Timothy Files

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Hey, that’s great,” he says, taking a quick look at the Buddha she’s holding. It appears to be a double of the one in his shopping bag.

  “That will be thirty-five dollars,” she says. “Plus tax.”

  He doesn’t quibble about the price. While she’s making out the sales slip, he says, “I suppose your stores all over the country carry this.”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” she says. “Everyone loves it. We’ve sold hundreds. If you rub the belly, it will—”

  “I know,” he says. “And I’ve been told it really works.”

  “It does,” she says, giggling again. “Sir, Laboris Importers is going into the mail-order business. We plan to bring out a catalog of our most enchanting items twice a year. If you would care to leave your name and address, we will be happy to add you to our mailing list.”

  “That would be enchanting,” he says, and gives her his name and home address. “That’s a lovely perfume you’re wearing,” he adds.

  “You like it?” she says archly. “It’s made exclusively for us. It is called Nuit de Fou. I think that means Night of Craziness. Or something like that.”

  “Yeah,” Cone says. “It figures.”

  He cabs back to the office, toting the two Buddhas in the Macy’s shopping bag. He resists the temptation to inspect his new purchase until he’s safely seated behind his desk. It appears almost identical to the first. A few variations here and there—but no more than you might expect from hand-carved works.

  He picks up the latest acquisition, grips it firmly, and tries to unscrew the base. Nothing. He applies more force. Still nothing. He looks more closely, his nose squashed against the Buddha’s belly. No hairline joint. The new statuette really is one solid piece of teak.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Cone sits back in his creaking swivel chair and glares at the two figures. Four arms upraised, two shiny bellies, two plump faces with beneficent grins. Cone grabs the latest purchase, turns it over, inspects the base. There’s the label MADE IN BURMA. But the lot number reads 30818-M. So? The two Buddhas were imported in different lots, maybe different shipments.

  He puts them close together on his desk, lifted arms almost touching, and he sits there, brooding. The more he stares at those plump, smiling faces, the more they remind him of something.

  It doesn’t take him long to make the connection. That stupid prospectus he picked up at Laboris Investments with the photo of Ingmar on the cover. Shave off the bushy mustache and he would look exactly like the grinning Buddhas.

  2

  “WELL, MAN,” MRS. HEPPLEWAITE says. “What do you have to report?”

  “Nothing,” Timothy Cone says.

  “Nothing?” she repeats angrily, thumping her heavy cane on the floor. “Then what am I paying you for?”

  “You want me off the case? Call my boss and ask for a replacement. If you want to fire Haldering and Company, then fire them. It’s your decision.”

  She glares at him. “You’re as snotty as ever,” she says.

  “It’s my nature,” he tells her. “Look, if it’ll make you feel any better, I think Ingmar Laboris is running a scam. But I’ve got absolutely no hard evidence. As of now, the guy is delivering, and apparently no one has lost any money.”

  “Did you check his background?”

  “Yeah. No one’s ever heard of him, in this country or overseas. He came out of nowhere.”

  “I told you so,” she says triumphantly.

  “So what? He could be trading currencies through agents or front companies. It’s done all the time. And he’s got a solid bank account with a special fund for redemptions.”

  “The man is a thief,” she insists.

  Cone stands and fastens the toggles on his parka. “Is that why you brought me up here? You could have told me on the phone. Now you’re going to be billed for my transportation. By cab. Think of that.”

  She stares at him fixedly. “I don’t like you much,” she says.

  “Welcome to the club,” he says, stalking out.

  “I expect immediate results!” she yells after him.

  He can think of several choice rejoinders, but he doesn’t voice them. He’s halfway down the block, heading toward Madison Avenue, when he hears the sound of running feet. He turns and sees Lucinda Hepplewaite flying toward him, a big green loden cape floating out behind her.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “Mr. Cone,” she says breathlessly, “have you found out anything?”

  “Nothing definite.”

  “Mama thinks Francis is a dolt,” she says with an anxious, toothy smile. “But he’s not.”

  “Francis? Your fiancé?”

