Timothy's game

Five

Sally Stalls Vic Angelo and Mario Corsini for two weeks. It’s a gamble; if she can’t come up with a winner, then she loses Steiner Waste Control and access to inside secrets in trash collected from Bechtold Printing. And that’ll be the end of her Big Chance.

She conned the two villains in Angelo’s car outside the funeral home where Jake lay in his coffin.

“Look,” she says to them, “I got a boyfriend on Wall Street. He’s a lawyer in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department of a big investment banker. I won’t tell you which one. Anyway, he gets in on the ground floor on mergers, takeovers, and buyouts. There’s a lot of money to be made if you get advance notice of these deals. I’ve been making a mint. You guys let me keep Steiner Waste Control, and I’ll feed you the same inside information I get from my boyfriend.”

The two men stare at her, then turn to look at each other.

“I don’t like it,” Angelo says. “Insider trading is a federal rap. Who needs it?”

“Wait a minute, Vic,” Corsini says. “The insider here is this girlie’s boyfriend. If he wants to shoot off his mouth, it’s his problem. The people he tells can claim they bought on a stock tip.”

“Right!” Sally says enthusiastically. “I tell you it’s foolproof. I’ve played four deals and haven’t lost a cent.”

Corsini gives her a two-bit smile. “And you invest for the boyfriend and then kick back to him. Have I got it straight, girlie?”

“Of course,” she says. “Whaddya think? And don’t call me girlie.”

“I still don’t like it,” Angelo says, slowly peeling away the band from one of his fat Havanas. “Trouble with the Feds I don’t want.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to take one little flier, Vic,” Corsini says.

That’s when the shtarkers agree to give her two weeks to come up with a winning tip. If she can do that, they’ll talk a deal. If she fails, they’ll buy Steiner Waste Control-on their terms. Sally goes along with that; she’s got no choice.

By this time she’s got Terry Mulloy and Leroy Hamilton organized. Trash from Bechtold Printing is being delivered to her Smithtown garage, and the stuff she’s already pawed through is taken away and brought back to the Eleventh Avenue dump.

By the ninth day she’s getting panicky. She’s broken three fingernails grubbing through the Bechtold scrap, and all she’s found is worthless first proofs of prospectuses and mass mailings to stockholders. But then, on a Thursday night, she hits paydirt.

There are crumpled pages with the letterhead of Snellig Firsten Holbrook. They outline a suggested plan for a leveraged buyout of an outfit called Trimbley amp; Diggs, Inc. Financing will include junk bonds and a hefty cash payment by company executives who are going to take T amp;D private as soon as they get control. The purpose, as far as Sally can make out, is to sell off or develop valuable shorefront real estate.

She looks up Trimbley amp; Diggs in that day’s Wall Street Journal and finally finds the stock listed in Nasdaq. It’s selling for four dollars a share. The next day she calls Paul Ramsey, tells him to buy 9,000 shares of T amp;D; she’ll get the cash to him as soon as possible. Then she calls Mario Corsini at the number he gave her. He isn’t in, but she leaves a message, and he calls back in fifteen minutes. Sally tells him she’s ready for a meet.

He says they don’t want to be seen with her in public, and that’s okay with Sally. She suggests they come out late that night to her Smithtown home, say at midnight when her mother and housekeeper will be asleep, and they can talk without being interrupted or overheard.

Corsini doesn’t like it. He implies her place may be bugged. He can’t take the chance.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sally says disgustedly. “Why would I want to do a stupid thing like that? I’m in this thing deeper than you are. Look, if it’ll make you feel any better, you drive out there, park in the driveway, and I’ll come out and sit in the car. Your Cadillac’s not bugged, is it?”

Corsini mutters darkly that he doesn’t think so, but these days who the hell knows? Finally he agrees that they’ll drive out that night and try to arrive at midnight. Sally gives him the address and directions on how to find her home.

She gets home early, fills a plate with the shrimp salad Martha has prepared, and takes it upstairs to have dinner with her mother. She and Becky watch the evening news on TV while they’re eating, and then Sally goes downstairs while Martha gets her mother ready for bed. She works on her records and books in the den. Steiner Waste Control, with the addition of Pitzak’s territory, is making a bundle. Jake would have been happy.

