“Ah,” she says. “Mr. Cone of Haldering and Company.”
“You remembered,” he says. “That’s nice.”
“But of course,” she says with her distant smile. “How may I be of service?”
The hisses sound like a whistling teakettle.
“Listen,” Cone says, “I’ve got a brother-in-law, J. Ransom Bailey, a rich-type insurance agent. He’s in from Dallas for a convention at the Hilton. Randy is a nut on swords, and when I told him I had visited your gallery, he wanted me to ask if you had anything he could add to his collection.”
“Oh?” Erica Laboris says. “What exactly is he looking for?”
Cone shrugs apologetically. “I know from nothing about swords. The one time I saw his collection in Dallas, it just looked like an assortment of junk to me. A lot of rusted iron and tarnished bronze.”
“Iron and bronze? Then he’s interested in antiques?”
“Oh, yeah—he’s hooked. I mean he hasn’t got any modern sabers or things like that; his stuff is old. Here’s his business card.”
He hands it over and Erica examines it closely. “Fugelmann Insurance,” she says, reading. “I have heard of them.”
“It’s supposed to be a big outfit. I guess Randy is one of their star performers. At least the Hilton convention is for hotshot insurance agents. Do you have any antique swords he might be interested in?”
Erica puts a fingertip to pursed lips and ponders a moment, frowning. “Nothing at the moment,” she says. “But if you could wait a few minutes, I’ll call two other dealers who handle antique weapons. We sometimes exchange requests for rare or unusual items.”
“Sure,” Cone says, “go ahead and make your calls. I’ll just wander around and look at all your pretty things.”
She’s gone for almost five minutes which, Cone figures, is time enough for her to call the Hilton in New York and Fugelmann Insurance in Dallas to make certain that J. Ransom Bailey exists. When she returns, her frosty smile has thawed a bit.
“Your brother-in-law may be in luck,” she says. “One of the dealers I spoke to has a very old iron blade in good condition. I’ll be happy to borrow it and show it to Mr. Bailey if he’d care to stop by.”
“Hey, that’s great,” Cone says. “He’s flying back to Dallas on Christmas Eve, so he hasn’t got much time. Can I tell him to call you and set up an appointment?”
“Of course. I will be delighted to meet with Mr. Bailey.”
“Good enough,” Cone says. “He’ll be in seminars most of the day, but I’ll get hold of him later this afternoon and have him give you a call. Thanks for your trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” she says, putting her indigo talons lightly on his arm. “That’s what we’re here for.”
Cone walks over to Fifth Avenue to get a cab heading downtown. He reckons the meeting with Erica went okay. No evidence that she’s dealing in loot, but she didn’t turn him down cold either. Now it’s up to Terry MacEver.
When he gets back to the office, he calls the sergeant to report.
“I told her you’d call for an appointment later this afternoon. She’s going to show you an iron sword she says she’s borrowing from another dealer. Is that kosher?”
“Oh, sure,” the sergeant says. “Art dealers are always borrowing from each other or taking stuff on consignment. Then they split the profit. Nothing illegal about it. Did she act suspicious?”
“Hard to tell what that lady is thinking, she’s so buttoned up. Let me know what happens, will you?”
“Sure I will. You got a home phone number?”
“Yeah. It’s unlisted, so don’t write it on any men’s room walls.”
He gives MacEver his telephone number and hangs up. He lights a cigarette, calls down to the deli for lunch, and starts hacking away at his expense account and weekly progress report. There are a few early Christmas parties starting in the offices, but no one invites Cone.
He plods home through the mottled dusk, using every trick in the book to make certain he isn’t being tailed, and wondering if hired killers knock off work for Christmas.
Why not? They’ve probably got family celebrations, trees to decorate, gifts to buy.
Gifts to buy? Holy Christ! Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and he hasn’t bought anything for Samantha, or for Cleo, either. The cat is easy; a big hunk of garlic salami will do the trick. But that won’t satisfy Sam. Cone tells himself he can always pick up some drugstore perfume—or maybe a gag gift like five pounds of horehound candy. Whatley would get a laugh out of that.
