Timothy's Game

by Lawrence Sanders

“And I’m not selling. It’s International Insurance Investigators. The Triple-I. Have you ever heard of us?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good,” the guy says, and this time the smile works. “We like it that way. This concerns Dempster-Torrey. Can we talk?”

  “Sure,” Timothy says, taking the business card. “This way.”

  Staley follows him down the corridor and into Cone’s littered cubbyhole office.

  “This looks like my place,” the insurance man says, “but it’s bigger.”

  “Bigger? My God, you must work out of a coffin. Listen, I’ve got a couple of beers here. They’re not too cold, but they’re wet. You want one?”

  He has the guy figured for a stiff, but Staley surprises him. “Sure,” he says. “That’d be good.”

  They open the cans, take a gulp, stare at each other with cautious interest.

  “This Triple-I you work for—” Cone says. “What is it?”

  “Claims investigations. Most insurance companies have their own claims department. But some of the smaller ones can’t handle anything that’s complicated or suspicious. And sometimes the big boys get backed up with a lot of claims at once and need temporary outside help. That’s where we come in.”

  “I follow,” Cone says. “But what’s your interest in Dempster-Torrey?”

  Staley drums his fingertips on the top of his sailor. “The way I get it,” he says, “you were hired to investigate their industrial sabotage. Correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you call Dempster-Torrey. They call their insurance broker. The broker calls the Central Insurance Association. And they call us.”

  “There’s a helluva lot of phoning going on today,” Cone says. “Maybe I should buy some Nynex stock. But how does your company come in on this?”

  “About three years ago the computers at the CIA—that’s a great name, isn’t it—picked up a big increase in property and casualty claims by large corporations. It was a jump that couldn’t be explained by normal growth, so the Triple-I was hired to take a look-see.”

  “So you’ve been looking into property and casualty losses for the past three years.”

  “Just for a year. The eye who had the file before me retired, and I inherited it. He got nowhere with it, and that’s exactly where I’ve got.”

  “Did you investigate this stuff personally?”

  “You better believe it,” Bernard Staley says. “Traveled all over the country. Spent a lot of the CIA’s money—and delivered zilch. And I usually got there a day or two after it happened. Sometimes within hours. Not only torching factories, but sabotage, and vandalism, product tampering, bribery of union leaders, consumer lawsuits, and hiring away or corrupting key personnel—in other words, a complete program to ruin the reputation and profits of the targeted company.”

  “Any homicides?” Cone asks.

  Staley gives him a strange look. “Funny you should ask,” he says. “The chief researcher for a biomedical outfit got wiped out in a car crash. Clear night. He wasn’t drunk or stoned. The official verdict was that he lost control of his car and drove into a concrete abutment. But the guy was some kind of a genius, and there was talk he was working on a cure for baldness. After he died, the stock of the company went way down, and the new product never did hit the market.”

  “You think the guy’s accident wasn’t kosher?”

  Staley shrugs. “Just a feeling,” he says. “No hard evidence at all. But I keep remembering it. He left a pretty wife and three young kids.”

  “Yeah,” Cone says, “that’s hard to forget. And you’ve gotten nothing from all your digging?”

  The other man blinks behind his specs. “Nothing you can take to the bank. Just a crazy notion that all these jobs—different companies, different places—were pulled by the same guy, or the same mob. A lot of similarities. In several of the arson cases, the MO was practically identical. But don’t ask me who’s behind it or what the motive might be—I haven’t a clue. Anyway, I won’t bore you with my tale of woe any longer. You wanted a list of the ten companies that had the biggest property and casualty losses. Here it is, with their total claims.”

  He fishes into his inside jacket pocket, comes out with a folded sheet of typing paper, hands it over.

  “You’ll notice that Dempster-Torrey is at the top as far as dollar losses go.”

  Cone scans the list quickly. “I recognize most of the names,” he says. “Not all, but most. What do these dates mean?”

  “That’s when the accidents happened,” the Triple-I man says. “I thought it might possibly help. You’ll notice some of the dates go back more than a year. I know you asked for losses in the past year, but this thing has been growing for three years now, so I decided to include the biggest losers.”

