Day After Tomorrow

III

Larry Woolford’s office wasn’t much bigger than a cubicle. He sat down at the desk and banged a drawer or two open and closed. He liked to work, liked the department, but theoretically he still had several days of vacation and hated to get back into routine.

He flicked on the phone finally and asked for an outline. He punched three different numbers before getting his subject. The phone screen remained blank, although Larry knew the other could see him.

“Hans?” he said. “Lawrence Woolford here.”

The Teutonic accent was heavy, the voice bluff. “Ah, Larry! You need some assistance to make your vacation? Perhaps a sinister, exotic young lady, complete with a long cigarette holder and a knowledge of some of the most fantastic positions recently discovered in China?”

Larry Woolford growled, “How’d you know I was on vacation?”

The other laughed. “You know better than to ask that, my friend. I am in the business of knowing things.”

Larry said, “The vacation is over, Hans. I need some information.”

The voice was more guarded now. “I owe you a favor or two.”

“Don’t you though,” Larry said sarcastically. “Look, Hans, what’s new in the Russkie camp?”

The heartiness was gone. “How do you mean, my friend?”

“Is there anything big stirring? Is there anyone new in this country from the Soviet Complex?”

“Well, now…” the other’s voice drifted away.

Larry Woolf ord said impatiently, “Look, Hans, let’s don’t waste time going round and around. You run a clearing agency for, ah, information. You’re strictly a businessman, nonpartisan, so to speak. Hell, you’d better be. Fine, thus far our department has tolerated you. Perhaps we’ll continue to. Perhaps the reason is that we figure we get more out of your existence than we lose. The Russkies evidently figure the same way, the proof being that you’re still alive and have branches in the capitals of every power on Earth.”

“All right, all right,” the German said. “Let me think for a moment. Can you give me any idea of what you’re looking for?” There was an undernote of interest in his voice now.

“No. I just want to know if you’ve heard anything new anti-my-side from the other side. Or if you know of any fresh personnel recently from there.”

“Frankly, I haven’t. If you could give me a hint.”

“I can’t,” Larry said. “Look, Hans, like you say, you owe me a favor or two. If something comes up, let me know. Then I’ll owe you one.”

The voice was jovial again. “It’s a bargain, my friend.”

After Woolford had hung up, he scowled at the phone. He wondered if Hans Distelmayer was lying. The German commanded the largest professional spy ring in the world. It was possible, but difficult, for anything in the way of espionage-counter-espionage to develop without his having an inkling. Well, at least he had planted a bug in the other’s ear, perhaps he would come up with something.

The phone rang back. It was Steve Hackett of Secret Service on the screen.

Hackett said, “Woolford, you coming over? I understand you’ve been assigned to get in our hair on this job.”

“Huh,” Larry grunted. “The way I hear it, your whole department has given up, so I’m assigned to help you out of your usual fumble-fingered confusion.”

Hackett snorted. “At any rate, can you drop over? I’m to work in liaison with you.”

“Coming,” Larry said. He flicked off the phone, got to his feet and headed for the door. If they could crack this thing the first day, he’d take up that vacation where it had been interrupted and possibly be able to wangle a few more days out of the Boss to boot.

At this time of day, parking would have been a problem, in spite of automated traffic in the streets. Looking up and down in a quick check to see if anyone he knew was around to see him, he ducked down into the underground. It was a slight drop in status for someone on his level to take the subway. He took a line that delivered him to the high-rise that housed Secret Service.

The Counterfeit Division of the Secret Service occupied an impressive section of the governmental building. Larry Woolford flashed his credentials here and there, explained to guards and receptionists here and there, and finally wound up in Steve Hackett’s office, which was all but a duplicate of his own in size and decor.

Steve Hackett himself was a fairly accurate carbon copy of Woolford, barring facial resemblance alone. He wore Harris tweed, instead of Donegal. Larry Woolford made a note of that. Possibly herringbone was coming back in. He winced at the thought of a major change in his wardrobe; it’d cost a fortune. However, you couldn’t get the reputation for being out of style.

They had worked on a few cases before when Steve Hackett had been assigned to the presidential bodyguard, and although they weren’t good friends, they cooperated well.

Steve came to his feet and shook hands. “Thought you were going to be down in Florida bass fishing this month. You like your work so well you can’t stay away, or is it a matter of trying to impress your chief?”

Larry growled, “Fine thing, fine thing. Secret Service bogs down and they’ve got to call me in to clean up the mess.”

Steve motioned him to a chair and immediately went serious. “Do you know anything about pushing queer, Woolford?”

“That means passing counterfeit money, doesn’t it? All I know is what’s in the Tri-Di crime shows.”

“Oh, great. I can see you’re going to be one hell of a lot of help. Have you gotten anywhere at all on the possibility that the stuff might be coming in from abroad?”

“Nothing positive,” Larry said. “Are you people accomplishing anything?”

“We’re just getting underway. There’s something awfully off-trail about this deal, Woolford. It doesn’t fit into routine.”

Larry said, “I wouldn’t think so if the stuff is so good not even a bank teller can tell the difference.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about now, although that curls our hair too. Let me give you a rundown on standard counterfeiting.” The Secret Service man 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 for the moment,” Steve said. “Various ways. Maybe he makes them himself, sometimes he buys them from a crooked engraver. But I’m talking about pushing green goods once it’s printed. Anyway, our boy runs off, say, a million dollars worth of fives, face value. But he doesn’t even try to push them himself. He wholesales them around getting, say, fifty thousand dollars. In other words, he sells twenty dollars in counterfeit for one good dollar.”

Larry pursed his lips. “Quite a discount.”

“Ummm. But that’s safest from his angle. The half dozen or so distributors he sold it to don’t try to pass 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 pass it, eh?”

“Not even then, usually. These small timers take it and pass 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 passing it in some foreign port where seamen’s money flows fast.”

Larry Woolford shifted in his chair and said, “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 counterfeiting 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, lacking comprehension.

Hackett said, “Some guy who makes and passes 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 passed 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 pass a fifty, the person you gave it to is apt to remember where he got it.” Steve Hackett added slowly, “Particularly if you give one as a tip to the maitre d’hotel in a first class restaurant. A maitre d’ holds his job on the strength of his ability to remember faces and names.”

“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 at fifty dollars a crack.”

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 swankest shop in town; a dress at Chez Marie—she passed 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 for 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 embassies and acquired the stuff overseas? If so, that puts it in your lap again, possibly—”

The phone rang and Steve flicked the switch and said, “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.” He fished down into a desk drawer, came up with a gyro-jet pistol, which he flicked expertly into a shoulder holster rig beneath his left arm.

Larry stood too. “What was that?”

“Fredrick, over at La Calvados. The girl has come in for lunch. Let’s go!”

Larry followed him, saying mildly, “If it’s just a teenage kid, why the shooter?”

Steve looked back at him, over his shoulder. “How do we know this crackpot kid didn’t spend one of her fifties for a nice little pearl handled root-a-toot-tooter? A teenager can put just as big a hole in you as anybody else. Besides, maybe she’s just a front for some guy who is in the background, letting her do the dirty work.”