chapter seventeen

money for nothing

I flew into Dulles International and rented a red convertible Mustang GT. I’ve got a soft spot for convertibles and don’t quite understand why anyone would drive with a roof over their head if they had a choice. The weather was resort-like; I lowered the top and soaked up the sun.

Virginia wasn’t that far, but the freeway grind gave me plenty of time to dwell on Skinny’s powers and predictions. By the time I got into the District and reached the DC library near the Mall, they remained an enigma, so I filed them away for the time being and prepared to take my next step.

I’d scanned old Post-Dispatch issues last week and found no references to the armed robbery at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in DC eight months ago. In his first press interview, Maynard claimed Lonnie and the others had shot and nearly killed a pregnant security guard in their daring getaway. So I reviewed the archives of the Washington Post, Examiner, Times-Herald, The Hill, City Paper, and Business Journal and none mentioned a robbery or shootout at the BEP. I found a few back-page articles warning area businesses to be on the lookout for a possible increase in counterfeit bill trafficking. Generic warnings with no specifics. I wondered if this was how the Treasury and Secret Service usually operate and whether this was the first major theft of paper and ink.

I did a reverse Google name and address search for the guard and entered it into my rental’s GPS. The Skyline Towers apartment complex had no skyline or towers worth mentioning. Drab pitted odes to concrete stood cramped together like dominoes hastily spray painted every color in the spectrum. Drying laundry and bed sheets hung from tiny patios behind many tenements while potted plants, bikes, barbecue grills, and lawn chairs filled the others. The warm air smelled of bus exhaust and fast food. Several windows were broken or boarded up. A culturally diverse mix passed me in the dark hallway to the elevator, while the cries and laughter of young children behind first floor open windows floated to me.

On the sixth floor I pressed the doorbell marked Rachel Sanchez and immediately heard a stampede of many feet rushing the door. Four little Latino boys greeted me, jumping up and down, talking all at once, while behind them a very pregnant woman holding a toddler warily assessed me from the kitchen. The woman walked to the door and offered a neutral smile. She was Mexican-American, young, petite, and pretty, her short black hair tucked under a Redskins cap. She wore a sleeveless green camouflage tank top with white shorts and flip-flops.

After I introduced myself and offered my card, she prompted the kids to play outside. It didn’t take much. She offered me a seat at her kitchen table and said, “This one’s ready for her nap. Let me put Angela in her crib. Have a seat.” She turned down a short hallway with worn brown carpeting and pictures of the boys lining the walls. I sat waiting in front of an old dinged oak table in the tiny kitchen, wondering how Lonnie was. The worn linoleum floor under my feet was sparkling clean and harvest-gold colored. The appliances were lime green and, like the floor, probably original items after this sterile concrete cookie cutter slid down the truck chutes sometime in the seventies.

Rachel returned and said, “She’s out like a light. Would you care for some tea or coffee?”

I declined her polite offer.

“Why is a social worker from St. Louis knocking on my door in Virginia?”

“I’m providing therapy to a man who is suspected of being one of the four who shot you and robbed the Bureau of Engraving and Printing last year. I want to get a complete picture of my client and something about this case tells me I should talk to you.”

“This couldn’t be done over the phone?”

“Sometimes I prefer a face-to-face interview.”

Rachel arched an eyebrow and said, “This is quite a long home visit you’re making. I’m not sure how I can help. I admire your dedication, though.” She seemed nervous and added, “I’m that way with my kids.”

The boys looked the same approximate age. “Are they all yours?”

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Technically, no. In reality, yes. Angela and one of the boys are mine. The other three are my sister’s.” A wistful look crossed her pretty brown face as she continued, “Teresa has some inner demons and an uncanny ability to hook up with the wrong man. She left her boys with me last year to get away for the weekend with her boyfriend. She hasn’t returned. Every so often she calls, promises to stop by or send money, but never does. It’s not the first time this’s happened, either. Anyway, I feel like they’re my kids, too. I’ve been a single mom to them since my boyfriend left after the shooting.” Her shoulders sagged a bit as she confessed, “I guess I share my sister’s defective man-picking gene.”

I leaned closer to her and said, “If you’ll pardon me saying this, I anticipated you having an infant, not a toddler, and didn’t expect you to be pregnant.”

She looked confused and stiffened, her defenses rising. “What do you mean?”

