Lust, Money & Murder (10 page)

When she arrived at the Secret Service office, a stocky receptionist said, “We’ve been expecting you,” in accented English. She motioned down the hall. “The SAIC’s office is the last one at the end of the hall.”

Elaine didn’t know a thing about the SAIC except that his name was Nick LaGrange. She went down the corridor and stopped at the door marked with his name.

There was a tall, broad-shouldered man bent over a desk cluttered with papers, stained coffee cups, and other debris. He was counting out money from an envelope, muttering to himself, and scribbling on a piece of paper. Elaine couldn’t see his face—he had long, unkempt brown hair that obscured it. He was wearing faded, holey jeans, hiking boots, and a cracked leather flight jacket over a wrinkled-looking linen shirt.

He looked up, brushing the hair out of his face. He saw Elaine and gave a warm smile. “Hi there.”

He was the most handsome man she had ever laid eyes on.

“I’m Nick LaGrange,” he said, offering her his strong-looking hand. “You must be Elaine?”

“Yes,” she finally said. She didn’t want to let it go.

“I’m about to go on an undercover assignment. You wanna come along, get the feel of the place?”

Elaine glanced uncertainly down at her business suit.

“Don’t worry, you’re dressed just right for this assignment.” He paused. “Got your service pistol with you?”

“Yes, of course.” Elaine started to open her satchel.

“Leave it here.” With a faint smile, he said, “I read the note in your file.”

* * *

Five minutes later, they were climbing into an old cherry red Mustang that was parked in a garage near the office. Nick put the key into the ignition and the engine thundered to life.

“Bought this in New York, shipped it to the UK, and drove it all the way here from London,” he said proudly, as he pulled out of the garage. “An original Boss 429. ‘68 model.” He glanced at her. “You’re probably not much into muscle cars...”

“No,” Elaine admitted. She was still a little offended by the comment he had made about the note in her file.

They drove through the center of Sofia, with Nick honking, and pulling around trams and clusters of pedestrians. Steering with his knees, he pulled out a bag of tobacco and started rolling a cigarette. He slipped the perfectly rolled smoke between his lips and lit it.

He smiled when he saw her watching. “Had a lot of experience in college. Want me to roll one for you?”

“No, thanks,” she said, grinning. This guy was a real character.

As they continued on through the city, she noticed that everyone stared at the vintage American automobile as it rolled by.

“Isn’t this car a little conspicuous for a Secret Service agent?” she said.

Nick laughed. “There are no secrets in this place, Elaine. Everybody knows everybody else. And Americans stick out here like sore thumbs.” He turned a corner and waved at some man who was standing on a corner, smoking a cigar. “Any Bulgarian can spot a
chuzhenetz
—a foreigner— at a hundred yards. They can tell by the way you dress, walk, move, the shape of your face, and a hundred other cues. You have to be careful here, too. In Bulgaria, a foreigner spells only one thing—M-O-N-E-Y.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Five years. Five long years. Before that, Warsaw. Before that, Paris.”

“You like being abroad, then?”

“I like being as far from headquarters and their goddam DOPS as possible.”

He made a sharp left, into a square. He pulled into a parking space along the street.

“What exactly is this undercover assignment?” Elaine said nervously.

Nick finished his cigarette and tossed the butt out the window. “Ever heard of the Turkey Roll?”

“No.”

“Sounds like a sandwich, doesn’t it? It’s a con they pull around here.”

They got out of the car and walked across the street. There was a huge Byzantine-style church at the far end of the square, with glittering gold domes and curving, turquoise roofs.

“That’s the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral,” Nick said. “Probably the biggest tourist attraction here.”

Nick suddenly took Elaine’s hand. “For this to work, we need to look like a couple,” he said, in a low voice.

She wondered if he was just saying that as an excuse to hold her hand.
Wishful thinking
, Elaine thought.

After they had walked only a few feet, a man appeared from nowhere and cut directly in front of Elaine. He stooped to pick something up from the sidewalk, this all happened so abruptly that Elaine almost stumbled into him. He picked up a thick roll of American $100 bills.

For an instant, Elaine felt angry— if the man hadn’t cut in front of her, she would have found it herself.

He looked up at Elaine, then at Nick.

“Yours?” he said, holding up the money.

Now Elaine realized maybe this was the con. The Turkey Roll.

Nick glanced at her, then said to the man, “Yes, it’s my money.” When he reached for it, the man quickly stepped away.

He said, “We split it—fifty-fifty. Okay?”

Nick looked at Elaine again. “Well...”

“Let’s go over there,” the man whispered, pointing behind a building.

He led them around the corner.

Elaine glanced nervously around, afraid of what might happen next. She didn’t like this situation, being in a strange country, mixed up with criminals, and unarmed.

The man pulled the rubber band off the money and quickly started counting it out.
Edin, dvama, trima, chitirima
...

There were 30 crisp $100 bills in the roll, or $3,000.

He handed half of them to Nick, then glanced past Elaine, his eyes widening. He turned and scurried away, running along the side of the building.

Two men trotted up to them from the opposite direction. One was in a rumpled suit, the other in a dirty-looking jogging outfit. The latter pointed at Nick, babbling in Bulgarian.

The well-dressed one flashed a police badge at them. “This man—he say you stole his money.”

Nick glanced nervously at Elaine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t steal any money.”

“Empty your pockets!”

Nick hesitated.

“You want go to jail?”

Nick reluctantly reached into his jacket pockets and turned them inside out. Then, from his jeans’ pockets, he pulled out his car keys, his wallet, and a cigarette lighter. “See?”

