He does his scarfing in a corner where he can eyeball the parading guests. They’re mostly Orientals, but there’s a good representation of whiteys and blackies. All are thin, elegantly dressed and, Cone figures, perform no more arduous chores than clipping coupons from their tax-exempt bonds. But that’s okay. Life is unfair; everyone knows that.
He finishes his food but is not ready for seconds-yet. He hands the plate to a passing waiter and joins the wanderers, reflecting that occasionally his job does have its perks. He finds a large room, furniture pushed back against the wall, rug rolled up, where a three-piece combo is playing Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin. It’s the kind of toe-tapping music Cone enjoys-he hates any song he can’t whistle-and he dawdles there awhile watching a few couples dancing on the waxed parquet floor.
Then he repairs to the closest bar and, since no one is going to hand him a tab, asks for a cognac. He’s smacking his chops over that when Edward Tung Lee, wearing a dinner jacket, comes swaying up. It doesn’t take a sherlock to deduce that the guy is half in the bag.
“So glad you could make it,” he says with a crazed smile.
“I’m glad, too,” Cone says. “I wish your stepmother would have birthdays more often.”
“Did you see what she’s wearing?” Edward demands. “Disgusting!”
The Wall Street dick doesn’t think so. Claire is tightly enwrapped in a strapless wine-colored velvet gown with bountiful decolletage. There’s a star-shaped mouche stuck to her right clavicle, so adroitly placed that the most jaded observer must become a stargazer, an eager student of heavenly bodies. It happened to Cone.
“It’s her birthday,” he advises Edward. “Let her enjoy.”
But the son’s anger will not be mollified. “Let her enjoy,” he repeats darkly. “The day will come …”
With this dire prediction, he weaves away, and Cone is happy to see him go. His hostility toward his stepmother is understandable-but that doesn’t make it right. Timothy just doesn’t want to get involved.
He has one final sandwich of smoked sturgeon on Jewish rye (seedless), and a portion of ice cream he can’t identify. But it’s got cut-up cherries and chunks of dark chocolate mixed in. Cleo would love it.
One more brandy, he decides, and when the black bartender asks, “Sir?” Cone grins foolishly and says, “Double cognac, please.”
Working on his drink, he goes back to the buffet table and filches some slices of roast beef, baked ham, and sturgeon, which he wraps in a pink linen napkin and slips into his jacket pocket. And he’s not the only guest copping tidbits; a lot of the elegant ladies are loading up their handbags.
He’s about to search out Chin Tung Lee and make a polite farewell when he feels a soft hand on his arm. He turns to see that velvety star, the beauty patch adhering to skin as creamy as the ice cream he just scoffed.
“Mr. Cone,” Claire Lee says with a smile that buckles his knees, “I’m so glad you could make it.”
“Happy Birthday,” is all he can manage.
“You already wished me a Happy Birthday,” she says, laughing. “When you arrived-remember?”
“So?” he says. “Two Happy Birthdays. A dozen.”
“Thank you,” she says, suddenly grave. “I know that my husband was delighted that you could come. He likes you, Mr. Cone.”
“And I like him. A fine gentleman. I was just about to find him and say goodnight.”
“No,” she says sharply, “not yet. Have you seen our terrace?”
He shakes his head.
“Let me show you,” she says, taking his arm.
It turns out not to be a world-class terrace. First of all, it faces eastward with a dead view of the bricked backs of buildings on Madison Avenue. Also, it is narrow-hardly enough room to swing a cat-and the lawn chairs and tables look like castoffs from a summer place in the Hamptons. There are a few hapless geraniums in clay pots.
Still, it is outdoors, and a number of people have found their way there, carrying drinks and plates of food. They seem to enjoy dining alfresco, and the guy in the white dinner jacket snoring gently in one of the rusted chairs is feeling no pain.
Claire leads Cone down to one end, away from the other guests. They stand at the railing, looking down into a paved and poky courtyard. They’d have been wiser to look up at a cloudless sky made luminous by moonlight. It’s a soothing night with a blessed breeze and the warm promise of a glorious day to come.
