Timothy's game

Two

He wakes in a grumpy mood, hauls himself off the mattress, lights his first cigarette of the new day. He goes growling around the loft, washing and shaving, drinking black coffee and then adding a smidgen of brandy just to get his eyelids up.

“So I tell him a good customer has been scragged,” he says to Cleo, who is working on a breakfast of leftover chicken chow mein. “And he says, “The bastards, the rotten bastards.’ So I ask him who the bastards are, and he says he meant the guy who popped Chen Chang Wang. Now I ask you, does that make sense? Of course it doesn’t. So he was lying. But why? No skin off my ass. I couldn’t care less who ventilated Mr. Wang. Cleo, you dirty rat, are you listening?”

It’s a peppy August day, which does nothing for his crusty mood. So the sun is shining. Big deal. That’s what it’s getting paid for, isn’t it? And that mild azure sky with fat little puffs of clouds-it all looks like a sappy postcard. “Having fine time, wish you were here.” And when the hell was Samantha coming home?

There’s a guy waiting for him in the Haldering reception room. He looks short and squat sitting down, but when he stands up, he’s lean and mean, only an inch or two shorter than Cone. He’s Chinese, with black hair cut en brosse, and he’s got a mouthful of too many white teeth.

“Mr. Timothy Cone?”

“That’s right. Who you?”

The gink hands him a business card, and the Wall Street dick reads it aloud: “Johnnie Wong. Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Cone inspects the card, feeling it between thumb and forefinger. “Very nice. Good engraving. You mind showing me your potsy?”

“Not at all.” Wong whips out his ID wallet and displays it.

“Uh-huh,” Cone says. “Looks legit. What’s with the Johnnie? Why not just plain John?”

“Take it up with my mom and pop,” the FBI man says. “I’ve been suffering from that all my life. The Wong I can live with, but please don’t tell me ‘Fifty million Chinese can’t be Wong.’”

“I wasn’t going to,” Timothy says-but he was. “You want to palaver, I suppose. This way.”

Johnnie Wong follows Cone back to his weeny office and looks around. “I like it,” he says. “It’s got that certain nothing.”

“Yeah,” Cone says, and holds up the brown paper bag he’s carrying. “My breakfast: coffee and bagel. You want something? I’ll call down for you.”

“No, thanks,” Wong says, “I’ve had mine. You go ahead.”

Cone lights a Camel, starts on the container of black coffee, the bagel with a schmear. “So?” he says to the other man. “How come the FBI is parked on my doorstep?”

“You were in Ah Sing’s Bar and Grill on Pell Street when the owner, Chen Chang Wang, was killed.”

“Oh-ho,” Cone says, “so that’s it. Yeah, I was there. But how come you guys are interested? I should think it was something for the locals to handle.”

“We’re working with the NYPD on this,” Wong says. “That’s how I got your name. Would you mind telling me what you were doing there?”

“Yeah, I’d mind. There’s such a thing as client confidentiality.”

“Sure,” the FBI man says. “And there’s such a thing as obstruction of justice.”

The two men stare at each other a moment. Johnnie Wong is a jaunty guy with eyebrows like mustaches. He’s a little chubby in the face, but there’s no fat on his frame; he looks hard and taut. He grins a lot, flashing all those Chiclets, but it’s tough to tell if it’s genuine merriment or a grimace of pain.

“Tell you what,” Cone says, “you tell me why the FBI is interested in Wang’s murder, and I’ll tell you what I was doing there.”

Wong considers that a moment. “Fair enough,” he says finally. “But I trade last.”

It’s Cone’s turn to ponder. “Okay,” he says, “I’ll deal. I was with Edward Tung Lee, the chief operating officer of White Lotus. You’ve heard of them?”

Wong nods.

“Haldering and Company was hired by White Lotus to find out why the price of their stock has shot up in the last six months. That’s what Edward Lee and I were talking about.”

“Interesting,” the FBI man says, “but not very.”

“Now it’s your turn.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I got nothing better to do than listen,” Cone says.

