Timothy's Game

by Lawrence Sanders

  The car stops, he’s helped out, still carrying his lamb stew. The blindfold is whisked away. He stands there, blinking.

  There’s another rat-a-tat of Chinese between the two alpaca jackets. One turns and starts walking south on Broadway toward the corner. The speaker is now armed with a sleek 9mm Luger which he waves at Cone.

  “Your revolver will be left on the sidewalk,” he explains. “Please do not attempt to reclaim it until we have left, or we will be forced to return.”

  Through bleary eyes Cone watches the other guy place his magnum on the pavement near a fire alarm box. Then he returns, and the two young Chinese climb into the car.

  “Good night, Mr. Cone,” the leader calls, and the Buick accelerates, turns the corner with a chirp of tires, and is gone.

  Cone goes down to the corner and reclaims his iron. He inspects it quickly under a streetlight. It looks okay. Still loaded. He slips it into his jacket pocket. Then he walks slowly back to his building. But before going upstairs, he stands a moment on the deserted street.

  It has been a scarifying experience, being blind. He doesn’t want to go through that again. Now he can see the haloed glimmer of the streetlight, see the gleaming gutters of his city and, looking upward, see the glittering stars whirling their ascending courses. A blessing. More than that: a physical delight. Almost a thrill.

  Up in the loft, he pours some of the gelatinous stew into Cleo’s dish. The happy cat goes to work on it immediately. Cone goes to work on a stiff shot of brandy while he undresses, staring with new eyes at Cleo, the loft, furniture, everything.

  He strips to his skivvies, turns out the lights, and rolls onto his floor mattress.

  “Now for a lot of Z’s,” he calls to the cat, but all he gets in reply is the noisy slurping of lamb stew.

  He’s still in his skivvies when he phones Johnnie Wong on Friday morning.

  “Don’t tell me you’re in the office already,” the FBI man says.

  “On my way,” Cone says. “Listen, you told me to contact you if anything happened, even if I didn’t think it was important. Okay, something happened; I got taken for a ride.”

  “Well, you’re talking to me so it couldn’t have been a one-way trip.”

  Timothy describes the events of the previous evening. Wong listens without interrupting. Then, when Cone is finished, he says, “Could you ID the two foot soldiers who picked you up?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I know,” Johnnie says. “We all look alike to you blue-eyes.”

  “Not me; my eyes are shit-brown.”

  “What about the boss?”

  “I’d make him for a Chinese. He speaks English like a professor or like it’s his second language. I mean he never uses contractions. Never ‘I’m’ or ‘You’re’ but always ‘I am’ or ‘You are.’”

  “I know what contractions are. Anything else about him?”

  “An iron fist in a velvet glove kind of guy. Very polite. He’d apologize before he had your head blown off. He talked about me stalling for two weeks, so you’re right; something’s going down soon.”

  “And that’s all you can give me on him?”

  “I told you I was blindfolded the whole time.”

  “Any idea where you were?”

  “I figure I was in an apartment house on West Fourteenth Street, somewhere around Tenth Avenue. It’s on the north side of the street. At least nine stories high. It’s got an underground garage and automatic elevators. The corridors are wide and carpeted. The apartment I was in had a wood door and a thick shag rug.”

  “I thought you said you were blindfolded.”

  “I was, but I could hear and smell, and feel things under my feet. Also, I counted seconds and minutes.”

  “You’re something, you are,” Johnnie Wong says. “Well, you’ve given me enough to make an educated guess. You were in a twelve-story apartment house owned by the Giant Panda mob. It’s on West Fourteenth Street like you said, but it’s between Eighth and Ninth. It’s all rentals, but the entire tenth floor is the East Coast headquarters of the Pandas. The bossman you talked to was probably Henry Wu Yeh. He’s the warlord of the New York branch. From Hong Kong. Educated at UCLA. A very flinty customer. And a real tycoon type. He’s the guy who’s trying to muscle Giant Panda into legitimate businesses. You will turn General Motors over to us—or else! That kind of guy.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like him,” Cone says. “One minute he’s Mr. Nice and the next he’s the Voice of Doom.”