When he gets to his building, he finds the street door has been jimmied again. It’s getting to be a weekly occurrence. He climbs six floors to the loft and finds his door open a few inches. He stoops swiftly, draws his Magnum from the ankle holster.
He kicks the door wide open and goes in fast, crouching. He looks around quickly. Nothing. He turns back to check the locks and doorjamb. No nicks or scars. A nice professional job.
Cleo is cowering under the bathtub.
“You’re a lousy attack cat,” Cone says sourly. “Couldn’t you have fought to the death to preserve the sanctity of our home?”
He wanders around a moment and soon discovers what’s missing: the solid teak Buddha statuette. He stands in the middle of the loft and sniffs. No doubt about it: The warm air of the loft smells of faded roses. Nuit de Fou. The exclusive scent of the Laboris cousins.
Christmas Eve turns out to be a cheerless day, with a clayey sky and a wild wind that won’t quit; it blows warm, then cold, dies, and revives. There are a few dusty snow flurries, but nothing to carol about.
The Wall Street dick spends the morning futzing around the office, hoping for a call from Terry MacEver. But the sergeant doesn’t phone, and Cone doesn’t want to bug him. Office parties are beginning to swing and, unable to endure all the jollity and high spirits, Timothy takes off and taxis uptown to buy Samantha a Christmas gift.
That task accomplished, he decides to kill time walking uptown to Central Park. It is not a pleasant hike; Fifth Avenue is scattered with last-minute shoppers scurrying to get home, and holiday decorations already look tired and worn. When he finally cabs back to his neighborhood, he stops at his local deli to pick up some beer and Cleo’s garlic salami. Then to the liquor store for supplies to see him through the holiday blues. He washes up, changes his shirt, and starts out for Samantha’s apartment, carrying a bottle of Asti Spumanti.
Sam is leaving for her parents’ home on an early-morning flight, and she’s busily packing when he arrives.
“Where the hell were you today?” she demands. “We had a great party going at the office, and everyone wanted to know where you’d disappeared to.”
“I was working,” he says.
“In a pig’s ass. You were probably sleeping in your loft. Listen, I want to get rid of all the leftovers in the fridge, so that’s what we’re going to have. Then you take off and let me finish packing and get some sleep. Okay?”
“Sure,” he says equably. “Why not?”
She pulls out bits and pieces of this and that: a bowl of cold lamb stew, baked beans, a piece of flounder, some cole slaw, foil containers of creamed spinach, noodles, and green beans, a hunk of cheddar, two potato pancakes, a dish of curried rice, cherry tomatoes, a few dried-up gherkins, slices of head cheese, heels of pumpernickel. Both being blessed with efficient digestive tracts, they devour everything and polish off the bottle of sparkling wine.
“Hey,” Cone says, “that teak Buddha in two parts—you’ve still got it?”
“Izzy? Of course I’ve got him.”
“I need it for a while.”
“What for?”
“Evidence.”
She stares at him. “Son, you’ve got more crap than a Christmas goose. What evidence?”
“Just an idea.”
“Tell me.”
“Not yet. It’s too crazy.”
“That figures,” she says. “All your ideas are crazy.”
; “Not so,” he protests. “I happen to have a very logical brain.”
“You haven’t got a brain,” she tells him. “You’ve got tapioca in your skull.”
“Oh-ho,” he says. “Now that you’ve worked your evil way with me and enjoyed my damp, white body, it’s insult time.”
“Go to hell,” she says, “and let’s open our presents.”
She’s bought Cleo a red net Christmas stocking packed with a catnip-stuffed mouse, three plastic balls, a package of munchies, a can of poached salmon, and a plastic-framed picture of Garfield. She gives Cone a cashmere muffler in a Black Watch tartan.
“Nice scarf,” he says, examining it. “Thanks.”
“Muffler, not scarf, idiot,” she says. “And you better wear it.”
“Oh, I will,” he says, “I really will.”
Cone gives her a $100 gift certificate from Altman’s.
“That’s the most romantic gift I’ve ever gotten,” she tells him.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t know your measurements, so I figured you could buy something for yourself.”
She puts a palm against his cheek and looks into his eyes. “You’re really a mutt—you know that? Mutt, mutt, mutt!”
“I suppose,” he says, sighing.
