Timothy's game

Three

A midsummer heat wave has Manhattan by the throat. The air is humid, so supersaturated that one drinks rather than breathes it. Clothing clings, feet swell, hair uncurls, and even paper money feels greasy, as if all those engraved presidents are sweating.

Cone shuffles slowly down to Cedar Street, carrying his cap and jacket. He tries to keep to the shady side of streets, but there’s no escape. It is the kind of day, as Sydney Smith said, that makes you want to take off your skin and walk around in your bones.

David Dempster Associates, Inc., is located in a building of stainless steel and tinted glass. The lobby is blessedly chilled by air conditioning turned down so low that sides of beef might be hung on the walls without fear of spoilage. Cone just stands there for almost five minutes until his blood stops bubbling. Then he consults the lobby directory and takes a high-speed elevator to the twenty-seventh floor, donning his jacket en route.

The anteroom is small: desk, typewriter on a stand, file cabinet, wastebasket, and a plump, hennaed secretary reading a copy of Elle. She looks up as Cone enters and gives him a saucy smile. “Hot enough for you?” she asks.

“It’s not the heat,” he says solemnly, “it’s the humidity.” And having completed the New York catechism, he gets down to business. “Timothy Cone from Haldering and Company to see Mr. Dempster. I have an appointment.”

“Sure,” she says blithely. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”

She pops through an inner door and is out again in a moment. “This way, please, Mr. Cone. Would you like to leave your cap out here?”

“Nah,” he says. “Someone might steal it.”

“I doubt that,” she says. “Very much.”

David Dempster’s office is large, but only in comparison to the reception room. Actually, it’s a modest chamber, skimpily furnished: executive-type desk with leatherbound accessories and two telephones, swivel chair and two armchairs, steel file cabinet and small bookcase. And that’s about it. The only wall decoration is a large color photograph of a golden retriever, with an award and blue ribbon affixed to the frame.

The man standing smiling behind the desk is tall and stalwart. He’s wearing a vested glen plaid tropical worsted, and the suit is snug across shoulders and chest. Cone figures that if he doesn’t pump iron, he does something equally disgusting-like exercise regularly. His handshake is a bonecrusher, as if he’s ready to arm wrestle right then and there.

But he’s affable enough: gets his visitor seated in one of the armchairs, holds a gold Dunhill to light Cone’s Camel and his own Benson amp; Hedges (filtered). He asks, with a boomy laugh, if it’s hot enough for Cone, and the Wall Street dick gives the proper reply. They’re like lodge brothers exchanging the secret code.

They settle back, sucking greedily on their cigarettes and regarding each other with cautious ease.

“Teresa informed me you were up to see her,” Dempster says. “She was quite embarrassed that she continued to address you as Mr. Timothy.”

“That’s okay. She said it wasn’t important, and it’s not.”

“What did you think of her?” the other man asks suddenly. “Tell me, what was your initial impression?”

Cone shrugs. “She’s different.”

Dempster smiles; more fangs than teeth. “Teresa is her own woman. Many people, meeting her for the first time, are put off by her manner. But I assure you, she is not as simple-minded as she might appear. When it is necessary, she can be quite practical and quick-witted. She has handled the tragedy of Jack’s death remarkably well.”

“He didn’t die,” Cone can’t resist saying, “he passed over.”

Dempster becomes serious. “Yes, well, that’s what she believes-sincerely believes. And it does no harm to anyone, does it?”

“Not a bit. I asked if her husband had any enemies, and she said no. Now I’ll ask you the same thing.”

“So have all the police and reporters,” Dempster says ruefully. “You must realize, Mr. Cone, that my sister-in-law was not totally aware of her husband’s business activities. Or even what Jack did for a living. Not that he ever attempted to conceal anything from her, but she simply wasn’t all that interested. She had her sons, her homes, her bonsai, and she was content. As for your question to me: Did Jack have any enemies? Of course he did. He was a ruthless and, at times I fear, a brutal CEO. He built an enormous conglomerate from a small machine shop in Quincy, Massachusetts. You don’t do that without making enemies along the way. But no one, to my knowledge, hated him enough to murder him. That is what I have told the police, and it is the truth as I know it.”

“Mr. Dempster, I’m not involved in the homicide investigation. I’m supposed to be looking into all the industrial accidents Dempster-Torrey has had lately. You know about those?”

“Vaguely. Jack mentioned them one night at dinner.”

“Any idea of who might be pulling that stuff?”

“Discharged or disgruntled employees would be my guess.”