  “By the way,” Wong says, “you’ll find Henry Wu Yeh on that list of White Lotus shareholders you showed me.”

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding. I forget how many shares he owns, but it’s more than a thousand. Listen, do you want protection?”

  “What for?”

  “Well, Yeh said they’re going to come looking for you on Monday, didn’t he?”

  “So? That’s Monday. I got three days before they yank my chain.”

  Johnnie Wong laughs. “As we Chinese say, ‘Rots of ruck, old buddy.’”

  After he hangs up, Cone stands a moment, staring at the wall. It comes as no surprise to him to learn he was rustled by the Giant Panda gang. His reasoning goes like this:

  He meets Edward Tung Lee at Ah Sing’s Bar & Grill on Pell Street.

  He sees Lee and Chen Chang Wang in deep conversation.

  Wang gets blown away and is later revealed to be an officer in the Giant Panda organization.

  During the excitement, Edward Lee notices that Timothy Cone carries a shooter in an ankle holster.

  When the Giant Panda soldiers pick Cone up, the first thing they do is dust him down for an ankle holster. It was no normal frisk; the alpaca jackets went directly to his shins.

  Ergo: Edward Tung Lee is a member of, or working closely with, the Giant Panda mob and tipped them off that Cone was carrying on his leg bone.

  So, if Edward Lee is buddy-buddy with the Giant Pandas, those phone calls he received must have come from someone else. The United Bamboo gang maybe? And are they also responsible for the letter to Claire Lee? United Bamboo owned the San Francisco kip where she worked, and could easily have taken the photographs.

  Musing on all these permutations and combinations, Cone lights his first cigarette of the morning, coughs, and wanders over to his desk to consult the White Lotus shareholder list. He’s curious about how many shares are owned by Henry Wu Yeh, the pooh-bah of the Giant Pandas.

  No list. He can’t find it. He searches, even in such unlikely places as the cabinet under the kitchen sink. No list. He gets down on hands and knees and peers beneath the claw-footed bathtub, thinking Cleo might have dragged it there. No list. The White Lotus annual report is still on his desk, but that confidential record of shareowners has disappeared.

  He inspects the locks on the loft door. No signs of a break-in. But that doesn’t mean shit. A good picklock could open almost any door and never leave a trace. And no use wondering when it was done. Last night or yesterday afternoon while Cone was at work. Whenever, the White Lotus shareholder list has been snaffled.

  Cone glares accusingly at Cleo.

  “What a lousy attack cat you turned out to be,” he says to the beast. “What’d the gonnif do—toss you a fish head? You fink!”

  He’s in his office in a sour mood and telling himself he’s got a lot to be sour about.

  That missing list bothers him, mostly because he promised Chin Tung Lee he’d take good care of it. It would be easy to assume it had been glommed by the Giant Pandas while they had him in custody, but that just won’t wash. If Edward Lee is snuggling up to the Pandas—and Cone believes he is—he could easily provide a shareholder list anytime it was wanted.

  That probably means the guy who burgled the loft was a paid-up member in good standing with the United Bamboo mob. But what would that gang of cutthroats want with a list of White Lotus investors? Unless they were going to put the company into play.

  Three days, he reflects: tha
t’s how long he’s got before he faces the long knives. The prospect of his immediate demise doesn’t dismay him as much as fears for Cleo’s future without him. He wonders if he should leave Samantha Whatley a letter, willing the cat to her. Unless, of course, when he is knocked off, Cleo is also sent to the great litter box in the sky.

  Engrossed with these morose musings, he suddenly becomes aware that his phone is ringing. He picks up, wondering if it’s Mr. Yeh, calling to remind him that the clock is ticking.

  “Yeah?” he says.

  “Mr. Cone? This is Claire Lee. I’m calling from home. My husband is with me and would like to see you as soon as possible.”

  She sounds breathless. Maybe distraught.

  “At your Fifth Avenue apartment?” he asks.

  “Yes. Please. As quickly as you can, Mr. Cone.”

  “Okay,” he says, “I’ll be there.”

