Timothy Files

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Just give me a half hour,” he persists. “And then, if I’m not making sense, tell me to get lost and I’ll go. Okay?”

  “Well, all right,” she says finally. “How soon can you be here?”

  “Twenty minutes,” he says happily.

  There are a lot of empty cabs going uptown after dumping their fares on Wall Street, so Cone has no trouble getting a hack. He spends the trip rehearsing what he’s going to say. He decides to come on hard, throw it all at her before she can get her defense organized.

  She’s wearing a black wool jumpsuit. Zippered and form-fitting. He’s never seen her without either a lab coat or street coat before, and he’s surprised at the willowy strength of her body.

  She takes his parka, but offers no coffee or anything else.

  “Now then, Mr. Cone,” she says, all business. “What’s this all about?”

  He’s sitting in an uncomfortable, linen-covered armchair, and he hunches forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped.

  “The deal with Pingle Enterprises is dead,” he says, looking directly at her. “I killed it. I told Ernest Pingle yesterday, and he agreed to pull out.”

  It takes a moment for that to sink in, and it really rocks her. Then she gets indignant.

  “But why? What gives you the right to wreck our plans? Haven’t we cooperated with you every step of the way? Why on earth would you turn us down?”

  “Well, let me talk awhile, doctor. Most of it is guesswork, but it fits the facts I know.

  “First of all, I think I’ve found out what you’re doing in that locked research laboratory of yours. It’s okay by me. If you’re not doing it, someone else is or will be. But it’s a long, expensive project. I figure you might have applied for a federal grant. Instead, Gibby shows up, representing a government agency that funds scientific research. Mostly on the sly. How am I doing so far?”

  “I’m listening,” she says stonily.

  “Gibby explains that Uncle Sam is interested in your project, but there’s no way a grant can be made. The media might get hold of it and there’d be political hell to pay. But Gibby suggests you could get the money you need for research by going to a venture capital outfit like Pingle Enterprises. It could be structured as a limited partnership or franchise, but the government would guarantee that Nu-Hope’s expansion would be oversubscribed through a lot of dummy investors who would be shoveling in the taxpayers’ money. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “I’ve got no objections to that scam,” Cone says, figuring he’s on a roll. “If that’s all there was to the deal, I’d have okayed it. If the U.S. Government wants to play cute, it’s no skin off my nose. But then two people got murdered, and the whole thing went sour.”

  She stares at him, and he believes she is genuinely bewildered.

  “Two murders? What are you talking about?”

  “Harold Besant and Jessie Scotto. They got dusted because your playmate, Doctor January, is a very ambitious, very greedy man—and you know it. The deal suggested by Gibby wasn’t good enough. If the government funded your research, it wouldn’t put any bucks in January’s pocket, so he engineered another deal. A sellout I don’t think you know a thing about.”

  “You’re lying!” she says angrily. “He wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “Sure he would,” Cone says. “For enough money and fame. He makes contact with a guy named Martin Gardow, who’s the hit man for an outfit called Rauthaus Industries, which, in turn, is owned by International Gronier. The top man at Gronier is Leopold Devers, known as Mr. D., who, from what I hear, makes Attila the Hun look like a Boy Scout.”

  “You can’t prove any of this!” she says furiously.

  “The only thing I can’t prove is how January and Martin Gardow got together. Maybe your partner approached Gardow. Maybe you’ve got a snitch in your lab who tipped off International Gronier to what’s going on, and Gardow was handed the assignment. However they got together, Mr. D. and Gardow now own January, lock, stock, and test tube. That connection I can prove. A couple of days ago I met with January in private, and suggested he pay me fifty thousand to okay the deal with Pingle Enterprises. January said he’d think it over. The very next day I get a call from Martin Gardow, who’s yelling at me for holding him up for fifty big ones. Is that proof enough for you?”

  She doesn’t want to believe, but Cone can see she’s beginning to. He decides he never could have convinced her so quickly if she didn’t already have some secret doubts about January.

  Cone is silent, giving her time to absorb the shock. They’re sitting there, staring at each other, when a phone in the next room rings.

