“Impressive,” he says honestly. “Everything clean and neat. Looks like you run a tight ship.”
“We try.” She looks down at her coffee cup. “Something I haven’t mentioned. … You must realize, Mr. Cone, that most of the women and couples who come to us are under a great deal of emotional stress. They are frantic to have children. Occasionally they cause some unpleasant scenes when we are not able to help them on the first try. I just thought I’d mention it.”
Cone nods. “Do you have children, doctor?”
“No,” she says. “Finished your coffee? Now let me show you around the east wing. I’m sure Doctor January will be with us soon.”
Back they go through that third-floor passageway. As Trumball is unlocking the door, Timothy raps on it.
“Steel,” he says. “Expecting a terrorist attack?”
“Oh, no,” she says, laughing, “nothing like that. Just super security.”
He has the feeling that she’s laughed more in the last hour than she has in the past month. This is not, he decides, a normally laughing woman. So she’s nervous about passing the Haldering inspection. Which is normal. But still …
In the east wing, Cone peers into executive offices, the main computer room, a few open labs. One locked chamber has a thick plate glass window fronting on the corridor. He sees busy employees bending over microscopes or using stainless steel machines he can’t identify. All the workers are swaddled in wrinkled green trousers and jackets, with caps that cover their hair. Some are wearing surgical masks.
“Your research lab?” he asks.
“One of them,” Dr. Trumball says shortly. “We have another where you have to enter through a special air lock. I’d invite you in, but decontamination takes at least twenty minutes, including a shower. The air inside is specially filtered.”
“I’ll skip,” Cone says.
“Don’t blame you,” she says. “I rarely go in there myself. It’s easier to use the intercom to check on what’s going on.
He finds it difficult to move away from that plate glass window. He watches the activity inside. Workers in their wrinkled green uniforms. Glittering machines. Huge tanks that steam when the lids are lifted. Computer monitors flickering. Tapes whirling around and around. A factory.
“Making babies,” the Wall Street dick says.
“Trying to,” Dr. Trumball says. “That’s what we’re here for.”
“Hello, there!” Dr. Victor January carols, coming up with hand outstretched to Cone. “Sorry I’m late. A small crisis. Very small, thank God! I’m January, and you must be Timothy Cone from Haldering. Happy to meet you. Phoebe been taking care of you, has she? The grand tour?”
Cone nods, shaking the soft, slender hand. This guy, he immediately decides, is Mr. Charm himself. It comes out his pores, with a deliberate theatricality that mocks itself. “Look, I’m putting on an act. You know it and I know it. But it’s fun, isn’t it, and no one’s getting hurt.”
January herds them into his private office and closes the door. He gets them seated in directors’ chairs and then flops into his own swivel chair behind the big, cluttered desk. The chair is covered with zebra skin. Very dramatic.
“All right,” he says, grinning fiercely, “let’s have your questions. I’m sure you’ve got a hundred.”
“No,” Cone says, “not really. I did have some, but Doctor Trumball answered them. There is just one thing I’d like to know: Where do you get your customers?”
January gives him a roguish smile. “Customers? Well, yes, you’re right. We prefer to call them patients or clients—but who’s fooling whom? They are customers. Let me get you the latest numbers.”
He leans forward, punches keys on the computer terminal on his desk, peers at the screen.
“As of last week,” he reports, “approximately eighty-seven percent of our patients were referrals from other doctors, clinics, and hospitals. About ten percent came in on recommendations of other patients. The rest are what we call walk-in trade. Women or couples who have read about us or have seen me on TV talk shows. Okay?”
“Sure,” Cone says. “You guarantee results?”
“Of course not,” Trumball says rather crossly. “How could we possibly do that? Before we accept a patient, she—or she and her husband—go through an hour-long orientation lecture. We make certain they fully understand what’s involved. And then they sign a five-page legal release that spells out in exact detail what we hope to do and what they can expect. But no guarantees.”
