My first assignment was to try to collect on a federal judgment in excess of $100,000 that had been entered against a businessman who had essentially defrauded an insurance carrier. The insurance company had already sued the businessman and won, but you know, it's all well and good to sue someone--if you can't collect the money, it's all for naught. So my job was to locate the guy's assets, which I failed to do.

The businessman was a cagey, recalcitrant debtor; he knew how to conceal his assets. And the law firm I worked for was in a state of disarray--as a result they didn't offer as much help as they might have. So I couldn't locate the money. I failed on my first case. But it didn't matter, I liked the work and I just moved on to the next job. That's the way it is. When I fail, I move on to the next job, I don't get drawn and quartered. I don't get despondent or quit. I'm paid a flat rate or an hourly rate--it's not contingent on success. In fact, it's unlawful to work on a contingency basis as a private investigator in the State of New York.

The majority of my cases are white collar crimes. Ninety-five percent. I know what I'm good at and what I'm not good at, and I'll only take work I know I'm good at. What I'm not good at is domestic, divorce stuff. There's plenty of that out there, however, I have no experience at it and it takes a certain kind of person and talent to know how to deal with a marital infidelity client. In my opinion, it's just a lose-lose situation every time. The client, a distraught spouse, comes to you and says, "I think my spouse is cheating, prove it." If you don't prove it, your client's lost a bunch of money and doubts you've done a good job. If you do prove it, he or she is upset because they didn't want to have the truth proven true anyway. This is a very customer-service-oriented business and handling such customers is simply not my strength. So I shy away from that kind of work.

Locating people and assets, and figuring out what happened in a business fraud are the three things I'm good at. I do a lot of debt-recovery assignments. These are usually very similar: most involve controversies over amounts ranging from $25,000 to $100,000. A guy wouldn't hire me if the amount in controversy was only $5,000--that's just not enough to merit my rates. What happens is, I'm told that Company X owes Company Y some amount of money. So I go out there, see if Company X is open for business, talk with them, see what they are about, figure out if the money is there. It's usually pretty mundane.

One of the fun cases that I like to talk about is one where a client representing a bank came to me and said, "I want you to interview Jack Miller. He works at such and such large securities firm and he's ripped my client off." I ask, "How do you know this is the right Jack Miller?" "Oh, it is," he says. "I'm not so sure," I say, but I call this Jack Miller at this big securities firm here in New York City and I say, "Are you the bad guy?" Not in quite so many words, of course. And this Jack Miller was cagey enough to lead me to believe he might be the bad guy.

So I contacted the general counsel of his firm and asked to compare signatures. I ultimately learned that this was not the right bad guy. He might have been a bad guy for some other reason, but he wasn't my Jack Miller. So I had to go look for the correct Jack Miller, who I found in western North Carolina. The crucial piece of information was given to me by the girlfriend of his wife. The girlfriend told me where the wife lived, for a price. The wife lived with the husband. That's how I found him and confronted him. I found the girlfriend. She was in a substance abuse program. It was just following leads.

Basically, this man Jack Miller had ripped off a bank to the tune of $300,000 plus. The bank wasn't thrilled. It appeared they weren't going to get their money back because Miller had no assets. The next best thing was to have him prosecuted. So my job became putting all the information together and presenting it to a law enforcement agency, which in this case was the FBI. A warrant for his arrest was handed down. The local police arrested him and he was turned over to the FBI. A fun case and simple gumshoe.

A defrauded client is obviously going to be happiest when they get their money back. But that isn't always possible. And the next best thing is to find the defrauder--if they can't get their money back, they can get satisfaction. This happens a lot to me. I had another case recently where a contractor scammed a manufacturer. Couldn't get their assets, but likewise, wanted them prosecuted. Which I was able to achieve, and so the client was happy, which is what I care about.

My assignments almost all come to me via word of mouth. I have a pretty good reputation in the niche market that I work in: my name comes up when a business has been ripped off in the New York area. There are others around here who can do the work, but not quite at my level. Or at least that's what the people who hire me seem to think.