“Did you see Edward?” she asks in a low voice. “The man is drunk.”
“Nah,” Cone says. “Just a little plotched. He’s navigating okay.”
“You don’t think he’ll make a scene, do you?”
“I doubt it.”
“My husband worked so hard to make this party a success. I’d hate to have it spoiled.”
“It is a success,” he assures her, “and nothing’s going to spoil it.”
She is silent, still gripping his arm. He is conscious of her softness, her warmth. And her scent. It is something tangy, and he has a terrible desire to sneeze.
She is a lofty woman; in her high heels she is as tall as he. She stands erectly, and he wonders if that’s her natural posture or if she’s just trying to keep her strapless bodice secure. The moonlight paints a pale, silvery sheen on her bare shoulders, and her long, slender arms are as smooth and rounded as if they had been squeezed from tubes. The wheaten hair is braided and up in a coil.
“He hates me,” she says quietly. “Edward. I know he does.”
Cone doesn’t like this. He’s a shamus and doesn’t do windows or give advice to the lovelorn.
“He’s an awful, awful man,” Claire Lee goes on, “but I can understand the way he feels. I’m so much younger than Chin. I’m even younger than Edward. Naturally he thinks I’m a gold digger. But I happen to love my husband, Mr. Cone; I swear I do.”
“Yeah,” he says, acutely uncomfortable.
She takes her arm from under his and turns suddenly to face him. He is proud that he can return her stare and not let his eyeballs drift downward into the valley of the damned.
“You’re a detective, aren’t you?” she asks, her voice still low but steady and determined.
“Well, my boss calls us investigators. Most of our work is financial stuff. Wall Street shenanigans. I mean, we don’t handle burglaries or homicides or crimes like that-”
“But you know about them, don’t you?”
“Some,” he says, totally confused now and waiting to hear what she’s getting at.
“Listen,” she says, “I need your advice.”
“Not me,” he says hastily. “If it’s something personal, I’m just not qualified. Sorry.”
She turns away to peer down into the concrete courtyard again.
“I’ve got no one else I can talk to,” she says.
“No one? What about your husband?”
“No.”
“A girlfriend? Family?”
“No one,” she repeats.
The wine-colored velvet gown has no back. He can see gently fleshed shoulders, the soft channel of her spine. His weakness makes him angry.
“Just what the hell are you talking about?” he says roughly, then finishes his drink and puts the empty snifter in his pocket.
“I need help,” she says, turning her head toward him, the big baby-blues widened and softened with appeal.
He realizes it’s a practiced come-on, but he can no more resist it than he could resist that final double cognac.
“What’s the problem?” he says in a croaky voice.
“I can’t talk about it now,” she says, speaking more rapidly. “Not here. You know Restaurant Row?”
“Forty-sixth Street between Eighth and Ninth? Yeah, I know it. Some good take-out joints.”
“There’s an Italian place called Carpacchio’s on the north side of the street, middle of the block. They’ve got a small bar in the back. It can’t be seen from the street. Can you meet me there at three o’clock tomorrow afte
rnoon? The lunch crowd will have cleared out by then.”
So she had it all planned, he reflects mournfully, and knew I’d jump. Sucker!
“Sure,” he says, “I could do that. Carpacchio’s at three tomorrow. I’ll be there.”
“Oh, thank you,” she says breathlessly. “Thank you so much.” She leans forward to kiss his cheek fleetingly. “You stay here a minute; I’ll go in alone.”
“Yeah,” he says, “you do that.”
He waits a few moments after she’s gone, then leaves the Lees’ apartment without saying goodnight to the host.
On the drive back home, he tries to con himself by reasoning that all he’s doing is helping a damsel in distress. But that won’t wash. He wonders if he would have agreed to the meet if Claire was ugly as a toad and caused warts. He knows the answer to that one.
