“Done what?” she cries desperately. “Just exactly what are you talking about?”
“Forget it,” he says, grinning at her. “Have some more wine.”
“Up yours,” she says grumpily. “Were you labeled ‘Most Likely to Fail’ in your high school yearbook?”
“I’m a dropout,” he tells her.
“I’m willing to testify to that,” she says, and they both crack up.
After the pizza is gone, they stay on the floor, sipping the chilled wine, schmoozing about this and that. These are their most intimate moments, the closest. Sex is brutal warfare, but this is gentle peace, and there’s a lot to be said for it-though neither would admit it.
Samantha has a choice collection of old 78s, and she puts a stack on her player, selecting the records she knows he likes best. She starts with Walter Houston’s “September Song,” Bing Crosby’s “Just a Gigolo,” and Billie Holiday’s “Fine and Mellow.”
“I’ve also got her ‘Gloomy Sunday,’” Sam says. “I’d play it, but it ain’t.”
“That’s right,” Timothy Cone says happily. “It ain’t.”
He has many illusions about himself. One of the most mundane is that if, before falling asleep, he tells himself exactly when he wishes to arise, then lo! he will awake at that exact hour.
So on Sunday night, curled on his mattress, he instructs himself, “You will wake up at eight o’clock. You will definitely wake at eight.” He sleeps soundly and rouses at precisely ten minutes after nine. Cursing, he lights a cigarette, puts water on to boil, and tosses Cleo a small dog biscuit. It’s a cat, but not racist.
Still in his underwear, smoking a cigarette and sipping black coffee, he phones Neal Davenport.
“You’re up so early?” the city detective says. “Don’t tell me you’re at the office.”
“On my way,” Cone says, unshaven and standing there in his Jockey shorts. “How’s the Department doing on the Dempster homicide?”
“That’s why you called at this hour? To make me feel more miserable? It’s a cold trail, sonny boy, and getting icier every day. This one’s a pisser. We’re getting flak from everyone, and just between you, me, and the lamppost, we haven’t got a thing.”
“What about the hotshot lieutenant who was running the show? Is he still around?”
“Nah,” Davenport says, “he’s long gone. Now we got a deputy inspector, and he’s feeling the heat, too. Turning into a lush. This goddamned file is going to ruin a lot of careers-mine included.”
“Anything on that terrorist group that called the newspapers? The Liberty Tomorrow gang.”
“No trace. The thinking now is that it was all bullshit. A stunt pulled by some wild-assed leftists to grab headlines, or maybe by the finks who actually offed Dempster and just wanted to throw us a curve. This is why you called-just to listen to my kvetching?”
“Not exactly,” Cone says. “I want to ask a favor.”
“No kidding? I never would have guessed.”
“Look,” Cone says, “you owe me one-right? The Laboris drug deal-remember?”
“Well … yeah, I guess maybe. Waddya got?”
“Three license plates. I need to know who owns the cars.”
“What for?”
“Neal,” the Wall Street dick says softly, “this could involve the Dempster kill.”
Long silence. Then: “You shittin’ me, sherlock?”
“I swear to God I’m not. It’s not definitely connected, but it might be. Come on, take a chance.”
Davenport sighs. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. Give me the numbers.”
Cone reads off his scrawls from the inside of the matchbook cover. “Push this,” he urges. “It really could be something.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Then you’ve wasted a phone call. Big deal.”
“I’ll get back to you,” the NYPD man says and hangs up.
Cone, anxious to get things moving, fills his coffee cup again, lights another Camel, and calls Simon Trale at Dempster-Torrey. He has to hold for a few minutes before he’s put through. And while he’s waiting, he has to listen to music. “Climb Every Mountain,” no less.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Cone.”
“That’s okay, Mr. Trale. Listen, I warned you I might contact you again if I needed more poop.”
“Poop?”
“Information. Someone accused me recently of using other people to do my job for me. But sometimes it’s the only way to get the job done, so that’s why I’m calling. All right with you?”
