The Reformed bn-4

by Tod Goldberg

  Back in the Cold War-and in the 1990s, too-if you wanted to film someone, you needed to have a camera that was routed into a recorder somewhere, usually not too far from the camera itself. Any decent, paranoid person could discover these things in just a few minutes of frenzied searching. But the camera Fiona had just slipped into the book was no thicker than her thumb and was able to use motion-detection technology to record directly to a chip inside it. While we wouldn’t have remote access, we would have a fine digital recording of all Junior was doing.

  Or, since I saw that Fiona had ten of these cameras, several digital movies of the life and times of Junior Gonzalez.

  Fiona sealed the book back up, poked several small holes into the spine so that the camera could view the activity and then placed the book back onto the shelf.

  “Good work,” I said.

  “You should see what I put in your loft last week.”

  “You bugged my loft?”

  “You’ll never know without checking. Will you, Michael?”

  I didn’t know whether to believe her or not, and fortunately I was saved by Barry’s appearance in the doorway. He’d washed his face some, but it was still a light pink color, and his clothes were covered in blood. He looked like a man who’d been strangled with a whip and beaten, essentially.

  “Come on, Barry,” I said, “you’re going to help me with a secret mission.”

  “I’d like to go home,” he said.

  “You are home,” I said, “for now.”

  “That wasn’t fake blood, Michael,” he said. “You let her cut me!”

  “There is no letting,” Fiona said.

  “She’s right,” I said.

  “Free country,” Sam said. “It’s what we came here for.”

  Barry looked like someone had just hit him in the back of the head, so I made it simple for him. “A little blood for a good cause, Barry. Namely, your life.”

  “That makes sense,” Barry said. “And that it makes sense means that I have made some terrible mistakes in my life, doesn’t it?”

  “You can always change,” I said. “Look at Father Eduardo.”

  Barry considered this. “Where are we going?”

  “I need you to get me the best money plate your money can buy,” I said.

  “My money?”

  “This is your problem we’re solving,” I said.

  “I know a guy named Jacques,” he said. “He’s from the old school. He might not deal with you.”

  “I’m sure you can be persuasive,” I said.

  “I’m only saying I may need to take the lead here.”

  “Like you did with Junior?”

  “Similar situation, possibly,” he said, which meant to me that no matter what relationship Barry had with this Jacques, by the end of our time together, he’d understand who was really in charge, even if I didn’t make a single move.

  “All right,” I said, “we’ll do it your way.”

  “I’ll need some new clothes,” he said. “And is there any way we could get some lunch?”

  When you’re a spy, sometimes your toughest job is keeping your informants dressed and fed. It’s not always about beautiful women, shiny cars and blowing things up.

  Unfortunately.

  15

  Making money costs money. This is true as both a frothy maxim you might read on a poster and in reality. Each note the U.S. government prints costs four cents in simple materials, but the lead-up process is far more costly. The plates used in the production of money are hand engraved, a meticulous process that takes a substantial amount of time and dedication, but this is done for a very exacting purpose: You can re-create a computer’s etchings very easily, but it’s impossible to precisely emulate the hand of a human being. There will always be subtle differences.

  So if you really want to counterfeit money, a printing system like the Latin Emperors had set up at the Ace Hotel would suffice only for the short term. You can print and press money using only computer software and a particularly detailed reproduction of an actual bill. But if you want to make money to make money, you’ll need a hand-engraved plate.

  And it would help if you had Barry, too.

  While Sam and Fiona finished setting up Junior’s office with the appropriate listening and tracking devices (and to ensure that no one came in and made an attempt on Father Eduardo’s life), and to manage the Leticia situation if she bothered to return to work, which was not something I was sure would happen, I set off to learn just how Barry handled his business.

  Not that I didn’t have a pretty good idea as it was, but it was always interesting meeting new friends. Or new friends of friends. And, really, Barry was eager to help this project along… Or, well, he was eager for this project to be over so he could leave town for as long as possible without worrying about his family being killed.

  I sat in my Charger and waited for Barry to come out of the Dillard’s department store he’d gone into to purchase a new outfit, since the one he was wearing just had too much blood on it. I opted not to join him, figuring it would probably be better all around if security cameras picked up one shady, blood-covered individual and not his friend, too. And since this Dillard’s was housed inside a nice suburban mall in Doral, I really didn’t want to have to fight off a SWAT team.

  That, and I was afraid of watching Barry shop. There are some things you simply do not want to do with certain people, and I had a feeling shopping with Barry would be a situation that might engender thoughts of murder in me. But the real reason we were at this mall and not some other clothing store was that Jacques, the engraver Barry had contacted about our specific job, told him he’d only speak to him from a certain pay phone, and that certain pay phone was located just adjacent to the men’s room on the second floor of Dillard’s.

  Finally, after at least thirty minutes, Barry came out of the store, wearing a cream-colored, short-sleeve button-down that was opened (none too discreetly) to the center of his rather clammy-looking chest, brown chinos and a pair of braided leather flip-flops. He looked like he was ready to play badminton in someone’s backyard. He’d also purchased a new pair of sunglasses and, judging by the smell when he slid into the Charger, stopped by the cologne counter, too.