Then he figures that it’s possible that whatever her problem is, it just might have something to do with what he’s supposed to be investigating: the run-up in the price of White Lotus stock. There’s no way he can deny that possibility and no way he can confirm it except by appearing at Carpacchio’s at three o’clock tomorrow.
Feeling better about his decision, telling himself it’s all business, just business, he climbs the six floors to his loft to find Cleo in an agony of hunger. When he pulls the napkin-wrapped package from his pocket and opens it, the demented animal, sniffing the odors, begins leaping wildly at him, pawing his legs.
Cone tears off bite-sized pieces of beef, ham, and sturgeon and puts them in the cat’s dish, a chipped ashtray. Cleo starts gobbling, then stops a moment in the ingestion of these rare delicacies to look up at him in astonishment, as if to say, “How long has this been going on?”
He pulls the empty snifter from his other pocket and pours himself a jolt of harsh Italian brandy for a nightcap. He sucks on it slowly, sitting at his table, feet up, trying to imagine what the lady could want. He thinks about possible motives for a long time, and then realizes his primal urge has cooled.
There’s something more, or less, to Claire Lee than a goddess. She was rehearsed and knowing. Very sure of her physical weapons and how to use them. Nothing wrong with that except his vision of her is shattered. But it’s not the first time his hot dreams have been chilled. He can endure it.
But what, in God’s name, could Claire Lee want? Considering that, he looks down to see Cleo crouched at the table. The cat’s dish is empty, and the ravenous beast, mouth slightly open, is staring at him with a feral grin that seems to be saying, “More, more, more!”
Three
He spends the morning at the office, groaning over the composition of the weekly progress report that each of the five Haldering amp; Co. investigators is required to submit. With Samantha on vacation, the reports will go to Hiram Haldering himself, known to his employees as the Abominable Abdomen.
Cone composes what he considers a masterpiece of obfuscation. It hints, it implies, it suggests, and is such an incomprehensible mishmash that he figures it’ll send Hiram right up the wall. The report ends: “Will the White Lotus investigation be brought to a successful conclusion? Only time will tell.”
Satisfied with his literary creation, he tosses it onto the receptionist’s desk and flees the office. He stops at a nearby umbrella stand for a Coney Island red-hot with mustard, onions, and piccalilli, washed down with cherry cola. Eructing slightly, he pokes back to his loft. But instead of going up, he finds his Ford Escort, unticketed and with hubcaps intact, and drives uptown.
Parking anywhere near the Times Square area is murder, and he has to go over to 44th Street and Tenth Avenue before he discovers an empty slot. He walks back to Restaurant Row, pausing en route to buy a lemon ice from a sidewalk vendor and watch the action at a three-card monte game. The dealer is really slick, and Cone, making mental bets, loses fifty imaginary dollars.
He gets to Carpacchio’s on West 46th Street about twenty minutes early, figuring it’ll give him a chance to have a drink and scope the place. But when he enters and walks to the back, Claire Lee is already there, sitting alone at the little bar and working on something green in a stemmed glass.
The only other people in the dim restaurant are six waiters having their late lunch at a big table up front. Cone takes off his cap and slides onto the barstool next to Claire. She gives him a thousand-watt smile.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t show up;” she says.
“I told you I would,” he says gruffly. “What do I have to do to get a drink in this joint?”
She swings around to face the table of waiters. “Carlos,” she calls. “Please. Just for a minute.”
One of the guys rises, throws down his napkin, comes back to the bar. He isn’t happy at having his lunch interrupted.
“Yeah?” he says.
“Could I have another of these, please. And my guest will have-what?”
“Vodka rocks,” Cone says. “And you better give me a double so you don’t have to stop eating again.”
Carlos shoots him a surly look but serves them, then returns to the noisy table up front.
“A real charmer,” Cone says.
“Carlos isn’t angry at waiting on us during his lunch. He just doesn’t like seeing me with another man.”
“Oh-ho,” Cone says. “It’s like that, is it?”
