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.