  He has no idea what it’s all about, but figures that maybe it would be smart if he had wheels. So he grabs a cab back to his neighborhood, reclaims the red Ford Escort from a parking lot on Wooster Street, and heads for the Lees’ Fifth Avenue apartment.

  Finding a parking space in that area is like the search for the Holy Grail. Finally Cone gives up, double-parks on East 68th Street, and locks up. If the Escort is towed, so be it; the client will pay the ransom to get it out of hock.

  Claire meets him at the door of the apartment. She looks yummy in a white linen jumpsuit with an alligator belt. But her face is drawn, and when she clasps Cone’s hand in both of hers, her skin feels moist and clammy.

  She draws him into the apartment, closes and bolts the door, then turns to face him. He wonders if she’s been weeping; her eyes are lost in puffy bags. She leans close, and he catches a whiff of 80-proof something.

  “My husband is ill,” she says in a low voice. “Maybe not ill, but very upset. Troubled.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Cone says. “What’s he troubled about?”

  “You better hear it from him.”

  She leads the way through a maze of hallways, corridors, empty rooms, up two steps, down two steps, until they finally reach what is apparently the master bedroom.

  It is a huge, high-ceilinged chamber dominated by an enormous oak four-poster that could sleep the Celtics, spoon-fashion. And there are armoires, dressers, escritoires, cabinets, chests, cupboards, étagères—all in dark, distressed woods, looking as if an entire Scottish castle had been denuded to furnish this one melancholy room.

  In the center of the immense bed is Mr. Chin Tung Lee, shrunken under a sheet and light blanket drawn up to his scrawny neck. His complexion is tallowy and his eyes are dimmed. Even his little beard seems limp. He withdraws a hand from beneath the covers and offers it to Timothy. The skin is parchment, the bones as thin and frail as a chicken’s wing.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” he says in a wispy voice. “Please, pull up a chair.”

  Cone wrestles one as heavy as a throne to the bedside and sits, leaning forward.

  “Sorry you’re feeling under the weather, Mr. Lee. Is there anything I can do?”

  Claire Lee is standing on the other side of the bed, opposite Cone. Her husband turns his head slowly in her direction.

  “The first letter, dear,” he says, and there’s no vigor in his voice. “Please show it to Mr. Cone.”

  She plucks a single sheet of paper from a bedside table and brings it around to him. It’s heavy stationery, thrice folded. The letterhead is embossed. Cone scans it, then looks up at Chin Tung Lee.

  “Yangtze International, Limited,” he says. “On Pine Street. Never heard of them. Have you?”

  “Oh, yes, I’ve heard of them. My countrymen.” Then, bitterly: “I understand criminal elements are involved.”

  “Uh-huh,” Cone says, and reads the letter. It’s in polite legalese, but the meaning is clear. Yangtze International has accumulated 16 percent of all White Lotus stock, with the pledge of proxies by “many other shareholders” and requests a personal meeting with Mr. Chin Tung Lee with a view toward “proper representation” on the Board of Directors.

  Cone reads it twice, then folds it and taps the letter on his knee.

  “I checked with the SEC early this week,” he says. “No one has filed a 13-D notifying an investment in White Lotus of five percent or more and declaring intent. But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything; there’s a ten-day delay allowed.”

  “But what does it mean, Mr. Cone?” Lee asks.

  “You know what it means,” Cone says harshly. “They’re making a run on your company. Now we know why the stock has been going up, up, up.”

  “I’ll never sell out,” the old man wails. “Never!”

  “You won’t have to,” Cone says, “if you play your cards right. You’ve got options. You can pay them greenmail—more than the market value of the stock—and buy them out. You can start a poison pill defense to make it so expensive to take over White Lotus that they’ll just go away. You can look for a friendly buyer. You can consider a leveraged buyout: You buy everyone’s shares and go private. You’ll have to take on debt to do that. But then, in a couple of years or so, depending on what the Dow is doing, you can go public again. It could make you a zillionaire. But I’m not the one to be giving you advice on this. Have you got an investment banker?”

  “No. I’ve never had the need for one.”

