Tender Death Read online

  “Teddy, please help me,” she cried.

  “Sorry. Got a lead to follow.”

  The lights went out and someone stepped on her hands. She screamed with pain and, letting go, hurtled into empty space.

  A siren pealed.

  She awoke thrashing. Her alarm had gone off. Six-thirty. She stopped the alarm and lay there, breathing unevenly. Another dream and such a threatening one, too.

  It had been late when she’d come in last night and she had torn off her clothes and fallen into bed in her silk thermal underwear.

  Flexing her feet, then pointing, she got out of bed. Her throat was only mildly sore. She checked her neck in the bathroom mirror. It was black-and-blue, but surprisingly not swollen, and her throat was hardly sore at all.

  She did a quick stretching workout after her shower, played back her messages.

  Silvestri couldn’t get there.

  “Wetzon, this is Sonya. You know, your ex-friend, Sonya Mosholu? Pick up. Damn, why aren’t you there? Wetzon, this person you referred to me actually came to see me wearing a gun. Hello? ... Damnit, Wetzon. I’m a sixties’ person. I hate guns. I hate people who carry guns ... Oh never mind. I hate the way I sound.” She hung up.

  Wetzon laughed. O’Melvany to Mosholu. Contact!

  The next call was from Carlos.

  Then Smith.

  Carlos again, sounding upset. He left a strange number.

  Smith again, also upset.

  Damn! She got the coffee going and called the number Carlos had left. It was only seven o’clock.

  A voice she didn’t recognize answered.

  “This is Leslie Wetzon. I’m sorry to call so early but—”

  “Arthur Margolies here.” A very nice voice. “Hold on, Leslie Wetzon.”

  Carlos came on right away. “Les—”

  “Carlos, what’s wrong?”

  “Tommy Lawrence died.”

  “God no.” She sank down on the floor near the telephone. She and Carlos had known Tommy since they’d known each other. He’d been on almost every show with them. He couldn’t have been more than thirty-four or five. “When?”

  “Last night. It was so fast ...”

  “Did you know he was sick?” She began to cry. The youngest, the nicest, the most talented ... the beautiful boys and men she had known.

  “Yes, don’t get mad. He didn’t want anyone to see him. You know how he felt about his looks.”

  “I know. But at least I could have talked to him on the telephone.” Tommy was a beautiful boy when Wetzon had first met him, with a kind of blond virginal purity that belied his sexual appetites.

  “He had pneumonia. He was in an oxygen tent. Oh, Les—” Carlos began to sob.

  The other voice came back on the line. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said softly.

  She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Arthur?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry that this is the way we meet.”

  “I am, too.”

  “Take care of Carlos.”

  “I will. He said to tell you there’s going to be a memorial service later this week.”

  “Okay. Just let me know.”

  She hung up the phone and cried for Tommy Lawrence and all the others. She was afraid for Carlos.

  Her phone rang. She hesitated before she answered it, drying her eyes on the bottom of her sweatshirt.

  “Wetzon? Wetzon? Hello?” It was Smith’s son, Mark. He sounded terrible.

  “Mark? What’s happened? What’s the matter?”

  “Wetzon, Mom is really upset. Can you come right away? I don’t know what to do. She won’t talk to me.” His voice trailed off.

  “Mark, honey, tell her to pick up the phone for me. Okay?”

  He came back a moment later. “She said to leave her alone, that she wants to die.”

  “Okay, you know she isn’t going to die, so why don’t you make a pot of tea, and I’ll be right over.” She sighed. Smith went through moods that were wild swings of smug joy and deep depression. The slightest thing could set her off, from not being able to get a reservation at an in restaurant to an imagined, or real, slight by a client. She was hypersensitive and when Wetzon told her not to take these things personally, Smith accused Wetzon of not knowing when people were insulting her. Wetzon couldn’t win.

  Wetzon focused on getting dressed and over to Smith’s. Mark sounded ready to crack. There was too much emotional involvement for a thirteen-year-old. Having grown up without a father, Mark was too attached to Smith, and Smith used his attachment as an emotional crutch. He needed a social life, more friends his own age.

  Wetzon dressed for business, because there was business to do today, in a brown tweed suit and a camel hair sweater. She did a bare-bones makeup and packed a set of morning vitamins into her carryall with her papers. The backpack was on the floor near the door, and she emptied it, taking her wallet and notes. The bottle of cognac she put on the kitchen counter.

  Wrapped for the North Pole, she ventured out on Eighty-sixth Street. There was no doorman to be seen and her super, Camillo Peresi, was shoveling the sidewalk, whistling as he did so. The sun was so bright and warm it was melting the icicles that hung randomly from the dark brown canopy of her building.

  “No one showed up today yet,” Camillo explained, giving her his broken-toothed smile. He was wearing a small, black beret and looked like a Basque peasant. He stopped shoveling and leaned on the shovel. Since he lived in the building, when the staff didn’t show he was responsible for everything.

  “I’m sorry,” Wetzon said, looking up and down the street for a cab. She was distracted, not so much about Smith, but by Tommy Lawrence ... and Carlos. The sidewalks had been shoveled and the gutters were piled high with snow. Camillo had shoveled a neat entrance between the snow piles and the street, which was a white carpet with spots of slush and dark road showing through.

  The air felt almost balmy.

  A cab stopped in front of her building and a thin, tanned man in a leather coat got out, being careful not to get his fine black leather boots wet. He was carrying a Louis Vuitton traveling bag over his shoulder and a matching Vuitton briefcase. He and Wetzon nodded at each other familiarly, as longtime neighbors would. He was the art director at a big advertising agency, traveling incessantly between New York and Los Angeles.

