Money, Money, Money

8 .

IN THIS BUSINESS , you do not expect fake money.

Fake names, yes, but not fake money.

Fake money can get you killed, whereas a fake name can save your life. Even the two Mexicans, whose real nameswere Francisco Octavio Ortiz and Cesar Villada, used fake names when they were doing business with types trading in controlled substances. No one buying or selling a hundred keys of dope gives you his real name, unless he isloco -which, by the way, was a distinct possibility with the people who'd paid a million-seven in fake hundreds to two dangeroushombreslike themselves. They suspected that the man the redheaded pilot had fingered as Randolph Biggs wasn't a Randolph Biggs at all, nor was he even the Texas State Ranger he'd pretended to be. The problem was in finding him first in a good-sized town like Eagle Branch, and next in Piedras Rosas, the teeming border town just across the river.

If you are dealing in controlled substances, you do not buy radio commercials or newspaper ads announcing that you are in town looking for a man who paid you with bad money. You play it cool, which is difficult to do when you are eager to tie a man to a chair and pull out his fingernails. Villada and Ortiz merely kept flashing money everywhere they went. They were either rich tourists from Barcelona-in a shitty border town like Piedras Rosas?-or else they were looking to make a drug deal. There were drugs and drug dealers in Eagle Branch, and there were drugs and drug dealers in Piedras Rosas, too. You could not go anywhere in the world today and not find drugs or drug dealers, even in those nations where the penalty for possession was death. This was a very sad fact of life to Ortiz and Villada, but what could one do in a world obsessed with money?

The color of their money blinked like green neon. Money, money, money. The scent of human greed on their hundred-dollar bills floated on the hot Mexican air. Prostitutes blatantly tendered their sloppy favors. Men proffered high-stakes card games, cock fights, dog fights. Lower-level street pushers looking likebandidos out of old black-and-white movies offered rolled sticks of marijuana, dime bags of diluted cocaine. Urchins asked if the gentlemen would care to fuck their sisters. Ortiz and Villada were even afraid to drink the water.

Randolph Biggs-or someone who could have been Randolph Biggs-surfaced that afternoon.

THEY WERE SITTING at a table in an outdoor bar, flashing the green as always, trolling. The white man who took a table adjacent to theirs was tall and broad-shouldered, with a broad neatly trimmed mustache under a nose that sniffed the air disdainfully as he sat and signaled to a harried waiter. He was wearing a neatly pressed tan tropical suit. White linen shirt open at the throat. Tan loafers. No socks. A huge man, the redhead had told them. Randolph Biggs?

Looking bored, he ordered tequila, lime, salt. His dark brown eyes grazed their table. He looked at his watch. Sniffed again, as if he'd just smelled an open toilet, which in all likelihood he had. Looked around as if expecting cockroaches or rats in a place like this, another likelihood. The waiter brought his drink and the props. He thanked him in fluent Spanish, told him to keep the tab running. Villada and Ortiz were impressed.

He squirted lime juice on the back of his hand, sprinkled salt onto it, licked at the solution, drank some tequila. They were further impressed. He signaled to a man selling cigarettes from a tray hanging around his neck. Loose or by the pack? the man asked in Spanish. He bought an unopened package of Marlboros, paid with Mexicanpesoshe peeled from a grubby roll of bills.

The three men, at separate adjacent tables, sat drinking in the gaudy heat of the Mexican afternoon. There were guitars somewhere. There was the liquid laughter of women from alleyways and upstairs rooms. Everything smelled sweaty and smoky. Buses rolled past. Taxicabs honked their horns. This was a busy bustling little city the size of some neighborhood ghettos in North America. Walk into any one of those ghettos, you'd see the same faces you saw here, you'd hear the same language. The man sitting here in his fancy tropical suit and his neatly groomed mustache looked as out of place as Meg Ryan might have.

"Perdoname,"he said."?Tiene usted un cerillo?"

He was holding one of the Marlboros between the forefinger and middle fingers of his right hand, close to his lips, leaning over toward them now. Ortiz triggered a gold Cartier cigarette lighter into flame. The man inhaled, let out a cloud of smoke, grinned in satisfaction. In Spanish, he said, "I've been trying to quit."

"A bad habit," Ortiz agreed in Spanish, and snapped the lid of the lighter shut.

Randolph Biggs?