By eleven o’clock the house is silent. Sally sits quietly, plotting how she’s going to get the cash to Paul Ramsey and how much, if anything, she should give to Dotty Rosher. That bubblehead has written a letter to Sally, claiming she’s broke, and after all she did for Jake, she figures she should have something for her time and trouble. And silence.

Sally decides to turn Dotty’s letter over to the Steiners’ attorney, Ivan Belzig. He’s a toughie and will know exactly how to handle an attempted shakedown like that.

At fifteen minutes before midnight, she’s standing in the dimly lighted living room, peering out a window at the graveled driveway. It’s almost ten minutes after twelve when the silver gray limousine comes purring up and coasts to a stop. The headlights are doused.

Sally snaps on the porch light and steps out the door. But before she can get down the steps, she sees Vic Angelo and Mario Corsini get out of the Cadillac and start toward the house, looking about them.

“You decided to come inside?” Sally asks as they approach.

“Yeah,” Angelo says. “I figure you’re straight. You’d be a fool not to be.”

She leads the way into the den and offers them a drink, but they decline.

“We won’t be here that long,” Angelo says.

Both men light up cigars, Vic one of his thick Havanas and Mario a short, twisted stogie that looks like a hunk of black rope. The air grows fetid, and Sally switches the air conditioner to exhaust. She comes back to sit behind the desk. She looks at Vic Angelo, suddenly shocked at how much he reminds her of Jake.

“So?” she says briskly. “Have you decided? You want in? If you do, I’ve got a hot tip for you.”

“Nah,” Angelo says. “The stock market ain’t for us. I talked to my lawyer about it. He says the risk of our being racked up on an insider trading charge is zip. But if we do get involved, then maybe the Feds start looking into our other activities-and that we can do without. So we’re turning down your proposition.”

She stares at the two men, feeling as if she’s been kicked in the cruller. They return her stare with all the expression of Easter Island statues.

“So,” Angelo goes on, “we take over Steiner Waste Control. My lawyer is drawing up the papers now. We’ll pay you a nice price.”

“A nice price!” Sally explodes. “My father started that business with one lousy, secondhand pickup truck. He worked his ass off to build it up, doing the driving and loading himself. And after I joined him, I worked just as hard. How can you put a ‘fair price’ on that? Goddamn it, that dump belongs to the Steiner family.”

“Not anymore it doesn’t,” Angelo says coldly. “Look, private garbage collecting and cartage is a rough, dirty business. It’s no place for a woman.”

“Screw that!” Sally says wrathfully. “I can handle it.”

“You don’t need it, do you?” Mario Corsini says, speaking for the first time. “I mean, you got this boyfriend on Wall Street and you’re cleaning up on inside tips. You’ve been making a mint. That’s what you told us-right?”

“Well, yeah, sure,” Sally says, beginning to feel desperate. “But the money to play the market comes from the business.”

“That’s your problem,” Vic Angelo says, rising. “You’re a smart lady; you’ll find a way to work it. The papers for the sale of Steiner Waste Control will be ready in a couple of weeks. We’ve got to find someone to take over, but that’s our problem. Thanks for inviting us to your home. Nice place.”

Then they’re gone. She watches the limousine pull slowly away. She digs her nails into her palms, determined not to cry. She turns off the porch light, locks and bolts the front door. Then she goes back into the den, slumps in her swivel chair, and in a low voice calls those two snakes every filthy name she can think of. It’s almost ten minutes before she begins to weep.

By Monday morning she’s got her act together again. But her brain is churning like one of the compactors at the dump as she tries to find an out. All she knows is that no way, no way, are those skunks going to get control of her family’s business.

She drives into the city, and before going to the office, stops at the bank that handles the company’s accounts. She withdraws $36,000, telling the bank officer she’s made a deal on a new truck, but the seller wants cash. She gets the money in hundred-dollar bills, neatly packed in a manila envelope. It’s small enough to fit into her capacious shoulder bag, next to her loaded pistol.

When she gets to the dump, Judy Bering jerks a thumb at Sally’s private office. “You got a visitor,” she says in a low voice. “He wouldn’t wait out here. Wouldn’t give me his name. A mean bastard. He scares me. You want I should call the cops?”