  “Well, you’ve got the need for one now. Mr. Lee, you’re in a war, and you better have the best strategist money can buy. Ask around, then pick one. If you want a tip from me, try Pistol and Burns on Wall Street. It’s an old outfit. Very conservative. Talk to G. Fergus Twiggs. He’s a full partner and a smart apple.”

  Lee looks imploringly at his wife. “Claire, will you remember that?”

  “Yes, daddy,” she says. “Pistol and Burns. G. Fergus Twiggs.”

  “Thank you, dear. Now show Mr. Cone the second letter.”

  She goes back to the bedside table, returns with a sheet of white foolscap. She hands it to Cone with fingers that are trembling even more than they did at Carpacchio’s bar.

  Timothy unfolds the paper and reads. No letterhead on this one. Just two typed lines: We have Edward. Do not go to the police if you wish to see your son alive again.

  He looks up in astonishment. “What the hell is this?” he demands. “Has someone grabbed him?”

  “I checked,” Claire says, gnawing at a knuckle. “He didn’t sleep in his bed last night. No one’s seen him or heard from him since yesterday afternoon.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Cone says. “No wonder you’re in bed, Mr. Lee.”

  The oldster sighs. “As the Good Book says, ‘Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble.’”

  “I’ll buy that,” Cone says. “This is the only letter you’ve received?”

  “The only one,” Claire says. “It came this morning.”

  “Phone calls?”

  “About Edward? No, none.”

  “Well, if he’s been snatched, you’ll be hearing from the people holding him. They’ll either phone or send you another letter. I think you should bring the cops in on this, Mr. Lee.”

  “No,” the gaffer says in an unexpectedly firm voice. “Absolutely not. I’ll pay anything to get him back, but I won’t endanger his life.”

  “You’ve got no guarantee,” Cone argues. “You could pay off and they still might croak—they still might do away with him because he can identify them. But listen, this is a rough decision and you have to make it yourself. Don’t listen to me.”

  “I want to do the right thing,” the septuagenarian says, his voice faint again.

  “Sure you do.”

  “You won’t tell the police, will you?”

  “If you don’t want me to, I won’t.”

  “But is there anything you can do to help?”

  “Very iffy,” Cone says. “Right now they’re just letting you sweat a little. You’ll be hearing from them again. Then we’ll know where you stand.
”

  He looks at Claire to see if she picks up on that: practically the identical language he used at Carpacchio’s. But she won’t look at him.

  “Tell me something,” Cone says. “How did this letter arrive? In your regular mail delivery?”

  “No,” Claire says, “it wasn’t mailed. A messenger left it with our concierge this morning. The other letter—the one from Yangtze International—that was hand-delivered, too.”

  “Uh-huh,” Cone says. “Both letters came at the same time by the same messenger?”

  “No,” she says. “I asked. They both came this morning but at different times. About an hour apart. The letter from Yangtze came first, delivered by a commercial service. Then, an hour later, the letter about Edward was brought by a young Chinese boy. The concierge says he dropped the letter on his desk and ran out.”

  “I get the picture,” Cone says. “Look, I’m going to leave you folks now. I’ve got some calls to make to people who may be able to help.” Then, when Chin Tung Lee glares at him, he adds hastily, “Not the cops. Just some guys who might have heard some talk. It’s worth a try. Listen, do you mind if I take this letter about Edward along with me? I got a pal in the typewriter business. He’ll be able to identify the machine used. That might help; you never know.”

  “Take it,” Lee says wearily.

  “And call me if you hear anything more. Either by letter or phone. And don’t forget to contact an investment banker. I know that your son’s disappearance is enough troubles, but you’ve got to start moving to protect your business, too.”

  The old man nods and holds out his hand. Cone shakes it gently, afraid the wrist bone might snap.

  “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Lee,” he says as lightly as he can. “I’m not going to tell you not to worry because I know you will. But you’ve lived a long life and had a lot of problems, and you solved them all, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Chin Tung Lee says, straightening up a little and raising his head from the pillow. “That is true.”

  “So? I’m betting you’ll grab the brass ring on this one, too.”

  Claire Lee leads the way to the front door. Cone appreciates that or he’d be lost in the warren.