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  COUNTERFEIT

  a Mitchell Adams novel

  Scott L. Miller

  Blank Slate Press

  Saint Louis, MO 63110

  Publisher’s Note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

  places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual events, locations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 Scott L. Miller All rights reserved.

  www.scottlmillerbooks.com

  For information, contact

  Layla Dog Press at 3963 Flora Place, Saint Louis, MO 63110.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Cover Design by Kristina Blank Makansi

  Ebook ISBN: 9780985007195

  Table of Contents

  COUNTERFEIT

  BOOK ONE chapter 1

  chapter 2

  chapter 3

  chapter 4

  chapter 5

  chapter 6

  chapter 7

  BOOK TWO chapter 8

  chapter 9

  chapter 10

  chapter 11

  chapter 12

  chapter 13

  chapter 14

  chapter 15

  chapter 16

  chapter 17

  chapter 18

  chapter 19

  chapter 20

  chapter 21

  chapter 22

  chapter 23

  chapter 24

  chapter 25

  chapter 26

  BOOK THREE chapter 27

  chapter 28

  chapter 29

  chapter 30

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To Beta for saving me.

  To Virginia for raising me.

  I love you more.

  BOOK ONE

  THE CALL

  The American Dream is, in part, responsible for a great deal

  of crime and violence because people feel that the country

  owes them not only a living but a good living.

  ~ David Abrahamsen, criminal psychiatrist

  chapter one

  a royal cluster fuck

  I fumbled in the dark for the phone, fighting the knee-jerk fear that something terrible had happened to someone I care about. Again.

  I picked up on the first ring and said, “What? Do you know what time it is?”

  A pause, then: “Almos’ midnight, Cool Breeze.”

  I recognized that baritone immediately, and my body went rigid. “You better be suicidal.”

  “Not in this lifetime. Sorry for the late call. Easy to lose track of time when you’re on a stakeout. I have a favor to ask. I’ll call back in the mornin’—when your head’s clear.”

  “I’m busy in the—” I said as the line went dead in my hand.

  How times change.

  And how tragedy marks us.

  The baritone belonged to JoJo Baker, a towering, bald black man with bulging biceps and a nasty scar that serpentined around his left eye and ended well past his cauliflower ear. For months he’d been a major player in some of my worst nightmares, but since I rarely slept these days, he didn’t haunt me anymore. Now, his voice brought back memories best left buried.

  I imagined Baker parked strategically on some dark street, hunkered down in the front seat of his battered, souped-up, black ’95 Fleetwood, eating Power bars and drinking stale coffee, enjoying an old Marvin Gaye song with the volume turned low, leafing through the latest Ring magazine, a pee jar at his side and the back seat littered with trash while he stalked his latest homicide suspect. At least he’s not trying to imprison me for murder this year.

  Baker belongs to the night. Me, I wonder if I belong anywhere.

  My instinct was to forget about the call, forget about Baker, pull the covers over my head, and go back to pretending to sleep, pretending to not think about Kris.

  But she’s like gazing at a star. Does her light still exist? When I can’t sleep that light seems more real than anything. When I’m at the Missouri Botanical Garden, too. That’s when I feel the hole in me. I loved her so much … and miss her more.

  But Baker is very much alive and has a way of getting under your skin, so I got up and checked the front door locks and glass for signs of illegal entry before I returned to bed. No glass on the landing; this time the break-in was internal.

  $ $ $

  My morning began with an on-line therapy session with a depressed Trans-Alaska pipeline oil rigger living above the Arctic Circle. The feeling of aloneness in the Land of the Midnight Sun can wreak its own brand of havoc on someone prone to depression and stuck in an isolated town named Deadhorse. With the nearest licensed clinical social worker or psychologist or psychiatrist or counselor by any name besides bartender hundreds of miles from his remote outpost, and winter travel difficult under good conditions, a webcam and good Internet connection can do a man down on life a world of good.

  I can still do what I was born to do: help others. It just needs to be on a day when I’m less riddled with holes and not feeling like such a lost soul. And if the person who needs my help is thousands of miles away, so much the better….

  I logged off from the session and sipped a glass of juice, sitting in my leather chair, staring, like I do every day, out the same floor-to-ceiling windows of my ninth-floor Clayton office. Nice view. The same chair I was tied to by the man who murdered my girlfriend last year, the same windows he planned to throw me out of, when my private line rang.

  Should I move offices? I tell clients they bring their problems with them like so much extra baggage when they relocate. Same unresolved internal issues, different address.

  Thinking how much it would cost to move, I realized something kept nagging at me.

  Oh yeah, the ringing phone.

  “Mitchell Adams,” I answered.

  “How they hangin’, Cool Breeze?” I could hear the smooth, bluesy sound of the Robert Cray band in the background as the goose flesh crawled up my arms right on cue. I flashed back to Kris lying on a slab in the city morgue on Clark Avenue.

  So much for the dawn of a new day.

  “How are you, Detective Baker?” I answered, fighting to keep my voice calm. “It’s been a long time.” But not long enough.

