Timothy Files

by Lawrence Sanders

  He munches on his bialy a couple of minutes before she comes back on the line.

  “Thank you for waiting,” she says. “Could you tell me what this is in reference to?”

  He’s got his scenario plotted. “Haldering and Company represents a private client who would like to make a substantial deposit with Laboris Investments. We have been asked to investigate. I was hoping for the opportunity to have a personal interview with Mr. Laboris.”

  “Just a moment, please, sir,” she repeats, and she’s gone again. He has finished his breakfast and lighted his third cigarette of the day before she comes back on again. “Mr. Laboris is tied up at present,” she says. “But if you’d care to leave your number, he’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

  “That’ll be fine,” Cone says, and gives her the Haldering number.

  “Thank you, sir,” she says.

  He sighs, hangs up, and doesn’t do anything but smoke and count the walls for the next twenty minutes. He hopes Ingmar has taken the bait and is checking out Haldering & Co. When his phone rings, he picks it up, determined to be humble.

  “Timothy Cone,” he says instead of his usual “Yeah?”

  “This is Ingmar Laboris speaking.”

  “Thank you for calling back, Mr. Laboris. I realize what a busy man you are, but I was hoping you might be able to give me a few moments to discuss an investment one of our clients wishes to make.”

  “So I understand,” Ingmar says. The voice is plummy, with the churchy resonance of a monsignor or a proctologist. No hisses for Ingmar. “I must tell you I do not ordinarily meet with individual investors or their representatives. My time is almost totally devoted to managing our currency portfolio.”

  “I appreciate that, Mr. Laboris, but perhaps you’d be willing to make an exception in this case. The investment our client is planning is of such a size that we feel a personal interview is necessary.”

  “What amount are we speaking about?”

  “A quarter of a million,” Cone says, hoping that won’t be too small to turn Ingmar off or too large to make him suspicious.

  “I see,” the other man says thoughtfully. “Well, let me take a look at my appointment calendar.”

  Got him! Cone exults, recognizing the ploy.

  “If you can be here at ten-thirty this morning,” Laboris says, “I will be able to fit you in. But I must tell you it can only be for a limited time. I am flying to Zurich at noon.”

  “I appreciate your help,” Cone says. “I’ll be in your office at ten-thirty on the dot.”

  It’s only after he hangs up the phone that he says, “Fink!”

  He gets to Laboris Investments ten minutes early, intending to scout the territory. The outer office is crowded with plungers, but nothing like the mob scene he had witnessed on his previous visit. Speculators are still signing up and plunking down their bucks, but Cone wonders if the bloom is off the rose.

  He wanders about, picks up one of those skimpy brochures and reads it again, once more noting the caveat: “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” And then there’s the photo of Ingmar: plump, glossy, with that gleeful look of the Buddha statuettes.

  And when Cone is ushered into the inner office, the man himself, standing behind an enormous mahogany desk, looks even more like a mustachioed Buddha, for he has a smooth, round belly that bulges his vest. His skin has the Laboris margarine sheen, and his handclasp is slippery.

  “Mr. Cone,” he says in that orotund voice. “Delighted to make your acquaintance.”

  “Likewise,” the Wall Street dick says. “I certainly do appreciate your making time for me in your busy schedule.”

  Laboris waves that away, and with the same gesture indicates the leather armchair facing his desk. But he doesn’t, Cone notes, offer to relieve him of his anorak. Since the office is overheated, that’s probably Ingmar’s tactic to make his visitor’s stay as short as possible.

  “Would you be offended if I smoked a cigar?” Laboris asks. “I fear I am addicted.”

  “Go right ahead,” Cone says. “As long as I can light up a spike. I’m hooked, too.”

  “Of course,” Ingmar says, moving a heavy ashtray halfway between them. It’s a solid chunk of smoky quartz, faceted like a diamond but with a shallow depression to hold ashes. “A Nepali prince gave me that. It’s amusing—no?”

  “Yeah,” Cone says. “Amusing.”

  He watches solemnly as Laboris goes through the slow ceremony of lighting his cigar.

  “Now then, Mr. Cone,” he says, “how may I be of service?”

