watermark?"
"Sort of," Olive said.
"The strip on the left side of a five says five, right? But it's small, very hard to see. The president's image on the right-side watermark is bigger but also hard to see. So if they hold the bill up to the light and their eyes start looking left to right or right to left, whadda you do?"
"I run to you."
"No, you don't run to me, goddamnit!" He yelled it, then looked around, but none of the passing shoppers were paying any attention to them. He continued with as much patience as he could muster. "These dumb shits won't even notice that the strip ain't for a twenty-dollar bill and that the watermark has a picture of Lincoln instead of Jackson. They just go through the motions and look, but they don't see. So don't panic."
"Until I'm sure he's onto me. Then I run out to you."
Farley looked at the low, smog-laden sky and thought, Maintain. Just fucking maintain. This woman is dumb as a clump of dog hair. Slowly he said, "You do not run to me. You never run to me. You do not know me. I am a fucking stranger. You just walk fast out of the store and head for the street. I'll pick you up there after I make sure nobody's coming after you."
"Can we do it now, Farley?" Olive said. "Pretty soon I'll have to go to the bathroom."
The store was bustling when they entered. As usual, there were a few street people lurking around the parking lot begging for change.
One of the street people recognized Farley and Olive. In fact, he had their license number written down on a card, saving it for a rainy day, so to speak. Farley and Olive never noticed the old homeless guy who was eyeballing them as they entered. Nor did they see him enter the store and approach a man with a "Manager" tag on his shirt.
The homeless guy whispered something to the manager, who kept his eye on Farley and Olive for the whole ten minutes that they browsed. When Farley walked out of the store, the manager still watched him, until he was sure that Farley wasn't coming back in. Then the manager reentered the store and watched Olive at the checkout counter.
Slick, Olive thought. It's working real slick. The kid at the checkout took the four bogus twenties from Olive's hand and began ringing up the purchase. But then it happened.
"Let me see those bills."
The manager was talking to the kid, not to Olive. She hadn't seen him standing behind her, and she was too startled by his arrival to do anything but freeze.
He held the bills up to the late-afternoon light pouring through the plate glass, and she saw his eyes moving left to right and right to left, and she didn't care if Farley said they're too dumb to match up strips and watermarks and all that Farley Ramsdale goddamn bullshit! Olive knew exactly what to do and did it right at that instant.
Three minutes later Farley picked her up sprinting across the street against a red light, and he was amazed that Olive Oyl could move that fast, given her emaciated condition. A few minutes after that, Trombone Teddy walked into RadioShack and the manager told him that yes, they were crooks and had tried to pass bogus twenties. He handed Teddy several dollars from his pocket and thanked him for the tip. All in all, Teddy thought that his day was beginning quite fortuitously. He wished he could run into those two tweakers more often.
Chapter FOUR
WONDERING WHY IN the hell she'd volunteered to read her paper when none of them knew what she did for a living, Andi McCrea decided to sit on the corner of the professor's desk just as though she wasn't nervous about criticism and wasn't scared of Professor Anglund, who'd squawked all during the college term about the putative abuse of civil liberties by law enforcement.
With her forty-fifth birthday right around the corner and her oral exam for lieutenant coming up, it had seemed important to be able to tell a promotion board that she had completed her bachelor's degree at last, even making the Dean's List unless Anglund torpedoed her. She
"Sort of," Olive said.
"The strip on the left side of a five says five, right? But it's small, very hard to see. The president's image on the right-side watermark is bigger but also hard to see. So if they hold the bill up to the light and their eyes start looking left to right or right to left, whadda you do?"
"I run to you."
"No, you don't run to me, goddamnit!" He yelled it, then looked around, but none of the passing shoppers were paying any attention to them. He continued with as much patience as he could muster. "These dumb shits won't even notice that the strip ain't for a twenty-dollar bill and that the watermark has a picture of Lincoln instead of Jackson. They just go through the motions and look, but they don't see. So don't panic."
"Until I'm sure he's onto me. Then I run out to you."
Farley looked at the low, smog-laden sky and thought, Maintain. Just fucking maintain. This woman is dumb as a clump of dog hair. Slowly he said, "You do not run to me. You never run to me. You do not know me. I am a fucking stranger. You just walk fast out of the store and head for the street. I'll pick you up there after I make sure nobody's coming after you."
"Can we do it now, Farley?" Olive said. "Pretty soon I'll have to go to the bathroom."
The store was bustling when they entered. As usual, there were a few street people lurking around the parking lot begging for change.
One of the street people recognized Farley and Olive. In fact, he had their license number written down on a card, saving it for a rainy day, so to speak. Farley and Olive never noticed the old homeless guy who was eyeballing them as they entered. Nor did they see him enter the store and approach a man with a "Manager" tag on his shirt.
The homeless guy whispered something to the manager, who kept his eye on Farley and Olive for the whole ten minutes that they browsed. When Farley walked out of the store, the manager still watched him, until he was sure that Farley wasn't coming back in. Then the manager reentered the store and watched Olive at the checkout counter.
Slick, Olive thought. It's working real slick. The kid at the checkout took the four bogus twenties from Olive's hand and began ringing up the purchase. But then it happened.
"Let me see those bills."
The manager was talking to the kid, not to Olive. She hadn't seen him standing behind her, and she was too startled by his arrival to do anything but freeze.
He held the bills up to the late-afternoon light pouring through the plate glass, and she saw his eyes moving left to right and right to left, and she didn't care if Farley said they're too dumb to match up strips and watermarks and all that Farley Ramsdale goddamn bullshit! Olive knew exactly what to do and did it right at that instant.
Three minutes later Farley picked her up sprinting across the street against a red light, and he was amazed that Olive Oyl could move that fast, given her emaciated condition. A few minutes after that, Trombone Teddy walked into RadioShack and the manager told him that yes, they were crooks and had tried to pass bogus twenties. He handed Teddy several dollars from his pocket and thanked him for the tip. All in all, Teddy thought that his day was beginning quite fortuitously. He wished he could run into those two tweakers more often.
Chapter FOUR
WONDERING WHY IN the hell she'd volunteered to read her paper when none of them knew what she did for a living, Andi McCrea decided to sit on the corner of the professor's desk just as though she wasn't nervous about criticism and wasn't scared of Professor Anglund, who'd squawked all during the college term about the putative abuse of civil liberties by law enforcement.
With her forty-fifth birthday right around the corner and her oral exam for lieutenant coming up, it had seemed important to be able to tell a promotion board that she had completed her bachelor's degree at last, even making the Dean's List unless Anglund torpedoed her. She
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