Timothy's game

is feeling no pain.

Claire leads Cone down to one end, away from the other guests. They stand at the railing, looking down into a paved and poky courtyard. They’d have been wiser to look up at a cloudless sky made luminous by moonlight. It’s a soothing night with a blessed breeze and the warm promise of a glorious day to come.

“Did you see Edward?” she asks in a low voice. “The man is drunk.”

“Nah,” Cone says. “Just a little plotched. He’s navigating okay.”

“You don’t think he’ll make a scene, do you?”

“I doubt it.”

“My husband worked so hard to make this party a success. I’d hate to have it spoiled.”

“It is a success,” he assures her, “and nothing’s going to spoil it.”

She is silent, still gripping his arm. He is conscious of her softness, her warmth. And her scent. It is something tangy, and he has a terrible desire to sneeze.

She is a lofty woman; in her high heels she is as tall as he. She stands erectly, and he wonders if that’s her natural posture or if she’s just trying to keep her strapless bodice secure. The moonlight paints a pale, silvery sheen on her bare shoulders, and her long, slender arms are as smooth and rounded as if they had been squeezed from tubes. The wheaten hair is braided and up in a coil.

“He hates me,” she says quietly. “Edward. I know he does.”

Cone doesn’t like this. He’s a shamus and doesn’t do windows or give advice to the lovelorn.

“He’s an awful, awful man,” Claire Lee goes on, “but I can understand the way he feels. I’m so much younger than Chin. I’m even younger than Edward. Naturally he thinks I’m a gold digger. But I happen to love my husband, Mr. Cone; I swear I do.”

“Yeah,” he says, acutely uncomfortable.

She takes her arm from under his and turns suddenly to face him. He is proud that he can return her stare and not let his eyeballs drift downward into the valley of the damned.

“You’re a detective, aren’t you?” she asks, her voice still low but steady and determined.

“Well, my boss calls us investigators. Most of our work is financial stuff. Wall Street shenanigans. I mean, we don’t handle burglaries or homicides or crimes like that-”

“But you know about them, don’t you?”

“Some,” he says, totally confused now and waiting to hear what she’s getting at.

“Listen,” she says, “I need your advice.”

“Not me,” he says hastily. “If it’s something personal, I’m just not qualified. Sorry.”

She turns away to peer down into the concrete courtyard again.

“I’ve got no one else I can talk to,” she says.

“No one? What about your husband?”

“No.”

“A girlfriend? Family?”

“No one,” she repeats.

The wine-colored velvet gown has no back. He can see gently fleshed shoulders, the soft channel of her spine. His weakness makes him angry.

“Just what the hell are you talking about?” he says roughly, then finishes his drink and puts the empty snifter in his pocket.

“I need help,” she says, turning her head toward him, the big baby-blues widened and softened with appeal.

He realizes it’s a practiced come-on, but he can no more resist it than he could resist that final double cognac.

“What’s the problem?” he says in a croaky voice.

“I can’t talk about it now,” she says, speaking more rapidly. “Not here. You know Restaurant Row?”

“Forty-sixth Street between Eighth and Ninth? Yeah, I know it. Some good take-out joints.”

“There’s an Italian place called Carpacchio’s on the north side of the street, middle of the block. They’ve got a small bar in the back. It can’t be seen from the street. Can you meet me there at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon? The lunch crowd will have cleared out by then.”

So she had it all planned, he reflects mournfully, and knew I’d jump. Sucker!

“Sure,” he says, “I could do that. Carpacchio’s at three tomorrow. I’ll be there.”

“Oh, thank you,” she says breathlessly. “Thank you so much.” She leans forward to kiss his cheek fleetingly. “You stay here a minute; I’ll go in alone.”

“Yeah,” he says, “you do that.”

He waits a few moments after she’s gone, then leaves the Lees’ apartment without saying goodnight to the host.

On the drive back home, he tries to con himself by reasoning that all he’s doing is helping a damsel in distress. But that won’t wash. He wonders if he would have agreed to the meet if Claire was ugly as a toad and caused warts. He knows the answer to that one.

Then he figures that it’s possible that whatever her problem is, it just might have something to do with what he’s supposed to be investigating: the run-up in the price of White Lotus stock. There’s no way he can deny that possibility and no way he can confirm it except by appearing at Carpacchio’s at three o’clock tomorrow.

Feeling better about his decision, telling himself it’s all business, just business, he climbs the six floors to his loft to find Cleo in an agony of hunger. When he pulls the napkin-wrapped package from his pocket and opens it, the demented animal, sniffing the odors, begins leaping wildly at him, pawing his legs.

Cone tears off bite-sized pieces of beef, ham, and sturgeon and puts them in the cat’s dish, a chipped ashtray. Cleo starts gobbling, then stops a moment in the ingestion of these rare delicacies to look up at him in astonishment, as if to say, “How long has this been going on?”

He pulls the empty snifter from his other pocket and pours himself a jolt of harsh Italian brandy for a nightcap. He sucks on it slowly, sitting at his table, feet up, trying to imagine what the lady could want. He thinks about possible motives for a long time, and then realizes his primal urge has cooled.

There’s something more, or less, to Claire Lee than a goddess. She was rehearsed and knowing. Very sure of her physical weapons and how to use them. Nothing wrong with that except his vision of her is shattered. But it’s not the first time his hot dreams have been chilled. He can endure it.

But what, in God’s name, could Claire Lee want? Considering that, he looks down to see Cleo crouched at the table. The cat’s dish is empty, and the ravenous beast, mouth slightly open, is staring at him with a feral grin that seems to be saying, “More, more, more!”

Three

He spends the morning at the office, groaning over the composition of the weekly progress report that each of the five Haldering amp; Co. investigators is required to submit. With Samantha on vacation, the reports will go to Hiram Haldering himself, known to his employees as the Abominable Abdomen.

Cone composes what he considers a masterpiece of obfuscation. It hints, it implies, it suggests, and is such an incomprehensible mishmash that he figures it’ll send Hiram right up the wall. The report ends: “Will the White Lotus investigation be brought to a successful conclusion? Only time will tell.”

Satisfied with his literary creation, he tosses it onto the receptionist’s desk and flees the office. He stops at a nearby umbrella stand for a Coney Island red-hot with mustard, onions, and piccalilli, washed down with cherry cola. Eructing slightly, he pokes back to his loft. But instead of going up, he finds his Ford Escort, unticketed and with hubcaps intact, and drives uptown.

Parking anywhere near the Times Square area is murder, and he has to go over to 44th Street and Tenth Avenue before he discovers an empty slot. He walks back to Restaurant Row, pausing en route to buy a lemon ice from a sidewalk vendor and watch the action at a three-card monte game. The dealer is really slick, and Cone, making mental bets, loses fifty imaginary dollars.

He gets to Carpacchio’s on West 46th Street about twenty minutes early, figuring it’ll give him a chance to