by Robert Crais
The white guy inspected my office. He looked at the figurines, and the Pinocchio clock, and then the picture of Lucy Chenier. Especially the picture of Lucy. I said, “None of it’s for sale. You want to tell me why you were in my house, or should I just start shooting?”
The white guy turned away from the picture. Now he was inspecting me.
I said, “Pal, it’s been a rough couple of days and I’m feeling a mite testy.”
He smiled, like me being testy was just what he wanted. He said, “This is my associate, Mr. Epps. My name is Richard Chenier. I’m Lucy’s ex-husband.”
My eyes clicked from Epps to Richard Chenier and I stared. So much for Russian mobsters. So much for federal agents.
Richard Chenier said, “The gun?”
I remembered the gun and put it away.
“We were going to meet sooner or later, so I decided to introduce myself.” He didn’t offer his hand, and neither did I.
“There might’ve been a friendlier way to say hello.”
Richard nodded. “Perhaps.” I guess this wasn’t going to be a friendly visit.
“Tell me something, Richard. Do you have your man Epps here follow every guy Lucy dates?”
“No. Only the ones who tempt her into moving two thousand miles. And take my son with her.”
I said, “Richard.”
He smiled, then sat in one of the director’s chairs across from my desk. “My son likes you, so I wanted to find out what kind of guy you are. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“I can understand your wanting to know about me. Hiring a guy to B and E my home is stepping over the line.”
“Oh, I didn’t hire Mr. Epps for you. He works for my company. We’re in international oil.”
“Mm.” Maybe I was supposed to be impressed.
“He’s very good at what he does, and he tells me that you seem to be a solid man. Stable. Good reputation. All of that.”
“I’m glad you approve.”
“And small. A person we might describe as a minor player in an insignificant game, well beneath what I would want for my wife and my son.”
I stared at him some more, and then I looked at Pinocchio. I sighed, then stood. “Okay, Richard. We’ve met. It’s been fun. I’m sorry it’s going to be like this, but now it’s time to leave.”
He didn’t move. Neither did Epps. “Small, but reasonable, so I decided that I should explain things to you so that you understand.”
“I can ask nice, Richard, but, believe me, I don’t have to ask, or be nice.” Epps shifted his weight forward slightly, away from the door. “Epps, you won’t believe it even while it’s happening.” That probably scared him.
Richard raised both hands and smiled. “I’m not here to threaten you. Look, I love this woman, and I love my son. What you don’t understand is that she still loves me. We just have to work out a few problems, and then she’ll come to see that.”
“Good-bye, Richard.” So much for civil discourse. So much for modern men discussing a modern problem in an enlightened manner. I was thinking that it might be fun to beat him to death.
He still didn’t move. “I just want you to consider what’s best for Lucy. I know she’s been offered this job, but it’ll be much better for her to stay in Baton Rouge, and much better for Ben. I’m hoping that you’re the kind of guy who wants what’s best for them. If you cared, you’d tell her to stay home.”
He really believed it. I glanced at Epps, but Epps didn’t seem to care one way or the other. I shook rny head. “You think I should tell Lucy to stay home?”
Richard smiled like a pleased teacher whose slow pupil was finally catching on. “That’s right.”
Maybe that’s why their marriage failed. “Richard, here’s something that you don’t seem to understand. This decision isn’t mine or yours. It’s Lucy’s.”
Richard frowned, as if I’d failed him in my attempt to understand.
“I love her, and I want her here, but I can’t make her come and I can’t make her stay, and neither can you. It’s her life, and her decision. You see?”
Richard Chenier frowned harder. “There’s always a way to get what you want. That’s how I make my living.”
I stared at him. I tried to picture them as a couple, and couldn’t.
Richard Chenier glanced at Epps, then stood. Epps opened the door. Richard said, “You don’t think I intend to just let them leave, do you?”
“I don’t think you have any choice.”
“You’d be surprised.” He smiled at me, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like him.
