The Dark Side (20 page)

“Well, Johnson,” I said, “for a good reason. For 1952, 1951,
and
1950, I had no income.”

That was just the answer he was looking for, and wasn’t expecting. He shuffled papers like mad, unable to believe his luck.

“Well, now, McNally,” he said triumphantly, “that’s a rather peculiar statement. You have a house that is assessed at eight thousand dollars, and worth three times that. Right?”

Of course he was right. Taxes are low where I live, with the jet-engine plant paying most of the bills.

“And you have no income for three years, McNally, none at all?”

“Johnson,” I told him sorrowfully. “I am a very law-abiding individual. I am quite familiar with the income tax rules”— which I wasn’t—“and I am also a very thrifty person. My wife makes all my suits and raises all our food. I don’t need income, but to overcome boredom I am thinking of applying for a government job, in the customer-relations department. Anything else, Mr. Johnson?”

No, there was nothing else. But “you’ll quite possibly hear from us a little later, McNally.” When I left he was frantically scribbling away with a red pencil. I certainly wish I didn’t have such a lousy temper, but in for a lamb, in for a sheep. All I could do was to wait for the wheels to roll over me, with Johnson pressing the starting button.

The wheels rolled, and apparently missed me. We didn’t hear from the Bureau of Internal Revenue all the rest of the year, and when next May came around Jean and I had almost forgotten. We decided it would be nice if we took a little trip, and found out that to go to Europe it would be necessary to get a passport. We applied for one. That must have been the trigger that made someone think we were trying to get out of Federal jurisdiction. We got no passports, but I got a summons.

It really wasn’t a trial. There was no judge there, and I had no lawyer. We just sat down in uncomfortable chairs and faced each other. There isn’t much use mentioning any names, so I won’t. It was just a meeting to see if things could be settled without a trial; most likely because trials take up time and money. They were fairly decent, but it boiled down to this:

“Mr. McNally, you have a house, a car, and a bank account.”

The bank account wasn’t big, and I mentioned that.

“Big enough for someone with no income. And we can prove—actually
prove
—Mr. McNally, that in the past three years you have spent for tangibles almost twenty thousand dollars. Your scale of living is and has been running at a hundred dollars every week—or better.”

I could do nothing but admit it, and compliment their thoroughness. They were not impressed.

“So, Mr. McNally, that is why you are here now. We see no use in subjecting you to the inconvenience of a trial, with all the attendant publicity.”

They waited for me to agree with them, so I did.

“What we are primarily interested in, Mr. McNally, is not the exact amount of your income—although that is an extremely serious question, which must be adjusted to our satisfaction before this is all over.”

That made me sit straight in the chair.

“Not so much in the amount, Mr. McNally, but the source. Just who are you working for, and how do you do it?”

Do what?

They were very patient, elaborately so. “How do you take the bets, Mr. McNally? How do they get the bets to you, and how do you payoff when you win or lose?”

“What bets?” I asked blankly. “What are you talking about?”

If you’ve never seen a collective lip being curled, you don’t know what you’ve missed.

“Come now, Mr. McNally. Come now! We’re all men of the world, if you want to put it that way. We know that you have a source of income. What we want to know—and we are very curious—is how you manage to run your business without using any means of communication we have been able to find.”

They paused to let me consider; then: “We’ll be frank with you, sir—we’re puzzled. Puzzled so much that perhaps we can come to some sort of arrangement allowing you to pay your past-due taxes without penalty.”

I began to laugh. First I laughed, and then I roared.

“I suppose,” I said, “that you’re the source of all the clicks and static we’ve been hearing on the telephone lately. And I imagine you’re the source of all these cars and trucks that have been breaking down within a block of my house.” They admitted it with their faces. “And you can’t find out how I take bets, and how I pay off. And I’ll bet that you’re our new milkmnu, and our new baker!”

They let me laugh myself out, and they didn’t like it. One of the government men stood up and towered over me.

