Fiction 2, Chapters 5 & 6

Chapter 5

" ... you are a vagabond, and no true traveller;

you are more saucy with lords and honorable personages than

the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry."

All's Well That Ends Well, William Shakespeare.

"She was stabbed with your knife. What do you mean, it wasn't you?"

The man leaning toward me was red in the face, but indignation wasn't the reason; nor was drink, I suspect. He was just one of those Irish-Americans who can get wind-burn from fanning himself.

"What kind of bullshit are you feeding me?" he inquired politely.

Thank you, Steve McNally! No, not the actor from forty years ago; he'd be as old as the century. And no good-ole-boy either. Lt. Stephen McNally, BS in Police Science __possessor of several certificates from the FBI__ was the proudly posed subject of numerous photo opportunities with beaming politicians.

But right then he was doing his best to growl at me with a completely unsuitable eastern Massachussets accent, probably Bhahston.

He was average in height and weight, with dark hair and bifocals, and reeking of an incipient ulcer. Eyeglasses were barely held up by a skinny nose and his long flat nostrils didn't make up for the ears that stuck out. The name "McNally" comes from a Gaelic word meaning "poor man," but I figured that I'd break that bad news to him some other time.

I had been still standing on the wet grass when the minions of the local law surrounded me. If there had been a SWAT team available, they would have been there. What they had was enough for me. I stood, hands cuffed behind, as I watched my truck and trailer being searched for anything that wouldn't belong to a Texas choirboy.

There probably wouldn't be a legal hassle about warrants.

They hauled me to the town pokey, across from the county sheriff's offices, and let me sit there for a while until the "Beaner" was free. I had envisioned a Mexican-American all that time, until almost five PM. Then I was brought upstairs to meet the "Beaner," and heard the aforementioned Lieutenant introduce himself. A "Beaner" indeed; a "Baked Beaner."

Who says bigots have no sense of humor?

You know, the stink of gasoline was still so strong on me that they had given me the cell furthest in back while I cooled my heels, and now I could see McNally's long nose actually wrinkling up at the smell.

If I sound cool, it's because I'm not in jail now, looking at Murder Two charges; not right now. But, right then it was like this:

no witnesses to the stabbing,

an uncommon knife __absolutely identical to the one I had in my possession when apprehended__ found lying under the stabbed victim, covered in her blood,

the basis for additional charges and a doozy of a motive, a bag full of counterfeit money in my truck,

no evidence in my favor, like fingerprints. The Tekna hilt has numerous holes drilled in it to lighten it, and what few partials it may have held had been smudged,

my presence established at the crime scene around the time of the stabbing,

evidence of my association with the victim, according to the testimony of various barflies that I had claimed to be her father, which seemed to be untrue,

the presence of a nine-millimeter, fifteen round, semi-automatic pistol __the Smith and Wesson model 59__ in a bedroom drawer of my trailer, (If that isn't a criminal's weapon, what is?)

I had never fished, played bridge or shuffleboard with my neighbors.

Now, I know the last point sounds trite, but it illustrates something important about me, something that has colored my life a different hue. I am not a joiner by nature. The regimentation of clubs or even less formal groups is not for me. Most of the activities that fill the lives of more conventional people bore the hell out of me, and the interests that fascinate me would put the normal person to sleep in no time at all. At least the conventional ones.

So I was noticeable __in a negative sort of way__ at a trailer camp stuffed with retired couples who were in their sixties and seventies. Just living alone would guarantee that; purposefully remaining apart __as well__ made sure that I stood out.

Not like a sore thumb; more like a missing thumb.

I asked for a lawyer; got a lawyer; they let me go. It's not as cut-and-dried as it sounds, and when they let me go they weren't doing me any favor. But who know that at the time?

I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

Some indirect things began to crop up in my favor, the first of which I considered ridiculous: the possibility that Roxanne had committed suicide when she found that her son and I were gone. Saloon companions had confirmed at least the general presence of her son, and also the fact that she had been very depressed about the future and what would happen to him. Just because it couldn't be disproved, there was a lot of room for what anyone __except cops__ would call reasonable doubt.

Then the word came back from New Jersey and other places that I was not a felon and was a citizen whose money __at least__ had impeccable credentials. And my pistol was properly registered there, along with my use of more than one surname, legally. I had apparently never been included __as Richard Quirk__ on any police register of Travellers.

