Timothy's game tc-2

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Almost two years. Then the place was raided and closed down.”

  “Oh? Local cops?”

  “No, FBI. According to the newspaper stories, the Pleasure Dome was part of a chain of fancy houses owned and operated by some Chinese gang.”

  “Uh-huh. Were you charged?”

  “I wasn’t caught. I lucked out. On the weekend the place was busted, I was up in Seattle with a Chinese gentleman who was on a business trip. They let us do that occasionally-take short trips with some of the wealthier clients. The tips were great. Anyway, I got back to Frisco on Monday and discovered I was out of a job. More important, the other girls who had been picked up during the raid were still in jail. It turned out that most of them were here illegally and would be deported. I decided the smart thing would be to put distance between me and the Pleasure Dome. In one day I closed out my bank account, packed my favorite clothes, and got a plane to New York.”

  He looks up at her admiringly. “No flies on you,” he says.

  “I’ve learned,” she says. “The hard way. But I did all right. I had some names to look up in New York.”

  “Chinese gentlemen?”

  She looks at him sharply but can see no irony in his face or hear sarcasm in his voice. “That’s right,” she says. “Old friends. Then, about three years ago, I was introduced to Chin Tung Lee. He was and is the sweetest, dearest, most sympathetic and understanding man I’ve ever met. His wife had died, and he didn’t want to live out his life with just that miserable son of his for company. Chin is almost three times my age, but when he asked me to marry him, I said yes.”

  “You were tired of the game?” Cone guesses.

  “Yes, I was tired.”

  “And Chin was wealthy.”

  She shows anger for the first time. “What the hell did that have to do with it? All my friends were wealthy, but I had enough money in the bank to tell any one of them to get lost-and I did it, too, on a couple of occasions. I don’t care what you may think; I didn’t marry Chin for his money.”

  “Okay, okay,” Cone says, “I’ll take your word for it. Did you tell him any of your past history before you married him?”

  “No.”

  “Did he ever ask?”

  “Once. I made up some stuff about teaching school in Ohio.”

  “Sounds like a happy ending to me,” the Wall Street dick says. “So what am I doing here listening to your soap opera? What’s your problem?”

  She sighs and opens an alligator handbag that probably cost more than Cone makes in a week. She pulls out an envelope and hands it over.

  “I got this in the mail last Friday,” she says. “Take a look.”

  He inspects the long white envelope. Addressed to Mrs. Claire Lee at their Fifth Avenue apartment. No return address. Postmarked New York. Cone looks at her. “You sure you want me to read this?”

  “That’s why I’m here,” she says determinedly.

  It’s a single sheet of white paper folded in thirds. Two lines of typewriting: “Remember the Pleasure Dome? We have the photographs.”

  Cone reads it again and looks up at her.

  “Blackmail?” she asks.

  “Sounds like. What photographs do they mean?”

  “No porn, if that’s what you’re thinking. But on the Chinese New Year we always had a big party at the Pleasure Dome. Free food and booze for our best clients. All of us girls would be there. Fully clothed, of course. Maybe our gowns would be low-cut or very short, but all our bits and pieces were covered. It was just a big, noisy party, and pictures would be taken as souvenirs for the clients. Those were the only photographs taken in the Pleasure Dome as far as I can recall.”

  Timothy stares at her. “You may have learned the hard way, as you say, but I wonder if you learned enough. When you had a scene with a customer at the Pleasure Dome, where did you take him?”

  “Upstairs. To one of the bedrooms. They were beautifully decorated and furnished.”

  “I’ll bet. Mirrors on the walls?”

  “Of course.”

  He gives her a cold smile. She returns his stare, her face becoming as white and stiff as her hat. “Jesus!” she gasps. “You don’t think they took photos through the mirrors, do you?”

  Cone shrugs. “It’s been done before. It’s a smart move for any guy who runs a kip. First of all, it helps keep his girls in line. Second, he can always sell the photographs or videotapes to jerks who get their jollies from that kind of stuff. And third, the possibility of blackmail is always there. So he shoots the action through a two-way mirror and builds up a nice file that his girls and clients don’t know about. He can lean on them anytime he wants.”

