Killing Floor

“No,” I said. “I can’t see it. He was outside help, too. Nobody would have a slug like that on the inside.”

She nodded. I opened up the Bentley and got the gun out of the glove box. It was too big to go in my pocket. I put it back in the old file box with the bullets. Roscoe put the whole thing in the trunk of her Chevy. I got the carrier bag of stained clothes out. Locked the Bentley up and left it there in the police lot.

“I’m going to call Molly again,” I said. “I’m getting in pretty deep. I need some background. There are things I don’t understand.”

The place was quiet so I used the rosewood office. I dialed the Washington number and got Molly on the second ring.

“Can you talk?” I asked her.

She told me to wait, and I heard her get up and close her office door.

“It’s too soon, Jack,” she said. “I can’t get the stuff until tomorrow.”

“I need background,” I said. “I need to understand this international stuff Joe was doing. I need to know why things are happening here, if the action is supposed to be overseas.”

I heard her figuring out where to start.

“OK, background,” she said. “I guess Joe’s assumption was it’s maybe controlled from this country. And it’s a very difficult problem to explain, but I’ll try. The forging happens abroad, and the trick is most of it stays abroad. Only a few of the fake bills ever come back here, which is not a huge deal domestically, but obviously it’s something we want to stop. But abroad, it presents a completely different type of problem. You know how much cash is inside the U.S., Jack?”

I thought back to what the bank guy had told me.

“A hundred and thirty billion dollars,” I said.

“Right,” she said. “But exactly twice that much is held offshore. That’s a fact. People all over the world are holding onto two hundred and sixty billion dollars’ worth of American cash. It’s in safety deposits in London, Rome, Berlin, Moscow, stuffed into mattresses all over South America, Eastern Europe, hidden under floorboards, false walls, in banks, travel agencies, everywhere. And why is that?”

“Don’t know,” I said.

“Because the dollar is the world’s most trusted currency,” she said. “People believe in it. They want it. And naturally, the government is very, very happy about that.”

“Good for the ego, right?” I said.

I heard her change the phone to the other hand.

“It’s not an emotional thing,” she said. “It’s business. Think about it, Jack. If there’s a hundred-dollar bill in somebody’s bureau in Bucharest, that means somebody somewhere once exchanged a hundred dollars’ worth of foreign assets for it. It means our government sold them a piece of paper with green and black ink on it for a hundred bucks. Good business. And because it’s a trusted currency, chances are that hundred-dollar bill will probably stay in that bureau in Bucharest for many years. The U.S. will never have to deliver the foreign assets back again. As long as the dollar stays trusted, we can’t lose.”

“So what’s the problem?” I asked her.

“Difficult to describe,” Molly said. “It’s all about trust and faith. It’s almost metaphysical. If foreign markets are getting flooded with fake dollars, that doesn’t really matter in itself. But if the people in those foreign markets find out, then it does matter. Because they panic. They lose their faith. They lose their trust. They don’t want dollars anymore. They’ll turn to Japanese yen or German marks to stuff their mattresses with. They’ll get rid of their dollars. In effect, overnight, the government would have to repay a two-hundred-sixty-billion-dollar foreign loan. Overnight. And we couldn’t do that, Jack.”

“Big problem,” I said.

“That’s the truth,” she said. “And a remote problem. The fakes are all made abroad, and they’re mostly distributed abroad. It makes sense that way. The factories are hidden away in some remote foreign region, where we don’t know about them, and the fakes are distributed to foreigners who are happy as long as the stuff looks vaguely like real dollars are supposed to look. That’s why not very many are imported. Only the very best fakes come back to the States.”

“How many come back?” I asked her.

I heard her shrug. A little breath sound, like she had pursed her lips.

“Not many,” she said. “A few billion, now and then, I guess.”

“A few billion?” I said. “That’s not many?”

“A drop in the ocean,” she said. “From a macroeconomic point of view. Compared to the size of the economy, I mean.”

“And what exactly are we doing about it?” I asked her.

“Two things,” she said. “First thing is Joe was trying like mad to stop it from happening. The reason behind that is obvious. Second thing is we’re pretending like mad it isn’t happening at all. So as to keep the faith.”

I nodded. Started to see some shape behind the big-time secrecy going on up there in Washington.

“OK,” I said. “So if I were to call the Treasury and ask them about it?”

“We’d deny everything,” she said. “We’d say, what counterfeiting?”

I WALKED THROUGH THE SILENT SQUAD ROOM AND JOINED Roscoe in her car. Told her to drive out toward Warburton. It was dark when we reached the little stand of trees. Just enough moonlight to pick it out. Roscoe pulled up where I showed her. I kissed her and got out. Told her I’d see her up at the hotel. Slapped lightly on the Chevy’s roof and waved her off. She turned in the road. Drove slowly away.

I pushed directly through the copse. Didn’t want to leave footprints on the track. The fat carrier bag made it awkward. It kept snagging in the brush. I came out right by the Buick. Still there. All quiet. I unlocked the driver’s door with the key and got in. Started up and bounced down the track. The rear suspension kept bottoming out on the ruts. I wasn’t too surprised about that. Must have been about five hundred pounds weight in the trunk.

I jounced out onto the road and drove east toward Margrave. But I turned left at the county road and headed north. Cruised the rest of the fourteen miles up to the highway. Passed by the warehouses and joined the stream north to Atlanta. I didn’t drive fast, didn’t drive slow. Didn’t want to get noticed. The plain Buick was very anonymous. Very inconspicuous. That was how I wanted to keep it.

After an hour I followed the airport signs. Found my way around to the long-term parking. Took a ticket at the little automated barrier and nosed in. It was a huge lot. Couldn’t be better. I found a slot near the middle, about a hundred yards from the nearest fence. Wiped off the wheel and the transmission. Got out with the carrier bag. Locked the Buick and walked away.

After a minute, I looked back. Couldn’t pick out the car I’d just dumped. What’s the best place to hide a car? In an airport long-term lot. Like where’s the best place to hide a grain of sand? On the beach. The Buick could sit there for a month. Nobody would think twice.

I walked back toward the entrance barrier. At the first trash can I dumped the carrier bag. At the second I got rid of the parking ticket. At the barrier I caught the little courtesy bus and rode to the departure terminal. Walked in and found a bathroom. Wrapped the Buick keys in a paper towel and dropped them in the garbage. Then I slipped down to the arrivals hall and stepped out into the damp night again. Caught the hotel courtesy bus and rode off to meet Roscoe.

I FOUND HER IN THE NEON GLARE OF A HOTEL LOBBY. I PAID cash for a room. Used a bill I’d taken from the Florida boys. We went up in the elevator. The room was a dingy, dark place. Big enough. Looked out over the airport sprawl. The window had three layers of glass against the jet noise. The place was airless.

“First, we eat,” I said.

“First, we shower,” Roscoe said.

So we showered. Put us in a better frame of mind. We soaped up and started fooling around. Ended up making love in the stall with the water beating down on us. Afterward, I just wanted to curl up in the glow. But we were hungry. And we had things to do. Roscoe put on the clothes she’d brought from her place in the morning. Jeans, shirt, jacket. Looked wonderful. Very feminine, but very tough. She had a lot of spirit.