Sullivan's sting

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 smuggled 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.