“I pay them well to keep away. And when I’m out, I lock the closet.”
She’s cool, Armand Grangier thought. But it’s not going to keep her alive.
“Don’t leave the hotel,” he ordered. “I have a friend I want you to meet.”
Armand Grangier had intended to turn the woman over to Bruno Vicente immediately, but some instinct held him back. He examined one of the bills again. He had handled a lot of counterfeit money, but nothing nearly as good as this. Whoever cut the dies was a genius. The paper felt authentic, and the lines were crisp and clean. The colors remained sharp and fixed, even with the bill wet, and the picture of Benjamin Franklin was perfect. The bitch was right. It was hard to tell the difference between what he held in his hand and the real thing. Grangier wondered whether it would be possible to pass it off as genuine currency. It was a tempting idea.
He decided to hold off on Bruno Vicente for a while.
Early the following morning Armand Grangier sent for Zuckerman and handed him one of the hundred-dollar bills. “Go down to the bank and exchange this for francs.”
“Sure, chief.”
Grangier watched him hurry out of the office. This was Zuckerman’s punishment for his stupidity. If he was arrested, he would never tell where he got the counterfeit bill, not if he wanted to live. But if he managed to pass the bill successfully…I’ll see, Grangier thought.
Fifteen minutes later Zuckerman returned to the office. He counted out a hundred dollars’ worth of French francs. “Anything else, chief?”
Grangier stared at the francs. “Did you have any trouble?”
“Trouble? No. Why?”
“I want you to go back to the same bank,” Grangier ordered. “This is what I want you to say…”
Adolf Zuckerman walked into the lobby of the Banque de France and approached the desk where the bank manager sat. This time Zuckerman was aware of the danger he was in, but he preferred facing that than Grangier’s wrath.
“May I help you?” the manager asked.
“Yes.” He tried to conceal his nervousness. “You see, I got into a poker game last night with some Americans I met at a bar.” He stopped.
The bank manager nodded wisely. “And you lost your money and perhaps wish to make a loan?”
“No,” Zuckerman said. “As—as a matter of fact, I won. The only thing is, the men didn’t look quite honest to me.” He pulled out two $100 bills. “They paid me with these, and I’m afraid they—they might be counterfeit.”
Zuckerman held his breath as the bank manager leaned forward and took the bills in his pudgy hands. He examined them carefully, first one side and then the other, then held them up to the light.
He looked at Zuckerman and smiled. “You were lucky, monsieur. These bills are genuine.”
Zuckerman allowed himself to exhale. Thank God! Everything was going to be all right.
“No problem at all, chief. He said they were genuine.”
It was almost too good to be true. Armand Grangier sat there thinking, a plan already half-formed in his mind.
“Go get the baroness.”
Tracy was seated in Armand Grangier’s office, facing him across his Empire desk.
“You and I are going to be partners,” Grangier informed her.
Tracy started to rise. “I don’t need a partner and—”
“Sit down.”
She looked into Grangier’s eyes and sat down.
“Biarritz is my town. You try to pass a single one of those bills and you’ll get arrested so fast you won’t know what hit you. Comprenez-vous? Bad things happen to pretty ladies in our jails. You can’t make a move here without me.”
She studied him. “So what I’m buying from you is protection?”
“Wrong. What you’re buying from me is your life.”
Tracy believed him.
“Now, tell me where you got your printing press.”
Tracy hesitated, and Grangier enjoyed her squirming. He watched her surrender.
She said reluctantly, “I bought it from an American living in Switzerland. He was an engraver with the U.S. Mint for twenty-five years, and when they retired him there was some technical problem about his pension and he never received it. He felt cheated and decided to get even, so he smuggled out some hundred-dollar plates that were supposed to have been destroyed and used his contacts to get the paper that the Treasury Department prints its money on.”