Timothy's Game

by Lawrence Sanders

  She doesn’t answer. Just glares at him. She watches until he gets in the Caddy and drives away. She goes back into the den and stares at his empty brandy glass. Enraged, she backhands it off the desk, hoping it will shatter into a hundred pieces. But it bounces harmlessly on the shag rug, and she leaves it there.

  She sits stiffly in the swivel chair, thinking of what happened. After a while she cools, and the fact that he came on to her seems small potatoes compared to the fact that the stupid prick has sunk over a half-mil on a stock tip. Suddenly she strikes her forehead with a palm and groans.

  Feverishly she digs out the most recent issue of Standard & Poor’s Stock Guide. She looks up Trimbley & Diggs, Inc., and follows the numbers across to the column headed Capitalization. As she feared, T&D is very thinly capitalized. There is no preferred stock and only about 800,000 shares of common stock outstanding.

  Then she begins laughing. It’s possible that there’s an insider leak at Snellig Firsten Holbrook, and it’s possible that arbitrageurs have learned of the leveraged takeover and are buying T&D for a quick profit. But it now seems obvious that the run-up of the stock’s price is mostly due to Sally buying 27,000 shares and Mario Corsini buying almost 100,000 shares.

  Unknowingly, the two of them have been manipulating the goddamn stock! She can’t stop laughing, but eventually sobers long enough to realize that their manipulation can work both ways. If Corsini is liquidating his holdings, she better do the same. Take the money and run—before the whole thing blows away like a house of cards in a sudden belch.

  So she unloads her first purchase of 9,000 shares the next morning, making a profit of about $36,000. She gives Paul Ramsey his 5 percent, and he looks at the cash in bemusement.

  “Cool,” he says.

  “I told you my sister is a financial genius,” Eddie tells him. “She’s a lousy cook, but she knows money.”

  So everything’s coming up roses, and looking even better on Tuesday night when Sally, digging through the latest delivery of Bechtold Printing trash, finds smeared proofs on the letterhead of Pistol & Burns. There’s a merger in the works between two food processing companies, one small, one big and cash-rich.

  Sally smiles grimly. That should keep Corsini happy until she can figure a way to get that murdering punk out of her life—permanently.

  Six

  TIMOTHY CONE LOOKS UP the telephone number of Edward Steiner, West 47th Street, in the Manhattan directory and calls from the loft.

  “Mr. Steiner?”

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “Our name is Silas Farthingale. We are the director of client data for the Carlton Insurance Company. A Miss Sally Steiner has applied for a single-premium annuity policy with Carlton. It pays a death benefit, of course, and Miss Steiner has listed you as one of her beneficiaries, giving us your name and address. Unfortunately, she neglected to fill out the space in which the relationship should be stated. We have attempted to contact Miss Steiner, but she seems to be out. We wonder if you’d be willing to state your relationship to Miss Steiner so her application can be processed as expeditiously as possible.”

  “Sure,” Eddie says, laughing. “I’m her brother.”

  “We thank you very much, Mr. Steiner.”

  So now Cone knows that much. The two, brother and sister, could be in it together, but he’s inclined to think the woman is the mover and shaker in these stock deals. After all, she’s the one who bought 10,000 shares of Wee Tot Fashions in her own name. Then Jeremy Bigelow shows up and asks questions. So now Sally is using a front: Paul Ramsey, her brother’s roommate. And she’s buying Trimbley & Diggs in 9,000-share lots, figuring that will keep the SEC off her tail.

  And those other 9,000-share buys in cities all over the country? Maybe those buyers are friends of Sally Steiner, too. But that’s so neat a solution that Cone is inclined to doubt it.

  But none of his theorizing sheds any light on the Steiner woman’s pipeline into Wall Street. She must have an informant down there—unless …

  She runs a garbage collection outfit, doesn’t she? So maybe she’s picking up trash from Pistol & Burns, Snellig Firsten Holbrook, and God knows how many other investment bankers and stockbrokers. And maybe she’s flipping through that rubbish to glean her inside information. It’s possible. Cone remembers warning G. Fergus Twiggs about safeguarding the contents of Pistol & Burns’ wastebaskets by purchasing more efficient shredders.

