Timothy's game

Four

It rains hard that night, breaking the back of the heat wave. When Cone slogs down Broadway to work-only a half-hour late this time-the air is breathable and the sky is clear.

The new receptionist at Haldering amp; Co. hands him a telephone message on a pink slip: Call Simon Trale at Dempster-Torrey, Inc. Cone carries the message and his brown-bagged breakfast into his office. He has a chomp of buttered bialy and a gulp of black coffee before he phones Trale.

“Good morning, Mr. Cone.”

“’Morning. I hope you have good news.”

“Good news for us, but I’m afraid you will be disappointed. I spoke to a half-dozen of my most knowledgeable contacts. None has heard a word about anyone planning a raid on Dempster-Torrey. To be quite frank, they thought the idea implausible. The way we’re structured would make any pirate think twice before he made a run at us.”

“All right,” Cone says, “I’ll accept that. Thanks for your help, Mr. Trale. I’ll be in touch if I get another brainstorm.”

He hangs up, lights his third cigarette of the day, finishes his breakfast. So now he’s back to square one. That’s okay; he’s been there before.

But the big question remains: Who would benefit from the death of John J. Dempster? Could his wife have learned of his infidelities and hired a couple of punks to ace him? Unlikely. If she knew about his dedicated search for the perfect bang, she probably didn’t give a damn; she had her bonsai-and all the money in the world.

Ditto the underlings at Dempster-Torrey. They might think their boss was a double-dyed bastard, but they had high-paying jobs and weren’t about to scratch the fount from whom all blessings flowed. The one exception might be Eve Bookerman: an energetic and brainy lady who was sleeping with J.J. Maybe he threatened to dump her for a younger twist, or maybe she coveted his job. Either one would be motive enough for her to take out a contract on the Chairman and CEO.

A discharged or disgruntled employee? Another possibility. But as Brodsky said, that would narrow the list of suspects to ten thousand. Where do you start digging into something like that?

And then there’s David Dempster, that prig. But what reason could he have for putting his brother down? Unless he was hurting for cash and needed an inheritance.

At that moment, as if reading his mind, Sid Apicella comes into his office. He’s gripping a sheet of scratch paper.

“You and your lousy ‘one phone call,’” he says grumpily. “It took me four calls and almost half a day to get any info on David Dempster. How the hell do you get other people to do your job for you?”

“Boyish charm,” Cone says.

“You’ve got about as much charm as my wife’s old poodle-and that monster farts, has fleas, and a breath that would knock your socks off. Anyway, David Dempster Associates, Inc., is a legit outfit that’s been in business about twelve years. They do corporate publicity and public relations, and seem to be doing just great. Good cash flow and some heavy clients.”

“Bullshit!” the Wall Street dick says angrily. “I was up at their place, and it’s practically a hole-in-the-wall. Dempster’s private office is not much bigger than this latrine.”

“So? What do you need in the publicity business? A telephone and a lot of good contacts-right?”

“Maybe. But with all the high-powered PR outfits on the Street, I can’t see Dempster attracting any blue-chip clients. How much money they got?”

“The corporation? They keep a minimum hundred-thousand balance. When it gets over that, Dempster pays himself a bonus.”

“A sweet setup. And what’s he worth?”

“Personally?” the CPA says, consulting his notes. “About four mil, give or take. How does that grab you?”

“It doesn’t,” Cone says. “You just blew another of my half-assed ideas out of the water. The second time that’s happened in the last hour. What a great morning this is. But thanks anyway, Sid; that’s one I owe you.”

“One?” Apicella shouts, rubbing his rosy schnoz furiously. “You owe me so much I’ll never get even.”

He stomps out after tossing his scrawled notes onto the desk. Cone leans forward to read them, then sits back and lights another Camel. So David Dempster has a personal net worth of four million. That doesn’t sound like a man who’d have his brother chilled just to inherit a few more bucks-unless the guy is suffering from terminal greed.

But something smells. Cone well knows that public relations outfits deal with images and perceptions. It’s a way of life that carries over into the way the flacks do business: impressive offices, flashy secretaries, a hyperactive staff, and autographed photos on the walls of the boss posing with important people. Dempster has a telephone booth office, one pleasant but plain secretary, and a picture on the wall of his dead hound.

And from this mom-and-pop bodega the cash flow has enabled him to amass a fortune? That just doesn’t add up.

He chews it over for a while. Then, groaning, he gets to his feet and wanders down the corridor to the office of Fred Burgess, another Haldering amp; Co. investigator. Fred is on the phone, but when he sees Cone standing there, he motions him in, points to the armchair alongside his littered desk.

“Marcia,” he’s saying, “I’ve already apologized twice, but if you want, I’ll do it again. You’re the one who picked the Japanese restaurant. I’m not blaming you, but it was the combination of the sashimi and sake that did it. How the hell can you know how much you’re drinking when they serve it in thimbles? It didn’t hit me until we got up to your place. All that raw fish and rice wine. … Marcia, I’ve already explained I couldn’t make it to the bathroom. So your aquarium seemed the best bet. I know it killed all your guppies, but I’ll buy you more guppies. Marcia? Marcia?”

He replaces the phone. “She hung up,” he says gloomily.

“Have a pleasant evening?” Cone asks.

“Go to hell,” Burgess says. “It took me weeks to get this date. She’s gorgeous, got a great job on the Street, and beautiful digs up around Gramercy Park. I thought sure last night was going to be the night. Then I have to vomit into her goddamned fish tank and kill all her goddamned guppies. I guess I’m on her shit list now.”