They slow down and drink some of Sam’s vodka. No sex tonight; they both know it and accept it with only a small twinge. They talk about her plans to return to New York for New Year’s Eve and what they might do.
“Stay in,” he says. “New Year’s Eve is amateur night. We’ll spend it at the loft. I’ll buy balloons, a small package of confetti, and two funny hats.”
“I can hardly wait,” Samantha says. “I may call you during the week. Just to make sure you’re not shacked up with some tootsie.”
“Not me,” he says. “Cleo maybe, but not a tootsie.”
“Have a happy Christmas, Tim,” she says. “Now drag your ass out of here. I’ve got to finish packing and get some sleep.”
“Let me have the Buddha.”
“Jesus,” she says, “you never give up, do you? Will I get it back?”
“Sure you will.”
“The original Izzy?”
“Absolutely.”
“You better be telling the truth,” Sam says, “or you’ll be singing soprano for the rest of your life.”
She puts his cashmere muffler, Cleo’s Christmas stocking, and the two-part Buddha statuette in a brown paper sack and taps his cheek. “On your way, buster,” she says.
“Yeah,” Cone says. “Have a good time. Don’t talk to any sailors.”
She comes up close. “Take care of yourself, asshole.”
“You too, shithead.”
They embrace lightly, exchange a small kiss and a sad smile. Then he leaves.
He cabs back to the loft and gives Cleo the gift-packed stocking. The cat isn’t interested in any of the toys but goes whacko over the empty net stocking and starts wrestling it across the linoleum.
Cone pours himself a brawny brandy.
“She’s gone,” he tells Cleo. “Merry Christmas, kiddo.”
He sits at his desk, wraps his new muffler around his neck and sips his drink, feeling bereft.
3
CHRISTMAS TURNS OUT TO be a broody day for Timothy Cone, with not much Ho-ho-ho about it. He grumps about the loft all morning, drinking black coffee, demolishing cigarettes, and growling as he gives Cleo fresh water and changes the cat’s litter.
He goes out about noon to buy a paper and plods a half dozen blocks before he finds a newsstand that’s open. The sky is low and looks like wrinkled parchment. There’s still snow in the air, and the wind is cold and sharp enough to make his teeth ache. He returns thankfully to the warm loft and decides to drink and sleep the day away.
There’s no one, family or friends, he has any desire to call and wish a Merry Christmas. But then his phone starts ringing. Joe Washington wants to extend Season’s Greeting. So does an uncle in Brooklyn who’s full of hearty cheer and asks to borrow a hundred bucks. Then a gyrene buddy who served with Cone in Vietnam calls to exchange ribald insults.
Then, later in the afternoon, Terry MacEver phones.
“Merry the hell Christmas,” he says. “I should have called yesterday, but I had a Christmas Eve party to go to and got taken by the sauce, d’ya see.”
“Yeah,” Cone says, “that happens.”
“Well, I went up to see Erica Laboris. Like you said, there is one smart lady. She starts asking me questions about my collection of antique swords—pumping me. I had boned up on the subject, so I think I convinced her I was a compulsive collector and knew what I was talking about. Then she brings out the blade she claims she borrowed from another dealer. It was a piece of shit and I told her so. It looked like it had been hammered from old sardine cans. That thing couldn’t cut braunschweiger. She was just testing me, d’ya see. I told her I was looking for something better. She pretended to think awhile and then said a European agent she dealt with had mentioned a choice item that was available. She described it: an Assyrian relic of the sixth century B.C. It sounded exactly like that stolen sword I showed you in the photograph. She said it was museum quality. Sure it was, if it was lifted from a Beirut museum. She said the European agent wanted twenty K for it, but she thought he might be willing to come down a bit. I told her it sounded interesting, and twenty thousand didn’t scare me if it was the real thing. But of course I’d have to see it first. She said she could have it flown over and would be able to show it to me in a couple of days.”
“Do you believe all that?” Cone asks.
“Hell, no! I think she’s got the sword in the country right now and scammed the story of the European agent to give herself an out if the deal turns sour. Very suspicious, our Erica. Anyway, she’s going to give me a call when the blade arrives, and I promised to fly up to New York to take a look.”
