“Fifty thousand,” he says reflectively. “A lot of money.”
“Not really. Not when you think of what’s at stake.”
January raises his eyes to look at Cone directly. “I didn’t think you were that kind of a man.”
“What kind is that? You’re looking out for Number One, aren’t you? So am I. What’s so terrible about it?”
“I can’t give you an answer right now.”
“Of course you can’t. Didn’t expect you to. Just think about it awhile. Remember what I said about calling in outside MDs to investigate your research lab. And figure what you’ve got to gain and what you’ve got to lose. You can read a balance sheet as easily as you read a temperature chart. The one problem we’ve got is that my boss wants my report in a couple of days.”
Victor January drains his drink, stands. He reaches for his wallet, but Cone holds up a palm.
“No, no,” he says. “I’ll take care of the tab.”
January gives him a thin smile. “Thank you. I’ll let you know tomorrow. About your, ah, proposition. Will that be satisfactory?”
“Sure,” Cone says. “I’m as anxious to see Nu-Hope work this deal as you are.”
“That I doubt,” January says.
Cone watches him leave. Then he sits there, sipping the remainder of his beer. He knows the risk he’s running. He’s charging up that hill like a maniac, screaming and firing at anything that moves. There’s just a small chance he might gain the summit, dazed, shaken, look around at the carnage and say, “Who needs the fucking hill?”
A sodden morning, with the broken skylight dripping onto the linoleum floor of the loft. Cone puts a battered saucepan under the leak, and Cleo pads over to lap at the collected rain.
“Crazy cat,” Cone says grumpily.
At the office he sits at his desk, wondering if the actors in his script are going to play the roles he’s assigned them. Just to kill time, he fiddles his swindle sheet, doubling all his expenses. He knows Samantha Whatley will halve them. It’s a game.
His phone rings a little after ten A.M. Being a superstitious man, he crosses his fingers before he picks it up.
“Yeah?” he says.
A woman’s voice, chirpy: “Mr. Timothy Cone?”
“That’s right.”
“Just a moment, sir. Mr. Martin Gardow calling.”
Cone smiles coldly at the phone. Bingo!
“Cone?”
“Yep.”
“Martin Gardow here. I think we better have a talk.”
“Sure,” Cone says. “Where and when?”
“Eleven o’clock at the South Street Seaport. You can make it?”
“I’ll make it. How will I recognize you?”
“I’ll recognize you,” Gardow says. “There’s a shop that sells nautical stuff. It’s got a big tin whale over the entrance.”
“I’ll find it.”
“Eleven o’clock,” Gardow says. “Be there.”
Slam!
Timothy Cone is happy. “My fondest dreams are coming true,” he sings aloud to the peeling walls, and checks the short-barreled Magnum in his ankle holster.
He decides to be on time, to prove his sincerity. The drizzle has dwindled to a freezing mist. By the time he arrives at the Seaport, his parka and leather cap are pearled, and his feet feel like clumps. A fog hangs over the river, and the few tourists who have braved the lousy day look shrunken and sour.
He finds the shop that sells marine artifacts. He’s hardly taken two steps inside when a thick, stumpy guy shoves in front of him. He’s wearing a tweed topcoat, beaded with rain, and a green felt fedora with a sprig of feathers in the band. His face is meaty, but there’s nothing soft about his eyes.
“Cone?” he says.
“That’s right. You Martin Gardow?”
“Yes. The rain bother you?”
“Not so much.”
“Good. Let’s take a walk.”
The Wall Street dick doesn’t like that. Inside, he’s relatively safe. Out on an almost deserted street, anything could happen. Like a long gun trained on him from a parked car. But he figures he’ll get nowhere being timid with this hard-nose.
They stroll along the waterfront, the river swathed with fog, tugs hooting. It’s real graveyard weather, with a damp cold that eats into bones and promises death.
“Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Martin Gardow asks quietly.
“Trying to scorch your ass a little,” Cone says. “I thought that was obvious.”
“Fifty thousand?” Gardow says. “Are you really that greedy?”