  “Oh, my God,” Claire Lee says despairingly, “what am I going to do?”

  “Right now? Nothing. This is just the opening move. A blackmailer wants the victim to sweat a little first, lose sleep, think of nothing but what it’s going to cost to keep the secret hidden. Have you been sleeping since you got the letter?”

  “With pills.”

  “There you are. You’re getting nervous already, anxious enough to tell me about it, and you don’t even know what the blackmailer’s got and what he wants for it. You’ll get another letter, Mrs. Lee, with maybe a sample photograph attached. Then you’ll get more letters, spelling out exactly what you’ll have to pay. You have any idea who might be pulling this?”

  “No. Not the slightest. Isn’t there anything you can do to stop it?”

  “Nope. This first letter is completely innocent. Take it to the cops and they’ll laugh. You haven’t been threatened-yet. This is only the opening move in a dirty game. You’ll just have to play it out. Mrs. Lee, why don’t you let me keep this letter.”

  “Why do you want it if you can’t do anything?”

  “So you don’t keep reading it and driving yourself nuts. How many times have you looked at it already? A dozen? A hundred? A thousand times?”

  “At least,” she says with a wan smile. “All right, you take it.”

  “Let me know when the second letter arrives,” Cone says. “Because you’re going to get another; I guarantee it.”

  She finishes her drink. “You know, Mr. Cone,” she says, “I feel better just telling you about it. I guess confession really is good for the soul.”

  “Is it?” he says. “I wouldn’t know.”

  He drains his vodka and stands up. “Keep in touch,” he says, trying to keep it light. “And thanks for the drink.”

  He walks slowly toward the outside door and pauses to pull on his cap. He glances back. Carlos, the waiter, is already at her side. The two are talking earnestly, their heads so close together that the guy is practically standing under her broad-brimmed hat.

  He’s back in the loft before five o’clock, nods at Cleo, and immediately gets on the horn to Johnnie Wong at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” he asks.

  “Hey, old buddy,” Wong says, “that’s the best bribe I’ve had all day. Where?”

  “How about my place?”

  “Sounds good. How do I find it?”

  Cone laughs. “If you’ve got my unlisted phone number, you’ve got to have my address. If you can get here before six, the downstairs door will be open and the elevator will be working. I’m on the top floor, a loft.”

  “I’ll find you.”

  Cone gives Cleo fresh water, half a can of human-type tuna, and sits back to review that wacky conversation with Claire Lee.

  He can’t for the life of him think of any reason why she would make up a history like that. And after all, it wasn’t so unusual that it couldn’t be true. But what was her motive for telling Cone, practically a stranger, all the squalid details of her past when, according to her, she hadn’t even told her husband?

  Cone decides he’ll buy her story. The lady is terrified-or at least badly spooked. She can’t ask help from Chin or Edward Lee, and apparently has no close friends she can consult. So she picks the only guy in the
law enforcement business she knows. Looking at it from that angle, her confession makes a crazy kind of sense.

  He pulls the letter from his pocket and reads it again. “Remember the Pleasure Dome? We have the photographs.” That tells him exactly nothing, unless Claire’s horror was feigned when he told her about a camera clicking away through a two-way mirror. Maybe she had willingly posed for centerfolds with men, women, donkeys, and dalmatians. That would account for her fear of a letter that apparently said zip.

  He is still trying to puzzle out what’s going on in that beautiful head, and wondering about the extent of her chicanery or absence thereof, when there’s a sharp rapping on the door. He moves to one side of the jamb.

  “Yeah?” he calls. “Who is it?”

  “Johnnie Wong.”

  Cone unchains, unbolts, unlocks the door. The FBI man comes in, flashing his toothy grin. He takes a look around the place.

  “Holy Christ!” he says. “You live here? If I were you, I’d sleep in the office. What’s that thing under the bathtub?”

  “Cleo, my cat,” Cone says. “Listen, this joint’s not so bad. It was neat and clean when I moved in, but I grunged it up a little to make it livable.”