There is such a list, you know.

The passage of time had put a little perspective on the significance of a knife in my pocket, given the circumstances.

The clerk at the store remembered David and my buying him a change of clothing. He couldn't say for sure but it had seemed as though the boy was free to roam around, and his description matched the one they had of Roxanne's boy.

There was some thought that the original working hypothesis __that I had spilled gasoline on myself from an invisible gas can, while attempting to burn Roxanne's body under my trailer, to destroy evidence of my unprovable guilt__ was a little far-fetched.

Our friend Stretch had reported seeing me leave -going to Wal-Mart- and coming back past the office. Although he didn't see David leaving, Stretch did notice him on the way back when the passenger side was facing the office.

And he saved my bacon when he identified Roxanne as the woman in the laundry room making a telephone call while I drove out of the campground. She had asked him for change for the phone; to call for a lift, she claimed.

-My God! We went right by her and never knew-

My story of finding the counterfeit was apparently accepted, since it was so simple -and true- that they couldn't shake me. I hadn't even been interviewed by Treasury Agents, and that surprised me. I was booked, all right, but as a material witness and not bound over, just released on my own recognizance.

They gave me the standard, unconstitutional speech. "Don't leave Aransas county without getting permission from the District Attorney's office, and you're not going to get it. If you move within the county, keep us posted, or you'll be back in jail. This is an ongoing case. No press interviews, get it!"

-Thanks a lot!-

My lawyer took me out the back way. Maybe he didn't want to be seen in public with me. At least they had released my Suburban, so I didn't have to take a cab back to the trailer. I had been locked up for two nights and almost three full days, somewhat longer than the traditional forty-eight hours.

On the second day, they had escorted me to a hospital to get my kidney checked out. But there had been no treatment except for some prescription pills. Not necessary, they'd said. -Maybe-

There was tape across both doors, with what I assume was the standard crime scene warn-off for these parts, but it didn't matter to me any more than the warnings on mattress tags. Off it came. I unlocked the front door and climbed in.

What a mess!

I didn't know whether Roxanne's killer had been searching for the bag, or the police had engaged each other in a pillow, food and furniture fight to end all fights. Even the mattresses were cut down the middle and the stuffing over the springs pulled out. How stupid can you get? How could I hide about thirty pounds of packages in the middle of a mattress?

The whole computer set-up was gone, including my mini-disk backups and CD-ROM disks.

What the hell!

I drove back to McNally's office to blow my top. After cooling my heels for an hour, watching the desk sergeant drinking coffee and eating doughnuts, I got in to see the "Beaner."

"I would have thought that you could stay out of trouble a little longer. What brings you back?" He asked the question like a Boston Brahmin, not a Boston Irishman.

"Where the hell is my computer, McNally?" I was really pissed-off.

All McNally was, was amused. "What computer? I had inventories taken when we searched your truck and your trailer both, and I assure you there was no computer listed. Just a bottomless well of semi-legal weapons."

"Shove your inventories!" I was furious. "Get on the horn, and find out who's got my computer and my back-ups and my CD's or ____"

"Or what? What makes you think we'd take your computer? It has nothing to do with the murder or the money, or does it?" McNally asked that leading question smoothly, with nary a long "a" that didn't belong there.

"Who else?" I yelled it out. "Would a killer take the time to haul away over a hundred pounds of equipment in five big pieces, all cabled up and awkward? Is he crazy? Would a burglar be out in the smashing rain? When he'd expect any resident would be out of his mind not to be home? And then practically step over a blood-covered body to see what he could find? What? What? ___Find what?"

I leaned forward over his desk, my face glaring at his a foot away. "It's a weird computer setup with a Toshiba 5100 __impossible to resell for anything__ the machine was so unpopular. What do you take me for, an idiot?____"

At last I had asked him a question he thought he knew the answer to.

I wound down, suddenly hit with what had to be the reason it was gone. Truly, I was an idiot, and he would have had every right to take me for one, had he not been ignorant of the facts and an apparent nincompoop, to boot.

McNally attempted to glare keenly back at me.

He couldn't quite carry it off, but he tried to anyhow. "What do you know, Quirk? Tell me what you know, or you'll be in the deepest shit this world has ever seen." He got out of his seat then to try and match my height. "Whether you had anything to do with the stabbing or not, I'll hang you out to dry. I'll let your partners find out you're trying to make a deal, and give you an hour's head start. Get off the stick, jerk-off! There's no way you're going to make a buck out of this, and you'll be lucky if they don't take your balls with a rusty fork. Now!"

