Sullivan's sting

by Lawrence Sanders

  "Have you discovered what the Fort Knox Fund is?"

  "Working on it. I think it's got something to do with drugs, but I haven't pinned it down yet."

  She slumped farther down in her chair. "Drugs? David wouldn't have anything to do with drugs. He's strictly small-time."

  "Don't kid yourself. If there's easy money to be made without too much risk, he'll be dealing and pushing like all the other punks. And drugs are only half of it. There's a good chance he's also working some kind of counterfeiting scam. I should know more about that next week. Rita, you've got to get rid of the notion that your Prince Charming is just a naughty boy clipping widows and divorcees for a few bucks. This man is a vicious criminal, and he's dangerous. Do me a favor, will you?"

  She looked up at him. "What?"

  "Get out. Now. I won't pull you because it'll look

  like you weren't doing your job. But if you request reassignment, Crockett will find another slot for you; I know he will. And no one will blame you."

  "No," she said. "I signed on for this particular job, and I want to be in on the kill. You have no complaints about the way I've handled it, do you?"

  "No," he said in a low voice. "No complaints."

  "Then let's have another beer and go to bed. And no more bullshit about taking me off the case. Okay?"

  "Okay," he said. "If that's the way you want it."

  Her tanned body was a smooth rope and entwined about him, her long hair making a secret tent for them both. The heat of her flesh made him wonder if he could be scorched by her intensity.

  He heard himself making sounds he didn't recognize and couldn't stop. And then she was crying out, grasping him. If was only later, when he reached to caress her face, that he felt the wet and wondered if it might be tears.

  "Better than a few days off," he murmured. "To unwind."

  "That afternoon I met you," she said. "In your office. I thought you were nerdy."

  "Did you? I suppose I was."

  "Was, " she said. "Not now."

  "The nerd turns," he said. "No more inhaler, no more allergies, no more nervous stomach. Marry me."

  She laughed.

  He propped himself on an elbow, peered down at her in the gloom. "I'm serious," he said. "Marry me."

  She reached up to touch his cheek. "Tony," she said softly.

  "That's really why I want you off the job," he said. "I want you out of his bed. I want you to resign. I want you to marry me."

  "Oh darling," she said, "you want, you want, you want. It's very nice to hear, but I want, too. To be independent. Do it my way. I like my job, and I'm good at it; I know I am."

  "Listen," he said, "I composed this speech. Can I recite it to you?"

  "Sure. Go ahead."

  "You're the only woman I've ever met who can lighten me up. When I'm with you, I grin. If it's not on my face, it's inside. When you're away from me, I work nights and weekends and I don't know what I'm killing myself for. But when I'm with you, my life makes sense. It has meaning. I'm not only jealous of the time you spend with Rathbone, I'm jealous of the time you spend alone, doing your nails or sleeping or whatever. I want us to be together every minute. Obsessive? I guess. What it all boils down to is that I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. End of speech."

  She sat up in bed, hugged her knees. "Thank you," she said huskily. "You really know how to puff up a girl's ego. But you're talking about a big decision, Tony."

  "I didn't expect you to yell, 'Yes, yes, yes!' But will you think about it? Consider it carefully and seriously?"

  "Of course," she said. "This is my first proposal. Plenty of propositions, but only this one proposal. So I don't really, honey, know how to handle it. You're right; I better think long and hard about it."

  "Do that," he said, leaning forward to kiss her knee. "Please. Don't just reject me out of hand. I've got some money-not a lot but some-and I make a good living; you know that. Also, if I can put Rathbone behind bars, that'll help my career. I just want you to know that I can support you, but if you want to keep on working, that's okay, too. But preferably not as a cop."

  "Wow," she said, "you've really tossed me a fastball. I don't know what to do. Yes, I do."

  She was so loving he wanted to shout his rapture. Her warm mouth drifted, tongue flicked, prying fingers tugged him along to ecstasy.

  "Rita," he said, gasping, "I can't take this."

  "Yes, you can," she said, and wouldn't stop.