  Cone looks at him admiringly. “You know your job,” he says.

  “No, I don’t,” Bernard Staley says. “If I did, I’d have closed this file a year ago. I hope you have better luck. I’ve got a lot more on my plate besides this, but it keeps bothering me.

  “Yeah. The pretty wife and three young kids.”

  The insurance investigator nods, rises, extends his hand. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Cone. I hope that list is what you wanted. I swear to God that something is going down, but what the hell it is, I have no idea.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Cone says, shaking his hand.

  “And if you come up with anything you’ll let me know?”

  “Absolutely. We’re both working the same side of the street.”

  Staley gives him a wan smile. “Some street,” he says sadly.

  After he’s gone, Cone reads over the list again. This sabotage is not piddling stuff; the claims are heavy: millions of dollars of losses. Which means if someone has deliberately planned the damage, he’s a professional or, more probably, has hired professionals. Two of the companies on the list suffered arsonous fires on the same day, and they’re half a country apart. No one torch could have managed that.

  Cone ruminates a moment, searching through the mess in his top desk drawer for the phone number of his contact at the Securities and Exchange Commission. He calls.

  “Jeremy Bigelow, please. Timothy Cone calling.”

  “He’s on the phone at the moment, Mr. Cone. Would you care to wait?”

  “Yeah, I’ll wait.”

  He waits, and waits, and waits. Finally Bigelow comes on.

  “Hiya, Tim,” he says.

  “What were you doing on the phone so long—trying to explain to your wife why you take off your wedding ring the moment you leave the house?”

  “My God,” the SEC man says with an empty laugh, “you never forget anything, do you. What’s happening?”

  “The usual bullshit. Jerry, I need a small favor.”

  “Well, uh, I’m awfully busy right now.”

  Bigelow is a nice guy but not too swift. Cone has had to strong-arm him more than once.

  “Look,” he says in a hard voice, “don’t get snotty with me. In the first place, you owe me one for that Sally Steiner scam. Don’t think I didn’t see your name in The Wall Street Journal. But that’s okay; I told you to grab the glory. In the second place, if you stiff me on this, you’ll be passing up something that could be bigger than the Boesky affair. If you and the SEC don’t want a piece of the action, just say so and I’ll get out of your hair.”

  “Bigger than the Boesky affair?” Jeremy repeats. “You just said the magic words. What have you got?”

  “A list of ten companies. I need to know the amount of short sales in each company’s stock on the dates I’ll give you.”

  “My God,” Bigelow says, “it’ll take a month of Sundays to dig that out.”

  “Jerry, stop trying to jerk me around. You’ve got it all on your computers and you know it. The New York Times runs a list of big-board short positions every month. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour or two to come up with what I need.”

  “Well, all right,” the oth
er man says grudgingly. “Mail me the list and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Mail shit!” Cone says wrathfully. “I haven’t got the time, and if you’d like maybe to see your name in Business Week, you’ll want to get on this as fast as you can. Have you got a bug on your phone wired to a tape recorder?”

  “Well … yeah,” the SEC man says hesitantly. “For when informers call.”

  “I’m the best informer you’ll ever have. Switch it on and I’ll dictate the names of the companies and the dates.”

  He hears fumbling, clicking, and then Bigelow says, “Okay, go ahead.”

  Cone reads aloud the list from Triple-I. He concludes by saying, “That’s all for now, folks. Keep those letters and postcards coming.”

  Jerry gets back on the phone again. “All right,” he says, “I’ll get it to Research right away. You’re sure this is a biggie?”

  “Makes the Teapot Dome Scandal look like the Gypsy Handkerchief Switch,” Cone assures him. “I’ll expect to hear from you tomorrow. If not, look for me at your office with a cast-iron shillelagh. Have a nice day.”

  “Yeah,” Jeremy Bigelow says faintly. “You, too.”

  Cone disconnects, convinced the pace of the investigation is picking up. He lights a Camel, lifts his work shoes on top of his battered desk, and considers. Where are the flaws? If not flaws, where are the gaps? He spots one, and reaches for the phone again. He calls Mrs. Teresa Dempster.