“The robbery occurred eight months ago. I heard that you were quite pregnant when shot, that you and baby barely survived. You look like you’re due any day.…”

She looked perplexed and more than a little spooked. “Who said I nearly died?” She make a quick sign of the cross, extended her slender right arm and pointed to small circular scars, one on the inside of her lower forearm and one on the outer. “The bullet went clean through and through the fleshy part of my shooting arm. I never lost strength or range of motion because of it. The worst part came after—a mild infection—but antibiotics took care of that in a week.”

“Your lives didn’t hang in the balance?”

She chuckled nervously. “No, but don’t get me wrong, I was scared out of my mind at the time. Getting shot burns like hell. I looked down and saw my blood oozing out on the pavement. I was sure the next sound I heard would be the kill shot, but it never came. I’d just learned I was pregnant the week before and went into shock worrying about the baby. Paramedics rushed us to the hospital, we were treated and stabilized, and went home the next day.”

She wasn’t showing the day someone shot her.

“Had you told anyone you were pregnant?”

“Not until I got to the hospital. I told the doctors, of course.”

“Was there a barrage of bullets during the robbery?”

Rachel laughed again. “Where are you getting your information from? One bullet was fired—the one that passed through my arm. I was new on the job and didn’t follow protocol. I drew my weapon on a man who already had a gun trained on me; the driver shot the gun from my hand and sped away. Michael,” she said, rubbing her belly, “and I are lucky to be here.”

“I agree. What do you mean about protocol?”

“When heavily armed criminals try to steal counterfeiting supplies, the Treasury manual instructs guards to avoid a shootout on the crowded premises. We are to defuse the situation by allowing the would-be robbers to slowly progress through the gate system, after signaling electronically for police and SWAT backup. SWAT provides the shock and awe before the getaway car hits the street, in a long, secluded section of the garage. My bosses had informed us earlier in the day that computer equipment had been stolen recently from offices and to be on the lookout for bulky electronic theft, to search all vehicles capable of hiding larger items. Their truck had already cleared every checkpoint when it came to me and usually I just wave everyone through, but that week was different. I was the lone guard at the last search stop. My partner had gone to use the can when their truck rolled up and,” she added sheepishly, “I know all the tricks about hiding things—or people—in trucks. The flatbed of their truck looked odd when it came my way, so I kept the guardrail down to have a closer look. After I moved packing crates out of the way, I could tell the flatbed had a false bottom. I immediately thought these might be the computer thieves, but when I saw their cargo, I panicked and drew my weapon before calling for backup. I made a rookie mistake. I heard a bang and fell to the ground bleeding while the truck laid serious rubber and crashed through the gate. A guard at the checkpoint before mine thought the gunshot was an engine backfire. I radioed for police and SWAT, sure the robbers would be caught in minutes. If my partner had been there or the guard at the other checkpoint had reacted faster to the gunshot, they would've been.”

“How many men were involved in the robbery?”

Rachel sipped her tea. “Four black males, probably thirty to forty years old, maybe younger. All average builds, they stayed inside the dark truck and used forged ID badges and knock-off uniforms to pass through the checkpoints. The truck windows were tinted, they wore sunglasses, and it was dark. They were smart—they switched vehicles two miles away.” A wry look crossed her face as she continued, “The only prints lifted from the abandoned truck were on the driver’s side door, from guards at the last two checkpoints, and mine from my search. We all testified to touching the van, but I bet someone's still watching us because the Treasury brass insists it was an inside job. Anyway, the truck used in the heist had been stolen earlier that day and the plates on it lifted from another vehicle. They vanished into the night.”

I showed her headshot photos of Lonnie Washington, Earl Mooney, Benny Blades, and Tyrone Sparks. “Were any of these men in the truck that night?”

I watched her big brown eyes study each of the photos. She immediately ruled out Earl because of his age and Tyrone for his size. Focusing on the other two, she blushed a little and said, “It was dark. This one,” pointing at Benny’s picture, “is too young and good-looking, I would have remembered him, and the other,” pointing at Lonnie, “looks too small and sickly. The trigger man had a definite hardness or calculation to him. He was a pro. I’m not a hundred percent certain, but I’m almost sure these last two weren’t there either.”

“Is there anything else you remember about the men in the stolen truck—tattoos, birthmarks, earrings, a certain way they talked, what they wore, gold chains, facial tics, something dangling from the rear view mirror, any peculiar mannerisms?”