  She nods. “He’s trying very hard to prove to Mama that he can take care of me. She doesn’t think he’s right for me. She doesn’t think any man is right for me. Because she doesn’t want to let me go. She wants a companion in her old age.”

  “I get the picture,” Cone says.

  “Please, Mr. Cone, if you hear anything bad about Laboris Investments, will you tell me first, before you tell Mama?”

  He doesn’t answer. “Is your fiancé still getting checks from Laboris?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Thirty percent or more?”

  “Well, the last check he received was a little under twenty percent. But that’s still good, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you’ll tell me if you find anything wrong?”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Cone says, and watches her go running back to the brownstone, the cape billowing behind her.

  He continues on to Madison Avenue and takes an uptown bus. He doesn’t know why he’s decided to stake out the Laboris Gallery of Levantine Art for a few hours. Maybe, he admits, because he hasn’t anything better to do.

  He walks by the place and looks through the window. Lights are on, the gallery is open, but it looks empty. No customers, no Ingrid or Erica Laboris. Cone crosses Madison and starts tramping up and down the other side of the street, his eyes on the gallery entrance.

  It’s a cruel, naked December day with a wind that flays and a lowery, sunless sky that presses down. Cone lights a cigarette, stuffs his hands into the pockets of his anorak, and plods back and forth, figuring he’ll give it till noon. Then maybe he’ll grab a Coney Island red-hot, with all the trimmings, from a street vendor, have a wild cherry cola, and then head back to the office.

  He’s been patrolling for almost a half hour when he sees two mink-clad matrons enter the gallery. They’re inside for maybe fifteen minutes and then come out and go on their way. They weren’t carrying any packages when they entered, and none when they exit. Zero plus zero equals zero.

  During the next hour the gallery has two more visitors: a big, heavy man in a tweed coat, and a spindly woman wearing a knapsack over her down jacket. Neither stays long, and Cone figures maybe they just went into the gallery to look around and warm up.

  It’s about 11:45 when he spots another visitor. A shortish man wearing a beret and a three-quarter-length coat of black fur pops inside so quickly that Cone can’t get a good look. But he has an itchy feeling that he’s seen the gink before. So he takes up station almost directly across Madison and keeps watching the gallery, though sometimes it’s difficult because the Christmas traffic is murder.

  He stands there, stamping his feet and smoking his third Camel. Eventually, almost a half hour later, the gallery door opens. The beret starts to exit, then ducks back inside for a moment. Finally he comes out, closes the door, moves to the curb. He starts waving a hand for a taxi. Cone takes a long look and makes him. It’s Sven from Laboris Importers on Nineteenth Street.

  “Hello, there,” the Wall Street dick says softly.

  It takes Sven almost five minutes to get a cab. Cone watches him go, then trudges eastward to Lexington or Third, looking for his Coney Island red-hot. He tries not to make too much of Sven’s visit to the Gallery. They’re all cousins, aren’t they? The family that plays together,
stays together. Whatever the hell that means.

  Except that when Sven entered the gallery, Cone could swear he wasn’t carrying anything. But when he came out, he was lugging a bulging briefcase.

  It’s almost two o’clock before Cone gets back to the Haldering office. There’s a memo from the receptionist centered on his bare desk: Please call Terry MacEver. So, his stomach still grumbling from that hot dog with sauerkraut, onions, piccalilli, and mustard, the Wall Street dick calls the sergeant.

  “Listen,” MacEver says, “I’ve been thinking about your interest in the Laboris Gallery, d’ya see, and I did something I should have done before: I ran the owner, Erica Laboris, through Records.”

  “And she’s got a sheet?” Cone says hopefully.

  “Nope, she’s clean. But Neal Davenport told me you were interested in Laboris Investments on Wall Street. What’s the name of the boss?”

  “Ingmar Laboris.”

  “Shit,” MacEver says. “Close but no cigar. Nothing on Ingmar. But the computer did cough up the name of Sven Laboris. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Cone is silent a moment. “Yeah,” he says finally, “Sven works at a place called Laboris Importers on West Nineteenth. I think maybe he’s the boss.”

