They met at a downtown Brooklyn restaurant, Tim Horton’s. Alan tried to calm Jack by giving him a 10-minute history of Horton’s, to no avail.

Jack started pacing and going over each aspect of the investigation.  He knew which items might seem suspicious and which seemed solid.  He hoped that the agent would weigh the good with the bad and take a balanced view.   Alan reminded him that much depended on the judgment of the agent, and that hopefully she would see him as a good, well-intentioned person who just kept bad records, and would be willing to work with him.

The interview

Nervous that the big day was here, Jack took an extra bottle of spray deodorant with him, knowing he could probably use it.  Jack said that the only other time he’d come close to being this frightened was when he’d been threatened by a gang as a child.

The agent went over everything -- page by page, receipt by receipt.  She’d spend two additional grueling hours going over two pages, and then, just when Jack thought she was done, she went over it again. Jack couldn’t be sure of anything.  He kept wondering what they'd completed -- sometimes they’d review a receipt three times before it was accepted.  Was there any pattern? Was she accepting only the smaller receipts?  Was she leaning in any particular direction?  Was there some hidden item they were secretly investigating?  Which way was up?  Jack couldn’t wait to get out of there. He said he remembered his exams at school taking two hours at the most, but this was just the beginning.

Two feet planted firmly in mid-air

"It was like we lifted off and before I knew it we were, well, somewhere ... but where?"

We reviewed more than 500 receipts -- many questioned, most substantiated.  What was she looking for?  Alan was excellent -- he kept summarizing and moving things along. .Jack was amazed -- he'd expected some kind of scene.  In the end, things began to move very quickly.  About five minutes later Alan must have decided it was time to wrap things up, since he'd presented what we had, and established what we needed to do and how much time we had to do it.  Alan clarified a time frame.  The agent was satisfied for now, but Jack kept saying, “Where are we? What did we finish?”  Alan said it went well, but that was only the first visit.  They were digging.

Landing

About two weeks later a letter arrived explaining that a third of his debt had been forgiven and that he should pay the rest or submit further evidence.  Finally -- progress.  Jack and his employees felt a brief surge of relief, hoping life might just begin to return to normal around the office -- but most of the work was yet to come.

Collecting receipts

Finding receipts in this post-Madoff time was not easy.  People weren’t sure they could help, and very few wanted to become involved.  When things are going well, everyone  step forward -- when things go wrong, they often become distant or they desert you., Jack  was coming to reassess his opinion of the people whom he turned to for help.

One man he knew well seemed not to recall members of Jack’s staff who used to visit him.  He requested proof that copies, prints, and laminations had been done at his shop.  The receipts amounted to approximately $20 a week in petty cash, but he still couldn't be persuaded to help.  He offered stories to boost Jack's morale, but refused to provide him with a receipt.  He told Jack he never claimed cash payments on his taxes and couldn't take the 1% risk that he might be audited himself, thus having to justify this receipt which he wasn’t fully sure of.  Jack thought it was so minor in the scheme of things that it shouldn’t matter to him.

Poor Jack, he couldn’t even remember some of the places that he did business with because there had been so many.  He was really bewildered.  He didn’t know which way to turn.  He checked his calendar, phone records, credit cards and e-mails… it was starting to gel, but only starting.

Jack in the box

Jack called everyone he knew.  He couldn’t recall what happened in detail a few years ago, but figured someone would eventually jog his memory.  He felt cornered – actually, he could have climbed out of a corner; this was being boxed in. Someone had to help.   Then, along came the rabbi….

Answers

Jack had been praying for some sort of a solution to all of this, and out of nowhere, along came this rabbi he hadn’t seen in 20 years who was just in the country visiting.  Jack couldn’t help but tell him what was going on, so they held an impromptu meeting by the side of the street for almost an hour. Jack thought that maybe this was the answer to his prayers.  The world around them didn’t exist.  The rabbi asked many questions about the agent, and then he told Jack to insist that she tell him where things stood, and that she would probably show him some compassion.  Jack had a hard time believing it… but finally gave in.

What happened then?  Tune into the web or the next print edition.

Your comments are greatly appreciated.