Chapter 5 - The True Face of Albert
When a man has lost his wife to cancer, watched his only daughter slip into the claws of a predator, and swallowed his pride for half a year just to gather enough rope for a hanging, he does not fear a loudmouthed coward in a tailored suit.
I stepped away from the trash can and walked into the aisle.
The room parted for me like water. Guests scrambled out of my path, knocking over champagne glasses and silver cutlery in their haste to get away from the collision.
"You shouldn't shout in church, Marcus," I said, my voice steady, deep, and carried effortlessly across the dead-quiet ballroom. "Even if it’s just a rented hall."
Albert stopped six feet from me, his chest heaving, his fists clenched tight. "My name is Albert King! You hear me? Albert King! You’re slandering me in front of hundreds of people! My lawyers will strip you of every dime you have left!"
"You don't have any lawyers, Marcus," I replied calmly. "You have a public defender named Sarah Jenkins in Cuyahoga County, and she’s been trying to serve you a bench warrant for failure to appear on three felony counts since last Tuesday."
A loud gasp came from the front table.
Albert’s "parents"—the impeccably dressed elderly couple who had spent the last two hours bragging to my relatives about their summer home in Martha's Vineyard—suddenly stood up and began edging toward the side exit.
"Don't let them leave," I called out without taking my eyes off Albert.
My brother Tom, who had spent thirty years working steel mills before retiring, moved like a linebacker. He and two of my cousins stepped directly in front of the side exit doors, folding their arms across their broad chests.
"Where are you folks headed?" Tom rumbled, glaring down at the fake father. "The speeches haven't even started yet."
I pulled a second folded document from my jacket pocket and held it up for the front tables to see.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I announced, projecting my voice to the far corners of the hall. "Allow me to introduce the distinguished guests at Table One. The man calling himself Arthur King is actually Ronald Peters, an unemployed actor from Philadelphia. And his 'wife' Eleanor is his sister-in-law, Brenda. Marcus hired them off an online casting forum for eight hundred dollars a day to pretend to be New England aristocrats."
The fake mother let out a terrified squeak and dropped her designer clutch. Counterfeit diamond earrings spilled out across the floorboards.
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"He told us it was an elaborate corporate prank!" Ronald Peters blurted out, his hands raised in surrender, throwing Albert under the bus without a second thought. "He said he was surprising his fiancée’s family with a reality TV pilot! We didn't know anything about real fraud! We just answered an ad on Backstage!"
Albert swung around, his face twisted in disbelief. "Shut up! Both of you, shut your damn mouths!"
