The Ross Forgery

by William H Hallahan

  Townsend read the student’s opening sentence.

  Robert Louis Stevenson probably never saw a film. He may have never seen a motion picture camera. Yet he exhibits a camera sense and a cinematographic appreciation for point of view that rivals the best film directors today. A good illustration is his famous short story, “A Lodging for the Night.”

  Townsend reached up on a bookshelf and brought down An Encyclopedia of Victorian Prose and Poetry. And he turned to the biography of Stevenson, Robert Louis. Born in Scotland in 1850. Died in Samoa, 1894. Publication history:—Townsend searched out “A Lodging for the Night”—first published in a collection of now-famous short stories under the title The New Arabian Nights, in 1882. “A Lodging” was not known to have been pre-published separately.

  Townsend scratched his chin. He’d just selected Tommy Wise’s last forgery.

  13

  The clock pointed to exactly 7 P.M. when Townsend opened the microwave oven. He selected another sample and made up a slide from a slice of it. He studied the specimen under his microscope. Then he held the rest of the sample up to the mercury vapor lamp. Then he returned to the microscope and studied the specimen again.

  Wearily, he sat back and scowled at the microscope. Then he reached for the telephone.

  14

  7:15. No Townsend. No news.

  Absurd. Ross’s future was baking away in a microwave oven in an apartment. Madness. One hundred grand in his pockets, if only the damned ink would play nice and dry up.

  Ross prowled his shop while name after name, town after town, and state after state paraded from the phototypographic machines. Monarch Farm Tire Dealers From Coast to Coast Are Ready to Serve You—There’s One in Your Town.

  Blue Earth, Minnesota. Ross shook his head. Did he have anything to say to anyone in Blue Earth, Minnesota? Would they look on the forgery and laugh, even at a hundred thousand dollars? Bible pounders? Or a group of Thomas Long Picketts? Not a typeface lover in the lot. East Jesus, Texas.

  He prowled. And stopped.

  The phone.

  “Hello.”

  “Ed? It’s Mike.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We got a winner.”

  “Yeah? For real? A winner? Jesus God. Really? What was it? The microwave oven?”

  “Yes. It’s fantastic. Can’t tell it from the real thing.”

  “Great. Great! I want to see it. I’ll be right over. I’ll buy you the biggest beer in New York.”

  “Is that a reward or a punishment?”

  15

  By nine o’clock, the wind had driven people off the streets. It rolled out of the southwest at more than twenty knots, driving flotillas of broken clouds across the night sky of the city.

  The wind imparted the same careering sense as an old railroad train, banging and rocking rhythmically. It sprinted madly through the canyons of the city, sighed forlornly at the metal stripping of eaves, cried at windows, and shook buildings with gusto.

  It pried out everything loose in the city and ran away with it.

  Inside Michael Townsend’s dark apartment, the wind sounded like surf, like great combers that make up far offshore and roll implacably shoreward to bash heavily down on the beach.

  Then it returned to mumble madly at Townsend’s desk window. Herald of the vernal equinox.

  The sound at Townsend’s door was faint. A scraping, barely audible over the wind’s noise. It sounded again, followed by a sharp snap.

  And the door opened into the dark apartment.

  A square of hall light lay on Townsend’s rug. Two feet stepped across the sill and stood just inside the doorway. The door was shut softly. The feet stepped farther into the darkness and waited. They crossed to the bedroom door and paused. They went into the bedroom and looked into the bathroom, then returned to the living room.

  A flashlight was turned on, and the figure approached Townsend’s desk. The light shone on the microscope specimen slides: 3pm. 4pm. 5pm. 6pm. 7pm. Then it illuminated the mercury vapor lamp, prowled up and down the stand and the light cord, turned to the microwave oven, and turned back to Townsend’s desk. A hand opened the drawer, and the light studied the interior. The light played along the bookshelves from floor to ceiling, flowed along the closed louvered doors of the pullman kitchen. Crouching, the figure opened the box containing the Dodgson pamphlets. A hand took one of the pamphlets. The flashlight next returned to Townsend’s desk and conned the slides again.

