Counterfeit Wife

by Brett Halliday

  Three men got out of the car and approached him in the dark. All were armed, and one of them demanded the cash.

  “I told them it was in the front seat of my car,” Dawson related, “and asked them where the girl was. One of the men laughed and hit me on the head with some heavy object. I presume it was the butt of his gun, though the unexpected blow knocked me unconscious, and I really don’t know what I was hit with.”

  He remained unconscious for a couple of hours, Dawson said, and when he finally came to, his car was still there, but the other car, the men, and the money were gone.

  The story was simple and had the virtue of strict plausibility. If he didn’t know the truth, Shayne reflected grimly, he himself would be inclined to believe Dawson. It was just the sort of thing kidnapers might be expected to do. The newspaper account added that Dawson was in the hospital receiving treatment for shock and his head injury, prostrated with grief that his mission had turned out so badly.

  Shayne’s name was not mentioned in any of the stories. Reference was made to a male passenger in the wrecked kidnap car, and it was hinted that this person had been tentatively identified by a bystander before escaping in the excitement, but Painter had gone no further than that.

  Shayne searched for a story on the affair at the Fun Club and the murder of Slocum in Shayne’s apartment, but found nothing.

  On another page he did find a brief account of the fire on West 38th Street. He read it with interest while he drank a final cup of coffee. The two-story frame building had been a mass of flame by the time the fire apparatus arrived, and they had confined their efforts to keeping the fire from spreading. A Negro, as yet unidentified, had been found in the basement with injuries which were attributed to the fire, and there was evidence (said the story) that other inhabitants of the dwelling had escaped before the fire gained headway.

  The house was rented by a Mr. Greerson who was something of a man of mystery, according to his neighbors, but who was presumed to have operated an automobile repair business in the basement garage. Mr. Greerson had not appeared to make a statement at the time the paper went to press.

  Shayne left the paper on the table and went out. It wasn’t yet time for the banks to open, so he stopped at the first men’s store he came to on Flagler Street. They had no suits in stock that would fit him, but he found a pair of gray slacks, a tan shirt, and underwear to replace the ill-fitting garments he had borrowed from the dead man. He changed in a back room, ordered the clothing he had removed to be sent to his apartment, and continued up the street to a shoe store where he was lucky enough to find a pair of shoes that fitted him. He gave the clerk his address and asked that the discarded shoes be delivered.

  He came out of the store and went west on Flagler to the First National Bank. It had just opened and there were a few customers in the lobby. Shayne chose a teller who did not know him and offered the two hundred-dollar bills he had held out from the ransom money, shoving them across the counter and saying, “I’d like twenties and tens and fives.”

  The teller was young and blonde and obliging. He smoothed the bills out, looked at first one and then the other, pushed them aside and began to count out two hundred dollars in smaller bills.

  Shayne gave a start, as though he suddenly remembered something important. He said, apologetically, “I’m sorry, but I’ve changed my mind. Would you let me have those bills back?”

  The teller stopped counting and looked through the bars with a frown. “You don’t want the bills changed?”

  Shayne said again, “I’m sorry. I’ve changed my mind.”

  The teller looked down at the sheaf of smaller bills he had been counting, studied Shayne suspiciously, then picked up the money he had counted. Slowly and carefully he counted it again, then handed Shayne the two large bills with a disapproving look.

  Thanking him cheerfully, Shayne went back to a series of railed enclosures in the rear. He unlatched a wooden gate and went through it to a desk and said, “Hello, Marsten,” to the big florid-faced man sitting there.

  Marsten looked up and said, “Morning, Shayne.” He pushed some papers aside and leaned back in his chair. “What can I do for you?”

  Marsten was a former Treasury employee, one of the foremost experts on counterfeit money in the country. Shayne sat down and flipped the bills in front of him. “One of the tellers just offered me two hundred in small bills for those.”

  Marsten picked up the bills and studied them thoughtfully. He turned them over in his hands, frowning, crinkling them and smoothing them out, testing the fabric of the paper.

