Timothy's game

The concierge is wearing a claw-hammer coat, starched shirt, and white bow tie. He inspects the Wall Street dick and sniffs.

“May I be of service?” he says in a fluty voice.

“Timothy Cone to see Miss Eve Bookerman.”

The twit isn’t happy about it, but he makes the call, murmuring into the phone.

“You’re expected, sir,” he reports. “Apartment B as in Benjamin on the thirty-first floor.”

“Floor as in Frederick?” Cone says.

“Beg pardon, sir?”

But Timothy is heading toward the elevator bank, wading through a rug so thick and soft he’d like to strip bare-ass and roll around on it.

No music in the elevator this time, but a lingering scent of perfume. The high-speed lift goes so fast that Cone has a scary image of the damned thing bursting through the roof and taking off for the stars.

More plush carpeting in the thirty-first-floor corridor. The door to Apartment B as in Benjamin is open a few inches, and Eve Bookerman is peering out.

“Ah,” she says, “Mr. Cone. Do come in.”

She swings the door wide, he takes off his cap and follows her into a foyer about as big as his loft, with black and white tiles set in a diagonal checkerboard pattern. She leads him into a living room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the East River.

Some expensive decorator has done a bang-up job. The whole place is right out of Architectural Digest, and Cleo would have a ball destroying that collection of Steuben glass. It’s all so clean and polished that Cone wonders if he should remain standing.

“Nice place,” he offers.

“Thank you,” she says lightly. “I’ve come a long way from Bensonhurst. I’m having a cognac, Mr. Cone. Would you like one?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

She brings him a snifter and places the bottle on a Lucite table between two rocking chairs. They’re in one dim corner of a room that goes on forever. Noguchi lamps are lighted, but it would take a battery of TV floodlights to chase the shadows in that cavern.

She raises her glass. “To your health,” she says.

“And yours. How’s the ear?”

“My,” she says, “you do remember things. It’s much better, thank you.”

“Any news on who takes over as CEO?”

“No,” she says shortly. “The Board appointed a special subcommittee to come up with recommendations, but they haven’t reported yet.”

He looks at her closely. “Lots of luck,” he says.

She giggles like a schoolgirl. “I haven’t a prayer.”

“Sure you have,” he tells her. “You were the person closest to John Dempster, weren’t you?”

She stiffens. “What do you mean by that?”

“Listen, Miss Bookerman,” he says, “thanks for the brandy, but let’s not play games. Okay? I’ll ask you questions and you answer. If you don’t want to, that’s your choice. But it means I’ll have to get the answers from someone else. I’m hoping you’ll save me time.”

“I fail to see what my relationship to John Dempster has to do with your investigation of industrial sabotage.”

He sighs. “Look, you have your own way of working-right? And I have mine. You’ve got to give me wiggle room. All those attacks on Dempster-Torrey property-what do you want me to do: go to eighteen different places around the country and investigate cases that have already been tossed by the local cops and your own security people with no results? I’d just be spinning my wheels. Does that make sense to you?”

She nods dumbly, takes a sip of her cognac.

“So I figure the solution-if there is one-is right here in New York. I also think Dempster’s death is tied in with the assaults against your property. His murder was the final act of sabotage.”

“But why?” she cries. “For what reason?”

He shrugs. “My first idea about a corporate shark on the prowl got shot down, so now I’m looking for another motive. And all I’ve got to work with are the people involved-like you. That’s why I’m putting it to you straight: Did you have a thing going with Dempster?”

She raises her chin defiantly. “You really go for the jugular, don’t you? Incredible!”

“You going to answer my question or not?”

“Yes, I had a thing going with John J. Dempster-if that’s what you want to call it.”

“Okay,” he says mildly, “that clears the air a little. You knew he was a womanizer?”

She pokes fingers into her blond curls, then tugs them in a gesture of anger. “You have been busy, haven’t you? Of course I knew he played around. I worked closely with the man for years, and we had what you call a thing for the past three. He cheated on his wife from the moment he was married. But don’t get the wrong idea, Mr. Cone. My balling J.J. had nothing to do with my keeping my job or moving up at Dempster-Torrey. I happen to be damned good at what I do. Besides, that wasn’t the way Jack worked. If I had said no, I’d still be Chief Operating Officer because he knew I had earned the title. Also, he could have had any other woman he wanted-younger, prettier, skinnier than I.”

“You do all right,” he says, and she gives him a faint smile. “Tell me something, Miss Bookerman-and this is just curiosity-how come he was such a hotshot with the ladies? His money? Power?”

She shakes her head. “He could have been a cabdriver or a ditchdigger and he’d still be a winning stud. He had energy and drive and-and a forcefulness I’ve never seen in anyone before and will probably never see again. Physically he wasn’t all that handsome. I mean he was hardly a matinee idol. But when he zeroed in, I don’t think there’s a woman in the world who could have resisted him. And when he wanted to, he could be kind, considerate, generous, loving.”

Suddenly she begins weeping, tears spilling from those big, luminous eyes and down her cheeks. She makes no effort to wipe them away. She reaches out with a trembling hand to pour herself more cognac, but Cone takes the bottle, fills her glass, and helps himself to another belt.

“Sorry about that,” she says finally, taking a deep breath. “I thought I was all cried out, but I guess I wasn’t.”

“That’s okay,” he says. “You’re entitled.”

She sits back, takes a gulp of her drink. Tonight she’s wearing another suit: glossy black gabardine, with a pale pink man-tailored shirt and a ribboned bow at the neck. She looks weary, and there are lines in her face that Cone didn’t spot at their first meeting.

He wonders if she’s just a nice girl from Bensonhurst who’s suddenly found herself in over her head, her mentor gone, her lover dead, and a lot of business pressures she can’t handle. But her next comment disabuses him of that notion; she has spunk to spare.

“What the hell has J.J.’s sexual habits got to do with the sabotage and his murder?” she wants to know.

“Listen, I told you I had more questions than answers. When I work a case, I try to collect as much stuff as I can. Ninety percent of it turns out to be junk, but how do you know what’s meaningful when you start? So far you’ve been very cooperative, and I appreciate that. I hope you’ll keep it up. You’ve got a big stake in this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the one who hired Haldering and Company. If I can figure out who pulled the sabotage jobs, and maybe who iced your boss, you’ll get brownie points with the Board of Directors, won’t you? That should help if they’re considering you for the CEO job.”

She looks at him in amazement. “You’re something, you are,” she says. “You think of everything. Fantastic! Well, for your information, Mr. Cone, making CEO comes pretty far down on my anxiety list.”

“Uh-huh,” he says. “Now can we get back to the Q and A for a few more minutes?”

“Sure. Fire away.”

“You’ve met his brother, David Dempster?”

“I’ve met him.”