'You tell me.'
Fortescue nodded and rose lazily. 'I'll take a look at him. Keep the faith, baby.'
Harker said, 'They stopped saying that twenty years ago.'
'Did they? Well, I still say, That's cool,' but I always was old-fashioned.'
Fortescue ambled down to his four-year-old Volvo and took another look at Frank Little's business card. The guy was out on Copans Road. The snowbirds were beginning to flock down, and Federal Highway would be crowded. But the investigator figured he had all the time in the world. That Harker seemed laid-back; not the type to crack a whip.
He found FL Sports Equipment, Inc., sandwiched between a shed that sold concrete garden statuary and a boarded-up fast-food joint that still had a weather-beaten sign: our grits are hits. Fortescue parked and eyeballed Little's place.
Not much to it. A cinderblock and stucco building, painted a blue that had been drained by the south Florida sun. Behind it was what appeared to be a warehouse surrounded by a chain-link fence with a locked gate. A wide blacktop driveway led from the road past the office to the warehouse. And that was it-except for an American flag on a steel flagpole in front of the blockhouse.
Roger locked the Volvo and shambled up to the office. The door was unlocked. The inside was as bare and grungy as the exterior. There was a cramped reception room with one desk, one chair, one file cabinet, one coat tree. No inhabitant. An open door led to an inner office.
'Hello?' Fortescue called. 'Anyone home?'
A man came out of the inner office. He had hair as fine and golden as corn silk. He was wearing a sharp suit that Roger recognized as an Armani. His embroidered shirt was open to the waist, and he wore a heavy chain supporting a big gold ankh. It lay on his hairless chest.
'Yes, sir,' he said briskly. 'Help you?'
'Hope so,' Fortescue said. 'I'd like to buy a dozen baseballs.'
The man's smile was cool and pitying. The investigator didn't like that smile.
'Oh, we don't sell retail,' he said. 'We're importers and distributors.'
'I was hoping maybe you could sell me a dozen baseballs wholesale. Give me a break on the price.'
'We don't even sell wholesale. As I said, we're distributors. We sell to wholesalers.'
'Sheet,' Fortescue said. 'Well, can you tell me any local place that carries your stuff?'
'Sorry, we have no wholesale or retail outlets in south Florida. All our sports equipment goes north.'
'You sure?'
The flaxen-haired man gave him that irritating smile again. 'I'm Frank Little. I own the business, so I should be sure. I think your best bet would be Sears or any sporting goods store on the Strip in Lauderdale.'
'I guess so,' Fortescue said. 'Thanks for your trouble. Sorry to bother you.'
'No bother,' Little said. 'I wish I could help you out, but I can't. Tell me something: Why do you want a dozen baseballs?'
'I coach an inner-city Little League,' the investigator said. 'We haven't got all that many bucks. That's why I was trying to shave the price.'
Unexpectedly Little took out a fat wallet and handed Fortescue a crisp fifty. 'Here,' he said. 'For your kids.'
'That's mighty kind of you,' Roger said, 'and I do appreciate it.'
Back in the Volvo he slipped the fifty into his pocket and decided he liked the way this case was shaping up.
He drove to Federal Highway and stopped at a discount liquor store. He shot the fifty plus on a liter of Absolut, a bottle of Korbel brut and another of Cour-voisier cognac. His twin sons were still awake when he arrived home, and he roughhoused with them awhile until Estelle packed them off to bed. She returned to the kitchen to find her husband had mixed a pitcher of martinis with the Absolut. The other bottles were on the countertop.
'What's the occasion?' she asked.
'A nice man gave me a tip,' he said. 'A nice, freaky man.'
They each had two martinis and drank the champagne with a fine dinner of broiled grouper, corn on the cob, and creamed spinach. Then they took cognacs and black coffee into the living room to watch TV.
'I wonder what the poor folks are doing,' Fortescue remarked.
'I don't want to know,' his wife said.
It was close to midnight when he rose, strapped on a hip holster with a.38 Police Special, and checked a little two-shot derringer he carried in an ankle pouch. Estelle watched these preparations without asking questions.
'A little business,' he told her. 'Should be back in an hour or two. You go on to bed.'
'You know I won't,' she said. 4'Listen, you get yourself killed, and I'm not going to bury you, I swear it. I'll prop you up on the couch in front of the TV until you just turn to dust. Then I'll sweep you out-y'hear? You remember that.'
'I surely will, mommy dearest,' he said, grinning.
He drove back to Copans Road, past the FL Sports Equipment layout. He parked on the shoulder across the street and sauntered back. He stood in the shadow of a big bottle palm, watching the activity.
Floodlights were on, the gate of the chain-link fence was open, and a big white semi was parked alongside the warehouse. At least four men were carrying cardboard cartons from the warehouse and loading them into the trailer. Frank Little and another guy, a mastodon, stood to one side watching the loading. Little had a clipboard and was apparently keeping a tally.
Slumped against his tree, Fortescue observed the action for almost an hour. He counted at least fifty cartons. Then the truck doors were slammed and locked. Three men got into the cab, and the semi began to back slowly onto Copans Road. That's when Fortescue got a good look at the legend painted on the side: siena
moving amp; storage. new york-new jersey.
The investigator strolled back to his Volvo and drove home. Estelle was still awake, watching an old movie on TV. She looked up when he came in.
'You again?' she said. 'Have a good time?'
'A million laughs,' he assured her.
He went into the kitchen and called the night number. It was after two in the morning, but the phone was picked up almost immediately.
'Harker. Who's this?'
'Fortescue. Look, you're from New York, aren't you?'
'That's right.'
'Ever hear of Siena Moving and Storage? They operate in the New York-New Jersey area.'
There was a brief silence. Then: 'I've heard of them. The outfit is owned by one of the Mafia families in Manhattan.'
'My, my,' Roger Fortescue said. 'Those bentnoses must play a lot of baseball.'
10
It was starting out to be a great season: balmy days and one-blanket nights. The tourists lolled on the sand, groaning with content, and later showed up at Holy Cross Emergency with second-degree burns. That noonday sun was a tropical scorcher, but the snowbirds bared their pallid pelts and wanted more.
Rathbone took the sun in small, disciplined doses, before eleven a.m. and after three p.m. And he spread his body with sunblock. Rita Sullivan was out on the terrace every chance she got, slick with baby oil, getting darker and darker.
'The back of the bus for you,' David said, laughing. But he loved it, loved the contrast between her cordovan and his bronzy gold.
Then, one day at breakfast, he said to her, 'Ready for that little job I told you about?'
'I'll never be readier.'
'We'll leave at ten-thirty.'