  “You call this livable? It’s the biggest Roach Motel I’ve ever seen. Where’s that drink you promised me?”

  They sit on opposite sides of the table. Wong has a beer. “No, thanks,” he says when Cone offers a jelly jar. “I’ll drink it right out of the can. That way the worst thing that can happen to me is a cut lip.” He takes a gulp, then looks at the Wall Street dick thoughtfully. “Okay, you didn’t ask me up to admire the interior decoration. What do you want?”

  “I told you Haldering was hired to investigate the run-up in the price of White Lotus stock. I’ve got a list of the shareholders here. There’re more than two thousand names, so I don’t expect you to study the whole printout. But would you take a quick look and see if you recognize any of the names.”

  “Oh, God,” Johnnie Wong says, sighing. “This I’ve got to do for a free beer? All right, let me see the damned thing.”

  He flips through the pages swiftly, then goes back to the first and starts again, slower this time. Cone sits silently until Wong tosses the list aside.

  “Interesting,” the FBI man says. “The second time I went through it, I looked for people with big holdings, a thousand shares or more.”

  “You recognize any of the names?”

  “About a half-dozen. They’re all members of the Giant Panda gang.”

  The two men stare at each other a moment.

  “What does that mean?” Cone asks.

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Johnnie says. “I guess it means that Giant Panda is assembling a heavy position in White Lotus stock. But for what reason, the deponent knoweth not. Got any ideas?”

  “Not a one,” Cone says fretfully. “They’re a long way from having control of the corporation. And the stock pays five percent. That’s a nice return for legitimate equity investors, but it’s bupkes for a criminal gang.”

  “Well,” Wong says, “it’s your problem. Now do you figure I’ve paid for my brew, or have you got something for me?”

  Cone admires the guy. He’s a no-horseshit operator, cards on the table, everything up front. Timothy figures he better give him something if he wants the agent on his side.

  “I’ve got a weirdie for you,” he says. “It may be a bone or there may be some meat to it. Ever hear of a cathouse in San Francisco called the Pleasure Dome?”

  Wong is about to take a swallow of his beer, but he stops and puts the can back on the table.

  “The Pleasure Dome,” he repeats. “How in God’s name did you come up with that one? Have I ever heard of it? You bet your sweet patootie I have. I was stationed in Frisco when we busted the joint. What a palace that was! White girls, blacks, Chinese, Koreans, Hispanics, Japanese. It was a House of All Nations. Very exclusive. Very expensive. No sailors allowed. How do you know about the Pleasure Dome?”

  “It just came up in conversation,” Cone says. “Who owned the joint?”

  The FBI man shoves his beer away and stands up. “Okay,” he says, “you wanna play hard to get, so be it. Don’t call me again.”

  “Wait a minute,” Cone says. “Let me think.”

  “Yeah,” Wong says, sitting down again, “you do that.”

  He is quiet then, sipping his suds slowly, his eyes on Cone.

  The Wall Street dick knows that he needs this guy. He’s got a pipeline into the Asian underworld that Cone could never match. Secretiveness is Cone’s nature, but here’s a case where it could work against him, make his job twice as hard, if not impossible. He ponders a long time, trying to decide where his loyalties belong. How much does he owe the client? And the client’s wife?

  “Who owned the Pleasure Dome?” he asks again, trying one last time.

  Wong gives him a mocking grin. “Trade last,” he says. “Who told you about the place?”

  Cone gives up, figuring he’s got no choice. “A woman named Claire,” he says. “Ring any bells?”

  “Good God, this is like pulling teeth. What’s Claire’s last name?”

  Cone hesitates a beat or two, then realizes he’s in for a penny, he might as well be in for a pound. “Lee,” he tells Wong. “Claire Lee. She claims she worked in the Pleasure Dome.”

  “So? She might have; a lot of women worked there. What’s your interest?”

  “She happens to be the wife of Chin Tung Lee, the CEO and largest shareholder of White Lotus.”

  “Oh, boy,” the FBI man says with a grin. “The shit is beginning to hit the fan, old buddy.”

  “How so?”