  “That’s a wonderful new fragrance,” I said.

  “You like it?”

  “Not really.”

  “And I didn’t like getting strangled by Fiona, so that makes us even.”

  “If that’s what does it, fine.”

  Barry inhaled. “I think it smells fresh.”

  “Barry,” I said, “did you talk to your guy?”

  “It has a vanilla scent on the back end,” Barry said. “You don’t get that?”

  The issue with Barry is that he’s stubborn. He’s used to doing things on his own timeline. Occasionally, you have to work within that knowledge if you wish to have a successful interaction with him.

  “You look and smell just like a vanilla bean,” I said.

  “I appreciate that, Michael,” Barry said. “I like to think that if you look good, you feel good, and I feel good now. Better than I have all week.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said. I gave him a big, warm smile. “Now tell me what your guy said before I strangle you, too.”

  Barry cleared his throat and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a torn out page from the phone book with scribbles on it. “You’re gonna wanna get onto Sixteenth Avenue and turn left.”

  “Where are we going?” I said.

  “I’m just following directions,” Barry said. “My guy was very specific.”

  “Who is this guy?” I said.

  “I’ve only ever known him as Jacques,” Barry said. “Never seen him in person. But I told him I was in a bind and I really needed his help. He owes me a few favors.”

  If you’re the kind of guy who knows how to move things on the black market-and Barry was pretty much the Walmart of the black market-you end up with plenty of acquaintances who owe y
ou a favor or two. In that way, Barry wasn’t so different than Sam. In all other ways, it was like apples and chainsaws.

  “This is a guy who can keep a secret?” I said.

  “He’s a ghost,” Barry said. “Really. The guy is Fort Knox. You think guys who can hand engrave plates for money just blab to everyone they meet about their special skill?”

  I started the car and headed out of the mall and followed Barry’s circuitous directions until we came to a stop on Aragon Avenue in Coral Gables, some ten miles from where we started, even though we’d traveled closer to twenty. I looked around for some obvious sign of the world’s finest plate engraver, but all I saw was a taupecolored strip mall that boasted a hair salon, a coffee place called Cliffhanger and…

  “What did you say this guy’s name was?” I said.

  “Jacques,” Barry said.

  “Not Harvey?” I said.

  “Why would it be Harvey?”

  “I don’t know, Barry. Maybe because we’re currently parked in front of Harvey’s Trophy World,” I said. I pointed out the window to the storefront. A painted sign in the window announced that Harvey’s was THE OFFICIAL HOME OF ALL YOUR LITTLE LEAGUE NEEDS!

  “Everyone has a day job,” Barry said.

  “Yeah,” I said, “what’s yours?”

  I got out of the car, and Barry trailed after me. “He said no guns,” Barry said.

  “I’m not coming to rob him,” I said.

  “He might pat you down,” Barry said.

  The door to Harvey’s shop opened up and a young boy and his mother came out clutching an armful of awards. “Great,” I said. I went back to my car and dumped my guns. I didn’t even bother to pick up the paintball gun, for fear that I might shoot Barry with it. “You sure this guy is what you say he is? Because I don’t want to walk into this place and find out we’ve wasted the afternoon.”

  “Mike, trust me,” Barry said. “Have I ever steered you wrong where money was concerned?”

  He had a point. Barry was especially good for his word with money, so I let him lead the way across the street and into the shop.

  The interior of Harvey’s was filled, wall to wall, with awards, trophies, pendants, charms, commemorative cups, water bottles, fake fish mounted above empty gold labels, tote bags that said YOUR LOGO HERE on them. There were also pennants, dish towels, sun visors and every other conceivable item that could possibly have a logo or saying or award declaration placed on it.

  The store was a narrow funnel that led to a single counter in the back, where the cash register was located. Behind the counter was a double door that led into, presumably, Harvey’s great factory of fame and recognition. All I knew for certain from where I stood soaking up the ambience of Harvey’s was that he hadn’t dusted in at least a decade, nor bothered to change any of his displays.

  “Nice place,” I said.

  “Maybe he does a big mail-order business,” Barry said. “Now, just follow my lead here. He was very specific in his directions.”

  “You’re the boss,” I said.

  We walked to the back of the store and Barry rang the bell on the counter… the one that had a sign next to it that said PLEASE RING THE BELL. I MAY NOT HEAR YOU COME IN OTHERWISE, which to me sounded like an invitation to pull the cash register off the counter. Except, oddly, the register was bolted to the wall and down to the floor using thick titanium bars. Not exactly standard for a trophy shop.

  And then I began to notice other details. The floor, while dusty, was lined with razor-thin metal piping that led directly into a series of small boxes built into the floor at the front of the store. The only time I’d seen that previously was in a vault inside a mansion in Belarus, which is good, because once you see a floor that’s capable of electrocuting you with the flip of a switch, you generally want to avoid a second occurrence.

