Lawrence Sanders - Timothy's game

“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?”

“Of course.”

He gives her a cold smile. She returns his stare, her face becoming as white and stiff as her hat. “Jesus!” she gasps. “You don’t think they took photos through the mirrors, do you?”

Cone shrugs. “It’s been done before. It’s a smart move for any guy who runs a kip. First of all, it helps keep his girls in line. Second, he can always sell the photographs or videotapes to jerks who get their jollies from that kind of stuff. And third, the possibility of blackmail is always there. So he shoots the action through a two-way mirror and builds up a nice file that his girls and clients don’t know about. He can lean on them anytime he wants.”

“Oh, my God,” Claire Lee says despairingly, “what am I going to do?”

“Right now? Nothing. This is just the opening move. A blackmailer wants the victim to sweat a little first, lose sleep, think of nothing but what it’s going to cost to keep the secret hidden. Have you been sleeping since you got the letter?”

“With pills.”

“There you are. You’re getting nervous already, anxious enough to tell me about it, and you don’t even know what the blackmailer’s got and what he wants for it. You’ll get another letter, Mrs. Lee, with maybe a sample photograph attached. Then you’ll get more letters, spelling out exactly what you’ll have to pay. You have any idea who might be pulling this?”

“No. Not the slightest. Isn’t there anything you can do to stop it?”

“Nope. This first letter is completely innocent. Take it to the cops and they’ll laugh. You haven’t been threatened-yet. This is only the opening move in a dirty game. You’ll just have to play it out. Mrs. Lee, why don’t you let me keep this letter.”

“Why do you want it if you can’t do anything?”