Indigo Slam

Clark frowned again. 'Well, I don't have the right kind of paper. I don't have the right inks.'

'It doesn't have to be good, Clark. All it has to be is phony and add up to a million.'

'But Markov will take one look at it and know right away that it isn't like the money you showed him.'

'He won't have a chance to look at it. He'll be listening to Marsha Fields reading his rights.'

Clark thought some more, then looked at his watch. 'Well, I know where we can get some paper that might be good enough. And we'll need something to carry the money after it's printed.'

Pike said, 'How big is a million bucks?'

'About five suitcases worth. We'll need five regular Samsonite suitcases. That should do it.' The voice of experience.

'Okay. I can get the suitcases.'

'How long, Clark?'

More thinking. 'Tomorrow by noon.'

I looked at him. 'You can print a million dollars by tomorrow at noon.'

He frowned. 'Well, it won't be my best work.'

I used the kitchen phone to call Dobcek at the Sheraton. 'Da?'

'We can have the money for you by mid-afternoon tomorrow.'

'Five million dollars.'

'Sure. Five million. How about we meet at Griffith Park?'

Dobcek laughed. 'Call us again when you have the money. I will tell you when and where.'

'Whatever you want.'

I hung up. 'We're on. Everything will happen tomorrow afternoon. We should leave as soon as possible.'

Clark took his vial of pills into the bathroom, but this time he brought his bag, too. The pain was getting worse. I went upstairs to the second-floor office to Teri and Winona. Winona was coloring and Teri was helping her, but she looked up when I stepped in. I said, 'How're you guys doing?'

Teri's face was flat. 'Fine.'

'We need to leave you and Winona here again. Will you be okay?'

'Of course.' Angry about being excluded. And maybe about something else.

'There's plenty of food in the fridge, and there's a market on the corner.' I took forty dollars from my wallet and put it on the desk. 'Here's some money.'

Teri didn't look at the money. 'How'd it go for your friend?' Lucy.

I sat on the floor beside her. Winona was drawing a picture of the troll. It looked sad. 'It went okay. She got things worked out.'

'How nice for you both.' She said it so cold that we might as well have been sitting in a Subzero, but then she realized that and turned red. She adjusted her glasses and looked away. 'I'm sorry. That was so bush.'

I put my arm around her and squeezed. Fifteen going on thirty, and feeling all the pain at once. 'Been tough on you.'

'You like her a lot.'

'Yes, I do.'

'You'd rather be with her, right now, wouldn't you?'

'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.