Counterfeit

by Scott L. Miller

  He kept a close eye on the door during our visits and today was no exception. I casually reached under the battered steel table with my right hand and felt blindly along the underside of the table as I spoke. He looked at me with a quizzical eye but quickly understood and resumed his role as lookout.

  “I took a weekend trip to DC and toured the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.”

  My fingers immediately connected with something hard and smooth and round—probably calcified, dried up gum—and then continued to feel along the criss-crossed metal frame that held the top in place.

  Nothing there.

  “You don’t say. You didn’t tour any monuments or have lunch with brother Obama,” he said, playing along in a weary, indifferent voice.

  My hand found nothing unusual on my side so I reached farther toward his.

  “Must have missed him. He’s a little busy with hearings, scandals, and the latest mess in the Middle East with Syria and Egypt.”

  “The world’s changed over the last decade. Terrorists abroad want to kill us while home-grown robber barons kill the middle class. The system has tied his hands. It's probably why his hair is turning gray. Have you read The Time Machine?”

  “Sure. It’s a classic.”

  I’m a Morlock caught not serving the Eloi. Most of us will soon be Morlocks if events hold the course they are on,” he said.

  “I hope you and H. G. Wells are wrong about that.”

  No sign from him we were being watched.

  “The Morlocks don’t realize the power we possess,” he said.

  “Back to my BEP tour, I watched engravers and printers making currency. Had you ever considered working there? They make good money.”

  He flashed a wry smile. “I placed applications with the Bureau fourteen separate times over the years.”

  When he said that, my fingers wrapped around what I was searching for.

  It’s here!

  “No kidding,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  It took some doing but I finally pried and pulled it loose.

  He watched the door, his tic fluttering. “I met or exceeded every requirement from a professional, trade, artistic, and knowledge standpoint. I had an unbroken work record as an adult, half of it in the printing and engraving fields, but they wouldn’t interview me. I’m pretty sure they thought I was a security risk due to my chaotic childhood. Can you believe that?” His wry smile returned while he eyeballed the door. “I wouldn’t be here if they’d hired me, but I don’t blame them. I chose my path.”

  I showed him the tiny box. His eyes goggled but then quickly returned their attention to the door while I slipped it in my pocket. His facial muscles tensed with anger for the first time as the tic intensified.

  “I bet they wish they’d hired you now,” I said.

  “As long as the Eloi are served, what do they care?”

  His shackles clinked softly together as he raised a thumb to signal the coast remained clear. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “I didn’t see this coming,” he said, his sad brown eyes darting to the bug in my pocket. “I’m sorry for what Skinny did. You get beat down long enough, it’s easy to think the world’s against you.”

  “That’s human nature,” I said. “I met a nice young person on my trip who received a special gift and isn’t sure they deserve it or want to use it.”

  I thought I sensed hurt in that downcast face before he masked it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I leaned in and whispered, “You didn't rob the BEP. You can’t control the actions of others. Even God doesn’t do that.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What can I possibly do from a prison cell?”

  “You’re right. I guess we don’t have much else to talk about anymore, do we?”

  At least not anything we want overheard.

  He shifted his slight frame in the chair. “Would you check on my Momma?” He glanced down again at my pocket and said, “She has a package for me, and I’d like to know what it contains. Can you do that? Maybe you can tell Simone’s friend about it, too.” Meaning Baker.

  “If that’s what you want,” I said.

  He nodded. “I’m alone in here and I'm being hunted.”

  “What about DH?” Denny Hanover, the court-appointed public defender.

  He thought about it and shook his head. “Simone’s friend first.”

  I was about to leave when he said, “The guards made sure I saw the Channel Four news segments on counterfeiting.”

  “I watched the first one,” I said, waiting for him to continue.

  “They glowed red,” he said proudly.

  Shocked by his admission, I held two fingers to my mouth to remind him that the walls have ears.

  “I don’t care anymore. They’re never going to let me out of here, except in a body bag. I will prove mine glowed red.”

  I stretched out my legs, thinking of the bill that came in the mail. “Okay. I’m listening.”

  The tic forced his lids to quiver awkwardly. “I can’t right now. I understand if you believe what you saw on the news, everyone else does, but after I’m gone, you will believe.”

  “Why would a Secret Service agent lie in front of a television camera?”

  “There's about eighteen and a half million reasons.”

  “It's a simple test, to wave a light over a bill and check the color.”

  “They made me watch the segment,” he reminded, with an edge in his voice. “My answer remains the same. Did he perform the test in front of the camera?”

  I thought about it. “No.”

  “Would’ve been dramatic visual proof for the audience, don't you think?”

  I told him about my encounter with Agent Wilson. “He claims he farmed out the basic tests to lab workers. It could be him or someone in the lab. Why the charade?”

  “I created fear and uncertainty among the Eloi. The first purpose is to comfort businesses that the fakes will be quickly removed from circulation. The second and more sinister motive sets the stage for plausible deniability.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They will soon claim all the fakes have been removed from circulation and burned. The public quickly forgets they were ever there and returns to following the Kardashians and Duck Dynasty. Everyone receives kudos for a job well done and the chief prosecutor receives another spike in his approval ratings.”

