Tattoos and piercings and running with the hard crowd had enabled her to re-invent herself as a tough, street-wise urban warrior woman, and she liked that creation; it beat the hell out of being a vulnerable, scared, weak little girl in the big city. But she’d just been dealt a body blow, and a wave of suppressed feelings had overwhelmed her, uninvited and unwelcome.
Now make-believe wouldn’t work anymore. She had to deal with the real responsibilities of burying her dad and dealing with the shop, and figuring out what to do next besides just waking up and delivering packages.
Tess hurt inside like her guts were going to come out her eyes, and she’d cried so hard and so long her abdomen felt like she’d been mule-kicked. She wanted to curl up in a ball and die, give up, make it stop.
But anger was slowly replacing her self-pity and anguish. The first glimmerings of outrage and fury were emerging at the forefront of her brutalized emotions. Somebody had walked in and slaughtered two innocent men in broad daylight, and done so with impunity. She tried to imagine what kind of human being would torture and kill a defenseless handicapped man whose only interest was in small baubles of infinite delicacy. It had to be a sociopath, someone for whom life was meaningless. And then there was Loca and the nameless girl at the club. Some monster was killing helpless women whose only sin was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What kind of world had she wound up living in, where she could barely count on her hand the number of friends and family killed in one week?
~ ~ ~
The Asians tailed Nick and watched him board a subway running downtown. They got on the next car and stood by the connecting door window, keeping him in sight. The subway was packed with the tail end of rush hour and the beginning of the dinner crowd. Nick was oblivious to his surroundings; they could have been playing trumpets and he wouldn’t have noticed. He stood up after ten minutes and exited the car, and they followed him out along with a third of the remaining passengers.
Nick slowly ascended the stairs to the street and they shadowed him unobtrusively. The area was buzzing with activity, the streets teeming with college-aged kids and the flotsam that frequented school perimeters: the rastas, the haris, the burnouts, and the perennially stoned. He entered an apartment complex, and they took up a position across the street at a small restaurant. It was a beautiful evening and they had nowhere else to be.
~ ~ ~
Stan called Tess at 7:30, checking in on her. He offered to bring her dinner; she politely declined. She did want to talk about her father’s last days, though. She’d been churning in her head, mulling over the circumstances surrounding his death and the police mutterings about it not seeming like a robbery, and she felt like she was missing some critical pieces.
Tess asked about the hundred dollar bills—how her dad had wound up with so much cash, and for the details of his last adventure; she figured that was a good place to start.
Stan recounted the whole story. He left nothing out and also resisted his natural urge to embellish.
“So that’s why you were questioning the bills,” she observed.
“That’s right. Although my buddy Saul said they look genuine on a cursory pass, so what do I know? We may be trying to read too much into it,” he reasoned.
“And this Korean diplomat bought the watches with a million bucks, cash? Is that common in Dad’s business?”
“You mean in your business? …Sorry, I was just thinking out loud. But it is your business now. You can sell it and get a good premium; there are a lot of folks who’d love to have the customers and the location.” Stan paused. “Anyway, no, to answer your question, a cash transaction that size is rare.”
“Nick said the watch on the counter was one of the ones Dad sold the Korean. What was it doing back at the shop?”
“That, my dear, is a genuine mystery. There aren’t a lot of people who would leave a quarter-million-dollar watch behind, even if they were in a pretty big hurry. And no one interested in robbery could have afforded that watch in the first place, much less would leave it. None of it makes any sense, especially since your dad got the impression the Korean was buying the watches as an investment.” Stan sounded equally puzzled.
“My head hurts the more I think about it. I’m going to take a sleeping pill and hit the sack, Uncle Stan. I’ll call tomorrow, okay?” Tess was fading fast, and realized she wasn’t processing much Stan was telling her.
“All right, beautiful. Why don’t you call the bike place and tell them you’re going to take a week or two off? You’ll need time to deal with things. I’ll be happy to help as much as I can.” He paused. “Your father had a good amount of money, Tess. I think you’ll be surprised, between the life insurance, the shop, and the savings. You don’t have to worry, that’s for sure.”
“Thanks, Stan. That’s a small comfort, anyway. I completely forgot about Red Cap. I’ll call. And I appreciate the offer to help—I have a feeling I’m going to need it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Good night.”
“Good night, Teresa.”
She got one of the night dispatchers at Red Cap, and explained about her dad’s murder. Next she called Nick’s cell and heard guitars blaring in the background. They had a halting discussion; she told him she was going to crash, so he should spend the night at his place—she wasn’t going to wait up. He didn’t have a key to her loft, so he understood.
Finished with her chores, she went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth, swallowed two sleeping pills, and then folded back the sheets on her bed and was asleep within ten minutes, her racing mind finally stilled, if only for a while.
~ ~ ~
Saul was whistling to the radio, munching potato chips. He was aware that he was dangerously obese, and also knew it imperiled his health, but he found it extremely hard to really give a shit.
