Sullivan's sting

by Lawrence Sanders

  "Where are you?" he asked.

  "In the office. David was here for a while but he's gone now. I'm taking off in a few minutes. I'm going to hit the beach and tan my buns."

  "That I'd like to see," Tony said. "Anything going on?"

  "Nada. Except they delivered the business cards and letterheads. I lifted one card from each box and figured I'd mail them to you."

  "Good idea. Is there one for Frank Little?"

  "Yep."

  "Bingo. That ties him up with the Fort Knox Commodity Trading Fund-whatever that is. Now we know they're all in on it."

  "Something else," Rita said, and told Harker about the crumpled pieces of paper she had found in the wastebasket. She read the three lists to him.

  "Mean anything to you?" she asked.

  "Not a thing. Just a collection of nouns."

  "Three words have little checkmarks next to them: melons, chairs, and hammers."

  "It still means nothing to me," Harker said.

  "Maybe I'll mail the lists to you along with the business cards. You might be able to make sense out of them if you see them."

  "No," Tony said quickly, "don't do that. Rathbone might come back looking for them. Make copies of them as exactly as possible. Mail me the copies. Then crumple up the original lists and toss them back in his wastebasket."

  "You don't miss a trick, do you?"

  "I miss yow," he said in a low voice. Then: "Did Rathbone say where he was going?"

  "To visit a client. A widow named Birdie Winslow.

  That's the first time he's mentioned the name of one of his mooches."

  "I'm making a note of it. Is her first name spelled with a y or ieV"

  "Beats me. He just said Birdie Winslow."

  "Okay. I'll try to get some skinny on her. Anything else?"

  "Nope."

  "Then go toast your tush."

  "Hey, I like that," she said. "I really do think you're beginning to lighten up. My therapy is working."

  "Thank you, nurse," he said. "What would I do without you?"

  She smiled and hung up. But a moment later she had forgotten about Tony; she was thinking about David, wondering if he really was going to see a client or if he had another bimbo on the side and was planning a matinee. As he had said, everyone cuts corners, and she couldn't believe fidelity was one of his virtues.

  She was right; David didn't visit Birdie Winslow. But an assignation with another woman was not on his agenda. Instead, he met with Termite Tommy in the parking lot of the Grand Palace.

  The two men sat in the Bentley and cut up the proceeds from the dissolving check scam.

  "Gross was 27K plus," Rathbone said. "The pusher drew two thousand as I told you. That leaves 25K plus in the kitty."

  "Manna," Tommy said. "How do you want to split?"

  David turned sideways to stare at him. "Thirds," he said, "You, me, and the printer."

  "You crazy?" Tommy cried. "I thought we were going to stiff the Kraut."

  Rathbone put a soft hand on the other man's arm. "Don't you trust me, Tommy?" he asked.

  "Remember that old sign in saloons. 'In God We Trust. All others pay cash.' "

  "There'll be more cash than you can count if you go along with me on this. First of all, the Treasury check went through without a hitch. But Tommy, how many times can we pull that dodge? We'd have to find a different pusher for every operation, and you know as well as I do that the more people you let in on the action, that's how much your risk increases. There's a better way of using that queer paper. And giving the printer a third will tickle his greed."

  "Yeah? What's on your mind?"

  "Persuade the German to use the paper for making fake twenties and fifties."

  "He'll never go for it," Tommy said. "That's what put him behind bars the last time."

  "No, it wasn't," David said. "What put him behind bars was that the feds caught him selling and grabbed the queer. But if he prints on self-destruct paper, where's the evidence?"

  "The feds won't have any evidence, but the customer won't have any money either. They'll have paid for a bag of confetti. It'll shred away before they have a chance to push it. Then they'll come looking for us."

  "Just listen a minute, will you? The German prints up the fake bills on that freaky paper. But we don't try to sell the bills for the reason you just said. Instead, you and I open bank accounts with phony ID and make cash deposits. It's credited to our accounts. Then who cares if the cash dissolves three days later? The bank takes the loss. And we withdraw clean money whenever we want."

  Termite Tommy looked at him. "Nice try, David, but how much cash can we deposit before the banks get suspicious?"

