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five-dollar bill out of her
bag and placed it on the table.
    ‘Can’t
have Columbus’s leading surgeon washing up the dishes, can we?’ She turned to
leave and had reached the door before it struck McKenzie that they even knew he
had left the house without his wallet.
    T.
Hamilton McKenzie began to consider her proposition, not certain if he had been
left with any alternative.
    But
he was certain of one thing. If he carried out their demands, then President
Clinton was going to end up with an even bigger problem.

Chapter 6
    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 bursary.
    While
at St Patrick’s Institution for Offenders, Bill was introduced to the banknote
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 which 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 licence 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 had to resort
to doing tattoos at fairgrounds and, in desperation, pavement 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 recognise. Bill
looked round suspiciously. ‘I’m retired,’ he declared, fearing that it was
another of those young