  After a time he sighed. “I’ve been expecting some of these to show up in Miami, but it’s a little early in the season.”

  Shayne leaned back and lit a cigarette. “Counterfeit?”

  “Absolutely. They’ve plagued us several years. They’re so nearly perfect they’ll get by anyone but an expert.”

  “How do you know they’re counterfeit?”

  Marsten smiled briefly at the detective. “Feel, mostly. Intuition. Call it what you will. The plates are perfect. The paper is so nearly perfect that extensive tests are required to prove it isn’t genuine. But these bills haven’t been in circulation, Mike. They’ve been rockered.”

  “Rockered?”

  “And a good job of it. But they’re not quite limp enough. Feel one.” He passed one of the bills to Shayne.

  “It hasn’t passed through hundreds of sweaty hands, yet it has the appearance of having done so. Compare it with a genuine bill. The crispness has been rockered out of it, but no counterfeiter has yet invented a mechanical device that will produce exactly the same effect as that achieved by constant handling. Every smart counterfeiter uses some sort of device to dirty and rumple a newly printed bill. Those devices are called ‘rockers.’ They wad bills up, dampen them, roll them out smooth. Some of them use chemicals, to fade and soil a bill. The gang that puts this stuff out does one of the best jobs I’ve ever seen. That’s why one of our tellers would have accepted it.”

  “You know this stuff then?”

  “Every Treasury agent in the country knows it by sight. I didn’t recognize it at once, because I was surprised to have it turn up in Miami right now. It isn’t due here for at least two months.”

  Shayne took a deep breath and said, “Keep on talking.”

  “These hundred-dollar bills first appeared a few years ago in New York. When the black market was at its height and big deals were being handled on a cash basis to avoid detection. New York banks were flooded with the stuff for about a month.

  “Then the flow stopped abruptly. At least three hundred thousand was passed in the New York area during that period. But by the time it was recognized and all the banks were alerted, the gang folded their tents and closed up business. Not another bill turned up until after the Kentucky Derby was run that year. There was plenty of loose money and heavy betting on the Derby, and another hundred grand of the stuff was thrown into circulation there before we realized it.

  “They’re devilishly smart. They waited a year before hitting Southern California with another two hundred thousand. That’s why I expected the stuff here this winter. But not until the season was well along. They’re getting careless if they’ve started passing it so early.”

  Marsten paused, glancing at Shayne who was worrying his ear lobe with thumb and forefinger. “Do you mind telling me where you picked these up?”

  Shayne waived the question. “Tell me how they work it to get so much out so fast.”

  “They have it planned very carefully,” Marsten told him. “They select the time and the spot—a place where there’s some sort of a boom with big money rolling. They line up as many contacts as possible and place the stuff in readiness to go. Gambling houses are good bets, and bookie joints—any place that handles big money and can get rid of bills this size without too much trouble. They all let go at once, and there’s your clean-up. By the time it begins to trickle into the banks and we start tracing it,
the tide dries up and the boys move on.”

  Shayne nodded slowly. He reached over and picked up the other bill and fingered it, wondering how this information tied in with the ransom pay-off. “It sounds slick. You say the ordinary bank teller can’t detect the stuff?”

  “We planned to be ready for them in Miami this year,” Marsten told him. “We’re printing circulars, getting press releases ready, hoping to educate the public so no one will be willing to accept a C-note without a written endorsement from the Secretary of the Treasury. If they’re jumping the gun on us, I’m glad to know it.”

  “I don’t think they are,” said Shayne slowly. “In fact, I think it’s just the opposite and they’re as worried as you are about this stuff getting into circulation too soon.”

  Marsten lifted his black and tufted brows. “So? What do you know about it, Mike?”

  “Not much. I’m guessing. Just fifty grand of the stuff I ran into,” he admitted. “What’s it worth?” he ended abruptly.

  “To whom?”

  “Anyone who might get their hands on it. Me, for instance.”

  Marsten studied the detective’s face thoughtfully, then said, “Someone with the right contacts could probably get forty cents on the dollar without too much trouble.” He frowned and added quietly, “You haven’t given me much, Mike.”