  “I don’t know if you’re familiar with Haldering and Company, sir, but we do financial investigations for corporate and individual clients. You can check us out if you like.”

  “I already have,” Laboris says with a soft smile. “You’re not one of the biggest firms in that business, but you have a good reputation.”

  “Well, we try. Anyway, we have a client who wants to put a quarter-million in your operation and is paying us to take a look-see. No reflection on you, of course; it’s just prudent investing.”

  “I understand. And naturally you cannot reveal the name of this client.”

  “Naturally.”

  Ingmar regards the lengthening ash on his cigar with pleasure. “I must tell you,” he says, “each time I smoke I play a game to see how long an ash I can produce before it falls off. To prove the steadiness of my hand.”

  “It looks steady enough to me,” Cone says, realizing that there is no way this guy is going to be surprised, shaken, or angered.

  “Foreign-exchange trading is a minute-by-minute thing, isn’t it?” Cone asks. “How do you keep up?”

  “Through open telephone lines to my chief agents overseas. We avoid computers and telecommunications equipment, but I must tell you, I am in constant touch with market changes, no matter how frequent or how small. The exchange rate between, say, British pounds and Israeli shekels may suddenly vary by a tenth of one percent. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But when you’re dealing in hundreds of millions, as I am, there’s money to be made on that tenth.”

  “Or lost.”

  “That,” Ingmar Laboris says, “I try very hard not to do.”

  “You mentioned your overseas agents. We’ve checked with currency traders in several European cities, Mr. Laboris, and none of them has ever heard of you.”

  The ash falls from Ingmar’s cigar onto the polished desktop. He makes no effort to scoop it up or brush it away, but looks at it sorrowfully. “What a shame,” he says. “I had hoped to grow it longer. About my not being known to foreign-exchange traders overseas, I must tell you that I am delighted to hear it. You see, Mr. Cone, I deal daily in vast sums. If I did it in my own name, my trades would be sufficient to quirk the market. Even a rumor of my interest might destroy a potentially profitable deal. So I am happy to remain anonymous. I employ almost a hundred agents all over the world who trade for me and who are wise enough, I trust, not to mention the name of Laboris Investments. I must tell you that money trading is a very ancient and arcane art.”

  “Yeah,” the Wall Street dick says. “Jesus drove them from the temple, didn’t he?”

  Laboris tries to smile. “I believe the biblical reference is to money changers. Somewhat different from modern currency traders.”

  Cone could have argued that but decides he’s pushed it far enough. “Mr. Laboris, I haven’t seen anything that looks like an annual report. You issue them, don’t you?”

  Ingmar sets his cigar carefully aside in the quartz ashtray. “I certainly intend to. I must tell you that Laboris Investments has been in existence for less than a year so, as of this date, no annual report has been issued. However, I have organized a special staff for that purpose, and we anticipate having a complete report available by the middle of March.”

  He glances at his gold Rolex, and Cone knows he’s not going to prod this guy into making any mistakes or unexpected disclosures. Sitting back, manicured fi
ngers laced across his vested belly, Laboris looks bland, oiled, and satisfied. The slick black hair is without a wayward strand, and the full lips are rosy enough to be rouged. He’s wearing a suit of smooth gray flannel. He also sports a gold pinkie ring with a rock just slightly smaller than the Kohinoor.

  “A couple of final questions,” Cone says. “What is the minimum investment you accept?”

  “Five thousand. But additional funds may be deposited in existing accounts in thousand-dollar increments.”

  “And what is your current rate of return?”

  Ingmar pauses a moment, then sighs heavily. “Unfortunately, at present it is only a little over ten percent—due mainly to the unexpected rise in value of the Japanese yen.”

  “Uh-huh,” Cone says. “The yen’ll do you in every time.”

  “However, I have every confidence that we will improve on net profits in the next few weeks. I am especially interested in the relationship between German marks and Swiss francs. It’s a very volatile situation, and I think there’s a small fortune to be made.”

  “Yeah,” Cone says, “if you start with a large fortune.”

  Both men laugh heartily, each as falsely as the other, and Cone rises to leave. Ingmar comes up close to give him that slick handshake again. Cone gets a whiff of the familiar Laboris scent: desiccated roses.

