The Art of Making Money (28 page)

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Cartwall said warmly as they shook hands. “In fact, your pop can’t stop talking about you.” Art blushed, wondering how much Cartwall really knew. He doubted his dad had bragged much to his friends about how they hadn’t seen each other in twenty years. Until a few months ago, probably none of them had even known he existed.

The five men small-talked about Chicago and Alaska and drank beer in Cartwall’s TV room. After half an hour, Senior and Cartwall excused themselves and went into a back room. Art assumed that they were buying weed from his dad. Fifteen minutes later they popped back out, and Senior indicated it was time to head home.

“I got a question for you,” Senior said once they were back on the highway.

“Go ahead, Pops.”

“You can make more of that counterfeit if you want, right?”

Art didn’t answer at first. He had been amazed it had taken him this long to ask, and had started to think that his dad might let it lie.

“You can always make more,” Art said noncommittally. “Why do you ask?”

“Please don’t get mad, but I showed Terry the bill you gave me. Before you say anything you have to take my word that I trust this guy with my life—”

“So what?” Art interrupted. “I asked you not to show it to anyone and you fucking did. I can’t believe it.”

“Just listen to me for a minute,” Senior said forcefully. “I don’t think you know what you got. Terry was completely astonished. He had to pull out a real bill and compare it to be convinced that yours was fake. Once he was sure, he said he’d buy as much as we can bring him. He has major connections in California. He’ll ship the money down there and we won’t be anywhere near it. We can do a few deals, then we’re out. We’ll use it to build your house.”

It was nothing Art hadn’t heard before. He was pissed at his dad for breaking his promise, but mostly at himself. These were the kind of things that happened once people saw the money, and he should have seen it coming. The tour of the underground grow lab his dad had given him was about more than honesty; it was about showing his son that he, too, knew how to operate. Luckily, Art had the perfect reason for telling his dad no: the House of Blues bust. On the way back to Chickaloon, he finally told Senior the whole story, emphasizing that, for all he knew, the Service was on the lookout for both him and his bills. Although his primary reason for coming to Alaska had been to see his dad, he now admitted to his father that it had practically been a necessity.

“I didn’t tell you earlier because I didn’t want you to think the only reason I’d come up here was to escape the Service,” he explained.

“They don’t know you’re here, do they?”

“It’s pretty unlikely.”

“That’s good. You wouldn’t have to do anything other than make the bills. I’d handle the deals, and you won’t have to be involved in any other aspect of it.”

“Did you tell those guys that I was the one who made that bill?”

“No,” Senior said, but Art didn’t believe him. “Just think it over. There’s no hurry. But I think we could make a lot of money with these guys. I know for a fact that they have access to lots of funds.”

Despite his anger, Art found reasons to think it might not be a bad idea. Since their big print run for Beto had failed to produce a nest egg, he and Natalie had nothing but the fifty grand in counterfeit they’d brought with them, along with another seven thousand in genuine that they’d converted prior to their arrival. While that was good traveling money, it was hardly enough to settle down with, since they’d first have to convert it, which they couldn’t do locally without alerting the authorities. They’d even discussed doing another big batch and proceeding with their plans in Arkansas once things calmed down in the lower forty-eight. But printing in Alaska made a lot of sense. Nobody knew he was there, it was off the map, and the land they’d be building their house on was far more beautiful and free. Best of all, he and his pops would get to make up for lost time.

“I’ll think about it,” he told his dad, but by the time they reached the house he’d already made up his mind.

 

 

 

CONVINCING NATALIE WAS NOT SO EASY. As a country girl who adored hiking and camping as much as Art, she found Alaska the most epic, awe-inspiring place she’d ever seen—even a great place to live if you could endure the winter—but she did not trust Senior. Although she’d kept it to herself, she had come to believe that the only reason they were still there was because Art had shown his dad a bill that first night.

“Granted, he hasn’t seen you in twenty years, but don’t you think it’s a bit odd that he’s so nice to us?” she said after Art related his father’s plan. “He’s been an asshole your whole life, and now all of a sudden he gives you a car, wants to build you a house. You really think that’s sincere?”

