Timothy's Game

by Lawrence Sanders

But something smells. Cone well knows that public relations outfits deal with images and perceptions. It’s a way of life that carries over into the way the flacks do business: impressive offices, flashy secretaries, a hyperactive staff, and autographed photos on the walls of the boss posing with important people. Dempster has a telephone booth office, one pleasant but plain secretary, and a picture on the wall of his dead hound.

  And from this mom-and-pop bodega the cash flow has enabled him to amass a fortune? That just doesn’t add up.

  He chews it over for a while. Then, groaning, he gets to his feet and wanders down the corridor to the office of Fred Burgess, another Haldering & Co. investigator. Fred is on the phone, but when he sees Cone standing there, he motions him in, points to the armchair alongside his littered desk.

  “Marcia,” he’s saying, “I’ve already apologized twice, but if you want, I’ll do it again. You’re the one who picked the Japanese restaurant. I’m not blaming you, but it was the combination of the sashimi and sake that did it. How the hell can you know how much you’re drinking when they serve it in thimbles? It didn’t hit me until we got up to your place. All that raw fish and rice wine. … Marcia, I’ve already explained I couldn’t make it to the bathroom. So your aquarium seemed the best bet. I know it killed all your guppies, but I’ll buy you more guppies. Marcia? Marcia?”

  He replaces the phone. “She hung up,” he says gloomily.

  “Have a pleasant evening?” Cone asks.

  “Go to hell,” Burgess says. “It took me weeks to get this date. She’s gorgeous, got a great job on the Street, and beautiful digs up around Gramercy Park. I thought sure last night was going to be the night. Then I have to vomit into her goddamned fish tank and kill all her goddamned guppies. I guess I’m on her shit list now.”

  “Good detecting,” Cone says. “Look, I didn’t come in here to discuss your love life. You still got that collection of business cards?”

  Burgess, a youngish, fattish, liverish guy, stares at him suspiciously. “Yeah, I still got it. And I’m going to keep it.”

  “One card,” Timothy says. “Just one. On loan.”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “I’ll tell you how to bring Marcia around.”

  “Deal. How do I do it?”

  “Buy her the most expensive tropical fish you can afford. Something really exotic with big fins. Like a Veiltail Angelfish. Have it delivered to her apartment with a simple, heartfelt note like, ‘I’m sorry I puked in your aquarium.’”

  “Yeah,” Fred says, “that might work. What do you need?”

  “The business card of a writer.”

  “Writers don’t have business cards. But I got one from a magazine editor. Will that do?”

  “It’ll have to.”

  Burgess pulls out a long file of business cards he’s collected over the years at cocktail parties, conventions, and press conferences. He thumbs through them, pulls one out, hands it over.

  “Waldo Sperling,” Cone reads. “Feature Editor, Zebu Magazine. What the hell does Zebu mean?”

  “If you did crossword puzzles, you’d know. It’s an Asian ox. But don’t worry about it; the magazine is out of business and it can mean anything you want it to.”

  “Okay,” Cone says, rising, “I’ll give it a try. Do I look like a Waldo to you?”

  “To me,” says Burgess, “you look like a schmuck.”

  Cone goes back to his office and digs out the name, address, and phone number of David Dempster’s ex-wife. He dials and waits for nine rings before a woman’s voice comes on.

  “H’lo?” she says sleepily.

  “Am I speaking to Miss Dorothy Blenke, the former Mrs. David Dempster?”

  “Yeah,” she says, “that’s right. What time is it?”

  “Almost eleven-thirty, Miss Blenke.”

  “Jesus! I got a lunch date at noon. Who the hell are you?”

  “My name is Waldo Sperling, and I’m the Feature Editor of Zebu Magazine. We’re planning an article on the life of the late John J. Dempster, Chairman of the Board of Dempster-Torrey, and I’m trying to talk to as many people as possible who knew him.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You knew John Dempster, Miss Blenke?”

  “Of course I knew him. Better than most.”

  “All I ask is a few moments of your time. To get your personal reactions to the man. His good points and his bad points.”

  “He didn’t have any,” she says.