  The double doors swung open and out came a man of about seventy. Maybe seventy-five. He did not look like the kind of guy who would electrocute you without cause. Nor did he look like someone named Jacques. Harvey? Certainly. He was bald except for a wisp of gray hair in the center of his head, wore eyeglasses with no frames and had on a dust-covered gray shirt covered only nominally by a dust-covered gray apron.

  “Are you here to pick up your trophy or to design a plaque?” Harvey said.

  Barry started to speak, stopped, started again, and then reached into his pocket for the scrap of the yellow pages he’d scribbled on, and attempted to read his own handwriting. “Uh, we are here to pick up the trophy for, uh, the, uh, Desperados?”

  Harvey didn’t respond.

  “The, uh, Diamondbacks?”

  Still nothing.

  Barry attempted again. “The, gosh, Destroyers?”

  Harvey scratched at something on this nose.

  “Mike, you wanna take a shot at this?” Barry said and handed me the paper.

  Anyone with this much patience and an electrified floor probably didn’t appreciate Barry’s inability to read his own words, so I decided to take a more direct approach. “Harvey,” I said, “we’re here because I need a plate to counterfeit money from. Is this the right place?”

  Harvey pulled a cloth handkerchief from his pants pocket, took off his glasses and then spent a few moments cleaning the lenses, all the while breathing so heavily I thought he was having a stroke. When the glasses were finally clean enough, he put them back on and stared at me with something like recognition. It was a look I’d seen many times before, just in a different package, and usually not in a trophy store.

  “Marines?” he said.

  “Rangers,” I said.

  “CIA?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No?”

  “Not officially, no,” I said.

  “You lose your pension or something?”

  “Something,” I said.

  “You going to pay someone to blow up a government building or fund a terrorist cell?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You usually work for people like Barry?”

  “For? No. Barry and I have some mutual interests. In this case, specifically, I’m trying to keep him alive.”

  “In the event it’s possible, will you return the plate to me?”

  “In the event it’s possible, absolutely.”

  “Are you local?”

  “Born and raised right here,” I said.

  “Back for a visit?”

  “You could say I had a burning desire to come home.”

  Harvey cleared his throat and then spat on the floor. I had the sense maybe he’d found himself in a similar situation in the past.

  “Yes,” he said. “Well. I don’t suppose you have a card or something?”

  “My name is Michael Westen,” I said.

  “Oh. I see.”

  “Were you ever in Germany?” I said.

  “East or West?”

  “East.”

  “For a time,” he said.

  “There used to be a lovely pastry shop in the Ottersleben district of Magdeburg,” I said. “Karl’s, I believe it was called. You ever get there?”

  “Delectable!” Harvey smacked his lips. Karl’s was a drop spot for American and British spies for about fifteen years. If you did time in East Germany, you had yourself a few pastries at Karl’s. “Wait here,” Harvey said, and disappeared back through the doors.

  Barry began to say something, but I put a hand up over his mouth. “Don’t speak,” I said.

  A few moments later, Harvey appeared holding a chromium plate. It looked to weigh about fifty pounds, which meant either Harvey was in surprisingly good shape underneath the dust or he’d spent a lot of years lugging heavy plating. “Just the twenties?” he asked.

  “The twenties will be fine,” I said.

  He pulled out his handkerchief again and wiped off his face and then he nodded at me. I nodded back. And then I picked up the plate and made my way out of the store, with Barry trailing behind me.

  “What just happened?” Bar
ry asked once we were back in my car.

  “I’m going to guess that old Harvey was a spook,” I said. “Probably still is.”

  “You recognize him from the Masonic Temple or something?”

  “His floor was electrified, Barry,” I said. “You didn’t notice that?”

  “No,” Barry said. “I don’t even know what an electrified floor looks like.”

  “The only other time I’ve seen it in a domestic situation was in a house in Belarus owned by a former Soviet commissar. It’s not a standard upgrade.”

  “And he just gave you the plate because you both know the secret handshake and had eaten at the same pastry shop?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You gave him your name.”

  “It’s all a man’s worth these days,” I said.

  “Do you know what a plate like that is worth on the black market?”

  “Barry,” I said, “I told him I’d return it if I could, and I mean to do that.”

  “I’m just saying,” Barry said, “that you and I could both be very wealthy men. I’d be willing to split any profit with you sixty-forty, and understand that extra ten percent on my end would be my standard finder’s fee.”

  “Barry,” I said.

  “Just letting you know it’s an option.” We drove in silence for a few moments, until Barry said, “A guy like him, what’s he doing running a trophy shop?”

  “You said yourself that everyone needs a day job, Barry.”

  “An electrified floor?”

  “Yes.”

  “So if he wanted to, he could flip a switch and sizzle everyone?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “You have a weird life,” Barry said. He was silent for a moment, and then said, as if it had just dawned on him, “Wait. Did you say East Germany?”

  “Did I?”

  “Didn’t the wall come down in, what, 1990?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “So you were there when you were in your teens? You left high school and ended up in East Germany?”

  “Barry,” I said, “if you ask me any more questions, I’m actually required to kill you.”

  That wasn’t strictly true-at least not since I’d been burned-but it’s nice to keep your associates guessing.