He takes the subway to Brooklyn, standing well back from the tracks while waiting for the train.
It takes him almost two hours to find the headquarters of New World Enterprises, Inc. By that time the day has soured; the sky is filled with an ocher light and the air smells of sulfur. Rain clouds are beating in from New Jersey, and Cone’s corduroy suit is beginning to feel like a damp blanket.
He stands across West Street, studying New World. It really is a warehouse, set well back on a black tarmac and surrounded by a high chain fence topped with barbed wire. There’s a small guard shed at the double gates. Two bulldozers and three heavy-duty trucks are neatly lined up just inside. They all look clean, polished.
There are no signs of human activity. No lights in the warehouse. It looks like it’s been abandoned. Something is twisted in that scene, and Cone can’t figure out what it is.
He crosses the street and strides briskly up to the gate. It’s locked, but on closer examination Cone knows it would be a piece of cake to break in. He bangs on the gate and an old geezer comes limping out of the guard hut.
“Yeah?” he says.
“Anyone around?” Cone says cheerfully. “I’d like to talk to one of the officers.”
“Nobody here,” the guard says. “They all gone home. Come back tomorrow.”
“Shit,” Cone says. “Another trip. Oh, well. Say, does Vic Spagnola still work here?”
“Who?”
“Vic Spagnola. A friend of mine. He used to work night guard on the gate.”
“Mister,” the gaffer says, “you got your wires crossed. There’s no night guard. Never has been as long as I been working, and I been here since the place opened.”
“Son of a gun,” Cone says. “I guess I am mixed up. Thanks for your help. I’ll be back tomorrow. Better get back in your shack. Looks like rain.”
“Yeah,” the guard says grumpily, “that’s what my hip tells me.”
Cone has a long walk back to the subway through littered streets lined with grimy industrial buildings. But it’s worth it; he realizes what’s been bugging him about the New World premises. That tarmac in front of the warehouse looked like it had been poured yesterday. No oil stains. No tire marks. No pits or bald spots. The whole place was spotless. New and unused.
It is just beginning to sprinkle when he gets on the subway, and when he gets off at Prince Street about an hour later, the rain has stopped. Cone takes it as a good omen. He opens his second pack of Camels and does some chores.
He picks up his laundry, buys a bottle of Popov and a jug of California chablis. Then he stops at a deli and selects a frozen package of two short ribs of beef, planning to give one to Cleo. He also buys some cheese with jalapeno peppers, a can of hot chili, a kielbasa sausage—and wonders how long his stomach is going to endure these assaults before ulcering in protest.
After he and Cleo dine, they both have a nice, long nap. Cone wakes shortly before midnight. He straps on the ankle holster after checking the action of the Magnum. Dons his ratty black raincoat and leather cap. Puts a small flashlight in his pocket and adds a set of lockpicks in a suede pouch.
“Wish me luck, baby,” he says to Cleo, and sets out.
He does have luck, because by the time he gets back to the New World Enterprises, Inc., headquarters in Brooklyn, there’s a thick pelt of clouds masking the moonglow, and even the streetlights are dimmed by night mist. He’s the only one abroad at that hour in that neighborhood, and he feels for his .357 to make certain it’s there.
It takes him less than a minute to pick the lock, and then he’s inside, closing the gate carefully behind him. He walks swiftly across the tarmac, still glistening from the day’s rain.
He makes a complete circuit of the warehouse, not using his flashlight but peering for electronic alarms. He sees nothing.
All the windows are barred, but, shining his light inside he can see enough to make out a small office. One room with two desks, a file cabinet, a phone, and what appears to be a computer on a separate table. Then he moves slowly around the building again, peering in every window. The warehouse is huge. It looks like an airplane hangar. Steel trusses overhead but no pillars.
The place is completely empty.
“You know,” Samantha Whatley says, “if you were a really wealthy man, people would call you eccentric. But you don’t have all that much money, so you’re just plain goofy. What if you set off an alarm or a squad car picked you up for B and E? Nice headlines. Great publicity for Haldering. The company would go right down the drain.”