  She answers the phone herself, and he wonders, sorrowfully, if the nubile maid has been canned.

  “Hello, there!” she says cheerily. “This is Teresa Dempster speaking.”

  “How are you, Mrs. Dempster? This is Timothy Cone.”

  “Mr. Timothy!” she carols. “How nice to hear from you again.”

  “I was wondering how my bonsai is doing. The Japanese red maple you gave me—remember?”

  “Irving! Of course I remember. Well, Irving is doing just wonderfully. Growing enormously. I think we’ll have to repot him.”

  “I was wondering if I might stop by—just for a few minutes—to take a look.”

  “Of course you may,” she says gaily. “Irving will be so happy to see you.”

  “Be there in a half-hour,” he says.

  He grabs his cap and starts out. He meets Samantha Whatley in the corridor.

  “Where are you going now?” she demands.

  “Nutsville,” he tells her.

  She’s wearing a long denim apron over a white linen jumpsuit, but no costume could conceal her feyness. The big azure eyes are widened in constant wonder, and the webby wheaten hair drifts down her back. She greets him at the door and seems genuinely delighted to see him.

  “You’re the first visitor I’ve had today,” she says breathlessly, taking his hand and drawing him inside. “It’s Jeanette’s day off, so I’ve been all by my lonesome—except for my friends, of course.”

  “Of course,” Cone says, figuring she’s talking about her trees and plants. “No police guard outside?”

  “Not anymore. It was really so unnecessary. Goodness, who’d want to hurt me?”

  Cone doesn’t answer, but follows her up the stairs and down the hallway to the greenhouse. She stops suddenly and turns to him.

  “Would you like a blueberry yogurt?” she asks. “Really delicious.”

  “Thanks, but no, thanks. I had a heavy lunch.”

  “I can imagine,” she says. “You men with your rare roast beef and Yorkshire pudding—it’s not good for you, you know.”

  “I know,” Cone says. “I try to avoid it.”

  “Well, there’s Irving!” she says, pointing. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

  “He surely is,” Cone says, meaning it. “You have a way with growing things, Mrs. Dempster.”

  “Oh, well, I try,” she says, blushing. “I have my share of failures, I do assure you, but I keep trying. Now look at this one, Mr. Timothy. A new arrival. It’s a Chinese elm, and it’s older than you and I put together. But isn’t it magnificent?”

  “Very impressive. Have you named it yet?”

  She stares at the little tree. It’s thick and sturdy—and stunted.

  “Yes,” she says in a low voice. “I call it John J. Dempster. For my late husband, you know.”

  “I know,” Cone says. “I hope you haven’t been lonely since your husband di—since your husband passed over.”

  “Lonely? Oh, no. I know so many wonderful people who call and visit. I’m so fortunate. And my sons are coming home next month. I don’t have time to be lonely.”

  “Good for you,” he says. “And I’m sure your brother-in-law comes by occasionally.”

  “Occasionally?” she says, and laughs: a high-pitched trilling sound. “Why, he’s here almost every day.”

  “Since you lost your husband?”

  “Oh, long before that. David and I are such good friends. Heavens, he practically lives here. John was away so much—on business, you know—and David would take me out to dinner and to the theater.”

  “So David would know when your husband was leaving on a business trip?”

  “Of course,” she prattles on. “I’d tell him, and we’d plan what we’d do while John was gone. The opera or ballet or just a long walk through Central Park. Once we went to the Cloisters. David is so good to me. And especially since John went on. You know it’s difficult for a woman to get around and see things by herself.”

  “I know,” Cone says sympathetically. Then he leans close to her with a viperish smile. “You don’t suppose, do you, Mrs. Dempster, that David has a crush on you?”

  It’s a calculated risk. He knows she is not a total meshuggeneh, and if she resents his question and tells him to get lost, he won’t be a bit surprised. But she leans even closer, and her voice is lower than his.

  “How odd you should suggest that. You know, it had occurred to me, but I thought I was imagining things. I do that at times.”