  "They're not going to ask questions if we keep each deposit under ten grand. And what if they do? We can always say we sold our car for cash. We each open maybe a dozen accounts so all the queer doesn't go to one bank."

  "I don't like it."

  "Tommy, my scam will have two big advantages. First of all, it cuts out the need to use pushers. There's a saving right there. Second of all, we'll be getting face value for the queer. How much was the German making before he was nabbed? Twenty percent? Thirty?"

  "About that."

  "There you are! We do it my way and we make twenty on a twenty and fifty on a fifty."

  Tommy was silent. He had turned his head away and was staring out the window.

  "Now what's bothering you?" David asked.

  "It means I'd have to become a pusher," the other man said in a low voice. "I'm not sure I've got the balls for it. Ten years ago I'd have jumped at the chance. But that time I did in stir did something to me, David. I never want to go back in there again. Never!"

  "All right, Tommy," Rathbone said, "I can understand that. Look, you brought me this deal; it's only right that I pay my way. I'll do all the pushing. I'll open accounts in a dozen banks. You get the cash to me as quickly as you can. I'll stick it in the banks as fast as I can, while the money is still fresh. I'll take all the risk."

  "You'll really do that, David?" "Of course I will. Because that's how positive I am that this thing is going to work."

  "I'm not sure I can talk the German into printing bills again."

  "Why don't you let me meet him? I'll convince him that this is the way to go.^'

  "And we split three ways? On the face value?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Yeah," Tommy said, "maybe that's the way to handle it. I'll go back to Lakeland and set it up. Then I'll give you a call, and you drive over. Now what about the payoff on the fake Treasury check?"

  "I'll bring it to you and the German when I come to Lakeland."

  Termite Tommy nodded and got out of the Bentley. "I'll be in touch," he said. "Goodbye, David."

  Rathbone lifted a hand in farewell. Then, watching the other man walk back to his battered pickup, he said softly, "Goodbye, Tommy."

  28

  A black man from the Drug Enforcement Administration had a desk in the bullpen next to Roger Fortes-cue's. His name was Hiram Johnson, and he was working a case involving a ring peddling a new laboratory drug called "Rapture" to schoolkids in Dade and Broward counties. The two investigators-the only blacks in the room-discovered they were both graduates of Howard University, and whenever they had the chance, they had lunch together, or a few beers, and talked shop.

  They were scoffing fried fish in Long John Silver's on Federal Highway when Fortescue brought up the subject of Haiti.

  "A lot of drugs coming in from there?" he asked.

  "Indubitably," Johnson said, which was the way he talked. "But you must realize, my dear confrere, that very limited quantities of controlled substances originate in Haiti. Like Panama, Haiti is a transshipping point. Because it's closer to the U.S., y'see. Heavy shipments of la dope come in on freighters or flights from Colombia, or Bolivia, or wherever, and are packaged in Haiti for delivery in bulk to Miami or New York."

  "Is the stuff flown here or brought in by boat?"

  "Both. And s
muggled through in hollowed-out lumber, under false bottoms in furniture, in cans of flea powder-a thousand different ways. A few years ago we intercepted a shipment of toothpaste, each tube filled with heroin."

  "Toothpaste?" Roger said. "Unreal."

  "The villains are extremely clever," the DEA man went on. "Every time we uncover one subterfuge, the rascals come up with another. Just last year the Spanish police intercepted a million dollars' worth of cocaine concealed in a shipment of coconuts. A neat little plug had been drilled out of the shell of each nut, the meat and milk removed, the coconut filled with coke, and the plug replaced. A lot of arduous labor involved there, but justified by the profits, I do assure you, bro."

  "Coconuts," Fortescue repeated. "That's cooL"

  After he left Johnson, Roger drove to a locksmith's shop on Dixie Highway. It was owned by Louis Falace, an ex-con. After spending almost thirty of his seventy-four years in the clink on several burglary raps, Falace had decided to go straight and had opened Be Safe, Be Sure, a successful store where he sold locks, bolts, chains, peepholes, window guards, alarms, and other security devices designed to thwart the kind of Breaking amp; Entering artist he had once been.