"What brings you to this lovely city?" the man asked, and raised his eyebrows to emphasize the sarcasm.

"Passing through," Villada said.

"On your way to?"

"Mexico City."

They were still speaking Spanish. His Spanish was very good.

"And you?" Ortiz asked.

"I live in Eagle Branch," the man said.

They waited for his name. Nothing came.

"Manuel Arrellano," Ortiz said, reaching his hand across the tables, giving the name he frequently used during drug transactions, though he did not yet know whether or not this man was at all involved in the trade. "My partner Luis Larios," he said, giving Villada'snom de guerre.

"Randolph Biggs," the man said.

Ortiz's eyes narrowed just the tiniest bit.

The men shook hands all around.

"What business are you in?" Biggs asked. "You said you were partners."

"We export pottery," Villada said in Spanish.

"And you?" Ortiz asked in English. Shift to the man's own tongue, make him feel a little more comfortable about asking if the gentlemen here were in reality selling high-octane shit and not some crockery worth a buck and a half.

"I'm a law enforcement officer," Biggs said. "Texas Rangers." He raised the flap of his jacket, reached into his side pocket, took out a thick leather billfold, opened it to show a gold star pinned to the flap. Ortiz and Villada were impressed all over again. But the redheaded pilot had told them all this. A Texas Ranger named Randolph Biggs was the man who'd introduced her to Frank Holt, another bullshit name, who'd arranged for her to fly to Guenerando to pick up the dope. And pay for it with focking fonny money.

"Do you know a woman named Cassandra Jean Ridley?" Villada asked in English.

Stick to English now, he was thinking.

Make this all perfectly clear to Mr. Randolph Biggs here.

The name registered.

Biggs looked across the table to where Ortiz was sitting with a pistol in his lap, pointing at his belly.

"We have a car," Villada said.

OLLIE'S PIANO TEACHER was a woman named Helen Hobson. She was in her late fifties somewhere, he guessed, he'd never asked, a rail of a woman who always wore a green cardigan sweater over a brown woolen skirt, he wondered if she had any other clothes in her closet. He thought it ironic, the way fate worked. In November, he'd caught a little dead colored girl in an apartment downstairs, turned out Helen had been the one who discovered the body. Now he was taking piano lessons from her and well on the way to becoming an accomplished musician. It was all so strange and wonderful.

It seemed odd to find a grand piano in what was basically a slum apartment, but Helen had crowded one into a corner of her small living room, and it was here that Ollie shared a piano bench with her while he pored over the sheet music for "Night and Day." Helen sat perched to his right on one scant corner of the bench, Ollie's wide buttocks overwhelming the remainder of it. He kept pecking away at the keys.

"I'm having trouble with the notes in the first few bars," he said.

He loved musical terms.

Until now, a bar was just a place where you went to have a beer.

Helen looked at him.

"The notes in the first fewbars?" she asked.

"Yeah. They're giving me trouble," he said.

"There is onlyone note in the first few bars," she said. "It is the same note repeated three times. G. The note is G. Three times. Bom, bom, bom. Night. And. Day. That is the same note, Mr. Weeks. How can it be giving you trouble?"

"I don't know, it's just giving me trouble."

"Mr. Weeks, we've been working on the first six measures of this song for the past little while now …"

"Yeah, I know."

"Without, I must confess, noticeable progress. Are yousure you want to take piano lessons?"

"I am very sure. Yes, Miss Hobson. My ambition is to play five songs on the piano."

"Because … and this is a possibility you may wish to consider, Mr. Weeks … perhaps you have no talent."

"Oh, I have talent, all right."

"Perhaps not."

"I have talent to spare. I think I'm just in some kind of slump, is all. Not bein able to get past those first three notes."

"But those first three notes are one and thesame note! Bom, bom, bom," she said, demonstrating, striking the note three times in succession. "Night. And.Day!" she said, striking the same note again and again and again. "It is impossible for you to be having trouble with the identical note struck three times. It is physically impossible, Mr. Weeks. Bom, bom, bom," she said, hitting the note again. "It's so simple arodent could tap it out with his nose."

"It isn't that I haven't been practicing," he said.

"Bom, bom, bom," she said.

"It's just I caught these two murder cases …"

"Please," she said, and lowered her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I know you don't like to hear about …"

"I truly don't."

"I'm just trying to explain I've been very busy. And also, I've begun writing a book."