“No great loss,” Timothy Cone says, shrugging.
“You’re really a turd,” she says. “You know that?”
It is a sparkling Saturday afternoon, and they could have been in Central Park, up at the Cloisters, or down at the South Street Seaport. But she won’t be seen with him in public. She’s afraid someone from the office will see them together.
That’s okay with him; he plays according to her rules. So on that super afternoon they’re holed up in his loft, drinking white wine and talking shop.
“Will you let me finish my story?” he asks her. “Yesterday I went back to Sid Apicella. He says New World Enterprises, Inc., was capitalized for one-three-five million when it was incorporated fourteen months ago. So far they’ve bought and renovated that Brooklyn warehouse, and they’ve got some office equipment and some dozers and trucks parked outside. How much could all that cost? A mil maybe—if that much. So what are they doing with their money?”
“What they were set up to do,” Sam says. “Developing and building residential and commercial properties.”
Cone shakes his head. “No record of it. Sid checked. I checked. No building permits in their name, and none applied for. So Sid called Stanley Clovis and asked him what New World is doing. Clovis says they have several projects in the planning stage—whatever that means. I called New World in Brooklyn and pretended I was the owner of several West Side brownstones and looking for a renovator. I talked to a dese, dem and doze guy who said New World is too busy to take on any new work at this time. Bullshit!”
Sam is silent a moment. Then: “Pour me some more wine, Tim. Please.”
She is wearing tight denim jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. Her hair is down and her long feet are bare. She’s got a wide leather belt cinched tight, and it makes her waist look about the size of Cone’s thigh. He thinks her stretched-out body is really neat and hopes that, later, she’ll be willing to Indian-wrestle on the mattress.
“So,” she says, taking a sip of her wine, “how do you figure it?”
“Let me show you something,” he says. “I took the Evanchat file back to the office, but I kept something out. It was in with Ed Griffon’s personal notes.”
She inspects the scrap of green scratch paper. “DUM?” she says. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I didn’t know, and neither did Sid Apicella. But now I can guess. DUM? is Ed’s shorthand for ‘dummy.’ He thought New World was probably a dummy corporation, and I think so too. The goddamn thing is a front.”
“For what?”
“I have no idea. But it’s been in business fourteen months and hasn’t done a lick of work. Those bulldozers and trucks have never moved a yard of dirt. The tarmac outside is squeaky clean. The warehouse itself is empty. But Clovis and Clovis put a hundred and thirty-five million into the business. Why? I don’t know, but I think Ed Griffon found out and got wasted for being smart.”
“Holy Christ, Tim, do you know what you’re saying?”
“Sure I know. Clovis and Clovis are involved in some dirty scam big enough to kill for.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t believe it. A big outfit like that. Passing out bucks to every charity drive in town. Openings at the Met, building free parks in the Bronx. And they’re killers? How can you be sure?”
“I’m sure,” he says.
She sighs. “Okay, assuming you’re right—what do we do next?”
“The first
thing you do, Monday morning, is talk to H. H. Tell him to stall Evanchat. Tell him to convince Isaac to hold off on the deal with Clovis until we complete our investigation. Next thing you do is this: Joe is coming back from sick leave on Monday. He’ll have nothing on his plate. Give him my whole caseload, except for the Evanchat-Clovis deal. Let me zero in on it.”
“And get yourself murdered,” she says.
“Probably,” he says cheerfully.
When she arrived at his loft at noon, she brought two Rock Cornish hens and a big container of salad she had made herself. They eat at about three P.M. , sitting at Cone’s desk and feeding tidbits to the attentive Cleo. They even roll the cat a cherry tomato and watch the chase across the linoleum floor.
“That’s one crazy animal,” Cone says.
“Takes after you,” Samantha says.
