'That's right. But my obligation is to see this through for you and your father and Charles.'
Pike rapped softly at the doorjamb. 'Clark's ready.'
Teri's eyes were wet and she reached under the glasses to wipe them. She said, 'I really like you, too.'
Winona said, 'Oh, yuck.'
I smiled at Teresa Hewitt. 'I like you, too. But Lucy's my girlfriend.'
'Can I hug you, please?'
She hugged me hard, and then she said, 'Please take care of my daddy. Please save my little brother.'
'That's what this is all about, Teresa.'
I went downstairs to Clark and Joe. We decided that Clark and I would get the paper, and Pike would pick up Jasper and the suitcases. I called Reed Jasper in Marsha Fields's office. Marsha Fields answered. 'We're on. Is Jasper there?'
She gave him the phone without a word, and he said, 'We ready to rock?'
'Joe will pick you up in forty minutes.'
'I've got a car. Just tell me where to meet you.'
'Joe will pick you up. If you're happier driving, follow him.'
I hung up before he could say anything else, and we went to print the money.
* * *
CHAPTER 33
Clark phoned paper suppliers until he found one that had the kind of paper he wanted. 'It's a nice cotton blend, but it should look okay.' Like he was talking about sheets.
'Remember, Clark, it doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't even have to be pretty good.'
'Well, you want it to look like a legitimate attempt to counterfeit money, don't you?'
'Yes.'
He looked sulky. 'Believe me, no one will confuse this stuff with Crane paper, but at least it won't look like Monopoly money.' I guess he had an artist's temperament about these things.
The paper supply house was in a little red-brick building on Yucca Street
in Hollywood, a block north of Hollywood Boulevard
. The clerk had two boxes of the paper waiting for us, each box about the size of a standard moving box. It didn't seem like much, but the boxes were heavy. I went inside with Clark because I had to pay for the paper. On my Visa.
When we had stowed the boxes in the little bay behind my car's seats, I said, 'Doesn't seem like very much paper.' Clark had said that the million dollars would fill five Samsonite suitcases, but this paper only filled two boxes.
'Air. Factory bundles are packed tight. When the sheets have been printed and cut and stacked, they'll take up more room.'
'Ah.'
The drive to the warehouse in Long Beach was in the worst of the evening rush-hour crush, and took almost three hours. For most of that time, Clark seemed in a kind of peaceful half-sleep. The eastern sky purpled, slowly fading to black as the sun settled on our right and, around us in the heavy traffic, people ended their day in a slow, frustrating march toward home.
We turned into the parking lot next to the warehouse just before eight that night as a huge Air Korea 747 thundered into the sky. The lot was empty except for a single white Pontiac that probably belonged to someone who worked at the adjoining building or across the street. Dak and his people were gone, but the parking lot was lit and a single light burned at the warehouse front door. 'Clark.'
Clark opened his eyes.
'We're here.'
He nodded. 'We have a lot to do.'
I used Dak's key to open the side door. They had left some of the inside lights on, but not all, and the still space of the empty building made me feel creepy and afraid. I took out the Dan Wesson, but no one was waiting behind the door or in the long hall or in the big room with the printing equipment. I hadn't expected anyone, but I felt better with the gun all the same. Thirty-eight-caliber pacifier.
Clark turned on the banks of fluorescent lights and filled the printing room with a cold blue light. He looked over what Dak's people had left on the tables, then powered up the litho printer and the plate maker and the Macintosh. I said, 'Is there anything I can do?'
'Turn on the radio.'
I turned on the radio and tried to stay out of his way. Help at its finest.
The crates of Russian paper were gone, as were the dong plates and most of the boxes of inks. I said, 'They took damn near all the ink.'
Clark didn't bother to look. 'All we need is black and green. I told Dak what to leave.' He checked something on the litho machine. 'You could bring in the paper.'
I went out and got the two boxes of paper. Didn't trip even once.