“All right then, listen to this: Since 1970 the number of Chinese immigrants in this country has almost doubled. I’m talking about people from Taiwan, mainland China, and Hong Kong. Add to those the immigrants from Macao, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand, and you’ll see there’s a helluva lot of Asians here. Ninety-nine percent of the come-ins are law-abiding schnooks who just want to be left alone so they can hustle a buck. The other one percent are dyed-in-the-wool gonnifs.”

“And that’s where you come in,” Cone says.

“You got it. I’m a slant-eye, so the Bureau assigned me and a lot of other Oriental agents to keep tabs on the Yellow Peril. What’s happened is this: In the past few years the Italian Mafia has taken its lumps. The older guys, the dons and godfathers, are mostly dead or in the clink. The new recruits from Sicily are zips, and the guys running the Families today just don’t have the clout and know-how. There’s been a vacuum in organized crime. Or was until the Asian gangs moved in. The biggest is United Bamboo. They’re mostly from Taiwan but have links with the Yakusa, the Japanese thugs. Their main competitor, not as big but growing fast, is the Giant Panda mob, mostly from mainland China and Hong Kong.”

“United Bamboo and Giant Panda,” Cone repeats. “Nicer names than La Cosa Nostra. What are these bad boys into?”

“You name it,” Wong says. “United Bamboo is in the heroin trade because they’ve got good contacts in the Golden Triangle. Now they’re making deals with the Colombians and pushing cocaine. They also own a string of prostitution rings around the country, mostly staffed by Taiwanese women. Giant Panda does some dope dealing-a lot of marijuana-but most of their money comes from shakedowns: a classic protection racket aimed at Chinese restaurants, laundries, and groceries. Lately they’ve been trying to take over legitimate businesses.”

“Any homicides?” Cone asks.

“Hell, yes! Practically all United Bamboo or Giant Panda soldiers. But a lot of innocents, too. People who refused to pay baksheesh or just had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyway, the reason I’m telling you all this is because Chen Chang Wang, the guy who got chilled yesterday, was an officer in Giant Panda. Not the top general of the New York organization, but a colonel.”

“So that’s it. You’ve had your eye on him?”

“Not a tail-we don’t have the manpower for that. Just loose surveillance.”

“And you think it was United Bamboo who knocked him off?”

“It had all the earmarks of a United Bamboo kill. They use very young punks-guys in their teens-and give them stolen U.S. Army forty-five automatic pistols. They just squat, close their eyes, and blast away. They’ve got to hit something. Then they take off, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a car or on a motorcycle. Get this: Last month there was a murder in Seattle’s Chinatown, and the killers made their getaway on bicycles! How does that grab you?”

“Beautiful,” Cone says. “So there’s no love lost between the two gangs?”

“None whatsoever,” Johnnie Wong says with his glittery grin. “They’re competing for the same turf. Each wants to take over when the Mafia goes down. Listen, they’ve got more than a million Asian immigrants to diddle. That can mean a lot of loot.”

“No difference between the two?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Wong says cautiously. “First of all, United Bamboo speaks mostly the Cantonese dialect while Giant Panda is mostly Mandarin.”

“Which do you speak?” Cone asks him.

“Both,” the FBI man says, and the Wall Street dick decides his grin is the real thing. Here’s a guy who gets a laugh out of the world’s madness.

“Also,” Wong goes on, “United Bamboo are the heavies. I mean they’re really vicious scuts. Burn a guy with a propane torch before they chop off his head. Or take out a victim’s family in front of his eyes before they off him. The old Mafia would never touch a target’s family-I’ll say that for them. But United Bamboo will.”

“Like Colombian coke dealers?” Cone suggests.

“Yeah, those guys are savages, too. But the Giant Panda mob is softer. Not saints, you understand. They kill, but it’s all business with them. They’re putting a lot of their young guys in banks and brokerage houses on Wall Street. Listen, all this bullshit is getting me nowhere. Isn’t there anything else you can tell me about your meeting with your client in Ah Sing’s?”

“Not a thing,” Cone says. “He was talking with Chen Chang Wang when I got there. Then he left Wang in a booth, came over and joined me at the bar. In a little while, Wang walked by, smiled and waved at us, went out-and that’s when the fireworks started.”

“And that’s all you can tell me?”

“That’s all.”

Johnnie Wong looks at him closely. “You wouldn’t be holding out on me, would you?”

