“I told you I don’t know, I told you.”
Cone sighs. “Who are you-Joey Echo? All right, I’ll see for myself.”
He starts up the stoop. The kid stands up.
“Hey,” he says, “you want to know about this guy, you want to know? Cost you a buck.”
Cone digs out his wallet, fishes out a dollar, hands it over.
“I don’t know nothing, I don’t,” the kid yells and darts away.
Outraged, Timothy watches the juvenile con man race down the street. Then he laughs at how easily he’s been scammed. He figures that kid will end up President or doing ten-to-twenty in Attica.
He goes into the cramped vestibule that smells of urine and boiled cabbage. There’s a bellplate but no names are listed in the slots. But there are names on the mailboxes. Two are listed for Apartment 5-A.
One is Paul Ramsey.
The other is Edward Steiner.
He gets a cab going downtown on Ninth Avenue. The hackie wants to talk baseball, but Cone isn’t having any; he’s got too much to brood about.
There’s this woman, Sally Steiner, who goes for 10,000 shares in Wee Tot Fashions, Inc., in an insider trading scheme at Pistol amp; Burns. And there’s this man, Paul Ramsey, who buys 27,000 shares of Trimbley amp; Diggs, Inc., in what is apparently another insider scam at Snellig Firsten Holbrook. And this Ramsey lives in an apartment with a guy named Edward Steiner.
Maybe the two Steiners aren’t related, don’t even know each other. Coincidences do happen-but don’t bet on it. The Wall Street dick wonders how far he should push what he’s already calling the “Steiner Connection.”
He’s back in the loft, pacing back and forth, when a light bulb flashes over his head, just like a character in a cartoon strip. And suddenly he remembers what he’s been trying to recall these past few days, something he heard that struck a tinny note. It comes to him now.
Jeremy Bigelow said that when he interviewed Sally Steiner in the course of his investigation of the Wee Tot Fashions deal, she claimed she bought her 10,000 shares because she wanted to get Wee Tot’s reports. She was planning to quit the garbage business. She hoped to learn more about the manufacture, distribution, and sale of children’s clothing.
Now, as Cone well knows, people sometimes do buy stock to get a company’s reports and possibly learn about the business. And sometimes they buy stock just so they can attend the annual meeting of stockholders and may get a free box lunch. But those objectives can be achieved by purchasing one share, ten, or maybe a hundred. But buying 10,000 shares just to get quarterly reports? Ridiculous!
Cone curses his own stupidity; he should have caught it from the start. It’s obvious to him now that Sally Steiner bought her stake because she knew something or had heard something about the takeover of Wee Tot Fashions, and was out to make a quick buck.
He goes to the wall telephone in his greasy little kitchenette and calls Neal K. Davenport, a detective with the New York Police Department. He’s worked with Davenport on a few things, and the city bull owes him.
“Hey, sherlock,” the NYPD man says cheerily. “How’ya doing? I haven’t heard from you in weeks. You’ve found another patsy in the Department?”
“Nah,” Cone says, “nothing like that. I just haven’t been working anything you’d be interested in.”
“Glad to hear it. Every time you get me involved, I end up sweating my tush. So why are you calling now?”
“It’s about the commercial garbage-collection business.”
“Oh?” Davenport says. “Thinking of changing jobs, are you? I’d say you’re eminently qualified. You want a letter of recommendation?”
“Cut the bullshit,” Cone says, “and just tell me if I’m right. Private garbage collection, waste disposal, and cartage in Manhattan is pretty much controlled by the Families-correct?”
“So I’ve heard,” the NYPD man says. “They’re supposed to have the whole fucking city divided up into districts and neighborhoods. If you want to pick up shit, you’ve got to pay dues to the bentnoses. There was an investigation years ago, but nothing came of it. The DA’s witness disappeared and hasn’t been heard from since. So what else is new?”
“Thanks,” Cone says. “Nice talking to you.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Davenport says. “You got something on the mob’s connection?”
“Not a thing,” Cone assures him. “If I come across anything, you’ll be the first to know.”
“I won’t hold my breath,” the city cop says.
Cone hangs up and stares at Cleo thoughtfully.
“Something stinks,” he tells the cat. “And it ain’t garbage, kiddo.”
Five
Sally Stalls Vic Angelo and Mario Corsini for two weeks. It’s a gamble; if she can’t come up with a winner, then she loses Steiner Waste Control and access to inside secrets in trash collected from Bechtold Printing. And that’ll be the end of her Big Chance.
She conned the two villains in Angelo’s car outside the funeral home where Jake lay in his coffin.
“Look,” she says to them, “I got a boyfriend on Wall Street. He’s a lawyer in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department of a big investment banker. I won’t tell you which one. Anyway, he gets in on the ground floor on mergers, takeovers, and buyouts. There’s a lot of money to be made if you get advance notice of these deals. I’ve been making a mint. You guys let me keep Steiner Waste Control, and I’ll feed you the same inside information I get from my boyfriend.”
The two men stare at her, then turn to look at each other.
“I don’t like it,” Angelo says. “Insider trading is a federal rap. Who needs it?”
“Wait a minute, Vic,” Corsini says. “The insider here is this girlie’s boyfriend. If he wants to shoot off his mouth, it’s his problem. The people he tells can claim they bought on a stock tip.”
“Right!” Sally says enthusiastically. “I tell you it’s foolproof. I’ve played four deals and haven’t lost a cent.”
Corsini gives her a two-bit smile. “And you invest for the boyfriend and then kick back to him. Have I got it straight, girlie?”
“Of course,” she says. “Whaddya think? And don’t call me girlie.”
“I still don’t like it,” Angelo says, slowly peeling away the band from one of his fat Havanas. “Trouble with the Feds I don’t want.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to take one little flier, Vic,” Corsini says.
That’s when the shtarkers agree to give her two weeks to come up with a winning tip. If she can do that, they’ll talk a deal. If she fails, they’ll buy Steiner Waste Control-on their terms. Sally goes along with that; she’s got no choice.
By this time she’s got Terry Mulloy and Leroy Hamilton organized. Trash from Bechtold Printing is being delivered to her Smithtown garage, and the stuff she’s already pawed through is taken away and brought back to the Eleventh Avenue dump.
By the ninth day she’s getting panicky. She’s broken three fingernails grubbing through the Bechtold scrap, and all she’s found is worthless first proofs of prospectuses and mass mailings to stockholders. But then, on a Thursday night, she hits paydirt.
There are crumpled pages with the letterhead of Snellig Firsten Holbrook. They outline a suggested plan for a leveraged buyout of an outfit called Trimbley amp; Diggs, Inc. Financing will include junk bonds and a hefty cash payment by company executives who are going to take T amp;D private as soon as they get control. The purpose, as far as Sally can make out, is to sell off or develop valuable shorefront real estate.
She looks up Trimbley amp; Diggs in that day’s