"Are you finished flapping your tongue?" I asked, backing off into more neutral territory. But the question was posed in a distracted fashion. I was back on the runaway train. McNally stared at me oddly, but managed to unflap his tongue without getting it tangled.

"Look, McNally!" I lowered my voice. "All I know about counterfeit is what I learned with the other kids in grammar school. The first thing the Brothers taught me was this is strictly Secret Service stuff. If you're talking to me __not them__ it's because they're shorthanded here, and they don't want me to spot them following me, to see who I go after. Or is it who comes after me?"

The lieutenant took a minute to think.

I didn't give him any more time. "I don't want to repeat myself. If you want to learn anything, get them in here. If it's all right with them, you can stay and listen."

He left the room without a word, except "Stay here."

Ten minutes later, he walked back in followed by two "suits" trying to play undercover tourists. One of them even had a hooked marlin leaping on the front of his peaked cap and plaid polyester slacks. Both wore long jackets to cover not just guns __but radios as well__ and were pear-shaped from the need to conceal the equipment.

"This is Agent Harlowe, and the other gentleman is Agent Morrison. They're with Treasury," McNally said with appropriate gestures.

They were both an even six feet high, though Harlowe had a beak like a vulture, while Morrison looked like he'd posed for the recruiting poster ten or fifteen years before.

There shouldn't be any trouble remembering who was who.

I leaned my backside against the front edge of McNally's desk, and controlled a sudden urge to hyperventilate. "Listen! You've probably checked and double-checked me out. By now you've covered all the bases and gotten nothing on me because there's nothing to find. So you tell yourselves that the only way this guy can tell us anything is if he's dirty, and you get McNally here to lean on me, hoping I'll crack like he's Perry Mason. The trouble is, you're playing games with my life, and I don't like it."

I gave them an accusing scowl and went on with my diatribe. "Suppose __use your imagination here__ I'm clean but I can help you anyway. And I don't want immunity or any other deals; I just want to get my Toshiba back. I'm the only one who loves the son of a bitch, and it needs me. Do you want to hear it, or do you want to spend the rest of your professional lives counting my calories? I can afford to lead you around the world for that long. What do you want?" I concluded and sat down on McNally's old couch, or maybe "in the couch" is a more accurate way to put it.

"We want the truth, Mr. Quirk. If we don't get it from you, we'll get it from somebody who'll tell it at your expense. In years."

I couldn't help it. I laughed, almost silently, but so hard that they must have thought I was choking or delirious for a moment. And maybe, thinking of the man with yellow teeth, I was.

I got up and left, as soon as I stopped laughing long enough to hoist myself out of McNally's couch. That kind of couch made handcuffs dispensable. But __if nothing else had been accomplished__ at least I would spot them more easily now.

I was safe, at least from the Law. An innocent man is relatively secure from most American police and prosecutors even if he's poor, ethnic or just unlucky. Just not quite as safe as a rich, white crook. A rich, white innocent should fare all right, I thought. I hoped. Except for trial by newspaper. The local papers had decided I was Jack the Ripper for at least the first two days.

What could I have told them? What did I know? Indeed! I didn't know anything, but I could make lots of suppositions that hung together. Philosophers call it "noesis," the act of arriving at a general truth when one doesn't have enough facts to induce it. Sort of a leap of intuition that sees possible patterns that the known facts will fit, and decides which patterns are simple and elegant enough to be the truth.

The last refuge for natural philosophers in the modern world is found in the computer programming profession.

I figured the killer or killers didn't know anything about computers or the technical aspects of counterfeiting.

The Mob wasn't involved.

The defective money wasn't what the killers wanted. I was pretty sure I knew what they wanted, and just who it was who had it.

The short, frizzy-haired man in a brown raincoat was probably dead, and I thought I knew how he was involved.

McNally's Treasury boys didn't have a chance to get anything out of this that they could parlay into a career opportunity.

I guessed that the counterfeit that I had seen came from overseas, probably the Orient, and that the source had nothing to do with Roxanne's killing.

There must have been another reason why the Treasury agents hadn't wanted to interrogate me directly and that reason was simple. They were waiting for someone __probably "yellow-teeth"__ to torture and kill me, so they could pick up the trail of the "perp" and trace it back to the source of the counterfeit. If they lacked involvement, they couldn't be blamed.

