Free Timothy's Game by Lawrence Sanders

Snellig Firsten Holbrook deal you mentioned on the phone?”
    “Like I said, it’s a leveraged buyout. An old outfit named Trimbley and Diggs, up in Massachusetts. They make brooms, brushes, wooden clothespins, and stuff like that. But they also own some choice shorefront real estate. They went public about twenty years ago and have been paying a small dividend—but never missing a quarter. It’s a small outfit, Tim; General Motors it ain’t. If their daily trading volume hits, say, ten thousand shares, it’s a big day. Now the top executive officers want to buy them out, take the company private again, and develop their beachfront properties. Snellig Firsten Holbrook is handling the deal. But suddenly the daily volume is way up—almost a hundred thousand shares last Friday. Nobody can figure how the buyout leaked. Someone is gobbling up shares, and we want to know who.”
    “The arbs?” Cone asks.
    Bigelow shakes his head. “I doubt it. Not enough loot in it for them.”
    “Yeah,” Cone says, “I can understand that. But what’s all this got to do with me? I work for Haldering, and we don’t have Snellig Firsten Holbrook as a client, or Trimbley and Diggs either. So why am I supposed to get involved?”
    “One,” Jeremy says, holding up a thumb, “as a personal favor to me. Two,” he says, pointing a forefinger, “because it’s a puzzle, and I’ve got you made as a guy who likes puzzles. And three,” he adds, extending his middle finger, “who the hell do you think recommended you to Pistol and Burns?”
    “Jesus,” Cone says, “you’re really calling in your chits, aren’t you?”
    “Just take a look at it, will you? I brought you computer printouts of trading and a record of the stock since the leveraged buyout got started.”
    “What’s it selling for now?”
    “About eight dollars a share. A week ago it was four.”
    “All right,” the Wall Street dick says, sighing. “Leave your bumf and I’ll take a look. No guarantees.”
    “Thanks, Tim,” Bigelow says gratefully. “In return, the SEC can be very cooperative with Haldering and Company if the occasion ever arises.”
    “Who the hell cares?” Cone says roughly. “When are you going to buy me a street lunch like you promised?”
    “You give me a lead on this, I’ll take you to The Four Seasons for dinner.”
    “Yeah? They got ham hocks?”
    He would never lie to Samantha Whatley on a personal matter. But he will lie to her officially, as his boss at Haldering & Co. That he can do with nary a qualm.
    He lounges in the doorway of her office. “Listen,” he says seriously, “I’ve got to go back to Pistol and Burns and finish up that job.”
    “Yeah?” she says. “I thought you were all done with them.”
    “I need a couple of more days. Clean up some odds and ends. Then I want to talk to Twiggs about the final report.”
    She looks at him suspiciously. “So what you’re telling me is that you’ll be out of the office again this week.”
    “Just until Wednesday or so. I’ll have it wrapped up by then.”
    “You better,” she says. “I’ve got three new files waiting for you.”
    “Gee, thanks, boss,” he says. “That makes me feel warm all over.”
    Jeremy Bigelow has left his battered briefcase stuffed with all the skinny on the Trimbley & Diggs buyout.
    “You can borrow the briefcase,” he tells Cone. “But I want it back eventually.”
    “What for?” Cone asks. “Sentimental attachment? It’s a piece of junk. You should pay me for taking it off your hands.”
    So he plods up Broadway in a warm drizzle, lugging the case and feeling no guilt at having conned Sam. The world isn’t going to come to an end just because he finagled a couple of days off. Besides, it is a good cause: cooperation with an agency of the U.S. Government.
    Back in his loft, he pops a tall can of Bud. Then he opens Bigelow’s briefcase and dumps the contents onto his wooden table. He sets the empty case on the floor, and Cleo