“Not yet,” Sally says. “If I need help, I’ll yell.”

She walks into her office with a hand in her shoulder bag, gripping the gun. Mario Corsini is seated in the armchair alongside her desk. Sally stops short, glares at him.

“Don’t tell me,” she says. “You came to count the paper clips. Afraid I’ll steal something before you take over?”

“Nah,” he says with a bleak smile. “Close the door and sit down. You and me gotta have a private talk.”

“We did,” Sally says. “On Friday night. Remember? So what more have we got to talk about?”

But she does as he says: closes the door and sits down behind her desk. She examines him in silence.

He really is a repellent man, with a pitted, ocherous complexion and eyes like wet coal. His shiny black hair is parted in the middle and plastered to his long skull like a gigolo or tango dancer of the 1920s. He’s wearing morticians’ clothes: black suit, white shirt, black tie, black socks, black shoes. No color. No jewelry. He looks like a deep shadow.

“I gotta tell you,” he says. “I think Vic is making a big mistake.”

“Don’t tell me,” Sally says bitterly, “tell him.”

“I did,” he says. “My point is this: We can take over this place anytime we want-but what’s the hurry? Why not give you a chance to deliver the stock tips you promised? If you come through, maybe we could make more loot on the market than we can by taking over. If you can’t deliver, then we grab the business. I told him all that but he wouldn’t listen.”

“And Vic’s the boss,” Sally says.

“That’s right,” Corsini says. “Vic’s the boss. So I go along even when I don’t agree. But there’s more than one way to skin a cat. We got a lot of things going on, and there are ways I can stall our moving in on you.”

“Yeah? What ways?”

“Just believe me when I tell you I can do it,” Corsini says evasively. “But it means you’ll have to play along with me. With me, not with Vic and me. You understand? He knows nothing about this. If he knew I was talking to you alone, he’d cut off my balls. I told him I was coming here to see how my cousin, Tony Ricci, was being treated.”

“Well, he’s doing okay. The kid’s a hard worker-and ambitious.”

“Yeah, I know. I had breakfast with him about an hour ago. He’s all right; he does what I tell him. Anyway, what I want to toss at you is this: On Friday night you said you had a hot tip for us. Vic turned you down. I want you to give me the name of that stock. I’ll invest my own money. Not Vic’s money or our company’s money, but mine, my personal funds. Now if your tip pans out, and I make a nice buck, then I go to Vic and say, ‘Hey, that Sally Steiner wasn’t shitting us; she really can deliver. Why don’t we let her keep the dump as long as she keeps feeding us inside info on stocks.’ What do you think of that?”

“I think it sucks,” Sally says. “There are two things wrong. First of all, you could do exactly like you tell me, and Vic would still say screw it, we’re taking over the business.”

“Yeah,” Corsini says, nodding, “that could happen. He’s a stubborn guy who likes things his own way.”

“Second of all,” Sally says, “how do I know you’re not scamming me? Maybe you just want to make a quick dollar on my tip and you couldn’t care less if or when I lose the dump.”

He looks at her admiringly. “You got more between your ears than pasta fagioli,” he says. “And sure, you’re exactly right; I could be conning you. But you’re forgetting one thing: You got no choice. Without me, you’re going to lose the business for sure. Play along with me and at least you got a chance.”

“I got other choices,” she says hotly.

“Yeah?” he says with a death’s-head grin. “Like what? Like running to the DA and ratting on us? You’d be cold in a week, and so would your mother and brother. Is that what you want?”

They sit a few moments in silence, eyes locked. They hear the sounds of the dump: trucks rumbling in and out, gears grinding, shouts and laughter. And beyond, the noises of the harsh, raucous city: sirens, whistles, the roar of traffic, and under all a thrumming as if the metropolis had a diapason of its own, coming up from underground vaults and vibrating the tallest towers.

Sally Steiner pulls a pad of scratch paper toward her and scribbles on the top sheet.

“The stock is Trimbley and Diggs,” she says. “Nasdaq Market. Right now it’s selling for about four bucks a share. And don’t, for God’s sake, buy more than nine thousand shares at a clip or the SEC might get interested.”

Mario Corsini takes the slip of paper. “Nice doing business with you,” he says politely.

