggled the volume. “Do you do interviews often?”
“Only really in the last few months,” Carla admitted sheepishly. “I just started doing performances full-time. This year’s been sort of crazy for me—I got invited to do a panel at DragCon, I was featured in a piece for the LA Times, did a little interview for Variety. I mean, there were like eight other performers in the article, but still. Variety.”
“Holy shit,” I said. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you. I mean, it’s still brutal trying to make a living as an artist, but at least when you search my name on Google, my Instagram’s the first hit under Did you mean carne asada ? ”
I laughed. “Well, I’m definitely going to need you to sign something for me.”
Beside me, Olivia was flipping frantically through her notebook. She’d come to dinner with a detailed game plan. I respected her need to steer our conversation to get the information we needed rather than let it all unfold organically, so I decided to let her take the wheel.
“All right. We’re recording,” I announced, then turned to Olivia. “Start us off?”
She nodded and consulted the numbered list in her notebook. “Could you introduce yourself?”
“I’m Carla Asada, and I am drag artist born and raised in Irvine, California.”
“How’d you choose your name?”
“Because I’m packing the meat, baby.” Carla winked.
“And, in all honesty, your name is a big part of your brand as a performer. I’m Latine, and I’m a little raunchy. My name lets you know what you’re getting.”
“When did you start doing drag?”
Carla propped their elbows on the table, tapping fingernails painted a brilliant sunflower yellow against their cheeks.
