The Ross Forgery

by William H Hallahan

  He grabbed Townsend’s arm. “Back. Back to the table.”

  “Enough. I’ve had enough.”

  “Come on, come on. You can’t take a walk now. I need you. And you have to find out just how good you are.”

  Townsend shook his arm loose. “To ask your favorite question—what does that mean?”

  “It means you’re in this because you want to see if you can bring it off. But I’ll tell you, Townsend, you’re right about one thing. I am a failure. That surprise you? Failure. You say I’m not, but I am. My wife says I’m not. But I am. There isn’t one face I’ve designed that hasn’t been tampered with by somebody. Not one. And in every single case, I needed the money. So I let them do it. Let them. That’s why I’m a failure. Now I know. I’ve been a prostitute, and I’m not going to be anymore. You think this is a crime? Forgery? A crime? Oh, no. Selling out your artistic integrity—that’s the crime. And that’s the crime I’ve committed on myself. So I’m going to make this silly little piece of paper for a couple of slope-headed millionaires to play with, and I’m going to take the money. And the next time I design a typeface and the Great Garlic Breath wants to change it, I can say no. No. Loud and clear. I let you have it about selling yourself out because I think you’re still sensitive about it. Listen, dummy. This forgery is a nothing. A brilliant little finger exercise. It has nothing to do with life. It’s a world of illusion—some millionaires who think they’re playing a high-class form of Monopoly and a bunch of dryasdust ivorytower scholars. It hasn’t touched a single letter of a single syllable of a single line of great poetry—or the flawless typeface that it’s set in. It’s not your fault or mine that the world’s got its values all screwed up. Imagine! A stinking forgery by Wise is worth more than the original first edition it copied. The counterfeit is worth more than the real thing. It’s sick!” Ross came closer and shook a finger. “Well, screw it, Townsend. Play the game.” He walked over to the table and turned. “Fifty grand, Townsend. Fifty big ones and freedom. Here at the table. Sit down.”

  Townsend stood looking at him, unmoving.

  23

  The door swung open. “Hell of a drive,” said Bobby Denoy. He walked in noisily, dappled with rain. “Hey, I got to tell you something. That place is a goddamned fortress. That Matthews has one of everything in the catalog except pressure alarms and space alarms. And I’ll lay you eight to five he has them soon.”

  “Did you get it?” demanded Ross.

  “Did I get it. Did I get it.” Denoy stepped past the unmoving Townsend and glanced at him. “You going somewhere?”

  “Let me see it,” said Ross.

  Denoy unzipped his jacket, pulled out the box, and handed it to Ross. Then he stood at his shoulder as Ross opened it. “Haven’t seen it myself in a good light yet,” said Denoy.

  Ross grunted and glanced at Townsend. “Sonnets from the Portuguese. Mickey-cakes, he got you the original Sonnets from the Portuguese. Come on. Smile. Look at this.” Ross stepped over to Townsend and held it out.

  Townsend looked down at it, unmoving. Ross continued to hold it out. Thomas Wise had touched it. Clay’s men had touched it. A piece of real history. Townsend reached out and touched it. Then he took it from Ross and stared at it. He opened the cover. “How do I love thee?” Freshman English, Section Seventeen, Victorian Poets. Remember? Hot spring morning. Cornflakes, and book (an anthology of English literature) propped up on a sugarbowl. And there—the hair standing up on his adolescent neck. “How do I love thee?” Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Out of sight. Out of sight. She must have been awesomely, fantastically, lyrically beautiful. Ethereal as a flame. Elizabeth and cornflakes and love out of sight.

  Townsend turned the pages. The false little booklet that enriched a man, raised him high, then destroyed him, sent him to the grave embalmed in bitterness and disgrace. There was the typeface that had eluded Ross. Long Primer Number Twenty.

  And there was the paper.

  They could do that.

  He looked up and found the two men watching him. Ross smirked and nodded. “Now you know why millionaires collect things. You’ve been touched by time itself.” He held his hand out. “Come on. We’ve got a date with a very expensive camera.”