In my opinion, there's only a handful of PIs of real quality in this field. And we all pretty much know each other. I'm the guy in New York. So if I get a case in southern New Jersey, then I'll refer it to the guy that's like me in Philly. If I'm requested to do work in D.C., then I turn it over to my counterpart in Maryland. We are all different personalities. The one in Maryland is a retired state trooper, very pleasant. The one in Philadelphia is a little bit more serious and harder to get to know. Most of the ones I know in California and Florida are wiseguys. We're all very good.

Reputation is what gets me clients. People who don't use me, don't because I'm too expensive. I charge $250 an hour for an hourly rate. But it's usually a flat rate. I prefer a flat rate. I'll say, "To get this information or to achieve this goal, it will cost you X." Expenses are minimal. I got a call yesterday to locate and serve a subpoena on someone. I had a feeling it would be tough so I charged $5,000 for it. Another one might be $250. The hourly rate means they have to write me a blank check, and I don't think that's a good way to do business. It could end up being a chunk of change and an angry client. It's better to agree on a price up front. General PIs--the divorce guys you can look up in the phone book--they can charge as little as $69.95 an hour. But I will get my man, they may not.

Being a talented private investigator takes three substantial skills: common sense, tenacity and organization. Your job is basically looking for information--that's your biggest task--and if you apply logic with an orderly way of doing things, you can find out almost anything. Having connections and knowing where to look are also quite important, but tenacity, common sense and strong organization will go a long way.

You don't have to be tricky to get information. You can lawfully persuade people to speak by telling them about their legal options. That is often the best alternative. You simply say to them, "If you don't tell me what I want to know, it's not going to hurt or help me, I still get paid. I'm not a bill-collector. There'll be a big uproar in the courts and the only winner won't be you and it won't be my client, it will be the lawyers." And maybe the private investigators (laughs). I mean, sometimes it's to my advantage if they don't cooperate because it means more of my involvement, more business for me. But in general, it's better to solve the problem quickly, because my client will be happy and come back to me for more work.

Anyway, most of the time I give a logical explanation of why someone should tell me what I want to know, and they do. You can also gain access to a lot of information by knowing where to look. Which means knowing public policy and such things as the Freedom of Information Act. For instance, I was just calling the State Liquor Authority of New York to get a copy of some business's application to operate a liquor practice. There's a lot of information in there and getting it doesn't require trickery or ruses, just knowing where to go and how to properly present your request.

I'm tenacious and thorough. And sensibly cautious. I carry a weapon for protection. I've never used it outside of target practice, nor drawn it. But you never know. There may be an occasion when I'm in a jam. People get irate. Sometimes they consult with lawyers. Women cry, men scream. One guy shut a door on me and wouldn't let me out. I'd gone to Brooklyn to serve a subpoena and to take a picture of the recipient. He wasn't happy with that and he wouldn't let me out. You don't want to get into a fight. You don't want to pull your gun and shoot someone because they won't unlock a door. Fortunately, I managed to trick him by giving him the wrong film cartridge and I walked away with my photo. So I was lucky. Some cases make me afraid. Of course, fear is part of the business. And it works two ways. I mean, fear motivates people to tell me things sometimes. They're afraid that they'll get into hot water civilly or criminally, so they talk to me.

I expect I'll be doing this happily until I retire. I like the freedom and the money and sometimes it's a very interesting job. I like the autonomy. I have an excellent assistant and we have a lot of technology at our disposal. Between the cell phone, two-way radio, fax, the pager, Internet and camera, I can do a lot of work remotely and never leave the office. Next Friday, I will remote this business from a sailboat.

As soon as I say that I am a private investigator, people go, "Oooh, aaah, oooh, ahh." I say it's not as sexy as it sounds, lots of grunt work. Ninety-eight percent is grunt work. You're hearing the fun ones, the rare ones. One out of a hundred cases are worth talking about over dinner.

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