  He digs out the Manhattan Yellow Pages and, in the section headed Rubbish & Garbage Removal, finds the address and phone number he wants. He calls.

  “Steiner Waste Control.”

  “My name is Herschel Dingby. I’m opening a restaurant in the Wall Street area in a month or so, and I’d like to talk to someone at your company to arrange for daily garbage collection.”

  “We don’t service any customers below Fourteenth Street.”

  Bang! goes the phone. And bang! goes Timothy’s theory of how Sally Steiner is getting her inside poop. He sighs and makes one more call.

  “Pistol and Burns. May I help you?”

  “Could I speak to Mr. G. Fergus Twiggs, please. Timothy Cone of Haldering and Company calling.”

  “Just a moment, please, sir.”

  It’s more than a moment, but Cone waits patiently. Eventually the senior partner comes on the line, and they exchange brief pleasantries. Then the Wall Street dick gets down to business.

  “Are you a betting man, Mr. Twiggs?”

  Short pause, then: “I wouldn’t be in this business if I wasn’t. What do you want me to bet on?”

  “Me,” Cone says. “Look, I know that technically Haldering’s job is finished at your shop. I submit a final report, you pay us off, and that’s it. Only I don’t want it to end right now. I’d like you to call Hiram Haldering and tell him you want to keep us on the payroll for another couple of weeks.”

  “And why should I do that, Mr. Cone?”

  “Because I think I’m onto something that may—with heavy emphasis on the may—uncover that Wee Tot Fashions leak from your office. And other insider leaks from other investment houses. No guarantees, but I think it’s worth the bet that I’ll come up with something. If not, then just write me off as another con artist.”

  “No, Mr. Cone, I’d never do that.” There is a long silence, then he says, “All right, I’ll place a wager on you. I’ll call Mr. Haldering immediately and tell him we require your services for another two weeks.”

  “Thanks,” Timothy says. “But I better warn you: I plan to rent a car. I’ll need it to do the job. You’ll get stuck for the expenses on that.”

  G. Fergus Twiggs laughs. “Why not?” he says. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

  That night Cone picks up a big box of baked lasagna, a container of cucumber salad, and a jug of burgundy. He cabs over to Samantha’s apartment in the East Village. She pops the lasagna in the oven to warm it while he pours tumblers of wine. As usual, they plop down and eat on one of the oval rag rugs in her artsy-craftsy apartment.

  “You’ll never guess what happened,” she says. “This afternoon that guy Twiggs called H.H. He wants you to keep on the Pistol and Burns case for another two weeks.”

  “No kidding?” Cone says, eating busily. “I wonder what he’s got in mind.”

  Sam looks at him suspiciously. “When you get that look on your puss,” she says, “I begin to worry. You didn’t have anything to do with Twiggs’ call, did you?”

  “Me? Come on! How could I convince a guy like that to spend more money on something I thought was signed, sealed, and delivered? I figured to complete the final report and that would be that.”

  “Uh-huh,” she says, still staring at him. “Well, now I’ll have to parcel out those three new cases to the other guys, and they’ll scream bloody murder. Tim, is there something you’re not telling me?”

  He holds up a palm. “I swear there’s not. Have I ever lied to you?”

  “Oh, Jesus,” she says, sighing. “Now I am worried
. You tight-mouthed bastard! I should have known better than to ask you.”

  They finish their dinner and clean up the debris. Then they loll on the rug again, sipping fresh glasses of burgundy.

  “Want to stay the night?” she asks him.

  “Of course I want to stay. I’ll split early in the morning before you’re awake.”

  “What a life we lead,” she says. “Fast action and quick goodbyes.”

  “Hey,” he said, “don’t get started on that. We agreed—remember? Either of us can blow the whistle any time, with no explanations, no excuses, no apologies.”

  She looks at him coldly. “I’d like to blow your whistle,” she says, and they both crack up.

  She wants to watch some stupid TV documentary about the Richest Man in the World. So Cone undresses and slips naked into bed, after removing her French dolls and chenille bedspread covered with little pink balls of fluff.