Helen turned to look at him.

"Yeah," he said, and grinned. "A novel."

She kept staring at him.

"A novel," she said. "My."

"Yeah," he said. "I know."

He went on to explain that he'd been a cop for almost twenty years now, and a detective for fifteen of those years, so he knew a little bit more about police work than your average run-of-the-mill aspiring writer, didn't he?

"I'm sure you do," Helen said.

So he'd picked up what he guessed was some sort of form letter this editor at Wadsworth and Dodds …

"Which is where I'm investigating the second murder …"

… writes to people who make inquiries and it had really been very helpful, and had probably started him on yet another worthwhile career, though not one so satisfying as yet as playing the piano …

"If I can just get past those first three notes," he said.

"Thesamenote, Mr. Weeks. It is theidentical note. Bom, bom,bom," she said, pounding the G key.

"His name is Henry Daggert," Ollie said.

"Whose name?"

"This editor at Wadsworth and Dodds. He's a senior editor and vice president. I practically memorized everything he wrote."

"But you can't memorize the first note of this song," Helen said, tapping the sheet music. "Such asimple note, too. Just think of the three notes as thesame note, can you do that? Place your index finger over the G key, and strike it once, bom. Let it resonate, and then strike it again, bom. Can you do that?"

"Oh sure," Ollie said.

Helen looked at the keyboard somewhat despairingly. "We have a few more minutes," she said. "Do you think we can try it one more time?"

AT FIRST , he insisted he knew no one named Cassandra Jean Ridley. Knew no one named Frank, either. Ofany last name whatever. No Franks at all in his busy life as a Texas Ranger.

But this was sunny Mexico.

So they used a cattle prod on his testicles.

He all at once remembered the good-looking redhead and this man named Frank Whoever, but all he'd done was introduce the pair,"Verdad," he said in Spanish, he scarcely knew them at all, really. Cassie-the guys in the bar used to call her Cassie-was an attractive redhead, and Frank was just someone he'd seen around, nice-enough fellow, he thought they might hit it off together, didn't even know his last name,verdad, amigos.

"I'm a Texas Ranger," he told them. "What I do mostly is border patrol, trying to keep the wetbacks out, you know …"

He actually used the word "wetbacks"in the presence of two Mexicans who were holding a cattle prod an inch away from his quivering balls …

"No offense meant," he said immediately. "The point is …"

The point was he knew nothing about any money that was flown south of the border by Lieutenant Ridley or anyone else, knew nothing about any deals made between these two obviously fine gentlemen here and anyone in the entire universe, did not know anything about Frank Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was, whom he'd only met in a bar, did not know how much a key of cocaine was worth, did not even know what cocainewas, ask him any other question, he was very good at geography.

They gave him a longer jolt this time.

His balls shriveled right up into his throat.

Okay, he told them, the man's name is Frank Holt, I knew him only as an independent contractor who was normally very reliable. I had no idea what kind of deal was going down in Mexico, I merely put together a man and a pilot. The man needed a delivery and pickup, and the pilot had to be willing to take risks-which, by the way, Lieutenant Ridley had taken plenty of during the Gulf War, from what he'd heard about her. He believed she'd been decorated for valor, in fact. An honorable woman who'd served her nation well in times of dire stress, he felt sure she would not have had any part of a scheme designed to bilk anyone out of fair payment in exchange for his goods, whatever those goods might have been, though he'd had no idea the lady would be picking up cocaine across the border. He told them he'd certainly hadn't the faintestnotion that counterfeit money was being flown to Mexico in exchange for what was undoubtedly very high-grade coke indeed, the two gentlemen here seeming trustworthy and entirely professional. In short, he'd been a mere instrument of convenience, an enabler, a facilitator, so to speak, an all-around nice guy who'd tried to be helpful, was all. If the gentlemen here had got stung, Randolph L. Biggs hadn't had anything to do with it. They would have to look elsewhere for satisfaction.

"So, gentlemen …"

Villada nodded to Ortiz.

Ten seconds later, Biggs was telling them that Frank Holt's real name was Jerome Hoskins and that he worked for a company called Wadsworth and Dodds, back East in the big bad city.

CARELLA FINALLY REACHED Captain Mark William Ridley at a little past six that evening. He was cognizant of the fact that it was already midnight in Binsfeld, Germany, but when he'd tried earlier that day, he was informed that the captain had still not returned to base.