  She pleasured him as if she had a debt to pay, and only his gratification would wipe it out. Her ministrations became increasingly rapid; she seemed driven by a wildness that calmed only when he was drained of sense and vigor.

  Then she slid out of bed, went into the bathroom, and didn't emerge for at least ten minutes. By that time Harker was standing shakily and gulping a fresh brew. She took the can from his hand and finished it.

  "I've been thinking," she said, speaking rapidly. "Not about you and me but about business. Earlier tonight when we were talking about the case, and I said I wanted to be in on the kill, I meant I want to be around when the whole thing is wrapped up. But I don't want to be there when you take Rathbone. After all, I've led the lamb to the slaughter, haven't I? So I'd appreciate it if you could give me plenty of advance notice of when you intend to bust everyone and I'll make myself scarce. You can understand that, can't you?"

  "Oh sure," he said.

  37

  Harker told Roger Fortescue about the self-destruct paper and how Rathbone pushed a counterfeit Treasury check made of the stuff through a Boca bank.

  "Rathbone went to Lakeland and met with a man he referred to as the printer," Tony said. "That's the only lead I've got. It's all yours."

  "Sheet," Fortescue said. "I better get some more skinny before I go up there or I'll just be spinning my wheels."

  So he spent almost two days at his desk in the bullpen, making phone calls and requesting assistance from strangers. It took that long because invariably they stalled until they could check his bona fides. Then sometimes they'd call back, but usually he had to make a second or third call. But he never lost his temper, figuring to catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. And he was properly apologetic for the extra work he was causing and grateful when his inquiries yielded results.

  He started with the Secret Service and was shunted from office to office until he was connected with a cranky agent who finally agreed to ask his computer if there was any record of a counterfeiter working out of Lakeland, Florida.

  The computer spit out the name of Herman Weis-rotte, German-born but a naturalized citizen. He had just completed a stay in stir for wholesaling twenties and fifties. Quality stuff, too. The computer even provided a physical description and his last known address in Lakeland.

  So far, so good.

  Then, because he had the smarts of a street cop, Fortescue called the warden's office in the prison where Weisrotte had done time and asked a very nice lady for the name of the forger's cellmate. It turned out that during the last year in jail Herman had shared living quarters with a convicted swindler named Thomas J. Keeffringer, recently released, who had committed his depredations over a five-state area, but mostly in south Florida.

  This time Roger phoned a friend, Sam Washburn, an old bull who had spent most of his working life in the Detective Division of the Fort Lauderdale Police Dept. Then he had retired to spend his remaining years making birds and animals from shells his wife picked up on the beach. Sam had given Fortescue a shell owl which Estelle had promptly given to her mother who gave it to her minister who, at last report, was desperately seeking someone who would accept it.

  The moment Fortescue mentioned Thomas J. Keeffringer, Washburn started laughing. "Termite Tommy!" he said, and told the investigator about the con man's scam using bottled bugs and sawdust to convince mooches to sign on for costly termite control.

  "Is he a heavy?" Roger asked.

  "Nah, he's a pussycat. Likes the sauce. A dynamite sales
man. I heard he's out. What's he been up to?"

  "I'm not sure. Maybe counterfeiting."

  "That's a switch. Boosting mouthwash is more his style."

  So now Fortescue had two names and an address in Lakeland. He went home to pack.

  "How long will you be gone?" Estelle wanted to know.

  "It depends," he said.

  "Thank you very much," she said. "I may not be here when you get back. The bag boy at Publix has eyes for me."

  "Lots of luck," Roger said.

  He arrived at Lakeland late in the evening and checked into a motel with a neon sign that advertised tv-happy hour-pool party on sat. Fortescue's room smelled of wild cherry deodorant and had a framed lithograph of the Battle of Shiloh on the wall over the bed. He wasted a few hours watching television.

  In the morning he checked in with the locals as a matter of professional courtesy. He talked to an overweight detective who was working on an anchovy pizza and drinking Jolt for breakfast.

  "Yeah, we brace the Kraut every now and then," he said, his mouth full. "He looks to be straight. He's got this little store where he prints up letterheads, business cards, and stuff like that."

