Free Timothy's Game by Lawrence Sanders Page A

immediately jumps in and curls up contentedly.
    “Leave your fleas in there,” Cone tells the cat.
    He reads all the papers and reads them again. Then he sits back and considers the case. It’s pretty much as Bigelow described it. The first printed documents are dated about three weeks previously and deal with Snellig Firsten Holbrook’s suggested plan for the proposed buyout of Trimbley & Diggs, Inc.
    Subsequent printed documents amend and refine the plan. Then there’s a letter assuring the principals involved that the required funds can be raised through the sale of high-risk bonds, and Snellig Firsten Holbrook has “every confidence” the bond issue will be oversubscribed.
    All that is routine stuff, and Cone can’t see anything freaky going on. What interests him more are the computer records of trading activity in Trimbley & Diggs. The volume began to climb about ten days ago, and the stock, listed on the Nasdaq National Market, rose in value steadily from about $4 a share to its current price of slightly over $8. Nice. The buyers are probably rubbing their sweaty palms with glee and wondering whether to hold on or sell and take the money and run.
    Cone leans down to address Cleo, who is snoozing in the briefcase. “Sometimes the bulls make money,” he says, “and sometimes the bears make money. It’s the pigs who always get stuck.”
    But who are these lucky investors who doubled their stake in about ten days? Cone goes over the computerized trading records again, and what he finds amuses him. He can’t spot any trades of 10,000 shares or more, but there are plenty for 9,000 shares. Timothy figures that’s because a lot of wise guys have heard that the SEC is interested in trades of 10K-shares and over. If they buy or sell 9,000 shares, they think they’re home free. Cone is surprised Jeremy Bigelow didn’t spot that, and he wonders just how swift the guy is.
    The big buyers of Trimbley & Diggs’ stock are from all over the country, but seem to be concentrated in New York, Atlantic City, Miami, New Orleans, and Las Vegas. Also, most of the buyers’ names end in vowels. That gets Cone’s juices flowing because all those cities are big mob towns—which may mean something or absolutely nothing.
    Since no one is going to finance his travels to investigate out-of-state buyers, he concentrates on the names of New York investors. One that catches his eye is a man named Paul Ramsey, who lives on 47th Street at an address that would place his residence west of Tenth Avenue.
    That sets off alarm bells because, after Cone returned from Nam, he lived for two years in a five-story walk-up on 48th east of Tenth, and he knows what a slummy neighborhood that is. It’s in the middle of Hell’s Kitchen, with rundown tenements, sad mom-and-pop bodegas, dusty beer joints, and boarded-up buildings awaiting demolition.
    Unless the whole area has been gentrified since Cone lived there, it’s hard to believe one of the residents is a stock market plunger. Not many ghetto dwellers deal in gold coins either.
    He goes through the computer printouts for the fourth time, checking Paul Ramsey’s trades. It looks to Cone like the guy now owns 27,000 shares of Trimbley & Diggs, Inc., bought at an average of six bucks a share. If he sells out today, he’ll walk away with a profit of about $54,000. Not bad for someone who lives on streets where a mugger would be happy with a take of $10—enough for a vial of crack.
    Cone pulls on his leather cap and takes his grungy raincoat in case the drizzle has thickened. Just before he leaves the loft, he checks the short-barreled S&W .357 in his ankle holster. Reassured, he ventures out to visit his old neighborhood.
    “Guard!” he admonishes a startled Cleo before he leaves.
    Down on the street, he finds the drizzle hasn’t just thickened, it’s as if someone has turned a tap on over Manhattan. And there’s not a cab in sight. Cursing his luck, Cone bows his head against the rain