Counterfeit Love

Cigarette smoke was bad for the paper I paid out the ass for. At least until after I got the ink and art onto it, that is.

I had some fair stacks of money lying around that would do. It would pass a highlighter test. But no one did highlighter or pen tests in general on fives and tens anyway unless it couldn't even fool the untrained eye. And if your shit couldn't even fool the untrained eye, you needed to look into a new profession.

It wasn't my best batch, though.

And I was a man who prided himself on his product. I'd been perfecting it for my entire adult life.

Would I sell this batch off to some random low-level criminal empire of the street or organized sort?

Fuck yeah, I would.

But if I wanted to get into the more reputable--irreputable--organizations, the shit needed to be top notch. It would need to pass an eyeball test, a pen test, and the ever-elusive counter.

Which was another thing I was trying to track down, finding it more difficult than I had in the past.

I guess more people than ever were trying their hand at counterfeiting money.

Ignorant idiots, all of them.

You didn't get into making fraudulent money like you got into selling guns or cooking meth.

This wasn't an area where brute force and a hunger to succeed would pay off.

You had to start out with basic skills.

Namely, artistic ones.

If you weren't sketching realistic people by middle school, there was no way you were going to be able to imitate the minute details found on cash money. Especially in the States where they had all kinds of sticks up their sleeves to try to make it impossible to pass off fake cash as real.

Tried.

There were still a handful of us who managed to get it done without getting caught.

Sure, I'd gone to prison.

But it wasn't for that.

As far as the feds were concerned, Finch Augustus McAwley was just your average under-achieving low-life, chain-smoking, beer drinking, drifter who never held a legit job for any longer than a few months at a time.

About five people in the world knew what I did for a living. Even my clients never knew who I was.

And that was how I liked it.

Making a name for yourself was great. Gave you a lot of pride, for sure. But with clout came recognition, came curiosity from the alphabet people.

Better to be no one.

Build your anonymous empire.

Retire young before anyone fucks you over.

Go to your grave with your secret.

Or pen your memoirs and leave it for someone to publish after you're gone, full of all the tales of how you gave the middle finger to a system that never would have worked in your favor, even if you had gone that route.

Little boys who grew up in rusted trailers with mostly-empty cabinets didn't often become mega-millionaires in giant estates. Especially when those boys and men had only three particular skillsets.

Drawing pictures.

Breaking rules.

And charming women.

I never excelled in science, but let's say I knew what I needed to know about biology.

I failed geometry, but I aced street corner arithmetic with flying fucking colors.

You had to work with what God gave ya'.

He gave me good hands and a lazy streak.

I turned that into what could be a comfortable retirement fund if I didn't live too large.

But before I decided to snag a cabana on a beach somewhere, I decided to give Navesink Bank a try. With so many big players in such a small area, I figured I could easily double my retirement fund in under five years.

And then it was all limes and coconuts and women in bathing suits that barely covered the essentials.

I figured I could sacrifice a couple years for the rest of my life in paradise.

I was young. Enough.

I could spare it.

Especially if the outcome meant my cabana could be of the luxury variety.

Current sacrifices for future rewards and all that shit.

Though, I had to admit, sacrificing a bed was proving hell on my back and neck, proof that I wasn't as young as I had once been.

I found if I popped a couple Ibuprofen and chased them with a few sips of last night's beer first thing in the morning, it made me forget the misery until I tried to fall back to sleep again the next night.

I would likely have to move out of this place eventually anyway. With all the right equipment finally obtained, I would barely have any room to move around with the money stacked about.

Just a couple more weeks, that was all it would take.

My mind was on those sorts of thoughts.

When the door to my room flew open.

And the woman of my goddamn dreams stalked in.

That was a bit over the top, even for me, but when the living, breathing, flesh-and-blood equivalent of the girl you've fantasized about in your head for a decade or more walked into your life, that shit had impact.