“Yeah, I do,” Art said. Although he’d told Natalie about the fight during the dog food run, she hadn’t seen how shaken Senior had been, how Art had verbally ripped off his skin, and how beneath it he’d sensed genuine regret and fear of losing his son again. His father had told him that he loved him twice, but just as importantly, Art knew that his father liked him. Senior was having as much fun hanging out as he was. “You’re wrong about him,” he told Natalie, “I know you’re wrong, because you haven’t been there during these moments. This isn’t about the money.”

“You’re right, I haven’t been there,” Natalie said. “I’ve been stuck in this fucking trailer, or getting away from Granny Clampett.” She’d been trying to avoid both Senior and Anice as much as possible, often taking Alex on tours of the region in one of Senior’s cars while Art and his dad bonded. “Fine,” she told Art. “If you think your dad is so sincere, then tell him no. Refuse to print and see what he says about living here then.”

That was as far she’d go. She saw how much Art wanted it, and there was no way she was going to insist that he couldn’t live near his dad after being deprived of him for most his life. She didn’t want to be
that
woman, the one who makes her husband choose between her and his family. She was also almost nine months pregnant and tired.

“If we’re staying here, I’m not gonna have my baby out in the sticks,” she said. “You either find me a place in Anchorage where I’m five minutes from the hospital, or my ass is going back to Texas. I’ll have the baby and get a job, you can stay here yourself and have a nice life.”

She meant it, but Art knew he’d won. He swore to Natalie that he’d start searching for a place in Anchorage the next morning. He hugged her with joy, poured out the sugar, then walked back to the main house to deliver the good news. Senior had the look of a man eager for an answer when Art walked in the door. For the briefest moment, Art thought about employing Natalie’s test: What
would
Senior do if he told him no? But he wanted to see the look in his old man’s eyes when he heard yes.

 

 

 

TRUE TO HIS WORD, Art got them into a place in Anchorage the very next day. It was too easy: At Senior’s suggestion, Chrissy put them up at her place until after the baby was born and they had time to arrange something more permanent. The baby, a girl, arrived on May 30. In keeping with the tradition of having all his kids’ names begin with the letter
A,
she was Andrea.

Once they were back from the hospital Art, having successfully copied his own genes, began searching in earnest for equipment to copy the money he’d need to pay for her.

In the Windy City, a counterfeiter can spend months visiting industrial printing houses and small graphic arts-shops and still not see all of them. In Anchorage, it took Art less than a week to visit every printer in the area. He could not find a single plate-burner, process camera, or offset for sale that met his requirements. He also struck out when it came to finding a local distributor of the all-important Abitibi paper.

While he could order some of the items he needed from Seattle, he knew that there was simply no way he could set up a proper shop without returning to the lower forty-eight, preferably Chicago, where he knew the lay of the land and still had a few items in storage. But he had never envisioned leaving the state when he agreed to his father’s plan, much less returning to the city where he was hottest.

“It’s going to be risky and it’s going to be expensive, because these items are heavy and shipping them will cost a small fortune,” he told his father. He was half hoping his dad would call it off.

“Then let’s go, just you and me.” Senior shrugged. “Why don’t we hit the road? We’ll fly down to Seattle, rent a car, and drive to Chicago and get whatever you need. We can have some fun spending money along the way.”

A spending trip with his old man. The thought had never occurred to Art, but it had the ring of destiny. Suddenly the journey went from being a fretted chore to an adventure. Just the two of them on the road, freebooting across the country and slamming hard along the way. “I remember thinking, ‘Me and Pops are gonna do it. Not Anice, not Natalie, not anybody—just us.’ ” He could already picture them laughing over the memories years later.

“Are you serious?” Art asked him.

“Sure I am. Don’t you think it’d be fun?”

“I do,” said Art. “You crack me up. You’re starting to sound like me.”

Natalie, having given birth only two weeks earlier, was less thrilled with the idea. The prospect of Art taking off on a spending trip made her worry that he’d get arrested and never return. Since she’d agreed to resume counterfeiting, however, she had little choice but to admit that the only way it could happen was if they obtained new equipment. Before they left, Art made sure to give her a project: While he was away with Senior, she’d be working on the computer, polishing up scans of the new fifty-dollar note. Although it was unusual for him to print fifties, he and his father would be dropping so many hundreds over the next few weeks that he didn’t want to risk printing any more upon their return to Alaska. He wanted a new bill ready to go, something different, something that would allow him to embark on a new life with his dad without rousing the authorities.

