Ho, ho, ho
You better not shout,
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
IT’S THE FBI!
Did I tell you about the time I met an FBI agent? It happened like this:
I had just finished teaching my Monday morning writing class at the university as my cell phone rang. Assuming it was my husband making his usual noon call, I didn’t bother to look at the number before I answered.
“Is this Janice Dunlap?” came a very smooth, male voice.
“Yes,” I replied.
“This is the FBI.”
Yeah, right, I thought. Obviously one of my publishing pals was pulling my leg – since I write murder mysteries, somebody thought it would be funny to pretend they were with the FBI. Certainly, every crime writer wants to meet a real FBI agent; as far as I know, however, FBI agents aren’t exactly advertising themselves for public display, so to find and meet a real one would be very cool for a writer like me. Fortunately, though, before I could make some really smart and/or stupid remark (like “I’m busted, G-man”), the fellow on the line explained that he was doing a background check on a former student of mine who was, indeed, applying for a position with the FBI.
The guy was the real McCoy.
Actually, his name was Jim. And we made an appointment to meet in two days to discuss my former student.
“I’m going to ask to see his badge,” I excitedly told my husband at dinner that night. “I can’t believe it – I’m going to be interviewed by an FBI agent! Do you think I should ask to see his gun, too?”
“You read too many crime thrillers,” my husband said. “He’s just doing a background check.”
“But he’s an FBI agent! He has to carry a gun, doesn’t he? I bet he’s wearing a three-piece suit – AND it’s been tailored to fit over his gun holster.” I took another helping of wild rice. “I wonder if he’ll tape our conversation? Maybe I should tape our conversation. Although, if I make a tape of our conversation, maybe he’ll have to confiscate it. Maybe I’ll have to take an oath of silence about talking to him.”
“And if you break your oath, maybe he’ll have to kill you,” my daughter suggested.
“Naw – that’s only the CIA,” I told her.
“You read too many crime thrillers,” my husband repeated.
“I am going to ask to see his badge,” I assured him.
Actually, as it turned out, I didn’t have to ask. When Jim came to visit me in my office later that week, he immediately pulled out a little black folder and flipped it open for me. There it was: his FBI credentials behind the two plastic windows of the folder.
“We really don’t have a badge,” Jim said. “It’s just this little folder.”
I tried to hide my disappointment. I had been sure that there was a shiny gold badge involved in this somewhere. “Could I look at it anyway?” I asked.
He handed it to me with a broad smile. I guessed that I wasn’t the first person to ask.
“It does have a shield, though,” I commented, studying the sketch of the FBI insignia on one side of the folder. I looked at Jim’s picture on the opposite side. “Nice suit,” I added.
I didn’t ask to see his gun, though.
He ran a series of questions by me about my former student and took a few notes. After that, he told me some great stories of his years in New York City back in the late 1960s, tracking down hijacked trucks. He even told me about the truck driver they brought in for questioning one day.
“Back then, we had lie detectors, but they weren’t very accurate,” Jim said. “But the trucker didn’t know that. As soon as he saw the lie detector on the table, he spilled his guts. He figured he was going to be found out anyway. It sure made our job easier.”
“So you didn’t have to track down any great criminal masterminds?”
“Not a one,” he answered.
“Shoot down crazed serial killers?”
“Nope.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “For all I know, you’re not telling me the truth. I mean, if you had done those things, you couldn’t tell me, right?”
Jim grinned. “That’s right. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
We shook hands as he stood to leave. “It was great meeting you, Jim,” I told him. “It was the highlight of my week.”
Even if he didn’t have a badge.
Or a gun.
But then again, he didn’t have to shoot me, either.
Maybe I DO read too many crime thrillers….