  "He wouldn't be printing the queer again, would he?"

  The dick wiped his smeared lips with a paper napkin. "That I doubt very much. First of all, the guy's an alkie. Talk to him later than four in the afternoon, he just don't make sense. Second of all, he never seems to go nowhere. So how can he be pushing?"

  "No funny money showing up in town?"

  "Now and then. Nothing big. And most of the queer is spent by snowbirds who don't know what they got. Some of it is miserable stuff."

  "Ever hear of Thomas J. Keeffringer, known as Termite Tommy?"

  "Nope. That's a new one on me. Why all the interest in Weisrotte and this Termite Tommy?"

  "Beats the hell out of me," Fortescue said. "They just sent me up here to see if these guys are behaving themselves."

  "They could have done that with a phone call."

  "Sure they could," Roger agreed, rising. "Well, I'll nose around and see if anything smells. If I find anything, you'll be the first to know."

  "Uh-huh," the detective said, starting on his second slice of pizza. "When pigs fly."

  Fortescue looked up the address of Weisrotte's Print Shop in the telephone directory and located it without too much trouble. He parked two blocks away and walked back. It was a dilapidated place with a dusty plate-glass window cracked across one corner. The interior was more of the same: a long, littered room crammed with cartons of stationery; presses of all sizes, some of them rusty and obviously unused; yellowed, fly specked samples of business cards, letterheads, and envelopes pinned to a corkboard above a scarred sales counter.

  The only piece of equipment that looked modern and new was a big white-enameled machine on casters. It had plastic shelves protruding from both ends, and in front was a push-button control panel that looked as complex as the dash on a 747.

  An old man was working a small treadle press in the rear of the shop. When he saw Fortescue standing there,

  he came shuffling forward, wiping his palms on his ink-stained apron. He looked to be pushing seventy, with the suety face of a heavy drinker, bulbous nose a web of burst capillaries.

  "Mr. Weisrotte?" Roger asked.

  "Yah," the printer said, peering at him through inflamed eyes.

  "You print business cards?"

  "Yah."

  "How much?"

  "Thirty dollars a thousand."

  "Wow," Roger said, "that's stiff."

  "Iss quality work," Weisrotte said. "Any color ink. Iss thermographed. Raised printing. Six lines of type. Take it or leave it."

  "I'll ask my boss," Roger said, and turned to leave. Then he paused and pointed at the gleaming white machine. "What the hell is that thing?" he asked.

  Weisrotte came alive. "Iss color laser copier," he said proudly. "The latest. Iss beautiful, no?"

  "Yeah, that's some piece of machinery. What'll they think of next."

  As he exited from the shop a bozo was climbing out of a dented pickup truck parked at the curb. He was tall, skinny, and dressed like an undertaker. He headed for Weisrotte's door.

  It's not enough to be a smart cop; you also need luck. Fortescue decided to try his.

  "Hey, Tommy!" he cried. "How you doing, man?"

  The guy stopped, turned slowly, stared at the agent. "Do I know you?" he asked in a toneless voice.

  "Sure you do," Roger said cheerily. "Leroy Washington. I just got out a couple of weeks ago."

  Keeffringer shook his head. "I don't make you," he said.

  "I know," Fortescue said, laughing. "All us smokes look alike. I was in Cellblock C."

  "Yeah? Where did you work?"

  "They had me all over the place, but mostly in the kitchen."

  "That was lousy food," Tommy said, relaxing.

  "I know, but we did the best we could with what they gave us. You live in Lakeland?"

  "For a while."

  "Yeah," Roger said, "me, too. I just stopped by to visit an old girlfriend. Then I'm going down to Lauderdale. More action."

  "Lauderdale?" Termite Tommy said. "I'm heading there later this afternoon. Need a lift?"

  Fortescue jerked a thumb at the battered pickup. "Not in that clunker," he said, grinning. "Thanks anyway, but the girlfriend is fattening me up so I think I'll stick around a few days. Hey, it's been good talking to you, man. Maybe I'll bump into you again on the Lauderdale Strip."

