the presidential bodyguard and co-operated well.

Steve came to his feet and shook hands. "Thought that you were going to be
down in Florida bass fishing this month. You like your work so well you
can't stay away, or is it a matter of trying to impress your chief?"

Larry growled, "Fine thing. Secret Service bogs down and they've got to
call me in to clean up the mess."

Steve motioned him to a chair and immediately went serious. "Do you know
anything about pushing queer, Woolford?"

"That means passing counterfeit money, doesn't it? All I know is what's
in the TriD crime shows."

"I can see you're going to be a lot of help. Have you got anywhere at all
on the possibility that the stuff might be coming from abroad?"

"Nothing positive," Larry said. "Are you people accomplishing anything?"

"We're just getting underway. There's something off-trail about this deal,
Woolford. It doesn't fit into routine."

Larry Woolford said, "I wouldn't think so if the stuff is so good not even
a bank clerk can tell the difference."

"That's not what I'm talking about now. Let me give you a run down on
standard counterfeiting." The Secret Service agent pushed back in his
swivel chair, lit a cigarette, and propped his feet onto the edge of a
partly open desk drawer. "Briefly, it goes like this. Some smart lad gets
himself a set of plates and a platen press and--"

Larry interrupted, "Where does he get the plates?"

"That doesn't matter now," Steve said. "Various ways. Maybe he makes them
himself, sometimes he buys them from a crooked engraver. But I'm talking
about pushing green goods once it's printed. Anyway, our friend runs off,
say, a million dollars worth of fives. But he doesn't try to pass them
himself. He wholesales them around netting, say, fifty thousand dollars.
In other words, he sells twenty dollars in counterfeit for one good
dollar."

Larry pursed his lips. "Quite a discount."

"Um-m-m. But that's safest from his angle. The half dozen or so
distributors he sold it to don't try to pass it either. They also are
playing it carefully. They peddle it, at say ten to one, to the next rung
down the ladder."

"And these are the fellows that pass it, eh?"

"Not even then, usually. These small timers take it and pass it on at five
to one to the suckers in the trade, who take the biggest risks. Most of
these are professional pushers of the queer, as the term goes. Some,
however, are comparative amateurs. Sailors for i