He is dimly conscious of Sam clicking off the TV set and checking the chain and bolt on the outside door. He hears her moving about, going into the bathroom and coming out, undressing.
Then she slides into bed alongside him.
“Sleeping?” she whispers.
“Yes,” he says.
“Liar. Want to wait till morning?”
“No.”
She molds herself to his back, spoon-fashion, then reaches around to hold him. He can feel the fever of her body, and it’s so nice having her close that he doesn’t want to move.
“Do something,” she urges.
“Whistle ‘Dixie’?” he suggests. “Sing an aria? Crack my knuckles?”
She punches his ribs. “I’ll crack more than that, buster.”
Then he is no longer drowsy, and they attack each other with moaning kisses and caresses as hard as blows. Their bodies join in a curve as convoluted as a Mobius strip. Within moments they are engaged in hostile assaults, as if each is guilty of the other’s need-for which there is no forgiveness.
They rampage across the bed, back and forth, and if there had been a chandelier overhead, they would have swung from that, two nutty acrobats socking together in midair. Curses are muffled, oaths gritted, and when they finally come to a sweated juncture, each believes it a selfish victory and is beamy and content.
Cone rents a Dodge Shadow because the name appeals to him. He intends using it to shadow and, if things get hairy, to dodge. It’s a black two-door compact and has all the performance he’ll need for city driving.
He gets the feel of it on a jaunt uptown. He drives by Steiner Waste Control on Eleventh Avenue and is surprised by the size of the dump-almost a city block wide. It’s late afternoon, and the place seems relatively quiet with only a single truck unloading at a shed and another on the tarmac awaiting its turn.
He returns to the loft and phones Neal K. Davenport.
“Now what?” the NYPD detective demands. “I’m trying to eat a sausage hero, so make it fast.”
“That’s your lunch? At this time of day?”
“You think we get a regular lunch hour like you nine-to-five types? Fat chance! What’s on your mind, sherlock?”
“You know anyone in the Organized Crime Bureau?”
“I might. Why are you asking? You got something for them?”
“Nah,” Cone says. “Just a couple of questions.”
“What the hell is this-a one-way street? When are you going to start coming up with some answers for us? What a hardnose you are! Okay, I’ll play your little game. The guy I know in the Organized Crime outfit is Joe D’Amato. He looks and dresses like a college professor, but he’s got more street smarts than you and I will ever have. I’ll give him a call and tell him you’re the worst brain-picker in the city. If he wants to talk to you, that’s his problem.”
“Thanks,” Cone says. “That’s one I owe you.”
“One!” the city bull says, outraged. “What’re you doing-counting on your thumbs? Use all your appendages and it comes to twenty-one. Do you read me, sonny boy?”
Cone hangs up softly. He finds the computer printouts Jeremy Bigelow gave him, and makes a list of all the out-of-town buyers who purchased 9,000 shares of Trimbley amp; Diggs, Inc. There are ten of them, and Cone jots down their names and the cities where they bought the T amp;D stock.
Cleo has started to mewl sadly, so he changes the cat’s litter, puts out fresh water, and then inspects the contents of his scarred, waist-high refrigerator to see what kind of a banquet man and beast can share. He finds three eggs, a hunk of salami, and a piece of greenish cheese sparked with jalapeno pepper flakes.
He cuts the salami into cubes, fries them up with the eggs, and sets out the cheese to provide his cholesterol overdose of the day. There’s also a blackened banana for dessert. But everything tastes good to him, and Cleo has no objections except perhaps to the pepper cheese which makes the tom sneeze.
The phone doesn’t ring until almost nine o’clock and, being a superstitious man, Cone goes to answer it with his fingers crossed.
“Yeah?” he says.
“Is this Timothy Cone?”
“That’s right. Who’s this?”
“Sergeant Joseph D’Amato. Neal Davenport said you wanted me to contact you.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“I should tell you this call is being taped. In the business I’m in, that’s SOP. Okay with you?”
“Sure. All I got is a list of names and where they live. I was hoping you might be able to give me some skinny on them.”
“Who are they?”
Cone sees no reason to hold back, especially if he wants a favor from this guy. “All of them bought big blocks of the same stock in the last two or three weeks. I think it may be an inside trading scam.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” D’Amato says. “That’s a federal rap. No interest to us.”
“It might,” Cone says. “I think these guys are getting their tips from a woman who operates a private garbage removal service on the West Side of Manhattan. I got a feeling these guys are all wrongos, and they’re in your files.”
Silence a moment, then: “All right, let’s have the names. Try to speak slowly and distinctly. My tape recorder is an antique. And spell out all the last names.”
Cone does as he’s told.
“That’s it,” he says when he’s finished.
“A couple of the names ring a bell,” the sergeant says. “And you’re right: They are not nice people. I’ll run them through the computer and see what turns up. I’ll get back to you.”
“Thanks.”
“Neal tells me you’re a secretive sonofabitch. If you’re holding back, now’s the time to tell me. I don’t like doing a private eye’s work unless there’s something in it for me.”
“I understand that, and I’m not holding back. I’ve given you all I’ve got.”
“All right,” D’Amato says. “But you cross me just once, and you’ve had it, pal. You capeesh?”
“I capeesh,” Cone says.
That night, around eleven o’clock, he drives uptown again. He parks two blocks away from Steiner Waste Control and walks back. The dump is surrounded by a heavy chain-link fence, and the truck-filled tarmac is lighted by two floods. There’s also a night watchman’s shed inside the locked gate, and the guy himself is outside, looking up at the star-spangled sky. He’s a chunky bruiser and he’s not carrying a kielbasa in that belt holster.
Cone knows at once that there’s no way he’s going to break into the Steiner office and waltz out with their customer list. That leaves only one alternative, and he groans aloud when he thinks of the stultifying labor that will entail.
But he won’t let go; he’s done his share of donkeywork before and lived through it. So on Thursday morning, early, he’s parked across Eleventh Avenue from Steiner Waste Control. He’s come prepared with two deli sandwiches (bologna on rye with mustard, roast beef on white with mayo) and four cans of Miller beer in a plastic bag filled with ice cubes.
The garbage dump comes to life. Cone watches as the gate is unlocked and thrown open. Employees arrive, trucks are revved up, the gas pump is busy, and a short, stocky woman comes out of the office to yell something Cone can’t hear at an old guy who comes limping from one of the corrugated steel sheds.
There are six huge Loadmaster compactor trucks, all painted yellow. Timothy thanks God and his good-luck angels when he sees that not only do the garbage trucks bear the legend Steiner Waste Control, but each has a big number painted on the side, 1 to 6. At least Cone won’t be following the same truck for a week.
Because that’s his plan; he can’t think of a better way to find out who Sally Steiner is dealing with. He doesn’t think she’s got a Wall Street informant, so she must be getting her inside info from one of her customers. It’s a long shot, but the only one Cone has.
Truck No. 4 pulls out first, and Cone starts up the Dodge Shadow and goes right after it. For the next seven hours he eats the truck’s exhaust, going where it goes, stopping when it stops, returning to the dump when Truck No. 4 returns to drop a load.