“Yes, I do, Miss Blenke.”
“Okay,” she says. “I got this stupid lunch date I’m late for already, but if you can be here around two-thirty or so, I’ll give you some time.”
“Thank you very much,” Cone says humbly. “The name is Sperling. Waldo Sperling.”
He hangs up, grinning, and sees Samantha Whatley standing in his doorway. “I heard that, Waldo,” she says. “Kind of long-winded, wasn’t it?”
“Up yours,” he says.
She growls at him. “Go pick up your rental car,” she says, and he winks at her.
So there he is, tooling around Manhattan in a new Ford Escort GT and feeling like King Shit. As usual, traffic is murder, but Cone doesn’t care; he’s got time to kill, and he wants to get the feel of the car. Even the frustrations of stop-and-go city driving are better than cramming aboard a bus or trying to flag down a cab.
But there is the problem of parking. Cone finally finds a slot on East 83rd Street, just west of First Avenue. He locks up and walks back to Dorothy Blenke’s address on Third Avenue, north of 85th. It’s a sliver of a high-rise, faced with alternating vertical bands of precast concrete and green-tinted glass. The doorman is dressed like someone’s idea of a Hungarian hussar, with a braided jacket, frogged half-cape, and a purple plume hanging limply from his varnished shako.
“I have an appointment with Dorothy Blenke,” Cone tells him.
“Not in,” the hussar says. “Try later.”
“She said she’d be here at two-thirty. It’s past that now.”
The doorman looks at Cone’s shoddy corduroy suit with some distaste. “I’m telling you,” he says, “she’s not back yet. Why don’t you take a nice walk around the block.”
“Splendid idea,” Cone says, and does exactly that. He takes his time, looking in store windows and gawking at the construction work going on in the neighborhood. He returns to Blenke’s high-rise and looks inquiringly at the doorman.
“Not yet,” the hussar says.
So Cone circles another block, smoking a cigarette, and returns to the apartment house.
“Yeah,” the doorman says, “she just came in.” Then, formally: “Who shall I say is calling?”
“Waldo Sperling from
“Zebu?” the hussar says. “What’s that?”
“It’s an Asian ox,” Cone says. “I thought everyone knew.”
The doorman calls on the intercom, talks a moment, then turns to Cone. “Okay,” he says, “you can go up. Apartment 18-A. To your left as you get off the elevator.”
“Thanks,” Cone says. “I admire your uniform.”
“Yeah?” the hussar says. “Try wearing it in the summer. You sweat bullets.”
He unlocks the inner door, and the Wall Street dick enters a narrow lobby lined with ceramic tiles. It has all the joyful ambience of an underground crypt, and a couple of desiccated ficus trees add the proper mortuary touch. The automatic elevator is more cheerful, and music is coming from somewhere. Timothy recognizes the tune: “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”
The woman who opens the door of Apartment 18-A is a tall, glitzy blonde with too much of everything: hair, eye shadow, lipstick, bosom, hips, and perfume. And there are three olives in the oversized martini she’s gripping.
“You a cop?” she demands.
“Oh, no,” Cone says. “No, no, no. Waldo Sperling from
“I hate cops,” she says darkly. “Well, come on in. Would you like a drinkie-poo?”
“No, thank you. But you go right ahead.”
“I intend to,” Dorothy Blenke says. “What a shitty lunch that was. The guy looked like Godzilla, and he’s
“Right,” Cone says.
“That’s the way I am, too,” the woman says. “I just don’t give a damn. Now you sit in that fantastic tub chair-twelve-hundred from Bloomie’s-and I’ll curl up here on the couch.”
“From Bloomie’s?” Cone asks.
“Yep. Three grand.” She gives him a vapid smile. “I even got Bloomie’s printed on my panties. Wanna see?”
“Not at the moment,” Cone says, “but I appreciate the offer. Lovely home you have here, Miss Blenke.”
But the living room is like the woman herself-too much of everything: furniture, lamps, rugs, paintings, knick- knacks, vases, silk flowers, even ashtrays. The place overflows.
“May I smoke?” Cone asks.
“Why not?” she says with that out-of-focus smile. “This is Liberty Hall. Let it all hang out.”
He offers her a Camel, but she shakes her head. So he lights up while she works on her drink. Two of the three olives have disappeared along with half of the martini. Cone figures he better make this fast.
“Miss Blenke,” he starts, “as I told you on the phone,
“What the hell is that?” she interrupts. “I’ve never seen it on the newsstands.”
“Controlled circulation,” Cone explains. “By subscription only. We go only to top executives in the financial community.”
“No kidding?” she says with that bleary smile again. “I don’t suppose you want to sell your mailing list.”
“I’m afraid not,” Cone says, and tries again. “Miss Blenke, as I told you on the phone, we’re planning a definitive article on John J. Dempster, and I’m trying to-”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says.
Cone, who’s beginning to feel like that hussar-doorman-sweating bullets-plunges ahead. “So we’d be very interested in your personal recollections of the late John Dempster.”
“Late,” she says gloomily. “The sonofabitch was always late.”
“I don’t understand, Miss Blenke.”
“There’s a lot you don’t understand,” she says portentously. “Just take my word for it.”
They sit silently while she takes small, ladylike sips from her giant martini. The third olive has disappeared, and she peers into the tumbler, puzzled.
She’s a big, florid woman with shards of great beauty. But it’s all gone to puff now. It could be the sauce, but Cone reckons that’s only a symptom, not the malady. Thwarted ambitions, soured dreams, chilled loves-all came before the booze. Now her life is tottering, ready to fall. It’s there in her glazed eyes and sappy grin.
“You were married to David Dempster for-how long?” he asks, determined to be gentle with this ruin.
“The nerd? That’s what I call him: Lord Nerd. Years and years.”
“No children?”
“No, thank God. His kids wouldn’t have been much anyway. He just hasn’t got the jism. But I’ll say this for him: The alimony checks are never late.”
“And what were his relations to John Dempster?”
“The nerd’s?” she says, startled. “He was John’s brother.”
“I know,” Cone says patiently. “I meant their personal relationship. How did they get along?”
“Not like gin and vermouth,” she says. “Hey, my drink is gone. Must be evaporation. Have you ever noticed that New York City has a very high rate of evaporation?”
“Yeah,” Cone says, “I’ve noticed.”
She heaves herself off the couch, goes into the kitchen. He hears her banging around in there, humming a song he can’t identify. He sits hunched forward in the velvet-covered tub chair, hands clasped between his knees, and wonders if there’s another line of business he can get into.
She comes back in a few moments, still humming, with a full tumbler. She plops down on the couch again and crosses her knees. Like many heavy women, she’s got good legs and slender ankles. “One martini and I can feel it,” she says. “Two martinis and anyone can feel it. What were we talking about?”
“David and John Dempster. How they felt about each other.”
“Yeah,” she says, “that’s right. Well, Jack thought Dave was a washout-which he is. Dave was always
