The Art of Making Money - Jason Kersten [118]
Natalie’s probation requirements prevented her from leaving Texas, so she couldn’t be there for Art’s release. But he didn’t reenter the world alone. Waiting out front to give him a ride to the halfway house was his first love, Karen Magers, and Little Art, who was now thirteen years old. Art jumped for joy and hugged both of them wildly, reveling in his first minutes of freedom. It was a strange scene. Two years earlier, after years of putting off her dream while she raised her son, Karen had completed her academy training and become a full-fledged CPD patrolwoman. Because she was about to go on shift, she’d shown up in full uniform and driving a police cruiser.
“If you two want to sit together, you’ll have to sit in back,” she told Art with a smile.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, picking up the bait. “I’m not out of prison five minutes and I’m already in the back of a cop car. That figures.”
The halfway house Art was assigned to was in downtown Chicago. He had his own room, and was free to leave during the day, provided that it was for work and that he was back by the seven P.M. curfew. The provisions of his release required him to meet with his parole officer and undergo drug testing once a week. Any violation of the rules could be grounds for returning to prison, or an extension of his probation. He was also forbidden to be employed at any job that placed him in the proximity of “credit, credit cards, or negotiable instruments”—a condition that he would soon learn could be interpreted by his parole officer however she saw fit.
Art landed his first job within two days, working at a real estate brokerage run by his old friend, Mikey Pepitone. Mikey had gone legit while Art had been in prison, and when he heard that Art needed work he convinced his boss to hire him, swearing by his smarts. It was clerical work, filing and letters mostly, but knowing how quickly Art picked things up Mikey thought there was also the possibility that he could be selling houses himself within a year.
“Are there bank-account numbers on these papers you file?” Art’s PO asked him on their first meeting, three days after he started.
“I guess so, probably,” Art told her.
She insisted that he quit immediately. Shocked, Art explained that if he was going to commit a crime, it wouldn’t be at the place where his best friend had vouched for him and it wouldn’t be something so moronically traceable. He also reminded her that he had printed millions in counterfeit over the years, and that it wouldn’t be logical for him to steal somebody else’s money when he could just as easily print his own. But she wouldn’t budge. The next job he took, waiting tables at a restaurant, needless to say had far less of a future than real estate. Even though he knew it required him to work a cash register and take credit cards, he took it anyway, thinking that such a dead-end job had to fall beneath the radar of even the most obtuse PO. When he reported for his usual Thursday check-in, she not only forced him to quit that job, too, but threatened to send him back to Waseca. The week after that, he made sure to show up with an airtight position: A friend of his had offered him a gig installing cigarette display cases in gas stations. It paid well, and the closest he’d get to a “negotiable instrument” would be to the pennies in the change dish. She refused to let him take it on the grounds that it would occasionally require him to leave the state.
From that moment on Art was convinced that his PO didn’t understand him, had no interest in helping him, and was possibly even taking pleasure in dashing his hopes. The one job she finally allowed him to take was working at a boatyard run by an old friend of his aunt Donna. It was boring, menial labor for minimum wage, and until he had fulfilled his probation requirements, he was stuck.
Despite the setbacks, Art tried to look forward to the day when he could leave the halfway house and start fresh. The closer that day