Pike and Jasper arrived forty-five minutes after us, first knocking at the door, then coming through with the suitcases. A black guy with short hair was with them. Clark stopped connecting the scanner to the Macintosh when Jasper walked in. 'Hello, Mr. Jasper.'
Reed Jasper smiled. 'Damn, Clark, you're a hard man to find.'
I was looking at the black guy. He was wearing a navy suit, and he was trying to see everything at once. 'Who are you?'
'Claude Billings, Secret Service.' He was chewing gum.
'I thought it was just Jasper.'
Billings blew a bubble the size of a grapefruit and walked over to the litho press. 'Guess they wanted the first team in the game.' Secret Service, all right. Cocky.
Jasper and Pike put down the suitcases by the long tables, then Jasper came over and shook Clark's hand. Clark seemed embarrassed.
Jasper put his hands on his hips and looked at the lithograph press and the plate maker and the computer. 'Well, I don't blame you for being scared after what happened that night, but you should've stayed in the program. After that night, you would've been fine.'
Clark said, 'I'm sorry about your friend.' Peterson.
'Yeah, well.' Jasper walked over to the big press and ran his fingers along it. Billings took off his jacket, folded it, then put it on one of the long tables. Jasper said, 'I understand there's a problem with your boy. I'm sorry about that.'
Clark stopped futzing.
'We'll try to do a little bit better by you this time.' Jasper offered a friendly smile when he said it.
Clark turned back to the Macintosh and scanned a one-hundred-dollar bill. I watched him, and Billings came over and watched with me. Clark scanned the Franklin side, then turned the bill and scanned Independence Hall. When the images were scanned, he brought them up on the Macintosh, enlarged them, and began isolating sections of the bills. I said, 'What are you doing?'
'I have to make plates, and to make the plates I need a clean image. We're making Federal Reserve notes, and that means we need three plates. A back plate because the back of the bill is printed in a uniform green, and two front plates because the face of the bill is printed in black, but the serial numbers and Treasury seal are printed in green, so those images have to be separated.'
'Oh.'
Clark stopped what he was doing and looked at me and Billings. 'Do you have to watch me?'
'Sorry.'
Billings and I went to the table. There were five people and only two chairs, so I sat cross-legged on the table. Billings took one of the chairs.
The time oozed past like cold molasses. Clark worked steadily and hard, but the rest of us could only watch. Pike went into the far corner and stood on his head. I did a little yoga and felt myself getting sleepy. Jasper paced. Billings blew bubbles. Crime fighting at its most exciting.
Jasper said, 'I'm starving. Is anyone else hungry?'
Pike and Billings and I said, 'Yes.'
'Saw an In-n-out Burger on the way.'
I said, 'Joe doesn't eat meat.'
Jasper frowned, like that was the world's biggest problem.
Clark said, 'There's a Chinese place close by.'
Billings said, 'I could go for that.'
Pike and Jasper went for Chinese, got back just before ten, and we ate. Clark never stopped working, and didn't eat. Maybe the dope killed his appetite, or maybe he was thinking about Charles.
When Clark had perfect separate images, he had the computer reverse them and build perfect photonegative
s, then copied the negatives in a pattern that would let him print twenty bills at a time. One million dollars was ten thousand hundreds, but if you could print twenty bills per every sheet, that meant only five hundred sheets. Of course, you had to run each sheet through the press three times, but it still meant that the press only had to run for three or four hours. All the time was in getting ready.
When Clark had the three master negatives, he mounted them in a plate maker and burned a positive image on a thin aluminum sheet, then, one by one, washed the sheets in a chemical bath to ready the plates for the ink. It took Clark about six hours to make the plates, and it was time that passed ever more slowly, with nothing for me or Pike or Jasper or Billings to do except offer the occasional word of encouragement. The In-n-out Burger was open twenty-four hours, and once Jasper went for drinks, and once I went, but most of our time was spent doing nothing. Clark grew pale again, and his skin seemed clammy, and twice he sat down, but neither time for very long. I said, 'Clark, why don't you take a break. Let's get some air.'
'It won't be very much longer.' He said it even when I didn't ask. He said it maybe a hundred times.