“Of course,” Trale says.
“When I talked to you about all those industrial accidents, you said most of the losses were covered by insurance. Have I got that right?”
“Correct.”
“Does Dempster-Torrey buy insurance from individual companies or do you use a broker?”
“We use a single broker, Mr. Cone. We’ve found it more efficient and economical that way.”
“One broker for all of Dempster-Torrey’s property and casualty insurance?”
“Yes.”
“Lucky broker. That must add up to a nice wad.”
Simon Trale laughs quietly. “It does indeed.”
“So I’d guess that Dempster-Torrey, and you in particular, have got heavy clout with the broker.”
“A fair assumption. What are you getting at, Mr. Cone?”
“Here’s what I need. … There’s got to be an association of all the property and casualty insurance companies in the country. Some outfit that lobbies in Washington and also collects statistics on property and casualty losses and the insurance business in general.”
“Of course there is. The Central Insurance Association, a trade group.”
“The CIA?” Cone says. “That must raise a few eyebrows. But I’ll bet they’ve got all the facts and figures on their industry on computer tapes-right?”
“I would imagine so, yes.”
“Well, here’s what I’d like you to do: Call your broker, ask him to contact the trade association and get a list of the ten companies in the country that suffered the heaviest property and casualty losses in the last year.”
There’s a long pause. Then: “You think there may be a connection with our losses, Mr. Cone? That there may be some kind of a conspiracy directed against large corporations?”
“Something like that,” Cone says. “Look, Mr. Trale, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking I’m a bubblehead after I fell on my face on that corporate raider suggestion.”
“Don’t apologize for that,” the old man says. “It was a very ingenious idea that just didn’t work out. Happens to me all the time. But now you feel there may be a link between our accidents and those of other companies?”
“Could be.”
“All right,” Trale says without hesitation. “I’ll call our broker and ask him to get the information.”
“Lean on him if you have to,” Cone says.
Trale laughs. “I don’t think that will be necessary; I’m sure he’ll be happy to cooperate. Shall I have him contact you directly?”
“Yeah, that’d help. I want to move on this as fast as I can, Mr. Trale, but I’m not promising anything.”
“I understand that. I’ll call immediately.”
Cone hangs up, satisfied he’s started things rolling. Now he’s got to wait for Davenport and the insurance broker to get back to him. He could do it all himself, but it would take weeks, maybe months, of donkeywork. And he has the feeling that something is going down that better be squelched in a hurry.
Having done a morning’s labor for Haldering amp; Co. with two phone calls, he feels no great obligation to occupy his desk at the office. So he has a whore’s bath, shaves, and dresses at a languid pace, pausing to make a small aluminum foil ball for Cleo to chase. He even has time for a morning beer to excite the palate and cleanse the nasal passages.
He ambles downtown, frowning at a summer sun that beams back at him. It’s a brilliant day, and he might glory in it if
he was not a man of a naturally morose nature, a grump still studying joy and how to achieve it. The brimful day is an indignity; he still prefers sleet and wet socks.
The snarly Haldering receptionist gives him a glare for his tardiness, and his cramped office is no great solace. There’s a chilly memo from Samantha Whatley on his desk: “Your progress reports for the past three weeks are overdue. Ditto expense account vouchers. Please remit ASAP.”
He folds the memo into a paper airplane and sails it up. It flutters, falls. Just like his mood. He wonders if he might not improve his lot in life by learning how to slice Nova thin in a high-class deli. He could force that career switch by marching in and slamming Hiram Haldering in the snout. Attractive thought.
He knows why he is suddenly afflicted with a galloping case of the glooms. Having set the wheels in motion on the Dempster file, there’s not a damned thing he can do until Neal Davenport and Simon Trale respond to his requests. The inaction chafes, and he hopes to God his second brainstorm isn’t going to prove as big a blunder as his first.
He grimly sets to work on those accursed progress reports, trying not to think of the possibility of another balls-up on the Dempster case. But when his phone rings about 11:30, he reaches for it cautiously as if it might bring news of disaster.
