“Okay,” the undercover cop says, “I’ll keep an eye out. Thanks for the tip.” He finishes his brandy and rises. “Well, I better get to work. The more time I spend up there, the easier it’ll be.”
“The bartender’s name is Tommy,” Cone adds. “He’s got a big mustache. If that’s any help.”
“You never know,” Shipkin says. He looks around the loft. “It’s really getting to me,” he tells Cone. “If you ever decide to move, let me know first.”
“You kidding?” Davenport says. “This scroccone is going to die here. They’ll find him under the bathtub someday, OD’d on garlic salami.”
“There are worse ways to go,” Timothy says.
Seven
It turns out to be a real nothing morning. The summer sky is somber, and there are rumblings of thunder over New Jersey. The stuffed air smells of turps; there’s an ugly ocherous glow over everything.
Grousing, Cone shambles down to John Street, convinced that a day starting so dismally can only end in disaster. He stops at the local deli for black coffee and a bagel with a schmear. He takes his breakfast up to the office, exchanging silent glares with the ancient receptionist. It’s that kind of day.
He hasn’t slept well, but he doesn’t blame the junk food he pigged on the previous night. He’s eaten salami, anchovies, and chocolate pudding before, and the mixture never depressed him. But this morning engenders thoughts of making out a will and investing in a cemetery plot.
When his phone rings, he stares at it balefully, convinced it’s going to bring him news that he’s overdrawn at the bank or the IRS has found another flaw in their annual audit of his return. He finally picks it up.
“Yeah?”
“Tim? This is Jeremy Bigelow. Tell me something: Do you always fall in an outhouse and come up with a box lunch?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
The SEC investigator is bubbling with excitement. “Those ten companies you gave me-Research says that eight of them had very, very high short positions on the dates you mentioned. We got a computer sharpie who loves puzzles like that, and he did some back-checking. He claims that in the month before your dates, the total of shares sold short more than tripled in all eight companies. What in God’s name is going on?”
Cone sighs. This time he knows he is right, but he feels no elation. “It’s a ripoff,” he tells Bigelow. “A beautiful swindle that might be funny, but people have been dusted-and there’s nothing ha-ha about that. Jerry, I think you better bring the Federal DA in on this one.”
“The SEC can handle it.”
“No, you can’t,” Cone says. “This isn’t just a civil matter. If it pans out, there are going to be criminal indictments. You got a pet in the DA’s office?”
“A pet?”
“A contact. Someone you’ve worked with before. Preferably someone who owes you.”
“There’s an ADA named Hamish McDonnell. I’ve had some dealings with him.”
“Hamish McDonnell? Italian, of course.”
“No,” Bigelow says seriously, “I think he’s a Scotsman. He’s a hardnose, but he gets things done. You think I should call him?”
“It would be the smart thing to do. Cover your ass. Tell him what I gave you and what your computers came up with. Give him my number. If he wants more skinny, he can give me a call.”
“Well, all right,” the SEC man says hesitantly. “I’ll do it, but don’t cut me out of this, Tim.”
“Don’t worry,” Cone says. “You’ll see your name in print again.”
He hangs up and waits, smoking a cigarette, feet up on his desk. Samantha Whatley, coming along the corridor, stops and looks in.
“Working?” she asks.
“Yes, I’m working,” he says irritably. “What the hell do you think I’m doing-fluffing my duff?”
“What a lovely mood you’re in,” she says. “No wonder the whole office calls you Mr. Congeniality.”
“The whole office can go hump,” he says angrily. “You think I-”
But she walks away, leaving him with his sour thoughts. He hears the grumble of thunder outside-“The angels are bowling,” his mother used to say-and he supposes it’ll start pouring any minute now. Or maybe it’ll hold off until he goes out for lunch. That’ll be nice. When his corduroy suit gets wet, it smells like a Percheron’s jockstrap.
His phone shrills, and he lets it ring seven times before he picks it up. Sheer perversity.
“Yeah?” he says.
“Timothy Cone?” A man’s voice: sharp, brisk, demanding.
“That’s right.”
“This is Hamish McDonnell, Assistant DA, Federal. Jeremy Bigelow called, said you had something to talk about.”
“He told you about the short sales?”
“He told me,” McDonnell says, “but I have to know more about it before I set the wheels in motion. I’ve got a very busy schedule today, but if you can be at my office at three-thirty this afternoon, I’ll give you a half-hour.”
That’s all Cone needs. “Forget it,” he says.
“What?”
“Forget it. Unless you want to drag your ass over to my office within an hour, I’ll take it to the FBI. I’ve got a pal there who loves headlines.”
“Now wait just a-”
But Cone hangs up. He gives the guy three minutes to get back to him, but the phone rings again in less than a minute.
“Yeah?”
“Hamish McDonnell here. Listen, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Not me,” Cone says, “I know the drilclass="underline" hay foot, straw foot, hay foot, straw foot.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Not important. You interested or aren’t you?”
“You really think something is going down with those short sales?”
“Oh, yeah. There’s frigging in the rigging.”
“All right,” the ADA says, “I’ll get someone to fill in for me over here, and I’ll be at your place in an hour. Now are you happy?”
“Creaming,” Cone says.
He’s there in a little more than an hour, his rubberized raincoat streaming and his red hair plastered to his skull. “Aw,” Cone says, “did you get caught in the rain?” McDonnell stares at him. “You’re a real comedian, aren’t you?”
He’s a young guy, broad and beefy. He looks as if he might have been a hotshot in college football but didn’t have the moves or speed to make pro. But he’s still in good shape: flat belly, hard shoulders, a jaw like a knee, and hands just slightly smaller than picnic hams.
“Where can I hang my raincoat?” he asks.
“Throw it on the floor,” Cone says. “That’s what I do.”
But the ADA sits down in the armchair in his wet coat. He pulls out a clean white handkerchief and swabs his dripping hair. “All right,” he says, “let’s stop playing games. What’ve you got?”
Cone takes him through the whole thing: How Haldering was hired to investigate sabotage at Dempster-Torrey factories; how he, Cone, decided the motive was to bring down the price of the common stock so short-sellers could profit; how he suspects that David Dempster might be the knave behind the manipulation.
“David Dempster?” McDonnell says sharply. “The brother of the guy who got scragged?”
“That’s right.”
“You think he had anything to do with John Dempster’s death?”
“How the hell would I know?” Cone says. “I’m just a lousy private eye interested in industrial sabotage.”
“What have you got on David Dempster?”
“He runs a two-bit PR operation from a small office on Cedar Street, but his net worth is like four mil. That’s got to tell you something-right?”
“Unless he inherited it.”
“That I doubt. But you can check it out.”
McDonnell looks at him a long time, eyes like wet coal. “It stinks,” he says finally.
“Sure it does,” Cone agrees. “A dirty way of making a buck.”
“That’s not what I mean,” the ADA says. “I mean your story stinks.”
The Wall Street dick jerks a thumb toward the door. “Then take a walk,” he says. “Sorry to have wasted your time.”
“Jesus, what a hard-on you are! Can you blame me for doubting you? What the hell have you given me? A lot of numbers on a computer tape. Those short sales could have been lucky guesses and you know it. All you’ve said is that you ‘suspect’ David Dempster might be finagling it. Where’s your hard evidence?”