He starts out the door. “Hey,” she calls, and he turns back. “Thanks for not calling me girlie.”

He inclines his head gravely as if her gratitude is merited.

She sits for about five minutes after he’s gone, thinking about their conversation and wondering if she’s doing the smart thing. But then she realizes the bastard was right: She really has no choice. As for his threat of what might happen to her, Becky, and Eddie if she goes to the cops, she has no doubt whatsoever that he and his thugs are capable of doing exactly what he said.

She pulls the phone toward her and calls Eddie.

“Hey, bro,” she says. “How’ya doing?”

“Hanging in there,” he says. “How are you, Sal?”

“Couldn’t be better,” she says brightly. “Paul around?”

“Won’t be back till noon. He’s auditioning for a commercial for a strawberry-flavored laxative.”

“Beautiful,” Sally says. “Could I pop over for a while? I’ve got some cash to leave for him. Our first step on the way to fame and fortune.”

“Sure,” he says. “Come ahead. Got time to pose?”

“Maybe an hour or so. Okay?”

She walks down to Eddie’s apartment, stopping on the way to buy him a decent burgundy. It’s a sprightly day, summer around the corner, and the blue sky, sharp sun, and kissing breeze make her feel like she owns the world. Life is a tease; that she knows. All souls dissolve; but meanwhile it can be a hoot if you keep running and never look back.

She poses nude for Eddie for almost an hour, sitting on that stupid stool and trying to make her body as tense, muscular, and aggressive as he commands. Finally he slaps his sketch pad shut.

“That’s it,” he says. “I’ve got all the studies I need. Now I’ll start blocking out the canvas. This is going to be a good one, Sal; I just know it.”

“Make me pretty,” she says. “And about six inches taller and twenty pounds thinner.”

“You’re perfect the way you are.”

“Marry me,” she says. “And also pour me a wine while I get dressed.”

They’re sitting on the couch, drinking her burgundy, talking about their mother and whether or not they should try another doctor, when Paul Ramsey comes ambling in. He gives them a beamy smile.

“I didn’t get the job,” he reports. “They decided I wasn’t the strawberry laxative type.”

“Thank God,” Eddie says. “I don’t think I could stand seeing you in a commercial, coming out of a bathroom and grinning like a maniac.”

“Paul,” Sally says, taking the manila envelope out of her shoulder bag, “here’s thirty-six thousand in hundred-dollar bills.”

“Hey,” he says, “that’s cool.”

“You opened a brokerage account?”

“Oh, sure. No sweat.”

“Well, dump this lettuce in your personal checking account. Draw on it to buy nine thousand shares of Trimbley and Diggs. Your broker will find it on the Nasdaq exchange. I wrote it all out for you. Buy the stock today, as soon as possible. You’ve got five days to get a check to the broker.”

“Does this make me a tycoon?” Paul Ramsey asks.

“A junior tycoon,” Sally tells him. “But we’re just getting started.”

She sits in the one comfortable armchair in the apartment. Eddie and Paul sit close on the rickety couch. The three kid along for a while, chattering about this and that. But then Sally falls silent and listens while the two men, holding hands now, chivy one another as they plan what they’re going to have for dinner and whose turn it is to do the cooking.

She can see the intimacy between them, a warm bond that may be fondness, may be affection, may be love. Whatever, each completes the other. They are easy together, and no strains show. There is a privacy there, and Sally finds it disturbing. For that kind of sharing is a foreign language to her and yet leaves her feeling cheated and bereft.

The stock of Trimbley amp; Diggs, Inc., is going up, up, up, and Sally is ecstatic. When it hits seven dollars, she has Paul Ramsey buy another 9,000 shares.

She also notes the trading volume of T amp;D is increasing as the value of the stock rises. She figures there’s either an inside leak at Snellig Firsten Holbrook or the arbitrageurs have ferreted out the takeover and are looking to make a bundle. So is Sally. And so, apparently, is Mario Corsini. He calls her at home, late at night, a week after their talk in her office.

“Good tip,” he says, his raspy voice revealing neither joy nor enthusiasm. “You buying more?”

“Thinking about it.”

“How high do you think it’ll go?”

“Who knows?” she says. “Ten. Twelve maybe.”