  Fortescue, who had helped send Falace away on his last trip to the pokey, stopped by occasionally to see how the old man was doing. There was no enmity between crook and cop; they were both professionals.

  "Lou," Roger said, "I need your advice. There's this place I want to get into, but it's surrounded by a high, chain-link fence. The gate faces a street and is usually lighted, so I don't want to go in that way. I figure I've got to cut a hole in that fence or take a ladder along and go over it. Which do you think is best?"

  The old man smiled. He had new dentures, and they glistened like wet stones. "No cutta hole," he said. "No climba over."

  "No?" Fortescue said. "Then how do I get in?"

  Falace went into a back room and returned in a moment carrying a folding entrenching tool with a khaki cloth over the blade: standard U.S. Army issue.

  "Go under," Falace said. "Dig just deep ^nough to wiggle beneath the fence. When you come out, fill in the hole, make it nice and neat. Everyone says, 4How did he get in?' "

  "Lou, you're a genius," Roger said. "I'll return your little shovel."

  44Don't bother," Falace said. "I don't go digging anymore."

  Fortescue's next stop was at a sporting goods store. He bought a baseball. It cost $7.99 plus tax. He carried his purchase (in a little plastic bag with handles) out to the car and before he examined it, he entered 44$7.99 (baseball) and 48 cents (tax)" on the page of his notebook where he recorded his out-of-pocket expenses.

  The ball was in a small box marked 4'Official Major League Baseball." It came from a company in Missouri, but in fine print it stated: 4'Contents assembled in Haiti." Fortescue smiled.

  Then he inspected the ball itself. It had a white leather cover stitched in red, and it felt as hard as a rock. On the side of the baseball was printed: "Cushioned cork center." Roger had no idea what the rest of the ball contained and didn't want to cut the cover open to find out.

  He drove home with his baseball and folding shovel. Estelle was out-probably shopping-and the kids were at school, so Papa went to bed and had a fine nap.

  That night, just before twelve o'clock, he assembled all his gear.

  "You better not wait up," he said to Estelle.

  "I wasn't going to," she said. "What's that you're carrying?"

  "A baseball."

  "Oh? A night game?"

  "Something like that," he said.

  He went back to his hidey-hole in the deserted fast-food joint and took up his position at the window facing the FL Sports Equipment warehouse. The gate was open, floodlights were on, an unmarked van was being loaded with cartons. Frank Little, as usual, stood to one side keeping a tally.

  The van didn't leave until almost one-thirty a.m. Then Little closed the gate and locked it. He went into the blockhouse, and a moment later the floodlights went off. But there was a light in the rear of the office. Fortescue waited patiently. Finally the light was extinguished. Frank Little came out, locked up, and drove away in his snazzy Cadillac convertible. The investigator waited in the darkness another half-hour. Then, when it seemed likely that Little wouldn't return, he went outside and got to work.

  He picked a spot at the rear of the warehouse where he couldn't be seen from Copans Road. He unfolded his little shovel, locked the blade into place, and started digging. The Florida soil at that spot was sandy and loose, and the hole went swiftly. The only trouble was that displaced dirt kept sliding back into the excavation, and Roger had to shovel it farther away.

  It took him about thirty minutes to scoop out a trench deep enough so he could lie down and roll under the chain-link fence. But first he went back to the restaurant to get the baseball, bull's-eye lantern, and set of lockpicks. Then he squeezed under the fence, rose, dusted himself off, and started exploring.

  What concerned him most was that there might be an alarm system: electronic or infrared. The last thing in the world he wanted was to be poking around and suddenly have the floodlights blaze and a siren go 44WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP!" He was well aware that he was engaged in an illicit enterprise and whatever he found could not be used as evidence. Still, as every cop learns early in his career, there are many ways to skin a cat.

  He made a cautious circuit of the warehouse, using his lantern sparingly, and finally decided his best means of entry was through one of the small, fogged windows in the rear. Locked, of course. It would have been easy to take off his dungaree jacket, wrap it around his fist, and punch out a pane of glass to get at the rusted window lock. But he didn't want to leave such an obvious sign of a break-in. So, mumbling angrily at his own lack of foresight, he went back to his trench, rolled under the fence, fetched the little crowbar from his hideaway, rolled under the fence again, and went to work on the locked window.