  “Let it go,” Phoebe says dully. “It’s probably the clinic wondering where I am. Would you like some coffee? I think I better have something.”

  “Sure,” Cone says, “that would be nice. Black, please.”

  While she’s in the kitchen, he looks around her trim living room and spots a couple of ashtrays, so he figures it’s okay to smoke. He lights up a Camel, inhaling gratefully. He’s satisfied with the way it’s going—so far. The crunch will come when he leans on her.

  She returns with a tray loaded with a Chemex of coffee, cups, saucers, packets of Sweet ’n Low.

  “There’s more, isn’t there?” she asks, pouring.

  Cone nods. “The murders. Harold Besant’s death was a setup. Someone sat beside him in the car, put a gun to his head, and blew his brains out. Made it look like Besant committed suicide. The killer placed the gun as if it had fallen out of Besant’s right hand, but the police learned later Besant was left-handed.”

  She shudders, takes a gulp of her coffee.

  “Jessie Scotto’s death was an obvious homicide,” he goes on. “Very brutal, very nasty. The murderer was looking for something he thought she had, or was trying to get her to talk. The cops found fingerprints belonging to a punk who worked for Martin Gardow, your playmate’s pal.”

  “Will you stop calling him my playmate,” she says furiously. “It’s disgusting and I resent it.”

  “Okay,” Cone says equably, “I won’t call him that again. But there’s hard evidence tying Gardow and his thugs to Jessie Scotto’s murder.”

  “Why are you telling me all this? What do you want?”

  “I want to hang Martin Gardow up to dry. I want to get that villain off the streets. But I need a motive. Why did Gardow kill Besant and Scotto? I think you can guess, and I was hoping you’d tell me. Harold Besant worked in your research lab. You saw him every day. I figure he knew exactly what was going on, and it bothered him. He was ready to go public. Did Besant have access to your lab records?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is anything missing?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Do you have a copier in the lab?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it’s possible he could have made a complete record of what’s going on in there?”

  “Yes, it’s possible. But we trust our staff. We don’t search them every night when they leave.”

  “Maybe you should. Was Harold Besant acting strangely in the weeks before he died?”

  “Well, he was depressed. Everyone noticed it.”

  “Did he ever object to the work you’re doing?”

  “He never said anything about it to me.”

  “Did he talk to Doctor January shortly before he died? Did they have any private meetings?”

  She finishes her coffee, and when she sets the cup down, it rattles against the saucer.

  “He might have,” she says cautiously. “But I wouldn’t have any idea what they talked about.”

  “Uh-huh,” Cone says, knowing she’s lying. “Did Besant ever threaten to quit?”

  “He seemed, ah, dissatisfied,” she says vaguely.

  “Doctor Trumball,” Cone says, “it’s possible, just possible, you may be required to testify about these matters under oath. I think you’re holding out on me. I thi
nk you’re remembering a lot of things. Why don’t you think of yourself, your professional career, and tell—”

  Just then the outside door buzzer sounds, four short, angry bursts. Phoebe is startled.

  “That’s Victor’s ring,” she says confusedly. “I’ll have to let him in.”

  “Sure,” Cone says, rising. “You do that.”

  January comes in fast. “Darling,” he says worriedly, “is everything all—” Then he sees Cone. “Oh,” January says, trying to twist his face into a smile. “I didn’t know you had a guest.”

  “Doctor Trumball and I have been having a little discussion,” Cone says.

  The three stand in a tense triangle.

  “A discussion?” January says. “About Nu-Hope?”

  “Mostly about you,” Cone says. “Your connection with Martin Gardow. How deeply you’re involved in the murders of Harold Besant and Jessie Scotto. That’s what we’ve been discussing. Stuff like that.”

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, Victor January falls into a martial-arts crouch. Hands clenched into fists. Arms extended. Shoulders hunched. His pale face is frozen. He shuffles toward Cone. “Hah!” he shouts.

  The Wall Street dick stoops swiftly, draws his Magnum from the ankle holster,” straightens, and aims casually.