  “Is that so?” the sergeant says, his voice suddenly cold. “You didn’t mention Laboris Importers before. Not holding out on me, are you?”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Cone says righteously. “You’re interested in smuggled art. Laboris Importers is a junk shop. Besides, they’re listed in the telephone book; it’s no secret. Nah, I wasn’t holding out on you. I just didn’t think it was important.”

  “Look,” MacEver says, “if you and I are going to work together, just tell me what you know and let me be the judge of whether it’s important or not. Okay?”

  “Of course. Absolutely. So Sven Laboris has a sheet?”

  “Not much of one. About six months ago the blues busted an after-hours joint on East Eighty-third Street. A penthouse yet! They shook down all the customers, which was probably a stupid thing to do because their warrant only covered the owners. Anyway, when they frisked Sven Laboris, they found a glassine bag of shit in his jacket pocket.”

  “No kidding. Was he held?”

  “Maybe for a couple of hours. But he had no needle tracks, no previous criminal record, and there was no evidence that he was dealing in what the government laughingly calls a ‘controlled substance.’ So he walked. Happens all the time. But here’s the kicker: When the lab analyzed the heroin he was carrying, they said it was the purest they had ever seen. That stuff could have been cut six ways from the middle and still zonked fifty junkies. Shoot it uncut and it’s instant DOA. Sven Laboris claimed someone must have slipped the skag into his jacket pocket after the blues broke in.”

  “Oh, sure,” Cone says. “And that’s it?”

  “That’s it,” the sergeant says. “I don’t know if it means anything, but I’m giving it to you. Now what have you got for me?”

  Long pause.

  “Come on, come on,” MacEver says impatiently. “There are no freebies in this business—you know that. What have you got?”

  Cone decides he better play along; so he tells MacEver how he staked out the Laboris Gallery that morning and saw Sven Laboris enter empty-handed and emerge about a half hour later carrying a briefcase.

  “What has that got to do with your guy on Wall Street?” asks MacEver.

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Cone admits. “I can’t see Ingmar financing drug or art smuggling with investors’ funds and then paying off thirty percent. Banditos don’t go looking for public money. They’ve got other ways to raise cash. Mostly from their profits on the last deal.”

  “I know what you mean,” the sergeant says. “Well, you keep plugging, and I’ll keep plugging, and maybe between us we can make a score. I won’t hold out on you, but you don’t hold out on me. Understood?”

  “Oh, sure,” Cone says, hanging up. And if you believe that, there’s a swell bridge to Brooklyn you may be interested in buying.

  He lights a cigarette and ambles down to Joe Washington’s cubicle. It’s identical to his own, except that Joe has a coat tree and a coffee maker he locks up in his desk every night.

  “Hey, it’s the Cone-head,” Washington says, looking up. “How’s it going, old buddy?”

  “Getting by. And you?”

  “Surviving. What’re you doing for the holiday?”

  “Celebrating Christ’s birth.”

  “Yeah?” Joe says, looking at him closely. “Wanna come out to my house for Christmas dinner? Roast turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, cranberry sauce—real honky soul food.”

  “Nah,” Cone says. “You’ll want to be alone with your family. But thanks anyway. Listen, I need some poop. Didn’t you work a drug case about two years ago?”

  “Closer to three,” Washington says, leaning back in his swivel chair and laughing. “What a giggle that was! The client was a brokerage house on the Street. They suspected one of their account executives was dealing, so they called us in. Dealing? That idiot was trying to become the IBM of dope. He had even started a mail-order business. If we hadn’t scuttled him, he’d have been selling futures in heroin and cocaine. The guy was blitzed out of his gourd.”

  “You worked with the City on this?”

  “Oh, sure. An undercover narc named Petey Alvarez. A wonderful guy. I still see him for drinks occasionally. What’s your interest, Tim? You got a drug case?”

  “I don’t know what the fuck I’ve got,” Cone says fretfully. “But there may be a heroin angle. The stuff usually comes over in kilo bags—correct?”

  “Yeah. Two-point-two pounds.”