  It took almost ten minutes of prying before the lock snapped and the window slid up with a loud squeal. He waited awhile, and when he heard no shouts of 44Stop, thief!" or the sound of approaching sirens, he climbed through the window and looked around the warehouse, using his lantern with his fingers spread across the lens to dim the glare.

  It was a cavernous place, smelling of damp. But all the cartons and crates were stacked on pallets close to the front entrance, which made his job easier. Even better, one of the top cartons was unsealed, and when Roger lifted the flaps he saw at least fifty white baseballs piled in there.

  He slipped one of the balls into his jacket pocket, replaced it with the baseball he had bought that afternoon, then began his withdrawal. Out the window. Lower the sash carefully. Check to make certain he had all his gear. Wiggle out under the fence. He filled in the trench and tamped it down, leaving it "nice and neat," just as Lou Falace had instructed.

  He was home within an hour, the house silent, family sleeping peacefully. He sat down at the kitchen table and examined the stolen baseball. It looked just like the one he had left in its place: white leather cover, red stitching, printing on the side: "Official Major League Baseball. Cushioned cork center."

  He found a sharp paring knife and very, very carefully slit open a few of those red stitches. He began squeezing the hardball with both hands, gripping it with all his strength. After a while white powder began to spurt out of the cut and pile up on the tabletop.

  He put the ball aside. He licked a forefinger and touched it cautiously to the white powder. He tasted it, made a bitter face.

  "Bingo," he said.

  29

  Simon Clark considered writing a letter home to his wife, merely to tell her he was alive, well, and living in Fort Lauderdale. But then he thought better of it; she'd have absolutely no interest in his health or whereabouts. Their childless marriage had deteriorated to the point that while they occupied the same domicile, they communicated mostly by notes stuck on the refrigerator door with little magnets in the shape of frogs and bunnies. />
  This sad state of affairs had existed for several years now, exacerbated by the long hours he had to work and her recent employment at a Michigan Avenue boutique. That resulted in her making many new friends, most of whom seemed to be epicene young men who wore their hair in ponytails.

  So rather than write a letter, Simon mailed his wife a garishly colored postcard showing three young women in thong bikinis bending over a ship's rail, their tanned buns flashing in the south Florida sunlight. He wrote: "Having a fine time; glad you're not here," and didn't much care if she found it amusing, offensive, or what.

  He had a gin and bitters at his hotel bar and decided to drive over to Mortimer Sparco's discount brokerage and check on the status of his investment in the Fort Knox Commodity Trading Fund. It wasn't listed anywhere in The Wall Street Journal, and Clark didn't expect it ever would be.

  As he was about to enter the brokerage, a woman was exiting and he held the door open for her. She was a very small woman, hardly five feet tall, he reckoned, and seemed to be in her middle thirties. She swept by him without a glance or a "Thank you," and he had the distinct impression that she had been weeping.

  Old men in Bermuda shorts were still watching the tape on the TV screen in the waiting room, and there was one geezer, presumably a client, sleeping peacefully in one of the wicker armchairs. His hearing aid had slipped out and was dangling from a black wire.

  "Could I see Mr. Sparco, please," Clark said to the receptionist. "My name is Simon Clark."

  "Oh, I know who you are, Mr. Clark," she said warmly. "But I'm afraid Mr. Sparco is in a meeting. He won't be free for at least an hour."

  "All right," Simon said. "Maybe I'll try to catch him this afternoon."

  He went outside, wondering if he should drive to headquarters and work on his weekly report to Anthony Harker. Then, realizing he really had nothing to report, he decided to goof off for a few hours, perhaps have some lunch, and return to the brokerage later.

  He left his rented Cutlass where it was parked and crossed Commercial to the Grand Palace. He walked through the empty dining room to the Lounge at the rear. There was a table of four blue-haired women, all laughing loudly and all drinking mai tais, each of which had a plastic orchid floating on top. There was a single woman seated at the bar, the small woman Clark had seen leaving Sparco's brokerage. He stood at the bar, not too close to her, and ordered a gin and bitters.