  Townsend handed it to him and followed him to the camera room.

  24

  It was late. Very late. Or very early. Near dawn, in fact. Denoy was afraid to look at his speedometer. He felt again for the bolts in his jacket pocket. And looked again at the box with the pamphlet. It was late. Late. Damned late.

  He considered keeping the pamphlet until the next night. Not enough darkness left. He considered keeping it—fencing it. What’s it worth?

  “Forget it, Bobby, forget it,” he told himself aloud. “You’ve got a whole mansion to pick through and a couple of months to do it in. Let’s just get this back and strip the joint some other time.”

  He pressed a little harder on the gas pedal.

  25

  When his car bounced over the track through the links, there was the first touch of first light through the trees. False dawn.

  Denoy rolled up to the side of the house and stepped out. Quickly, he pulled on the metal case and felt it move. He urged it out more and, bracing himself, lowered it, canted at an angle to the ground.

  He returned to the car and got a large four-cell flashlight. Hastily he clambered through the wall with the flash and the box. He stood up in the room and, using the flash, located the place on the shelf where the box belonged. He shoved it home.

  Now. A quick glance around the house for future reference. Denoy played the flashlight over the walls of the library. No books. That was the deal. He wouldn’t touch any books. In a glass door cabinet he saw a coin collection. He opened the cabinet door and pulled at the slim drawers. Each drawer was glass covered. There were eighteen drawers in all, plus a big chest with various compartments. Mint sets.

  Denoy stepped into the hallway and glanced up the broad staircase. Through the dining room window, he saw the full glow of first light through the bare trees.

  Skip it.

  He turned back to the library. He yanked out the drawers six at a time and carried them to the wall opening. Then he lay on the floor, thrust his legs through, and turned over on his stomach. He carried the first batch of six drawers to the car and placed them in the trunk. He made three more trips and got all eighteen drawers of rare coins into the trunk. He glanced at the sky, which was getting noticeably brighter. A quick shove on the unit and he’d be gone. He could put the bolts back in some other night.

  He began to lift the unit. Then he paused. He glanced out over the links, then down Winding Way. All clear. The hell with it. A second more was all he needed to get the chest of coins. He crept through the hole and crossed the room.

  The damned chest was screwed down. Two screws through the molding and set into the wood. Denoy took a screwdriver from his shirt pocket and went to work on the screws. The screws were long and slender and seemed to come out endlessly.

  When he’d gotten the second screw out, Denoy lifted. The chest didn’t budge. What the hell. He knelt and looked at the underside of the cabinet shelf. Two more screws. Goddamn. Denoy glanced at the visible glow of dawn across the hallway vestibule. Run. No, finish the job. Two minutes is all that’s needed.

  He quickly went to work. Same kind of screws. Long and slender. The first came out and fell into his palm. Then the second. He told his fingers to hurryforchristssake. They did, and the screws fell into his palm. Now he stood up and tugged. The chest came away in his hands.

  He struggled across the room with it and practically leaped through the wall. He spun and shoved his head back in and tugged the chest. Damned thing hung up in the passageway. He turned it and slid it easily through. As he stood up and turned with the burden in his arms, he heard a car door slam.

  Two policemen. A police car. Motor running.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” said one of the policemen. “Put it down and turn around.
Please.”

  SIX

  1

  The four tines of the fork penetrated the skin of the baked potato easily, then split it lengthwise. Faint tendrils of steam rose from the opening.

  “Four minutes flat,” said Townsend.

  Ross looked at the portable oven. “Be damned,” he said. “A baked potato in four minutes.”

  Townsend opened the oven door and removed the paper plate. He turned it back and forth and handed it to Ross. “Not even warm.”

  Ross pulled the oven door down and waved his hand inside the chamber. “How’s it do that?”

  “Microwaves. No gas. No electricity. Actually, not even any heat. The microwaves boil the fluid inside the potato, and the fluid cooks the potato itself. Microwaves don’t affect anything but fluids. You could put a stack of paper plates in that oven for a week, and they’d never even get warm.”