It was a shame, but I'd personally be better off if the killers caught up with David. I'd be home free.

I had my gun back and my knives and tear gas, but it figured that I would still be a sitting duck -more like a crisp Peking Duck- if I stayed with the trailer.

My friendly cremator __if he was in fact Roxanne's killer__ was probably not a professional assassin, maybe just a very tough, very insane guy going way overboard. But I wasn't going to rule "assassin" out altogether. Using my knife the way it was handled might have been a spur-of-the-moment inspiration to frame the amateur, yours truly.

* * * * * * * * * *

-Jough tha clob thusik grauer-

Listen to the loud-mouth know-it-all.

* * * * * * * * * *

The call to the penthouse was from Garth. "We're all set, sir. We can leave whenever you like."

"Did you buy everything we need?" The Chairman had spent his life as a hot-house flower -a Venus Fly-trap, maybe- and wasn't looking forward to camping out in a strange house.

"Yes, sir," Garth confirmed. "The supplies and bed linens are all packed in the car trunk, with your suitcases, sir."

"I'll be down in a few minutes. Make sure you're ready to go." As usual the Chairman closed the conversation with an implied threat.

He put the telephone down before he had to listen to a reply. Only someone who knew him very well __and he'd insured against that__ would have been able to distinguish the small man's habitual rudeness from his current hypersensitivity. He was afraid.

No, I'm merely concerned about a change of routine; that's normal, he thought.

The Chairman punched an exit code into his keypad, and passed through the office door opening onto the white stairwell. Pacing the thirty-five feet or so across the white-tile floor, his eyes glanced nervously up at the ceiling. He was never entirely certain that his personal sword of Damocles was completely under control; although that apprehension was not entirely unwelcome.

The poignant touch of fear climbing one's backbone gives life a certain zest, he told himself. But he repressed his awareness that it was the same feeling that compulsive gamblers enjoy when they back a hand to the hilt. Good hand or bad, it made no difference.

He keyed himself through the back door to his living area.

Passing through those quarters with little appreciation for their luxury, the small man stalked through the front residential entrance, its massive outer doors locking behind him with a decisive thrust of the titanium rods that fixed them in place immovably. Oak veneer covered the plates of titanium that formed the shell of the doors, and the space enclosed held the tubes engaging the rods. They had been manufactured for him and installed personally by the "Gnome," an expensive Swiss craftsman who spends far more time traveling to places like Lebanon and Colombia than you would expect of the average gnome.

The Chairman bypassed the two elevators and walked directly to a closet that was marked "Janitor."

Opening the door, he entered without switching on the lights and turned to his left, speaking his mother's name. The far wall swivelled clockwise, creating a four foot clearance where a wall of stocked shelving had been. Through that gap, he then entered another stairwell concealed from the rest of the building, and not to be found on any building plans anywhere.

Three flights down, the stairs came to an end at a landing with a single doorway.

That led to a corresponding janitor's closet in the adjoining office building. Opening the stairwell door swivelled part of the closet counterclockwise, creating an entrance and exit apart from the front door only if it was unoccupied. He crossed the small room, to wait at the now-open access to an adjacent elevator shaft, and spoke the name again. When the elevator car he knew would be empty arrived, the man opened a panel in its side wall and descended to his private garage in the sub-basement.

On the floor he had left, the corridor door unlocked, after the walls inside had returned to their normal positions.

A few moments later the elevator doors opened onto the garage, but the Chairman was tense, already feeling vulnerable, and he had to pause there long enough to work up the necessary courage to tear himself away from his bastion. The nervousness he felt at exposing himself to the dangers of the outside world shivered his narrow shoulders with a damp chill.

But a moment later, stalking out of the elevator, he advanced with the most aggressive stride he could muster toward the armored Mercedes. As his master approached, Garth was careful to shield his eyes and his thoughts.

"Such an ugly little shit," was one such thought, while the chauffeur toyed with the daydream that he might someday be free of his servitude.

Chapter 6

"Then suppose that we work out some lesser example

which will be a pattern of the greater?"

Sophist, Plato.

First, why didn't the killers know anything about computers? Why? They stole mine. My system didn't have the video graphics capabilities or even a page scanner at all. A computer-literate villain could have seen that immediately from my hardware.