  "Maybe you will," Tommy said. "Nice seeing you again, Leroy."

  Fortescue ambled slowly down the street in case Keeffringer was watching. But the moment he turned the corner, he walked quickly to his parked Volvo. He reckoned this was too great to pass up; he'd probably do better with Termite Tommy in Fort Lauderdale than tailing the Kraut around Lakeland.

  He packed swiftly and checked out of the motel. He drove back to Weisrotte's shop and was gratified to see the mangled pickup still in front. Fortescue found a place to park about a half-block away where he could watch the action. Keeffringer had said he was heading for Lauderdale later that afternoon, so Roger left his car and found a fast-food joint not too far away. He bought a meatball submarine, a bag of fries, and a quart container of iced Coke. He returned to his stakeout and settled down.

  It was almost three o'clock before Termite Tommy came out. And in all that time, Fortescue hadn't seen a single customer enter the shop. Which probably meant the German wasn't buying his schnapps with the income from printing business cards.

  He gave the pickup a head start, then took off after it. He didn't stick too close, figuring Keeffringer would probably cut over to take Highway 27 south, and even if he lost him at a light he could always pick him up later; that decrepit truck would be breathing hard to do fifty mph.

  But he never did lose Termite Tommy, even as traffic heavied south of Avon Park and Sebring, and even when they drove through a couple of heavy rainsqualls that darkened the sky and cut visibility. They hit Fort Lauderdale a little after nine o'clock, and Fortescue decided that if Tommy had driven all this way for a shackup with some bimbo, he himself would have a hard time explaining to Tony Harker why he had deserted his assignment in Lakeland.

  Keeffringer seemed to know exactly where he was going. He cut over to Federal Highway, turned onto Commercial, and pulled into the parking lot of the Grand Palace Restaurant.

  "Welcome home," Roger said softly, feeling better.

  He parked a block away and sauntered back. He returned in time to see Termite Tommy come out of the side entrance to the Palace Lounge. With him was a blond guy wearing a white suit. When they passed under the restaurant's outdoor lights, Fortescue thought the newcomer might be David Rathbone. But he couldn't be sure, having seen only that photograph Harker had.

  Roger watched as the two men climbed into a parked car, a big, black job that, from where he stood in the shadows, he guessed was either a Rolls or a Bentley. They were togeth
er less than five minutes, then got out of the car. They shook hands. Rathbone, if that's who it was, went back into the Palace Lounge. Termite Tommy returned to his truck and pulled away. Fortescue could have taken up the tail again but didn't.

  "The hell with it," he said aloud.

  He drove home, and when he walked in carrying his suitcase, Estelle looked up from her sewing and said, "Have a nice vacation?"

  But she rustled up a great meal of cold chicken, spaghetti with olive oil and garlic, and a watercress and arugula salad. She also warmed up a wedge of apple pie and topped it with a slice of cheddar, just the way she knew he liked it.

  She watched him wolf all this down and asked, "Didn't you have any lunch today?"

  "Oh I did, I did," he said. "Instant ptomaine."

  He opened his second bottle of Heineken before he called Harker at his motel. He gave Tony a brief account of meeting Weisrotte and how he tailed Termite Tommy back to Lauderdale.

  "He met a man in the parking lot of the Grand Palace," he reported. "I think it was probably David Rathbone, but I can't swear to it. A good-looking blond guy wearing a white suit. They sat together in a car that was either a Rolls or a Bentley."

  "Rathbone drives a black Bentley," Tony said. "It was probably him and his car. Find out anything about that self-destruct paper?"

  "Sheet," Fortescue said, "I barely had time to turn around. But while I was in the German's printshop, I spotted something interesting. He's got a brand-new color laser copying machine."

  "Oh-oh," Harker said.

  38

  "When's this guy going to show up?" Rathbone demanded.

  "Hey, take it easy," Jimmy Bartlett said. "You've been awfully antsy lately."

  "You're right," David said. "I'm getting impatient. And when you get impatient, you make mistakes. I'll try to slow down. But did we have to meet in a crummy place like this?"