Richard Chenier walked out of my office without looking back. Epps stared at me, then grinned and turned away, too.
“Hey, Epps.”
He looked back, still grinning.
“That’s some cat, huh?”
Epps dropped the smile, walked out, and closed the door. Hard.
I stared at the door for a very long time, and then I shook my head.
“Pleased to meet you, Richard.”
CHAPTER 14
I watched Richard and Epps drive away, then went back to my desk and stared at the Mickey phone and thought about calling Lucy, but what would I say? Your ex-husband dropped by and told me he loved you? Nope. Richard hired some guy to break into my house. It sounded like tattling.
I looked at the Pinocchio clock, and gave it Stan Laurel. “Isn’t this a fine development?”
Pinocchio’s eyes went from side to side, but he didn’t say anything. He never does.
I tried to think about Markov. I took out the two one-hundred-dollar bills, looked at them again, but I kept seeing Richard on the bills instead of Ben Franklin. “For chrissakes, Cole, get over it. You’re onto something with Clark. Follow up your lead.”
What kind of guy hires someone to break into his ex-wife’s boyfriend’s house?
Would you stop it!
I knew from Lucy that Richard Chenier was an attorney with the firm of Benton, Meyers & Dane, and I knew he had graduated from law school at LSU, where Lucy had been an undergraduate, but that was all I knew, and I had never given him much thought. Now he had entered my home and my office in a belligerent and threatening manner, which I could handle, but he had also indicated that he had no intention of allowing Lucy to leave Baton Rouge, which I didn’t like at all. Whatever that meant.
I decided that if I couldn’t stop thinking about Lucy’s ex-husband, the smart thing would be to deal with it. I had met Lucy when I worked a case in Louisiana last year, and while I was there I had made friends with a couple of people on the Louisiana State Police and the Baton Rouge PD. Now I called them, told them what I knew about Richard and Epps, and asked if they could give me a fast background check. They told me that they’d get back to me as soon as possible.
While they were working on that, I called Joe Pike. “Clark went to Seattle to see a man named Wilson Brownell. Brownell is a master counterfeiter. He taught Clark how to print, and I’m thinking that Clark went back to Brownell because he’s getting back in the trade.”
“You think he’s printing money?”
“I’ve got two one-hundred-dollar bills that I’m wondering about, and maybe this explains why Clark won’t go to Jasper. If he’s setting something up, it might be coming together and he wants to see it through.”
Pike didn’t say anything for a moment, like maybe he was thinking. “There’s a woman named Marsha Fields at the Treasury office downtown. I could call her tonight, see if you can drop by with the bills tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
Then he said, “What?” Like he could hear something in my voice.
“The guy who broke into my house is named Epps. He’s the same guy in the LeBaron, and he works for Lucy’s ex-husband. They just left my office.”
More silence. “Want me to do anything?”
“I don’t think we need to kill him just yet.”
“Maybe later.” Pike hung up. Sometimes the silence says it all.
&n
bsp; I stared at the phone some more, then called the LSU Alumni Office. A little bit after that I phoned Benton, Meyers & Dane, pretending to be a prospective client, and six minutes after that the first of my cop friends called back. One hour and twenty-seven minutes after Richard Chenier walked out of my office, I knew that he had been a second-string cornerback for the LSU frosh team until a blown knee ended his collegiate career. He had dallied in campus politics, graduated summa cum laude, was an unsuccessful Rhodes candidate, and had never been arrested. Impressive. I also knew that he was a full partner at BM&JD, a firm specializing in corporate law for international oil concerns, but was currently out of the office (yeah, he was in mine!) and not scheduled to return until next week. Lawrence Epps was a former Louisiana state trooper who had left the job and who now worked as an investigator for BM&JD. He had been arrested four times, three of those for assault, and had been convicted one time for misdemeanor battery. One of those arrests was for beating his first wife. Sweet.