  “I certainly hope I have addressed all your questions adequately, Mr. Cone.”

  “You’ve impressed me,” the Wall Street dick says.

  “And you’ll recommend Laboris Investments to your client?”

  “I’ll certainly make a recommendation. You’ll probably be hearing from us shortly. Thank you for your time, Mr. Laboris.”

  He can’t wait to get into the hard, clean December sunlight. The stench of con is overpowering, and it takes the long walk back to John Street to rid himself of that odor of glib thievery. What is the sonofabitch up to?

  Back in his office, the answer still eludes him. He doodles a rough equilateral triangle on a scratchpad. At the apexes he writes the names of three cousins: Sven Laboris, Erica Laboris, Ingmar Laboris. Sven gets the notation: “Possible dope smuggling.” Erica gets “Possible art theft” after her name. And Ingmar gets a big, fat question mark. It’s a triangle, Cone is convinced, but he can’t see the connection between cheap gimcracks, expensive Levantine antiques, and Laboris Investments, Inc., of Wall Street.

  “Screw it,” he says aloud, and calls down to the deli for a hot corned beef on rye, with cole slaw, a half-dill pickle, and two cold cans of Michelob Light.

  That afternoon, Joe Washington comes slouching into Cone’s office and finds Timothy drowsing, chin down on his chest. Joe grins and calls softly, “Hey, Tim, got a minute?”

  Cone opens his eyes. “I got a lot of minutes—all empty. Pull up a chair.”

  “You feeling okay?”

  “If I felt any better I’d be unconscious. What’s doing, Joe?”

  Washington pulls a small notebook from his jacket pocket and starts flipping pages. “I talked to Petey Alvarez, that narc pal of mine.”

  Cone straightens in his swivel chair. “That’s great. Come up with anything?”

  “More than you want to know,” Joe says, reading his notes. “The opium poppies are squeezed in Bhutan, Bangladesh, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and points north, east, south, and west. The raw stuff used to be sent to Marseilles and Sicily for processing, but most of those labs have been busted. The latest thing is to set up plants close to the source of supply. Cut out the middleman. So the shit is coming in from all over the Middle and Far East.”

  “That’s nice,” Cone says.

  “Yeah. Some of it is quality, some of it probably has sand, sugar, or talcum powder mixed in. To answer your specific questions, the price on the street right now has gone up. You get less in your nickel and dime bags. But there’s plenty available. If you’ve got the gelt, you get your melt.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “Just about,” Joe says, closing his notebook. “One more thing: Petey says in the last six months or so, some really high-quality smack has been coming in. Which means a small amount goes a long way after it’s been cut. And that’s all I got. Any help, Tim?”

  “Who the hell knows?” Cone says. “But thanks anyway.”

  After Washington leaves, Cone opens the bottom drawer of his desk and stares down at the two Buddha statuettes. It takes him a moment to identify his first purchase, the one with the removable base. He separates the two sections and peers into the neat hole drilled up into the figure.

  That hollow could never contain a kilo. It might, he estimates, hold six ounces of a white powder packed tightly. Six ounces. Not much. He pulls a scratchpad toward him and does some quick figuring.

  Say Laboris Importers brought in a thousand hollowed Buddhas for distribution all over the country. Six ounces of heroin per Buddha. Six thousand ounces. About 375 pounds. Or about 139 kilos. If the stuff is pure, maybe they could get $30,000 per kilo. More than four million for the lot. Nice. And then, because the cousins are all business, they sell the emptied Buddhas in their schlock shops.

  And the solid Buddha, the one that doesn’t separate? Maybe that’s one of the dummies put up front in the shipment in case Customs wants to take a look.

  And, Cone realizes, they would use more than the Buddha statuettes. The stuff could be hidden in leather hassocks from Turkey, porcelain elephants from Korea, huge marionettes from India. Those things are big enough to contain a whole kilo of shit.

  And also, Cone thinks, big enough to conceal Levantine art, like urns, bowls, rhytons, manuscripts, weapons—anything. What a sweet setup. You deal in crazy cuckoo clocks and end up with a zillion bucks from smuggled dope and stolen art work. Beautiful.