It wasn’t that he was a stupid or reckless man; he just didn’t have a lot that interested him outside of currency and food. His wife had left him when he was drummed out of Treasury, claimed she couldn’t take his constant paranoia, the obsessive compulsive behavior, yadda yadda yadda. He’d been heartbroken but unsurprised. He was hard to live with; he knew that. And he was too old to change. He didn’t really want to, anyway.
So he’d been left to his own devices, and those devices included mastication and minutiae. Over the years Saul got progressively larger, and spent fourteen hours a day on his passion and vocation—which fortunately didn’t involve a lot of movement, so everything worked out nicely.
His current object of interest was one of the bills Stan had dropped off. He’d just about given up and decided they were real, but something was niggling at him, so he kept at it. His eyes told him it was the genuine article, but his gut said it wasn’t. Eventually his eyes won. He was too tired to stay interested, and had gone over every detail of the bills without finding anything, so he decided to call it a night and watch some TV instead. You could only spend so much time staring at the same thing before you had to take a break, allow your mind to mull over its unconscious observations, so you could start again with a new perspective.
~ ~ ~
Candy was looking good. She knew it. A transplant from Georgia, she was the new Southern belle, self-possessed and full of piss and vinegar. She’d been in the city for three years, working on getting her acting career off the ground. She liked the bike messenger thing, because it kept her in shape, and the hours were flexible enough that she could take off with a little notice for auditions whenever she needed.
Her aspiration was to be a stage actress, and she spent much of her extra cash attending Broadway shows and studying the techniques of the successful. She’d had a few minor roles in some off-off-Broadway runs, but nothing close to the big time. Her story was all too familiar in New York: A promising young talent from Nowhere, USA, hit town loaded with dreams of success and visions of grandeur—usually based on some limited success in some local or regional theatre/dance/talent show—and then got a rude awakening when confronted by the real game, d
iscovering that everybody is equally as talented as them, if not more so, all competing for a limited number of slots.
Candy had kept her nose to the grindstone, but unfortunately she liked to fortify that nose with a little blow and oxycodone now and again, as well as numb some of life’s disappointments with alcohol. She was still young enough at twenty-three to look unspoiled, but the hint of things to come was already peeking through the veneer: hailing from a proud line of trailer-trash on the outskirts of Atlanta, she looked destined to follow in her alcoholic mother’s footsteps.
For now, she was alone in the big city, hardened from the constant humiliations and letdowns it delivered with regularity. She’d accepted tonight’s rendezvous more out of interest in scoring free coke as from any intention of getting busy with the guy. Besides, she didn’t want everyone at work talking about her private life, so any dating within the company she kept discrete.
She was seated at the bar in a large restaurant on the lower East Side, nursing a Cosmopolitan, waiting for him. It was her second, and she was enjoying the buzz. The place was packed, even on a Monday night, and rowdies occasionally jostled her, trying to place drink orders, squeezing in next to her to shout at the bartenders.
She saw her date enter and noted he looked different than on the job. She was pleasantly surprised, and thought if he played his cards right she might be into showing him a good time. She’d see how the evening played—and whether he had any blow.
“Hey, sorry I’m late—I got hung up. What are you drinking?” he asked.
“No problem. You look good tonight; I like your glasses. I’m having a Cosmo. They’re pretty tasty.”
“Oh, thanks. I usually wear contacts. Let’s get you another one.” He gestured to the bartender, pointed to her drink, and held up two fingers.
They made small talk and chatted about work, the people on the crew, summer in the city. She’d had the day off so hadn’t heard about Loca. He didn’t mention it. Instead, he told a joke, and she laughed a little too loudly.
“Do you want to eat here, or someplace else?” he asked, having to shout over the rising noise.
“Why don’t we hit this Brazilian place I know up by Times Square? It’s great.”
The bartender brought their drinks. She took a satisfied sip.
“Sounds super,” he said. “I think I know the place. Twenty kinds of meat?”
“That’s the one. Hey, now that you’re here, save my seat; I have to hit the restroom and freshen up.” She smiled at him.
“It’s safe with me.” He smiled back.
When she returned from the facilities they engaged in more small talk as she finished her Cosmo. He was almost halfway done with his and pushed it over to her. She shook her finger at him.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re trying to get a helpless girl drunk,” she said.
“Is it that obvious?” He smiled again. Candy had the reputation of being able to drink half the crew under the table. Not tonight. He had to hurry and get her out of here. “Down the hatch!”
She polished his drink in two swigs.
After what seemed like forever, he was able to snag the bartender and pay. Candy felt the room spin when she got off the barstool, almost going down on the way out the front door. He laughed with her and supported her arm as they pushed past the crowd trying to get in.
They made it out the door. Candy was already fading by the time they lurched down the block. He paused at the mouth of a small alley.
“I—I…think I…I mighta drunk a li’l too much…”
“What you need is a line. Sober you right up. I happen to have something right here—but we can’t do it on the street.” He stopped, appearing to think. She was probably seeing two of him. “Hey, let’s duck in here and get fixed up.”
