Carr's thumb pointed to the Porsche. "Nice to meet you," he said.
"I wasn't sure you were going to keep your word," the man said.
Carr mocked a smile. The man trotted to the Porsche, climbed in, and drove off. Carr and Kelly returned to the government sedan.
Teddy Mora arrived less than ten minutes later. He parked his Cadillac next to the phone booth and got out.
The Treasury men had their hands on the door handles. They vaulted out of the sedan and broke into a run. They hit Mora like the Rams' line, knocking him to the ground. They each grabbed an arm and pressed him to the pavement. Carr's fingers flew to the man's pockets and pulled out a stack of twenties.
"I was set up," Mora said as Kelly snapped handcuffs onto his wrists.
Chapter 13
The field office interview room was paneled with cheap acoustical fiberboard and was, as all police interview rooms are, less than adequate in size. Carr, with Kelly at his side filling out an arrest report, stared at Mora across a small table. He asked him about LaMonica.
Mora's arms were folded across his chest. "I saw LaMonica a couple of days ago in the Castaways," he said. "I see a lot of people there."
"What did you talk about?" Carr said.
"About money. We always talk about money-business deals. I'm an entrepreneur."
"Where do you know him from?" Carr said.
Mora unfolded his arms and tried to rest them in his lap. This didn't work. He folded them across his chest again.
"Terminal Island. We did time together. I'm sure you already know that."
"So you talked about money…" Carr said.
"That's right. He had some kind of a deal going, and it turned to shit. Some kind of a real-estate deal. Of course he didn't go into detail about it. I assumed it had turned to shit when he came and asked me for a loan. I told him no. That's all I know about him. As far as my head shop, he was there once and he probably figured it was a good place to escape through…the alley and all."
Carr stood up and removed his coat. He hung it on the back of his chair. He sat down again. "Where can we find him?" he said.
"I have no idea. Maybe San Francisco or Las Vegas. But I truthfully have no idea where he lives," Mora said.
Carr was silent for a moment. He looked at Kelly. "If you don't tell us everything you know about LaMonica, we'll be forced to camp out on your ass just like we did today. We'll either end up arresting you again or putting you out of business, or both."
"Get the picture, clown?" Kelly said.
Mora stared at the wall. Sitting there, his sagging body barely fitting the government-issue chair, the angular man looked foolish, perhaps inconsequential. "LaMonica lives out of the state," he said. "I swear I don't know where. He was here in L.A. putting together some sort of a legitimate business deal. If you know anything at all about him, you'll know that he never tells anyone his business. As God is my witness, that's all I know about the sonofabitch. Now will you let me post bail? I have appointments to keep."
Carr stood up and opened the door. He nodded at Kelly.
Kelly stood up. "Sure," he said. "We wouldn't want to keep all those nice folks down at the Castaways waiting for their twenties." He grabbed the man's arm and pulled him out the door.
Carr and Kelly pulled up in front of a large store front with a sign that read "Lithographic Supply Service of Los Angeles." They went in.
Three hours later they were still there, coats off, crowded around a messy desk in the manager's office. The manager, a neat, older man who wore glasses with wire frames and a long-sleeved dress shirt that was a size too big, hovered over them as they sorted through piles of invoices.
"How do you know he ordered the supplies from here?" the manager asked sternly.
"Your telephone number was on the toll record we subpoenaed from the phone company," Carr said without looking up.
"And the name Robert French?" The manager folded his arms across his chest.
"Someone heard him make a call and order some ink," Carr said. He pushed aside a stack of invoices and dug into another.
"It seems to me," said the manager, "that what we're talking about here is counterfeiting." His tone was grave.
Kelly gave the man an odd look.
"All printers have tried it once," the stern man said.
"What's that?" Carr said. He smiled courteously.
"Counterfeiting," the manager said. "Every printer tries it once. They try it just as a lark and destroy the bills afterward. You know, just to see if they can do it."
"Hot damn!" Kelly said, holding up one of the invoices like a rat's tail. He dropped it in front of Carr.
Carr read the invoice. It listed a sale of black, blue, green, and red ink plus fifteen reams of No. 53 paper to Robert French. Carr handed the invoice to the manager.
The manager studied the paper with a determined look. "Fifty-three is Ardmore Bond, a fairly high-quality paper. We don't get much call for it. This was a cash deal. An over-the-counter transaction."
Carr scribbled something in his notebook and stuffed it into his coat pocket. The agents stood up to leave and Carr thanked the manager.
"No thanks are necessary," he said with a sour look. "This shop has been broken into twice during the last year. I hope you catch the man you're looking for and put him in a penitentiary forever. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Forever." He pursed his lips.
"We'll sure try," Carr said on his way out the door. Kelly gave the man a little salute.
Carr and Kelly were alone in the squad room.
Files, all bearing LaMonica's name, were spread out across Carr's desk. Most of them were marked "Career Criminal," as if such a term had real meaning. Carr had spent the last two hours carefully going over the reports, summaries, and evaluations in them. The Treasury main file included specimen photographs of the counterfeit notes LaMonica had printed throughout the years, mixed in with arrest sheets, conviction forms, intelligence reports, and a stack of booking photographs in which LaMonica's hair became progressively grayer, his jowls slacker. He and Carr were about the same age.
The only remarkable difference from other such files was the absence of confession forms. Even LaMonica's first arrest (caught red-handed in a bank changing twenties into hundreds) reflected a refusal to give out anything other than his name. As a matter of fact, after his last arrest, he had refused even that.
Carr pulled a memorandum from a banded stack of papers covered by a note labeled: "Not for Dissemination Outside Department of justice." It read:
TO: Chief Federal Probation Officer
FROM: Carl Teagarten-Deputy Federal Probation Officer
SUBJECT: Probationer Paul A. LaMonica-Six-Week Release Report
1. Although probationer LaMonica has a bad habit of falling back into a criminal pattern, he has been out of federal prison for six weeks now and seems to be adjusting. Although he has not gained employment yet, he tells me that he has made a number of applications seeking work as a salesman. I have not allowed him to seek any printing-related occupation for the obvious reasons.
2. LaMonica remains somewhat of a loner and tells me that his free time is spent reading and going to the movies.
3. He rented a fairly expensive apartment in Beverly Hills last week. When I questioned him about it he was very cooperative. Apparently he has recently come into some sort of an inheritance from a distant relative (I haven't had time to verify this, but hope to by the next six-week report). He also made a down payment on a sports car with the same source of income.
4. I have received a number of calls from various law-enforcement agencies for LaMonica's current address, but have refused to provide it under terms of the Privacy Act.