Then they are silent. Cone lights another cigarette, but this time David Dempster takes a handsome silver-banded brier from his desk drawer and fills it from a silken pouch. He tamps the tobacco down slowly with a blunt forefinger. Then he lights the pipe carefully, using a wax match from a tiny box. He sits back, puffing contentedly.

Lord of the manor, Cone thinks. With a picture of his favorite hound on the wall.

Dempster has a big face, long and craggy. Big nose, big teeth, and biggest of all, a mustache trimmed in a guardsman’s style. It spreads squarely from cheek to cheek, brown with reddish glints. And he has a thick head of hair in the same hues, so bountiful that it makes Cone’s spiky crew cut look like a cactus. Dempster’s only small feature are his eyes; they’re dark aggies.

“What kind of a man was your brother?” Cone asks.

“You know, you’re the first investigator who’s asked me that. Odd, isn’t it? You’d think that would be the first thing the police would want to know. Well, Jack was an enormously driven man. With tremendous energy. And enough ambition for ten. Not for money or power, you understand. He had enough of both to last him two lifetimes. But Jack was a builder. He wanted Dempster-Torrey to become the biggest, richest international business entity in the world. He was intensely competitive. I think business was really a game to him. He played squash, golf, poker, and was a devil at three-cushion billiards. And he always played to win. He couldn’t endure losing.”

“Did he ever cut any corners to make sure he won?”

Dempster laughs, flashing the fangs again. “Of course he did! But he rarely got caught. And when he did, he would admit it, grin, and people would forgive him. Because he had so much charm. He was the most charming man I’ve ever known. And I’m not saying that just because he was my brother.”

“And his opponents in business deals-did they forgive him when he cut corners?”

“That I doubt. I told you he made enemies. But of course I can’t speak firsthand. I never had any business dealings with Jack. We went our separate ways.”

“What kind of business are you in, Mr. Dempster?”

“You didn’t know?” the other man says, surprised. “Corporate public relations. Not a great number of clients because I prefer to keep this a one-man operation. I am not an empire builder the way Jack was. None of my clients are what you might call giants of industry, but they stick with me and pay their bills promptly. That’s all I ask.”

“What sort of things do you do?” Cone asks. “Turn out press releases? Plant photos and bios of clients? Sit in on planning sessions for new products?”

“Ah,” Dempster says, relighting his pipe, “I see you know the business. Yes, I do all that, but I suppose my most important function is keeping my clients’ names out of the newspapers after they’ve pulled some exceptionally stupid stunt or gotten fouled up in their personal lives.”

“Yeah,” Cone says, “there’s a lot of that going around these days. How well did you and your brother get along?”

Dempster sets his pipe down carefully. “We weren’t as close as we might have been, I suppose. We had such a small family. Our parents are dead, and our few aunts, uncles, and cousins are all out in South Dakota. We should have been closer. And now Jack is gone. I’d say our relationship was cordial but cool. We didn’t socialize much. An occasional dinner when he could make it; he was an extremely busy man. And I’d spend a weekend up at their summer place now and then.”

“You ever do any public relations for Dempster-Torrey?”

“No, and I never made a pitch for that account. I didn’t want anyone accusing Jack of nepotism. And besides, Dempster-Torrey has a very effective in-house PR department. So it was better all around if I stayed away from my brother’s business.”

“Uh-huh,” Cone says. “Well, you promised to cooperate, and you have. Thanks for your time.”

“If there’s anything else I can do to help, don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

“I’ll do that. Nice dog you’ve got there.”

Dempster turns to stare at the picture on the wall. “Had,” he says in a stony voice. “He was hit and killed last year by a drunken driver who came over the curb while I was walking King along Central Park South.”

“Jesus,” Cone says, “that’s tough.”

“I dragged the guy out of his car,” David Dempster goes on, “and kicked the shit out of the bastard.”

Again that bonecrushing handshake, and Cone gets out of there. He goes down to the icy lobby, takes off his jacket, and steps out into the steam bath. The heat is a slap in the face, and he starts slogging back to John Street wondering if he’ll survive in the office where Haldering amp; Co. air conditioners, all antique window units, wheeze and clank, fighting a losing battle against the simmer.

He has an hour to kill before his appointment with Simon Trale, Chief Financial Officer of Dempster-Torrey, and he knows there are things he should be doing: checking with Davenport on the homicide investigation; goosing Sid Apicella to get skinny on the balance sheet of David Dempster Associates, Inc.; gathering evidence to back up his grand theory on who’s responsible for the campaign of sabotage.