She paused. “No. I’ve replayed it so many times in my mind.”

“There's something else, isn't there? What?”

I waited. She fidgeted with her nails and bit her lip.

“Two weeks, maybe a month after the shooting, a man called me at home. He asked if I’d recovered from my injuries, how much work I’d missed, how much pain I’d had. He sounded pleasant enough, but I didn’t know him and he wouldn’t tell me his name. I thought he was from the Treasury. I hung up on him.”

“Why did you think that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe to keep tabs on me. Call me paranoid, but I wouldn’t be surprised if all of us on duty that night were under close observation for months. We may still be to some degree. They gave me two weeks paid leave, then made me burn what little sick time I’d accrued. After that came unpaid leave while the in-house investigation dragged on. We heard rumors of disciplinary action coming down on all the guards at the checkpoints, but they doled out slaps on the wrists to the men with seniority and fired me because of my ‘unacceptable crisis response.’ I was their fall guy. I had no job, five mouths to feed, and another on the way.”

“Then what happened?” I said, having a pretty good idea.

“A second man called. He apologized for my firing, urged me to be patient, and hung up.”

A frightened look came over her face and she said, “Oh, my God. You didn’t call me, did you? Your voice isn’t the same.”

“No. What do you remember about the voices?”

Rachel chewed on an unpainted nail while she thought. “The first was polite, soft-spoken. He sounded truly sorry about my injury. He was in a hurry, like he didn’t have much time. The second had a deep voice; he sounded African-American. Are you working with them?”

It sounds like I am.

The silence while I thought things through seemed to frighten her.

She crossed her arms and stared at me hard. “Why are you really here?”

I repeated the purpose of my trip.

She leaned forward. “You know about the money, don’t you?” she whispered, as if sharing a big secret.

“You received a package in the mail with a letter that had no return address,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

She stared long and hard, trying to figure me out. “Will you excuse me a minute?”

I nodded.

She walked down the hallway again and returned with a shoebox in her hands. She sat across the table from me and said, “How did you know I received a letter?”

“You're not the first.”

She removed the lid, extracted a .38, and pointed it at my chest.

I did my best to focus on her eyes and not the gun. I failed miserably.

Void of emotion, she said, “You’re a stranger. You come here unannounced, asking all sorts of questions. You know about the letter. I don’t know your intentions, but extortion crosses my mind. I have to think about my kids.” She briefly glanced at the .38 and added, “I feel more comfortable now.”

“That makes one of us,” I said, drawn to the blue steel barrel. Please don’t have another unacceptable crisis response.

“Why do you think I received a package?”

“Others have who helped my client.”

Her eyes hardened. “I didn’t help him,” she said, her voice full of challenge. “I drew my piece on four robbers.”

“You, your unborn baby, and your kids suffered collateral damage; you were innocents hurt by others. My hunch is he feels culpable and wants to right the wrong the only way he can. I’m here to learn as much as I can about my client. I am not here to blow the whistle on you.”

She sat thinking for some time.

My eyes had developed a mind of their own, glued to the gun in her hand.

She tucked it into the waistband of her shorts and pulled out a folded letter from the shoebox. “Two weeks after the second man called, a package came in the mail. Inside it were six documents and this handwritten note.”

She handed me the letter, in the now familiar and elegant calligraphic script, which said:

Dear Rachel Sanchez,

I grieved at word of your shooting and its impact on your job and family. Please accept these humble gifts as small retribution for what you endured. I have also arranged a standing interview for you with a local company, McMahon Securities at 555-3535. A position is waiting for you there, with better salary and benefits, when you’re ready. Imagine how much better the world would be if every child had a guardian angel such as you. Please accept the enclosed trust funds in the names of the five children in your care. The sixth fund will activate upon birth and a legal name. I made this last account slightly larger because no one should be shot at before they’re even born. The annuities reach maturity when each child turns eighteen. Continue doing great deeds, the world is a better place with you in it.

LW

Her face flushed with excitement and anticipation. “It’s your client, isn’t it?”

“I can’t prove it, nor is he taking credit for it, but I think so.”

Her brow furrowed in anger. “Then this money.…”

“Ultimately came from the government paper and ink that a second group of men shot you to steal,” I said.