All in all, I was feeling better about things when I went home. I still wasn’t liking Richard very much, but he seemed like a square guy, and if I tried real hard I thought that I might be going a little crazy, too, thinking that I might lose my child. After all, Lucy had married the guy, and that said something. Of course, she had also divorced him, but that didn’t dawn on me until later.
When I got home that evening the cat was sitting by his bowl in the kitchen. I talked it over with him while I was making dinner, and said, “What would you do?”
The cat blinked, then bent over and licked his anus. Cats lead simple lives.
Joe Pike called me at nine the next morning, telling me that Special Agent Marsha Fields of the U.S. Secret Service was expecting me. I made boiled eggs and English muffins for breakfast, then took my time showering and dressing before winding my way across town to the Treasury Department.
The Treasury has its offices on the seventeenth floor of the Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, between the LAPD’s Parker Center on one side and the Los Angeles Federal Metropolitan Correctional Center on the other. Cops feel safer when they cluster.
I parked in the basement, then took an elevator to the lobby where I went through a metal detector and gave my name to a guy who looked like he ate a Pontiac for breakfast. Then I took another elevator up to seventeen.
When I stepped off the elevator, a tall, athletic-looking woman with short red hair in a navy pants suit was waiting. She said, “Mr. Cole? I’m Marsha Fields. Joe Pike asked me to examine some currency for you.” She took my hand with a firm grip and smiled nicely.
“That’s right.” I smiled nicely, too, and tried to get my hand back. She didn’t let go.
“Mm-hm. And how did you get these bills?” She kept the hand and I was thinking that maybe she wouldn’t let go, as if the bills were funny or my answer was wrong she’d slap the cuffs on me and whisk me away to Secret Service Land.
“I cashed a check at a market in Hollywood.”
She kept the hand and the smile a little bit longer and then she dropped both. “Well, come with me and let’s see what we have.”
I followed her along a nondescript hall, past men and women who wouldn’t make eye contact. All the better to keep secrets. She said, “Joe says that you and he work together.”
“That’s right. Joe owns the agency with me.”
“Joe’s a very interesting man.”
“Mm-hm.”
“We met when Joe was on LAPD. We got to be friends.”
I nodded. She seemed interested.
“We were close.”
I looked at her. “Joe speaks well of you.”
She brightened and didn’t look so suspicious anymore. “I imagine he’s married by now.” I guess love was in the air. Or at least lust.
“Not yet. But there’s always hope.”
She blushed and we went into a small lab that looked not unlike a doctor’s office and smelled of naphtha. A black Formica counter ran along one wall with a shelf of little bottles above it and three light trays. A single steel sink was sunk into the counter, with a binocular microscope on one side of it and a large magnifying glass on a gooseneck stand on the other. Modern crime fighting at its cutting-edge finest.
Someone had taped cutout pictures of the president, the vice president, and the speaker of the house above the counter and used a Marks-a-lot to label them Manny, Moe, and Curley. Someone else had drawn a bozo face on the president and written Would YOU take a bullet for this clown? These Secret Service agents are a riot, aren’t they?
Marsha Fields said, “May I see the bills?”
I gave her both hundreds. She put one down and worked with the other. She examined both sides, then folded the bill and rubbed it together, then looked at the face again. She put it on one of the light boxes, then pulled over the magnifying glass and inspected first the front face, then the back. She made a clucking sound. “These babies are righteous fakes.”
“Funny money.” Clark. You doofus.
“You bet. But not schlock. This is good stuff.”
“How can you tell?”
She held the bill under the big magnifier for me to see and pointed with a Uniball pen. “Look at the scrollwork around the edge of the bill. You see the vertical lines behind the portrait of Ben Franklin and the spokes in the Treasury seal? All of these lines should be clean and unbroken.”
I looked where she was indicating and I could see that the lines weren’t clean and unbroken. The parallel lines were smudged together in some places and in other places were broken or separated. “Yeah. I see.”
“Real money is made from engraved plates, so all of these lines are clearly resolved and separate. These bills were made from offset plates. The counterfeiter takes a picture of real money, then makes a plate from the picture, only you lose a little resolution with each step so the lines become smudged. Understand?”