“Mr. McNally, this is no laughing matter for you. You came here under your own power, and you may leave the same way if you so choose. But there is one thing I can definitely assure you; that you will be back here under less comfortable, more formal circumstances just as soon as we have presented the evidence we have against you to a Federal grand jury.”

That didn’t sound so good to me, and they all saw it.

“Did you, sir, ever stop to think what would happen to your wife and children if a true bill were presented against you? Are you prepared to face the penalty for deliberately neglecting to file an income tax return for three consecutive years? You cannot, regardless of how you are communicating with your runners, conduct a gambling business from a jail cell. Had you thought of that, Mr. McNally?”

The government men kept hammering at me and I kept thinking. A slim chance was better than no chance at all. Then they gave me my cue. Someone was saying: “… And you can’t sit there and tell us you got all that income out of thin air!”

I broke in. “What did you say?”

“We were talking about the impossibility of your proving—”

“No. Go back a little. What you said about money out of thin air.”

The collective smirk. “Let’s not be too literal, Mr. McNally. We know you got the money; we want to know where and how you got it.”

I told them. “Out of thin air, like you said.” I slid out my billfold. “You might compare the numbers on these bills,” and I passed out a handful. “The best place in the world to get money is right out of the air—no germs on it that way.”

So they checked the serial numbers, and they compared the bills, and they began to scream like a herd of frustrated stallions.

They were still screaming when I left, under my own power.

Probably the only reason they let me go was because I was so completely frank about everything.

“Never mind where I got the money,” I said. “You admit you couldn’t tell one from the other. If you’ll come out to my house tomorrow I’ll show you where they came from; keep me here and you’ll be no further ahead than you are now.”

One of them suggested they could follow other leads and nail me in the end—even if it took a couple years.

“But wouldn’t you rather clean this up all in one shot? You know I wouldn’t get far if I tried to skip, and I have no intention of doing that. Give me a chance to get things lined up—no, I have no one working with or for me, if that’s what you’re thinking—and tomorrow you get everything out in the open.”

I didn’t try to lose the car that followed me all the way home. Then I talked Jean into taking the kids over to her mother’s the next morning, and drank three cans of beer before I could get to sleep.

The next morning I was shaved, dressed, and breakfasted when Jean and the kids pulled out of the driveway, bound for Grandma’s. I knew that they would have a tail of some kind, but that was all to the good. When she was barely out on the main highway, away from the house, according to agreement, the Marines would land. They did—two quiet, insignificant-looking little men I had never seen before. But I’ve seen too many movies not to be able to spot a shoulder holster when I see one.

They were extremely polite, came in as though they were walking on expensive eggs. I gave them a pleasant smile and a can of beer apiece.

They introduced themselves as Internal Revenue and Secret Service, and I blinked at that. What was the Secret Service doing here? He told me.

“Secret Service is charged with the responsibility,” he said, “of detecting and handling counterfeit money.”

Well, I knew it had been a slim chance. All I could do was ride the horse, now that I’d ordered the saddle. I cleared my throat.

“Well, gentlemen, I asked you here deliberately. I think the best thing to do is to get this straightened out once and for all.” Secret Service grunted. “And the best way to do it is make a clean breast of things. Right?”

“Right!”

I reached in my pocket. “Take a look at these. Are they counterfeit? Or are they good?” and I passed them a sheaf of bills.

Secret Service took them over to where the morning sun was glaring through the blinds and took a lens from his pocket. He stood there for quite some time before he came back to sit down.

I asked him, “Are they good, or are they bad?”

Secret Service grunted. “Perfectly good. Good as gold. Only they all have the same numbers.”

“Fine,” I said. “You probably don’t get paid very much. Take them with you when you go.” The temperature dropped forty degrees. I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know why.

“No, I’m not trying to bribe you. I thought it would be a good illustration of what I said yesterday—that’s right, you weren’t there. Someone said that money doesn’t come out of thin air. Well, this money did.”

Internal Revenue believed that just as much as Secret Service, and said so.

I shrugged. “So you want a better sample?”

They nodded.