  Ross held the paper plate uninterestedly. “Look, Mike. Our client called me today. Put a lot of pressure on. He wants a yes or no answer tomorrow morning at breakfast. And he wants to know the name of the author and the work that we’re going to use. What’ll I tell him?”

  “Tomorrow morning?”

  “Yeah. As far as I’m concerned, that’s great. The sooner the better.”

  Townsend stared at Ross.

  “Well? What’s the matter, Mike?”

  Townsend spread his hands eloquently. “I’ve been trying to tell you. We have ink problems. The author I can get anytime for you—”

  “Waitwaitwaitwait. What do you mean ‘ink problems’?”

  Townsend stood up and turned on a floor lamp. “This pamphlet we’re making is going to be subjected to a number of laboratory tests. One of them is to establish the age of the ink. Now, this is a mercury vapor lamp—”

  “Wait, Mike. Wait.”

  Townsend stopped and waited.

  “What you’re telling me is we’re not home free at all? We’ve got another problem? And we may not be able to solve it, and so everything we’ve done so far may go right up the pipe?”

  Townsend nodded. “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Ross crossed to the window and stood looking down at the street. A violent March wind pressed on the walls and windows of the building, rocking store signs, seething into every crack and keyhole. It was like a berserk presence in the city. A loose trash can clattered down the street as a sudden flush of sun filled the room. Ross watched papers and garbage spill out as it rolled. He wished he could be that mad wind for just ten minutes.

  “The hell with it. I’ve just about had it. First the paper, then the type, now the ink. What’s next? The binding? The wrapper? What?”

  Townsend shrugged. “I don’t know. The typesetting is your department. I don’t see any problems with it. Then the engraving—what can go wrong there? I don’t foresee any problems there. We’ll print on an engraver’s proving press. We’ll use the binding from the Dodgson pamphlet.”

  “If we can solve this ink thing, we’re really home free, is that it? You tell me. You’re the expert. I’m just a dumb type designer.”

  Townsend watched him solemnly. “If I can find a way to age the ink, I think we’ve got it made.”

  “But you don’t know how—is that the catch?”

  “I’ll show you the problem in a nutshell, Edgar. This is a mercury vapor lamp. It’s one of the instruments those experts are going to use. If you hold a paper sample up to this light, the ink shows up like a fluorescent dye. See? The ink on this piece of paper comes up a deep purple. This one is almost magenta. Two different kinds of ink. This one is probably made from an alkyd varnish for lithography. And this is probably a rotogravure ink. It’s got some naphthas in it, and some other coal-tar solvents, which will dissolve certain natural and synthetic resins. This ink dries on the surface like lightning—just the thing for high-speed presses. OK? Now here’s a sheet from the Dodgson pamphlet. Note the fluorescent shade? That’s lampblack with a linseed oil base. Classic printer’s ink. Now. Come here to the window. Look into the microscope. See the ink? Dry as a bone. The linseed oils have long ago dried up and cracked. That’s old ink—it’s from the Dodgson pamphlet. Now look at this slide. That’s a batch of printer’s ink I made up—lampblack, linseed, and other stuff. The same formula as they used in England in the 1880s. OK. I baked this sample in the oven. The ink on the surface is dry, but inside it’s still fresh. No cracks. No age to it. Here’s one I tried with a steam iron. It dried this ink, but it baked the paper, too. And this one is from an electric grill. None of these can get by a lab test.”

  “So put a lot of driers in it.”

  “No. I can’t. This is a cream wove paper. When the printer’s ink hits it, it feathers out into the paper fibers and then dries. If I put too many driers in the ink, it’ll dry on contact and not penetrate the fibers. The chemist who examines our brochure will know something’s wrong. So I have to have an ink that penetrates and dries out for ninety years—before tomorrow morning.”

  “If that microwave oven doesn’t do it, we’re dead.”

  “It heats the fluids and the oils inside the ink, not just the surface. If we’re very lucky, it’ll dry out this ink sample as though it were ninety years old.”

  “When will you know?”

  “Four hours. Eight, at the outside.”

