Larry Woolford shifted in his chair. “So what are you building up to?”
Steve Hackett rubbed the end of his pug nose with a forefinger in quick irritation. “Like I say, that's standard counterfeit procedure. We're all set up to meet it, and do a pretty good job. Where we have our difficulties is with amateurs.”
Woolford scowled at him.
Hackett said, “Some guy who makes and passes it himself, for instance. He's unknown to the stool pigeons, has no criminal record, does up comparatively small amounts and dribbles his product onto the market over a period of time. We had one old devil up in New York once who actually drew one dollar bills. He was a tremendous artist. It took us years to get him.”
Larry Woolford said, “Well, why go into all this? We're hardly dealing with amateurs now.”
Steve looked at him. “That's the trouble. We are.”
“Are you batty? Not even your own experts can tell this product from real money.”
“I didn't say it was being made by amateurs. It's being pushed by amateurs—or maybe amateur is the better word.”
“How do you know?”
“For one thing, most professionals won't touch anything bigger than a twenty. Tens are better, fives better still. When you pass a fifty, the person you give it to is apt to remember [pg 012] where he got it.” Steve Hackett said slowly, “Particularly if you give one as a tip to the maître d'hôtel in a first-class restaurant. A maître d' holds his job on the strength of his ability to remember faces and names.”