They’re both tight, private people, and they’d rather be sautéed in oil than say, “I love you.” But, grudgingly, each acknowledges an attraction, a comfort with each other. It’s a no-horseshit relationship with feelings masked by cold profanity, and intimacy shielded away. Like two old soldiers cursing each other and ready to be the first to leap on the live grenade.
But they cannot deny their bodies’ appetites, and when their hormones take over, they go berserk. On that lumpy mattress with clean sheets—thank God!—and Cleo watching with wise eyes.
“What are we doing?” she whispers wonderingly. “What are we doing?”
“You tell me,” he says. “You’re the boss.”
They’re two stick figures, all bony knobs and hard muscle. Their mating is a furious battle, not against each other so much as the emptiness and lunacy of their lives. When they strain, it is not to punish but to break out into another world. Oh, look at the meadows and the daffodils! The lawn they seek is bliss.
It’s such a sweaty wrestle, not quite hysterical but frantic enough. And when they’re done, staring at each other with dulled eyes, reality comes seeping back, the real world takes over again. But something remains …
“Tim,” she says, touching his cheek softly, “be careful.”
He puts his face to her little breasts. “I always am,” he says.
“Jesus,” she says, “don’t you ever shave?”
The first thing Timothy Cone does on Monday morning is stop by the office of Hiram Haldering’s secretary. He asks for the keys to one of the two company cars.
“What do you want it for?” she says sharply.
“I’d like to take a drive in the country and see if the leaves are turning.”
The old biddy sniffs. “You can’t have the Impala; Mr. Haldering is using it today. You can have the Toyota, but only till noon.”
He frowns, considering a long moment as if he has a choice. “Well … all right,” he says finally, “I’ll take the Toyota.”
“Just make sure you have it back by twelve,” she snaps, handing him the keys.
“And if I don’t?” he asks. “It turns into a pumpkin?”
His next stop is at Sol Faber’s office. He borrows Sol’s binoculars, promising to return them in good condition. Then he walks around to the garage on Dey Street and signs out the Toyota.
It takes him more than an hour to get to the New World warehouse, but when he arrives, it looks exactly as it had before: same number of bulldozers and trucks, no human activity. Cone figures he hasn’t missed a thing. He parks across West Street, scrunches down, and focuses the binoculars on the New World gates. Then he puts the glasses aside and begins reading the morning Times, looking up frequently to make sure nothing’s going on.
About eleven-fifteen, a woman walks up to New World’s gates. Cone grabs up the binocs and watches as the guard lets her in. She walks across the tarmac, unlocks the office door, and enters. Cone makes her to be 5’3”, 120, about thirty-eight years old, black hair, olive-skinned, poorly dressed, and carrying a brown paper bag that could contain her lunch.
About ten minutes later, a silver Chrysler LeBaron GTS pulls up at the gate, and Cone again grabs the binoculars. He can’t see who’s driving, but he gets a good make on the license number and repeats it aloud so he won’t forget. The LeBaron crosses the tarmac and pulls up close to the office door. The driver gets out and whisks inside. Cone gets a fleeting impression of a big, husky guy—but that’s all he gets.
He drives back to Manhattan and returns the Toyota’s keys to Haldering’s secretary.
“You’re more than an hour late,” she says accusingly.
He looks at her in astonishment. “You mean we’re still on daylight saving time?” he says. “I could have sworn we switched back.”
He gives Sol Faber his binoculars, then goes to his office, puts his feet up on the desk, and ponders his next move. He’s still in the same position, smoking his fifth cigarette of the day, when Samantha Whatley appears in the doorway. She’s carrying a small white envelope that she flaps at him.
“Guess what I’ve got,” she says.
“Your draft notice?” he says sullenly. “How the hell do I know what you’ve got.”
“What a nice mood,” she says. “No wonder they call you Mr. Congeniality. This happens to be an invitation to a press conference and cocktail party being hosted by Clovis and Clovis to announce a grand plan to tear down those decaying West Side piers and create a fairy wonderland on the river. The invitation came to H. H., but he doesn’t want to go. He gave it to me, and I don’t want to go. So I’m giving it to you. All the Clovis bigshots will be there.”
