unimpressive, entirely forgettable, but had proven himself to be extremely cunning, courageous, and resourceful. Longarm did not like to take orders from anyone, but he considered Billy a friend and so that made things a good deal easier all the way around. Having himself been in the field, Billy understood the problems of the deputy marshals who worked under his supervision and he would vigorously defend them when they occasionally fouled up.
“Well, Custis,” Billy said, leaning back in his chair. “We have a little problem over at the Denver mint.”
“A little problem?” Longarm challenged.
“Hell, Billy, tell him the truth. We have a big, big problem!” the governor exclaimed. “A million-dollar problem!”
Longarm’s eyebrows shot up. “A million dollars?”
“If we’re lucky,” the governor of Colorado said, looking slightly pale. “You see-“
“Perhaps it would be better if I explained,” Commissioner Hall interrupted. “I have just learned a few more details within the last hour.”
“Of course. You explain,” the governor said.
Hall ran his hand across his eyes, and Longarm guessed that despite the commissioner’s calm demeanor, he was a man under a great deal of pressure. “To begin with,” Hall said, “we had no idea that the old plates had been stolen, much less the paper, ink, and-“
“Whoa!” Longarm said. “What old plates and what paper and ink?”
“I’m sorry,” Hall said. “We received new plates, ink, and instructions from Washington, D.C. to begin printing a slightly different hundred-dollar bill at our Denver mint. The new currency was going to make it even more difficult for counterfeiters. The changes in the new hundred-dollar bills are readily evident only to the trained eye. We studied them carefully and followed the Treasury Department’s instructions—to the letter.”
“I’m sure you did, Commissioner,” the governor said with a perfunctory air, “but how your people could be so lax about the old plates defies all understanding.”
“We weren’t lax!” Commissioner Hall lowered his voice and dragged his handkerchief out to dab at his haggard face. “We weren’t lax. All the standard procedures were taken to insure that the old plates and inks were catalogued and destroyed.”
Governor Ganzel, an immense figure prone to hysterics, jumped to his feet and cried, “But they weren’t, dammit!”
Billy Vail also came to his feet. “Gentlemen, there is no use crying over spilled milk. It is obvious that the plates were not all destroyed and now we have to find out who took them and who is using them.”
“How,” Longarm said, still not sure he understood exactly what the problem was, “do you know that they weren’t all completely destroyed?”
“Very simple,” Billy said, reaching into his desk drawer and drawing out a bundle of crisp new one-hundred- dollar bills. “These were deposited at the Great Northern Bank of Cheyenne four days ago. They are the discontinued currencies using the obsolete plates.”
“How-“
“Without training, the only way you’d know they were illegal are by the serial numbers,” Billy explained. “Their sequence has been discontinued. We have, in effect, someone out there who has taken it upon himself to become a second United States Treasury. His highly mobile mint deals in nothing but hundred-dollar bills.”
“Thank God it wasn’t a plate for thousand-dollar bills,” Governor Ganzel said glumly.
“They would have been far, far too conspicuous,” the commissioner interjected. “We’d have nailed the counterfeiter right away. Thousand and five-hundred-dollar bills attract a lot of attention.”
“That’s probably true,” the governor said. “But hundred-dollar bills are quite common, even among the riffraff and your ordinary gamblers.”
Longarm came to his feet and crossed the room to stand before Billy’s desk. “May I see those bills, please?”
“Sure,” Vail said, handing them over to him. “There are an even hundred in that stack. Ten thousand dollars.”
Longarm whistled softly as he hefted the crisp new bundle. “I’ve never held that much cash all at once.”
“They are supposed to be worthless. Illegal,” Commissioner Hall said with annoyance. “But … unless you know the discontinued serial numbers or have a trained eye, those bills cannot be distinguished from all the millions of dollars in previous hundreds that have already been issued.”
“Then you’d better get a list of serial numbers out right away,” Longarm said, “because I know that I could sure spend this bundle in a hurry.”
“Of course you could,” the commissioner sighed. “And because it was our blunder, anyone accepting that currency would have every reason to expect that it is legitimate. They could, we are quite sure, sue both the federal government and the state of Colorado for damages and reimbursement.”
“It could bankrupt Colorado,” Governor Ganzel whispered.
“It could bankrupt the feds too,” Commissioner Hall assured them. “I can tell you this much—a special secret service courier is being rushed to Washington, D.C., this very moment to advise our President of this mess. And unless I am very much mistaken, he is going to hit the ceiling. When that happens, we must have the thieves and those outdated hundred-dollar plates back in our possession.”
Hall looked around at them, his eyes settling on Longarm. “You were recommended for the job. Can you do it?”
“Well,” he answered, hearing the first blast of the whistle announcing the Boston train’s departure, “I’m better at just going after your ordinary murderer or-“
