Lisa Gardner - Before She Disappeared

My salad arrives in a matter of minutes, given we’re the only two customers around. I dig in, munching happily on romaine lettuce and kalamata olives, while Charlie sips his coffee.

“Thank you for yesterday,” I say finally. Charlie’s sighting of Angelique Badeau at the wireless store. His personal request for me at the scene. His tidbit on Livia Samdi also having disappeared.

“Any news?” he asks.

“Nothing tangible yet. I visited Mrs. Samdi this morning.” I hesitate, not sure what to say.

“There by the grace of God go I,” Charlie intones.

I nod vigorously and we lapse into a silence, weighted by the shared horror of that one single drink that can undo our hours, months, years of hard work. There’s no judgment in AA; only mutual fear.

“I tried to get her to leave with me,” I venture at last. “Join me in attending a meeting.”

“Can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.”

I nod, chewing slowly. “Her house, her son . . . I don’t know if I could do it in those conditions.”

“For the longest time,” Charlie says, “I figured I couldn’t get clean, not living on the streets. But then, later . . . I wondered if homelessness wasn’t easier. Took all the responsibility, the agitation of daily life away. Mad, sad, or glad . . . We don’t need a reason to drink. It’s just easier to blame it on something else.”

I nod. He’s right. Mrs. Samdi’s living conditions are deplorable, but not impossible. AA teaches us that our worst enemy lives not outside the gates but inside our souls. We need no excuses to drink. As long as we have air in our lungs, it will always be a temptation.

And yet I’m sad for her in ways I can’t fully explain. She’s a prisoner of more than just her disease. Her family, poverty, lifestyle choices—the causes are endless.

“You seem to be . . .” I’m not sure exactly how to state this, “. . . in touch with street life around here.”

Charlie grins, a flash of white against his heavyset face. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Is there a gang, criminal organization around here sophisticated enough for counterfeit currency?”

This raises a brow. “U.S. dollars?”

“Hundred-dollar bills to be exact.”

The brow rises higher. “That’s some fine work. How high-quality are you talking?”

“Very high end. Extremely well done.”

Charlie takes another sip of his decaf coffee, appears to seriously contemplate the matter. “Aren’t you talking special paper, metallic threads, watermarks, all sorts of crazy stuff?”

“Exactly.”

“Then no. We got our fair share of crime, and some of these boys . . . Don’t let an appetite for violence fool you into thinking they aren’t smart. But that kind of technical know-how, specialized equipment . . . Nah. Not in a million years.”

I nod, share with him what I learned about counterfeiting operations from Lotham: bills printed in Europe, then sold to middlemen for pennies on the dollar, eventually sold to end users for sixty-five cents on the dollar.

“Thirty-five percent markup,” Charlie deduces, nodding. “Makes sense. Person who spends the money should get the highest percentage as they bear the greatest risk.” He sips more coffee. “End users . . . Now that I could see around here. Drugs and guns require cash. If some new player arrived and said I could sell you cheap money . . . Yeah, plenty of players would go for that.” He pauses. “And plenty of other players would kill their sorry asses once they realized they got paid in fake bills. Risky proposition all the way round.”

“But given the demand . . .”

“No pain, no gain, as the saying goes. I imagine at least a few would be willing to try it out.”

I lean forward. “Any players in particular?”

Charlie has to think about it. “Can’t say off the top of my head. But I can think of a few people to ask.”

“If it doesn’t jam you up.”

“I don’t mind. But I’d like to ask why.”

Briefly, I explain to him the counterfeit money discovered in Angelique’s lamp, not to mention her friendship with Livia Samdi and Livia’s expertise with 3D printers, which may or may not have anything to do with anything. And that Angelique was dressed up as Livia when she disappeared.

“You’re thinking Livia was the real target?”

“Maybe. Possibly. When I’m arrogant enough to know what to think.”

“But then Livia still went missing. And Angelique’s still alive.”

“Yes.”

“Hell, that doesn’t make a damn lick of sense.”

“Exactly.”

Charlie drains his coffee mug, waves over the waitress for a refill.

“All right. So if Livia was the target, and the girls are still alive—”

“Angelique smuggled out a message. Help us. ”

“Damn, that’s scary. But . . .” Charlie considers the matter. “If the girls are still alive but can’t come home, are like, held against their will?”

I nod.

“Then they must be worth something, right? Only reason to keep them alive, cuz the girls know something or are doing something their captors need.”

I like the way he puts that. Simple, logical. The girls know something or are doing something. “Which brings us back to Livia’s skills with AutoCAD and 3D printing. But that’s still not enough for counterfeiting currency, and apparently plastic guns aren’t nearly as valuable as we thought.”

Charlie’s turn to nod. “If counterfeiting currency is like advanced math or something, then what about other kinds of forgeries? Starting with fake Real IDs. Now that would be worth some serious dough.”

“Explain.”

“Back in my day, a fake driver’s license was a simple matter of prying apart the lamination and inserting a new photo. More recently, I’ve heard some of the kids at the rec center talk about buying fakes online, especially foreign IDs. Say from Ireland, places like that. You wanna sneak into a bar, it gets the job done. But now, with states transitioning to Real ID . . .”

“Which is very sophisticated, right? Watermarks, hidden images, reflective ink. Isn’t that why it’s now the new standard for TSA?”

“Exactly. The old model of fake driver’s licenses just doesn’t cut it. World’s getting serious, meaning everyone, including criminals, gotta get serious. I’m not saying faking a Real ID would be easy, but compared to forged bills, gotta be a step down.” Charlie shrugs.

I think of Angelique, showing up at the cybercafé with a fake ID. Then trying to buy a cell phone from the wireless store with the same ID. Letting it fall to the ground in her escape.

I wonder suddenly if we hadn’t missed the obvious. She hadn’t been trying to leave us a coded message. The ID itself was the clue.

“I’ll be damned,” I mutter.

“Not as long as you keep from drinking.”

“Charlie, are there any new players in town? I don’t know. New gangs, or criminal enterprises? Even something that seems like a whisper of a ghost story. Keyser Soze, that sort of thing?”

Charlie arches a brow. “Street loves a good ghost story. But not that I’ve heard.”

“What about a newer gang rising to sudden prominence? A power grab?”

This takes him longer to consider. “Maybe,” he says at last. “For all the evils in Mattapan . . . Most of our gangs are small. Fractured. Got not just Blacks versus other Blacks, but El Salvadorans versus Asian versus Haitians. Can be a block-by-block sort of thing. Keeps the violence high as someone is always shooting someone, but also keeps the level of sophistication low. Nobody gets big enough or lasts long enough to do too much damage. What you’re suggesting . . .”

“I don’t know what I’m suggesting.”