She was looking at me expectantly, so I nodded. “Sure.” If you can at least look smart, people will assume that you are smart.
“The other giveaway is the paper. Real money is printed on a cotton blend made by the Crane Paper Mill in Dalton, Massachusetts. You see these little red and blue lines?”
She showed me the little red and blue filaments we’ve all seen in money. There were little red and blue lines in this bill, too. “Sure. I thought counterfeit money didn’t have those lines.”
She nodded, pleased not only with me, but with the funny money. “It doesn’t and neither does this.”
“I’m looking at it.”
“Nope, you only think you’re seeing it.” She put a drop of something from one of the little bottles on the bill and nothing happened. She frowned, selected another bottle, and put a different drop on another red fiber. This time the fiber dissolved and she smiled. “The red and blue marks in real money are rayon fibers that are mixed in the cotton and linen mash when Crane makes the paper.” She tore the edge of the bill and looked at the fibers. “This is a pretty good linen fiber, probably from a European mill, but the red and blue marks were printed on top of the paper in two separate processes.” She was smiling broadly now. She was beaming. “This isn’t schlock work. Someone went to a lot of trouble and they did a good job.” I guess she could appreciate the counterfeiter’s art.
“Are these new bills?” I was thinking that if Clark was printing again, this is what he was printing.
“Oh no. I’d say these were eight, ten years old, at least.” She snapped off the light tray, but didn’t offer the money back to me. “Looks like you’re out two hundred bucks.”
“That’s the way it goes.”
She crossed her arms and nodded. “You want to tell me where you really picked up this money?”
“I did.”
She smiled again, and stood. “Sure.”
“You keep the money?”
“That’s the way it works. You can file a claim for reimbursement through this office or any bank.”
“Thanks.”
<
br /> “Tell Joe to call me sometime.”
I went out through security, down to my car, and started back toward my office. So Clark and his kids were living on counterfeit money. That’s why they paid for everything in cash. If they tried to deposit their money into a savings or checking account, they’d risk being discovered. The few hundred bucks they had in checking was probably the only real money they had, but Teri probably didn’t know that, just as she didn’t know that her father was a counterfeiter.
Of course, knowing that they were living on counterfeit money didn’t mean Clark was currently printing it or intending to. This stuff was probably the money he’d skimmed from Markov.
I nosed up onto Temple, then left toward the Hollywood Freeway. The downtown traffic combined with Caltrans construction projects was slowing the streets. I had gone three slow blocks and had just squeaked past a red light when about four thousand horns started blowing behind me. I looked in my rearview and saw the reason for all the noise: A nice new metallic tan Camaro had jumped into the oncoming lane to muscle its way through the intersection against the traffic. A blond guy with a buzz cut was driving, and a man who looked like the Incredible Hulk was filling the passenger seat.
Alexei Dobcek and Dmitri Sautin.
For the first time since Richard Chenier had walked into my office, it was easy to stop thinking about him. The Russians had arrived.
CHAPTER 15
It was just before lunch in downtown Los Angeles, and maybe eighty thousand people were jamming the sidewalks and streets around us, flooding through the crosswalks against the DON’T WALK lights. In New York that would get you killed, but in LA where pedestrians have the right of way, cars collect in turn lanes like debris in a drain cover. Dobcek wasn’t used to that,- people in Seattle obey the crosswalk signs.
They didn’t close the gap between us; they just tried to keep me in sight. Probably picked me up at my office. Probably hoping that I’d lead them to Clark.
I drove with the traffic flow, letting Dobcek stay with me, and turned north under the freeway to Sunset Boulevard, then into a strip mall. Mr. Nonchalant. Mr. Taking-Care-of-a-Little-Errand. Dobcek and Sautin pulled to the curb in front of a menudo shop a block behind and tried to look inconspicuous. Hard to do when you weigh three hundred pounds.