  The flashlight went out, and the two feet crossed the room to the door, opened it, and exited. The door shut.

  A moment later, the lock clicked back into position.

  The wind muttered at the window, and Henry Fielding mewed from under the bed.

  16

  Ross’s shop was dark. Outside somewhere, a sign screed and cried rhythmically in the pouncing wind. The wind had the city rocking and sighing and banging to its own incessant rhythm, like a mad one-man band. It pressed against the shop door heavily and seethed along the shop windows.

  A sharp tap sounded at the side window. A sharp tap, then two. Then a rap, and glass shattered. Wind poured into the shop as a window was raised. Papers rose and skimmed about the room. Motes of dust from old type boxes elevated. The wind spun like a dervish, then slowed as the window shut.

  A heavy draft remained, fed by the broken pane of the window.

  The two feet crossed Ross’s shop to the phototypesetting machines, skeletal and filigreed in the faint street light. They crossed to the stairs and paused. The apartment above was dark. They came to the other side of the shop and stopped. Abruptly. The light under the darkroom door showed clearly. The feet waited. And waited still longer.

  At last, they moved. Lightly. Carefully. Toward the door. The figure pressed up against the door. Then it stepped back. A hand reached out and turned the knob. Slowly, with infinite patience, it opened the door. Like the rising sun, light oozed out, casting rays on the ceiling and side walls.

  The figure peered into the room through the door crack, then opened the door broadly.

  Light from the lighttable.

  The figure studied the eighteen-inch sheets of film that lay about on the lighttable, each with a photographic reproduction of an alphabet letter.

  The hands picked up the photographs of the pages from Sonnets from the Portuguese. They returned to the transparent sheets containing the letters.

  The door was shut again and the light locked in again, except for the fan of it at the foot of the door.

  The figure prowled. For fifteen minutes, using the flashlight, it prowled among type drawers, chases, quoins, sticks, hell-boxes, blocked engravings, order forms, sheaves of manuscript paper with straight pins binding them. The two phototypesetting machines were examined, the blueprint machine, the typewriters, the file drawers and the desk drawers. In one drawer, the figure found a packet of gum and took a stick.

  The figure walked to the foot of the stairs and looked up once more, then crossed to the window. The gale entered again as the window was raised, and stopped just as suddenly when the window was pulled shut.

  A heavy draft poured through the broken pane, chilling the entire building. Small balls of dust were blown past the fan of light at the foot of the darkroom door.

  17

  The figure moved down the alley, trying to stay out of the light as it stepped along the uneven cobblestones. At the main street, it turned and walked to the left down the sidewalk toward a car. The figure pulled up the collar of its coat. The wind raised the tails of the coat and drove soot down into the collar. Short hair on the hatless head was raised and fluttered in the wind.

  The figure took out a key and unlocked the door of the car. It slid into the driver’s seat and probed with the key for the ignition keyhole.

  Then it paused.

  A hand pressed a gun against the back of the figure’s head.

  “OK. Don’t turn around. Just drive. I’ll tell you where.”

  18

  The Dober
man led the pack along the embankment in the moonless night, past the rear of the motel and up on the tracks of the switching area. The wind was strong up here and drove from the rear up under his coat, disturbing the warm air that lay trapped in his short hair. The wind whistled forlornly in the cinder bed.

  The Doberman hurried across the tracks and led the pack to the lee of some railroad cars. Here he stopped. The site of the crap game was dark.

  He turned his head to one side, cocking an ear, trying to hear beyond the many noises of the wind. He listened carefully and heard it.

  At the railroad siding of the building, down at the base of the loading platform, he heard the chattering squeaks of feeding rats.

  The pack spread out on both sides of the Doberman, and they began to creep softly toward the loading platform in practiced fashion.

  19

  The headlights of the police car lit up the turbulent, wind-ruffled river water that flowed past the pier’s end. It also lit up a huge area of a ship tied up at the pier.

  The policeman stood at the end of the pier with a small flashlight, shining it down into the water. The water looked cold and impenetrable.

  “You’ll never see a thing with that,” said the seaman. “It’s too deep here.”

  The policeman turned to him. “Let’s do it again.”