  “Didn’t have any what?”

  “Good points.”

  “Just a few moments at your convenience,” Cone urges. “If you don’t wish your name to appear in print, we’ll respect that. But we would prefer to use your name in the article and perhaps publish your photograph since you obviously represent a key source for our story.”

  “Listen,” she says, “you got my address?”

  “Yes, I do, Miss Blenke.”

  “Okay,” she says. “I got this stupid lunch date I’m late for already, but if you can be here around two-thirty or so, I’ll give you some time.”

  “Thank you very much,” Cone says humbly. “The name is Sperling. Waldo Sperling.”

  He hangs up, grinning, and sees Samantha Whatley standing in his doorway. “I heard that, Waldo,” she says. “Kind of long-winded, wasn’t it?”

  “Up yours,” he says.

  She growls at him. “Go pick up your rental car,” she says, and he winks at her.

  So there he is, tooling around Manhattan in a new Ford Escort GT and feeling like King Shit. As usual, traffic is murder, but Cone doesn’t care; he’s got time to kill, and he wants to get the feel of the car. Even the frustrations of stop-and-go city driving are better than cramming aboard a bus or trying to flag down a cab.

  But there is the problem of parking. Cone finally finds a slot on East 83rd Street, just west of First Avenue. He locks up and walks back to Dorothy Blenke’s address on Third Avenue, north of 85th. It’s a sliver of a high-rise, faced with alternating vertical bands of precast concrete and green-tinted glass. The doorman is dressed like someone’s idea of a Hungarian hussar, with a braided jacket, frogged half-cape, and a purple plume hanging limply from his varnished shako.

  “I have an appointment with Dorothy Blenke,” Cone tells him.

  “Not in,” the hussar says. “Try later.”

  “She said she’d be here at two-thirty. It’s past that now.”

  The doorman looks at Cone’s shoddy corduroy suit with some distaste. “I’m telling you,” he says, “she’s not back yet. Why don’t you take a nice walk around the block.”

  “Splendid idea,” Cone says, and does exactly that. He takes his time, looking in store windows and gawking at the construction work going on in the neighborhood. He returns to Blenke’s high-rise and looks inquiringly at the doorman.

  “Not yet,” the hussar says.

  So Cone circles another block, smoking a cigarette, and returns to the apartment house.

  “Yeah,” the doorman says, “she just came in.” Then, formally: “Who shall I say is calling?”

  “Waldo Sperling from Zebu Magazine.”

  “Zebu?” the hussar says. “What’s that?”

  “It’s an Asian ox,” Cone says. “I thought everyone knew.”

  The doorman calls on the intercom, talks a moment, then turns to Cone. “Okay,” he says, “you can go up. Apartment 18-A. To your left as you get off the elevator.”

  “Thanks,” Cone says. “I admire your uniform.”

  “Yeah?” the hussar says. “Try wearing it in the summer. You sweat bullets.”

  He unlocks the inner door, and the Wall Street dick enters a narrow lobby lined with ceramic tiles. It has all the joyful ambience of an underground crypt, and a couple of desiccated ficus trees add the proper mortuary touch. The automatic elevator is more cheerful, and music is coming from somewhere. Timothy recognizes the tune: “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”

  The woman who opens the d
oor of Apartment 18-A is a tall, glitzy blonde with too much of everything: hair, eye shadow, lipstick, bosom, hips, and perfume. And there are three olives in the oversized martini she’s gripping.

  “You a cop?” she demands.

  “Oh, no,” Cone says. “No, no, no. Waldo Sperling from Zebu Magazine.” He proffers his business card, but she doesn’t even glance at it.

  “I hate cops,” she says darkly. “Well, come on in. Would you like a drinkie-poo?”

  “No, thank you. But you go right ahead.”

  “I intend to,” Dorothy Blenke says. “What a shitty lunch that was. The guy looked like Godzilla, and he’s on salary, for God’s sake. Hey, I like the way you dress. You just don’t give a damn—right?”

  “Right,” Cone says.