  “Hah yourself,” he says to January. “You pull that karate shit with me and I’ll pop your kneecaps. You’ll spend the rest of your life wheeling around on skateboards. You want that? Or maybe I’ll go for the cajones, and you’ll be singing soprano in the shower. Come on, try me. At this range I can’t miss.”

  The doctor glares at him, then melts. His arms fall to his sides. Fists open. He stands slumped. His face sags, mouth partly open. All his charm is gone. He looks spectral, leached out.

  “Now behave yourself,” Cone says. “I know what you’re doing in that locked lab. So you can wave goodbye to the Pingle deal. To Gardow and his dirty bucks. To the Nobel Prize and TV talk shows and all that crap. Do your job, Doctor January. Help women have babies and be satisfied with that. A tycoon you ain’t, and never will be.”

  “Oh, darling, darling!” Phoebe Trumball cries. She moves to the demolished man, embraces him. He puts his head down on her shoulder.

  Cone hears sobs, but who is weeping, or if both are, he cannot tell. He slips his iron back into the holster, finds his parka and cap, and heads for the door. He knows he’s gone as far as he can go with those two simples. But it was worth the try.

  He turns at the door to look back. They’re still hugging. Phoebe Trumball is murmuring, stroking Victor January’s hair.

  She’s in love with the guy and won’t squeal.

  That’s okay. Cone can understand that.

  He spends the afternoon in his office, snarling at everyone who comes by, including Sam. Around one o’clock he calls down for a cheeseburger, fries, and two cans of cold Bud. Meanwhile, he’s trying to devise a way to slip the blocks to Martin Gardow, that monster.

  Cone knows he’ll never get anywhere trying to pry testimony from Drs. January and Trumball. At the moment, those two schlumphs are probably making nice-nice and talking about how they can get out of the mess they are in with their asses unscarred.

  Nor can Cone expect any assistance from J. Roger Gibby. The government man will never cooperate on any plan that might attract media attention to Uncle Sam’s interest in a scientific research project that would bemuse half the nation and scarify the other half.

  No, the only possibility is to use Martin Gardow’s cockiness to demolish him. Timothy Cone has a few ideas on how that might be done. But he’s got time working against him, Sam to protect, and his own fury to contain. One of his imagined solutions is to find Gardow, blast the fucker, and wait patiently for the blues to arrive and take him away.

  He leaves the office a little after five o’clock, still seething, and is only a few feet from Broadway when a short beep from a car horn makes him look up. It’s the city’s dusty blue Plymouth, illegally parked, with Detectives Davenport and Galanis in the front seat. Davenport waves him over. Cone climbs into the back.

  “What’s up?” he says.

  “My cock,” Davenport says. “Watching all the young ginch stroll by.” He turns sideways in the front passenger seat so he can talk to Cone. “We picked up that pal of Bernie Snodgrass. Only his name is Sal, not Sol. Salvador Guiterrez, a real sweetheart with a sheet as long as your schlong. Nice stuff, like attempted rape, assault with a deadly weapon, battery, and so forth and so on. And would you believe he’s never spent a day in the slammer?”

  “I believe it,” Cone says. “Where is he now?”

  “He walked,” Nick Galanis says gloomily. “What could we hold him for?”

  “Assault,” Cone says. “I can ID him.”

  “Big deal,” Galanis says. “His word against yours. And he’ll come up with four witnesses who’ll swear that at the time of the alleged incident, Salvador Guiterrez was in Bayonne, New Jersey, eating scungilli. It’s no use, Cone. The sonofabitch knows we’ve got nothing on him.”

  “Did you run a trace on Martin Gardow?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Davenport says, unwrapping a fresh stick of Juicy Fruit. “He’s everything you said, and more. If he was whacked, they’d narrow the list of suspects to about a thousand.”

  “And I’d be one of them,” Cone says. “I had a meet with the guy.”

  Both city detectives snap their heads around to stare at him.

  “About what?” Davenport demands.

  “About the Nu-Hope Fertility Clinic. I told him I wanted fifty grand to okay the deal. He said I’d either okay it without the loot or he’d cut off my girlfriend’s tits. Isn’t that lovely?”