  She keeps the volume down, and after a while he dozes, not really sleeping but floating drowsily between clean, crisp sheets, wondering if this really is, as he believes, the best time of his life.

  He is dimly conscious of Sam clicking off the TV set and checking the chain and bolt on the outside door. He hears her moving about, going into the bathroom and coming out, undressing.

  Then she slides into bed alongside him.

  “Sleeping?” she whispers.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Liar. Want to wait till morning?”

  “No.”

  She molds herself to his back, spoon-fashion, then reaches around to hold him. He can feel the fever of her body, and it’s so nice having her close that he doesn’t want to move.

  “Do something,” she urges.

  “Whistle ‘Dixie’?” he suggests. “Sing an aria? Crack my knuckles?”

  She punches his ribs. “I’ll crack more than that, buster.”

  Then he is no longer drowsy, and they attack each other with moaning kisses and caresses as hard as blows. Their bodies join in a curve as convoluted as a Mobius strip. Within moments they are engaged in hostile assaults, as if each is guilty of the other’s need—for which there is no forgiveness.

  They rampage across the bed, back and forth, and if there had been a chandelier overhead, they would have swung from that, two nutty acrobats socking together in midair. Curses are muffled, oaths gritted, and when they finally come to a sweated juncture, each believes it a selfish victory and is beamy and content.

  Cone rents a Dodge Shadow because the name appeals to him. He intends using it to shadow and, if things get hairy, to dodge. It’s a black two-door compact and has all the performance he’ll need for city driving.

  He gets the feel of it on a jaunt uptown. He drives by Steiner Waste Control on Eleventh Avenue and is surprised by the size of the dump—almost a city block wide. It’s late afternoon, and the place seems relatively quiet with only a single truck unloading at a shed and another on the tarmac awaiting its turn.

  He returns to the loft and phones Neal K. Davenport.

  “Now what?” the NYPD detective demands. “I’m trying to eat a sausage hero, so make it fast.”

  “That’s your lunch? At this time of day?”

  “You think we get a regular lunch hour like you nine-to-five types? Fat chance! What’s on your mind, sherlock?”

  “You know anyone in the Organized Crime Bureau?”

  “I might. Why are you asking? You got something for them?”

  “Nah,” Cone says. “Just a couple of questions.”

  “What the hell is this—a one-way street? When are you going to start coming up with some answers for us? What a hardnose you are! Okay, I’ll play your little game. The guy I know in the Organized Crime outfit is Joe D’Amato. He looks and dresses like a college professor, but he’s got more street smarts than you and I will ever have. I’ll give him a call and tell him you’re the worst brain-picker in the city. If he wants to talk to you, that’s his problem.”

  “Thanks,” Cone says. “That’s one I owe you.”

  “One!” the city bull says, outraged. “What’re you doing—counting on your thumbs? Use all your appendages and it comes to twenty-one. Do you read me, sonny boy?”

  Cone hangs up softly. He finds the computer printouts Jeremy Bigelow gave him, and makes a list of all the out-of-town buyers who purchased 9,000 shares of Trimbley & Diggs, Inc. There are ten of them, and Cone jots down their names and the cities where they bought the T&D stock.

  Cleo has started to mewl sadly, so he changes the cat’s litter, puts out fresh water, and then inspects the contents of his scarred, waist-high refrigerator to see what kind of a banquet man and beast can share. He finds three eggs, a hunk of salami, and a piece of greenish cheese sparked with jalapeño pepper flakes.

  He cuts the salami into cubes, fries them up with the eggs, and sets out the cheese to provide his cholesterol overdose of the day. There’s also a blackened banana for dessert. But everything tastes good to him, and Cleo has no objections except perhaps to the pepper cheese which makes the tom sneeze.

  The phone doesn’t ring until almost nine o’clock and, being a superstitious man, Cone goes to answer it with his fingers crossed.

  “Yeah?” he says.

  “Is this Timothy Cone?”

  “That’s right. Who’s this?”

  “Sergeant Joseph D’Amato. Neal Davenport said you wanted me to contact you.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “I should tell you this call is being taped. In the business I’m in, that’s SOP. Okay with you?”

  “Sure. All I got is a list of names and where they live. I was hoping you might be able to give me some skinny on them.”