  “That’s the way I am, too,” the woman says. “I just don’t give a damn. Now you sit in that fantastic tub chair—twelve-hundred from Bloomie’s—and I’ll curl up here on the couch.”

  “From Bloomie’s?” Cone asks.

  “Yep. Three grand.” She gives him a vapid smile. “I even got Bloomie’s printed on my panties. Wanna see?”

  “Not at the moment,” Cone says, “but I appreciate the offer. Lovely home you have here, Miss Blenke.”

  But the living room is like the woman herself—too much of everything: furniture, lamps, rugs, paintings, knick-knacks, vases, silk flowers, even ashtrays. The place overflows.

  “May I smoke?” Cone asks.

  “Why not?” she says with that out-of-focus smile. “This is Liberty Hall. Let it all hang out.”

  He offers her a Camel, but she shakes her head. So he lights up while she works on her drink. Two of the three olives have disappeared along with half of the martini. Cone figures he better make this fast.

  “Miss Blenke,” he starts, “as I told you on the phone, Zebu Magazine is—”

  “What the hell is that?” she interrupts. “I’ve never seen it on the newsstands.”

  “Controlled circulation,” Cone explains. “By subscription only. We go only to top executives in the financial community.”

  “No kidding?” she says with that bleary smile again. “I don’t suppose you want to sell your mailing list.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Cone says, and tries again. “Miss Blenke, as I told you on the phone, we’re planning a definitive article on John J. Dempster, and I’m trying to—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she says.

  Cone, who’s beginning to feel like that hussar-doorman—sweating bullets—plunges ahead. “So we’d be very interested in your personal recollections of the late John Dempster.”

  “Late,” she says gloomily. “The sonofabitch was always late.”

  “I don’t understand, Miss Blenke.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t understand,” she says portentously. “Just take my word for it.”

  They sit silently while she takes small, ladylike sips from her giant martini. The third olive has disappeared, and she peers into the tumbler, puzzled.

  She’s a big, florid woman with shards of great beauty. But it’s all gone to puff now. It could be the sauce, but Cone reckons that’s only a symptom, not the malady. Thwarted ambitions, soured dreams, chilled loves—all came before the booze. Now her life is tottering, ready to fall. It’s there in her glazed eyes and sappy grin.

  “You were married to David Dempster for—how long?” he asks, determined to be gentle with this ruin.

  “The nerd? That’s what I call him: Lord Nerd. Years and years.”

  “No children?”

  “No, thank God. His kids wouldn’t have been much anyway. He just hasn’t got the jism. But I’ll say this for him: The alimony checks are never late.”

  “And what were his relations to John Dempster?”

  “The nerd’s?” she says, startled. “He was John’s brother.”

  “I know,” Cone says patiently. “I meant their personal relationship. How did they get along?”

  “Not like gin and vermouth,” she says. “Hey, my drink is gone. Must be evaporation. Have you ever noticed that New York City has a very high rate of evaporation?”

  “Yeah,” Cone says, “I’ve noticed.”

  She heaves herself off the couch, goes into the kitchen. He hears her banging around in there, humming a song he can’t identify. He sits hunched forward in the velvet-covered tub chair, hands clasped between his knees, and wonders if there’s another line of business he can get into.

  She comes back in a few moments, still humming, with a full tumbler. She plops down on the couch again and crosses her knees. Like many heavy women, she’s got good legs and slender ankles. “One martini and I can feel it,” she says. “Two martinis and anyone can feel it. What were we talking about?”

  “David and John Dempster. How they felt about each other.”

  “Yeah,” she says, “that’s right. Well, Jack thought Dave was a washout—which he is. Dave was always bitching because Jack wouldn’t give him the Dempster-Torrey PR account, but Jack knew better than that.”

  “Oh? When was this?”

  “Years ago. Lord Nerd finally gave up. He gave up on a lot of things. Jack never gave up. He’d never take no for an answer.”

  “He must have been quite a man to build a business like that.”

  “Jack? He was Napoleon, Hitler, and Attila the Hun all rolled into one. You never knew what he was going to do next. That was the fun of him.”

  Cone stares at her. “But he always went back to his wife,” he says softly.