“Why would I do that?” Cone says. “I know from nothing about United Bamboo and Giant Panda and who blasted the late Mr. Wang.”

“Uh-huh,” the FBI man says. “Well, I’ll take your word for it-for now. I checked you out before I came over. You add up: the tours in Vietnam, the medals, and all that. Where are the medals now?”

“I hocked them,” Timothy says.

Wong flashes his choppers again. “Keep in touch, old buddy,” he says. “We haven’t got all that many warm bodies assigned to Asian gangs in the New York area, and I have an antsy feeling that something is going down I should know about and don’t. So consider yourself a deputy. If you pick up anything, give me a call. You have my card.”

“Sure,” Cone says, “I’ll be in touch. And you’ve got my number here.”

“I do,” Johnnie Wong says, rising. “And I’ve also got your unlisted home phone number.”

“You would,” Timothy says admiringly. “You don’t let any grass grow under your feet, do you? We can work together.”

“Can we?” Wong says, staring at him. “You ever hear the ancient Chinese proverb: A freint darf men zich koifen; sonem krigt men umzist. A friend you have to buy; enemies you get for nothing.”

“Yeah,” Cone says.

After the FBI man leaves, Cone flips through the morning’s Wall Street Journal. Then he lights another cigarette, leans back, clasps his hands behind his head. He knows he should be thinking-but about what? All he’s got is odds and ends, and at the moment everything adds up to zilch. No use trying to create a scenario; he just doesn’t have enough poop to make a plot.

So he calls Mr. Chin Tung Lee on that direct number at White Lotus. The Chairman and CEO picks up after one ring.

“Yes?” he says.

“Mr. Lee, this is Timothy Cone at Haldering.”

“Ah, my young friend. And how is your health today?”

“Fine, thanks,” Cone says, willing to go through the ceremony with this nice old man. “And yours, sir?”

“I am surviving, thank you. Each day is a blessing.”

“Uh-huh. Mr. Lee, the reason I’m calling is that I’d like to get hold of a list of your shareholders and also a copy of your most recent annual report. Is that all right with you?”

“Of course. I’ll have a package prepared for you.”

“If you could leave it at the receptionist’s desk, I could pick it up without bothering you.”

“Oh, no,” Chin Tung Lee says. “I will be delighted to see you. And there is something I wish to ask you.”

“Okay,” Cone says. “I’ll be there in an hour or so.”

He wanders down the corridor to the office of Louis Kiernan, a paralegal in the attorneys’ section of Haldering amp; Co. Cone prefers bracing Kiernan because the full-fledged lawyers give him such a load of gobbledygook that he leaves them with his eyes glazed over.

“Lou,” he says, lounging in the doorway of the cubby, “I need some hotshot legal skinny so gimme a minute, will you?”

Kiernan looks up from his typewriter and peers at Cone over his wire-rimmed reading glasses. “A minute?” he says. “You sure?”

“Maybe two. There’s this rich old geezer whose first wife has died. Now he’s married to a beautiful young knish. He’s also got a son by his first wife who’s older than his second wife-dig? Now my question: If the codger croaks, who inherits?”

“The wife,” Lou says promptly. “At least half, even if the deceased leaves no will. The son would probably be entitled to a third. But listen, Tim, when you get into inheritance law you’re opening a can of worms. Anyone, with good cause, can sue to break a will.”

“But all things being equal, you figure the second wife for at least fifty percent of the estate and the son for, say, thirty percent?”

“Don’t quote me,” Kiernan says cautiously.

“You guys kill me,” Cone says. “When a lawyer’s wife asks, ‘Was it as good for you as it was for me?’ he says, ‘I’d like to get a second opinion on that.’ Thanks, Lou. See you around.”

He rambles down to Exchange Place, sucking on another cigarette and wondering how long it’ll take nonsmokers to have the streets declared off-limits. Then nicotine addicts will have to get their fixes in illicit dens, or maybe by paddling out into the Atlantic Ocean in a rubber dinghy.

Twenty minutes later he’s closeted with Chin Tung Lee. The old man looks chipper, and since he’s puffing a scented cigarette in a long ivory holder, Cone figures it’s okay to light up another coffin nail.