He starts by reviewing his recent conversation with David Dempster. Timothy knows very well that he himself is a mess of prejudices. For instance, he’ll never believe a man who wears a pinkie ring, never lend money to anyone who claims to have finished reading Silas Marner, never letch after a woman who, on a bright day, wears sunglasses pushed up in her hair.

Silly bigotries, he acknowledges, and he’s got a lot of them. And the morning meeting with David Dempster has added a few more. The orotund voice and precise diction. The fanged smile with all the warmth of a wolf snarl. The showy way he loaded his pipe, as if he was filling a chalice with sacramental wine. Wearing a vest on the hottest day of the year and then festooning it with a heavy gold chain from which a Phi Beta Kappa key dangled.

All minor affectations, Cone admits, but revealing. The man comes perilously close to being a poof, or acting like one. Whatever he is, Cone suspects, there is not much to him. Beneath that confident, almost magisterial manner is a guy running scared. Prick him and he’ll deflate like a punctured bladder of hot air.

Except … Except … In David Dempster’s final words, regarding the drunken driver who killed his dog, he said in tones of uncontrolled savagery, “I kicked the shit out of the bastard.” That shocked Cone, not because of the act or the words describing it, but that it was so out of character for someone he had tagged as a wimp, and a pompous wimp at that.

It’s a puzzlement, and Timothy decides to put David Dempster on hold, not that the guy is obviously a wrongo, but only because no one else questioned up to now has given off such confusing vibes. Like all detectives, Cone tends to pigeonhole people. And when he can’t assign them to neat slots, his anxiety quotient rises.

The interview with Simon Trale is held in the offices of Dempster-Torrey on Wall Street. Trale elects to meet Cone in the boardroom, a cavernous chamber with a conference table long enough to sleep Paul Bunyan. It is surrounded by twenty black leather armchairs, precisely spaced. On the table in front of each chair is a water carafe, glass, pad of yellow legal paper, ballpoint pen, and ashtray-all embossed with the corporate insignia.

“I brought you in here,” Trale says in a high-pitched voice, “because it was swept electronically about an hour ago. The debuggers won’t get to my office until this afternoon, so I thought it would be safer if we talked in here.”

“Yeah,” Cone says, “that makes sense.”

He wonders if they’re going to sit at opposite ends of that stretched slab of polished walnut and shout at each other. But Trale pulls out two adjoining chairs along one side, and that’s where they park themselves.

The CFO is a short guy. In fact, Cone figures that if he was a few inches shorter he’d qualify as a midget. Usually a man so diminutive will buy his clothes in the boys’ section of a department store, but Trale’s duds are too well tailored for that. He’s wearing a dark blue pinstripe with unpadded shoulders and side vents. His shirt is sparkling white, and he sports a paisley bow tie. Small gold cuff links. A wide gold wedding band. A gold Rolex. Black tasseled loafers on his tiny feet.

He’s got a full head of snowy white hair neatly trimmed. The white hair is understandable because Timothy guesses that Simon Trale is pushing seventy, if he’s not already on the downslope. But his movements are sure, and that reedy voice has no quaver.

“Mind if I smoke?” Cone asks.

“Go right ahead,” Trale says. “The doc limits me to one cigar a day, but it tastes all the better for that.”

“When do you smoke it-at night after dinner?”

“No,” Trale says, smiling. “First thing in the morning. It gets the juices flowing.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how old are you?”

“I don’t mind. I’ll be seventy-three next year.”

“I should look as good next year as you do right now,” Cone says admiringly. “No aches or pains?”

“The usual,” the little man says, shrugging. “But I still got my own teeth, thank God. I use reading glasses, but my hearing is A-Okay.”

“How come you’re still working?” Cone asks curiously. “Doesn’t Dempster-Torrey have a mandatory retirement at sixty-five?”

“Sure we do. But Jack Dempster pushed a waiver through the Board of Directors allowing me to stay on. You know why he did that?”

“Because you’re such a hotshot financial officer?”

“No,” Trale says, laughing. “There’s a hundred younger men who could do my job. But my wife died nine years ago, and all my kids have married and moved away. I don’t play golf, and I’ve got no hobbies. Dempster-Torrey has been my whole life. Jack knew that, knew how lost I’d be without an office to come to and problems to solve. So he kept me on, bless him.”

“Very kind of him,” Cone says, looking down at the cigarette in his stained fingers. “But that doesn’t sound like the John J. Dempster I’ve been hearing about.”