  “Because the Pleasure Dome was owned by the United Bamboo mob. It was one of the string of whorehouses they operated up and down the West Coast. So now let’s recap … Giant Panda is buying into White Lotus. And the wife of the bossman at White Lotus once worked in a crib owned by United Bamboo. What do you make of that?”

  “Nothing,” Cone says. “I can’t figure it.”

  Johnnie Wong leans across the table, thrusting his face close to Cone’s. “You wouldn’t be holding out on me, would you?”

  “Not me. I’m just as flummoxed as you are.”

  The FBI man sits back, then slaps the tabletop with a smack of his palm that brings Cleo growling out from under the tub.

  “Damn!” Wong says angrily. “I told you I felt in my stones that something is going down. I pick up rumors and get tips from my snitches. The big guns of United Bamboo and Giant Panda are in town. A lot of meetings. A lot of comings and goings. That murder of Chen Chang Wang. And now this business with White Lotus. Something’s cooking. Maybe a full-scale gang war. Maybe just a fight for the New York territory. Who the hell knows? Listen, if you get anything, give me a shout. Even if you think it’s not important. I’ll do the same with you. I’d like to stop these assholes before they start shooting up Manhattan. Keep in touch, and thanks for the beer.”

  “Anytime,” Cone says.

  After Wong leaves, Cone goes into the kitchenette and starts heating up a can of corned beef hash. He wonders if he spilled too much in revealing the identity of Claire Lee. He decides not. After all, he didn’t say a word about the blackmail letter.

  Because the FBI agent has no need to know. Not yet.

  Cone spends Thursday morning in the office making a series of desultory phone calls on those two tedious files he was assigned. It’s donkeywork, and while he’s talking to people and scribbling notes, he’s thinking about the White Lotus affair and remembering how great Claire Lee looked in her spinnaker hat. The life she’s led hasn’t raddled her beauty; she looks untouched by human hands.

  Maybe, Cone imagines, she sold her soul to the Devil in exchange for eternal youth. He’d be willing to sign a contract like that, but the Devil has never asked him.

  He finally gets all he needs to close out the two cases. The shlumpf who fell for the miniature horse scam ain’t going
to get his money back. And the two plastic manufacturers can merge with confidence and live happily ever after. Sic transit …

  He’s smoking his fourth cigarette of the day, scanning the stock tables in The New York Times, when his phone rings. He stares at it a moment, then puts his newspaper aside and picks it up, thinking it might be the Devil calling, ready to make a deal.

  “Yeah?” he says.

  “Mr. Cone, this is Edward Tung Lee. How are you this morning?”

  “Surviving.”

  “I’m going to be in your neighborhood shortly and wondered if I could stop by your office for a few minutes. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “Sure,” Cone says, “come ahead. I’ll be here.”

  Lee arrives in less than ten minutes, which makes Cone think the guy called from around the corner; there’s no way he could have made it from Exchange Place that quickly.

  He’s dressed as dapperly as he was at Ah Sing’s Bar amp; Grill, this time in a gray silk suit that glints like a newly minted silver dollar. But the breezy self-confidence is dented; he’s got the jits. That high, broad brow is sheened with sweat, and he can’t stop twisting his gold bracelet around and around.

  He slumps into the chair facing Cone’s desk with no digs about the claustrophobic office.

  “First of all,” he starts off, “I want to thank you for not telling my father that you and I were at Ah Sing’s when Chen Chang Wang was killed.”

  “Yeah, well, since you hadn’t told him, I figured you must have a good reason.”

  “I didn’t want to upset the old man,” Lee says earnestly. “He and Chen were friends from way back.”

  “Uh-huh,” Cone says. “But he must have read about it; all the papers carried it. And I suppose it was on local TV.”

  “Oh, he knows about it, but I didn’t want to be the one to tell him.”

  “Sure,” Cone says.

  “About your investigation,” Lee goes on. He plucks a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabs at his forehead. “Hot day.”

  “Yeah,” Cone says. “Usually is in summer.”

  Lee ignores that. “About your investigation,” he continues. “Have you been getting anywhere?”