“Yeah?” he says warily.
“Davenport. You got pencil and paper? I got names to go with those license plates you gave me.”
“Jeez, that’s quick work,” Cone says. “I didn’t expect you to get back to me so soon.”
“Well, you said it might have something to do with Dempster. You know how to jerk my chain. I’ll give you the names, but I also got addresses if needed. Ready? Samuel Folger is the first. The second is Jerome K. Waltz. That’s W-a-l-t-z. Like the dance. The third plate is a company car registered to an outfit named Simon and Butterfield, Incorporated. Got all that? Now never say I don’t deliver.”
“Yeah,” Cone says, “thanks.”
“Those names mean anything to you?”
“They’re all Wall Street guys. They call themselves investment advisers or financial consultants or whatever. But what they really are is money managers-other people’s money.”
“They’re legit?”
Cone doesn’t answer directly. “They’re all heavyweights,” he goes on. “Mostly in trust and pension funds. I mean we’re talking about billions of dollars.”
“So what’s the connection with the Dempster homicide?”
“Well, uh, it’s iffy right now.”
“You bastard!” Davenport shouts. “I knock myself out getting this stuff, and you clam up on me. You got nothing to trade? What kind of horseshit is that?”
“Calm down, Neal,” the Wall Street dick says. “I got something to trade. You ever hear of a scabby joint over on the West Side called Paddy’s Pig?”
Silence. It goes on for so long that Cone says, “Hey, are you there?”
“I’m here. You said Paddy’s Pig?”
“That’s right.”
“You think it might be tied to the Dempster kill?”
“Yeah.”
“You and I better have a meet,” the city detective says.
Six
Cone provides the lunch. He’s standing outside the office with a shopping bag when Davenport drives up. He double-parks his unmarked blue Plymouth and props up a “Police Officer on Duty” card inside the windshield. Timothy climbs in with the bag.
“Hey, sherlock,” Davenport says, “that smells good. What’d you get?”
“Rare burgers on soft buns with a slice of onion-just like you ordered. Also, French fries, a couple of dills, and a cold six-pack of Bud.”
“Sounds good,” the NYPD man says, tossing a chewed wad of Juicy Fruit out the window. “You can diddle your expense account?”
“No problem.”
“Then let’s get at it.”
They open up the smaller bags, pop two beers, divide the paper napkins, and start gorging.
“There’s mustard and ketchup in those little packs,” Cone says.
“I’ll skip,” the city bull says. “I’m on a diet. Listen, I haven’t got much time, so I’ll give you the background fast. There’s a gang up in Hell’s Kitchen-only it’s Clinton now-called the Westies. Mostly Irish, and a meaner bunch of villains you never want to meet. I mean they make the outlaws in Murder, Inc., look like Girl Scouts. There’s a story that one of the Westies walked into a bar up there carrying the head of a guy he had just popped.”
“And the bar was Paddy’s Pig?”
“You got it. That’s where the Westies hung out. They were mostly into gambling and loan-sharking on the piers. But when the West Side docks dried up, the Westies went into everything else-drugs, prostitution, porn-you name it. Then, about ten years ago, they got into contract killings, including some for one of the Mafia families. We figure they pulled off at least thirty homicides. Most of the victims were chopped up. One guy had his head put in a steel vise, and it was tightened until his skull cracked open like a ripe melon.”
“Beautiful. Have some more fries before I eat them all.”
They start on their second burgers.
“These onions are hot,” Davenport says. “Just the way I like them. But I’ll be grepsing all day. Anyway, about three years ago the Department organized a strike force-us and state and federal people. It worked out real good. About a dozen of the Westies were sent up, including some of the bosses, and the rest laid low. Paddy’s Pig was closed down for a while, but it reopened with a new owner. And lately our snitches have claimed the gang is back in business again. Now you tell me there’s a tie-up between Paddy’s Pig and the Dempster homicide. In the first place, what were you doing in that joint?”