“Oh, you’ll hear a lot of bad things about him,” Trale says cheerfully. “And most of them will be true. I’m not going to tell you he was a saint; he wasn’t. But do you know anyone who is?”

“I heard he was ruthless and brutal in his business dealings.”

The CFO frowns. “Ruthless and brutal? Well … maybe. But when you’re wheeling and dealing on the scale that Dempster was, you can’t afford to play pattycake. He was hard when he had to be hard.”

“So he made enemies along the way?”

“Sure he did. The police asked me to make out a list. I told them it wouldn’t be a list, it would be a book!”

He smiles at the recollection. He has the complexion of a healthy baby, and his mild blue eyes look out at the world with wonder and amusement. Small pink ears are set flat to his skull, and his lips are so red they might be rouged. It is a doll’s head, finely molded porcelain, with every detail from black lashes to dimpled chin painted just so.

“How long have you been with Dempster-Torrey, Mr. Trale?”

“From the beginning. I was the bookkeeper with the Torrey Machine Works up in Quincy, Massachusetts, when John Dempster came to work for us as sales manager. Within a year he had doubled our revenues. And a year after that he married Teresa Torrey and was made vice president.”

“Oh-ho,” Cone says, lighting another Camel. “He married the boss’s daughter, did he?”

“He did. But he’d have been made vice president even if he hadn’t. Sanford Torrey knew what a wizard he had in J.J. Also, Sanford and his wife were worried about their daughter. She had plenty of beaux, but they didn’t stay around long. Have you met Teresa?”

“Yeah, I met her.”

“And what do you think?”

“Off the wall.”

“Yes,” Trale says sorrowfully, “that’s what other young men thought-but John Dempster saw something in her. She’s really a dear, loving woman, Mr. Cone. When my wife was ill, she couldn’t do enough for us. I’ll be eternally grateful. John saw that side of her-the warm affection, the innocent openness. Yes, he married the boss’s daughter, but there was more to it than that. I may be a foolish old romantic, but I’ve always thought that he loved her and married her for the qualities he knew he himself lacked: sympathy, sweet naivete, absolute honesty.”

“But it was also a financial leg up for him.”

“Of course. A year after the marriage, the company became Dempster-Torrey-notice that his name came first! — and he started his campaign of acquisitions and mergers, diversifying into areas that had nothing to do with our original business. I went along for the ride, and what a ride it turned out to be!”

“How did this Sanford Torrey like what Dempster was doing?”

“He and his wife were killed in a plane crash a few years after John Dempster began putting the conglomerate together. It turned out that Sanford had left everything he owned, including a majority interest in Dempster-Torrey, to Teresa. But I guess he had some reservations about John Dempster, because he tied up his daughter’s inheritance in a trust fund that J.J. couldn’t touch. But he didn’t have to be afraid of Teresa being left destitute. John took the company public, and it tripled the value of the trust. Provision has been made for the three sons, but she is still a very, very wealthy woman.”

Cone stirs restlessly. “This is all interesting, Mr. Trale. Good background stuff. But it really doesn’t cut any mustard with what I’m supposed to be doing-finding out who’s behind the eighteen cases of industrial sabotage to Dempster-Torrey plants and equipment.”

Unexpectedly, Trale smiles. “Those accidents,” he says, “they infuriated J.J., but I never could see that they were such a big deal. Every large corporation suffers the same outrages occasionally. But John thought there was a plot against us.”

“You don’t think so?”

“It’s possible, but I doubt it. Insurance covered most of our losses, and they never affected our basic financial structure.”

“Did your common stock drop after each of the incidents?”

“Oh, sure. But it came right back up again.”

“And what’s happened to the stock since Dempster’s murder?”

The little man pulls a face. “Not good,” he says. “I estimate the total value of our common stock has dropped about thirty percent since his death.”

“Still falling?”

“It seems to have stabilized the last few days. Wall Street is waiting to see who’ll be named the new CEO.”

Timothy punches out his cigarette and takes a deep breath. “Mr. Trale, I’m going to throw a wild idea at you. It’s something I’ve been kicking around ever since I was handed this file. I gotta tell you, I haven’t got any hard evidence. But you have a helluva lot more business savvy than I do, so I’d like to get your reaction.”

“All right,” the CFO says mildly, “let’s hear your idea.”

“Suppose, just suppose, some corporate raider wants to make a move on Dempster-Torrey. He’s got to-”

“Whoa!” Trale protests, putting up a white palm. “Hold your horses. You’re talking about a takeover of almost three billion dollars. That’s billion, with a capital B.”