13

FAMILY BONDING

It is simply impossible to convict counterfeiters, as a rule, without the aid of their confederates. The lesser criminals in this secretly conducted business can alone obtain the confidence of the greater villains.

—GEORGE PICKERING BURNHAM

 

 

 

 

They flew to Seattle, where they rented a white Crown Victoria, a model that satisfied Art’s requirement of looking as much like a cop as possible while committing crimes. As they pulled out of Sea-Tac Airport, Senior turned and gave him a devilish grin.

“You ready to do this?” he said.

“Hell, yeah.”

Within an hour they were hammering gas stations along Interstate 90 East. Art had always avoided spending counterfeit at gas stations because they bristle with security cameras, but three decades of nine-dollar change-raising scams had given Senior a tactician’s knowledge of how to avoid being taped. They’d cruise down the highway, wait until they spotted a forest of signage ahead, then swoop in from the off-ramps. They’d circle a station once to get a feel for its layout, then park away from the pumps, where the cameras are usually aimed. Art junior would then enter and buy a pack of cigarettes and a soda. They’d usually be gone in less than a minute. “It was cigarettes and pop all day long,” Art remembers, “and every time we’d get back ninety-two dollars in change. Sometimes there’d be four gas stations on one intersection, and we’d knock them all—bing, bing, bing, bing. At the end of that first day we counted out about $4,200 in a hotel room just across the state line in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. We just started laughing because we’d never seen so many gas stations.”

Based on their change returns, they calculated they’d hit roughly forty-five stations in just over three hundred miles—about one station for every seven miles of road. The closest call they encountered turned out to be right there at the hotel in Coeur D’Alene. Later that evening, Art ventured down to the lobby bar for a celebratory beer; he’d heard a healthy commotion from the bar when they’d checked in, but it wasn’t until he walked in and sat down that he saw the source: The entire place was filled with cops.

“What’s going on here?” he asked the bartender.

“Northwest State Police Conference. Washington, Idaho, Montana . . . they have a huge meet here every year.”

Art got his beer to go.

He ran right back to the room, where he found his father smoking weed from a pipe next to an open window—a move so stupid and arrogant that, had it been anyone else, Art would have dumped him off at a Greyhound station and ended the trip right then.

“Put that out! We have to get the fuck out of here,” he told his dad, and explained the situation. Senior casually finished inhaling from the pipe.

“They don’t know what we’ve done,” he finally said. “You look good, I look good, and we’re driving a car that looks just like what they drive. Do you really think they’ll think we’re anything else but cops? We’re safer here than anywhere.”

Against all instinct, Art surrendered to his old man’s assurances and calmed down. Senior’s control impressed him. Art took a hit from the pipe himself, drank his beer, and they went to bed watching TV. “The truth was, I was having the best time in my life,” Art says. “My old man was cool. I can’t explain it. Yeah, he was a piece of shit, but he was cool. Maybe that’s easy to say because that’s really all I had, but I’d never give that trip up.”

They slipped out of Coeur D’Alene the next morning while the hungover cops slept. Continuing down I-90, they hit the gas stations in and around Missoula and Billings hard, changing up almost as much money as the day before. They were having so much fun, in fact, that on the third night they almost died. Hoping to make up for all the time lost at gas stations, they drove late into the night as they entered North Dakota—and straight into a supercell storm system that was causing massive damage along the I-94 corridor. As lightning and rain raked the highway, the pair smoked a joint and cranked up the Led Zeppelin, oblivious to the fact that tornadoes were touching down all around them. “I thought it was a little weird because for a long time we were the only car on the road,” remembers Art. “We didn’t realize what had happened until we checked into a motel early the next morning. It took a long time for the desk clerk to show up, and when he did he said, ‘What the hell are you people doing? Haven’t you been listening to the news?’ He’d been hiding in a shelter behind the motel.”