  The seaman shrugged and turned to another seaman. He spoke to him in Swedish, and the second seaman answered in Swedish.

  “OK,” said the first seaman. “He says what he said the first time. A car drove out of the shed here, right where your car is. It crossed the dock here and drove off the end of the pier.”

  “What else?”

  The first seaman shrugged and spoke in Swedish again. He listened to the other seaman, then turned back to the policeman. “He was up there. On the fantail. Cold as hell in the wind. He was moving some stuff up there from the paint locker. He saw the headlights inside the building. Then the car drove out and fell into the river.”

  The Swedish seaman said some more.

  The seaman nodded. “He says the car windows were open, but he couldn’t tell if anyone was inside.”

  The policeman began to shiver in the bitter wind off the river. “OK, OK.” He walked back to the police car and got in, thankful for the heat. He picked up the speaker to the police radio and called in.

  SEVEN

  1

  Softly on the thick carpeting, the maitre d’ led Edgar Ross across the sun-filled dining room, past clusters of club members who sat at breakfast, conversing in modulated murmurs while idly reading their newspapers. The starched tablecloths were brilliantly white in morning sunlight.

  Emmett O’Kane sat at his favorite table in front of a large window. At his left hand sat Ellery Service, with a pot of tea and a pot of Scottish marmalade for his toast.

  Outside the window, the huge American flag lopped heavily in the wind, causing the flagstaff to quiver slightly. Broad cloud-shadows raced across the face of the building opposite.

  O’Kane saw him coming. “Ah. Welcome.” He didn’t rise. He indicated a chair on his right. “Please sit down, Mr. Ross. You have already met Mr. Service.”

  Ross sat, nodding at the solemn face of Ellery Service. “Yes.”

  Service smiled—just barely—and inclined his head.

  Ross looked at the unwavering brown eyes that looked back at him from under craggy red eyebrows. Service’s double-breasted chalk-striped club suit was painfully, flawlessly tailored. Savile Row. Impeccable. Ross watched him pick up a piece of toast in his huge freckled hand, dab a mound of marmalade on it, and place it in his mouth. Service chewed methodically, calmly, still watching Ross.

  He swallowed, and the powerful jaw muscles rested.

  Ross looked at O’Kane. O’Kane, with watching eyes, waited. Before him was a bowl with the remains of his morning oatmeal.

  Ross watched the waiter pour coffee into his cup.

  “Well,” said O’Kane, glancing abruptly at Ross. “What do you think?”

  Ross sensed it. Smelled it. Felt it. Eagerness. A ferocious desire. O’Kane wanted that Wise forgery more than anything else on the entire planet.

  Ross bobbed his head in an imperceptible shrug. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? Come on, Ross. You can do better than that. Give me something definite.”

  “How about a definite maybe?”

  O’Kane’s smile had something of the fox about it. “What’s that mean?”

  “I’m pretty sure we can deliver—I mean, I can deliver.”

  O’Kane nodded. “It’s OK, Ross. We know about Townsend.”

  Ross felt his face flush in anger. “You’ve been tracking me?”

  “Let’s cut the crap, Ross. I put a hundred grand on this table last week. If you don’t think I’m going to follow up with great attention, you’re a rank amateur. Service’s people made it their business to check up on at least the superficial activities of your life the past week.”

  Ross looked at Service, who was conning him, with a challenging expression, over a piece of toast.

  Ross’s mouth bunched in anger. “Then you must know what my answer is.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then what the hell did he bother for?”

  “Protecting my investment—”

  “Investment! What investment?”

  Emmett O’Kane took a long, slow look at Ross. “In all the businesses I have, Ross, I do not believe I have one artist. I can’t stand temperamental people. My investment is the one hundred thousand dollars I put on this table eight days ago.”

  “The only thing I saw on this table, O’Kane, was a bowl of Irish oatmeal. And that’s all I see today. And I want to tell you something, Service. If I catch you around my turf, I’ll run you right through a paper-shredding machine.”

  Ellery Service flicked an indifferent eyebrow and slowly wiped his hands together. “Indeed? And what about your other little shadow who has been following you night and day!”

