As far as finding a link between the eighteen crimes-zero, zip, and zilch. But the lack of a pattern might have significance. It’s unlikely one guy is racing around the country setting fires, dumping rice in gas tanks, blowing up warehouses, and slipping cyanide into sealed bottles of diet pills made by Dempster-Torrey’s drug subsidiary.
Those sophisticated techniques were devised by someone with a lot of criminal know-how. That makes Cone think it’s a gang, bossed by a villain who knows exactly what he’s doing and what he wants to accomplish. But what does he want to accomplish? Revenge?
That would point the finger at a fired or disgruntled employee. Or maybe the former owner of some small and profitable company that John J. Dempster gobbled up on his march to power. God knows Dempster must have made enough enemies to last him a lifetime-which didn’t, after all, last very long at all.
The Wall Street dick pours another small vodka, swearing to himself it will be a nightcap and knowing it won’t because his mind is churning, and he’ll be able to sleep only with high-proof oblivion.
He’s halfway through that snort when his peppered brain spits out an idea that’s so elegant he feels like shouting. It’s a neat solution: an organization controlled, or hired, by a tough, determined, brainy guy who knows exactly what he wants and how to get it. Cone walks around his brilliant inspiration, and the more he inspects it from all angles, questions it, analyzes it, the stronger it seems.
And the motive? That’s the best part!
“I do believe …” he says aloud, and Cleo comes slinking out from under the bathtub to yawn and stretch.
Later, lying in his skivvies on the floor mattress, lights out, his last conscious thoughts are of Neal K. Davenport, and how rancorous the detective must feel at being relegated to a minor role in a big case he thinks of as his own.
Cleo pads up to curl into the bend of his knees.
“He wants praise, kiddo,” Cone says, reaching down to scratch the cat’s torn ears. “Or maybe justification. He wants recognition that he’s doing important work in this screwed-up world. Do you want praise, justification, and recognition, Cleo? The hell you do. I don’t either. We’ve got a roof over our heads and all the hot sausage we can eat. What more do we need?”
Cleo growls agreement.
Two
The secretary is a middle-aged woman, with a glazed ceramic complexion and wiry gray hair up in a tight bun. She gazes at the world through hard eyes. He figures it would take a helluva lot to surprise her-and nothing would shock her.
“Timothy Cone from Haldering and Company,” he says. “To see Miss Bookerman. My appointment’s for ten- thirty.”
She glances down at a watch pinned to her bodice. She doesn’t have to tell him he’s late; her look is accusation enough.
“I’ll tell her you’re here, Mr. Cone. Please be seated.”
But he remains standing, eyeballing the place. Nothing lavish, but everything crisp, airy, and looking as if it was waxed five minutes ago. The carpet has the Dempster-Torrey corporate insignia woven into it. A nice touch. Reminds Cone of the linoleum in his loft. That bears
“Ms. Bookerman will see you now,” the secretary says, replacing her phone. “Through that door and down the hall to your left.”
“Right,” he says.
“No,” she says, “left.”
He looks at her and sees a glint of amusement in her steady eyes.
“How about tonight?” he whispers. “Same time, same place. I’ll bring the herring.”
That cracks her up. “I’ll be there,” she promises.
He had called that morning from the loft. Eve Bookerman could see him at 10:30. Precisely. For a half-hour. Precisely. Cone said that was fine, and he’d also like to talk to Theodore Brodsky, Chief of Security. Bookerman said she’d arrange it. Her voice was low, throaty, stirring. Cone liked that voice.
He figured that if he had a 10:30 appointment, there was no point in going into the office first. So he spent an hour drinking black coffee, smoking Camels, and finishing the last charlotte russe. He was a mite hung over, but nothing serious. Just that his stomach was queasy, and he was afraid of what might happen if he yawned.
So he plodded all the way down to Wall Street. A hot July day, steamy, with a milky skim over a mild blue sky. By the time he arrived at the Dempster-Torrey Building, he was pooped; the air conditioning was plasma.
Now, scuffing down the inside corridor to his left, he passes a succession of doors with chaste brass name plates: JOHN J. DEMPSTER, SIMON TRALE, THEODORE BRODSKY and, finally, EVE BOOKERMAN. He wonders if, having taken over the murdered man’s duties, even temporarily, she has moved into the CEO’s office. But when he raps on the gleaming pine door, he hears a shouted “Come in!” and enters slowly, leather cap in hand.
She stands and comes forward to greet him. He is startled. From her voice and determined manner on the phone, he had expected a tigress; he sees a tabby. A short woman, almost chubby, with a great mass of frizzy strawberry-blond curls. She’s trying to smile, but it doesn’t work.
“Glad to meet you,” she says. “Mr. Twiggs has told me so much about you.”
“Yeah?” he says. “That’s nice.”
She’s wearing a seersucker suit with a frilly blouse, a wide ribbon bow-tied at the neck. She looks clunky, but she moves well and there’s strength in her handshake. Her eyes are great, Cone decides: big, dark, luminous. And she’s got impressive lungs. Even with the blouse and suit he can see that.
She gets him seated in an armchair, not alongside her desk but facing her. Then she slides into an enormous, high-backed leather swivel chair. It swallows her, makes her look like a cub.
“Do you smoke?” she asks.
“Thanks,” he says gratefully, reaching into his jacket pocket for his pack.
“Please don’t,” she says sharply. “I can’t stand cigarette smoke. Atrocious!”
“Okay,” he says equably, “I can live with that.”
She sits on the edge of her chair, leans forward, elbows on the desk, hands clasped: a position of prayer. Her fingers, Cone notes, are unexpectedly long and slender.
“Did you read the material I left with Mr. Haldering?” she demands.
“Yep.”
“I hope you realize those reports are confidential. I wouldn’t care to have them leaked to the media.”
“I don’t blab,” he tells her.
“And do you have any questions?”
“A lot of them,” he says. “Here’s one for starters: What’s the difference between a Chief Executive Officer- that was Dempster-and a Chief Operating Officer-that’s you?”
“It varies from company to company,” she says. “At Dempster-Torrey, J.J. made the big decisions and I made the small ones. He got the ulcers and I got the headaches.”
“He had ulcers?”
“Of course not. It was just a figure of speech. What I’m trying to say is that he set policy and I carried it out. Expedited things. Found the people he needed and liaised with bankers, attorneys, accountants.”
Cone stares at her. “Made his dreams come true?” he suggests.
“Yes,” she says with that forced smile, “something like that. But the dreams were his.”
“You’ve been with Dempster-Torrey-how long?”
“Almost eight years.”
“Started out as Chief Operating Officer?”
“God, no! I was an MBA fresh out of Harvard. I started in the Planning Section, practically a gofer. I didn’t get to be Operating Officer until three years ago.”
“And then you worked closely with Mr. Dempster?”