“Oh-ho,” Cone says, knowing now that he guessed right. “January told you, did he? Nah, I’m not greedy. But there’s so much bread involved here, I thought I’d pick me up some crumbs.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid. But you’re costing me more time than you’re worth. Do you realize how small you are? Do you know what you’re up against? You’re a fly, Mr. Cone. You keep making trouble, you’re going to get swatted.”
“Maybe,” Cone admits. “You tried it once, didn’t you? And now Bernie Snodgrass is pushing up daisies, and the buttons are looking for his pal Sol. Maybe they’ll find him and crack him. Worried about that, Mr. Gardow?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do,” Cone says.
Then, infuriated by Gardow’s calm confidence, the Wall Street dick suddenly plucks the little bunch of feathers from the man’s hat band and tosses it over the railing into the East River.
“I hate those things,” he says.
Gardow glances a moment at his bright feathers floating away on the scummy tide, then turns to stare at Cone.
“You’re not long for this world,” he says.
“I know. None of us are.”
They’re facing each other now, and Gardow’s blue eyes are sparking. Timothy thinks the guy is going to get physical. He can see it in the flushed skin, bunched shoulders, the fast pump of the big chest. But gradually Gardow gets control of himself. When he speaks, his voice is as toneless as ever.
“I think it’s time to lower the boom. You turned down Lester Pingle’s offer of ten grand. Then suddenly you brace January for fifty. Did you learn something? I’m betting you didn’t. I think you worked January to get to me. A nice move—but not too smart. All right, now you know: I’ve got Lester Pingle and Victor January by the balls. So? What are you going to do about it?”
“Blow the whistle on the Nu-Hope deal,” Cone says, dreading what’s coming next. “What else?”
“I’ll tell you what else,” Gardow says. “I don’t know what the relationship is between you and your boss Samantha Whatley, and I couldn’t care less. All I know is that when those two bandits suckered you down to the street at two in the morning, they did it by telling you Whatley was in trouble. That’s got to tell me something—right? She’s your short hair, isn’t she, Mr. Cone? And that’s my leverage.”
“You prick,” Cone says.
“You know what happened to Jessie Scotto. Want to see Samantha Whatley with her tits cut off? Think about it. I’ll give you two days. Forty-eight hours. If I haven’t heard that you’ve okayed the Nu-Hope deal by then, we go after your friend.”
“You’re dead,” Timothy Cone says. “As of now, you’re dead.”
“I don’t think so,” Gardow says with his mirthless smile. “As my boss says, every man has his price. I think I’ve discovered yours, and it isn’t money. As a matter of fact, you’re not going to get fifty thousand out of this deal, or even ten. You’re getting Samantha Whatley. Two days, Mr. Cone. Nice to have met you.”
He tips his hat with an ironic little gesture, turns, walks slowly away through the thickening mist. I could drop to one knee, Cone thinks, pull my iron, and put six between those thick shoulders.
He stands trembling, fighting down the hot anger. He doesn’t doubt for a second that Gardow is capable of doing exactly what he threatens. But wasting the guy
would solve nothing. His boss, the legendary Mr. D., would just come up with another Martin Gardow. And the whirligig will keep spinning.
Cone’s hands are shaking so badly that it takes three matches to get his Camel lighted. And then, after two drags, the damned thing is snuffed out by moisture dripping from the beak of his black leather cap. He tosses the wet cigarette away and plods westward. He knows what he’s got to do.
In the lobby of Pingle’s office building Cone takes off his parka and leather cap and shakes them vigorously, spattering the marble tile with rain. The maintenance man, who’s pushing a big mop back and forth to keep the floor dry, looks at him and says, “Thanks a lot.”
“Listen, if it wasn’t for shlubs like me, you wouldn’t have a job. I mean, we muck up your floor so you can clean it. Then you’ve got a job—right?”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” the guy says.
“It’s the only way,” Cone assures him, and takes the elevator up to the eighth floor. “Timothy Cone,” he says to the receptionist. “To see Mr. Ernest Pingle …”
“Just a moment, sir.”
