The Art of Making Money - Jason Kersten [35]
At the same time Art was accumulating all his printing supplies, he set aside one room in the apartment for a new “hobby”—a hydroponic marijuana grow room. On the streets “Dro,” as it was called, was becoming all the rage. It was selling for $350 an ounce, and Art figured that the weed operation would be a good fallback, with the added benefit that he’d be able to smoke as much as he wanted, for inspiration. He needed to rig a fan and duct system to get rid of the smell of printing chemicals anyway, and it would also work just as well evacuating the skunky-sweet stench of a roomful of Dro.
Two months went by before he had all the equipment ready, and by then he was missing the one crucial counterfeiting element that can’t be easily obtained: the paper. United States currency is printed on a paper composed of 25 percent linen and 75 percent cotton. Da Vinci’s Royal Linen had done a good job of mimicking the material, but the old man had never told Art where he got it. All Art knew was that it was lightweight newsprint, the kind of industrial publishing paper that generally comes in refrigerator-sized rolls that often weigh several tons.
Knowing that da Vinci had used a connection at one of the many local printing houses, Art improvised a plan for acquiring paper. After running through a list of larger printing houses in the Yellow Pages, he targeted one on Dearborn Street, a low-lying redbrick monster that specialized in printing trade magazines, brochures, and newsletters by the millions. He dressed up in khaki slacks and put his glasses on, then drove over to the printing house in a pickup truck borrowed from a friend. After walking in through the loading dock, he asked to see the manager.
A few minutes later Art was a greeted by a short, jocund man with white hair, bright blue eyes, and a round face. Drawing on his days of begging paper for school, Art told him that he was a student who was working on a presentation that would cover a whole wall of the gym. He needed a roll of light newsprint, but he didn’t have much money. Specifically, Art asked the manager if he had any “butt rolls.” Also called “stub rolls,” they’re the unused cores of the huge industrial rolls—the publishing equivalent of those last, untappable sheets on a roll of toilet paper, with the exception that butt rolls typically weigh a couple hundred pounds. Too small for a large-scale print run and too large to throw away, most printers send them to the recycling bins. For a flourish, Art told the manager that he was also interested in becoming a printer someday. The manager, who was South Side Irish to the core, perked right up.
“Look, if I got some in the bins, you can take ’em,” he told Art, “but since you’re interested in becoming a printer, wouldn’t you like to take a look around?”
Art said yes.
The manager proceeded to give him a tour of the whole building, from their computerized design studio to their roaring, forty-foot-long presses that devoured ink by the barrel. As they came to each machine, he’d tap a supervisor on the back, introduce Art as an aspiring printer, and have him explain the details of his post. Art peppered them with questions, and enjoyed the tour so much that he almost forgot why he had come, until the manager pointed out the recycling bins.
Rummaging around inside the bins, he found three butt rolls of light newsprint that fit his need to a tee. Not only did the manager give them to him for free, but he even shouted a couple workers over to load them into the pickup.
He drove off waving to the manager, with enough paper to print millions of dollars.
WITH HIS SHOP FULLY EQUIPPED, Art hunkered down in the Dungeon and began the exacting process of re-creating everything da Vinci had taught him. Like a pilot attempting his first solo flight four years after his lessons, he was shaky and tentative, operating