  “Who’s that?”

  “A Mr. Arthur Tank.”

  “Tank?”

  “Yes. I believe you owe his employer, Mr. Moose, five thousand dollars.”

  Ross sat back and inhaled deeply. “I’ve been leading a whole parade, eh? Ain’t that grand?”

  “Come on, Ross,” said O’Kane. “Let’s put the hard feelings away. Deliver it, and I’ll pay one hundred thousand, as agreed.”

  Ross sat thinking. His eyes went from Emmett O’Kane to Ellery Service, then back to O’Kane.

  “I work in private. I don’t want any witnesses to be able to blow the whistle on me later. You got me? Get him and his gang off my neck and keep them off.”

  “What about Mr. Tank!” asked Service. “Has it occurred to you that we don’t want him as an observer?”

  “Tank is a slopeheaded nosepicker. He’s not very bright. He does what he’s told, and he’s tagging me because Moose doesn’t want me to skip before I lay five grand on him. Tank wouldn’t know what I’m doing even if I gave him a detailed set of plans. If you want this Wise pamphlet, don’t crowd me.”

  Ellery Service emitted a barely perceptible snort and remained silent. He directed a sidelong jaundiced gaze at Emmett O’Kane.

  O’Kane pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I need to know if Pickett’s people are on to you. And if they are, you’ll need protection, I assure you. This bickering is silly. I want to know whether you can deliver or not.”

  “Yes. I can deliver.”

  “Your paper flunked the test in a Newark laboratory.”

  “That was the first sample.”

  “I’m talking about the paper you got from the book publisher in Philadelphia.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. That was the first sample.”

  “You mean you have other paper?”

  “I mean I have authentic paper, blank, cream wove book-style, with no watermark, made in England in the year 1886 —ready for printing.”

  O’Kane was impress
ed. He nodded while studying Ross’s face. “OK. What about the typeface?”

  “I’m making it now.”

  “Making it.”

  “I’m duplicating a type face that Wise used. You want to know the name of it?”

  O’Kane shook his head. “Ink?”

  “The ink will pass all chemical and spectroscopic tests.” “What author are you going to use?”

  “One of Wise’s favorites. Robert Louis Stevenson.”

  “Oh.” O’Kane nodded happily. “Not Treasure Island?”

  “‘A Lodging for the Night.’ Treasure Island is too long.”

  “Oh.” O’Kane looked at Ross. “I read Treasure Island. What’s ‘A Lodging for the Night’?”

  “Villon,” said Service.

  “Ha?” demanded O’Kane.

  “Villon. François Villon, the medieval French poet. He gets caught in a blizzard in Paris and goes looking for a warm bed.”

  “Oh.” O’Kane smiled. “Did he get it?”

  “Something like it,” answered Service dryly. “It all fits.”

  “What fits?” demanded Ross.

  Service shrugged. “That man you’re using—Townsend—is considered a brilliant comer in his field. This must be duck soup for him. He’s probably smarter than Aldridge.”

  “Who the hell is Aldridge?”

  O’Kane sighed. “He’s one of the three experts who will pass on the authenticity of the pamphlet.”

  “Experts?”

  O’Kane sprung a forefinger at him like a pistol. “Look. Don’t plead surprise. You know this piece has to have impeccable credentials, or that Texas plowboy will never fall for it.”

  “Pickett,” murmured Ross.

  “Pickett,” echoed O’Kane. “I see you read the news magazines.” His face tightened. “I want that bastard on his knees. I want him ready to kill.”

  “Why don’t you steal his favorite locomotive?” asked Ross.

  O’Kane didn’t smile. He drew a deep breath. “Look, Ross. I know you’re a man who has no gods. Now, maybe you find it easy to laugh at this whole thing, but let me explain a few points to you. This world of corporate competition is just another sport. It has its bush league and its major leagues. And after a while you get to know the players. This one bats lefty and hits bad balls. This one bats cross-handed. This one stands at the plate with one foot in a bucket and is guaranteed to bail out on a jughandle curve. Every corporate executive has his idiosyncrasies. But there’s a bunch of unwritten rules.”