She mutters into a phone. Cone waits patiently. In a few minutes an elderly lady comes out, leaning on a cane. She’s got a man’s pocket watch pinned to the bosom of her black dress. She gives Cone a suspicious, angry stare.
“He’s having his lunch,” she says.
“I’ll wait.”
“No,” she says grudgingly, “come on in.”
She conducts him, hobbling on her stick, down a long corridor. Throws open a door.
“You want a glass tea?” she asks. “Coffee?”
“No,” he says. “But thank you.”
Ernest Pingle is propped behind an old oak desk with a glass of tea before him and an opened tin of English biscuits. There’s an extra armchair in the tiny room and an old-fashioned oak filing cabinet. A bentwood coat tree. A brass wastebasket. And that’s about it.
“This place is almost as small as my office,” Cone says, looking around. “I thought you Wall Street types lived high off the hog.”
Ernest Pingle shrugs. “I’ve got a telephone. What more do I need? How are you, Mr. Cone?”
“Damp, but I’m surviving,” Timothy says, hanging his wet parka and cap on the coat tree. “You okay?”
“Rheumatism,” the old man says. “In this weather, it acts up. Which is why I’m not standing to greet you. But I would like to shake your hand.”
Cone reaches across the desk, then slumps into the armchair alongside the desk.
“Tea?” Pingle asks. “Maybe coffee?”
“No, thanks. Your secretary asked me.”
“Mrs. Scherer. She’s been with me almost fifty years. Would you believe?”
“Yeah, I’d believe.”
“At least have a biscuit,” the old man says, shoving the tin toward him. “They’re wery good.”
Cone inspects the contents, then selects a swirled round with a dot of chocolate in the center.
“A wise choice,” Pingle says, nodding. “You’ve got something to tell me, Mr. Cone?”
“Something to tell you,” Cone says, “and something to ask you. You’ve treated me square and I’ve got to level with you. Drop the Nu-Hope Clinic deal.”
“It’s not for Pingle Enterprises?”
“Or anyone else. But a lot of very strange people are interested in it. My advice is to bail out. But I’ve got to admit I can’t give you any logical reasons. Except that I think it stinks.”
“I agree,” Ernest Pingle says equably. “I felt in my gut from the start that it was not for us. So I’ll call Nu-Hope and cancel the deal, and I’ll call Haldering and tell him to end the inwestigation.”
“No,” Cone says quickly. “Please don’t do that. Give me another one or two days before you pull the plug. I think I’ll have it wrapped up by then.”
Pingle looks at him curiously. “One or two days? So why are you telling me now I should cancel?”
“Because I think my boss is under pressure and might give you a go-ahead without waiting for my report. Don’t listen to him, Mr. Pingle. It’s a sour deal.”
The other man nods. “I’d offer you a bonus,” he says, “but I know you wouldn’t accept it.”
“You’re right; I wouldn’t.”
“See!” the old man says gleefully. “I know people. The first time I met you I said to myself, ‘There’s a man I can trust.’ You know why I said that?”
“Because you offered me a kiss then, and I turned you down.”
“No, that wasn’t it. Maybe you turned me down because you were owned by someone else. But you thanked me for that little bit of schnapps I gave you. I said to myself that a man so polite can’t be a thief.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Cone says. “The most successful con men are the most courteous.”
The old man shakes his big head. “Not you,” he says. “I know. All right, I kill the Nu-Hope deal, but not for a couple of days. You’ll let me know when I can move?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Meanwhile, what about my son Lester? He’s inwolved in this?”
“Up to his pipik.”
“With that shtarker Martin Gardow?”
“Yes,” Cone says. “Gardow has him on a string.”
“Lester is in danger? Physical danger?”
Cone ponders a moment. “He may be,” he says finally, “but the chances are small. I think it’s worth the risk. I’m hoping to slice Gardow off at the knees before he can spring, and then your son will be home free. Mr. Pingle, I hate to give advice to anyone as smart as you, but why don’t you read the riot act to your son? Cut him down to size. Then bail him out of his money troubles and put him on an allowance. Tell him and the wife to straighten up and fly right. If they haven’t got themselves squared away in, say, a year, then kick them out of the nest.”