Cone wipes his mouth with a paper napkin and opens another beer. “I tailed David Dempster up there.”
The NYPD man turns to stare at him. “You shittin’ me again?”
“I shit you not,” Cone says. “That’s where he went, and had a confab with the owner, a fat slob named Louie. Listen, when the Dempster investigation began, did you run everyone involved through Records?”
“Whaddya think? Of course we checked them out. David Dempster’s got a sheet-but not much of one. A charge of battery for beating up a drunk driver in Central Park who, Dempster said, killed his dog. And two arrests for assault. Nothing ever came to trial.”
“My, my,” Cone says. “So the wimp’s got a streak of the crude, has he? That figures.”
Davenport rattles the windows with a reverberant belch, then unwraps a fresh stick of Juicy Fruit. “It doesn’t figure to me,” he says. “So David Dempster went slumming and was observed talking to the owner of Paddy’s Pig. What does that prove?”
“When I talked to Louie after Dempster left, he tried to push dope. When I wasn’t interested, he switched to merchandise that fell off the truck. I told him a buddy of mine was looking to buy a motorcycle. He said sure, send him around.”
The two detectives stare at each other.
“Thin stuff,” Davenport says.
“You got anything thicker?”
“No,” Davenport admits. “We got a lot of doughnuts that are all hole. Look, could you go back to this Louie and see if he can get you a black Kawasaki, Model 650?”
“Well, ah, that might be a problem. To tell you the truth, I got in a slight disagreement with a guy who may be hanging out there.”
“A slight disagreement? With you that’s like being slightly pregnant. Okay, I’ll do it myself.”
“Neal,” Cone says gently, “don’t do that. They’ll make you for a cop the minute you walk in the place.”
Davenport looks down at his stained, off-the-rack brown suit, his belly, plump hands. “You really think so?” he asks.
“Definitely. Why don’t you get an undercover guy who can act a scuzz. Bring him around and I’ll prep him. He can spend time at Paddy’s Pig until he’s accepted as just another barfly. Then he can move in on Louie and see if h
e can get a line on the cycle. I’m betting they didn’t drop it in the Hudson or send it to a chop shop. It’s too valuable.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. If it works out, it’ll put David Dempster in the crapper. You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course I know it.”
“Well, what the hell was his motive? Jealousy? Sibling rivalry?”
“Sibling rivalry? That’s fancy talk for a gumshoe.”
“I read books,” Davenport protests. “Come on-what’s the motive?”
“I’m working on that.”
“Jesus,” the detective says disgustedly, “you always hold back, don’t you?”
“You handle Paddy’s Pig,” Cone says, “and let me go after David Dempster. A guy shouldn’t chill his own brother. That’s not right.”
“You got a brother?”
“No.”
“Then what the hell are you talking about?”
“I got my standards,” Timothy says.
He carries the two remaining beers up to his office in a brown paper bag. There’s a scrawny guy in a seersucker suit waiting in the reception room. He’s wearing wire-rimmed cheaters, and there’s a straw boater balanced on his knee. He’s got the face of a pale hawk, with a droopy nose and a mouth so tight it looks like a lipless slit.
“Man to see you,” the antique receptionist snaps at Cone.
The visitor stands and tries a smile that doesn’t work.
“Mr. Timothy Cone?”
“Yeah. Who you?”
The guy whips out a business card and proffers it. “Bernard Staley from International Insurance-”
“Whoa,” Cone interrupts, holding up a hand. “I’m not buying.”
“And I’m not selling. It’s International Insurance Investigators. The Triple-I. Have you ever heard of us?”
“Nope.”
“Good,” the guy says, and this time the smile works. “We like it that way. This concerns Dempster-Torrey. Can we talk?”
“Sure,” Timothy says, taking the business card. “This way.”
Staley follows him down the corridor and into Cone’s littered cubbyhole office.
“This looks like my place,” the insurance man says, “but it’s bigger.”
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