  “Beautiful,” Galanis says bitterly. “That’s what happened to Jessie Scotto. You think Gardow was behind that?”

  “Had to be. He bankrolled it, and Snodgrass and Guiterrez did the job. That’s why Sal is hanging tough. He knows he’s got money for the legal eagles.”

  “So?” Davenport says. “Where do we go from here?”

  “I got an idea,” Cone says. “A long shot, but it might just work.”

  “Yeah?” Galanis says hopefully. “Let’s hear it.”

  Cone explains what he has in mind, and the two cops listen intently. When he finishes, they look at each other.

  “We could set it up,” Davenport says slowly. “I know a great tech. It could be done. But if it turns sour, you know what’s going to happen to you, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Cone says, “I know. You want to fly it?”

  “Why not?” Galanis says savagely. “It’s got a chance.”

  “Okay,” Davenport says.

  So they talk ways and means, set up a schedule, look for loopholes and close them. When Cone gets out of the car, they all shake hands.

  He walks home and feeds himself and Cleo. He gives the cat fresh water and changes the litter. He does some laundry in the kitchen sink, smokes half a pack of Camels, and drinks more Popov than he should. Meanwhile he’s muttering to himself, rehearsing the part he’s going to play the next day.

  “Academy Award, kiddo,” he tells Cleo. “I’m going to get an Oscar for this one.”

  He sleeps badly that night: dreams haunted with images of a war he thought he had forgotten. Once he is awakened by his own groans, to find Cleo bending over him, almost nose to nose, mewling sadly.

  “Beat it,” Cone says, pushing the cat away.

  He tries to get back to sleep again, but it doesn’t work. He finally gives up and waits for dawn, lying supine on that scruffy mattress on the floor, staring up at his broken skylight and wondering what it’s all about. It’s that kind of night.

  He’s an hour late getting to work in the morning, which is bad even for him. But he has to fight fears gnawing at him like the leeches in Nam. A terrible lassitude saps his resolve, and he beats it only by thinking of Sam and what might happen to her if he fails.

  His first call is to Ernest Pingle.

  �
�Mr. Pingle,” he says, “you can pull the plug now. The Nu-Hope deal is dead.”

  “Wery good,” the old man says. “I’ll call Haldering and tell him to stop the inwestigation and send me a bill.”

  “It would help me,” Cone says, “if you just told him you decided to withdraw from the deal without giving him any reason.”

  “Of course,” Pingle says. “What else? Are you all right, my young friend? You sound wery tight.”

  “Just winding this thing up. With luck, it’ll be finished today.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “No, thank you,” Cone says gratefully. “Did you talk to your son?”

  “I talked,” Ernest Pingle says. “To him and his wife. I think maybe they’ll behave.”

  “I think maybe they will,” Timothy says, smiling at the phone. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Pingle. I hope our paths cross again.”

  “Why shouldn’t they? I want to hear the whole story about Nu-Hope. When it’s ower.”

  “You will,” Cone promises. “I’ll tell you, but you won’t believe it.”

  “At my age I’ll believe anything.”

  Cone’s second call is to Martin Gardow. But the secretary tells him Mr. Gardow is in conference and suggests he call back in a half hour. Cone waits forty-five minutes before trying again. This time Gardow comes on the line.

  “Cone?” he says. “I was expecting to hear from you.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Cone says, trying to make his voice as servile as he can. “I’ve been doing some thinking about what we discussed.”

  “Glad to hear it. And?”

  “I don’t see why we can’t get together. I mean we’re both reasonable men—right?”

  “I hope so,” Gardow says, “for your sake. So you’ve decided to okay the Nu-Hope deal?”

  “Well, I’d like to talk to you about it first.”

  “What’s to talk about? You know what your choices are.”

  “Well, sure,” Cone says, “but it doesn’t seem right that I come out of this empty-handed.”

  Martin Gardow sighs. “Another cheapski,” he says. “All right, Cone, I may toss you a cookie if I’m in the mood. I’ll see you at the Seaport, same place, this afternoon.”