Timothy's game

“I’ll have to research it,” he says cautiously, “but if you want a top-of-the-head opinion, they can’t do a thing to you. You had no personal contact with any of the insiders who knew about those deals. All you did was use typical American chutzpah. They might want you to return your profits, but we’ll fight that. Listen, they’ve closed down your operation, haven’t they? That should be enough. If you hear from them, don’t tell them a thing, not a thing-you understand? Just tell them to contact me; I’ll handle it. And don’t worry, honey; you’ll come out of this smelling like roses.”

“Thanks, Ivan,” Sally says gratefully, feeling a lot better.

But when she hangs up the phone, she sees Mario Corsini standing in the doorway of her office.

“Thanks for knocking,” she says angrily.

He comes close to the desk, leans forward on whitened knuckles. He stares at her with dead eyes from under the brim of a black fedora.

“Cunt!” he says venomously.

“I can explain,” she starts. “I can-”

“You can explain shit!” he says, voice cold and hard. “A boyfriend on Wall Street, huh? And all the time you’re digging through garbage. I should have known; that’s your style, you no-good bitch. Now I got the SEC on my ass, and who knows what-”

“Listen,” she interrupts desperately, “I just talked to my lawyer, and he says-”

“Fuck your lawyer,” Corsini says, “and fuck you. The SEC works hand in glove with the Federal District Attorney, and he works with the FBI and God knows who else. So now I got the whole fucking government asking questions, like where did I get the money and do I know those guys who invested in other cities, and maybe the IRS is auditing my returns. All because of you, you lousy twat. Vic Angelo warned me this could happen. I should have listened to him. I swear to Christ I could off you right now for what you did to me.

“Hey,” Sally says, “take it easy. You’re imagining a lot of things that might not happen. Maybe you’ll have to give back your profits and pay a fine. That’s no big deal for a hotshot like you.”

“No big deal, huh? And I should tell the sharks that? You got shit for brains? Oh, I’ll work my way out of this, but I’m going to have to grease a lot of people. It’s going to cost me, and guess who’s going to pay?”

She doesn’t answer.

Corsini looks around the office, goes to the window to peer out at the busy tarmac. “Nice place you got here,” he says. “Good business, real estate, trucks. Plenty of assets. The papers are ready, and I’ve got a front lined up to make you a nice offer.”

“I’ll bet,” Sally says stiffly. “But the business isn’t for sale.”

“Sure it is,” Corsini says, taking out one of his twisted black cigars. He lights it and tosses the spent match onto Sally’s desk. “This place is how I’m going to get my money back.”

“But you haven’t lost any money!” she yells at him. “You’ve made money on the tips I gave you. So why are you coming on so hard?”

He leans across the desk and blows cigar smoke in her face. “Because you tricked me,” he says, his face twisted. “You played me for a sucker, you fucking whore. Now’s my turn. You want to go on living, you sell the business; it’s that simple.”

She learned a long time ago that if you show weakness in the world she inhabits, you’re finished. Jake taught her that. “Give ’em an inch, and they’ll take a mile,” he told her. “You gotta stand up to the hardcases. They push, you push back. Otherwise you’re flat on your tuchas, and they’re walking all over you.”

“Listen, you cocksucker,” she says stonily, “you and your lousy front aren’t coming anywhere near this place. The business belongs to my family, and that’s where it’s going to stay. I’m not signing any papers. Stick them up your ass and smoke them, you crap-faced motherfucker.”

The hand holding the cigar starts to tremble, and he presses it against the side of the desk to steady it. She wonders how close he is to popping her then and there and doesn’t care.

“Oh, you’ll sell,” he says in an unexpectedly soft voice. “Maybe you got the balls to fight me, but does your crippled mother or faggot brother? I’d start with them. I’d leave you for last, because before I was through, you’d be down on your knees, begging to sell.”

“Screw you,” Sally says with more bravado than she feels.

“There is one way you can keep the dump,” Mario Corsini says thoughtfully, still staring at her. “You put out for me and maybe we can work a deal.”

“Christ Almighty!” she cries. “Is that the only way you can get a woman?”

“I can get a lot of women,” he says, snapping his fingers. “Like that. But I want you. I want to break you. Really put you over the hurdles.” Then he starts describing exactly what he wants to do to her.

She jerks to her feet. “You prick!” she screams. “Get the hell out of my office.”

“Your office?” he says, looking at her with a stretched grin. “Not for long.”

Eight

It’s still Friday, and Sally Steiner wonders if this frigging day will ever end. If just one more schmuck starts swearing at her and calling her names, she’s going to take out her pistol and Bam! — right in his family jewels.

Judy Bering goes out for lunch, and Sally calls over to the Stardust Diner for a tunafish on wheat and an iced tea. But when the sandwich arrives, it tastes like wallpaper paste, and after one bite she dumps the whole thing in her wastebasket. The tea is cold and wet, but that’s about all.

Her stomach is still bubbling after that go-around with Mario Corsini. She rummages through her father’s desk, still in the office, and finds his bottle of schnapps in the bottom drawer. It hasn’t been touched since Jake died. She pours a dollop into her iced tea, but the mixture is so awful that she can’t swallow more than a sip.

So she gets a plastic cup from the stack alongside the coffee percolator in the outer office and fills it with ice cubes fished out of her tea. Then she pours in the schnapps, a pear brandy strong enough to take the kink out of her hair. After the first swallow, which almost makes her gag, it begins to slide down a lot easier, killing off those butterflies in her gut.

She’s pouring another when she looks up to see a tall, gangly man standing in the doorway. He’s wearing a ratty corduroy suit and a black leather cap. He looks like a nut, and that’s all Sally needs on this Black Friday: another brouhaha with an airhead.

“I’ll take one of those,” he says, jerking his chin at the schnapps bottle. His smile is quirky, but Sally decides he’s not going to be a problem.

“Who the hell are you?” she demands, putting the bottle away.

“Sally Steiner?”

“That’s right. And if you’re selling, I’m not buying. So take a walk.”

“I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes.”

“About what?”

“About Paul Ramsey.”

“Oh, Jesus,” she says, “are you from the SEC?”

“Nah,” the gink says. “Do I dress like a guy from the SEC? My name is Timothy Cone, and I’m with Haldering and Company on John Street. We do financial investigations, mostly for corporate clients on Wall Street.”

“Beat it, will you?” Sally says wearily. “I’ve already been investigated up and down, inside out, and both ways from the middle.”

“I know,” Cone says. “I’m the one who did it. Our client was Pistol and Burns. Wee Tot Fashions-remember that stock? And I was also in on the Trimbley and Diggs takeover leak.”

She stares at him. “You’re the bastard who blew the whistle on me?”

“I’m the bastard,” he says cheerfully.

She sighs. “You make my day complete. All right,” she says, taking out the bottle of pear brandy again, “get yourself a cup out there and we’ll drink to my destruction.”

“It’s not that bad,” he says. “Just listen to me for a minute.”

He comes back with a plastic cup, sits in the armchair alongside her desk, and takes off his cap.