If the assistant director for currency of the California area of the Secret Service could be fooled, there wasn't a bank teller in the country who wouldn't accept the notes. They were so good, they were real. And for every counterfeit bill passed, the dollar in the Social Security check for the widow became that much less, the hamburger cost that much more, and every savings account became a little less secure, every paycheck bought less than the week before.

So James Castellano, who had not fired the .38 police special for more than twenty years, who spanked his children infrequently and then only at the overwhelming urging of his wife, prepared himself to help take a life. He told himself that these counterfeiters were daily taking away bits of lives from people who couldn't afford homes or good food because of inflation, and all those little losses of bits of lives added up to the taking of one life completely.

"Bullshit," said James Castellano and took the felt-covered box out of his pocket and rested it on his lap and did not answer the driver who asked what he had said. It was 11:52 P.M. on his watch when he got out at Sebastian and Latimer and began walking slowly through the hot muggy night the few blocks toward Randolph.

The contact would go under the name of Mr. Gordons, and Mr. Gordons, according to Group Leader Forsythe, would make the exchange exactly at 12:09:3.

"What?" Castellano had said, thinking that Group Leader Forsythe had suddenly developed a streak of humor.

"Mr. Gordons said 12:09:3, that's midnight, nine minutes and three seconds."

"What if I'm there at midnight, nine minutes and four seconds?"

"You'd be late," said Group Leader Forsythe.