Status Quo Part 2

Larry Woolford said, "I wouldn't think so if the stuff is so good not even a bank clerk can tell the difference."

"That's not what I'm talking about now. Let me give you a run down on standard counterfeiting." The Secret Service agent pushed back in his swivel chair, lit a cigarette, and propped his feet onto the edge of a partly open desk drawer. "Briefly, it goes like this. Some smart lad gets himself a set of plates and a platen press and-"

Larry interrupted, "Where does he get the plates?"

"That doesn't matter now," Steve said. "Various ways. Maybe he makes them himself, sometimes he buys them from a crooked engraver. But I'm talking about pus.h.i.+ng green goods once it's printed. Anyway, our friend runs off, say, a million dollars worth of fives. But he doesn't try to pa.s.s them himself. He wholesales them around netting, say, fifty thousand dollars.

In other words, he sells twenty dollars in counterfeit for one good dollar."

Larry pursed his lips. "Quite a discount."

"Um-m-m. But that's safest from his angle. The half dozen or so distributors he sold it to don't try to pa.s.s it either. They also are playing it carefully. They peddle it, at say ten to one, to the next rung down the ladder."

"And these are the fellows that pa.s.s it, eh?"

"Not even then, usually. These small timers take it and pa.s.s it on at five to one to the suckers in the trade, who take the biggest risks. Most of these are professional pushers of the queer, as the term goes. Some, however, are comparative amateurs. Sailors for instance, who buy with the idea of pa.s.sing it in some foreign port where seamen's money flows fast."

Larry Woolford s.h.i.+fted in his chair. "So what are you building up to?"

Steve Hackett rubbed the end of his pug nose with a forefinger in quick irritation. "Like I say, that's standard counterfeit procedure. We're all set up to meet it, and do a pretty good job. Where we have our difficulties is with amateurs."

Woolford scowled at him.

Hackett said, "Some guy who makes and pa.s.ses it himself, for instance.

He's unknown to the stool pigeons, has no criminal record, does up comparatively small amounts and dribbles his product onto the market over a period of time. We had one old devil up in New York once who actually _drew_ one dollar bills. He was a tremendous artist. It took us years to get him."

Larry Woolford said, "Well, why go into all this? We're hardly dealing with amateurs now."

Steve looked at him. "That's the trouble. We are."

"Are you batty? Not even your own experts can tell this product from real money."

"I didn't say it was being _made_ by amateurs. It's being _pushed_ by amateurs-or maybe amateur is the better word."

"How do you know?"

"For one thing, most professionals won't touch anything bigger than a twenty. Tens are better, fives better still. When you pa.s.s a fifty, the person you give it to is apt to remember where he got it." Steve Hackett said slowly, "Particularly if you give one as a tip to the _maitre d'hotel_ in a first-cla.s.s restaurant. A _maitre d'_ holds his job on the strength of his ability to remember faces and names."

[Ill.u.s.tration.]

"What else makes you think your pushers are amateurs?"

"Amateur," Hackett corrected. "Ideally, a pusher is an inconspicuous type.

The kind of person whose face you'd never remember. It's never a teenage girl who's blowing money."

It was time to stare now, and Larry Woolford obliged. "A teenager!"

"We've had four descriptions of her, one of them excellent. Fredrick, the _maitre d'_ over at La Calvados, is the one that counts, but the others jibe. She's bought perfume and gloves at Michel Swiss, the sw.a.n.kiest shop in town, a dress at Chez Marie-she pa.s.sed three fifties there-and a hat at Paulette's over on Monroe Street.

"That's another sign of the amateur, by the way. A competent pusher buys a small item and gets change from his counterfeit bill. Our girl's been buying expensive items, obviously more interested in the product than in her change."

"This doesn't seem to make much sense," Larry Woolford protested. "You have any ideas at all?"

"The question is," Hackett said, "where did she get it? Is she connected with one of the emba.s.sies and acquired the stuff overseas? If so, that puts it in your lap again possibly-"

The phone rang and Steve flicked the switch and grumbled, "Yeah? Steven Hackett speaking."

He listened for a moment then banged the phone off and jumped to his feet.

"Come on, Larry," he snapped. "This is it."

Larry stood, too. "Who was that?"

"Fredrick, over at La Calvados. The girl has come in for lunch. Let's go!"

La Calvados was the sw.a.n.kiest French restaurant in Greater Was.h.i.+ngton, a city not devoid of sw.a.n.k restaurants. Only the upper-echelons in governmental circles could afford its tariffs; the clientele was more apt to consist of business mucky-mucks and lobbyists on the make. Larry Woolford had eaten here exactly twice. You could get a reputation spending money far beyond your obvious pay status.

Fredrick, the _maitre de hotel_, however, was able to greet them both by name. "Monsieur Hackett, Monsieur Woolford," he bowed. He obviously didn't approve of La Calvados being used as a hangout where counterfeiters were picked up the authorities.

"Where is she?" Steve said, looking out over the public dining room.

Fredrick said, unprofessionally agitated, "See here, Monsieur Hackett, you didn't expect to, ah, arrest the young lady _here_ during our lunch hour?"

Steve looked at him impatiently. "We don't exactly beat them over the head with blackjacks, slip the bracelets on and drag them screaming to the paddywagon."

"Of course not, monsieur, but-"

Larry Woolford's chief dined here several times a week and was probably on the best of terms with Fredrick whose decisions on tables and whose degree of servility had a good deal of influence on a man's status in Greater Was.h.i.+ngton. Larry said wearily, "We can wait until she leaves. Where is she?"

Fredrick had taken them to one side.

"Do you see the young lady over near the window on the park? The rather gauche appearing type?"

It was a teenager, all right. A youngster up to her eyebrows in the attempt to project sophistication.

Steve said, "Do you know who she is?"

"No," Fredrick said. "Hardly our usual clientele."

"Oh?" Larry said. "She looks like money."

Fredrick said, "The dress appears as though it is of Chez Marie, but she wears it as though it came from Klein's. Her perfume is Chanel, but she has used approximately three times the quant.i.ty one would expect."

"That's our girl, all right," Steve murmured. "Where can we keep an eye on her until she leaves?"

"Why not at the bar here, Messieurs?"

"Why not?" Larry said. "I could use a drink."