  Shayne looked squarely into the keen dark eyes of the counterfeit expert and said, “I’ll give you this, Marsten. Your hunch about their preparing to hit Miami with the queer stuff this season is probably right. Do some checking on ex-Senator Irvin, for one. He’s got a gunman named Perry, and until early this morning he had a Negro razor expert named Getchie and a place on Thirty-eighth Street that might have been headquarters. There was a fire there, and the Herald carried the story. I think one of Irvin’s passing contacts might have been the Fun Club on Thirty-sixth. A man named Bates runs it, and there’s a bookie joint in the back during the season.”

  Marsten was making notes while Shayne talked. When the detective stopped, he looked up and asked, “Is that where you got the two bills?”

  Shayne shook his red head and said absently, “I don’t believe they’re ready to start shoving it yet. The gang may be breaking up, with one faction trying to jump the gun on the other. That’s all I can give you right now.”

  “It’s a good start, Mike,” Marsten said, looking straight into Shayne’s eyes. “Later, maybe?”

  “Later,” said Shayne. “And thanks.”

  Marsten was reaching for the telephone when Shayne got up, waved his hand in farewell, and went out.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ADD THEM UP TO MURDER

  THERE WERE FLABBY, liver-colored pouches under Chief Gentry’s eyes when Shayne entered his office after leaving the bank. He was chewing on the soggy butt of a black cigar, and he rumbled, “I’ve been trying to get hold of you ever since I came down this morning.”

  Shayne pulled up a chair and dropped into it. “You look as though you’ve been out on a binge, Will.”

  Gentry rubbed a big hand wearily over his ruddy face and growled. “Damned little chance I have for binges when you’re in town. Where did you get your hunch about Fred Gurney last night?”

  “Gurney?” Shayne looked innocently puzzled. “Did I have a hunch about him?”

  “Over the phone,” Gentry rumbled. “When you gave me the tip-off on the fire on Thirty-eighth that hadn’t started yet.”

  “I didn’t say there was going to be a fire.”

  “You told me about the body in the basement. I’ve got a report on that. He was dead before the fire caught him. Bled to death from a ripped jugular. Doc says it looks as though somebody had deliberately shoved a jagged broken whisky bottle in the man’s neck and twisted it.”

  “People do the damnedest things nowadays,” marveled Shayne.

  Gentry took the sodden cigar butt from his mouth, looked at it with extreme distaste, then tossed it over his shoulder toward a cuspidor in the corner. His aim had not improved with years of practice.

  “You mentioned Gurney in connection with the Deland kidnaping.”

  “I believe I did say something about having a lead that pointed to Gurney,” Shayne admitted.

  “Sure you did. Where’d you get the lead, Mike?”

  “You know how it is, Will.” Shayne made a negligible gesture. “A guy overhears something here and something else there. He adds them up—”

  “And they make another murder,” Gentry interrupted in a deep rumble that held a grim significance.

  “Another murder?” Shayne tried to look genuinely surprised, but Gentry had known him too long and too intimately.

  “Tim Rourke got another one of those anonymous tips over the phone about daylight. Someone who wanted him to have a break on the story of Gurney’s murder—and the capture of Gerta Ross.”

  “Tim has lots of friends around town,” murmured Shayne.

  “Sure. Tim’s a very friendly guy,” agreed Gentry. “Could be the man who made the call was a big redheaded bozo who inquired at the Tower Cottage Camp for a Mr. and Mrs. Fred Smith about the time the murder was committed. The proprietor says he can identify that man, Mike.”

  “After the murder was committed,” Shayne corrected equably. “Fred Gurney had a knife in his back, and the Ross woman had passed out in bed when I got there.”

  “She says not. Says she guesses you killed Freddie so you could have her without a showdown with him.”

  “How much of that is gin and laudanum?”