“I know it’s too early to ask if you have made any progress, Mr. Cone.”

“Yeah, it is. I’m just collecting stuff at this stage. That’s why I wanted your shareholder list and annual report.”

“Right here,” Lee says, tapping a fat package on his desk. “I hope you will guard this well. I would not care to have the list fall into the hands of an enemy.”

“I’ll take good care of it,” Cone promises. “I notice White Lotus stock is up another half-point.”

“It continues,” the little man says, nodding. “My son believes it is of no significance, but I do not agree.”

“By the way,” Cone says, as casually as he can manage, “is your son married?”

Chin Tung Lee sets his holder and cigarette down carefully in a brass ashtray made from the base of a five-inch shell. “No, he is not,” he says with a frazzled laugh. “It is a sadness for me. Men my age should have grandchildren. Perhaps great-grandchildren.”

“He’s still a young man,” Cone says. “He may surprise you one of these days.”

“A very pleasant surprise. Family is important to me. Are you married, Mr. Cone?”

“No,” the Wall Street dick says, stirring uncomfortably in the leather club chair. “You said you had something to ask me.”

“Ah, yes,” Lee says, and now his laugh is vigorous again. “Happy news, I am glad to say. Today is my dear wife’s birthday. To celebrate, we are having a cocktail party and buffet dinner in our apartment this evening, and I hope you will be able to join us.”

“Hey,” Cone says, “that sounds great. What time?”

“From five o’clock until the wee hours,” the gaffer says gleefully. “I must admit I am looking forward to it. I enjoy celebrations.”

“Fireworks?” Timothy says, grinning.

“Regretfully, no. The popping of champagne corks will have to do.”

“Your son will be there?”

“Naturally,” Chin says, astonished at the question. “He lives in the apartment. With his own private entrance, I might add. In any event, we are expecting almost a hundred guests, and I trust you will be one of them.”

“Sure will,” Cone says. “You in the book?”

“We are indeed. But to save you from searching through four pages of Lees in the Manhattan directory, I have written out our address and home telephone number. You will find it in the package. Then we may expect you?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Cone promises. “Should I bring a birthday present?”

The old man waves a hand in protest. “Of course not. Your presence will be gift enough.”

A lesson to Cone in grace and civility.

He’s down in the lobby carrying the fat package when he realizes what was missing from that conversation. Chin Tung Lee never asked if Cone had spoken to his son. And he had said nothing of the murder of Chen Chang Wang, a good customer of White Lotus products.

Which meant-what? That he considered it of no importance, or that his son had not told him that he and Cone were in Ah Sing’s when Wang was sent to join his ancestors.

The Wall Street dick begins to appreciate what is meant by a “Chinese puzzle.”

He can go back to the office-but that’s not a cheery prospect. Haldering might come nosing around, demanding to know what progress Cone has made on the White Lotus case as well as those other two files, real yawners, he’s supposed to be investigating.

So he decides to hike all the way back to his loft, breathing deeply to get the cigarette smoke out of his alveoli. That lasts for six blocks; then he lights up, cursing himself for his weakness as he inhales deeply and wonders which will rot first: lungs, liver, or kidneys.

He doesn’t bother picking up lunch, figuring he can last till that buffet dinner. Then he’ll gorge and maybe slip something special in his pockets for Cleo. Meanwhile the cat can subsist on refrigerator grub: cheddar and bologna.

In the loft, he strips to T-shirt and baggy Jockey briefs and mixes himself a jelly jar of vodka and water, with plenty of the former, little of the latter, and lots of ice.

“Here’s looking at you, kid,” he toasts Cleo, who has come out from under the bathtub and is now lying in a patch of diffused sunshine coming through the dirt-encrusted skylight.

The first thing Cone does is phone Eve Bookerman at Dempster-Torrey, something he should have done a week ago.

“I’m so glad you called, Mr. Cone,” she says in her ballsy voice. “I wanted to thank you personally for the job you did on our sabotage problem. Marvelous!”

“Yeah,” he says, “it turned out okay, and for once the nice guys didn’t finish last. Listen, the reason I’m calling is this: When I was working your case, we rented a car for a month. It’s a Ford Escort and was charged to Dempster-Torrey. By rights the car should have been turned in when the file was closed. But there’s still about two weeks left on the rental, and I wanted to ask if it’s all right with you if I keep the car until the month runs out.”

