bitching because Jack wouldn’t give him the Dempster-Torrey PR account, but Jack knew better than that.”
“Oh? When was this?”
“Years ago. Lord Nerd finally gave up. He gave up on a lot of things. Jack never gave up. He’d never take no for an answer.”
“He must have been quite a man to build a business like that.”
“Jack? He was Napoleon, Hitler, and Attila the Hun all rolled into one. You never knew what he was going to do next. That was the fun of him.”
Cone stares at her. “But he always went back to his wife,” he says softly.
“That dingbat? She’d blow away in a breeze. I’ll never, till the day I die, understand what he saw in her. I’ll bet she puts on her nightgown before she takes off her underwear. But I don’t want to talk about it.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, Miss Blenke, why did you divorce David Dempster?”
“Galloping boredom,” she says promptly. “You’ve met the guy?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know. He’d have to drink Drano to get his blood moving. Jack had all the get-up-and-go in that family. He could work twenty-four hours and then party for another twenty-four. Dave has to have his nappy-poo every afternoon or he’ll collapse. The funny thing was … What’s the funny thing?”
“Something about the brothers?”
“Yeah. Jack was three years younger, but usually it’s the older brother who’s the big success. Am I right?”
“Usually. But not always. Did you socialize much with John and his wife? When you and David were married?”
“Socialize? Jesus, if we saw them twice a year it was a lot. Those two guys couldn’t stand each other, I couldn’t stand that ding-a-ling Teresa, and I guess she felt the same way about me. It was not what you’d call close family ties.”
Timothy wants to ask her the key questions, straight out, but hasn’t the courage. Besides, he has a fairish idea of what had happened.
“Thank you very much, Miss Blenke,” he says, rising. “You’ve made an important contribution to our article. I’ll make certain the writer calls you to confirm the accuracy of your quotes.”
“You’re going so soon?” she says. “Leaving me all alone?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I gotta. What was that song you were humming?”
“Song? What song?”
“You were humming it while you were in the kitchen.”
“Oh, that … ‘It Had to Be You.’”
“Uh-huh,” he says. “Thanks. Nice meeting you, Miss Blenke.”
He figures it’s too late to go back to the office. And besides, what the hell would he do when he got there? So, sitting in his rented Escort, he pulls out his tattered list of names and addresses. David Dempster’s home is in the Murray Hill section, not out of his way. Cone drives south, planning to eyeball the place-just for the fun of it.
It turns out to be a limestone townhouse on East 38th between Park and Madison. A smart building, well maintained, with pots of ivy on windowsills and small ginkgo trees in tubs flanking the elegant entrance. The place looks like bucks, and the Wall Street dick guesses it went co-op years ago.
He double-parks across the street and dashes over, dodging oncoming cars. He scans the names on the bell plate. There it is: David Dempster, third floor. There are only five apartments in the building, all apparently floor- throughs and the top one probably a duplex. Nice. On the drive back to his loft, Cone spends the time stalled in traffic estimating what a floor-through in a Murray Hill townhouse might cost. Whatever, it wouldn’t much hurt a guy with a net worth of four mil.
He gets back to his own floor-through to find that Cleo has pawed open the cabinet under the sink, plucked out a plastic bottle of detergent and gnawed a hole in it. Then apparently the demented cat jumped up and down on the punctured bottle. The detergent is spread all over the linoleum. And the cat is sitting gravely in the midst of it, paws together and a “Who-me?” expression on its ugly mug.
“You dirty rat!” Cone yells, and Cleo darts under the bathtub.
It takes twenty minutes to clean up the mess. By this time, Cleo is giving him the seductive ankle-rub treatment along with piteous mews.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Cone says.
He’s in the kitchenette, opening a beer, when the wall phone jangles.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Mr. Timothy Cone?” A woman’s voice.
“That’s right.”
“Miss Bookerman calling. Just a moment, please, sir.”
Eve Bookerman comes on the line. “Hello!” she says breathlessly. “Forgive me for calling you at home, but I tried your office and you weren’t in. Mr. Haldering gave me your home phone number. I hope you aren’t angry.”
“Nah,” he says, “that’s okay.”
“I haven’t heard from you and wondered if you were making any progress on the industrial sabotage. Simon Trale told me about your suggestion that it might be a corporate raider. That was a brilliant idea. Brilliant!”
“Brilliant,” Cone says. “Except it was a dud.”
“But it shows you’re thinking imaginatively,” she says. “I like that. Do you have anything new to report?”
“Nope. More questions than answers. I think you and I better have another meet, Miss Bookerman.”
“I’m tied up most of tomorrow, but I’ll make time if it’s important.”
“I think it might be better if we talked outside your office.”
Long pause. Then: “Oh? Well, let’s see what we can arrange. I’m working late tonight, and then I’ve got a dinner appointment. I should be home by eleven o clock. Is that too late for you?”
“I’ll still be awake.”
She laughs gaily, but it sounds tinny. “You have my home address, don’t you? Suppose you come up here at eleven. I’ll tell the concierge you’re expected. Will it take long?”
“Probably not. Maybe a half-hour.”
“Splendid! See you tonight, Mr. Cone.”
He hangs up, stares at the dead phone a moment. He figures he’ll come down hard on her. She dresses for success; she can take it.
About a week ago he bought a corned beef that weighed almost five pounds. He spent an entire evening boiling it up, spooning off the scum and changing the water to get rid of the salt. While it was cooking, he dumped in more peppercorns, bay leaves, and garlic cloves-just as the butcher had instructed.
When he could dig a fork into it, he figured it was done. By that time the loft was filled with a savory fog, and Cleo was trying to claw up his leg to get at the stove top. Cone chilled the boiled beef for twenty-four hours, then he and the cat began to demolish it. The first night he had it with boiled potatoes, but after that he just had the meat and beer.
He’s eaten it every night for almost a week now, except for that one dinner at Sam’s, but there’s still some left. It’s getting a little green and iridescent around the edges, but it tastes okay. It’s not too tender, but he’s got strong teeth, and so does Cleo.
So that’s what the two have that night, finally finishing the beef, with enough crumbs left over to see the cat through the night.
After cleaning up, Cone lies down on his mattress.
“It’s called a nappy-poo,” he tells Cleo.
He dozes fitfully, wakes about nine-thirty. Then he showers and dons a clean T-shirt that’s been laundered so many times it’s like gray gauze. He straps on the ankle holster stuffed with the short-barreled S amp;W.357 Magnum and sallies forth.
Eve Bookerman lives in a high-rise near Sutton Place. Her building makes Dorothy Blenke’s look like a pup tent. It seems to soar into the clouds, all glass and stainless steel, and there’s a Henry Moore sculpture on a pedestal in front of the splendid entrance.