  Like a bad dream Mutt and Jeff tag team, Baker was the larger-than-life detective with the city of St. Louis who, along with his diminutive partner Detective Francis LeMaster, had dutifully followed the planted evidence last year to make me the fall guy for Kris's murder.

  “Look, there’s a little brother in city lock-up could use someone to talk to before he goes ape shit and offs himself.” Baker’s hushed tone was edged with an odd trace of anguish, like it physically pained him to say the words. “He needs good psych care. I know you the man for the job.”

  My pause lapsed into an awkward silence.

  “If you got the time,” Baker said, even softer now.

  “What’d he do?”

  Baker exhaled deeply and turned off the music. He must have been driving with the windows down, for now I heard car engines and other traffic sounds in the background. I imagined the wheels turning in his big shiny head while he decided on a tactic, his trademark toothpick rolling briskly in his mouth under the Fu Manchu mustache. I could see him in his favorite parrot-green sports coat, those massive biceps stretching the sleeves. On the surface Baker appeared to be a throwback to the seventies, but he was the most street-savvy person I’ve ever met.

  “He accused of counterfeitin’, armed robbery, and shootin’ a pregnant security guard in the stomach.”

  I closed my eyes. “Did he do it?”

  “Oh, he a big-time forger, all right
. May be the best ever was. As for the rest, I’ll let you decide. Looks bad for the little brother though, with the City Chief Prosecuting Attorney hisself descendin’ Mount Olympus to take on the case.”

  The silence stretched and I sensed uneasiness on the other end of the line. This case seemed personal.

  “I knew him when we was in school,” Baker admitted, as if reading my thoughts. “But that was a long time ago. The brother ain’t never had a break in life, and now this shit happens. He won’t adjust well to prison life; he's already talkin' suicide. If anyone can help him now, it’d be you.”

  “The City Chief Prosecutor,” I said, “will make this case a political football. A full media circus. Racial overtones. The works.”

  “Uh-huh,” Baker said. “A royal cluster fuck.” He paused a beat. “Right up your alley, my man.”

  I didn’t respond, and Baker sensed my reluctance. “He’ll be chained to the interview table, legs and hands shackled, man. This boy, he the runt of the litter. Disabled to boot. A guy like you, you—”

  “What’s his disability?” I cut in.

  Another pause. “You’ll know it when you see him.”

  Ever since Kris's rape and murder, fear and dread tended to lodge in my throat at the merest provocation. Situations I once would have handled with aplomb now made me freeze like a rabbit in the headlights. As a result I’d gone into self-imposed hibernation, seeing only safe clients—uncomplicated depressives and those with anxiety disorders—and helping good, decent people face the everyday stresses of modern life. My current practice was full of social phobia clients: a successful businessman with OCD, the disease of doubt, who compulsively checks under his car every time it hits a bump, fearful he’s caused harm to others by accident; West County housewives with agoraphobia, bathroom, germ or other social phobias; and professionals whose careers were cratering because they were afraid of flying or traveling over bridges.

  There was nothing wrong with limiting my schedule to those patients, of course. But I did it because now I had my own social phobia—clients with hot-button issues like personality disorders, problems with authority, severe marital discord, physical or sexual abuse, and psychoses. These challenging cases used to be my forte; for the last year I referred them to other providers in the group.

  Since the early years spent nurturing and building the fledgling practice, I’d done quite well for myself. As clinical director, I receive income every time one of the eight other providers sees a client in the office. This success afforded me the financial freedom to lick my wounds and return to work at my own pace after Kris's murder. It also gave me an easy out to obsess over and nurture my own fears, including the fear that Detective Baker was buttering me up to take a no-win case that any other provider would decline in a nanosecond.

  As a rule, I take on a gratis client for roughly every nine paying ones. Along with giving blood, I consider it my “pay it forward” to society. Baker knew that. More important, he knew me. Yes, he’d known what he was doing from the beginning, the bastard.

  The familiar tightness in my chest returned.

  “Is there anything else about him you’re not telling me?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Listen, there was a time when I’d have been the man for the job … but not anymore. I’m sorry, Detective Baker, but I’m turning you down.”

  This time he let the silence drag, and I felt uncomfortable waiting for the call to end. Finally, he spoke. “Why you think I called you, Doc?” He didn’t wait for me to respond. “That poor little brother needs you or he gonna die. But you need him, too. Look in the mirror, you dumb motherfucker. Get your shit together ’fore it’s too late.”

  And with that, for the second time in less than twelve hours, Detective Baker hung up on me.

  chapter two

  fly on the wall

  Baker’s call behind me, I slogged through invoices, billed third-party payers, dictated progress notes, and then grabbed a quick lunch at a new Mexican dive down the street. Then, with no afternoon clients, I decided to head downtown to take care of a speeding ticket I’d forgotten to pay. Paying in person meant a stop at the DMV in City Hall, so I headed down Market Street until a traffic backup forced me to stop in the intersection.

  A cop stood in the center of the road, directing traffic with his whistle and orange baton like there was something big going on. I had the top down, so I leaned out and called to him.

  “What’s going on downtown today?” I asked.