She laughs. “Mr. Cone, you keep the car as long as you need it, and don’t worry about the billing. It’s the least we can do.”

“Thanks,” he says. “It’ll be a big help. Anything new on who’s going to be the CEO at Dempster-Torrey?”

“I didn’t make it,” she says.

“Tough,” Cone says. “But tomorrow’s another day.”

“Thank God for that,” she says. “Nice talking to you, Mr. Cone. Let’s have a drink sometime.”

“You name it,” he answers, knowing she never will.

He sits at the kitchen table with his drink and opens the White Lotus package. The first thing he goes through is the annual report, knowing full well that like most corporation reports, it should be submitted for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

White Lotus is a four-color, slick-paper job. It doesn’t tell him much more than he’s already learned except that the number of registered stockholders is slightly over 2,000-which seems high for a company as modest as this chop suey producer. On the opening page are photographs of Chin Tung Lee and Edward Tung Lee, facing the camera with frozen smiles.

The Board of Directors is interesting. Of the ten, three are outsiders, all with Caucasian names. Of the remaining seven, five are named Lee and the other two have Chinese monikers. All seven are officers of White Lotus. Sounds to Cone as if the Chairman and CEO is keeping a very tight rein indeed on his company.

The computer printout of shareholders’ names, addresses, and the number of shares held provides more provocative stuff. Cone flips through the list quickly, getting an instant impression that at least 90 percent of White Lotus shareholders are Chinese, or at least have Oriental names. Then he zeros in on the largest holdings, those of Chin Tung Lee, Claire Lee, and Edward Tung Lee.

He does some rough estimates because the battery of his handy-dandy pocket calculator went kaput a long time ago and he hasn’t gotten around to replacing it. He figures Chin Tung Lee owns about 26 percent of White Lotus, wife Claire 11 percent, and son Edward 16 percent.

Those numbers add up to some ripe conclusions. The three of them combined hold a majority interest in White Lotus. Chin and Claire can easily outvote Edward. Chin and Edward can easily outvote Claire.

And Claire and Edward can outvote Chin.

The other 47 percent of White Lotus is held by the 2,000 shareholders, mostly in odd lots. There are few investors with as many as 1,000 shares. And they, Cone notes, are all Chinese.

“I don’t know what it all means,” he says to Cleo. “Do you?”

The cat gives him the “I am famished” signal, which consists of ankle rubs and piteous mewls.

So Cone tosses the beast a slice of bologna and mixes himself a fresh drink. He opens a bag of Cheez Doodles and goes back to his arithmetic.

He thinks of it as getting “spiffed up,” but no one else would. The thready tweed jacket with greasy leather patches on the elbows isn’t quite the thing for a cocktail party in August. The gray flannel slacks, recently laundered, still bear the stains of long-forgotten sausage submarines. The button-down shirt is clean, even if one button is missing. He wears the collar open, of course, and the T-shirt shyly revealed is almost white.

Donning this finery puts him in an antic mood, and on the drive uptown in his red Escort he bangs his palm on the steering wheel and sings as much of the Marine Corps hymn as he can remember-which is not much. Finished with his caroling, he wonders if his frolicsome mood is due to the prospect of free booze and a generous buffet or the hope of seeing Claire Lee again, a woman he wouldn’t sully with his dreams.

The Lees live in a Fifth Avenue apartment house just north of 68th Street. It is an old building with heavy pediments and carved window casements. It is planted solidly on the Avenue, turning a stern and forthright stare at the frivolity of Central Park. The building is a dowager surrounded by teeny-boppers.

The Lees’ apartment is something else again. It occupies the entire ninth floor with two entrances and enough space to accommodate a convention of sex therapists. The crowd that has already assembled when Cone arrives is wandering through room after room, seemingly lost in this high-ceilinged, air-conditioned warren. There’s enough furniture to equip a small, slightly shoddy hotel.