Jasper would watch Clark, then walk away, then watch some more, then walk away, like he was nervous about all of this and losing his patience. Finally, he said, 'It doesn't have to be perfect, for chrissake.'
Clark stopped working and stared at him. Jasper walked away.
At ten minutes after six that morning I went out into the parking lot and breathed the cool night air and watched the first traces of pink freshen the eastern sky. Moths swarmed around the parking lot lamps, banging into the glass with a steady tap-tap-tap, and I wondered if they welcomed the dawn. At dawn, they could stop slamming their heads into the thing that forever kept them from the light. People don't have a dawn. We just keep slamming away until it kills us.
Clark had worked steadily through the night, and I thought that his pain must be terrible, but, unlike the moths, he was doing it because he loved his son. I guess I would do it, too, and I hoped that the love helped with his pain.
When I went back inside, Clark Hewitt was still working. Billings had fallen asleep.
At eight minutes after seven that morning, Clark brought the plates to the lithograph machine, fitted the portrait plate to the printing cylinder, then filled the inkwell with black ink. He looked at me and said, 'I think we're ready.'
Jasper said, 'About goddamned time.'
Pike was still in his corner. I don't think he had moved for hours. Billings sat up, blew another bubble, then stared at Pike. I think he found Pike odd.
Clark said, 'We'll run some test sheets through, first. Just to see.'
I brought over a bundle of the paper. It made me feel useful.
Clark fitted a stack of the paper into the paper feeder, then ran through two sheets. The big machine made a whirring, snapping sound as the paper went through, and the paper went through faster than I'd expected. It came out smudged and dark. Clark said, 'Sucks.'
He made some adjustments with a little screwdriver, then ran through two more sheets. These looked fine to me, but Clark frowned again. Jasper rolled his eyes. Clark made another adjustment, printed two more sheets that I thought were identical to the last two, but this time he seemed pleased. 'This should do. I think we're ready to print.'
That's when Joe Pike said, 'Listen.'
Billings said, 'What?' He blew an enormous pink bubble.
Jasper said, 'For chrissakes, let's just print the money and get going.'
Pike moved to the lithograph and slapped the shut-off switch. The drum whined down and the humming stopped. Clark said, 'It's going to take a while to reheat.'
Jasper said, 'What are you people talking about?'
Pike held up a finger, his head cocked to the side, and then he took out his gun. 'Listen.'
There might have been the faint squeal of a door hinge, and there might've been the faraway thump of something hard bumping into a doorjamb or a wall. My first thought was that it was Dak and his people, coming to check on us, but it wasn't, and I didn't have time for another thought.
Claude Billings trotted to the door, stepped into the hall, and that's when Alexei Dobcek shot him once through the great pink bubble and blew out the back of his head.
* * *
CHAPTER 34
Pike pushed Clark down behind the litho press. I ran for the door, shooting three times into the darkness and once into the wall. Dobcek yelled something in Russian, and he and another guy fell back along the hall into the parking lot. I fired twice more, then pulled Billings back into the big room, but he was already dead. I said, 'The Russians. We're outta here now.'
I saw a flash of men moving in the parking lot, and I heard crashing at the front of the building.
Jasper checked Billings. 'Jesus Christ, how in hell did they find us? How many you see?'
'Five. Maybe more. They were running toward the front, so they'll probably enter that way.'
Clark said, 'But what about the money?'
Pike pulled him to his feet. 'That's over now.'
'What about Charles?'
'If they get you they won't need Charles.'
Jasper snuck a fast look out the door and down the hall that led to the parking lot. That door was closed, and there was probably a man with a gun waiting for whoever opened the door. All the noise was coming from the other hall, which led to the front. Jasper said, 'Shit, man, they've got us boxed.'
Pike said, 'Up.'
I pushed Clark toward the metal stairs and told him to climb. 'There's a stair at the front door and offices on the second floor. If we move through the offices and they stay on the ground, we can come down behind them and get out of here.'