  He blew his whistle and a line of cars stopped. He looked at me, considering whether he needed to answer. “Press conference. News trucks have the traffic backed up.”

  “Is it about the counterfeiter?”

  The surprised look that crossed his stubbly face was my answer. He blew the shrill whistle at me, then pointed his baton and ordered my line of cars to proceed through the intersection.

  In the rearview mirror, I saw a sleek black motorcade approaching, and before I had a chance to change my mind, I pulled over at the nearest open meter. I was here to pay the ticket anyway, I told myself. What could it hurt to cross the street, watch the press conference that I assumed would be at the federal or court building, and maybe learn a little about the case against Baker’s counterfeiter? Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

  It took no time to get the ticket taken care of and the news crews were still setting up, for some reason on the steps outside City Hall, so I headed for the men’s room. The tacos I’d had for lunch were already coming back, and I was afraid it wasn’t going to be a friendly visit.

  I was minding my own business in a corner stall when the door to the bathroom opened, and I heard the quick shuffle of footsteps followed by a metallic click. Who locks the door to a public men’s room?

  “What if it’s true?” I heard a man whisper under his breath. That grabbed my attention.

  Then a second man: “Not another word.”

  Somebody took a piss while the second set of hard soles scraped against the marble floor, striding down the row of stalls. All I could think of was the cute little Amish boy in the movie Witness. But with my pants around my ankles, and my tacos ready to return with a vengeance, I couldn’t stand and crouch on the toilet seat. Instead, I lifted my feet off the floor as high as possible and said a prayer of thanks for the tight fit between the stall door and side wall. For him to see me, he’d have to go to his knees and peek under my door, but if he tried to push open every stall door, well—he’d know they weren’t alone. But that didn’t happen.

  I never realized how good the acoustics were in old, high-ceilinged marble and tile bathrooms until now. Makes you think twice about taking care of business, but it helped me hear most of the exchange, minus certain snippets.

  The second man said, “Okay __________. Tell me what’s going on in that big brain of yours.”

  “Imagine the possibilities if they’re good.”

  “He’s lying. _____________. Besides, we’ll know soon enough. ________ is on our side.”

  “We already cut off the head. We can use______________. Think about what’s still out there.”

  Silence followed. Had they left? I hadn’t heard the click of the lock. I started to shift on the toilet seat and then my stomach protested, loudly. Shit—am I about to be dragged from the stall? Is there still Mafia in St. Louis?

  Then the second man: “Okay, I’m with you; what about___________ containment?” Voice rising, he was excited, damn near giddy.

  “I can handle my part. The big top is the key.”

  A silence, then the second man: “I know the right man and you know the right _______.”

  “Everyone has their price. Make it happen.”

  “You look perfect. Let’s go to work.”

  The latch clicked again, the door swung open, and I was mercifully alone, but covert talk of cutting off heads and containment and payoffs didn’t help my digestion. I waited for minutes in silence until someone entered, used a urinal, and
left.

  When I left the bathroom, a few people glanced my way but no one appeared to pay me special attention or follow.

  Most of the media were now in place and a small crowd had gathered outside for the conference. They stood or paced in front of the massive marble steps, casting sideways glances at the sleek motorcade double parked next to a fire hydrant.

  I watched heads turn as two men approached the podium flanked by two strapping young men in dark suits and darker sunglasses. Security. At the podium, a small man in his forties with short receding hair, intense eyes, and precise economical movements whispered nonstop to the other man. The smaller man peeled off, leaving the star of the show at the podium. He had a practiced, movie-star smile, a handsome face, short dirty blonde hair, and penetrating blue eyes that remained fixed on the portable cameras as if he were about to speak directly to me and everyone else in the world right then and there, like we were best friends. His broad shoulders filled his tailored suit to perfection and he had the square lantern jaw of a prizefighter. A light breeze blew, but his hair remained perfect, unmoved, as if earthly elements such as the weather didn’t affect him. He was so confident and polished, I almost expected to see a diamond sparkle of light flash from his pearly whites when he spoke.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to announce that a sophisticated and dangerous counterfeiting operation was shut down yesterday by our city police force. One arrest was made and a manhunt has begun for at least three other known associates. The man in custody is believed to be the gang’s primary counterfeiter and possibly their ringleader.

  “It was only through diligent and coordinated police work that this dangerous criminal was apprehended before his gang could contaminate our local economy with their counterfeit currency. During today’s initial appearance before Judge Springfield, I requested that the prisoner be charged and held without bond as I believe he presents a major flight risk and public danger. Today the judge ruled in my favor and bond was denied. The prisoner has been remanded to the custody of the US Marshals, pending his judicial hearings and trial. The Marshals have accepted my proposal to house the prisoner in our Gateway St. Louis City Jail until the trial. Our city police force is working in conjunction with local Secret Service agents, questioning this man in order to apprehend the others and insure that all the counterfeit monies will be recovered and destroyed. The damage their activities could have caused—both locally and nationally—was potentially immense, and there must be zero tolerance for such crimes against society. I will prosecute these men myself and seek the maximum sentence. Questions?”