“This is going to cost me a lot of money, Mr. Cone.”
“You bet your sweet ass it will,” Timothy says cheerfully. “I don’t know what your personal net worth is, but I’d guess you may have to take on some heavy debt to finance the greenmail and investment in Edward’s venture. But what’s your alternative? Complete estrangement from your son. You don’t want that, do you?”
“No. In spite of what he’s done, he is still my flesh and blood. More sake, please.”
Cone fills their crystal glasses again. The vodka at the Lees’ apartment, beers at the Lexington Avenue saloon, and now two shots of rice wine. … He figures if he keeps this up, his liver will look like a cellulose sponge.
“So tell me, Mr. Lee-what do you think of my scenario?”
“It has much to recommend it. I will give it very careful consideration.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got to level with you; I have a personal interest in your going for it. Mr. Henry Wu Yeh isn’t happy about my sticking my schnoz in his affairs, and he’s suggested his world would be a brighter place without me-permanently. So if you could speed up your decision and, if you decide to go for it, give Yeh a call today, I’d appreciate it. I don’t want to lean on you-the choice is yours-but I don’t want you to hear from someone else that I suggested this plan just to save my own cojones. I happen to think it would be best for you, your son, and just incidentally for me.”
“Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Cone. Now I hope you will be equally honest about another matter. Was my wife a party to this greenmail scheme?”
“I don’t know. All I can do is guess. And my guess is that she may have encouraged Edward to break with you. But that could have been just pillow talk-you should excuse the expression. I don’t think she made any commitment or actually pledged her stock. I think she decided to wait and see how the cards would fall-and then go with the winner.”
“Yes,” Chin Tung Lee says sadly, “she is capable of that. My wife has a certain peasant shrewdness.”
“That she has. Here’s a thought: If you decide to cut a deal with your son and help finance his new business, why don’t you stipulate that he relocates in California and starts the company out there.”
“Ah, you think that will effectively end their affair?”
Timothy shrugs. “There’s always the chance that she’ll follow Edward to the West Coast. But I’m betting she sticks in New York. You’ve got more money than your son.”
“Yes,” Lee says, “and I’m an old man with not too much time to go. Is that what you’re thinking? You are realistic.”
Then, emboldened by the second sake, Cone says, “Look, Mr. Lee, why don’t you say to your wife, ‘Hey, baby, straighten up and fly right. Stop playing around or you’re out on your ass.’ Have you got the gumption to talk to her like that?”
“I may speak to her,” the old man says cautiously, “but perhaps not in those exact words.”
“Whatever,” Timothy says. “You’re the chess whiz.” He rises, takes up cigarettes, matches, leather cap, and prepares to leave.
“Another sake?” the oldster suggests.
“No, thanks. I know a guy who drank a lot of that stuff and then threw up in his girlfriend’s aquarium.”
“You know some odd people, Mr. Cone.”
“Everyone’s odd-including me. You still love your wife, don’t you?”
“Yes,” says Chin Tung Lee.
They’re humping away as if the Bomb is en route and they’ve only got minutes to wring the last twinge of joy from sentient life.
“Oh,” Samantha Whatley says. “Oh oh oh.”
Maybe it’s because she’s been away so long or because he’s missed her so much. But they’re playing the brangle buttock game with brutal intensity, perhaps meaning to punish each other for their separation. They couple with the desperation of survivors.
In her bouncy bed, with the pink mattress flounce all around, French dolls tossed to the floor to stare at the ceiling with ceramic eyes, they joust with grunts and fervor, reclaiming their intimacy with groans and curses. No delicacy or gentle caring here, but naked warfare and the fury of combat.
“Ah,” Timothy Cone says. “Ah ah ah.”
These two demons never have figured out if they’re lovers or antagonists-and have no interest in finding out. All they seek is the resolution of their wants. And if the end doesn’t justify the means, what the hell does?
So they slide slickly over each other, prying ferociously, grappling, twisting, biting, and losing themselves in a quest they cannot define. There is anguish in their lovemaking as if they mean to perish when all is complete. But meanwhile they practice the age-old tricks and skills that came out of the cave, or might have been perfected by hairy primates swinging from trees.
Neither will surrender, but both must. They end with a duet of moans and yelps, singing a song of longing and need deferred. Then, slackening, they stare at each other wide-eyed, fearful of their release, wondering if the world still turns.
Cone lurches off the sheets, stands a moment until his knees solidify. Then he pads over to Samantha’s refrigerator and returns with the chilled California chablis he brought to celebrate her homecoming. He fills their glasses, then sets the jug down on the floor alongside the bed.
They sit up with their backs against the headboard, sipping their wine and content to laze away the late Saturday afternoon.
“Did you miss me?” Sam asks.
“Sure.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t cut your eyes at another woman while I was gone.”
“I might have looked,” Cone admits, “but I didn’t touch.”
“Fair enough,” Sam says. “And what have you been up to at the office?”
“Nothing much. The usual bullshit.”
She turns her head to glare at him. “Come on, asshole, give me a break,” she says. “I’ll read your reports on Monday anyway.”
“Yeah, well, mostly I was working the White Lotus file.”
“Tell me about it.”
He gives her a condensed account of his adventures with Chin, Claire, and Edward Lee, with Johnnie Wong and Henry Wu Yeh, with the United Bamboo and Giant Panda gangs. By the time he finishes, they’ve polished off the wine. Cone refills their glasses. The light is muted now, the apartment mellow with dusk.
“Jesus,” Sam says, “you really get the crapolas, don’t you. Did the Giant Panda baddies ever come after you?”
“Nah. I got a call on Wednesday from Chin Tung Lee. He made a deal with Yeh-bought back Giant Panda’s shares of White Lotus stock at a premium. And Edward is moving to the coast to start his new business.”
“Was Chin happy at how it all turned out?”
“I guess so. He sent me a great big carton of White Lotus products. I’ve got enough Chinese food in the loft to give Cleo slanted eyes.”
“Tim,” she says thoughtfully, “that Claire Lee-was she the one you had the hots for?”
“She’s something. I thought at first she was gold, but she turned out to be tin.”
“But her husband loves her.”
“Everyone’s got problems,” Cone says.
“Yeah? What’s your problem, sonny boy?”
“I’m horny again.”
“Thank God!” Samantha cries.