“Wery good adwice,” Ernest Pingle says sadly. “His mother would kill me, but sometimes it’s necessary to be cruel to be kind.”
Cone nods, rises, struggles into his damp parka. “That’s it,” he says. “I saw my duty and I done it. Thanks for the cookie.”
“Biscuit,” the old man says, flashing his dentures. “The English call them biscuits.”
“Whatever,” Cone says. “It was good.”
Timothy reaches across the desk to shake that unexpectedly sturdy paw.
“Are you married, Mr. Cone?” Pingle asks.
“No.”
“Would you like to meet a wery nice girl?”
“No,” Cone says, “thanks. I already know a nice girl.”
“God bless her!” Ernest Pingle cries.
He decides not to go back to the office. He doesn’t want to bump into Hiram Haldering just yet and he’s afraid that if he sees Sam, he’ll lose his brio and, remembering Martin Gardow’s threats, insist that she take off immediately for Hong Kong, or at least go visit her parents in Idaho. Then she’ll want to know why he wants her out of town and, if Cone explains, she’ll be outraged and claim she is completely capable of taking care of herself.
Cone doesn’t need that kind of hassle. He decides his best bet is to stay the course, do what he’s doing, and eliminate the danger before telling Samantha she might be in danger. If he fails, there will be time enough for damage control.
It’s impossible to get a cab, and all the buses are jammed with damp mobs that he knows will be smelling of mothballs. So he walks all the way back to his loft, cursing the wet, the gloom, and especially Martin Gardow. But not forgetting to stop at neighborhood stores to pick up a smoked chub for Cleo, a package of frozen spaghetti and meatballs for himself, and a bottle of Korbel brandy to chase the chill.
In the warm loft, he tosses the chub to Cleo and fixes his own dinner. When he’s finished, he decides on a short nap. Cleo comes padding over to fit into the bend of his knees, and the two of them fall asleep.
It’s almost ten P.M. when he wakes up and settles down with one of his new books on artificial
conception, still seeking a clue to what’s going on in that sealed research laboratory at the Nu-Hope Clinic. He sticks with it, trying to understand the techniques involved.
He’s demolished a half pack of Camels and is on his second brandy when he reads a long footnote in print so small he has to play the book like a trombone, moving the page back and forth until the type comes into focus. Then he reads it again.
He looks up blinking. He thinks he’s got it. It explains why the U.S. Government is interested. And why Leopold Devers, the redoubtable Mr. D. of International Gronier, would order Martin Gardow to get a lock on the research.
Timothy stares at Cleo, who is sitting primly on his desk, paws together, regarding him with cold, glittery eyes.
“Holy Christ!” Cone says to the cat.
He thinks it through carefully. If he calls Phoebe Trumball at night and demands to see her, she’s going to be wary about asking him up to her place. Or even venturing out after dark to meet him at a bar. And he doesn’t want to brace her in public; this has got to be a one-on-one in private.
Also, if he calls in the evening, there’s always the chance January will be with her. Cone has no desire to take on the two of them together; they’ll draw too much strength from each other.
So he waits until morning and calls the clinic around seven-thirty, asking when they expect Dr. Phoebe Trumball to arrive. He’s told she usually checks in at nine o’clock. He thanks them, says he’ll call back. But instead, he calls her home.
“Hello?” she says.
“Doctor Trumball? Good morning. This is Timothy Cone.”
A short pause. “My,” she says, “you are an early riser.”
“Yeah,” he says, “sometimes. Listen, something very important has come up. I was hoping you’d be willing to talk to me this morning. Not at the clinic; it can’t be there.”
“What is this about, Mr. Cone? If it’s the Pingle deal, then I think Doctor January should be present.”
“No, it’s about that research you’re doing. I really think we should have a private talk.”
“Goodness,” she says with a nervous laugh, “you sound very mysterious.”
Timothy Files Page 21