  “No reason why he shouldn’t be attracted to you,” Timothy says bravely. “You’re a fascinating woman.”

  “Oh, my!” Teresa says, blushing again and putting her long fingers to her cheek. “I thank you, sir. What a nice thing to say.”

  “The truth,” he says. “Well, I’m afraid I must go now, Mrs. Dempster. I hope you won’t be alone all evening.”

  “Oh, no,” she says. “I have so much to do, and later David is coming over to take me to dinner and a Mostly Mozart recital at Lincoln Center. Do you like Mozart, Mr. Timothy?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Cone says. “Can’t get enough of him. Thanks for letting me see Irving, Mrs. Dempster.”

  “He’s yours, you know. And you have visitation rights whenever you wish.”

  He wants to kiss that velvety cheek, but resists. He leaves her home, not proud of what he has done, but telling himself it was necessary. That doesn’t help much.

  He drives back to the loft, wondering how the possible destruction of David Dempster might affect that sweet, innocent woman. Not a happy thought. But she impresses him as being a survivor, able to endure grief and tragedy. He hopes his appraisal is correct. It’s even possible that her wackiness is her salvation. A more rational woman might crack.

  When he gets to his building, he finds the front door has been jimmied—again. But it’s not yet 6:00 P.M., so the elevator is still working, and he doesn’t have to trudge up six flights. Cleo greets him with an ankle rub and a desperate growl that signals starvation.

  Cone brings out that length of garlic salami—still plenty left—and whacks off a thick chunk. Cleo takes it under the bathtub to enjoy. Cone opens a cold beer and, on impulse, pours it into an empty jelly jar. Then he sprinkles it with salt.

  He can’t remember why they did that when he served with the USMC. For the flavor? To raise a head on the brew? But the taste of salted beer brings back old memories, most of which he’d like to forget forevermore.

  He slumps at his spavined table, feet up, totally drained by the day’s events. All those people, all th
at pushing and shoving to get what he wants. And then, most recently, duping an ingenuous woman. He’s wiped out.

  Before he knows it, he’s brooding about the victim, John J. Dempster. From what he’s heard from everyone, he figures the guy was a hustler—in the boardroom and in the bedroom. With all the chutzpah in the world. Willing to risk his balls in the coliseum. In fact, going from risk to risk because that’s where the fun is.

  Cone has known a lot of hustlers, on the street, in combat, in the business world. He admires them all, straight or crooked, for their gall and their energy. They play the cards they were dealt to the best of their ability and never whine that they didn’t draw a better hand.

  Occasionally, but not often, Cone wishes he could be like that. But he hasn’t got the temperament, and he knows it. Instead, he seems destined to plod through life armed with a push broom and dustpan, cleaning up after the hustlers.

  These melancholy reflections are interrupted by ferocious pounding at the loft door. He slips the magnum out of his ankle holster. Standing to one side of the door, he shouts, “Who is it?”

  “The police!” Neal Davenport shouts back. “Open up! Have you got a naked cat in there?”

  Cone replaces his revolver, unchains, unbolts, unlocks the door. The city detective lumbers in, followed by a skinny, stooped guy who’s wearing a costume so decrepit that he makes Cone look like a candidate for GQ.

  Davenport jerks a thumb at his companion. “Meet Officer Sam Shipkin,” he says.

  “You could have fooled me,” Cone says, shaking the man’s hand.

  He’s got a black beard that looks as if mice have been at it, and he’s wearing shades that are practically opaque. His ragged jeans weren’t stone-washed, they were ground between boulders, and his scuffed motorcycle boots look like Salvation Army castoffs. He’s got on a sweat-stained T-shirt bearing the legend: ALL THE NUDES FIT TO PRICK.

  “How d’ya like this dump?” Neal asks Shipkin. “As ratty as I told you?”

  The undercover cop looks around. “I like it,” he pronounces. “Poverty chic.”

  “Listen,” the NYPD bull says, “let’s not waste time. I’ve got to get home to Staten Island—and don’t ask me why.”

  “You don’t want a drink?” Cone asks.