How could the Mob be involved? Ten dollar bills? Be serious!

Traditional methods of utilizing counterfeit involve cashing large bills, and getting change in real money. That's the only way to avoid detection; by spreading the distribution around as widely as possible, so that the inevitable detection has nowhere to point. But ten dollar bills? Sure, nobody looks carefully at them. That's because a part-time laborer makes a better living than somebody trying to live off counterfeit tens, spread that way.

If that wasn't enough discouragement, the Mob had difficulties enough trying to clean up a seemingly unlimited supply of real cash from their operations.

Every one of the pages of bogus tens had one or more error messages. How likely was it that a practical method of counterfeiting had an error on every page? These were what film-makers call out-takes.

As a guesstimate, a program that produced out-take sheets of four bills with only one error, say 95 of the time, might produce perfect sheets, say 95 of the time. For the sake of argument, let's suppose there was a software control program that could produce that kind of result with standard computer peripherals, perhaps slightly modified.

Like a license to print money, right?

If you were hunting for something so hard that you would kill perhaps two or three people for it, would it be the rejects you were looking for? Or would it be the means to manufacture absolutely perfect money in unquestioned denominations at a rate of eight sheets __thirty-two bills__ three hundred and twenty dollars a minute __almost twenty thousand dollars an hour__ or almost five hundred thousand dollars a day on about ten thousand dollars worth of equipment?

Even if we quibble about downtime, think of it: cranking out two or three million dollars worth of ten dollar bills a week __if you can pass that much__ on devices that you can pick up at the local computer store and charge on your Visa card. And if the tens go well, bring on the fifties and hundreds?

Could the quality be that good? Printing cash in the regular way is technology from two hundred years ago. -I rest my case-

What were they after? What else? The software! That's why they took my computer and mini-disks, and cut up my mattresses.

Who had it? Who else? David had it. Roxanne left the bag with David; she left the disks with him too. Unlike the bag full of bills, David was able to pocket the mini-disks.

What about old Frizzy-head, the nerd with overtones of urgency?

Frizzy had been broke, dependant on a woman to support him and keep him out of the limelight. Ok, he could have killed her, but I didn't think it was likely because he had needed her. And "yellow-teeth" was my logical and emotional choice for her murderer, anyway. Also, I didn't think that Roxanne had been greedy __or self-confident__ enough to grab the software, to use or sell it on her own and deal Frizzy out.

Well, what about me.

Perhaps she saw me as a potential partner. But, there had been two opportunities to sound me out, and she had not. Why burn her bridges before doing even that? No, if Roxanne had the counterfeit and the software, then Frizzy was out of the picture, probably dead, too.

Then again, why hadn't Frizzy had any money, with that counterfeit available? Because he would have been conspicuous passing brand new tens for everything, even if he trimmed out the reject bills. The bills would have had to be tumbled with a little dirt for a while in a rock polisher, or something like that, to age them.

Why would he worry about being conspicuous, given that the counterfeit was, at the least, damned good? Somebody was hunting him. Who? Not the Feds, or they wouldn't have been short-handed down here. The killer or killers, of course; "yellow-teeth" and his boys, the ones who didn't know anything about computers. Maybe I'm hitting on the yellow teeth overmuch; let's call him "Jaws."

So who did know about computers?

Not Roxanne or David, probably; he was too young for the job. That left Frizzy, as far as I was concerned.

Why was Frizzy hiding?

Because he had the software and the killer or killers didn't. Anyone who has access can copy software without the owners knowing it, if the owners don't know how to protect it. There's no way that it could have already been in their possession, without backups having been made and put in a safe-deposit box. Even the most ignorant would have insisted on that. If it had been in their possession when he took it, they probably would have never known it was copied, unless he wanted to deny it to them, and he couldn't if they had backups.

No! Frizzy was a middle-man, a hacker, who stole what he was sent to buy, the whole package for the killer or killers, and I still thought there was more than just "Jaws & Co." involved. Why? Because starting up something like this counterfeit operation takes real money __a lot of real money__ and whoever had spent the money was here, involved! He wouldn't take the chance on another Frizzy running away with his stuff. All right, "he" may be sexist, but how many female gangsters are there around?

Does money wipe its own ass? Not on your life! The money man had muscle with him, and "Jaws"__ the devil with yellow fangs__ was probably it. The money man probably had to pay him off with big live creatures to torture and kill.