  “That dingbat? She’d blow away in a breeze. I’ll never, till the day I die, understand what he saw in her. I’ll bet she puts on her nightgown before she takes off her underwear. But I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Miss Blenke, why did you divorce David Dempster?”

  “Galloping boredom,” she says promptly. “You’ve met the guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know. He’d have to drink Drano to get his blood moving. Jack had all the get-up-and-go in that family. He could work twenty-four hours and then party for another twenty-four. Dave has to have his nappy-poo every afternoon or he’ll collapse. The funny thing was … What’s the funny thing?”

  “Something about the brothers?”

  “Yeah. Jack was three years younger, but usually it’s the older brother who’s the big success. Am I right?”

  “Usually. But not always. Did you socialize much with John and his wife? When you and David were married?”

  “Socialize? Jesus, if we saw them twice a year it was a lot. Those two guys couldn’t stand each other, I couldn’t stand that ding-a-ling Teresa, and I guess she felt the same way about me. It was not what you’d call close family ties.”

  Timothy wants to ask her the key questions, straight out, but hasn’t the courage. Besides, he has a fairish idea of what had happened.

  “Thank you very much, Miss Blenke,” he says, rising. “You’ve made an important contribution to our article. I’ll make certain the writer calls you to confirm the accuracy of your quotes.”

  “You’re going so soon?” she says. “Leaving me all alone?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I gotta. What was that song you were humming?”

  “Song? What song?”

  “You were humming it while you were in the kitchen.”

  “Oh, that … ‘It Had to Be You.’”

  “Uh-huh,” he says. “Thanks. Nice meeting you, Miss Blenke.”

  He figures it’s too late to go back to the office. And besides, what the hell would he do when he got there? So, sitting in his rented Escort, he pulls out his tattered list of names and addresses. David Dempster’s home is in the Murray Hill section, not out of his way. Cone drives south, planning to eyeball the place—just for the fun of it.

  It turns out to be a limestone townhouse on East 38th between Park and Madison. A smart building, well maintained, with pots of ivy on windowsills and small ginkgo trees in tubs f
lanking the elegant entrance. The place looks like bucks, and the Wall Street dick guesses it went co-op years ago.

  He double-parks across the street and dashes over, dodging oncoming cars. He scans the names on the bell plate. There it is: David Dempster, third floor. There are only five apartments in the building, all apparently floor-throughs and the top one probably a duplex. Nice. On the drive back to his loft, Cone spends the time stalled in traffic estimating what a floor-through in a Murray Hill townhouse might cost. Whatever, it wouldn’t much hurt a guy with a net worth of four mil.

  He gets back to his own floor-through to find that Cleo has pawed open the cabinet under the sink, plucked out a plastic bottle of detergent and gnawed a hole in it. Then apparently the demented cat jumped up and down on the punctured bottle. The detergent is spread all over the linoleum. And the cat is sitting gravely in the midst of it, paws together and a “Who—me?” expression on its ugly mug.

  “You dirty rat!” Cone yells, and Cleo darts under the bathtub.

  It takes twenty minutes to clean up the mess. By this time, Cleo is giving him the seductive ankle-rub treatment along with piteous mews.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Cone says.

  He’s in the kitchenette, opening a beer, when the wall phone jangles.

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “Mr. Timothy Cone?” A woman’s voice.

  “That’s right.”

  “Miss Bookerman calling. Just a moment, please, sir.”

  Eve Bookerman comes on the line. “Hello!” she says breathlessly. “Forgive me for calling you at home, but I tried your office and you weren’t in. Mr. Haldering gave me your home phone number. I hope you aren’t angry.”

  “Nah,” he says, “that’s okay.”

  “I haven’t heard from you and wondered if you were making any progress on the industrial sabotage. Simon Trale told me about your suggestion that it might be a corporate raider. That was a brilliant idea. Brilliant!”

  “Brilliant,” Cone says. “Except it was a dud.”

  “But it shows you’re thinking imaginatively,” she says. “I like that. Do you have anything new to report?”

  “Nope. More questions than answers. I think you and I better have another meet, Miss Bookerman.”