  “Who are they?”

  Cone sees no reason to hold back, especially if he wants a favor from this guy. “All of them bought big blocks of the same stock in the last two or three weeks. I think it may be an inside trading scam.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” D’Amato says. “That’s a federal rap. No interest to us.”

  “It might,” Cone says. “I think these guys are getting their tips from a woman who operates a private garbage removal service on the West Side of Manhattan. I got a feeling these guys are all wrongos, and they’re in your files.”

  Silence a moment, then: “All right, let’s have the names. Try to speak slowly and distinctly. My tape recorder is an antique. And spell out all the last names.”

  Cone does as he’s told.

  “That’s it,” he says when he’s finished.

  “A couple of the names ring a bell,” the sergeant says. “And you’re right: They are not nice people. I’ll run them through the computer and see what turns up. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Neal tells me you’re a secretive sonofabitch. If you’re holding back, now’s the time to tell me. I don’t like doing a private eye’s work unless there’s something in it for me.”

  “I understand that, and I’m not holding back. I’ve given you all I’ve got.”

  “All right,” D’Amato says. “But you cross me just once, and you’ve had it, pal. You capeesh?”

  “I capeesh,” Cone says.

  That night, around eleven o’clock, he drives uptown again. He parks two blocks away from Steiner Waste Control and walks back. The dump is surrounded by a heavy chain-link fence, and the truck-filled tarmac is lighted by two floods. There’s also a night watchman’s shed inside the locked gate, and the guy himself is outside, looking up at the star-spangled sky. He’s a chunky bruiser and he’s not carrying a kielbasa in that belt holster.

  Cone knows at once that there’s no way he’s going to break into the Steiner office and waltz out with their customer list. That leaves only one alternative, and he groans aloud when he thinks of the stultifying labor that will entail.

  But he won’t let go; he’s done his share of donkeywork before and lived through it. So on Thursday morning, early, he’s parked across Eleventh Avenue from Steiner Waste Control. He
’s come prepared with two deli sandwiches (bologna on rye with mustard, roast beef on white with mayo) and four cans of Miller beer in a plastic bag filled with ice cubes.

  The garbage dump comes to life. Cone watches as the gate is unlocked and thrown open. Employees arrive, trucks are revved up, the gas pump is busy, and a short, stocky woman comes out of the office to yell something Cone can’t hear at an old guy who comes limping from one of the corrugated steel sheds.

  There are six huge Loadmaster compactor trucks, all painted yellow. Timothy thanks God and his good-luck angels when he sees that not only do the garbage trucks bear the legend Steiner Waste Control, but each has a big number painted on the side, 1 to 6. At least Cone won’t be following the same truck for a week.

  Because that’s his plan; he can’t think of a better way to find out who Sally Steiner is dealing with. He doesn’t think she’s got a Wall Street informant, so she must be getting her inside info from one of her customers. It’s a long shot, but the only one Cone has.

  Truck No. 4 pulls out first, and Cone starts up the Dodge Shadow and goes right after it. For the next seven hours he eats the truck’s exhaust, going where it goes, stopping when it stops, returning to the dump when Truck No. 4 returns to drop a load.

  Meanwhile he’s making scrawled notes on the back of a brown envelope that originally contained a nasty letter from the IRS warning him that he owed Uncle Sam an additional $17.96. He logs the schedule of Truck No. 4: names and addresses of places it services: restaurants, apartment houses, diners, industrial buildings, taverns.

  By the end of the day, sandwiches and beers consumed, Cone is bored and cranky, wondering if he’s got the fire to keep this up for a week. What bugs him is the fear that each numbered truck may have a different schedule of rubbish pickups every day. If that’s true, it’ll take a month of Sundays to list all of Sally Steiner’s customers.

  But on Friday morning, he’s there again, parked and waiting. Now there are big flatbeds pulling through the Steiner gate to load up with strapped bales of paper, and open-bed trucks being filled with cubes of compacted garbage to be taken, Cone presumes, to landfills on Long Island or New Jersey. And smaller trucks loading up with tons of swill for what eventual purpose Cone doesn’t even want to imagine.