She takes a cigarette from a platinum case. He holds a match for that and his own Camel, noticing that her fingers are trembling slightly.
She looks smashing in a printed silk shirtwaist with a rope belt. Her hat is enormous: a horizontal white linen spinnaker. It would look ridiculous on a smaller woman, but she wears it with all the aplomb of a nun in a starched wimple.
“Lovely day, isn’t it?” she says.
“Oh, my, yes,” Cone says. “And here it is Wednesday, and don’t the weeks just fly by.”
She stares at him, outraged, then tries a weak grin. “I guess I deserved that. But it’s hard to explain why I asked you to meet me.”
“Just say it. Get it over with.”
“Yes, well, I’m afraid it’s a confession. I hope I can trust you, Mr. Cone. If not, I’m dead.”
“I don’t blab.”
“First of all, I want to hire you, Mr. Cone.”
“I told you,” he says patiently, “I’ve got a job. Financial investigations. If what you want comes under that heading, then you’ll have to make a deal with my boss.”
“Then I want your advice,” she says, looking at him directly. “Will you give me that?”
“Sure. Advice is free.”
“Before I married my husband, I was living in California. I was very young and hadn’t been around much. I went to Los Angeles hoping to get in the movies or television.”
“You and a zillion others.”
“I found that out. Everyone told me I had the looks. I don’t want to sound conceited, but I thought I did, too. Prettier than a lot of girls who made it. And a better figure.”
“I’ll buy that,” he says.
“What I didn’t have,” she goes on, “and don’t have, is talent. I did one test and it was a disaster. My aunt, my closest relative, sent me the money for acting school. I tried, I really did, but it didn’t help. I just couldn’t act or sing or dance. Have you ever been to southern California, Mr. Cone?”
“Yeah, I spent some time there.”
“Then you know what it’s like. Life in the fast lane. Sunshine. Beaches. Partying. Twenty-four-hour fun.”
“If you’ve got the loot.”
She drains her first green drink and takes a little sip of the second. “Exactly,” she says. “If you’ve got the loot. I ran out. And I couldn’t ask my aunt for more.”
“Why didn’t you go home?”
“To Toledo? No, thanks. No surfing in Toledo. And it would have been admitting defeat, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ve done that,” he tells her. “It’s not so bad.”
“Well, I couldn’t. So, to make a long story short, I ended up in a house in S
an Francisco. Not a home-a house. You understand?”
“I get the picture,” he says.
“Don’t tell me there were a lot of other things I could have done: sell lingerie in a department store, marry a nebbish, go on welfare. I know all that, and knew it then. But I wanted big bucks.”
He doesn’t reply.
She is silent a moment, and he stares at her, wondering how much of her story is for real and how much is bullshit. Her face reflects the innocence of Little Orphan Annie, but he suspects that inside she’s got a good dollop of Madame Defarge.
Her nose is small and pert. A short upper lip reveals a flash of white teeth. The complexion is satiny, and if she’s wearing makeup it’s scantily applied. He finds something curiously dated in her beauty; she could be a flapper: She’s got that vibrant look as if at any moment she might climb atop the bar and launch into a wild Charleston that would shiver his timbers.
“So?” he says, wanting to hear all of it. “Now you’re in a house in San Francisco. A cathouse.”
“That’s right,” she says, lifting her chin. “In Chinatown. It was called the Pleasure Dome. Very expensive. It catered mostly to Oriental gentlemen. It was run very strictly. No drugs, believe it or not, and no drunks tolerated. We accepted credit cards.”
“Beautiful. Were you the only white in the place?”
“There were two of us. The other girls were mostly Chinese, some very young, from Taiwan.”
“And you made the big bucks?”
“I surely did. I had my own apartment, a gorgeous wardrobe, and for the first time in my life I had money in the bank. I even filed a tax return. In the place where you have to put in your occupation, I wrote Physical Therapist.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Cone says, and does. “How long were you there?”
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