“I know that,” Cone says patiently. “And I could name you a dozen pirates-American, English, Australian-who could raise that kind of loot. What if some takeover bandit gets the bright idea that he can force down the price of Dempster-Torrey stock and cut the cost of the raid? So before he starts buying, he engineers a program of industrial sabotage, figuring that he’s saving money every time Dempster-Torrey stock dips even a point.”

“Assuming what you say is true, it didn’t work. As I told you, Mr. Cone, the price of the stock didn’t decline that much following the incidents, and it came right back up again.”

The Wall Street dick stares at him.

Simon Trale returns the stare, then begins biting at his thumbnail. “I see what you’re getting at,” he says, his voice suddenly bleak. “The acts of sabotage didn’t have the desired effect, so the corporate raider, if he exists, murdered John J. Dempster.”

“Had him murdered. I know a little about violent crime, Mr. Trale, and Dempster’s death had all the earmarks of a contract kill. Two wackos on a motorcycle with a submachine gun. They were hired hands. And it worked. You just told me the total value of Dempster-Torrey common stock has dropped about thirty percent. What a bonanza for some bandido who’s after your company.”

“Wait a minute,” Trale says, visibly upset. “First of all, about two years ago we restructured the corporation to make a takeover extremely difficult and expensive. Since then I’ve heard absolutely nothing about anyone making a move on us.”

“The wife is always the last to know,” Cone says, but the other man ignores that.

“Second, if anyone has accumulated even five percent of Dempster-Torrey stock, he’d have to file with the SEC informing them of the purchase and stating his intentions.”

Cone pauses to light another cigarette. “Come on, Mr. Trale,” he says, “you know better than that. Let’s say four rich outlaws are sitting around a ginmill somewhere, having a few snorts, and one of them says, ‘Hey, what say we put the XYZ Corporation into play.’ So they all agree to have a fling. Each man will pick up four percent of XYZ’s stock, so no SEC statement has to be filed-correct? But between them they’ll be holding sixteen percent. In addition to that, they’ll tip off some friendly arbitrageurs to start buying XYZ. And all this time they’re trading as individuals. There’s nothing on paper to show they’re working in cahoots. That’ll come later when they figure they’ve got the muscle to make their move. Then it’s goodbye XYZ.”

“A very imaginative scenario, Mr. Cone,” the CFO says worriedly.

“But possible-isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s possible.”

“Damned right. It’s been done before and it’ll be done again.”

“And you think that is what’s happening to Dempster-Torrey?”

“I don’t know,” Cone says. “I told you it’s just a theory. But I can’t spot any holes in it-can you?”

“I just can’t believe that any corporate raider would murder Dempster just to inflate his profits.”

“You can’t believe it because you’re a moral man with no more than a normal share of greed. But believe me, there are guys on the Street who’ll run a bulldozer over their grandma to make a buck.”

Trale is silent. Suddenly he looks even smaller, shrunken and defeated. “Maybe I should retire,” he says in a low voice. “Jack Dempster played rough, and I went along with him. That was business. But murder? Never! I get the feeling that the world has passed me by. I don’t recognize it anymore. I’ve become obsolete.”

“Nah,” Timothy says, reaching out to pat the little man’s shoulder. “You’re not obsolete, and you’re not going to resign. I need your help.”

“Yes?” Trale says, looking up. “What can I do?”

“You have contacts on Wall Street?”

“Of course. A lot of them. … Oh, I understand. You want me to find out if there are any rumors about an attempted takeover of Dempster-Torrey.”

“Right,” Cone says approvingly. “I’ve got a few snitches myself, but nothing like what a man in your position must have.”

It buoys Trale, and he straightens up in his chair, squares his shoulders. “Yes,” he says, “I can do that. I have a number of chits out on the Street, and I’ll call them in.”

“Just what I was hoping you’d say. How long do you think it’ll take?”

“Not long. Probably by tomorrow.”

“Good enough. You’ll let me know?”

“Of course. As soon as I have anything definite-for or against.”

“Thanks,” Cone says. “Now I’ve got a couple of more short questions and then I’ll let you off the hook. You told me that John Dempster loved his wife, and I accept that. As a matter of fact, Teresa told me they had a happy marriage. But I also heard that he was playing around.”

“What does that have to do with industrial sabotage?”

“Probably nothing,” Cone admits. “But I just like to know as much as I can about the people involved. Was John Dempster a tomcat, Mr. Trale?” And then, knowing when to lie, Timothy adds, “Several people have told me he was.”