“We’ve been lucky,” Dr. January says, rapping the wooden top of his desk. “No lawsuits—so far. We really never promise more than we can deliver. This is not an exact science, Mr. Cone. And lots of things can go wrong. Gradually we’re improving our pregnancy rate, but it’s still a chancy proposition. We make no secret of that, and especially not to our patients. We make certain they know the odds.”
Cone reflects what a nice, amiable gathering this is, all of them sitting about a warm office on a biting November afternoon, smiling at each other. He decides to shake them up.
“A guy named Harold Besant,” he says casually. “He used to work for you. Research assistant. A couple of months ago he blew his brains out down at the Fulton Fish Market.”
If he expects to rock them he’s out of luck. Their faces become suitably grave, their expression of sorrow suitably solemn.
“A terrible tragedy,” Dr. January says.
“Dreadful,” Dr. Trumball says. “The poor boy. We knew he was upset. Spells of silence. Once a horrible fit of weeping—and he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give a reason for it.”
“All the symptoms of depression,” January says mournfully. “We tried to get him to our resident shrink, but he refused. I blame myself; I should have insisted.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Victor,” Phoebe Trumball says.
“Did he have any close friends?” Cone asks. “Anyone on your staff?”
“No,” Trumball says, “and I think that was part of his problem. We’re really a family here, but he was never really a part of it. Was he, Victor?”
“No,” January says. “The man was an outsider, a loner. And very talented. Too bad.”
Their sadness seems genuine enough, but Cone, that cranky, misanthropic man, can’t totally buy it. Maybe because January is everything Cone is not: handsome, impeccably dressed, with a magnetic appeal.
But to Cone, his gestures are too flamboyant, his smiles too wide, the waves in his blond hair too elaborate. Look for sincerity, Cone decides, and you find greasepaint.
“Are you married, Doctor January?” he asks suddenly.
“I am indeed,” the man says promptly. “With two marvelous bambinos. I have their photos in my wallet—but I’ll spare you that!”
Everyone laughs politely and the Wall Street dick stands up.
“Thanks for your help, folks,” he says. “At the moment I can’t think of anything else I need. But I may give you a call or stop by again. Okay?”
“Of course,” January says, with a billowy wave of his hand. “We’re anxious to get this thing approved, and we’re happy to cooperate in any way we can. Our staff has been instructed to answer all your questions fully to the best of their ability. We have nothing to hide.”
“Glad to hear it,” Cone says, shakes hands with January and follows Phoebe Trumball down to the street floor, where he reclaims his parka. He shakes hands with her and walks out into a gloomy evening, the sky paved with slate and a mean wind gusting. He pulls his hood over his spiky hair, shoves his hands into fleece-lined pockets, and tramps over to Park Avenue.
Then he stops, reflects a moment, and retraces his steps. He takes up station across the street from the Nu-Hope Fertility Clinic. It’s a few minutes after five o’clock, and he decides to give it an hour. If nothing happens by six, he’ll split and go home. He pounds up and down the block to keep the circulation going.
It’s almost six o’clock before January and Trumball come out. They’re hat
less, and Cone spots them immediately: tall, willowy blonds walking with a jaunty grace. Timothy trudges behind them. After a while he begins to wonder if they’re heading for the South Bronx. But on Eighty-third Street they turn eastward. And just before they come to Third Avenue, they scurry up the steps of a nicely restored brownstone.
Cone waits a few minutes and then climbs the stairs and inspects the names listed on the brass bell plate. Dr. P. Trumball occupies Apartment 4-B.
He wanders away. The two doctors could be having a business meeting. It could be a cocktail party with Dr. January’s wife present. It could be—
Ah, shit. Cone knows what it is.
“Big deal,” he says aloud, and a bag lady mooching past him turns sharply and snarls, “Go fuck yourself.”
“Don’t think I haven’t tried,” he yells after her.
The next morning Cone gets to work about a half hour late—which is as close to promptitude as he can come—and finds a note on his desk to call Lester Pingle. He lights his third cigarette of the day while he ponders what the guy might want. He decides it will be a stern demand to hurry up the Nu-Hope investigation.