“How is she going to phone you?”
“She’ll call Fugelmann Insurance in Dallas, and if I’m not in—which obviously I won’t be—she’ll leave a message and I’ll call her back. I’ve got all that set up with my contact there. I don’t want to start celebrating, but so far it looks good. I swear she’s peddling that stolen Assyrian iron.”
“I’ll bet my cajones on it,” Cone says. “She’s playing it cozy, but visions of sugarplums are dancing in her head. She thinks she’s found an A-Number-One sucker. Play it out, Sergeant; I think you’re going to score.”
“I’m hoping,” MacEver says. “How do you figure she got the sword into the US?”
“Inside a leather hassock from Turkey,” Cone says. “Or a porcelain elephant from Korea. But that’s another story. Keep me up to speed, will you?”
He hangs up, convinced they’re going to bust the Laboris Gallery. That leaves Laboris Importers and Laboris Investments, Inc. And how to land Sven and Ingmar snares his thoughts for the remainder of that Christmas day, which now seems suddenly merrier and more hopeful.
On the morning after Christmas, Cone gets to work late. He breakfasts at his desk (black coffee and a Mae West) while he flips The Wall Street Journal and the Business Day section of the Times. All the economic pundits predict interest rates will continue to fall, and Cone wonders how long Ingmar Laboris is going to be able to pay that high rate of return. Even junk bonds are down to 12 percent.
It’s almost noon when he leaves the office and grabs a taxi up to West Nineteenth Street. Laboris Importers is crowded, which is what he figured. All those people are returning Christmas presents. The flock of cousins is busy behind the sales counter in the rear of the store, and Cone is free to wander around and take a look at the latest in imported monstrosities.
No teak Buddhas in sight, but there is a table of curious statuettes arranged in precise ranks like a company of Marines on parade. They are all about eight inches tall, and identical; no hand-carving here. They look to be a resin and sawdust compound, colored black and produced from a mold.
There is a small placard set on a
bamboo easel:
THE HINDU GODDESS KALI, WIFE OF SHIVA. SHE IS KNOWN AS THE BLACK ONE, OFTEN DESTRUCTIVE. KALI IS DEPICTED IN INDIAN ART AS WEARING A NECKLACE OF SKULLS, AND SOMETIMES SNAKES. SHE IS THE GODDESS OF DEATH AND FREQUENTLY WIELDS A SWORD TO CUT THE THREAD OF LIFE. KALI MEANS “TIME” TO REMIND US OF OUR SHORT LIFE SPAN.
“Right on,” Cone says softly.
Glancing around to make certain he is unobserved, he picks up one of the statuettes. Kali is standing on a low base, her hefty bosom pressing thin drapery. About her neck is a string of skulls. In one hand she holds a sword, scissors in the other. Charming lady.
Cone twists the base in a clockwise direction. Nothing. Then he tries a conventional twist to the left. Again nothing. The doodad is solid, a single casting. He replaces it on the table and tries another, with the same result. He looks around again to make certain no one is noticing his strange behavior, then continues trying other statuettes.
He hits pay dirt on the sixth; the base unscrews when turned to the left. He puts that Kali aside and goes on with his search. He finds another with a screw-on base. He takes the two to the sales clerk and waits patiently for almost fifteen minutes before he can pay for his purchases. They are swaddled in tissue paper and slid into a plastic bag. Printed on the outside of the bag is: LABORIS IMPORTERS, HOUSE OF WONDERS.
He cabs back to Haldering & Co., goes directly to his office, and shuts the door. Still wearing parka and cap, he sits at his desk, unwraps one of the Kali statuettes, and carefully unscrews the base. Drilled upward into the goddess is a hole about an inch in diameter and three inches deep. Cone peers inside, turning the figure this way and that to catch the light. He sees a slight coating of white powder.
Bingo! Maybe.
The second Kali yields the same results. Cautiously, Cone licks a finger and swabs it into the recess. It comes away with some white powder adhering. He sniffs at his finger. Nothing—except nicotine. Then he takes a small lick. The powder tastes bitter. He wonders what the hell he’s doing; he has no idea what high-grade smack tastes like. It could be talcum powder for all he knows.
Timothy Files Page 31