Twenty minutes later he’s closeted with Chin Tung Lee. The old man looks chipper, and since he’s puffing a scented cigarette in a long ivory holder, Cone figures it’s okay to light up another coffin nail.
“I know it’s too early to ask if you have made any progress, Mr. Cone.”
“Yeah, it is. I’m just collecting stuff at this stage. That’s why I wanted your shareholder list and annual report.”
“Right here,” Lee says, tapping a fat package on his desk. “I hope you will guard this well. I would not care to have the list fall into the hands of an enemy.”
“I’ll take good care of it,” Cone promises. “I notice White Lotus stock is up another half-point.”
“It continues,” the little man says, nodding. “My son believes it is of no significance, but I do not agree.”
“By the way,” Cone says, as casually as he can manage, “is your son married?”
Chin Tung Lee sets his holder and cigarette down carefully in a brass ashtray made from the base of a five-inch shell. “No, he is not,” he says with a frazzled laugh. “It is a sadness for me. Men my age should have grandchildren. Perhaps great-grandchildren.”
“He’s still a young man,” Cone says. “He may surprise you one of these days.”
“A very pleasant surprise. Family is important to me. Are you married, Mr. Cone?”
“No,” the Wall Street dick says, stirring uncomfortably in the leather club chair. “You said you had something to ask me.”
“Ah, yes,” Lee says, and now his laugh is vigorous again. “Happy news, I am glad to say. Today is my dear wife’s birthday. To celebrate, we are having a cocktail party and buffet dinner in our apartment this evening, and I hope you will be able to join us.”
“Hey,” Cone says, “that sounds great. What time?”
“From five o’clock until the wee hours,” the gaffer says gleefully. “I must admit I am looking forward to it. I enjoy celebrations.”
“Fireworks?” Timothy says, grinning.
“Regretfully, no. The popping of champagne corks will have to do.”
“Your son will be there?”
“Naturally,” Chin says, astonished at the question. “He lives in the apartment. With his own private entrance, I might add. In any event, we are expecting almost a hundred guests, and I trust you will be one of them.”
“Sure will,” Cone says. “You in the book?”
“We are indeed. But to save you from searching through four pages of Lees in the Manhattan directory, I have written out our address and home telephone number. You will find it in the package. Then we may expect you?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Cone promises. “Should I bring a birthday present?”
The old man waves a hand in protest. “Of course not. Your presence will be gift enough.”
A lesson to Cone in grace and civility.
He’s down in the lobby carrying the fat package when he realizes what was missing from that conversation. Chin Tung Lee never asked if Cone had spoken to his son. And he had said nothing of the murder of Chen Chang Wang, a good customer of White Lotus products.
Which meant-what? That he considered it of no importance, or that his son had not told him that he and Cone were in Ah Sing’s when Wang was sent to join his ancestors.
The Wall Street dick begins to appreciate what is meant by a “Chinese puzzle.”
He can go back to the office-but that’s not a cheery prospect. Haldering might come nosing around, demanding to know what progress Cone has made on the White Lotus case as well as those other two files, real yawners, he’s supposed to be investigating.
So he decides to hike all the way back to his loft, breathing deeply to get the cigarette smoke out of his alveoli. That lasts for six blocks; then he lights up, cursing himself for his weakness as he inhales deeply and wonders which will rot first: lungs, liver, or kidneys.
He doesn’t bother picking up lunch, figuring he can last till that buffet dinner. Then he’ll gorge and maybe slip something special in his pockets for Cleo. Meanwhile the cat can subsist on refrigerator grub: cheddar and bologna.
In the loft, he strips to T-shirt and baggy Jockey briefs and mixes himself a jelly jar of vodka and water, with plenty of the former, little of the latter, and lots of ice.
“Here’s looking at you, kid,” he toasts Cleo, who has come out from under the bathtub and is now lying in a patch of diffused sunshine coming through the dirt-encrusted skylight.
The first thing Cone does is phone Eve Bookerman at Dempster-Torrey, something he should have done a week ago.
“I’m so glad you called, Mr. Cone,” she says in her ballsy voice. “I wanted to thank you personally for the job you did on our sabotage problem. Marvelous!”
“Yeah,” he says, “it turned out okay, and for once the nice guys didn’t finish last. Listen, the reason I’m calling is this: When I was working your case, we rented a car for a month. It’s a Ford Escort and was charged to Dempster-Torrey. By rights the car should have been turned in when the file was closed. But there’s still about two weeks left on the rental, and I wanted to ask if it’s all right with you if I keep the car until the month runs out.”
She laughs. “Mr. Cone, you keep the car as long as you need it, and don’t worry about the billing. It’s the least we can do.”
“Thanks,” he says. “It’ll be a big help. Anything new on who’s going to be the CEO at Dempster-Torrey?”
“I didn’t make it,” she says.
“Tough,” Cone says. “But tomorrow’s another day.”
“Thank God for that,” she says. “Nice talking to you, Mr. Cone. Let’s have a drink sometime.”
“You name it,” he answers, knowing she never will.
He sits at the kitchen table with his drink and opens the White Lotus package. The first thing he goes through is the annual report, knowing full well that like most corporation reports, it should be submitted for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.
White Lotus is a four-color, slick-paper job. It doesn’t tell him much more than he’s already learned except that the number of registered stockholders is slightly over 2,000-which seems high for a company as modest as this chop suey producer. On the opening page are photographs of Chin Tung Lee and Edward Tung Lee, facing the camera with frozen smiles.
The Board of Directors is interesting. Of the ten, three are outsiders, all with Caucasian names. Of the remaining seven, five are named Lee and the other two have Chinese monikers. All seven are officers of White Lotus. Sounds to Cone as if the Chairman and CEO is keeping a very tight rein indeed on his company.
The computer printout of shareholders’ names, addresses, and the number of shares held provides more provocative stuff. Cone flips through the list quickly, getting an instant impression that at least 90 percent of White Lotus shareholders are Chinese, or at least have Oriental names. Then he zeros in on the largest holdings, those of Chin Tung Lee, Claire Lee, and Edward Tung Lee.
He does some rough estimates because the battery of his handy-dandy pocket calculator went kaput a long time ago and he hasn’t gotten around to replacing it. He figures Chin Tung Lee owns about 26 percent of White Lotus, wife Claire 11 percent, and son Edward 16 percent.
Those numbers add up to some ripe conclusions. The three of them combined hold a majority interest in White Lotus. Chin and Claire can easily outvote Edward. Chin and Edward can easily outvote Claire.
And Claire and Edward can outvote Chin.
The other 47 percent of White Lotus is held by the 2,000 shareholders, mostly in odd lots. There are few investors with as many as 1,000 shares. And they, Cone notes, are all Chinese.
“I don’t know what it all means,” he says to Cleo. “Do you?”
The cat gives him the “I am famished” signal, which consists of ankle rubs and piteous mewls.
So Cone tosses the beast a slice of bologna and mixes himself a fresh drink. He opens a bag of Cheez Doodles and goes back to his arithmetic.