“What people told you that?”

Cone sighs. “You’re stalling, Mr. Trale. If you don’t want to answer, tell me and I’ll accept it. And go on believing what I’ve heard.”

The CFO hesitates a long moment. “It can do no harm now,” he says finally. “And besides, too many people know to try to keep it a secret. It’s true, Mr. Cone: Dempster was a womanizer. It was almost a carryover from his business methods. When he saw something he wanted, he went after it, regardless of the cost, the risk, or how long it might take. He was that way in his pursuit of women as well. But he always went back to Teresa. I know that for a fact.”

“Uh-huh,” Cone says, figuring the Security Chief, Theodore Brodsky, was probably right on the button when he implied Dempster and Eve Bookerman were having an affair. “Thanks for the talk; it’s been a help. I’ll wait for your call on takeover rumors.”

They rise, shake hands, start out. But Timothy pauses at the door. “One final question, Mr. Trale: Do you know David Dempster?”

“I’ve met him,” the other man says.

“Do you happen to know if he’s married?”

“Divorced. About five years ago, as I recall.”

“Has he remarried?”

“I don’t know. Why are you interested in David Dempster?”

“I’m trying to figure out the guy,” Cone says, leaving the Chief Financial Officer to wonder what that meant.

He slouches into Samantha Whatley’s office, and she looks up.

“I’m busy,” she says.

“So am I,” he says. “Puddling around in this heat, doing God’s work. I need a couple of things.”

She tosses her pen onto the desk and sighs. “Make it short and sweet.”

“That’s not what you said the other night.”

She looks around nervously. “Keep your voice down.” She still believes their co-workers are unaware of their relationship, but he thinks a few of the other dicks guess what’s going on.

“I need a rental car,” he says. “This Dempster-Torrey thing is spreading out, and I’ve got to get around. Tell H.H. the client will okay the expense.”

“How do you know-did you ask them?”

“No, I didn’t ask them. Come on, don’t bust my balls, just get me some wheels.”

“I’ll try. That’s it?”

“No, that isn’t it. I want you to pull a telephone scam for me. I’d do it myself, but it needs a woman’s voice.”

“I don’t know,” she says doubtfully. “Is it important?”

“It’s not my main lead, it’s sort of a fallback position. You know what that is, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she says in a low voice. “I fall back and you jump my bones. All right, what’s the scoop?”

He explains: She is to call the office of David Dempster Associates, Inc., and speak only to the secretary. If Dempster answers, hang up. She is to tell the secretary that she’s an old friend of Mrs. Dempster but hasn’t seen her for years. Now she’s in town for a few days and would love to chat with her old school chum. But she understands Mrs. Dempster has been divorced, and she doesn’t have her new address and phone number or even the last name she’s using now. Could the secretary help her out?”

“What’s Mrs. Dempster’s first name?” Sam asks.

“Don’t know.”

“Shithead!” she says wrathfully. “How can I claim to be the woman’s old school chum if I don’t know her first name?”

“You can finagle it. At least it’s worth a try.”

He gives her the number and she dials.

“Hello, there!” she carols. “Is this the office of David Dempster? Well, my name is Irma Plotnick, and I’m an old friend of Mrs. Dempster-school pals, you know. I’m in town for a few days-South Bend, Indiana, is my home-and I was hoping to get together with Mrs. Dempster. Well, a mutual friend tells me she’s divorced now. I tried her at the number I have for her, but she’s no longer there. So I guess she didn’t get the apartment as part of the settlement-right, dear? Well, goodness, I don’t even know what name she’s using now, let alone where she’s living. Anyway, dear, I was hoping you’d be able to give me the name she’s using, her address-and the phone number if you have it. I so want to get together with her and talk about old times. … You do? Oh, that’s great! Now just wait half-a-mo until I get a pen. All right, I’m all set now. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I’ve got it. Thank you so much, dear. You’ve been a love and I’ll certainly tell her when I see her. ’Bye now!”

Whatley hangs up and skids the scratch paper she’s been scribbling on across the desk. “Name, address, and phone number,” she says triumphantly. “How did you like that performance?”

“Not bad,” Cone says grudgingly. “But long-winded. When you’re pulling a telephone con, keep it as brief as you can. The best lies are short ones.”

“I should have known better than to expect thanks from you,” Sam says. “Now take off and let me get some work done.”

“One final question that’s been bothering me,” he says. “If a guy who plays around a lot is called a womanizer, what do you call a woman who does the same thing-a manizer?”

Sam points at the door. “Out!” she says.