They had nothing to lose.

“How much money have you got on you? I don’t mean silver, although I might be able to fix you up there, too, but bills. Dollar bills, fives, tens, twenties…” I tried to be funny. “Since you’re not elected, I don’t think you have any big bills.” The joke fell flat, but between them they dug up about sixty dollars in bills of different denominations, and I spread them out as neatly as I could on the coffee table.

“All right, now; this is what I meant—” and I made sure that they were comfortably settled around the glass-topped surface. The first bill up in the right corner was a dollar, and I told them to watch the surface of the table right next to it. I looked at the bill and concentrated.

The surface of the glass clouded, and the duplicate began to appear, nice and green and shiny. When it was complete, I leaned back and told the pair to pick up the dollar and its mate and feel free to examine them. While they had the new one over under the light, looking at it from all angles, I did a quick job on the rest of the money and went out to the kitchen for more beer.

They were so intent on the first one they never saw me leave. When they turned back to me I was sitting there with a cigarette, three full cans, and an expectant smile. Then they looked at the coffeetable and saw the rest of the duplicates.

Secret Service looked at the bills, at the ones he had in his hand, and at Internal Revenue. “Good God Almighty,” he said, and collapsed into his chair.

It took some time for them to get their breath; longer still for them to be able to ask sensible questions.

“You probably won’t believe me,” I warned. “I still don’t believe it myself.”

Secret Service looked at Internal Revenue. “After that,” he said, “I’ll believe anything. Come on, McNally, you’ve got yourself into a mess. Let’s hear you get yourself out of it.”

That I couldn’t go for. “I’m in no mess; you are. I’ll make a million of those bills if you want, or if you don’t, and all I can do is spend a few years in prison. Now, if I’m in trouble I’ll stay in it. On the other hand, if you’ll give me a clean bill of health I’ll come across. Okay?”

Secret Service snorted. “My job is to nail the source of counterfeit money. Bud, you’re all through!”

I kept after him. “Suppose you can say you’ve dried up the source. Suppose you can prove that to yourself, and your boss. Do I get a clean sheet? And do I get an okay for back taxes if I pay up?”

Internal Revenue hesitated. “Back taxes can always be paid up, with a penalty, if we think there was no criminal intent.”

“And how about you?” I said to Secret Service. “Okay with you?”

But he was just as bullheaded as me. “No, McNally. You stuck out your neck, and chopped it off yourself. You’ll make no more progress with U.S. currency.”

I kept right after him. “All you can get me for is possession of what you call counterfeit money. It looks good to me. Maybe the numbering machine stuck, or something.”

“Yeah? No numbering machine in here. You made that stuff right here front of my eyes!”

“Did I?” I asked. “Maybe it was just a magic trick. The hand is quicker than the eye, you know.”

He was definite about that. “Not quicker than my eye. You made that money right here in front of me. I don’t know how you did it, but I’ll find out.”

That was what I wanted him to say. “You saw me make money right in front of you? Without a printing press or anything? What would a jury say to that? What would they think about your sanity—and yours?” I turned to Internal Revenue. “And you still don’t know how I did it, and you never will, unless I tell you. Right? What do you say?”

Internal Revenue wagged his head and moaned. “Right, I’m afraid.”

Secret Service swore. “You too? You want to let this—this counterfeiter get away with that? Why—”

I mentioned the old one about sticks and stones may break your bones and he snorted hard enough to blow the rest of the bills off the coffee table. No one picked them up.

“Well, how about it?” I prodded. “While you’re thinking about it, I’ll get another beer.”

“Oh no, you don’t!” he yelped, and tried to follow me into the kitchen. Internal Revenue pulled him back into his chair and leaned over. I could hear them whispering frantically while I pretended to have trouble finding the beer opener. I let them whisper for two or three minutes until I went back into the living room and found the opener where it had been all the time. I opened the cans and sat back. Secret Service had a face like Thor.

“Make up your mind yet?” I inquired. “I’d like to cooperate, but not at the point of a gun.”