  But all smoke, he acknowledges. He hasn’t got a smidgen of hard evidence to prove what he guesses is going down.

  He puts the two teak Buddhas away and slams the desk drawer. He’s no sooner done that than Samantha Whatley comes storming into his office.

  “Where’s Izzy?” she demands. “I want him back—now!”

  “What’s the rush?” Cone says mildly. “You’ll get him back eventually.”

  Sam leans down and lowers her voice so no one will overhear. “Listen, bubblehead,” she says, “you don’t give me so many gifts that I’m going to give up Izzy without a fight. You give me something and then you take it back. What kind of bullshit is that? And if that isn’t enough, you cheap bastard, you’re not even paying for it; it’s on your swindle sheet, for God’s sake. Come on, let’s have it.”

  Sighing, Cone opens the lower desk drawer, fumbles inside, pulls out the solid Buddha, and shoves it at her.

  “Here,” he says, “take the goddamned thing.”

  Samantha takes a close look at the statuette and then, without even trying to untwist the base, glares at Cone wrathfully. “What are you trying to pull? This isn’t Izzy.”

  He groans. “How do you know?”

  “Because my Izzy has a cute little dimple in his chin. This one doesn’t.”

  “A cute little dimple? Jesus Christ!” He hauls the other Buddha from the desk drawer and hands it to her. “Go ahead, unscrew the base. The first one is a solid piece of wood.”

  Sam inspects the two statuettes carefully, then looks at Cone, perplexed. “What the hell’s going on, Tim?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  “Oh, you know,” she says angrily. “You’re just not telling me.”

  “Nothing to tell.”

  “What a hardass you are. Well, I don’t care, I’m taking Izzy with me.”

  “Okay, but keep it safe; I may have to borrow it again one of these days.”

  “Lots of luck,” Samantha says, sweeping out of his office, the Buddha cradled in her arms.

  Cone opens a fresh pack of Camels, lights his umpteenth cigarette of the day. He sits smoking slowly, staring at the solid teak statuette on his desk. Its arm
s are stretched high in a banzai gesture, plump face creased in a happy grin. Finally, he pulls the phone close and calls Sergeant MacEver.

  “What’s happening?” MacEver wants to know.

  “Nothing’s happening; that’s why I’m calling. I’ve got a wild idea I want to try on you.”

  “About the Laboris Art Gallery?”

  “Yeah. Would you be willing to try a sting?”

  “How do we do that?”

  “Well, you told me you get reports from Interpol and other places on stolen works of art. Right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Suppose you pick out one of the items and we send someone to the Laboris Gallery to ask if Erica can find them a similar item. If she refuses to bite, she’s clean. If she says she’ll see what she can do and then actually delivers, we’ve got her. What do you think?”

  Silence.

  “Sergeant?” Cone says. “You there?”

  “I’m here,” MacEver says finally. “It’s not a bad idea, but it needs a lot of work. Most art galleries get photos and descriptions of stolen objects, so you can’t just waltz in, describe a piece of loot, and say you want to buy it. That would alert any art dealer, especially if they don’t know you from Adam.”

  “Yeah, I can see that. So you think a sting is out?”

  “I didn’t say that. But it would have to be rigged very carefully.”

  “Have you ever met Erica Laboris?” Cone asks. “Would she recognize you?”

  “No, I’ve never met her, and I doubt if she’d make me.”

  “Okay, how about this: I go up to the gallery and tell Erica I’ve got a wealthy brother-in-law who’s a nut on collecting antique daggers or pisspots or whatever. You select the item from your list of stolen stuff. I say the guy is coming to New York from Topeka on a business trip and he’d like to stop by and see if she’s got anything to add to his collection. You follow? We suck her in slowly.”

  “And I play the brother-in-law?”

  “Sure,” Cone says heartily. “I mean, you know the business, don’t you? This is one shrewd lady, and she’d know in a minute if you’re a genuine expert or just a plant.”

  “It just might work,” the sergeant says slowly, “but I may have some trouble convincing my boss. At any rate I’ll give it the old college try. I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”