“Listen, I don’t have my violin with me, Edmonds, or I’d be glad to play some sad gypsy music for you.”
“Look, Mr. Hackett, I don’t know…”
Steve Hackett pulled out a drawer and brought forth a fifty dollar bill, one of those he had taken from Susan Self. He handed it over.
Mike Edmonds was now on his own grounds. He looked at it carefully. In particular he looked at the eyes of the portrait. He rubbed the bill between his fingers to get the texture. He held it up the window, to peer through the composition of the paper. Finally, he looked up at the man who could send him to prison for the rest of his life, or, at least, that portion of it that made any difference.
He shook his head definitely. “This here ain’t green goods, Mr. Hackett.”
“It’s queer as chicken shit.”
The counterfeit passer’s face went blank and he looked at the bill again, carefully, fully. Steve Hackett held his peace.
The other shook his head again, again definitely. “If it is, I never seen nothing like it.”
“Where’d it come from?”
Edmonds stared at him. “How would I know? I still don’t think it’s queer. I never seen nothing like this. I been around a long time, Mr. Hackett. I never seen any queer like this—if it’s queer.” He had enough animal courage to stick to his guns in his own field.
Steve sighed. “All right, Mike. I tell you this. You tell me where these half-a-bill things are coming from before the week is out, or into the slammer you go. You know how much I’ve got in my files on you. As a matter of fact, you don’t. I’ve got more than you know about. I can send you over, Mike, for the rest of your days.”
“Listen, Mr. Hackett. I got a wife and two kids.”
“Those kids will be orphans unless I know where those fifties came from before the week is out.”
The counterfeit pusher stared at the bill, which he had returned to the surface of the desk. He shook his head. “Could I take it along, for a sample?”
Steve said, “You smart-assed son of a bitch. You’d pass it at the first bank you came across. It’s perfect.”
“Yes, sir, that’s what I’ve been telling you. Is it all in fifties? The boys don’t run off much fifties.”
Steve Hackett said, “We’ve only seen the fifties, but we’ve been told there are also fives, tens and twenties.”
Mike Edmonds came to his feet. “I’ll circulate around, Mr. Hackett and see what I hear. But you wanta know something?”
“What?”
“I don’t think any of the regulars are turning this green goods out. It’s gotta be somebody new. Somebody with a lot of, like resources, not some guy down in a cellar with his own engraving outfit and a platen press.”
Steve Hackett had stared after him, when the other had left, with a feeling of frustration. He didn’t know why, but he was inclined to agree with the little pusher’s final statement. He called for the next stool pigeon, and drew another blank. And another. There seemed to be no question about it. The counterfeit pushing professionals in the Greater Washington area knew nothing about this job.
He tried to track down the ink. If Susan Self was even partially right about the amount of phony money she had seen, it would have taken a great deal of the type ink involved to have printed it. But he drew a big round zero on the ink.
He tried to track down the source of the paper.
The type paper utilized was identical to that used by the government in printing real money. It was of a quality never used for other purposes. If Susan was right, that there were rooms and rooms of the fake dollars, then tons of expensive paper were involved. But he drew another blank. He could find no records of paper of this type being sold to any source save the government printing plants of the Treasury. Could it have come from abroad? But, if so, where? He had no manner in which to check foreign paper manufacturers. Besides, if it had originated in some other country, how had the counterfeiters got it over the border? It’s one thing smuggling a suitcase full of contraband, but tons?
Now, on the subway, he shook his head in despair. Of course, there was always the possibility that, although the counterfeit money was now here in Washington, that this was basically an out of town operation. He had sent men to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to check with local police and further stoolies, but he had a strong intuition that they were not going to do any better in those cities than they had here.
In Alexandria, he left the public transport system tube at the station nearest to his house, and set out on foot. It was an older part of town and in its day had been the proudest section of the city. He loved it for its relative quiet, its relatively little traffic, the large trees which lined the streets, the quaint oldness of the mansions.
He strode up the steps of his home, crossed the porch and allowed the identity screen on the door to pick him up. He had hated to have the device installed in the beautiful, heavy door, but Ruth had insisted. Everybody, but everybody, had identity screens on their doors. They’d be the talk of the neighborhood if they didn’t have one. He wouldn’t want to get the reputation of being a weird, would he?
The door opened automatically before him and he went on in, down the hall and to the living room.
Ruth was sitting there, her mouth pursed. He recognized the expression from of old. Something was on her mind that she feared he wasn’t going to like and she was getting into a frame of mind for the fray.
Ruth was a tall girl with every pore in place. Her hair was in the very latest style from Budapest, hair style center of Europe, this year. Her make-up was perfect, which was to be expected, he reflected glumly, in view of the time she spent at it. Her clothing was the most chic available from Copenhagen. Scandinavian styles were all the thing this year. The French and Italian dressing houses must be starving to death.
He said, “Hello, darling. Sorry I’m a little late this evening. We’re on a big case. Probably the biggest one I’ve ever seen.” He went over to the auto-bar. “How about a drink? I could use one.”
She shook her head, and said, “Steve, there’s something I have to talk to you about.”
“All right.” He dialed for a vodka martini, telling himself grimly that he was going to learn to like to drink the damn things if it killed him,
“Ben and Tessy were here this afternoon.”
“Oh?” He brought the drink back and sat down on the couch beside her. “What did they have to say?”
“It wasn’t what they said. It was their attitude,” she said, and her mouth pursed again.
He fixed his eyes on her but held his peace.
She said, “They’ve recently moved into a new apartment in the Druid Hill section of Baltimore. It’s the name area now. Just everybody is moving there. You’re simply not with it, these days, unless you live near Druid Hill Park.”
“I don’t like Baltimore,” he muttered.
“What’s that got to do with it? Steve, we’ve simply got to take an apartment there. Houses have become old hat. We’ll be nobodies unless we move to a Baltimore apartment.”
“Those damn plastic and glass fish bowls? Good God, Ruthie, this house is comfortable. It has that lived-in feeling. The rooms are large, the furniture comfortable. The climate is relatively nice here. The neighborhood’s quiet. Most of the neighbors are old families; they’ve known we Hacketts for generations. Known us, respected us, liked us. It’s something you can’t buy. We have a pride of place here. It’s our turf.”
“That’s all you ever think about, your own comfort,” she said hotly. “It means nothing to you that I’ve become a social leper, in the circles in which we move.