  He put his fingertips as close to his mouth as possible and quickly opened his hand. “Poof! Like magic, the eighteen and a half million disappears as tax-free legitimate money in someone’s pocket shortly after Earl, Tyrone, Benny, and yours truly are silenced or put away forever.”

  I recalled the prophetic warnings of Milton Peebles.

  “We have to do something,” I said.

  He closed his eyes in a futile effort to halt the tic. “The forces behind this think they have left no evidence of wrongdoing or even impropriety, that their chain of command has successfully quarantined the blame to us and they have. The power players must feel confident they are far enough removed to avoid any blow back.” He allowed himself the slightest of smirks as he whispered, “The Eloi have a surprise coming.”

  Was he starting to crumble under all the pressure? Was he losing his grip on reality? Everyone has a breaking point. I knew this all too well.

  Through pursed lips he said, “Earl chose me. I failed to pass on his teaching and more than a century of arcane knowledge will soon scatter in the wind. I’m the last of a dying breed. I looked forward to the challenge of the new hundred-dollar bill due out this year. It will have holographic images generated by micro lenses embedded in the paper’s matrix.” His eyes shifted to the door and the advancing guard.

  “I'll let you know about the package.”

  I started to leave the city jail as inconspicuously and nonchalantly as a man could with something in his pocket that could incriminate City Hall. Every face I passed seemed an extension of
Maynard’s and I felt trapped back in my dream of the night before. I half-expected to walk headlong into the muscular man with the sunglasses who’d drag me to Bruno. Or worse, to Maynard. My heart raced like it never had on my safe, comfortable sofa.

  I made it to my car without incident and sped away.

  $ $ $

  The phone rang as I finished my strength training workout in the basement. It was Baker. “Turn on the idiot box. News comin’ on in a couple minutes. You want to see this.” He sounded like somebody had just run over his dog, then backed over it again just to make sure it was dead.

  “Now what?”

  His sad tone switched to anger. “Long story. I hope to be there in twenty. It’s gettin’ dicey here. If I’m a no-show, don’t trust anybody connected to the police, not even The Voice. I think you’re okay for now, but be safe and don’ use your cell. ‘You-know-who’ is on a crusade, and he be cuttin’ a wide swath. This is way beyond a cluster fuck. This is turnin’ into wrath-of-God shit.”

  In the background, I heard the crash of splintering wood and frenzied, angry shouts. Before I could say another word, Baker said, “Gotta go. Follow the bags, Cool Breeze. You’ll know what to—”

  Loud noise filled my ear, like the phone had hit the floor on his end. The line went dead.

  Follow what bags?

  I stripped, toweled off, and changed clothes. I grabbed a Bitter Lemon, stretched my calf muscles, and did isometric exercises, while I tried to imagine what was happening.

  I watched and recorded the news as Debbie Macklin’s serious anchorwoman face filled the screen. “Good evening, viewers,” she said. “Our lead story is another Channel Four exclusive. We have breaking news on the day’s incredible and shocking feature story. Earlier today, Benny Blades, the last of the known counterfeiting suspects, was spotted by an off-duty patrolman leaving the south city apartment of a female acquaintance. The officer called for backup and followed the suspect by car into the St. Louis Zoo parking lot, where Mr. Blades entered the grounds wearing a bulky dark windbreaker and carrying a leather attaché case.”

  The screen cut quickly from the familiar Glamour Shots Photo of a grinning Benny making the peace sign to an aerial video of police and SWAT members squatting behind the cover of police cars, guns drawn, focused on an area beyond the perimeter of the camera lens. “Assuming the suspect was armed and possibly carrying an explosive device in a public area, SWAT, in a coordinated effort with city police and zoo security, initiated an emergency evacuation. As the police net closed around him, the suspect panicked near the bird cage and fired warning shots into the air to incite a public stampede. The suspect ran south toward the Hampton zoo exit and found it sealed off by authorities. He sprinted to the Herpetarium where he made an unsuccessful attempt to take hostages, eventually fleeing the building. He ran into the zoo railroad tunnel where a tense standoff ensued. After negotiations broke down, police fired tear gas canisters. The suspect came out firing at officers and fell into the tiger pit at Big Cat Country where he was mauled by the alpha male tiger. The suspect was later confirmed dead upon arrival at Barnes Hospital.”

  She held a hand to the Bluetooth in her ear and said, “Reports just in confirm the suspect had an explosive device strapped to his waist. Any motive for bringing a bomb to the St. Louis Zoo is unknown at this time.” The screen quickly shifted from an EMT crew wheeling a covered body on a gurney, to teams of forensic investigators laying out colored markers and gathering evidence into bags near the mouth of the zoo railroad tunnel, to Big Cat Country, and to policemen interviewing witnesses. Then the scene changed to a row of parked cars along the north entrance on Government Drive. In the background I noticed the same burly security man in a business suit and sunglasses heft two large orange duffels from the trunk of an old, green Chevy Nova and throw them in the back of a dark late-model SUV. I almost missed it as the bags were on camera just a few fleeting seconds. Only after replaying the scene did I notice the rear of the SUV temporarily lower under the weight of the bags. The duffels had large, faded logos of the Green Bay Packers football team on one side. From the brutish manner in which the agent manhandled the duffels, I doubted that either bag contained a bomb. He slammed the rear SUV door shut and two other security men stood at attention to guard the SUV. I froze the frame on the back of the SUV with the men standing guard just before the man in sunglasses blocked the camera view. I scribbled a note.