Three bars have been set up, and two long buffet tables. Repressing his appetites, Cone first seeks out Chin, Edward, and Claire Lee to pay his respects. Duty done, he shuffles off to the nearest bar for a vodka (Finlandia), gulps that, orders a refill, and carries it to an adjoining buffet. There he piles a platter with rare roast beef, sliced turkey breast, cherry tomatoes, cukes, and radishes. He also ladles out a bowl of something that looks Chinese. It turns out to be shrimp in lobster sauce, Szechwan style. It makes his scalp sweat.

He does his scarfing in a corner where he can eyeball the parading guests. They’re mostly Orientals, but there’s a good representation of whiteys and blackies. All are thin, elegantly dressed and, Cone figures, perform no more arduous chores than clipping coupons from their tax-exempt bonds. But that’s okay. Life is unfair; everyone knows that.

He finishes his food but is not ready for seconds-yet. He hands the plate to a passing waiter and joins the wanderers, reflecting that occasionally his job does have its perks. He finds a large room, furniture pushed back against the wall, rug rolled up, where a three-piece combo is playing Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin. It’s the kind of toe-tapping music Cone enjoys-he hates any song he can’t whistle-and he dawdles there awhile watching a few couples dancing on the waxed parquet floor.

Then he repairs to the closest bar and, since no one is going to hand him a tab, asks for a cognac. He’s smacking his chops over that when Edward Tung Lee, wearing a dinner jacket, comes swaying up. It doesn’t take a sherlock to deduce that the guy is half in the bag.

“So glad you could make it,” he says with a crazed smile.

“I’m glad, too,” Cone says. “I wish your stepmother would have birthdays more often.”

“Did you see what she’s wearing?” Edward demands. “Disgusting!”

The Wall Street dick doesn’t think so. Claire is tightly enwrapped in a strapless wine-colored velvet gown with bountiful decolletage. There’s a star-shaped mouche stuck to her right clavicle, so adroitly placed that the most jaded observer must become a stargazer, an eager student of heavenly bodies. It happened to Cone.

“It’s her birthday,” he advises Edward. “Let her enjoy.”

But the son’s anger will not be mollified. “Let her enjoy,” he repeats darkly. “The day will come …”

With this dire prediction, he weaves away, and Cone is happy to see him go. His hostility toward his stepmother is understandable-but that doesn’t make it right. Timothy just doesn’t want to get involved.

He has one final sandwich of smoked sturgeon on Jewish rye (seedless), and a portion of ice cream he can’t identify. But it’s got cut-up cherries and chunks of dark chocolate mixed in. Cleo would love it.

One more brandy, he decides, and when the black bartender asks, “Sir?” Cone grins foolishly and says, “Double cognac, please.”

Working on his drink, he goes back to the buffet table and filches some slices of roast beef, baked ham, and sturgeon, which he wraps in a pink linen napkin and slips into his jacket pocket. And he’s not the only guest copping tidbits; a lot of the elegant ladies are loading up their handbags.

He’s about to search out Chin Tung Lee and make a polite farewell when he feels a soft hand on his arm. He turns to see that velvety star, the beauty patch adhering to skin as creamy as the ice cream he just scoffed.

“Mr. Cone,” Claire Lee says with a smile that buckles his knees, “I’m so glad you could make it.”

“Happy Birthday,” is all he can manage.

“You already wished me a Happy Birthday,” she says, laughing. “When you arrived-remember?”

“So?” he says. “Two Happy Birthdays. A dozen.”

“Thank you,” she says, suddenly grave. “I know that my husband was delighted that you could come. He likes you, Mr. Cone.”

“And I like him. A fine gentleman. I was just about to find him and say goodnight.”

“No,” she says sharply, “not yet. Have you seen our terrace?”

He shakes his head.

“Let me show you,” she says, taking his arm.

It turns out not to be a world-class terrace. First of all, it faces eastward with a dead view of the bricked backs of buildings on Madison Avenue. Also, it is narrow-hardly enough room to swing a cat-and the lawn chairs and tables look like castoffs from a summer place in the Hamptons. There are a few hapless geraniums in clay pots.

Still, it is outdoors, and a number of people have found their way there, carrying drinks and plates of food. They seem to enjoy dining alfresco, and the guy in the white dinner jacket snoring gently in one of the rusted chairs 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!”