Now-at six-oh-six exactly on the face of the squadroom clock-Carella listened to the captain's voice coming over the line from somewhere outside Frankfurt, explaining at great length that Spangdahlem's commanding officer, the brigadier general in charge of the 52nd Fighter Wing, had decided to divide more or less evenly among the base's five thousand U.S. active-duty military members and their seven thousand dependents, the holiday season's twelve-day sequence that had begun on December 21, the start of Hanukkah, and would end on New Year's Day.

"That is because our wing mission is to be constantly ready at all times to promote stability and thwart naked aggression," he said.

"I see," Carella said.

"In order to achieve U.S. and NATO objectives," Ridley added, "yessir."

Carella wished the man didn't sound as if he'd been drinking.

"I drew December 21 to December 27," Ridley said. "I just got back from Italy fifteen minutes ago. Did I understand you to say you are a detective, sir?"

"Yes, I am," Carella said.

"Why are you calling me here in the Rhineland, may I ask, sir?"

Carella was calling to tell him his sister was dead.

He took a deep breath.

He guessed he'd performed this drill a hundred times before, perhaps a thousand times before, telling a wife or a mother or a father or a son or a brother or an aunt that someone near and dear was suddenly, inexplicably dead, and then listening to the silence or the tears or sometimes the hysterical laughter that greeted this unexpected, unwanted news from a total stranger, he guessed he had spoken these same damn more or less identical words a million times before it sometimes seemed.

Ridley was silent for several moments.

Then he said, "It comes in bunches, don't it, sir?" He sounded suddenly quite sober. "First my wife leaves me …"

He fell silent again.

Carella waited.

"I'm sorry," Ridley said.

Carella suspected he was crying, but he could hear no tears over the crackling line. He waited.

"Captain," he said at last, "I wonder if I could ask you some questions. I know this is a bad time …"

He let the sentence trail.

Ridley said nothing.

"Captain?" Carella said.

"Yes. Yes, sure," Ridley said. "Go ahead. Sure. I'm sorry. Go ahead."

"We read some letters you sent to your sister …"

"Yes, we corresponded a lot."

"In one of them, you made reference to one ofher letters …"

"Yes."

"… where she told you she'd be flying a job early in December …"

"Yes."

"… which apparently she felt would change her circumstances considerably, was how she put it in the letter to you, which you were quoting."

"Yes."

"What was that job, Captain Ridley? Would you know?"

The captain was silent.

"Sir? Apparently she wrote to say she'd be moving East sometime after this job …"

"Yes."

"… be there long before Christmas, in fact, was apparently what she wrote to you, if your letter was quoting her exactly."

Again, the captain was silent.

"You see, sir, she was killed just before Christmas, and we were wondering if this job she flew had anything to do with her murder."

"How was she killed?" Ridley asked.

"Someone stuck an ice pick in her," Carella said.

And waited.

"She was flying dope," Ridley said.

"To Mexico, is that right?"

"Yes. Four runs."

"On December seventh, she flew to Mexico for the last time, is that right?"

"Yes. How do you know that?"

"There was an entry in her calendar."

"She called me right afterward."

"Called you there in Germany?"

"Yes."

"To say what, Captain?"

"That she'd flown the four runs, and they turned out to be a piece of cake."

"How do you know they were drug runs?"

"She told me."

"On an open phone?"

"No, in one of her letters. After I warned her not to do anything that might get her in trouble. She assured me these would be short flights, simple pickups and deliveries. Just like chickens or sandals, she said. Just like that."

"Where was she flying? From where to where?"

"Texas to Mexico to Arizona."

"What kind of pickups and deliveries?"

"Money for drugs."

"How much money?"

"They didn't tell her. It was in locked suitcases."

"What drug? Heroin? Cocaine?"

"I don't know. I don't think she knew, either."

"Who was she working for?"

"A man named Frank Holt. He was the one who gave her the suitcases with the money in them. He was the one buying the stuff."

"Who is he, do you know?"

"Some guy she got introduced to in a bar in Eagle Branch. This is why I thought it all sounded so risky. I mean who the hellwere these people? She said they were okay. Ordinary guys, she told me. Guys trying to make a buck. One of them was a Texas Ranger she'd dated once or twice. The guy who introduced her to Holt."

"What washis name? The Ranger?"

"Riggs? Briggs? Something like that."