But when Lester answers the phone, he is all sweetness and light.
“Thank you for calling back,” he says. “I understand you’re Haldering’s investigator on the Nu-Hope Fertility Clinic deal.”
“That’s right.”
“I was hoping we could get together for a few minutes. There are certain factors involved I think you should be aware of.”
“Like what?”
“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Lester says, “but not on the phone.”
“Okay. You want me to come to your office?”
“No, no,” Pingle says hastily. “This is, uh, confidential. You know where Trinity Church is?”
“Sure.”
“Can you meet me outside the main entrance in, say, twenty minutes?”
“I’ll be there,” Cone says. “How will I know you?”
“I’m wearing a black overcoat with a fur collar. And a black bowler.”
“And I’ll be wearing an olive-drab parka,” Cone says. “No bowler.”
Pingle laughs somewhat nervously and hangs up.
Timothy takes his time and ambles down Broadway to Wall Street, pausing to look idly in shop windows. When he gets to Trinity, he sees a tall gink in black overcoat and derby pacing back and forth in front of the church. Cone lights a Camel before he goes up to him.
“Lester Pingle?” he says loudly.
The guy jumps like he’s been goosed with an icicle, then whirls around. “Yes,” he says, “yes, that’s right. You’re from Haldering?”
“Uh-huh. Timothy Cone. Want to see my ID?”
“No, no,” Pingle says, “that won’t be necessary. I just thought I’d tell you what’s on my mind so you’ll know what’s involved.”
Cone nods.
“We can just walk up and down here for a few minutes. I’d have asked you to the office, but the walls have ears.”
“People keep saying that, but I’ve never seen a wall with ears. Although potatoes have eyes.”
Pingle looks at him doubtfully, trying to decide if Cone is making a joke or is simply demented. The detective’s bland expression gives him no clue.
Cone notices that although it’s a nippy day, Lester’s pale face is sheened with sweat.
They tramp up and down before Trinity Church as Lester launches into a spluttering monologue. Hiring Haldering was his father’s idea. Lester, in his own mind, is certain that the Nu-Hope deal is clean and a potential moneymaker.
“It rates high when you consider the risk-benefit factor,” he says.
The stumbling block is Ernest Pingle. Lester’s father is getting on in years, and he’s not keeping up so well, but without his approval, the deal is dead.
“So?” Cone says. “What do you want me to do about it?”
Well, Pingle says wiping a palm across his forehead, his father trusts Haldering because of their role in uncovering the Clovis swindle. And Lester just wanted Cone to know how hidebound his father has become, and how he seems to be prejudiced against Nu-Hope. It would be a personal favor to Lester if Cone would okay Nu-Hope as soon as possible. In that event, there would be more assignments for Haldering; Lester would see to that.
“We call them as we see them,” Timothy Cone tells him.
“Of course,” Pingle says, “but everyone who’s looked into Nu-Hope agrees it’s a sweet piece of business, so there’s really no reason to stall.”
“I’m not stalling,” Cone says stonily. “I’ve just started my investigation.”
Then, looking straight ahead, Lester Pingle says in a low voice: “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. I want this Nu-Hope deal. You okay it and there’s a nice piece of change in it for you.”
“Yeah?” Cone says. “How much?”
“How does five thousand sound to you?”
“Doesn’t sound like much,” Cone says. “This could mean millions for Pingle Enterprises.”
“Ten,” Pingle says desperately, still not looking at the detective. “Ten thousand. Okay?”
“No, thanks.”
“Why are you so stubborn?” Lester cries.
“I work at it,” Cone says and walks away.
He doesn’t look back, which is a mistake. If he had, he’d have noted that Lester doesn’t leave. He continues his parade back and forth in front of Trinity. In a few moments a man comes out of the church. He’s wearing a herringbone tweed topcoat and a green felt fedora with a clump of bright feathers in the band.
Pingle is surprised. “You were inside the church, Martin?”
