Robert Crais - Indigo Slam

'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 photonegatives, 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.