Timothy's Game by Lawrence Sanders

Off the books.”
    “No trouble with the buttons?” Hamilton says.
    “What trouble?” Sally says. “Anyone asks questions, you know from nothing; you’re just following the orders of the boss.”
    “Sounds good to me,” Mulloy says, glancing at Hamilton.
    “I’ll play along,” Hamilton says.
    She goes back to the office, sets to work rearranging pickup schedules. She lightens up on Mulloy and Hamilton’s Tuesday and Thursday assignments so one or both of them will be able to work in the round trip to Smithtown. It’s about three o’clock, and Jake is long gone in his Cadillac, when Judy Bering comes into her office.
    “There’s a woman on the phone,” she says. “She’s crying. Sounds hysterical. Something about your father.”
    “Jesus,” Sally says, knowing this can’t be good. “All right, put her on my line.”
    She listens awhile to the wails, the sobs, the incoherent babbling. Finally she figures out what has happened.
    “What’s your name?” she says sharply, interrupting the woman’s desperate howls.
    “What? What?”
    “Your name. What’s your name?”
    “Dotty. My name is Dotty.”
    “Dotty what?”
    “Uh, Dotty Rosher.”
    “All right now, Dotty, listen to me. Lock your door and get dressed. Go into the living room and just sit there. Don’t do a goddamn thing. Don’t call anyone or talk to anyone. I’m coming to help you. To help you, Dotty. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Now give me your address and phone number.”
    She makes quick notes, hangs up, then has the presence of mind to go to the office safe. They keep the petty cash in there, but it’s hardly “petty”—almost five thousand in small bills in case the local cops come around, or the fire inspectors, plumbing inspectors, electrical inspectors, sanitation inspectors. The petty cash is not for bribes, exactly. Just goodwill.
    Sally grabs up a handful of twenties and fifties, stuffs them in her shoulder bag. She stalks out, grim-faced.
    “I listened in, Sal,” Judy Bering says, beginning to weep. “I’m sorry.”
    “Yeah,” Sally Steiner says.
    She drives her Mazda like a maniac, but crosstown traffic is murder, and it’s almost an hour and a half before she gets over to Park Slope.
    Dotty Rosher turns out to be a little thing, a piece of fluff. A strong west wind would blow her away. She’s got wide blue eyes, a mop of frizzy blond curls, Cupid’s-bow lips, and a pair of lungs that make Sally look like a boy. She’s fully dressed—for all the good that does.
    “Where is he?” Sally demands.
    “I got your phone number from his business card. It was in his wallet, but I swear I didn’t—”
    “Where is he?” Sally screams at her.
    “In the bedroom. He just, you know, just went out. I thought he had fainted or something, but then I couldn’t—”
    “Shut your yap,” Sally says savagely.
    She goes into the bedroom. The body of her father, naked, is lying on rumpled pink sheets. His mouth is open, eyes staring. He is dead, dead, dead. She looks down at the pale, flaccid flesh and varicose veins with distaste. His shrunken penis is lost in a nest of wiry gray hair.
    “You son of a bitch,” Sally says bitterly, then bends to kiss his clammy cheek.
    She goes back into the living room and tells Dotty Rosher what must be done.
    “I can’t. I just can’t.”
    “You do it,” Sally says stonily, “or I walk out of here right now and leave you with a naked corpse. You can explain it to the cops. Is that what you want?”
    So, together, they dress the remains of Jake Steiner, wrestling with his heavy body while they struggle to get him into undershirt and shorts, knitted sport shirt, trousers, jacket, socks and shoes. They remember to lace up the shoes, close his fly. Then they drag him off the bed into the living room, tugging him by the armpits, his heels scuffing the shag rug. They get the body seated in an armchair, head flopped forward, arms dangling.
    Dotty Rosher looks ready to pass out.