“Twelve?” he says cautiously. “If it hits twelve, you think I should bail out?”

“Hey,” she says, “I’m not your financial adviser. I gave you a good tip. What you do with it is your business. And what about my business? What’s going to happen to Steiner Waste Control?”

“I’m working on it,” he says. “Listen, one of the reasons I called: Tony Ricci will be late for work tomorrow. There’s a family funeral, and I want him to be there. He’ll show up around noon. Okay?”

“I guess it’ll have to be,” Sally says. “It’ll screw up my truck schedules, but I’ll work it out.”

“You do that,” Corsini says. “And if you get any more tips, let me know.”

He hangs up abruptly, leaving Sally staring angrily at her dead phone. It infuriates her that she’s enabling that gonnif to make even one lousy buck. It’s she who’s breaking her nails digging through garbage from Bechtold Printing. All Corsini has to do is call his broker.

She drives to work early the next morning, checks in at the office, then crosses Eleventh Avenue to the Stardust Diner. Terry Mulloy and Leroy Hamilton are seated at the back table. Both men are working on plates of three eggs over with a ham steak, a mountain of home fries, a stack of toast with butter and jelly, and coffee with cream and sugar. Sally joins them.

“You’re both going to have coronaries,” she says, and tells Mabel to bring her a plain bagel and a cup of black coffee.

It’s payoff day, and she slips each man an envelope under the table.

“I thank you kindly,” Hamilton says, pocketing his hundred. “And the best part is my wife don’t know a thing about it.”

“How long is this going to last?” Mulloy wants to know.

“Till I tell you to stop,” Sally says. “What’s the matter-getting all worn out, poor baby? I can always find two other imbeciles to handle Bechtold Printing.”

“Nah,” Leroy says, “no call to do that. We like the job, don’t we, Terry?”

“Well, yeah,” the redheaded harp says. “The money’s good, but I’d like to know what’s going down. I don’t want to get my ass busted for a hundred a week.”

“You worry too much,” Sally says. “You know those three monkeys: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil. That’s the way you monkeys should be.”

At about the same time, a silver gray Cadillac limousine pulls into a No Parking space in front of the marquee of the Hotel Bedlington on upper Madison Avenue.

“What’re we stopping here for?” Angelo asks.

“Vic,” Mario Corsini says, “we got plenty of time to get downtown for the meet. I figured we’d grab some breakfast. You like it here. The French toast-remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” Angelo says. “Good idea.”

They get out of the car. The uniformed doorman comes forward, and Corsini slips him a sawbuck. “Take care of it,” he says. “You have any trouble, we’ll be in the dining room.”

“No trouble, sir,” the doorman says. “No trouble at all.”

The cavernous dining room is almost deserted; just one wimp by himself and two old ladies together, sipping tea and nibbling on dry rye toast. The two men take a corner table so their backs are against the wall. Vic Angelo orders a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, French toast with plenty of butter and syrup, and decaf coffee. Mario Corsini has warm blueberry muffins and regular coffee, black.

“Nice quiet place,” Angelo says, looking around.

“Yeah,” Corsini says. “You could plan a revolution in here and no one would be the wiser. Also, it gives me a chance to speak my piece.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Angelo says, groaning. “Not that Steiner thing again. Lay off, Mario. We been over that twice, and what I said still goes.”

“I gotta tell you, Vic, I called and leaned on her. She gave me that stock tip she told us about. I played it-on my own, Vic, on my own-and it’s almost doubled in a week.”

Angelo stares at him, face rigid. “That wasn’t very smart, Mario. I told you I want no part of Wall Street. We’re going to take over the Steiner dump and that’s it.”

“Vic, will you listen just for a minute,” Corsini says, leaning over the table. “She wasn’t conning us; she really does have an inside pipeline. Maybe I’ll triple my stake. Jesus, we can make more with her than we can from garbage and linen supply. And the-”

But then their breakfasts are served, and neither man speaks until the waiter moves away.

“And the best part,” Corsini continues earnestly, “is that we don’t have to kick anything upstairs. Let’s face it, Vic, we’re hired hands. Messenger boys-right? Sure, we collect plenty, but how much sticks to our fingers after we pay our dues and grease the lousy politicians, the cops, the union guys, and everyone else and their uncles? This thing with Sally Steiner is a nice clean deal. What we make is what we keep. No dues, no payoffs.”