Let's take a break on the speculations. I'm getting a headache and you're thinking that I'm passing off hindsight as analysis.

I cleaned up the trailer.

Doing without the computer was the same as going cold turkey for any other junkie. This was my other vice, technology.

So they would be after me, "Jaws" and his boys, digging for software they thought I had. Harlowe and Morrison would hold their coats, if they could do it inconspicuously. McNally would be spooning his chowdah' while this was going on, or baking his beans.

The cops had returned the S&W 59, so I stripped it to check for tampering, and got out a fresh box of cartridges. Reloading the clip, I inserted it into the grip, put the safety on and worked the slide to insert a round in the chamber. Then I pulled the clip out again, loaded another round in it and replaced it, releasing the safety again. It's a double-action pistol, so it doesn't need to be cocked before firing.

Normally my pants are held up by suspenders, but for the occasion, a belt was added to hold a holster over my right hip.

One of the Teknas was clipped to my left sock, a tab cemented to the tip of the sheath stuck into the inside edge of my shoe. The normal plastic sheath was replaced by a slimmer leather one. My Gerber was jammed diagonally in my belt at the back __hilt to the left__ and I clipped the sheath of an Explorer boot knife to the doubled-over cuff of my left-hand shirt sleeve, its hilt just covered by the unbuttoned sleeve of my jacket. The tear-gas canister was loose in the jacket's right hand pocket.

Of course, wearing a jacket would be de rigueur with this little arsenal.

I wished I had bought that shotgun. Maybe it was time to call the crisis hot-line at the NRA and get some advice. Have I mentioned that most of my shoes have safety caps over the toes? They're great for friendly persuasion in a crowded bar.

When a coward gets too old to run and too smart not to take precautions, this is what he's reduced to. You should see the Irish blackthorn walking stick that I use in New York City. Mother left it to me, in a way. That, and a family motto: "Soonie em intha soolies!" "Look them straight in the eye" or, equally valid, "Watch their eyes."

I moved the Applegate-Fairbairn dagger from the glove compartment to the visor.

A slight touch of paranoia can come in handy in a real emergency. If I had Pop's old nightstick down here, it would have been on the right front seat, but it was home hanging by the front door. There was another Gerber Mark II combat knife near the door of the trailer to replace the murder weapon and a third back in my New Jersey bedroom. That Explorer boot knife that I mentioned is one of a set of inexpensive imports. They hold an edge and are well balanced for throwing. All my knives have to be suitable for throwing. The rest are around somewhere.

-Where was I?-

"You were saying that we didn't have a chance to develop this case into a successful prosecution of what appears to be this country's ____"

-I remember now! I was interrupting the Secret Service-

"I said you were jerking off," I agreed.

McNally had seen to it that I was picked up in order to continue educating the Frick and Frack of the Federal Follies. An unmarked car; nothing flash, nothing gaudy, but at least they were listening. I had sent a letter to the Department of the Treasury, addressed to the Secretary, complimenting him on the dedication of his agents, by name, and expressing my sincere desire to carry out all their instructions to the letter despite the evil attentions of the man with yellow teeth __with copies to my lawyers in Rockport and New Jersey__ and McNally, of course.

So much for being thrown to the wolves.

-Back to then-

"I suppose you guys know something about paper?" They looked embarrassed or possibly resigned. It turned out they didn't.

"Every once in a while you hear about some arts and craft nut who makes his own paper. On the whole, though, it's a real mass production product to get really good quality and consistency, and a lot of pollutant by-products are generated. You don't make it in a garage."

"So?" Both T-Men were prompting me.

"So, it takes too many people to make special paper like this stuff for splitting up the illicit profits. I mean, you don't get together with your neighbor and build a paper plant. The paper has to be manufactured in small production runs in a regular mill that turns out regular product. Could you run this stuff through a domestic mill without everybody knowing what it was for? Not with those colored threads. Only in the Third World __maybe Taiwan__ unless you want to make this a Communist conspiracy."

An embarrassed cough from Morrison and a slight snicker from McNally told me that the last shot wasn't far off the mark.

I made another stab at getting through to them. "They've got to be providing the software too. The error messages are numeric. There's no reason for that with all the room for printing on the sheet, unless the errors are being reported to people who don't speak the same language as the programmers. One set of software, and a different flash card explaining those numbers for each different customer's language."

