Timothy's Game (39 page)

“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!”

H
E SPENDS THE MORNING
at the office, groaning over the composition of the weekly progress report that each of the five Haldering & Co. investigators is required to submit. With Samantha on vacation, the reports will go to Hiram Haldering himself, known to his employees as the Abominable Abdomen.

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

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

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

He gets to Carpacchio’s on West 46th Street about twenty minutes early, figuring it’ll give him a chance to have a drink and scope the place. But when he enters and walks to the back, Claire Lee is already there, sitting alone at the little bar and working on something green in a stemmed glass.

The only other people in the dim restaurant are six waiters having their late lunch at a big table up front. Cone takes off his cap and slides onto the barstool next to Claire. She gives him a thousand-watt smile.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t show up;” she says.

“I told you I would,” he says gruffly. “What do I have to do to get a drink in this joint?”

She swings around to face the table of waiters. “Carlos,” she calls. “Please. Just for a minute.”

One of the guys rises, throws down his napkin, comes back to the bar. He isn’t happy at having his lunch interrupted.

“Yeah?” he says.

“Could I have another of these, please. And my guest will have—what?”

“Vodka rocks,” Cone says. “And you better give me a double so you don’t have to stop eating again.”

Carlos shoots him a surly look but serves them, then returns to the noisy table up front.

“A real charmer,” Cone says.

“Carlos isn’t angry at waiting on us during his lunch. He just doesn’t like seeing me with another man.”

“Oh-ho,” Cone says. “It’s like that, is it?”

She takes a cigarette from a platinum case. He holds a match for that and his own Camel, noticing that her fingers are trembling slightly.

She looks smashing in a printed silk shirtwaist with a rope belt. Her hat is enormous: a horizontal white linen spinnaker. It would look ridiculous on a smaller woman, but she wears it with all the aplomb of a nun in a starched wimple.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” she says.

“Oh, my, yes,” Cone says. “And here it is Wednesday, and don’t the weeks just fly by.”

She stares at him, outraged, then tries a weak grin. “I guess I deserved that. But it’s hard to explain why I asked you to meet me.”

“Just say it. Get it over with.”

“Yes, well, I’m afraid it’s a confession. I hope I can trust you, Mr. Cone. If not, I’m dead.”

“I don’t blab.”

“First of all, I want to hire you, Mr. Cone.”

“I told you,” he says patiently, “I’ve got a job. Financial investigations. If what you want comes under that heading, then you’ll have to make a deal with my boss.”

“Then I want your advice,” she says, looking at him directly. “Will you give me that?”

“Sure. Advice is free.”

“Before I married my husband, I was living in California. I was very young and hadn’t been around much. I went to Los Angeles hoping to get in the movies or television.”

“You and a zillion others.”

“I found that out. Everyone told me I had the looks. I don’t want to sound conceited, but I thought I did, too. Prettier than a lot of girls who made it. And a better figure.”

“I’ll buy that,” he says.

“What I didn’t have,” she goes on, “and don’t have, is talent. I did one test and it was a disaster. My aunt, my closest relative, sent me the money for acting school. I tried, I really did, but it didn’t help. I just couldn’t act or sing or dance. Have you ever been to southern California, Mr. Cone?”

“Yeah, I spent some time there.”

“Then you know what it’s like. Life in the fast lane. Sunshine. Beaches. Partying. Twenty-four-hour fun.”

“If you’ve got the loot.”

She drains her first green drink and takes a little sip of the second. “Exactly,” she says. “If you’ve got the loot. I ran out. And I couldn’t ask my aunt for more.”

“Why didn’t you go home?”

“To Toledo? No, thanks. No surfing in Toledo. And it would have been admitting defeat, wouldn’t it?”

“I’ve done that,” he tells her. “It’s not so bad.”

“Well, I couldn’t. So, to make a long story short, I ended up in a house in San Francisco. Not a home—a house. You understand?”

“I get the picture,” he says.

“Don’t tell me there were a lot of other things I could have done: sell lingerie in a department store, marry a nebbish, go on welfare. I know all that, and knew it then. But I wanted big bucks.”

He doesn’t reply.

She is silent a moment, and he stares at her, wondering how much of her story is for real and how much is bullshit. Her face reflects the innocence of Little Orphan Annie, but he suspects that inside she’s got a good dollop of Madame Defarge.