“Why not? I’m entitled. Besides, I wanted to get a look at Cone. Scruffy character, isn’t he?”
Three months previously, when they first met, the barrel-chested man had introduced himself simply as Martin. Lester Pingle didn’t know if it was Martin Something or Something Martin. Later, doing some investigating of his own, he learned it was Martin Gardow. He was chief of special projects for one of the country’s largest conglomerates, ruled by a tyrant whom Wall Street insiders called Mr. D.
“How did it go?” Martin asks.
“It didn’t,” Lester Pingle says miserably. “He turned down the offer of more jobs. He turned down the ten thousand.”
“You think he wants more?”
“No. I just don’t think he can be bought.”
“Don’t tell that to Mr. D.,” Gardow says with his mirthless smile. “He believes that every man has his price. But the price doesn’t necessarily have to be in dollars. Our contact at Nu-Hope tells us that Cone is very smart, very inquisitive, and very persistent. We’ll just have to find out what his price is.”
“No violence,” Pingle says, wiping the sweat from his forehead again. “I hate violence.”
Martin turns to look at him. “I know you do, Lester,” he says softly.
Then the two men separate, walking off in opposite directions. By that time, Cone is back at Haldering’s. He goes directly to Sam’s office.
“I want to tell you something,” he says when she looks up. “I’ll put it on paper, but I want you to know—just in case he decides to play rough.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
He tells her about Lester’s proffered bribes.
“Son of a bitch,” Sam says thoughtfully. “Ten thousand? Weren’t you tempted?”
“Nah,” he says. “My heart is pure.”
“And your disposition is rancid. I better tell H. H. about this.”
“No,” he says quickly, “don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
He looks at her. “Because after striking out with me, Lester will probably try to get to Hiram himself. I want to find out just how anxious he is to seal the Nu-Hope deal.”
“Jesus Christ,” Sam says. “What’s going on here?”
“Beats the shit out of me,” he says. “I can’t get a han
dle on the thing.”
He’s still brooding an hour later when his phone rings.
“Timothy Cone?”
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Detective Nick Galanis, NYPD. I work with Neal Davenport. He says he mentioned me.”
“Sure he did. What can I do for you?”
“Neal says you’re investigating the Nu-Hope Clinic. Right?”
“Yeah. For a proposed expansion deal. They want to become a chain. Like fast-food joints or something.”
“And he told you about Harold Besant? The alleged suicide?”
“He told me.”
“Look, Cone, I had to drop that thing after the ME’s report. Also, there was too much new stuff coming along. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“Sure.”
“But the damned thing still bugs me. I got the feeling someone’s jerking us around, and I don’t like it. Anyway, while you’re looking into Nu-Hope, I wish you’d ask a few questions about Besant.”
“I already have. The two top doctors up there tell me he was depressed.”
“Yeah,” Nick Galanis says, “that’s what they told me, too. Did you talk to Jessie Scotto?”
“Jessie Scotto? No. Who she?”
“Works at Nu-Hope. A nurse in the west wing. She was Harold Besant’s girlfriend. As a matter of fact, they were living together on the Upper West Side. I questioned her right after Besant’s death, but she was shook and I got nothing from her. Maybe I’m blowing smoke, but I thought she was scared shitless and just wasn’t talking. But that was like two months ago, and maybe she’s calmed down by now. I’d appreciate it if you’d talk to her and see what you can get—if anything. Neal says you’re a bulldog, so give it a try. That so-called suicide is still on my brain. I think about it every day.”
“Well, yeah,” Cone says, “I can do that. Jessie Scotto? What kind of a woman is she?”
“A little mouse,” Detective Galanis says. “Don’t lean on her or she’ll fold. Just play the sympathetic daddy and maybe she’ll talk.”
“All right,” Cone says. “Thanks for the tip.”
“You’ll let me know?”
“Of course.”
It’s an hour after he hangs up that Cone remembers the doctors had told him that Harold Besant had no close friends on the staff.
Timothy Files Page 16