Morrison was skeptical about my reasoning. He asked, "How do you know this hypothetical conspiracy is getting everything from one source?"

"Are you kidding?" I asked him. "These clowns are technologically ignorant. They couldn't use the paper without the software telling them how to use it, and the software and hardware would be useless if all they had to print was wrapping paper. They got lucky with one connection. Do you want me to believe they got lucky squared?"

Harlowe spoke for both, "What are you implying?"

"Exactly what you're inferring: that what we're guessing at as the source here is the Amway of counterfeiting __a franchise peddler__ Bucks'R'Us. They're not my problem. Their deal went down and they left town, probably Houston, a while before Roxanne was killed."

For a change, Morrison spoke. "We'll get them."

I laughed at him. "How? They'd be protected on their own turf. The best you can hope to do is chase after their customers here___and there might be thousands of them in a couple of years. Like dope dealers."

"So we'll phase out tens!"; this gem from Harlowe.

"One week!"

"One week, what?" Morrison asked.

"One week until they're cloning twenties, or whatever."

"What about passing this stuff?" asked Harlowe. His question was studied; too casual. He had ditched the tourist outfit, by the way, and was back in his accustomed suit. Ditto Morrison!

"They're probably not using the normal channels."

"Why?" -Inquiring minds want to know-

"Because you could go broke trying to get enough change in real fives and ones, passing bogus tens to a vendor by posing as a customer. Even twenties are too small to be efficiently passed that way." These guys shouldn't have to be led around by the nose like this, I thought.

"So?" Harlowe asked, with a two-handed gesture that dismissed what I was saying as of no significance.

"But if you had the right business, you could work it the other way around, the vendor stiffs the customer. It would have to be a business where you pay the bill when you leave, so the customers take the counterfeit change with them, rather than hanging around to spend it with you. That lets out bars and racetracks."

The "bars and racetracks" got an appreciative nod from the T-Men. It must have been a familiar reference.

"There would have to be a lot of outlets to move a million or two worth of tens," I added. "Places like Burger Kings and Pizza Huts __and some convenience stores__ are sometimes owned in large clusters. One corporation running sometimes dozens of franchises __or even hundreds__ within a state. Or maybe cafeterias, you're big on them in Texas."

"Why not better restaurants?" McNally asked; just going through the motions. They still weren't interested. And that meant that I was on the wrong track and that they knew a lot more than they were letting on about "Jaws" and his employer.

I went on anyway. "There wouldn't be enough outlets. And, the most common bill larger than a ten, is a twenty. To pass lots of bogus tens as change, your average transaction would have to be less than ten dollars. Then again, these outfits keep their losses to robbery minimized by closing out cash drawers frequently, and dumping the excess cash in a one-way safe to be collected by an armored car. The armored car company also provides them with whatever silver or paper money they need to provide change, get it?"

Harlowe laughed, "I was wondering where you were going with a conspiracy of a hundred Burger King managers."

Morrison added, "So you'd look for a state-wide armored car company that seems to specialize in contracts with fast-food joints and Circle K's or 7-11's, places where they pick up mostly twenties, and deliver mostly tens."

I brought them up short. "No! It doesn't have to be that. It could be the bank, supplying bogus bills to the armored car company, for example. Or to some other outfit that takes ten dollar bills on a one-way trip away from them."

"You think you know their set-up?" Now it was Harlowe's turn to ask. And this time he was interested. I had stumbled across something pertinent with my suppositions about the armored car company or the bank.

It was time to cover the mechanics of the situation.

"Think about the possibility," I suggested, "that the red and blue threads are treated with a special dye that's neutral in color until the paper is heated to a couple of hundred degrees Fahrenheit; say, the temperature of the heater in a laser printer. It has to be that. The letter-size paper is a dead giveaway. Then the raw stock could be imported without risk of detection by casual inspection. Or it could be a temperature-sensitive, reversible bleach."

"Go on. Don't let me stop you now," Harlowe said. It was obvious that they didn't even have a clue to the engineering aspect of how it was done, so far. Both gun-toting bureaucrats were probably waiting for an official opinion from D.C. before they dared to have one of their own.

And I did: I went on. "Normal laser printers use a dry toner instead of ink. It sits on top of the paper. They'd have to have just the right color toners and a way to convert them to liquid ink at some point, probably right after the same heater. If they wanted a real quality product, that is. There are some color printers that work like that already."