Her nose is small and pert. A short upper lip reveals a flash of white teeth. The complexion is satiny, and if she’s wearing makeup it’s scantily applied. He finds something curiously dated in her beauty; she could be a flapper: She’s got that vibrant look as if at any moment she might climb atop the bar and launch into a wild Charleston that would shiver his timbers.

“So?” he says, wanting to hear all of it. “Now you’re in a house in San Francisco. A cathouse.”

“That’s right,” she says, lifting her chin. “In Chinatown. It was called the Pleasure Dome. Very expensive. It catered mostly to Oriental gentlemen. It was run very strictly. No drugs, believe it or not, and no drunks tolerated. We accepted credit cards.”

“Beautiful. Were you the only white in the place?”

“There were two of us. The other girls were mostly Chinese, some very young, from Taiwan.”

“And you made the big bucks?”

“I surely did. I had my own apartment, a gorgeous wardrobe, and for the first time in my life I had money in the bank. I even filed a tax return. In the place where you have to put in your occupation, I wrote Physical Therapist.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Cone says, and does. “How long were you there?”

“Almost two years. Then the place was raided and closed down.”

“Oh? Local cops?”

“No, FBI. According to the newspaper stories, the Pleasure Dome was part of a chain of fancy houses owned and operated by some Chinese gang.”

“Uh-huh. Were you charged?”

“I wasn’t caught. I lucked out. On the weekend the place was busted, I was up in Seattle with a Chinese gentleman who was on a business trip. They let us do that occasionally—take short trips with some of the wealthier clients. The tips were great. Anyway, I got back to Frisco on Monday and discovered I was out of a job. More important, the other girls who had been picked up during the raid were still in jail. It turned out that most of them were here illegally and would be deported. I decided the smart thing would be to put distance between me and the Pleasure Dome. In one day I closed out my bank account, packed my favorite clothes, and got a plane to New York.”

He looks up at her admiringly. “No flies on you,” he says.

“I’ve learned,” she says. “The hard way. But I did all right. I had some names to look up in New York.”

“Chinese gentlemen?”

She looks at him sharply but can see no irony in his face or hear sarcasm in his voice. “That’s right,” she says. “Old friends. Then, about three years ago, I was introduced to Chin Tung Lee. He was and is the sweetest, dearest, most sympathetic and understanding man I’ve ever met. His wife had died, and he didn’t want to live out his life with just that miserable son of his for company. Chin is almost three times my age, but when he asked me to marry him, I said yes.”

“You were tired of the game?” Cone guesses.

“Yes, I was tired.”

“And Chin was wealthy.”

She shows anger for the first time. “What the hell did that have to do with it? All my friends were wealthy, but I had enough money in the bank to tell any one of them to get lost—and I did it, too, on a couple of occasions. I don’t care what you may think; I didn’t marry Chin for his money.”

“Okay, okay,” Cone says, “I’ll take your word for it. Did you tell him any of your past history before you married him?”

“No.”

“Did he ever ask?”

“Once. I made up some stuff about teaching school in Ohio.”

“Sounds like a happy ending to me,” the Wall Street dick says. “So what am I doing here listening to your soap opera? What’s your problem?”

She sighs and opens an alligator handbag that probably cost more than Cone makes in a week. She pulls out an envelope and hands it over.

“I got this in the mail last Friday,” she says. “Take a look.”

He inspects the long white envelope. Addressed to Mrs. Claire Lee at their Fifth Avenue apartment. No return address. Postmarked New York. Cone looks at her. “You sure you want me to read this?”

“That’s why I’m here,” she says determinedly.

It’s a single sheet of white paper folded in thirds. Two lines of typewriting: “Remember the Pleasure Dome? We have the photographs.”

Cone reads it again and looks up at her.

“Blackmail?” she asks.

“Sounds like. What photographs do they mean?”

“No porn, if that’s what you’re thinking. But on the Chinese New Year we always had a big party at the Pleasure Dome. Free food and booze for our best clients. All of us girls would be there. Fully clothed, of course. Maybe our gowns would be low-cut or very short, but all our bits and pieces were covered. It was just a big, noisy party, and pictures would be taken as souvenirs for the clients. Those were the only photographs taken in the Pleasure Dome as far as I can recall.”

Timothy stares at her. “You may have learned the hard way, as you say, but I wonder if you learned enough. When you had a scene with a customer at the Pleasure Dome, where did you take him?”

“Upstairs. To one of the bedrooms. They were beautifully decorated and furnished.”

“I’ll bet. Mirrors on the walls?”