report, you pay us off, and that’s it. Only I don’t want it to end right now. I’d like you to call Hiram Haldering and tell him you want to keep us on the payroll for another couple of weeks.”
“And why should I do that, Mr. Cone?”
“Because I think I’m onto something that may-with heavy emphasis on the
“No, Mr. Cone, I’d never do that.” There is a long silence, then he says, “All right, I’ll place a wager on you. I’ll call Mr. Haldering immediately and tell him we require your services for another two weeks.”
“Thanks,” Timothy says. “But I better warn you: I plan to rent a car. I’ll need it to do the job. You’ll get stuck for the expenses on that.”
G. Fergus Twiggs laughs. “Why not?” he says. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
That night Cone picks up a big box of baked lasagna, a container of cucumber salad, and a jug of burgundy. He cabs over to Samantha’s apartment in the East Village. She pops the lasagna in the oven to warm it while he pours tumblers of wine. As usual, they plop down and eat on one of the oval rag rugs in her artsy-craftsy apartment.
“You’ll never guess what happened,” she says. “This afternoon that guy Twiggs called H.H. He wants you to keep on the Pistol and Burns case for another two weeks.”
“No kidding?” Cone says, eating busily. “I wonder what he’s got in mind.”
Sam looks at him suspiciously. “When you get that look on your puss,” she says, “I begin to worry. You didn’t have anything to do with Twiggs’ call, did you?”
“Me? Come on! How could I convince a guy like that to spend more money on something I thought was signed, sealed, and delivered? I figured to complete the final report and that would be that.”
“Uh-huh,” she says, still staring at him. “Well, now I’ll have to parcel out those three new cases to the other guys, and they’ll scream bloody murder. Tim, is there something you’re not telling me?”
He holds up a palm. “I swear there’s not. Have I ever lied to you?”
“Oh, Jesus,” she says, sighing. “Now I
They finish their dinner and clean up the debris. Then they loll on the rug again, sipping fresh glasses of burgundy.
“Want to stay the night?” she asks him.
“Of course I want to stay. I’ll split early in the morning before you’re awake.”
“What a life we lead,” she says. “Fast action and quick goodbyes.”
“Hey,” he said, “don’t get started on that. We agreed-remember? Either of us can blow the whistle any time, with no explanations, no excuses, no apologies.”
She looks at him coldly. “I’d like to blow your whistle,” she says, and they both crack up.
She wants to watch some stupid TV documentary about the Richest Man in the World. So Cone undresses and slips naked into bed, after removing her French dolls and chenille bedspread covered with little pink balls of fluff.
She keeps the volume down, and after a while he dozes, not really sleeping but floating drowsily between clean, crisp sheets, wondering if this really is, as he believes, the best time of his life.
He is dimly conscious of Sam clicking off the TV set and checking the chain and bolt on the outside door. He hears her moving about, going into the bathroom and coming out, undressing.
Then she slides into bed alongside him.
“Sleeping?” she whispers.
“Yes,” he says.
“Liar. Want to wait till morning?”
“No.”
She molds herself to his back, spoon-fashion, then reaches around to hold him. He can feel the fever of her body, and it’s so nice having her close that he doesn’t want to move.
“Whistle ‘Dixie’?” he suggests. “Sing an aria? Crack my knuckles?”
She punches his ribs. “I’ll crack more than that, buster.”
Then he is no longer drowsy, and they attack each other with moaning kisses and caresses as hard as blows. Their bodies join in a curve as convoluted as a Mobius strip. Within moments they are engaged in hostile assaults, as if each is guilty of the other’s need-for which there is no forgiveness.
They rampage across the bed, back and forth, and if there had been a chandelier overhead, they would have swung from that, two nutty acrobats socking together in midair. Curses are muffled, oaths gritted, and when they finally come to a sweated juncture, each believes it a selfish victory and is beamy and content.
Cone rents a Dodge Shadow because the name appeals to him. He intends using it to shadow and, if things get hairy, to dodge. It’s a black two-door compact and has all the performance he’ll need for city driving.
He gets the feel of it on a jaunt uptown. He drives by Steiner Waste Control on Eleventh Avenue and is surprised by the size of the dump-almost a city block wide. It’s late afternoon, and the place seems relatively quiet with only a single truck unloading at a shed and another on the tarmac awaiting its turn.
He returns to the loft and phones Neal K. Davenport.
“Now what?” the NYPD detective demands. “I’m trying to eat a sausage hero, so make it fast.”
“That’s your lunch? At this time of day?”
“You think we get a regular lunch hour like you nine-to-five types? Fat chance! What’s on your mind, sherlock?”
“You know anyone in the Organized Crime Bureau?”
“I might. Why are you asking? You got something for them?”
“Nah,” Cone says. “Just a couple of questions.”
“What the hell is this-a one-way street? When are you going to start coming up with some answers for us? What a hardnose you are! Okay, I’ll play your little game. The guy I know in the Organized Crime outfit is Joe D’Amato. He looks and dresses like a college professor, but he’s got more street smarts than you and I will ever have. I’ll give him a call and tell him you’re the worst brain-picker in the city. If he wants to talk to you, that’s his problem.”
“Thanks,” Cone says. “That’s one I owe you.”
Cone hangs up softly. He finds the computer printouts Jeremy Bigelow gave him, and makes a list of all the out-of-town buyers who purchased 9,000 shares of Trimbley amp; Diggs, Inc. There are ten of them, and Cone jots down their names and the cities where they bought the T amp;D stock.
Cleo has started to mewl sadly, so he changes the cat’s litter, puts out fresh water, and then inspects the contents of his scarred, waist-high refrigerator to see what kind of a banquet man and beast can share. He finds three eggs, a hunk of salami, and a piece of greenish cheese sparked with jalapeno pepper flakes.
He cuts the salami into cubes, fries them up with the eggs, and sets out the cheese to provide his cholesterol overdose of the day. There’s also a blackened banana for dessert. But everything tastes good to him, and Cleo has no objections except perhaps to the pepper cheese which makes the tom sneeze.
The phone doesn’t ring until almost nine o’clock and, being a superstitious man, Cone goes to answer it with his fingers crossed.
“Yeah?” he says.
“Is this Timothy Cone?”
“That’s right. Who’s this?”
“Sergeant Joseph D’Amato. Neal Davenport said you wanted me to contact you.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“I should tell you this call is being taped. In the business I’m in, that’s SOP. Okay with you?”
“Sure. All I got is a list of names and where they live. I was hoping you might be able to give me some skinny on them.”