“You’re talking shit,” Angelo says, smothering his French toast with butter and syrup and beginning to wolf it down. He talks with his mouth full. “How long do you think it would take Fat Lonny to find out what’s going on? He’s no dope. Then he’ll want to know why we didn’t cut him in, and our ass is in a sling. Just forget about it, will ya, and let me finish my breakfast in peace. No more stock deals with Sally Steiner. As soon as the papers are ready, we’re moving in on her. And that’s final.”

“If you say so, Vic. You’re the boss.”

They finish their food in silence, then light up cigars from Mario’s gold Dunhill. When they get up to leave, Corsini stays behind a moment to inspect the check. He leaves enough cash on the table to cover it, with a generous tip.

They exit from the hotel together. Their Cadillac is still parked in front of the marquee.

Corsini slaps his jacket pocket. “Shit,” he says, “I must have left my lighter on the table. I’ll be right back.”

He reenters the hotel. Vic Angelo gets into the front seat on the passenger side. He has closed the door when a young man comes out from between parked cars behind the limousine. He’s wearing a black raincoat with the collar turned up and a black slouch hat with the brim pulled down.

He walks swiftly to the Cadillac. He pulls an automatic pistol from the pocket of his raincoat. He sticks his arm through the open window and fires four rapid shots into the startled face of Vic Angelo.

Then he walks quickly to a car double-parked north of the hotel. He gets in. The car pulls away.

The doorman, hearing the shots, comes running from the lobby. Mario Corsini comes running from the hotel. Pedestrians come running from all directions. They peer into the front seat of the limousine where Vic Angelo lies sprawled in a fountain of blood, still spouting. His face and half his head are blown away.

“Oh, my God,” the doorman cries.

“I saw who done it,” someone shouts. “It was a guy in a black raincoat.”

“Call the police,” someone yells.

“There’s never a cop around when you need one,” says Mario Corsini.

Sally Steiner wasn’t born yesterday; after watching TV reports and reading newspaper accounts of the assassination at the Hotel Bedlington, she makes a shrewd guess at what actually went on and who’s responsible. It’s no skin off her teeth. Let the bastards kill each other; she couldn’t care less.

The only thing that concerns her is how the death of Angelo is going to affect the future of Steiner Waste Control. She doesn’t have to wait long to find out. Three days after the murder, she gets a call at the office from Mario Corsini.

“I’m driving out to your place tonight,” he states. “About twelve. You’ll be there?”

“Sure,” she says. “Sorry about Angelo.”

“Yeah,” Corsini says. “He was an okay guy.”

The prospect of being alone with that mobster at midnight is not a prospect that fills her with glee. She puts her loaded pistol in the top drawer of the desk. She doesn’t think he’ll try any rough stuff, but still. …

It’s a balmy night, and she’s strolling around the front lawn when the silver gray Cadillac pulls into the driveway a little after twelve. Sally goes back to the lighted porch and waits for Corsini to come up.

“Still got the same car,” she observes.

“Yeah,” he says. “I had to have the front seats re-covered.”

In the den, she offers him a drink, and this time he accepts. She hasn’t any Chivas Regal, but he takes a snifter of Remy Martin. That was Jake’s favorite, and no one has touched the bottle since he died.

“I’m taking over from Vic,” Corsini announces. “It’s been cleared. I don’t want you coming to Ozone Park, so from now on you’ll make your monthly payments to Tony Ricci, and he’ll deliver. I’m bringing him along slowly. He’ll be my driver one of these days.”

“My monthly payments?” Sally says. “Does that mean I keep the dump?”

“For the time being,” he says coldly. “Just keep running it the way you have, and we’ll see. You got another stock for me?”

“No. Not yet.”

He takes a sip of his cognac. “You better be extra nice to that boyfriend of yours,” he advises. “Figure it this way: As long as you keep coming up with inside tips that pay off, that’s how long you’ll own Steiner Waste Control. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“Yeah, sure; it isn’t all that complicated.”

“Well, now you know where you stand. I like everything open and aboveboard.”

“Uh-huh,” Sally says.

