Riptide

§ 54

They arranged to meet mid-afternoon. It seemed simple enough to let Cormack find his own way there. What could go wrong? It was, as Stilton pointed out, ‘ironically close to Marshall Street’ and Cormack had said, ‘That’s not irony, Walter, that’s just coincidence.’ All the same the American had got there ahead of him. Stilton rounded the corner from Lexington Street to find him sprawled on the pavement, feet in the gutter, head down on the slabs. He stirred his boots and, as much as a portly policeman could, he ran, reached the body, seized a shoulder and turned it over.

‘Walter, this guy is unbelievable. He’s down there forging twenty dollar bills!’

Then Stilton spotted the fanlight at pavement height, opening into the cellar. He hoped he wasn’t red in the face-he knew he was breathless-hoped Cormack couldn’t see what a fool he’d just made of himself. He tugged at the knees of his trousers, stuck his backside in the air and bent to peer through a century of grime into the cellar. At some point the fanlight had been painted over from the inside, but it was flaking now, and there were half a dozen peepholes into the world below the street.

‘Look along the wire in the middle of the room. Those green strips of paper are twenty dollar bills-and those big white ones… aren’t they-‘

‘Fivers,’ Stilton said. ‘Five-pound notes. The bugger’s gone back to printing fivers! This bloke’s a one-man crime wave. I’d love to nick ‘im. It’s going to be a temptation not to. How you get a wrong’un to talk without the threat of arrest, God knows. I’ve all the power of a friendly fireside chat.’

‘I think the FBI might have a few things to say to him themselves.’

‘Let’s get in there. I feel like a penniless kid at the sweetshop window.’

Stilton hammered on the door. The bolts shot back and an over-refined voice said from the dark interior, ‘You’re early. I wasn’t expecting you till tomorrow. But as you’re here…’

The door swung wide, they found themselves following a man’s back down the cellar steps, still not having seen his face, a smell of oil and ink and the clatter of printing presses.

Forsyte stood behind his desk, still not looking at them, filling a small attache case. A five-pound note brushed Stilton’s hat as he passed under it. The blasé-ness of the man made his blood boil. Five-pound notes-the ink not even dry-pinned up with clothes pegs like the Monday wash-and he didn’t seem to give a damn who saw.

‘There’s six Ausweisses in the names you asked for. Half a million in Reichsmarks and there’ll be another two hundred thousand tomorrow. I don’t know what’s so urgent, but perhaps next time a telephone call?’

He looked up at them, clearly feeling none of the confusion they felt themselves. He was thirtyish, a thin moustache, prematurely grey above the ears-and Stilton was right about the voice. It was, he thought, posh with a long ‘o’, the fake culture of an upper-crust accent by lower-class pretensions. Hence the fondness for a loud waistcoat and a bow tie. They went with the over-articulation and the prolonged vowels. Was nothing real about this man? Was he as phony as his currency? Perhaps he wore false teeth and a cardboard collar?

‘You were expecting me?’ Stilton said.

‘I was expecting a policeman. You’re a policeman. You look like every Special Branch copper they’ve ever sent as a bagman. If not, you’ve missed your vocation and I’m about to send for a real one.’

He reached for the telephone. Stilton and Cormack stepped forward with the synchronicity of Busby Berkeley dancers, but it was Cormack who spoke first.

‘That won’t be necessary. Calvin M. Cormack, FBI.’

He flashed his Virginia driving licence before Forsyte’s eyes for a split second, and snatched a twenty-dollar bill off the line above his head.

‘Double sawbucks, huh? Uncle Sam’s going to be mighty pissed with you. Whatever arrangement you have with the British won’t cover this. Run off all the fivers you want: mess with United States Treasury and you’re in big trouble.’

Forsyte stood frozen, the telephone still in his hand. Stilton took it from him and laid it gently back in its cradle.

‘Agent Cormack’s working with us on this one,’ he said softly.

‘The President is personally concerned about this. Do you understand me, Larry? Mr Roosevelt is personally concerned. Now, how many have you printed?’

Forsyte had gone pale. The accent slipped at the speed of a landslide.

‘Only what you see. Two dozen. It’s not what you think…’

‘Tell that to J. Edgar Hoover.’

Cormack turned to Stilton and winked hammily at him. ‘Chief Inspector, cuff him.’

‘No, no… it’s… just an experiment.’

‘An experiment?’ Cormack said.

‘Just to see if I can do it. Like a lab test. Purely academic.’

‘Academic? Do we arrest academics, Walter?’

‘Depends,’ said Stilton. ‘Depends what’s on offer.’

‘You scratch my back, lad, and I’ll scratch yours.’

Forsyte sank into his chair, the weariness of the cornered written on his face. He pinched his nose, sniffed loudly and said, ‘OK. You can cut the Flanagan and Allen routine. Just tell me what you want.’

Stilton stuck the ration book on the desk.

‘Yours, I believe.’

Forsyte didn’t pick it up. Looked at it where it lay and said, ‘So?’

‘Another little lab test, perhaps?’

‘If you like.’

‘But this one leaked into the street. This one’s been bought and sold a few times, hasn’t it? What I want is the name of the bloke you sold it to. You did sell it, didn’t you? I mean, you’re not giving them away out of the goodness of your heart, are you?’

Forsyte stared silently at them. Cormack plucked another bill off the line, pulled his glasses to the end of his nose and said, ‘Work this good could get you ten to twenty in Sing-Sing. Federal Offence. Worse than not licking the seal on an airmail letter or forgetting the date of President Taft’s birthday. Think about it, Larry.’

‘I printed six. I have four still. I sold two. A chap came along and made me an offer.’

‘And?’ Stilton prompted.

‘A Pole.’

‘And does this Pole have a name?’

‘I don’t know his real name, but they call him Fish Wally.’