  Heavy duffel bags. I thought again of Milton Peebles and his warning. Thou shalt not steal. That commandment is right up there with thou shalt not murder and thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor. Looks like Maynard’s going for a trifecta.

  The screen ultimately returned to Debbie Macklin who said, “Officers Malvern, Downey, and Carter were first responders at the scene, followed by Assistant Chief Rhymes. Channel Four will interview them as more on this incredible hostage shooting unfolds. Chief Prosecutor John Maynard was briefly at the scene but offered a terse no comment before being called away. Channel Four will interrupt your late-night programming to bring updates on this incredible story as they occur. I think there’s more here than meets the eye. And now here’s Dan with more local news.”

  I was likely the only viewer who believed her penultimate sentence was improvised and the only listener who detected the subtle shift in her attitude toward the Golden Boy.

  The same three officers who claimed to collar Lonnie at the printing company, replacing Quinn and filing their own reports, now showed up at the zoo. The only one apparently not present was Police Chief Joseph Moreno, the man who wants to use drones to help stop crime in St. Louis city.

  More troubling was the fact that Detective Baker was a no show. Did the ominous sound of splintering wood mean I'm left to deal with Maynard by myself?

  I heeded part of Baker’s warning.

  The rest I didn’t.

  At noon the next day I called my friend Tony at his work desk in the city police department. I called from a public phone. “I need you to run a plate. Your eyes only.”

  Loud crunching filled my ear and a defiant Tony said, “Oh no. Get Baker to do it.”

  “I can't find him or I would.”

  “No way. Last year you asked me to run one and the shit hit the fan.”

  “What the hell are you eating?”

  “A Dagwood, double-decker ham and swiss on rye with my secret ingredient—a liberal bed of Red Hot Riplets in both layers.”

  “That’ll make it easier for me to mop the court with you in our next one-on-game.”

  “In your dreams, slick.”

  “Tony, this is really big, more important than last year and besides, your involvement ends with running the plate, like last year. If any shit flies, it’ll land on me.”

  I heard him sip something from a straw, the sucking sound meant he’d reached the bottom. “Are you okay? Why are you calling from—?”

  “I know where I am,” I interrupted, aware that cop phones have caller ID and their walls have ears.

  “Shut the front door! You think someone’s following you. This is about the case you’re working. I’m in. When do you need it?”

  “Sooner the better. After you run it, don’t call me on my cell, home, or office. I’ll call back when I can.”

  “Gimme,” he mumbled between bites and crunches.

  I read the plate number and said, “Have you seen Baker? I think something's happened to him.”

  He smacked his lips and said, “Haven't heard anything, but I never see him much anyway. I’ll ask around, discreetly.”

  “What about the other favor I asked … our friend?”

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree; I won’t violate HIPAA. I do that and the board’ll never give me back my license.”

  We fell silent until he said, “Hey, Marilyn and the gang just got back from camping. Remember that time in fourth grade when our parents took us to that secluded trail cabin where that pack of wild dogs chased us into the Black River and you n
early drowned? We stayed in that rundown cabin isolated from the fishing and hiking trails and nearly burned down the screened-in patio trying to cook hotdogs on the grill. Remember how much shit we caught for that?”

  I had no clue what he was talking about because I’d only known him ten years. “Yeah,” I said, playing along, “I was grounded for two weeks and your old man tanned your hide. Where was that again?”

  “I don’t remember, but Lester and Anna went with us.”

  I had to go with the flow. “Those were good times. I still see Anna every now and then and she always asks how you’re doing.”

  He filled the awkward silence by saying, “Sorry I can’t help you, buddy. You’ll have to figure out how to save the day some other way.”

  “I understand. Give my love to Cindy and the girls.”

  I hung up, not wanting to linger too long in the waiting room on the ninth floor at St. Luke’s Hospital, just in case.

  When I reached my laptop, I pulled up a map and a list of Missouri camping and recreational areas and eventually found what I was looking for. Lesterville and Annapolis, Missouri, were tiny towns south of St. Louis on the Black River with cottages and recreational facilities. A phrase he’d used earlier also seemed a bit hokey and slightly emphasized, so I Googled it and a website for Secluded Trail Cabins appeared on screen, located between Lesterville and Annapolis. I printed directions and left another, more urgent message for Baker to call.

  Would an old Irish cop riding out the last days before his retirement prove to be the missing link that topples Maynard, and is he hiding out in a cabin in the Missouri woods?

  chapter nineteen

  the primrose path

  My throat was dry as I arrived at the jail for my next scheduled meeting with Lonnie. If the police are aware their bug is missing, they know who took it. Would I be taken into custody? I hadn't heard from Baker since his rushed call and what sounded like his door being broken down. Does it all end here? I was mentally prepared to be arrested. I had my attorney on speed dial.