  Ross stood up. “I can stand anything but waiting. I can’t stand waiting. It drives me right around the bend. Jesus God, how I hate waiting.”

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon.

  2

  Inside the car, the sun was warm on his hands and lap, yet outside, the wind was cold and violent.

  It rocked the car, swayed store signs, and chased tons of loose soot and dirt through the streets. Tank felt drowsy and safe in the sun-warmth of the car. He propped the course text on the steering wheel, cast a glance at Townsend’s apartment-house door, and read slowly.

  Lesson Six. Crimes Against Property (continued)

  As was stated in the previous lesson, the private investigator, in the course of his activities, must always protect himself against criminal charges. For example, if he enters a building with the authority of a search warrant, no charges can be lodged (viz: breaking and entering). Without such a court instrument to protect him, he is liable to be charged with numerous offenses against person and property. Learning the definitions of these crimes helps to avoid them.

  Burglary. This is breaking into and entering a structure of another with the intent of committing a crime within. In some cases, it includes motor vehicles, mobile homes, trailers, campers, and such structures. You can’t be charged with burglary if you walk through an open door. To break means to make an opening, so if you turn a knob and open the door, you’re breaking. If you open a window, slide back a screen, or remove an obstacle between the outside and the inside, you’re breaking. If you set foot over the threshold, you’re entering, and the two acts make you a burglar if your intention is to commit a crime therein. If you put your head in or wiggle a fingertip inside, it’s still entering, depending on the age, law school and morning coffee of the judge who hears your case.

  If you are a process server, and you walk up to the man’s front door, turn the knob, open the door, walk in, and hand him the process as he sits in his chair, you may have just acquired a large quantity of legal problems. It all depends. Best bet: Avoid it.

  Larceny is the removal of the property of another with the intention of stealing it.

  To be larceny, the act must be committed with the intention of “continuous trespass.” If there’s demonstrable intention of return after use, the crime is not larceny. There must also be “asportation,” a taking away from one place to another, for larceny to exist.

  Larceny is generally, in most states, of two types, grand and petty. The difference lies in the value of the object. In some states, the division is ten dollars. In others, one hundred dollars. Be sure you know the legal dividing line in your state. Often, the distin
ction is vital. When the lawyer that a private investigator is working with has a client charged with a crime, the lawyer may offer to “cop a plea”—that is, get his client to plead guilty to a lesser charge. In larceny cases, this is done by reducing the valuation of the stolen item from the grand larceny range to the petty larceny range. The difference in jail terms may be many years.

  Robbery is a form of larceny. It consists of the removal of property from a person by means of intimidation or violence. A holdup is robbery. Pickpocketing may not be, if it is done by stealth, without intimidation or violence.

  Review the test questions. Then go on to other crimes against property, beginning with Embezzlement, in the next section.

  Student assignment: From your own knowledge, from court records, or from a newspaper account, give at least one true example of “breaking.”

  Tank looked at the blank lines that followed. Breaking? He glanced at Townsend’s doorway as he took a pencil from his pocket. He wrote in the blank space: “By removing an air-conditioning unit that was built through the wall of a residence in Westchester County, and climbing through the hole.”

  3

  There was a faint greenish cast to the lighttable. Light glowed up from the frosted glass.

  Ross laid a large, clear sheet of film on the lighttable. A huge lowercase e—a blow-up from the Shanks font—was sharply silhouetted on the lighttable, and Ross studied the edges for irregularities.

  Using an Exacto knife, plastic draftsman’s curves, and an artist’s brush dipped in india ink, Ross went to work on the letter. With hands as steady as a surgeon’s, and a delicate appreciation for every curve and bow, he brought the letter to the mint condition of the original foundry type.

  “That devil, Caslon. Makes an e so sexy, it belongs in a harem.”

  He paused and went over to the photostats of the original pages from the Wise forgery and studied the e with a magnifying glass. Then he returned to the giant blow-up. When he was satisfied, he put it in a large file envelope and brought out the letter c and laid it on the glowing lighttable.