“Four seconds, clerk!” Greaves barked, his face mashed against the porthole. “I’m counting down!”
Julian didn’t rush. When an angry customer yelled at you across the counter, rushing only made you drop change on the floor.
He drew the rigid plastic sleeve smoothly from his interior pocket.
The transparent evidence sleeve from Vault Zero-Nine was cold against his fingertips, sealed tight with red municipal tamper tape. Inside the heavy vinyl, Thomas Vance’s audited twenty-dollar bill lay flat and uncreased.
SERIAL NL-19960214-0.
Under the harsh fluorescent light leaking through the porthole, the vascular green ink seemed to pulse with faint, rhythmic beats. Thirty years of census debt, waiting inside the paper fibers.
Beside Julian’s waist, his Casio pocket-register clicked twice. Inside the housing, Arthur Pendelton--Clerk Three--fed two inches of thermal paper through the top slot.
WATCH THE INK TRANSFER. KEEP GLOVES ON. AUDIT EXHIBIT ONLY.