Clark and Jasper and I clattered up the stairs to the catwalk and into the offices as Pike went back to the hall, fired four fast shots in the blind, then followed.
The upstairs offices were dark and hot, and we could hear the Russians moving beneath us, faint and faraway. I thought we were going to make it just fine until a squat guy with a thick mustache turned a corner, saw us, then ducked back behind the corner, shouting. I pushed backward into Jasper and Clark, yelling for them to get back, when the mustache popped out again, snapping off two shots that hit the ceiling above us. I shot back, then Alexei Dobcek darted across my field of fire into an adjoining doorway, firing as he ran. Jasper said, 'This really bites.'
We fell back along the hall, retracing our route onto the catwalk and down the stairs into the warehouse, reaching the bottom just as Dmitri Sautin and the guy with the mustache blew through the catwalk door, firing as they came. Dmitri Sautin was wearing a HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH T-shirt from Disneyland.
I yelled, 'Joe,' and pushed Clark down behind the plate maker as Joe Pike spun around and shot Sautin once with his .357.
The guy with the mustache dove back into the upstairs hall, but Sautin didn't. Sautin weighed three hundred pounds, but the .357 pushed him into the wall and knocked the gun from his hand. He looked down at his chest as red soaked through the HAPPIEST PLACE shirt. He said, 'Alexei?' Then he fell head first over the rail and hit the cement floor like a bag of damp flour.
A blond guy appeared in the hall door, fired twice, then disappeared.
The shooting stopped and no one was shouting and the only sounds in the place were my own heart and a bubbly wheeze from Dmitri Sautin. He coughed twice, and then he started to cry. Jasper was under the stairs.
Dobcek said, 'I think we got you trapped. What do you think?' He said it from behind the catwalk door.
'I thought we had a deal, Dobcek.'
'Da. An' I think you were going to set us up.'
I was looking at the truck door. It was big and electric with a red open-close switch next to it on the wall about twenty feet away from me. All I had to do was run over there, hit the switch, then run back and hope that no one shot me.
Dmitri Sautin managed to roll onto his side, but that was as far as it went. He was crying the
way a small child cries, with little gasping whimpers. He said, 'Oo, it hurts, Alexei. I need help.'
Dobcek called back, 'Shut up, fool.'
The sobbing became a wet, phlegmy cough.
Dobcek said, 'You give us Hewitt, maybe we let you live, dah?'
Pike snapped his fingers and pointed at the truck door.
I nodded. Somebody was probably waiting out there to shoot us, but if the door was up at least we could see. If we could see, maybe we could lay down a suppressing fire so that we could get out.
Pike reloaded the Python, and I reloaded the Dan Wesson. I said, 'Jasper, are you in?'
'Sure.'
'Joe.'
Joe Pike swung out from behind the plate maker, popping off two shots at the hall door, then three shots at the catwalk. I moved when he moved, sprinting hard to the door and slapping the big red button. The door started up with a lurch, and Dobcek yelled something and suddenly the Russians upstairs and the Russians in the hall were shooting as hot and as heavy as they could and I knew that they were coming.
Bullets slammed into the big door like hammers. The noise from the firing hurt my ears and made me squint, and I tried to stay low and close to the floor as I fired back. The closed space filled with smoke and the stink of gunfire and the shouts of men in a foreign tongue. I heard Jasper shout, 'I'm out,' and then his magazine hit the floor. Pike was reloading the Python and I was fumbling with the Dan Wesson and the Russians in the hall door opened up again, pouring out rounds. One of them came through low and fast and made it to the base of the stairs to set up a cover position so that another could follow and then there came the surprising boom-boom-boom of a combat shotgun. Men in the parking lot screamed, and the big door was finally up enough for us to see Mon and two other guys running hard from the warehouses across the street as a black BMW with more Vietnamese guys screeched into the parking lot.
The three men running across the street had the shotguns, and all three of them stopped at the front of the warehouse and cut loose at two Russians in the parking lot, kicking one of them up and onto the Pontiac. The other Russian scrambled for cover behind it.