If possible, the receiver was to be lured to Polcuch’s room at the seaman’s hotel to accept delivery of the sacks. Two agents would be concealed in an adjoining room to help with the arrest in case more than one man were involved.
At 10 A.M. the following day, May 27, Polcuch and Halvorsen left their hotel and took a taxi to San Francisco’s Chinatown. They stepped out in front of a four-story building which appeared to be a Chinese rooming house. They walked up three flights of stairs without encountering anyone. On the fourth floor they saw a Chinese man walking down the hallway.
Halvorsen said, “Can you help us?” He showed the Chinese the note bearing the name of Lew Gar Kung Saw. The Chinese pointed to the end of the hallway. The room appeared to be a clubroom. There were lounging chairs, a large sofa, and several tables with chairs. At one of the tables sat an elderly Chinese reading a Chinese-language newspaper. The man looked up as Halvorsen and Polcuch entered.
Halvorsen handed him the slip of paper and said, “We’re trying to find this man. We were told to meet him here.” The Chinese glanced at the name and nodded. He told them to sit down and then he went to a wall telephone, where he began dialing several numbers. He seemed to be having trouble locating Lew Gar Kung Saw.
Polcuch glanced at Halvorsen and winked. “Nervous?” he said in a low voice. Halvorsen grinned for the first time in days. “Yes,” he said, “aren’t you?”
Polcuch nodded and lit a cigarette. “You’re doing fine. Just keep it up and everything will be all right.”
Polcuch knew how the kid felt. No matter how many times you played this game, you never knew what was going to happen next. One false move and you blew the whole case, often without knowing why. Halvorsen was old enough to know the dangers. Now that the pressure was on, he was handling himself even better than Polcuch had reason to expect. His hands trembled a bit, but that was the only sign of inner excitement and fear. He hoped the boy would be as steady later as he was now. He had been coached on what to say and what to do under every possible contingency—but this was tricky business even for a veteran agent.
Perhaps the best of the agents were good because they had something of the ham actor in them. Day after day they were called on to assume false identities and to act the part of an underworld character in the drama of the hunters and the hunted. The only difference between this sort of acting and the theater was that this was not to amuse or to entertain the audience. A part was played to protect the people and the Treasury of the United States from thieves, looters, corrupters and chiselers. If you made one false move or spoke one unconvincing line, then the curtain came down. The play was over.
There was the time when one veteran Customs undercover agent worked his way into the confidence of a gang of big-time narcotics dealers whose operation was a multi-million-dollar business. He gave up his own identity and his own life to play the role of a narcotics dealer. He played his part so well that he gained the confidence of the man suspected of being the mastermind of the operation in New York.
Then came the day when it looked as though the weeks of acting would pay off. The man who was Mr. Big agreed to sell the agent a large supply of heroin. That evening they met in an East Side bar and had a few drinks before going to the place where the delivery was to be made. The agent insisted on paying for the drinks and then they walked outside to hail a taxi. Suddenly Mr. Big mumbled something about having forgotten an important date.