The house was rented by a Mr. Greerson who was something of a man of mystery, according to his neighbors, but who was presumed to have operated an automobile repair business in the basement garage. Mr. Greerson had not appeared to make a statement at the time the paper went to press.
Shayne left the paper on the table and went out. It wasn’t yet time for the banks to open, so he stopped at the first men’s store he came to on Flagler Street. They had no suits in stock that would fit him, but he found a pair of gray slacks, a tan shirt, and underwear to replace the ill-fitting garments he had borrowed from the dead man. He changed in a back room, ordered the clothing he had removed to be sent to his apartment, and continued up the street to a shoe store where he was lucky enough to find a pair of shoes that fitted him. He gave the clerk his address and asked that the discarded shoes be delivered.
He came out of the store and went west on Flagler to the First National Bank. It had just opened and there were a few customers in the lobby. Shayne chose a teller who did not know him and offered the two hundred-dollar bills he had held out from the ransom money, shoving them across the counter and saying, “I’d like twenties and tens and fives.”
The teller was young and blonde and obliging. He smoothed the bills out, looked at first one and then the other, pushed them aside and began to count out two hundred dollars in smaller bills.
Shayne gave a start, as though he suddenly remembered something important. He said, apologetically, “I’m sorry, but I’ve changed my mind. Would you let me have those bills back?”
The teller stopped counting and looked through the bars with a frown. “You don’t want the bills changed?”
Shayne said again, “I’m sorry. I’ve changed my mind.”
The teller looked down at the sheaf of smaller bills he had been counting, studied Shayne suspiciously, then picked up the money he had counted. Slowly and carefully he counted it again, then handed Shayne the two large bills with a disapproving look.
Thanking him cheerfully, Shayne went back to a series of railed enclosures in the rear. He unlatched a wooden gate and went through it to a desk and said, “Hello, Marsten,” to the big florid-faced man sitting there.
Marsten looked up and said, “Morning, Shayne.” He pushed some papers aside and leaned back in his chair. “What can I do for you?”
Marsten was a former Treasury employee, one of the foremost experts on counterfeit money in the country. Shayne sat down and flipped the bills in front of him. “One of the tellers just offered me two hundred in small bills for those.”
Marsten picked up the bills and studied them thoughtfully. He turned them over in his hands, frowning, crinkling them and smoothing them out, testing the fabric of the paper.
After a time he sighed. “I’ve been expecting some of these to show up in Miami, but it’s a little early in the season.”
Shayne leaned back and lit a cigarette. “Counterfeit?”
“Absolutely. They’ve plagued us several years. They’re so nearly perfect they’ll get by anyone but an expert.”
“How do you know they’re counterfeit?”
Marsten smiled briefly at the detective. “Feel, mostly. Intuition. Call it what you will. The plates are perfect. The paper is so nearly perfect that extensive tests are required to prove it isn’t genuine. But these bills haven’t been in circulation, Mike. They’ve been rockered.”
“Rockered?”
“And a good job of it. But they’re not quite limp enough. Feel one.” He passed one of the bills to Shayne.
“It hasn’t passed through hundreds of sweaty hands, yet it has the appearance of having done so. Compare it with a genuine bill. The crispness has been rockered out of it, but no counterfeiter has yet invented a mechanical device that will produce exactly the same effect as that achieved by constant handling. Every smart counterfeiter uses some sort of device to dirty and rumple a newly printed bill. Those devices are called ‘rockers.’ They wad bills up, dampen them, roll them out smooth. Some of them use chemicals, to fade and soil a bill. The gang that puts this stuff out does one of the best jobs I’ve ever seen. That’s why one of our tellers would have accepted it.”
“You know this stuff then?”
“Every Treasury agent in the country knows it by sight. I didn’t recognize it at once, because I was surprised to have it turn up in Miami right now. It isn’t due here for at least two months.”
Shayne took a deep breath and said, “Keep on talking.”
“These hundred-dollar bills first appeared a few years ago in New York. When the black market was at its height and big deals were being handled on a cash basis to avoid detection. New York banks were flooded with the stuff for about a month.
“Then the flow stopped abruptly. At least three hundred thousand was passed in the New York area during that period. But by the time it was recognized and all the banks were alerted, the gang folded their tents and closed up business. Not another bill turned up until after the Kentucky Derby was run that year. There was plenty of loose money and heavy betting on the Derby, and another hundred grand of the stuff was thrown into circulation there before we realized it.
“They’re devilishly smart. They waited a year before hitting Southern California with another two hundred thousand. That’s why I expected the stuff here this winter. But not until the season was well along. They’re getting careless if they’ve started passing it so early.”
Marsten paused, glancing at Shayne who was worrying his ear lobe with thumb and forefinger. “Do you mind telling me where you picked these up?”
Shayne waived the question. “Tell me how they work it to get so much out so fast.”
“They have it planned very carefully,” Marsten told him. “They select the time and the spot-a place where there’s some sort of a boom with big money rolling. They line up as many contacts as possible and place the stuff in readiness to go. Gambling houses are good bets, and bookie joints-any place that handles big money and can get rid of bills this size without too much trouble. They all let go at once, and there’s your clean-up. By the time it begins to trickle into the banks and we start tracing it, the tide dries up and the boys move on.”
Shayne nodded slowly. He reached over and picked up the other bill and fingered it, wondering how this information tied in with the ransom pay-off. “It sounds slick. You say the ordinary bank teller can’t detect the stuff?”
“We planned to be ready for them in Miami this year,” Marsten told him. “We’re printing circulars, getting press releases ready, hoping to educate the public so no one will be willing to accept a C-note without a written endorsement from the Secretary of the Treasury. If they’re jumping the gun on us, I’m glad to know it.”
“I don’t think they are,” said Shayne slowly. “In fact, I think it’s just the opposite and they’re as worried as you are about this stuff getting into circulation too soon.”
Marsten lifted his black and tufted brows. “So? What do you know about it, Mike?”
“Not much. I’m guessing. Just fifty grand of the stuff I ran into,” he admitted. “What’s it worth?” he ended abruptly.
“To whom?”
“Anyone who might get their hands on it. Me, for instance.”
Marsten studied the detective’s face thoughtfully, then said, “Someone with the right contacts could probably get forty cents on the dollar without too much trouble.” He frowned and added quietly, “You haven’t given me much, Mike.”
Shayne looked squarely into the keen dark eyes of the counterfeit expert and said, “I’ll give you this, Marsten. Your hunch about their preparing to hit Miami with the queer stuff this season is probably right. Do some checking on ex-Senator Irvin, for one. He’s got a gunman named Perry, and until early this morning he had a Negro razor expert named Getchie and a place on Thirty-eighth Street that might have been headquarters. There was a fire there, and the Herald carried the story. I think one of Irvin’s passing contacts might have been the Fun Club on Thirty-sixth. A man named Bates runs it, and there’s a bookie joint in the back during the season.”
Marsten was making notes while Shayne talked. When the detective stopped, he looked up and asked, “Is that where you got the two bills?”
Shayne shook his red head and said absently, “I don’t believe they’re ready to start shoving it yet. The gang may be breaking up, with one faction trying to jump the gun on the other. That’s all I can give you right now.”
