Honor Among Thieves

Dexter Hutchins never gave any details over the phone as to why he needed Scott, but as all the morning papers had carried pictures of Yitzhak Rabin arriving in Washington for his first meeting with President Clinton, he made the obvious assumption.

Scott removed the file that was lodged between “Tax” and “Torts” and extracted everything he had about the new Israeli Prime Minister. His policy towards America didn’t seem to differ greatly from that of his predecessor. He was better educated than Shamir, more conciliatory and gentler in his approach, but Scott suspected that if it came to a knife fight in a downtown bar, Rabin was the one who would come out unmarked.

He leaned back and began thinking about a blonde named Susan Anderson who had been present at the last briefing he had been asked to attend with the new Secretary of State. If she was at the meeting, the trip to Washington might prove worthwhile.

A quiet man sat on

a stool at the end of the bar emptying the final drops in his glass. The glass had been almost empty of Guinness for some time, but the Irishman always hoped that the movement would arouse some sympathy in the barman and he might just be kind enough to pour a drop more into the empty glass. But not this particular barman.

“Bastard,” he said under his breath. It was always the young ones who had no heart.

The barman didn’t know the customer’s real name. For that matter, few people did except the FBI and the San Francisco Police Department.

The file at the SFPD gave William Sean O’Reilly’s age as fifty-two. A casual onlooker might have judged him to be nearer sixty-five, not just because of his well-worn clothes, but from the pronounced lines on his forehead, the wrinkled bags under his eyes and the extra inches around his waist. O’Reilly blamed it on three alimonies, four jail sentences and going too many rounds in his youth as an amateur boxer. He never blamed it on the Guinness.

The problem had begun at school when O’Reilly discovered by sheer chance that he could copy his classmates’ signatures when they signed chits to withdraw pocket money from the school bank. By the time he had completed his first year at Trinity College, Dublin, he could forge the signatures of the provost and the bursar so well that even they believed that they had awarded him a scholarship.

While at St. Patrick’s Institution for Offenders, Bill was introduced to the bank note by Liam the Counterfeiter. When they opened the gates to let him out, the young apprentice had nothing left to learn from the master. Bill discovered that his mother was unwilling to allow him to return to the bosom of the family, so he forged the signature of the American Consul in Dublin and departed for the brave new world.

By the age of thirty, he had etched his first dollar plate. The work was so good that, during the trial that followed its discovery, the FBI acknowledged that the counterfeit was a masterpiece that would never have been detected without the help of an informer. O’Reilly was sentenced to six years and the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed him “Dollar Bill.”

When Dollar Bill was released from jail, he moved on to tens, twenties and later fifties, and his sentences increased in direct proportion. In between sentences he managed three wives and three divorces. Something else his mother wouldn’t have approved of.

His third wife did her best to keep him on the straight and narrow, and Bill responded by producing documents only when he couldn’t get any other work—the odd passport, the occasional driver’s license or social security claim—nothing really criminal, he assured the judge. The judge didn’t agree and sent him back down for another five years.

When Dollar Bill was released this time, nobody would touch him, so he kept his hand in at fairgrounds doing tattoos and, in desperation, sidewalk paintings which, when it didn’t rain, just about kept him in Guinness.

Bill lifted the empty glass and stared once again at the barman, who returned a look of stony indifference. He failed to notice the smartly dressed young man who took a seat on the other side of him.

“What can I get you to drink, Mr. O’Reilly?” said a voice he didn’t recognize. Bill looked around suspiciously. “I’m retired,” he declared, fearing that it was another of those young plain-clothes detectives from the San Francisco Police Department who hadn’t made his quota of arrests for the month.

“Then you won’t mind having a drink with an old con, will you?” said the younger man, revealing a slight Bronx accent.

Bill hesitated, but the thirst won.

“A pint of draft Guinness,” he said hopefully.

The young man raised his hand and this time the barman responded immediately.

“So what do you want?” asked Bill, once he’d taken a swig and was sure the barman was out of earshot.

“Your skill.”

“But I’m retired. I already told you.”

“And I heard you the first time. But what I require isn’t criminal.”

“So what are you hoping I’ll knock up for you? A copy of the Mona Lisa, or is it to be the Magna Carta?”

“Nearer home than that,” said the young man.

“Buy me another,” said Bill, staring at the empty glass that stood on the counter in front of him, “and I’ll listen to your proposition. But I warn you, I’m still retired.”

After the barman had filled Bill’s glass a second time, the young man introduced himself as Angelo Santini, and began to explain to Dollar Bill exactly what he had in mind. Angelo was grateful that at four in the afternoon there was no one else around to overhear them.

“But there are already thousands of those in circulation,” said Dollar Bill after he had listened to Angelo’s request. “You can find them all over the place. You could buy a good reproduction from any decent tourist shop.”

“Maybe, but not a perfect copy,” insisted the young man.