He guided her into the alley, past the inevitable dumpsters. She was wobbling, knees going. “Why don’t you just lean against the wall, huh? You’ll feel better, Candy. Trust me.” He grinned and placed her back against the wall. She stayed there for a few seconds, and then slowly slid down and collapsed in a heap.
He donned a pair of latex gloves, and then retrieved his bag from under the dumpster and extracted a syringe. He knelt beside her, squeezed her mouth open, and carefully injected one of the veins under her tongue. It was a fine needle, so he had to be careful not to break it off. She stiffened as her blood pressure rocketed, and then her heart stopped. The whole process took three minutes.
The killer peered down the alley to satisfy himself he was still alone. He was really getting good at this, and wouldn’t need more than a few moments to complete his important work. He pulled the garbage bag out of his kit and placed it under Candy’s head; it wouldn’t do to have blood all over the street—wouldn’t be neat.
~ ~ ~
After his set, Nick stuck around to watch the closing band play. He’d been middle bill, which on a week night was the best slot, as many had to go to work in the morning and didn’t want to stay out till all hours.
The crowd was enthusiastic in a drunken, distant sort of way, which was par for the course. The band mirrored them, uninterested and aloof as they played—which was also typical, as bands in the city went. Everyone got what they wanted.
He’d had a few more beers than he normally would on a weeknight, but then again, after what he’d been through, why not? It wasn’t like he had a job to be at in the morning.
Nick’s drummer was trying to convince him to go uptown to a party they’d been invited to. Normally he wouldn’t have been interested, but he had a what-the-hell attitude after his fifth beer, so he agreed.
Oblivious to the scene out on the sidewalk, they piled into the drummer’s van and were off to the party, tearing up the street in a drunken roar of testosterone. Nobody noticed the two Asian men fifty yards from the club, one of whom was smoking up a storm.
The pair frantically tried to hail a cab but there weren’t many around the district after midnight. By the time they got one the van was long gone. After a hurried discussion where they agreed there was no chance of finding the van, they decided to call it a day and catch up with Nick in the morning. The smaller man asked the driver in halting English to take them to the hotel. The driver glanced at them in the rear view mirror and flipped the meter.
He took the long way.
~ ~ ~
Saul bolted upright in his bed.
Of course.
The watermark. Something about the watermark was funny. Something in Ben’s hair.
He flicked on the living room lights, sat at his desk, and carefully slid a bill under his largest microscope to examine the watermark. He pulled another microscope close, mounted a genuine hundred into the slide area, and looked through the lens. It took him a while to be sure, but there it was. The tips of Ben Franklin’s hair were angled just a tiny bit differently in the Asian bill.
Just a little.
It was a detail, nothing more. Amazing. It was such a small difference that most experts would never notice it. Not in a million years.
Not even at Treasury.
Which was dynamite; he had to make a call in the morning. Saul immediately understood it had profound implications for the integrity of the money supply—the most common denomination internationally was the hundred-dollar bill. Serious questions about the authenticity of the globe’s reserve currency would create a crisis of confidence, and could trigger a minor run on the dollar.
But Saul was sure, and he could prove it.
Somebody was minting almost-perfect hundred-dollar bills.
Almost.
Chapter 15
The technicians in the clean room carefully stacked the sheets of freshly-printed currency, waiting for the cutting. They’d found that allowing more drying time on the specially designed racks produced the best results. Experiments had shown accelerating the cure time by exposing the sheets to heat or blow-drying caused the inks to subtly change color, which was unacceptable.
A shre
dder sat in the corner and surveillance cameras monitored the workers’ activity. Today was the beginning of mass production, and the target was to process twenty million dollars’ worth of bills per day. They planned to work around the clock, and had factored in downtime for repairs on the multiple presses and allowances for drying and cutting.
Each sheet was twenty notes wide by thirty long, and running sixteen presses they could easily achieve their objective. Ultimately, they’d make many times more from stock manipulation and oil futures than they would ever print. The counterfeiting program was just a means to an end.
A delegation of officials from the Defense Ministry and the Finance Ministry were touring the small factory, and to a man, were impressed. All had top security clearances, so there was no concern over information leaks. As they watched the paper being loaded onto wheeled carts in preparation for the first stage, the Defense Minister pulled his counterpart in Finance aside.
“My men are attempting to close the loop on the situation in New York. They feel they’ll be able to handle the matter within the next twenty-four hours,” the Defense Minister whispered.
“I’ve spoken with our contact there and warned him we might have to use his resources. He was amenable to assisting.” The Finance Minister’s voice had the same singsong inflection in person as on the telephone.
“We may require him to open a safe deposit account at the bank where the watch seller had his box. Once we have the key and the number, he can simply go into the vault and remove the currency from the box. The camera operators are unlikely to be watching to check which one he’s opening, as long it’s discrete.” The Defense Minister had talked with his agents and decided that a trusted local entering the vault was infinitely more desirable than one of their agents doing it—especially since they required a handprint for ID at the bank.
Fatal Exchange (Fatal Series Book 1) Page 11