“Good detecting,” Cone says. “Look, I didn’t come in here to discuss your love life. You still got that collection of business cards?”

Burgess, a youngish, fattish, liverish guy, stares at him suspiciously. “Yeah, I still got it. And I’m going to keep it.”

“One card,” Timothy says. “Just one. On loan.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“I’ll tell you how to bring Marcia around.”

“Deal. How do I do it?”

“Buy her the most expensive tropical fish you can afford. Something really exotic with big fins. Like a Veiltail Angelfish. Have it delivered to her apartment with a simple, heartfelt note like, ‘I’m sorry I puked in your aquarium.’”

“Yeah,” Fred says, “that might work. What do you need?”

“The business card of a writer.”

“Writers don’t have business cards. But I got one from a magazine editor. Will that do?”

“It’ll have to.”

Burgess pulls out a long file of business cards he’s collected over the years at cocktail parties, conventions, and press conferences. He thumbs through them, pulls one out, hands it over.

“Waldo Sperling,” Cone reads. “Feature Editor, Zebu Magazine. What the hell does Zebu mean?”

“If you did crossword puzzles, you’d know. It’s an Asian ox. But don’t worry about it; the magazine is out of business and it can mean anything you want it to.”

“Okay,” Cone says, rising, “I’ll give it a try. Do I look like a Waldo to you?”

“To me,” says Burgess, “you look like a schmuck.”

Cone goes back to his office and digs out the name, address, and phone number of David Dempster’s ex-wife. He dials and waits for nine rings before a woman’s voice comes on.

“H’lo?” she says sleepily.

“Am I speaking to Miss Dorothy Blenke, the former Mrs. David Dempster?”

“Yeah,” she says, “that’s right. What time is it?”

“Almost eleven-thirty, Miss Blenke.”

“Jesus! I got a lunch date at noon. Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Waldo Sperling, and I’m the Feature Editor of Zebu Magazine. We’re planning an article on the life of the late John J. Dempster, Chairman of the Board of Dempster-Torrey, and I’m trying to talk to as many people as possible who knew him.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You knew John Dempster, Miss Blenke?”

“Of course I knew him. Better than most.”

“All I ask is a few moments of your time. To get your personal reactions to the man. His good points and his bad points.”

“He didn’t have any,” she says.

“Didn’t have any what?”

“Good points.”

“Just a few moments at your convenience,” Cone urges. “If you don’t wish your name to appear in print, we’ll respect that. But we would prefer to use your name in the article and perhaps publish your photograph since you obviously represent a key source for our story.”

“Listen,” she says, “you got my address?”

“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 Magazine.”

“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 Zebu Magazine.” He proffers his business card, but she doesn’t even glance at it.

“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 on salary, for God’s sake. Hey, I like the way you dress. You just don’t give a damn-right?”

“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, Zebu Magazine is-”

“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 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.

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.”

“What’s your take?”

“A neuter.”

“How did John Dempster feel about him?”

“Ignored him. He thought David was a joke.”

“Did David try to get the Dempster-Torrey PR account?”

“My God, how have you found out these things? Yes, David made a pitch-but that was years ago. Jack turned him down, of course. We set up an in-house publicity and corporate advertising division, and it’s worked out very well.”

“So there was hostility between the brothers?”

“Not hostility. Just nothing.”

“I’ve talked to Dorothy Blenke, David’s ex-wife.”

“Have you? I’ve never met the lady.”

“I got the feeling-though she never said yes or no, either way-that maybe John Dempster had a fling with her while she was married to his brother. You know anything about that?”

Eve Bookerman struggles out of the armchair and stands stiffly erect. “Get out!” she yells at him.

“Okay,” Timothy says equably. He rises, reaches for his cap.

“No,” the woman says, holding up a palm. “Wait a minute. Sit down and finish your drink. I apologize.”

They both sit again, stare at each other warily.

“Maybe,” she says. “I don’t know for sure. But from little things Jack said, it could have been that way.”

“There are a lot of ‘coulds’ and ‘maybes’ in this file,” Cone says. “All right, let’s say John and Dorothy had an affair. That was before his thing with you-right?”

She nods.

“And maybe, just maybe, that affair led to David Dempster’s divorce. Do you think that’s possible?”

“Anything is possible,” she says.

“Thank you,” he says, “but I knew that when I was four years old.” He finishes his drink, rises, takes up his cap. “I appreciate your seeing me.”

“I talked too much,” she says dully.

“Nah,” Cone says. “You really didn’t tell me much I hadn’t already guessed. Besides, I’m not wired, so who’s to know what you did or didn’t say. Get a good night’s sleep, Miss Bookerman.”

“Fat chance,” she says bitterly.

Cone rides down in that same scented elevator, flips a hand at the tailcoated gink behind the desk, and exits into a night that’s all moon and grazing breeze. He feels loose and restless, and considers his options. He could go directly home. He could drop in at the nearest bar for a nightcap or two. He could call Samantha and see if she’s in the mood to entertain a visitor at that hour.

So fifteen minutes later he finds himself double-parked on East 38th Street, scoping the townhouse where David Dempster lives. The third-floor lights are on, front windows opened but screened. Cone can’t see anyone moving behind the gauzy curtains.

He sits there for almost a half-hour, smoking two cigarettes to make up for his abstinence in Bookerman’s apartment. Finally the third-floor lights go out. Now for the moment of truth: Did the guy sack out or is he planning an excursion? Cone waits patiently for another twenty minutes, but no one comes out of the townhouse.

“What the hell am I doing?” the Wall Street dick asks aloud, and then wonders if he’s losing his marbles because he hasn’t even got a cat there to listen to him.