McNally chipped in, "What about the hardware?"

"Well, the suppliers would want to use standard machinery as much as possible," I told them. "Maybe a fully equipped 486 machine and there would be three laser printers, probably LaserJets. Their optics and software drivers would have to be modified to get that kind of precision. They'd be monochromatic, one for black and one for each color green."

-I thought that the modified optics were probably with David too. They'd be small and sturdy, like him-

Harlowe was getting antsy while I went on lecturing __now about color scanners. I was losing him.

Who cared about Harlowe? I was on a roll. "The trick with the software controlling the scanners is to get the machine to report all significant deviations without generating too many false alarms. That's the tough part. The whole set-up could fit on a dining room table, and make about as much noise as an air-conditioner."

Morrison asked me how they copied a real bill with that kind of scanner.

"They don't!" I said. "It needs much better equipment, software and the services of a master craftsman to acquire, clean up and prepare the final graphics images. Our friendly general store has to supply the master image files, sort of the equivalent of the printing plates on a press."

That started me rethinking the idea of mini-disks.

I stopped my monologue and took time out to bask in the admiration of my new buddies. I've put on dog and pony shows before __plenty of them__ as a computer analyst. It's half technical experience and half snow job.

They easily accepted my presentation as the real McCoy, but they obviously didn't accept that my conclusions were arrived at without guilty knowledge.

Being a know-it-all is not all beer and skittles, whatever that means.

"Wait a damn minute!" you say, "You've solved the crime, and I'm not even halfway through your book."

In the first place, I know now that I was wrong here and there. -Close, but wrong-

In the second place, guesswork doesn't put criminals in jail, despite what you read or see in the movies. Believe me, I don't resemble the Thin Man at all. Even if I did, I couldn't care less about putting them away personally.

What about vengeance for Roxanne? Listen: I liked her, and pitied her and maybe loved her a very little, but she put her child and myself in danger by trying to hold up Mr. Big. Roxanne didn't deserve to die like that nor did she deserve any medals, either. Or an avenging crusade.

What's the rest of the story about? I'll tell you!

Finding true love, trying to save my skin, and making a stab at keeping my balls; not necessarily in that order.

Remember, I mentioned trial by newspaper?

I checked out the local papers at the public library, just for the previous week, to try to figure what the people who were after me knew. They must have laughed themselves silly over my reported arrest "for the brutal murder of." Next, they would have had mixed emotions over my being released, but being confined to their immediate neighborhood. And then they knew __for sure__ that I had the sample bills, the software and probably a warehouse receipt for a pallet of paper and drums of toner as well.

How did they know?

They knew because neither the "Beaner" nor Frick and Frack had informed the newspapers of anything about counterfeit money, much less that I no longer possessed it.

It might take awhile but I knew that one night they would come again.

* * * * * * * * * *

-At naia, tha gyuck shules in karab-

A man walks with danger in the night.

* * * * * * * * * *

The creature stood before the much smaller man, his head bowed in stolid humility.

"What am I supposed to do with you? Tell me what?"

The articulate scream stopped momentarily, but the Chairman would have been offended if the creature had actually answered the question, interrupting him.

"You've killed the woman," he accused, "Don't give me any shit about suicide. And you almost destroyed the only other chance we've got right now. I can't afford you like this, Weller."

Weller raised his colorless eyes as if to protest.

The Chairman wouldn't be stopped. "Not the money, stupid. It's the blood and fire I'm talking about. You've got to control yourself, Weller. If you don't, I'll have to get rid of you. Without me, there's no police protection, no bought witnesses. You know what the Mob will do if you bring the cops down on them, trying to hustle a living on your own. You're not so tough; you're just real nasty. You're nastier than anybody else I've ever known, and that's the only reason they're afraid of you. Just don't forget how much they hate you too."

The small man paused for breath before he continued, "Hey, don't slack off just because I'm giving you credit now where credit is due. I'm a fair man; anybody in Houston will tell you that. So shape up! Get your act together, or you're on your own. We've got to catch both of them, Russell and the big guy both, got it?"

"Yes, sir, no problem," Weller assured him.

Jesus wept! the Chairman thought, this is what I get for being easygoing with stumble-bums and creatures like Weller. "GARTH!" he yelled.

Back Next

You are at Fiction 2, Chapters 5 & 6