“There!” the other man said, pointing at the little watch pocket in Nick’s jeans.

Nick sighed and pulled out the roll of money. “Look, it was just laying on the sidewalk. I didn’t steal it from anyone.”

“
Da
!” the other man said, snatching it from Nick’s hand. He unrolled the bills, then frowned, looking back at Nick. “
To ne vsichko e tuk
!”

“He say you take some of his money,” the cop said.

“I didn’t take any of it,” Nick said. He motioned to the back of the building. “Some other guy picked up the roll and gave me half.”

“Other guy?” the cop said, looking around. “What other guy? I see no other guy.”

Nick glanced at Elaine.

“You want go to jail?” the cop said again. He squinted at Elaine. “You want
both
go to jail? Bulgarian prison very bad. Not like in America.”

Nick glanced around, then opened his wallet. “Look, I’ll give you all the money I have...” He pulled out a few hundred dollar bills, and another few hundred Euro notes.

The cop looked at Elaine.

“I don’t have any money,” she said, her throat dry. She sure hoped this was the con that Nick had been talking about, and not something else.

The cop asked the other man a question. The man glared at Nick. “Okay,” he finally said, and pocketed all the money. He turned and walked back around the corner, muttering to himself.

Pointing at Nick, the cop said, “You should be careful. Bulgaria very dangerous for foreigners.”

He walked off in the other direction.

As they were alone again, Nick looked knowingly at Elaine. His lips curled into a smile.

“He wasn’t a real cop...”

“Nope,” Nick said.

“I don’t get it—what was this all about?”

“This,” Nick said, reaching into his back pocket. He produced a single $100 bill. “This came off that roll of money—all of it was probably counterfeit. A couple of undercover cops—real cops—will keep tabs on those guys until we find out.”

* * *

As soon as they were inside the Mustang and headed back to the office, Elaine said. “You should have let me bring my gun. I’m not incompetent.”

“Did I say you were incompetent?”

“No, but...” She was angry with herself for wanting to impress him, but she couldn’t help it. “You make me feel incompetent. I’m not a helpless girl.”

“Don’t get feminist on me, okay? I don’t pay a lot of attention to rules, but when it comes to important things, I play by the book. Something happens to you, and I’m responsible.” He glanced at her. “Is that all right with you?”

“Well, yes, of course it is. I just don’t want you to think I’m inept.”

“The Secret Service must have thought you had other assets that made up for your weakness in marksmanship.” He glanced at her legs.

“Thanks a lot,” she muttered.

“I didn’t mean that. I meant, for example, intaglio printing.” He looked curiously at her. “Your file said you know a lot about that.”

“I ought to know something about it. I majored in it.”

Nick looked surprised. “Where the hell can you major in intaglio printing?”

“RISD. That’s the Rhode Island School of—”

“I know what it stands for. That’s a damn good school.”

She gave a modest shrug. “I guess so.” Of course it was a good school—it was one of the best design schools in the USA.

Nick said, “Your intaglio printing knowledge could be very useful here. The main crime we deal with in this office is counterfeiting. But I’m sure you know that already.”

They rode along in silence for a few minutes. Even though Elaine felt a bit frustrated with how he was acting towards her, she had a very good feeling being with Nick LaGrange. His open, honest, and confident manner was very attractive.

As they passed a group of rough-looking men on a corner, her thoughts turned to the con artists they had just been involved with. “That’s a clever scam those guys pull,” she said. “For a split second, I was mad when the first man cut in front of me and looked like he’d picked up that big roll of money. I thought I should have found it instead of him.”

“Yeah. I always get the same feeling, even though I know it’s a con.” He smiled at her. “We’re all greedy, Elaine. It’s human nature.”

* * *

When they got back to the office, Nick cleared off some debris from one of his guest chairs and offered her a seat.

“So, what do you think of this bill?” he said, handing Elaine the $100 note. He also handed her a magnifying glass.

The look in his eye told her this was a test.

She carefully rubbed the bill between her thumb and forefinger. It had been printed with an intaglio press, as she could feel the ridges in the paper. She squinted at it through the magnifier, inspecting the finer details.

After a moment, Nick said, “Want a genuine note for comparison?”

“Don’t need one,” Elaine murmured, peering at the front side of the bill. “This is definitely a fake.”

Nick raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?”

“For one thing, the color-shifting ink isn’t quite right. It changes from black to gold but the—”

“Yeah, good. And?”

“And the lines on Jefferson’s face aren’t spaced the same, especially around the jaw line. Plus, the microprinting isn’t quite as sharp as it should be.” Elaine paused. “Still, it’s a well-done counterfeiting job.”

Nick smiled. “Not bad, Elaine. Not bad at all. Usually we have to send bills this good back to the States to know for sure.”

He picked up the phone and punched in a number. While he waited, he opened his drawer and pulled out a stack of $100 bills that was an inch thick. “See what you think of these.”

CHAPTER 1.12

The more Elaine worked with Nick LaGrange, the more she liked him.

He was so exciting to be around, always passionate about whatever he was working on, and so confident in himself and the abilities of everyone around him, including her own. Elaine felt completely safe with him, as if he radiated a sort of magical, protective energy that warded off evil.

She also enjoyed her job. She found she had a natural talent for recognizing fake banknotes, something Nick had seen right off. He gave her tasks that helped her further develop her skill at counterfeit detection, such as making detailed lists of all the major differences she could find each time a new type of fake banknote surfaced in the region. It seemed that in this particular Secret Service field office, you could create your own job, which was a nice change from the rigid position in Great Falls.