"How much were they paying her?"

"Alotof money."

"How much?"

"Two hundred thousand dollars."

"That's a lot," Carella agreed. He was thinking they had to be big buys. You didn't pay fifty grand a pop for a two-bit pickup and delivery.

"How'd they pay her, did she say? Was it in hundred-dollar bills?"

"I don't know. She got fifty on a handshake, the rest after the last run." Ridley paused. "Plus what they tipped her."

"What do you mean? Tipped her?"

"Yeah, they tipped her."

"Who did?"

"The Mexicans in Guenerando. They gave her a ten-thousand-dollar tip. She told me she was going to buy a couple of fur coats."

The line went silent.

"Did she ever buy the coats?" Ridley asked. "Would you know?"

"She bought the coats," Carella said.

FAT OLLIE WEEKS stopped by after his piano lesson to see if anybody up the Eight-Seven wanted to go for pizza or anything. They went to a place on Culver and U. Ollie ordered a large pie for himself. Meyer and Carella shared a nine-incher. The men were off-duty, they ordered beers all around.

"You look tired," Ollie told Carella.

"Must be all this accounting work," Carella said.

Ollie bit into a wedge of pizza. Cheese and sauce spilled onto the lapel of his sports jacket. He dipped up a dollop of mozzarella with the tip of his forefinger, and daintily brought it to his mouth. Licking it off, he asked, "What accounting?"

"On the Ridley case."

"What accounting?" Ollie asked again.

"I've been trying to chase down all her money. I spoke to her brother in Germany half an hour ago …"

"The one whose wife dumped him," Ollie said, nodding. He was already on his second slice of pizza. "The one who sent the wedding band."

"That's the one. He told me she got paid two hundred grand for picking up some dope in Mexico."

"We're in the wrong racket," Ollie said.

"Plusa ten-grand tip."

"Dope dealers are tipping people nowadays, huh?"

"The way I figure it, she kept the ten grand aside for petty cash. Struthers stole whatever was left of it."

"Eight thousand bucks," Meyer said.

He was wondering how many calories were in the slice of pizza he now picked off the tray. Ollie seemed to have no such problems.

"Popped two hundred grand into her safe deposit box," Carella said, "and then slowly transferred it into two separate checking accounts and a savings account."

"Placement and layering," Meyer said.

"Smurfing," Ollie agreed, and picked up a third slice of pizza.

"All accounted for," Carella said. "And, incidentally, all good money. What's left of it."

"Who says?"

"A lady at the bank."

"Reliable?"

"Maybe."

Ollie raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"But for the moment, let's say the two hundred grand isnot counterfeit, okay?" Carella said.

"Okay. Two hundred large in nice clean money."

"That leaves only theten grand she got as a tip."

"Only?"Ollie said. "That's bigger than the weekly collection from Riverhead."

Cops were always joking about payoffs from Riverhead or Calm's Point being short or being late or withheld for one reason or another. Some of the cops weren't joking. Meyer figured Ollie for an honest cop, though. Only a cop with a clear conscience could eat the way Ollie did.

He watched him as he washed down the third slice of pizza with a huge swallow of beer, thought What the hell, and bit ferociously into his own pizza wedge. With his right hand, Ollie signaled to the waitress for another pie. With his left hand, he was reaching for a fourth slice. Meyer wondered what he would look like if he had three hands.

"A ten-grand tip from the boys in Mexico," Carella said. "Which Cass keeps around the house to use for incidentals while she's distributing thebig money in her various accounts. Okay. Struthers breaks in, finds eight thousand-or maybe more-sitting in a shoe box or wherever, and swipes it. He tries to spend one of the hundreds, but gets nailed by the Secret Service, who tell him they're investigating a kidnapping …"

"Bullshit," Ollie said.

"I agree. In any case, they return the bills and send him on his way."

"Why?"

"Good question. Now here's what's troubling me …"

Ollie bit into the fourth slice of pizza. Chewing, he looked across the table at Carella. Meyer was looking at him, too.

"Struthers tried to cash another bill earlier today. Which makes me think he originally swiped more than the eight G's. But never mind. We take the bill to the bank, lady there thinks it's a phony- something called a super-bill the Iranians are running off on presses they …"

"Bullshit," Ollie said again.