  “Most of it, I guess.” Gentry grinned briefly. “They are pumping the stuff out of her stomach now. Look, Mike. Sometimes I do some adding up, too. You knew Gerta Ross was a blonde and was driving the death car. You mentioned Fred Gurney as soon as I told you about the kidnaping.” He meticulously ticked the two items off on blunt fingertips. “You knew there was a dead Negro in the Thirty-eighth Street house. There was a dead man in your old apartment. You got to Fred Gurney and Gerta Ross while the whole police force was looking for them.” He held up the five fingers of his left hand when he finished. “Add all those things up and it looks like you’re mixed up in the kidnaping all the way up to your neck.”

  “I admitted that several hours ago over the phone,” Shayne reminded him.

  “How, Mike? You’ve got to come clean. We’ve had four murders already.”

  “Three,” Shayne corrected him. “The Negro’s death was justifiable homicide. Gurney’s may have been the same. I wasn’t there.”

  Gentry let the obvious retort pass. He got out a fresh cigar, looked at its wrapper, scowled, and put it in his mouth. “From what we’ve been able to get out of Gerta Ross, it looks as though she and Gurney were the kidnapers, all right. But she swears she didn’t know the girl was kidnaped until she’d kept her drugged for a day at her place. By the time Gurney told her the truth, she was in it too deep to back out.”

  Shayne nodded soberly. “That’s approximately what she told me between drinks last night.”

  “Did she kill Gurney? And Slocum? Is Slocum mixed up in it somehow, or was it simply his hard luck that he was sleeping in the wrong bed? And if that house on Thirty-eighth Street was occupied by ex-Senator Irvin like you said, why did he call himself Mr. Greerson and pretend he was running an auto repair shop in the basement when we know he wasn’t? There was no equipment there.” Gentry paused for breath and added, “And why did Greerson—or Irvin—disappear just before the fire and fail to show up again?”

  “I think,” said Shayne, “that the answer to all of your involved and pointed questions lies in the Deland kidnaping.” He looked levelly into Gentry’s eyes as he spoke.

  “How, Mike? In the name of God, how?” Gentry pounded his desk angrily, and his face, normally ruddy, now became the deep color of the purple patches beneath his eyes.

  “I think you’ll begin to get an inkling of the truth if you sit back and recall everything you know about Gurney and his past record.”

  “Fred Gurney has
never been anything but a cheap two-bit hustler,” said Gentry, leaning back in his swivel chair and sending a cloud of smoke from his cigar toward the ceiling, as though his sudden outburst relieved the tension of many long hours.

  “He started snatching ladies’ purses when he was about twelve,” the chief went on calmly, “and graduated to rolling drunks and pimping—and what-have-you.”

  Shayne relaxed and lit a cigarette. “Yeh. All cheap, small-time stuff,” he pointed out.

  “Sure. Gurney’s always been a sniveling coward,” Gentry said. “He never had the guts for any big stuff.”

  Shayne slid down in the straight chair, let his head fall back to rest on its back, stretched his long legs out comfortably, and said, “Doesn’t it strike you as queer, Will, that he suddenly pulled a job like the Deland kidnaping? A kidnaper really sticks his neck out since the F.B.I. took it over. There’s a difference between hustling for whore houses and gambling joints—and kidnaping and murder.”

  Gentry said, “Keep on talking.”

  Shayne said, “That’s it, Will. It’s a big jump for Gurney.” He jerked himself erect and spread out his big hands.

  Gentry’s swivel chair moved forward and he sat with his elbows on the desk. The small rumpled awnings that were his eyelids went up, and he looked sternly at Shayne.

  “What jump?”

  “Add this in and see what you get, Will. Gurney called Gerta Ross last night after Dawson had been hijacked, and told her everything was all okay—that they’d get the pay-off anyhow. She was to meet him at the Tower Cottages to get her share.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I wheedled it out of Gerta,” Shayne told him. “She happened to be in the mood to talk.”

  There was a hint of humor in Gentry’s bloodshot eyes. “Seems to me,” he said, “you’re hinting that Gurney wasn’t the actual kidnaper. That he was fronting for someone else.”