The Moneychangers

Juanita rode in an FBI car with Innes and Wainwright.

Wainwright drove, leaving Innes free to work two radios a portable unit, one of five supplied by the FBI, which could communicate directly with the other cars, and a regular transmitter-receiver linked directly to FBI Headquarters.

Beforehand, under the city police lieutenant’s direction, they had sectored the area and five cars were now crisscrossing it. Two were FBI, one Secret Service, and two from the city.

The personnel had split up. Jordan and Dalrymple were each riding with a city detective, filling in details for the newcomers as they drove. If necessary, other patrols of the city force would be called for backup. One thing they were all sure of:

Where Juanita had been held was the counterfeit center. Her general description and some details she had noticed made it close to a certainty.

Therefore, instructions to all special units were the same: Look for, and report, any unusual activity which might relate to an organized crime center specializing in counterfeiting. All concerned conceded the instructions were vague, but no one had been able to come up with anything more specific. As Innes put it:

"What else have we got?" Juanita sat in the rear seat of the FBI car.

It was almost two hours since she and lasted had been set down abruptly, ordered to face away, and the dark green Ford had sped off with a screech of burned rubber.

Since then Juanita had refused treatment other than immediate first aid for her badly bruised and cut face, and the cuts and lacerations on her legs.

She was aware that she looked a mess, her clothing stained and torn, but knew too that if Miles was to be reached in time to save him, everything else must wait, even her own attention to Estela, who had been taken to a hospital for treatment of her burn and for observation.

While Juanita did what she had to, Margot Bracken who arrived at the precinct home shortly after Wainwright and the FBI was comforting Estela. It was now midafternoon. Earlier, getting the sequence of her journey down on paper, clearing her mind as if purging an overburdened message center, had exhausted Juanita.

Yet, afterward, she had responded to what seemed endless questioning by the FBI and Secret Service men who kept on probing for the smallest details of her experience in the hope that some unconsidered fragment might bring them closer to what they wanted most a specific locale.

So far nothing had. But it was not details Juanita thought about now, seated behind Wainwright and Innes, but Miles as she had last seen him.

The picture remained etched with guilt and anguish sharply on her mind. She doubted it would ever wholly disappear. The question haunted her: If the counterfeit center were discovered, would it be too late to save Miles?

Was it already too late? The area within the circle Agent Jordan had drawn located near the city’s eastern edge was mixed in character. In part, it was commercial, with some factories, warehouses, and a large industrial tract devoted to light industry. This last, the most likely area, was the segment to which the patrolling forces were paying most attention.

There were several shopping areas. The rest was residential, running the gamut from regiments of box bungalows to a clutch of sizable mansion-type dwellings.

To the eyes of the dozen roving searchers, who cam, municated frequently through the portable radios, activity everywhere was average and routine. Even a few out-ofthe-ordinary happenings had commonplace overtones.

In one of the shopping districts a man buying a painter’s safety harness had tripped over it and broken a leg. Not far away a car with a stuck accelerator had crashed into an empty theater lobby.

"Maybe someone thought it was a drive-in movie," Innes said, but no one laughed. In the industrial tract the fire department responded to a small plant blaze and quickly put it out.

The plant was making waterbeds; one of the city detectives inspected it to be sure. At a residential mansion a charity tea was beginning.

At another, an Alliance Van Lines tractor-trailer was loading household furniture. Over amid the bungalows a repair crew was coping with a leaky water main.

Two neighbors had quarreled and were fistfighting on the sidewallc. Secret Service Agent Jordan got out and separated them. And so on.

For an hour. At the end of it, they were no further ahead than when they started. "I’ve a funny feeling," Wainwright said.

"A feeling I used to get in police work sometimes when I’d missed something." Innes glanced sideways. "I know what you mean.

You get to believe there’s something right under your nose if you could only see it." "Juanita," Wainwright said over his shoulder, "is there anything, any little thing you haven’t told usI" She said firmly, "I told you everything." "Then let’s go over it again." After a while Wainwright said, "Around the time Eastin stopped crying out, and while you were still bound, you told us something about there being a lot of noise." She corrected him, "No, una conmocion. Noise and acttivity. I could hear people moving, things being shifted, drawers opening and dosing, that sort of thing."

"Maybe they were searching for something," Innes suggested. "But what?" "When you were on the way out," Wainwright asked, "did you get any idea what the activity was about?" "for ultima vez, yo no se." Juanita shook her head.

"I told you I was too shocked at seeing Miles to see anything else." She hesitated. "Well, there were those men in the garage moving that funny furniture."

"Yes," Innes said. "You told us about that. It’s odd, all right, but we haven’t thought of an explanation for it." "Wait a minutel Maybe there is one."

Innes and Juanita looked at Wainwright. He was frowning. He appeared to be concentrating, working something out. "That activity Juanita heard…

Supposing they weren’t searching for something but were packing up, preparing to move?"

"Could be," Innes acknowledged. "But what they’d be moving would be machinery.

Printing machines, supplies. Not furniture." "Unless,’, Wainwright said, "the furniture was a cover. Hollow furniture."

They stared at each other. The answer hit them both at the same time. "For God’s sake," Innes shouted. "That moving vanl" Wainwright was already reversing the car, spinning the wheel hard in a tight, fast turn. Innes seized the portable radio. He transmitted tensely,

"Strongthrust group leader to all special units. Converge on large gray house, stands back near east end Earlham Avenue.

Look for Alliance Van Lines moving van. Halt and detain occupants. City limits call in ad cars in vicinity. Code 10-13." Code 10-13 meant: Maximum speed, wide open, lights and siren. Innes switched on their own siren. Wainwright put his foot down hard. "Christ!" Innes said; he sounded close to tears. "We went by it twice. And last time they were almost loaded."

***

"When you leave here," Marino instructed the driver of the tractor-semi, "head for the West Coast. Take it easy, do everything the way you would with a regular load, and rest up every night. But keep in touch, you know where to call.

And if you don’t get fresh orders on the way, you’ll get them in L.A." "Okay, Mr. Marino,"

the driver said.

He was a reliable foe who knew the score, also that he would get a kingsized bonus for the personal risk he was running.

But he had done the same thing other times before, when Tony Bear had kept the counterfeit center equipment on the road and out of harm’s way, moving it around the country like a floating crap game until any heat was off.

"Well then," the driver said, "everything’s loaded. I guess I’ll roll. So long, Mr. Marino."

Tony Bear nodded, feeling relief. He had been unusually antsy during the packing and loading operation, a feeling which had kept him here, overseeing and keeping the pressure on, though he knew he was being un-smart to stay.

Normally he kept safely distant from the working front line of any of his operations, making sure there was no evidence to connect him in the event that something fouled up.

Others were paid to take those kinds of risks and raps if necessary.

The thing was, though, the counterfeit caper, starting as chickenshit, had become such a big-time moneymaker in the real sense that from once having been the least of his interests, it was now near the top of the list. Good organization had made it that way; that and taking uItra-precautions a description Tony Bear liked such as moving out now.