By midnight the passport pages were printed and dried. Carefully he trimmed each page on a paper cutter and rounded the corners. He stapled them inside the cover. From a briefcase he removed a photograph of the peasant-cheeked Sandy Hartzbecker. She was posed leaning back against a wall with one knee up. She was nude except for a halter-top. She had a cigarette in one hand and a cocktail glass in the other. With the paper cutter, he sliced away everything in the photograph except her head and shoulders. Using glue and a wipe rag, he affixed the photograph to the inside cover of the passport. This process alone took almost two hours.
Exhausted, LaMonica flicked off the light. He pulled the sheet off the litho camera and flopped down on the cot. Having covered himself, he closed his tired eyes. Before falling asleep, he imagined fucking Linda the cocktail waitress and then killing her and running naked across spikes and jagged chunks of glass without sustaining injury.
It was light outside when LaMonica woke up. He ate the contents of a can of peaches and drank the juice, then threw himself back into work.
Having mounted the traveler's check on a piece of cardboard in front of the copy camera, he snapped photo after photo. Because of his precise standards, it took him almost three hours to prepare suitable negatives. Finally he held the completed black transparencies up to the fluorescent light and checked closely for flaws.
By eleven o'clock the cabin was sweltering. He flung open the door and stepped out onto the porch, shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight. Below the hills in the direction of town he could see the coastline and a procession of fishing boats heading toward the docks near the Ensenada fish market. Birds fluttered among the branches of a nearby tree. He picked up a rock and hurled it into the branches. The birds flew away. He stepped back into the cabin, tossed his clothing on the floor, and returned to work.
Using a grayish opaquing fluid and a fine-tipped brush, LaMonica painstakingly eradicated the signatures on the negative for the front of the traveler's check. By the time this procedure was completed, he had a stiff neck. Finally the negatives were ready. One at a time he arranged them on a vacuum-frame table and matched them to a thin lithographic printing plate that was about the size of a legal tablet. He fished around in his box of supplies and brought out a stopwatch. He flicked on an arc light and the stopwatch simultaneously and timed the plate exposures. In less than an hour the plates were completed.
After washing each of the plates in developing solution until the image of the checks was visible, he chose the ones he liked best and tossed the others on the floor. Without hesitation, he affixed the front plate onto the printing press and locked it into position. He took the time to carefully adjust the ink and water levels on the printing press, then flicked the "on" switch and stepped back. The sound of a press starting up gave him a slight chill (as it always had ever since the day he lost his finger).
The press worked efficiently, spitting perfect copies of the purple traveler's check into its basket. As reams were completed, LaMonica gingerly refilled the paper feed. After a couple of hours, stacks of counterfeit traveler's checks were piled up all over the cabin. Although fatigued, LaMonica took special care as he used a paper cutter to trim the traveler's checks. While doing this, he would occasionally compare one of the counterfeits with the genuine item to make sure it was the right size.
By 5:00 P.m. the job was completed. Having handed the checks, he stacked them in a large black briefcase. He carried the case to the car and locked it in the trunk.
Using a shovel and pick he had brought with him, he spent the next two hours digging a hole next to a tree near the cabin. He dragged the printing press out of the cabin and shoved it into the hole. He did the same with the copy camera and the vacuum frame. He covered the hole with dirt and returned to the cabin.
Using a two-gallon can of gasoline he kept on hand for emergencies, he doused the walls and floor as he backed out the front door. He lit a book of matches and tossed it into the room. A fire jumped. Paul LaMonica climbed in behind the wheel of the rented sedan and watched the cabin as it was engulfed in flames. He remembered the sound of fire engines arriving in front of his house when he was a child … and his mother's whining, siren like voice. "I just don't know what to dooooooooooooooooo with him," she'd said. He started the engine and drove off. As he cruised along the two-lane road toward Ensenada, the sun finally set. He was exhausted. Having taken a few deep breaths, he turned the car radio to a San Diego station. Suddenly an old man on a bicycle pulled into the roadway. Without slowing down, LaMonica swerved and missed him by a couple of feet. His heart beat rapidly for a few moments, then returned to normal.
Chapter 8
Kelly parked the government sedan in front of a small shop with a bright yellow awning mounted over a display window. The awning's calligraphic lettering announced "The New Life Gallery." Kelly followed Carr out of the sedan. They strolled to the window, which contained kaleidoscopic photographs of pasty-faced, embracing women. The photographs were flanked by a wooden box containing a pile of what appeared to be dyed red sand in the middle of a collection of kitchen knives. An artist's business card leaning against the wooden box bore the title "Women's Work."
Carr opened the door and stepped into the art gallery. There was the sound of a chime. A fortyish woman with close-cropped blond-streaked hair wearing a shapeless dress stood in the corner speaking softly with a pair of designer-jeaned women of similar age. Both had potbellies like half footballs, wore an excess of turquoise jewelry, and stood poised on six-inch heels. The woman in the shapeless dress acknowledged the agents with a nod and continued her conversation.
Kelly nudged Carr. He pointed to a pedestal next to the wall. Resting on it was a carved wood vagina lined with feathers and seashells. In the orifice, the artist had pasted a magazine photograph of women marching with banners. The price tag on the sculpture was $2,000. A mobile hanging above the sculpture was formed with photographs of female buttocks and love poems hand-lettered on Kotex.
After a few minutes, the potbellied women departed. The woman with the blond-streaked hair approached Carr and Kelly. Carr reached into his pocket for his badge.
"You don't have to show me anything," the woman said. "I can tell you're cops."
"Are you Rosemary Clamp?" Carr said.
"Cramp," she said. "Rosemary Cramp. But my name is now Rosanna DuMaurier. I had my name changed legally." Kelly continued to stare at the wooden sculpture. "It's the artist's self-portrait," she said.
Kelly nodded dumbly.
"We're looking for Paul LaMonica," Carr said.
"I don't know anyone anymore," she said. "I haven't been arrested for over five years. Of course you've probably checked my record and you already know that. Who told you that I knew Paul LaMonica?"
"We didn't come here to cause you any problems," Carr said. "We have a warrant for LaMonica's arrest and we're talking to a lot of people trying to find him." He looked her in the eye as he spoke.
"I don't appreciate you people coming into my gallery. It's totally uncalled for. I actually got a chill down my spine when I saw you walk in. It's like a reflex from my past life. I haven't been in trouble for over five years and I'm fully within my rights to ask you to get the hell out of here right now. Now, will you please leave! I mean it."
"I apologize if we've embarrassed you," Carr said. He nodded at an amazed Kelly and sauntered toward the door. He stopped in front of a rack of crude pencil drawings and sorted through them. He picked one up which depicted two disconsolate women sitting on a four-poster bed stroking a cat. He stared at the drawing for a moment. "How much is this?"