He realizes she’s trying to help, but he doesn’t know how to be grateful. “I’ll think about it,” he says.
She tosses the invitation onto his desk and stalks away, making him feel like a crumb. He doesn’t touch the envelope, but searches through the mess in his top desk drawer until he finds the card of Neal K. Davenport, the NYPD detective. He calls. It rings eight times before the phone is picked up.
“Davenport.”
“Yeah. This is Timothy Cone. I’m the investigator with Haldering and Company. You talked to me about the death of G. Edward Griffon.”
“Oh, sure, I remember you. How’re you doing?”
“Okay. Anything new on Ed’s death?”
“No, nothing. These things take time; you should know that. You got something for me?”
“Not a thing. I called to ask a favor.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“I got a license number I was hoping you’d trace for me. Find out who the car is registered to.”
“Now why should I do that?”
“Just as a professional courtesy,” Cone says, grinning at the phone.
Davenport laughs. “Kid, you’ve got chutzpah. Has it got anything to do with Griffon’s death?”
“It might have.”
Pause. “All right, give me the number; I’ll see what I can do.”
Cone recites the license number twice, to make certain Davenport has it right.
“I’ll get back to you,” the city dick says, and hangs up.
He spends the remainder of the day with Joe Washington, who has returned from sick leave and inherited Cone’s caseload. Washington has a mordant sense of humor. He once said, “I am not a black, I am a person of the colored persuasion.”
“Joe,” Tim says, “I hope you won’t take this as a personal insult, but you look a little washed-out to me.”
“Still a bit puffy about the gills,” Washington admits, “but I can function. I’ve been handed your crap.”
“To ease you back into the real world. But there’s nothing heavy in it.”
They go through the cases: a merger, a buyout, an unfriendly takeover. They spend hours, and send out for cheeseburgers, fries, and Cokes. When they finish, Joe Washington acknowledges he can’t see any great problems.
“About Ed Griffon …” he says, troubled. “Tim, what the hell happened?”
“No one knows,” Cone says.
“A sweet guy,” Joe says. “About a year ago I was in a bind and bo
rrowed five bills from him. He handed it over without even asking what for. I paid it back, and he just said, ‘Thanks,’ and stuck it in his pocket. Like it didn’t surprise him at all that I had paid him back. Tim, you working one of the cases? That’s what I hear.”
Cone nods.
“You think it’s got something to do with Ed’s death?”
“Maybe.”
“You need a field hand,” Washington says, “an experienced cotton picker, you know where to find me.”
“I may take you up on that.”
Cone goes back to his office and is opening his second pack of cigarettes of the day when his phone rings.
“Timothy Cone?”
“Yes.”
“Davenport here. That license plate you gave me …”
“Yeah?”
“I think we better talk about it. Not on the phone.”
“Okay,” Tim says. “Where? A bar, restaurant?”
“I don’t think so,” Davenport says.
“Oh-ho, it’s like that, is it? Well, I live in a loft on Broadway between Spring and Broome. Wanna come up for a drink?”
“That sounds more like it. I’ve got your address.”
“How did you get that?”
“Your personnel file at Haldering. I’ll be there about six. Okay?”
“Fine.”
“If I’m late,” Davenport says, “don’t get your balls in an uproar; I’ll be along.”
“I’ll wait,” Cone promises.
He walks home, pausing occasionally to look in store windows at things he doesn’t need and doesn’t want. He’s got a lot of vices, he knows, but vanity isn’t one of them. Maybe it should be, he thinks. A little vanity wouldn’t hurt him.
He stops in front of a jewelry shop and sees a heavy necklace of chunky beads, alternating ebony and crystal, that would look great on Samantha. But he’s never bought her a gift and is disturbed about starting now. Somehow, he feels, it would upset their special relationship. Maybe change it for the worse, maybe for the better. But he’s afraid to take the chance.
Timothy Files Page 3