Rachel sat there staring at the box in front of her. I assumed her thoughts were taking her back in time eight months, her boggled mind fast-forwarding to the present.

“He’s accomplished what no other known counterfeiter in history has been able to do, create exact duplicate hundred-dollar bills. I assume your kids’ trust funds are in that box, paid for with money he printed, bills that passed every bank test with flying colors. The money used to purchase these college funds can never be traced back to you, or him for that matter.”

I explained Milton Peebles’ take on the negligible economic impact to society as a result of the bills.

Her brow furrowed. “It’s still wrong, he didn’t earn it. He made a ton of money for nothing.”

I nodded and said, “That’s one way to look at it. Here’s another, and I’m not saying my way’s right. He’s been honing and perfecting his ability to engrave master plates for ten hours a day, 360 days a year for twenty-two years, logging a total of 79,200 work hours. Assuming the stolen paper produced twenty-five million in hundred-dollar bills and they split it four ways, that leaves his take at six and a quarter million. Divide hours worked into that and you get a ‘wage’ of just under seventy-nine dollars an hour, for abilities only a handful of craftsmen in the world possess. His share doesn’t include equipment costs to print, cut, and count this large sum of money, nor does it take into account what they paid the other men who robbed the US Treasury. So the $79-an-hour figure is grossly inflated. A great amount of talent, patience, perseverance, and time went into this.”

“That still doesn’t make it right. He knew he was committing a felony,” Rachel said.

That’s the only argument I don’t have a counter for.

“No, it doesn’t. You have choices here, important ones. You don’t have to cash in the trust funds. You can destroy them if you think the money is tainted. You can also refuse the job interview.”

Rachel looked down. “I started at McMahon six months ago. Better pay, regular hours, and the people there are so nice.” She spread her arms and continued, “After Treasury fired me I had no money to pay the bills and was about to lose our home. Now by the time my lease expires I hope to be able to get a larger apartment in a safer neighborhood.”

I wondered how Lonnie could be so connected to pull strings in a legitimate security job in DC until an idea came to me that didn’t involve cold hard cash.

She seemed overwhelmed by the news I’d brought; it took some time for her to regain her voice. “A better job and trust funds for the kids’ college? This is too much. LW doesn’t even know me. I’m not anyone special.”

I raised the note in my hand. “LW thinks otherwise.”

Her tone softened. “What’s he like?”

I described him physically as best as I could, then said, “I know he loves his mother and family. He has a soft spot in his heart for children and those who care for them. I know he places great importance on the values of education and work. He abhors violence and has a highly developed sense of right and wrong, although you and others may not agree. That’s okay. He lost himself in his studies and art to escape the chaos and abuse of his early life. I believe he honed his special talents in order to change the world the best way he knew how, after life painted him into a corner. He makes no excuses for his actions and accepts his punishment. I don’t believe he spent a dime of the counterfeit money on himself.”

Her brown eyes grew even bigger. “What should I do about the trust funds?”

“What you think is right. I think you made up your mind when you pulled that gun on me. You can do a lot of good for six lives you love deeply. My advice is: think about the choices and listen to your heart.”

I left Rachel to her thoughts and had the rest of the day to kill before my flight home. I spent part of it touring the US Senate building, one of our largest remaining repositories of fear, graft, scandal, and self-serving stagnation. With this being an election year, attack ads were already starting to pollute the landscape, papers, and radio waves with their rants. I rode the Metro between the monuments and other tourist attractions, wishing St. Louis had built similar efficient mass transit along the major highways.

The final stop of my weekend trip was the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. I strode between the solid, imposing Doric columns of the massive building at 14th and C Streets and observed government employees printing millions of dollars in rapid but controlled assembly-line fashion. It was a piece of cake to imagine Lonnie working there as a well-paid government employee.

I viewed the tools he must have used that others have for the last 125 years to make our currency—the gravers, the high carbon steel burnishers and the hand-held glass. I watched the craftsmen print the 32-note sheets, then cut, count, and bundle them into usable currency. Everything my tour group heard concerning the processes of plate engraving and money-printing Lonnie had already shared with me in greater detail. I left with a smile on my face because I could have given the tour. Later, I found literature about BEP job openings and learned that designers earn 190 grand a year, master and sculptural engravers can reach up to 155K and plate makers make 130 grand. The top salary is over ninety-one dollars an hour.

It would have been the perfect legitimate job for him.