He sits back in the armchair, beginning to relax. He crosses his knees, inhales the aroma from his glass of brandy.

“Now about that Trimbley and Diggs stock,” he says, watching to catch her reaction. “Right now I’m holding about a hundred thousand shares.”

“What!”

“You heard me. A hundred thousand. But don’t get your balls in an uproar. I only bought nine thousand in my own name. The other buys were made by friends of mine around the country. They’ll get a cut of the profits. And none of them bought more than nine thousand shares each, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

“I hope you’re right,” Sally says nervously, biting at her thumbnail. “Jesus, you must have well over half a million tied up in that stock.”

“About,” he says carelessly. “I had to borrow to get up the kale. And the people I borrowed from wouldn’t like it if I stiffed them. So I’m going to start taking some profits.”

“Oh, my God!” Sally says despairingly. “Don’t tell me you’re going to dump a hundred thousand shares all at once? It’ll kill the market.”

“Whaddya think-I’m a klutz? Of course I’m not going to dump it all. I’m selling off little by little. It won’t hurt the stock price. But I want to see some money. Enough to pay off the sharks. How much you in for?”

“As much as I can afford,” Sally says. Then she figures she better prove her confidence in T amp;D. “I had eighteen thousand shares,” she tells him, “and bought another nine this morning. Through a friend.”

“That’s smart,” he says, nodding. “You really think it’ll go to twelve bucks a share?”

“Now I think it may go to fifteen. It’s a leveraged takeover, and from what my boyfriend tells me, it’s going through.”

He finishes his drink, sets the crystal snifter carefully on the desk. He stands up to go.

“Just remember what I told you,” he says. “Your family keeps the business as long as you keep coming up with cash cows. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?”

“Oh, sure,” Sally says, “that’s really fair.”

At the front door, he pauses and turns to her. He reaches out to stroke her cheek, but she jerks angrily away, and he gives her a mirthless smile.

“You’re some woman,” he says. “You’ve got guts. I’d teach you how to be nice, but I don’t want to ruin what you’ve got going with your Wall Street guy. That’s where our loot’s coming from, isn’t it?”

She doesn’t answer. Just glares at him. She watches until he gets in the Caddy and drives away. She goes back into the den and stares at his empty brandy glass. Enraged, she backhands it off the desk, hoping it will shatter into a hundred pieces. But it bounces harmlessly on the shag rug, and she leaves it there.

She sits stiffly in the swivel chair, thinking of what happened. After a while she cools, and the fact that he came on to her seems small potatoes compared to the fact that the stupid prick has sunk over a half-mil on a stock tip. Suddenly she strikes her forehead with a palm and groans.

Feverishly she digs out the most recent issue of Standard amp; Poor’s Stock Guide. She looks up Trimbley amp; Diggs, Inc., and follows the numbers across to the column headed Capitalization. As she feared, T amp;D is very thinly capitalized. There is no preferred stock and only about 800,000 shares of common stock outstanding.

Then she begins laughing. It’s possible that there’s an insider leak at Snellig Firsten Holbrook, and it’s possible that arbitrageurs have learned of the leveraged takeover and are buying T amp;D for a quick profit. But it now seems obvious that the run-up of the stock’s price is mostly due to Sally buying 27,000 shares and Mario Corsini buying almost 100,000 shares.

Unknowingly, the two of them have been manipulating the goddamn stock! She can’t stop laughing, but eventually sobers long enough to realize that their manipulation can work both ways. If Corsini is liquidating his holdings, she better do the same. Take the money and run-before the whole thing blows away like a house of cards in a sudden belch.

So she unloads her first purchase of 9,000 shares the next morning, making a profit of about $36,000. She gives Paul Ramsey his 5 percent, and he looks at the cash in bemusement.

“Cool,” he says.

“I told you my sister is a financial genius,” Eddie tells him. “She’s a lousy cook, but she knows money.”

So everything’s coming up roses, and looking even better on Tuesday night when Sally, digging through the latest delivery of Bechtold Printing trash, finds smeared proofs on the letterhead of Pistol amp; Burns. There’s a merger in the works between two food processing companies, one small, one big and cash-rich.

Sally smiles grimly. That should keep Corsini happy until she can figure a way to get that murdering punk out of her life-permanently.