The Art of Making Money - Jason Kersten [71]
After visiting three or four stores, Natalie would hand the bags and the change to Art, who’d look increasingly like a beast of burden. When he could carry no more bags he’d head back to the car, dump the goods in the trunk, deposit the change in a satchel, and pick up more bills to give to Natalie.
“We could hit forty or fifty stores in two hours, come out with about thirty-five hundred or four thousand dollars,” Art says, “then we were gone.”
NEITHER ART NOR NATALIE remembers the first mall they hit, but five minutes afterward they realized they had a unique logistical problem: a trunkful of brand new, unwanted goods. Given Art’s experience with poverty and Natalie’s churchgoing background, throwing away perfectly good merchandise was unthinkable. So they grabbed a phone book, located the closest Salvation Army branch, and drove straight over. Placing the goods into the donation bin gave both of them an intense charity high. Art would later describe it “as powerful as the high I got when I was making the money,” and both he and Natalie would come to see it as a reason in itself for counterfeiting. From that moment on, the couple integrated charity into all their mall operations; if there wasn’t a Salvation Army store in the area, then they’d leave the “merch at a church” with a note requesting that it be donated to needy families.
Once they started donating, Art and Natalie felt a little weird leaving poor people useless items like scented candles and other tchotchkes, so they began tailoring parts of their passing operations to include things that families could actually use: Baby clothes and formula, toys, and school supplies became mainstays. “Pretty soon charity became an important part of what we were doing,” says Art. “We weren’t satisfied unless we gave stuff away. It became a rule, not just donating items but also that we had to give ten percent of whatever real money we made away. Sometimes it was as simple as dropping four hundred bucks in a bucket at church, which we did a lot. Another rule was that we never dropped money on mom-and-pop stores—only the big chains.”
They would later extend their charity to individuals as well. Natalie heard one Christmas about a friend of a friend living in Houston who was going through hard times. Her name was Brenda, and she had three daughters and two infant grandchildren. Brenda was on disability, suffering from severe carpal tunnel syndrome, and distraught because her children needed clothes, shoes, and hygiene products—Christmas presents were a luxury she didn’t even consider. Natalie had her friend make a list, then Art and Natalie showed up at Brenda’s doorstep two weeks later with everything on it and more: toys and clothes for the grandkids, music and shoes, jackets, shampoo, conditioner, bath soap, laundry detergent, toothpaste, toothbrushes, towels, washcloths, cleaning supplies. Every item was gift-wrapped, and even the dog got food and treats. Brenda herself was not forgotten. Art and Natalie bought her a paraffin-wax machine—a medical device used to relieve carpal tunnel syndrome. Brenda was reduced to tears by the couple’s generosity, which did not end there. When Natalie noticed that the family had no Christmas tree, she and Art ran out and bought one, along with a full-blown holiday feast.
Years later, a therapist would suggest to Art that perhaps all the charity was simply an attempt to cleanse the tremendous guilt he felt for his crimes. “I don’t think that was it,” Art would tell him. “For that to be true I’d have to feel guilty about counterfeiting in the first place, and I never did. Not for one day. I only felt guilty about some of the problems counterfeiting led to.” Guilt is rarely a byproduct of counterfeiting. The money looks real, and the moment it passes, it effectively becomes real. And for Art it was even better than