  “Where does it come in?”

  “Boston, New York, Baltimore, Miami, the Texas coast, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle. Here, there and everywhere.”

  “And how does it come in?”

  “Hidden away in everything from office furniture to VCRs. There’s a million ways to get the shit into the country. Every time the Feds close off one pipeline, ten new ones open up.”

  Cone is silent, thinking that over.

  “Mostly from where?” he asks finally.

  “Oh, hell,” Joe Washington says. “A hundred places. If the climate is right, you can grow opium almost anywhere. The guy I helped nab was getting his supply from Turkey and Iran after it was processed in Marseilles and Sicily.”

  Cone perks up. “Turkey and Iran? The Middle East?”

  “Yeah, but that was three years ago. Turkey and Iran claim they’ve put the opium growers out of business. Fat chance! Look, if you’re a piss-poor farmer, you know you can make more money squeezing a poppy than growing rutabagas. So I’d guess there’s stuff still coming from the Middle East. And of course there’s always Cambodia, Vietnam, or Laos.”

  “And Burma?” Cone asks.

  “Burma? Sure, Burma.”

  “Listen, Joe, could you call this Petey Alvarez and pick his brains a little?”

  “I guess I could,” Washington says slowly. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, you keep talking about how things were three years ago. Ask him about how things are now. Is there a lot of heroin on the street in New York? Or is it all cocaine? And does he have any idea where it’s coming from and how it’s getting in?”

  Joe looks at him. “He could probably tell me all that, Tim, but what’s in it for him?”

  “Maybe a nice bust, maybe nothing. Will he go along with you on that basis?”

  “I’ll try,” Washington says, sighing.

  Cone goes back to his office and finds two file folders Samantha Whatley has dropped on his desk. Two new cases.

  “Goddammit!” he shouts.

  He sits down in his swivel chair and flips through the files. They look dull: Check out a proposed merger of two outfits that sell water pumps, and investigate a franchiser who’s selling a chance to get rich by raising worms in your basement. The Wall Street di
ck already knows the answer to that one.

  He tosses the folders aside, lights a Camel, leans back to review the day’s happenings. He’s got a possible drug-smuggling caper. He’s got a possible art-theft scam. But what—if anything—is the connection with Laboris Investments on Wall Street?

  Maybe, he thinks morosely, Ingmar is the Mr. Nice Guy of the family and strictly legit.

  “And I also believe in the Tooth Fairy,” Cone says aloud.

  He gets up early the next morning, shaves, and even takes a shower. Cleo looks at him in amazement.

  “What are you staring at?” he asks the cat. “It’s Christmastime, isn’t it?”

  Sitting in his skivvies, he has two cups of black coffee, each with a cigarette. Then he sips a small shot of Italian brandy because he feels in a festive mood. He lets Cleo lick the rim of his empty glass.

  “Stick with me, kiddo,” Cone says, “and you’ll be wearing diamonds.”

  He puts on what he calls his “good suit”: a frowsy tweed jacket with suede patches on the elbows, flannel slacks (not too stained), a plaid shirt open at the neck to reveal a clean but somewhat grayish T-shirt. He straps the Magnum to his ankle and is ready for a fight or a frolic.

  When he gets outside, he finds it has snowed during the night; there’s almost an inch of powder on the sidewalks. But it’s melting rapidly, and the air is razory, the sky washed. As usual, he hikes down Broadway to the Haldering office on John Street. Before he goes up, he stops at the deli for a container of black coffee and a buttered bialy.

  At his desk, working on his breakfast, he calls Laboris Investments, Inc. If he can get through to Ingmar, he’s decided to zap the guy with honesty. Not too much, of course, but enough to get him interested and willing to talk.

  “Has Mr. Laboris returned from overseas?” he asks the perky receptionist who answers the phone.

  “May I ask who’s calling, sir?”

  “My name is Timothy Cone, and I’m with Haldering and Company on John Street. I’d like to speak to Mr. Laboris if he’s available.”

  “Just a moment, please,” she chirps—from which Cone figures Ingmar is on the premises.