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By Root 787 0

very little real money to spare. His lifestyle, and the confidence that he could always print more, had left him pathetically unprepared for financial emergencies. He had never established a way to launder his counterfeit earnings into savings; he had convinced himself that he could create a note that would fool anticoun terfeiting devices used in offshore banks, deposit millions of dollars, then withdraw real cash. Such a plan, if feasible, would take years of research, and he had run out of time. Other than about fifty thousand dollars in assets, he had nothing, which meant that he was looking at a court-appointed lawyer who would invariably press for a guilty plea.

Natalie’s mother, Sharon, decided that she wasn’t going to let that happen. The morning after the arrest, she was hitting the phone, hunting for criminal-defense attorneys in Chicago. Conveniently, the town was practically built on them, and after several calls she was referred to a federal criminal-defense attorney named John Beal. The next day, she drove up to Chicago, visited his office downtown, and enlisted his services.

A few days later, Beal visited Art at the Metropolitan Correction Center, Chicago’s federal jail, an ominous, eleven-story-high triangle. Art liked Beal immediately for his no-bullshit style. Beal asked Art to give him a step-by-step account of the arrest. When Art reached the part where the officers came into the room and found the marijuana, the lawyer became visibly excited. In the police report, CPD stated that their cause for entering room had been because they had seen—apparently through the crack in the door that Amy was holding open—marijuana on a coffee table.

“That’s impossible,” Art told him. “There was a hallway, and the coffee table was around the corner. It would have been physically impossible to see the weed, you’d have to have X-ray vision.”

The next day, Beal visited the House of Blues. A police officer and the hotel manager escorted him to the room, which was blocked off with police tape. After the manager signed an affidavit stating the room had not been disturbed, Beal entered and took photographs. Just as Art had said, the coffee table was entirely out of view from the door. The manager also confirmed that the coffee table was in the appropriate position according to hotel policy, further indicating that it had never been moved. Beal developed the film and made a visit to the prosecutor, affidavit in hand.

“You’ve got a straight-up illegal search and seizure here,” he told his adversary, and showed him the photos. “Not only that, but I have CPD lying about it on paper.”

Three weeks later, the preliminary hearing had barely got under way when the prosecutor approached the bench and told the judge that the state wished to dismiss all charges.

Moments later, the gavel fell. After less than a month, Art was free.

11

THE LETTER

The world meets nobody halfway. When you want something, you gotta take it.

—LINCOLN HAWK, IN THE FILM Over the Top, 1987

Art’s elation upon beating the House of Blues rap was un abashedly visible. He bear-hugged Beal in the courtroom, then literally jumped for joy once he hit the sidewalk in front of the courthouse. Thanks to a technicality, he had escaped spending the rest of his youth in federal prison.

His rapture lasted about five minutes. His life as an underground counterfeiter was over. The Secret Service knew his identity, his capabilities, and the names of at least some of his associates. In the courtroom, he had seen two suited, short-haired men in the gallery. They glared at him as he exited, leaving him little doubt as to their affiliation and message. “They were so pissed,” Art remembers. “By law, they had to burn all the evidence, sixty grand. I knew it wasn’t over. There was no way they were going to let me get away.”

Chicago was now way too hot for him. He believes the Service began tailing him the moment he left the courthouse. He stayed in the city just two days, then drove back roads all the way to Texas, where Natalie was waiting for him at her