"I'm not so sure. But forget the Iranians for a minute, okay? Maybe thatis bullshit, who knows? Let's just say, for now, that the billisphony. Let's say everyone of those hundred-dollar bills Cass Ridley got as a tip were phony. Ten thousand bucks in fake hundreds. Can we say that for a moment?"

Meyer was frowning.

"What?" Carella asked.

"If that ten grand was fake …"

"Right."

"And Struthers stole it …"

"Or what was left of it."

"And the Secret Service checked it out …"

"Yes."

"How come they didn't recognize it as fake?"

"That's just what's troubling me," Carella said, and nodded, and bit into his cold slice of pizza.

"I must be missing something," Ollie said.

"If the Secret Service had its hands on eight thousand bucks in bad money," Carella said, "why didn't they just confiscate it? Why'd they return it to Struthers?"

"I'll bite," Ollie said, and bit into another slice of pizza. The waitress was arriving with the fresh one. He ordered another round of beers from her. Now, two-fisted and ham-handed, he began lifting slices of pizza from both trays, some hot, some cold, all disappearing with remarkable rapidity into his briskly energetic mouth. "Whydidthey return the money to him?"

"All I can figure is they didn't," Carella said.

"You just said …"

"They returned eight thousand dollars to him, yes, but it wasn't the eight thousand they'd taken from him earlier. They returnedgood money to him. Even the lady at the bank said it was good."

"Why would they do that?"

"Because they didn't want anybody making waves down the line. Take his money from him, he might start trouble later on, who knows? Might even come squawking tous, who knows?"

"An ex-con?" Ollie said.

"Who knows? But give him back eight grand inreal bills …"

"They probably got a slush fund," Meyer said. "Same as us."

"I'll bet. They pull eight large from it, send Struthers on his way, nice to know you, kid, don't bother us anymore."

Ollie looked at him.

"Too fucking deep for me," he said.

"Don't you see?" Carella said. "Why would two blond hitters carrying a bottle of champagne go up to a lone woman's apartment on a bullshit birthday story, stick an ice pick in her head, waltz her over to the park, strip her naked, and toss her into the lion's den where she gets eaten beyond all recognition? Why did they want her to disappear?"

"Why?" Ollie asked.

"Because she stumbled into something down there in Eagle Branch, Texas."

"Eagle Branch?" Ollie said, and stopped chewing.

"What is it?" Carella said at once.

"My publisher has a sales rep lives down there."

"Your publisher?"

"Yeah, I'm writing a book, didn't I tell you?"

Carella glanced at Meyer.

"I happened by chance on a publisher looking for a good thriller," Ollie said. "So when I'm not practicing piano, I work on the book. The countdown hasbegun!" he announced dramatically, and popped another slice of pizza into his mouth.

"You happened upon a publisher by chance," Carella said. "With a sales rep who lives …"

"I caught a guy stuffed in a garbage can on Christmas Eve," Ollie explained. "Bullet at the back of his head. Looked like a drug hit to me, but turned out he's an honest-to-God sales rep. Wadsworth and Dodds. That's the name of the publishing house he worked for."

"Ollie," Carella said. "Eagle Branch is where Cass Ridley hooked up with the two guys who sent her to Mexico."

"Well, Iknow that, Steve-a-rino."

"Eagle Branch is where this allstarted."

"Well, why do you think I mentioned it?"

"Are you saying you've got a linked homicide?"

"I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying I caught a stiff who worked for a publishing house that has a sales rep who lives in Eagle Branch, Texas. Is what I'm saying."

"What's his name, this guy in Texas?"

"Randolph Biggs."

"The Texas Ranger," Carella said to Meyer.

"No, he's a sales rep," Ollie said.

"Your stiff didn't happen to be carrying any phony hundred-dollar bills, did he?" Meyer asked.

"Well, I don't know if they're phony or not," Ollie said, "but you're welcome to look at them. I already turned them over to the Property Clerk's Office."

THEY SIGNED FOR and checked out the seven $100 bills Detective Oliver Wendell Weeks had recovered from Jerome Hoskins' wallet and deposited for security with the Property Clerk's Office. At ten minutes to ten that night, when the last FBI pouch left for Washington, D.C., the money was on the plane, together with an urgent note to the Federal Reserve, asking for an immediate authenticity pop.

The bills and the response from the Fed were waiting on Carella's desk when he got to work early the next morning, the twenty-eighth day of December.

The money was real.