“Christ!” the city cop says. “You know what they’ve got me doing? A couple of witnesses swear the driver of the motorcycle was wearing a steel-toed boot. So I’m supposed to check out every joint in the city that puts steel tips on shoes and boots. That’s like looking for a needle in a keg of nails.”
“Yeah,” Cone says, “I know what you mean.”
“If we could handle it as a simple dusting,” Davenport goes on, “an ordinary, run-of-the-mill homicide, things would be a lot easier. But all the people involved are real nobs-or think they are. I mean Dempster-Torrey is a powerhouse in local politics. Charitable contributions, campaign donations, and all that shit. So the heat is on. I get pushed every hour on the hour, and when I heard you were joining the pack, I blew my cork. Sorry I yelled at you.”
“That’s okay,” Cone says. “I can understand how you feel. But believe me, Haldering and Company has no interest in getting involved in Dempster’s death. All I’m supposed to do is find out who’s torching their factories.”
“And you don’t think it has anything to do with the murder?”
“Hey, I’ve just started on this thing. I was reading the file when you called. But you said yourself that you can’t see a connection.”
“That’s right. But that’s today. Maybe tomorrow you’ll trip over something. You’ll let me know?”
“Hell, yes. I’m no glory hound; you know that. If I find anything that sets off bells, you’ll be the first to know. You can have the headlines.”
“I don’t know why I trust you,” Davenport says. “You’re such a flake.”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t ever bollixed you up, have I?”
“Not lately you haven’t,” the NYPD man says, considerably mollified. “Okay, go back to your boozing; you sound half in the bag already. Every time I think of a wild card like you rampaging around in something like this, my ulcer starts acting up. Keep in touch, will you?”
“Depend on it,” Timothy says.
He goes back to his desk, back to reading the Dempster-Torrey reports, back to pepper vodka-which now seems mild, light, dry, sparkling, and guaranteed to dull the senses and make life seem interesting and even meaningful.
Finished with the documents, he tosses them aside, parks his feet on the desk, dunks a charlotte russe in the vodka, and ruminates.
As far as finding a link between the eighteen crimes-zero, zip, and zilch. But the lack of a pattern might have significance. It’s unlikely one guy is racing around the country setting fires, dumping rice in gas tanks, blowing up warehouses, and slipping cyanide into sealed bottles of diet pills made by Dempster-Torrey’s drug subsidiary.
Those sophisticated techniques were devised by someone with a lot of criminal know-how. That makes Cone think it’s a gang, bossed by a villain who knows exactly what he’s doing and what he wants to accomplish. But what does he want to accomplish? Revenge?
That would point the finger at a fired or disgruntled employee. Or maybe the former owner of some small and profitable company that John J. Dempster gobbled up on his march to power. God knows Dempster must have made enough enemies to last him a lifetime-which didn’t, after all, last very long at all.
The Wall Street dick pours another small vodka, swearing to himself it will be a nightcap and knowing it won’t because his mind is churning, and he’ll be able to sleep only with high-proof oblivion.
He’s halfway through that snort when his peppered brain spits out an idea that’s so elegant he feels like shouting. It’s a neat solution: an organization controlled, or hired, by a tough, determined, brainy guy who knows exactly what he wants and how to get it. Cone walks around his brilliant inspiration, and the more he inspects it from all angles, questions it, analyzes it, the stronger it seems.
And the motive? That’s the best part!
“I do believe …” he says aloud, and Cleo comes slinking out from under the bathtub to yawn and stretch.
Later, lying in his skivvies on the floor mattress, lights out, his last conscious thoughts are of Neal K. Davenport, and how rancorous the detective must feel at being relegated to a minor role in a big case he thinks of as his own.
Cleo pads up to curl into the bend of his knees.
“He wants praise, kiddo,” Cone says, reaching down to scratch the cat’s torn ears. “Or maybe justification. He wants recognition that he’s doing important work in this screwed-up world. Do you want praise, justification, and recognition, Cleo? The hell you do. I don’t either. We’ve got a roof over our heads and all the hot sausage we can eat. What more do we need?”
Cleo growls agreement.
Two
The secretary is a middle-aged woman, with a glazed ceramic complexion and wiry gray hair up in a tight bun. She gazes at the world through hard eyes. He figures it would take a helluva lot to surprise her-and nothing would shock her.
“Timothy Cone from Haldering and Company,” he says. “To see Miss Bookerman. My appointment’s for ten-thirty.”
She glances down at a watch pinned to her bodice. She doesn’t have to tell him he’s late; her look is accusation enough.
“I’ll tell her you’re here, Mr. Cone. Please be seated.”
But he remains standing, eyeballing the place. Nothing lavish, but everything crisp, airy, and looking as if it was waxed five minutes ago. The carpet has the Dempster-Torrey corporate insignia woven into it. A nice touch. Reminds Cone of the linoleum in his loft. That bears his insignia: cracked, worn, with the brown backing showing through in patches.
“Ms. Bookerman will see you now,” the secretary says, replacing her phone. “Through that door and down the hall to your left.”
“Right,” he says.
“No,” she says, “left.”
He looks at her and sees a glint of amusement in her steady eyes.
“How about tonight?” he whispers. “Same time, same place. I’ll bring the herring.”
That cracks her up. “I’ll be there,” she promises.
He had called that morning from the loft. Eve Bookerman could see him at 10:30. Precisely. For a half-hour. Precisely. Cone said that was fine, and he’d also like to talk to Theodore Brodsky, Chief of Security. Bookerman said she’d arrange it. Her voice was low, throaty, stirring. Cone liked that voice.
He figured that if he had a 10:30 appointment, there was no point in going into the office first. So he spent an hour drinking black coffee, smoking Camels, and finishing the last charlotte russe. He was a mite hung over, but nothing serious. Just that his stomach was queasy, and he was afraid of what might happen if he yawned.
So he plodded all the way down to Wall Street. A hot July day, steamy, with a milky skim over a mild blue sky. By the time he arrived at the Dempster-Torrey Building, he was pooped; the air conditioning was plasma.
Now, scuffing down the inside corridor to his left, he passes a succession of doors with chaste brass name plates: JOHN J. DEMPSTER, SIMON TRALE, THEODORE BRODSKY and, finally, EVE BOOKERMAN. He wonders if, having taken over the murdered man’s duties, even temporarily, she has moved into the CEO’s office. But when he raps on the gleaming pine door, he hears a shouted “Come in!” and enters slowly, leather cap in hand.
She stands and comes forward to greet him. He is startled. From her voice and determined manner on the phone, he had expected a tigress; he sees a tabby. A short woman, almost chubby, with a great mass of frizzy strawberry-blond curls. She’s trying to smile, but it doesn’t work.
“Glad to meet you,” she says. “Mr. Twiggs has told me so much about you.”
“Yeah?” he says. “That’s nice.”
She’s wearing a seersucker suit with a frilly blouse, a wide ribbon bow-tied at the neck. She looks clunky, but she moves well and there’s strength in her handshake. Her eyes are great, Cone decides: big, dark, luminous. And she’s got impressive lungs. Even with the blouse and suit he can see that.