  “Welcome home,” Wetzon said. “We’ve been busy while you were away.” She held the cab door for him.

  “So I see.” He wagged his head of reddish curls.

  “How was California?”

  “Cold and damp.”

  “‘That’s why the lady is a tramp,’” they both said, as Wetzon got into the cab and gave the driver Smith’s address.

  The City was digging out with obsessive efficiency. The main streets were entirely cleared and the side streets, although narrowed by snow-encrusted cars, were at least passable. She made a mental list of people to call. Kevin De Haven, Peter Tormenkov, Hazel, Teddy ... Last night—seeing Judy Blue like that—out of the blue ... Judy Blue. It was too much of a coincidence, but why would it be anything else but? And Teddy had been in a dumb funk the whole way home. He hadn’t even offered to help pay for the cab when they’d dropped him on Ninth Avenue.

  “Announce me please, Tony,” she said to Smith’s doorman, and went to the back of the lobby where two small, swarthy women, made round by their outer wrapping, were complaining to each other in Spanish about the subway system. They got on with her and got off at different floors.

  Mark was waiting in the doorway, watching for her to get off the elevator. His face was stained with tears. She would have to talk to Smith about him.

  “No school today?” She touched his cheek, then stepped back and pulled off her boots.

  He shook his head. “We’re closed because of the storm.” They went into the apartment and Wetzon closed the door behind them.

  Too bad, she thought, disengaging herself of her coat, scarf, and hat, handi
ng them to Mark. She could have packed him off to school and dealt with Smith herself. “Where is she?”

  “In her bedroom.” He was wringing his hands like a worried little old man. “Do you think she’s okay?”

  “Of course. You know how tough she is. I’m sure something just upset her for the moment.” She walked to the closed bedroom door and knocked gently. “Smith?”

  “Go away.” Smith’s voice, clogged with hours of crying, came through the door. “I’m going to kill myself.”

  Mark howled, “Mom!”

  Wetzon turned Mark from the door. “Wait in the kitchen and keep the tea hot.” He looked at her plaintively. “Go on.” She waited until he was gone. “Smith, stop this nonsense and open the door right now.” She rattled the doorknob. It was locked. “Come on, my friend, talk to me. I have so much to tell you about yesterday” No response. “Of course, if you don’t want to hear ...” She heard a small sound from behind the door. A footfall. The key turned in the lock, but the door didn’t open.

  Wetzon opened the door. The room was a mess. Smith stood unkempt and disheveled in a ragged striped bathrobe. Her hair was wild and uncombed. She looked emaciated, anorectic. She swayed and Wetzon caught her.

  “My God, Smith, what happened?” The bed looked like a combat zone. Covers half on the floor. Pillows scattered all over the room. A glass on the night table was tipped over. On the carpet near it, a dark, wet spot. An ashtray was clogged with cigarette butts. Clothing and towels covered the floor. Wetzon had to negotiate over an obstacle course which included magazines and shoes to get Smith to the bed. She tried to straighten the crumpled sheet, gave up, and let Smith sink to the bed. When Wetzon righted the blanket she dislodged a plastic makeup bag and an electric razor. Finally, she covered Smith and sat down on the bed facing her.

  Smith moaned.

  “Okay, Smith, what the hell is going on?” Wetzon reached over and smoothed Smith’s dark curls. Smith was silent, her eyes downcast. “I’m going to leave without telling you anything about what I’ve been up to ...” She got to her feet. Smith reached out a bony hand and grabbed Wetzon’s shirt. “Okay, then tell me.”

  “Leon’s betrayed us,” Smith whispered.

  “What? How?”

  “He’s having an affair with Arleen Grossman.”

  26.

  WETZON CALLED THE answering machine in the office and left a message that they would be late. “How do you know Leon and Arleen Grossman are having an affair?”

  Smith had showered and was wearing her crimson-and-black dressing gown. She had miraculously repaired herself and was now glowing with a kind of supernatural radiance. “I know.” She sat down at her dressing table, sweeping a medley of lingerie to the floor, and stared at her face in the mirror approvingly; dislodging a lipstick and two tortoiseshell combs which fell on the carpet, she pulled her hair dryer out of the clutter on the table and turned it on.

  Mark brought a bamboo tray of tea and fresh orange juice. “I strained the juice just the way you like it, Mom.” Wetzon smiled at him and took a glass of orange juice. He waited patiently for Smith to take hers, but when she didn’t, he set the tray down on the carpet near her.

  “Give Mommy a big kiss, sweetheart,” Smith said over the whir of the hair dryer. “Be a good boy and get us a dozen mixed croissants and muffins ... you know where the money is.”

  “Okay, Mom.” Mark kissed her cheek and the hot air from the dryer blew his dark curls against hers. Their hair was exactly the same deep brown.

  “Such a sweet baby,” Smith murmured, fluffing her hair. She turned off the hair dryer and dropped it back on the dressing table.

  “I think you’re imagining it—or did you read it in the cards?” Wetzon sat on the foot of the bed sipping the juice.

  Smith shook her head stubbornly and put on a mauve silk blouse and her plum Donna Karan suit. “Is it cold out?” She picked up the glass of orange juice from the tray on the floor and took a swallow.

  “Not like yesterday. Yesterday was a killer.” Damn. Wetzon wondered if her everyday language was always so chock-full of those bloody expressions or were they floating around in her subconscious, surfacing when she got involved in a murder.

  Smith sat again at the dressing table and dusted her face lightly with powder, using a long sable brush. “So what do you have to tell me? I want to hear.”

  “First tell me why you’re so sure about Leon and Arleen.” She watched the tiny grains of the face powder fly up in the air, float briefly, and settle on the plum suit. “He told me Friday night that he had asked you to marry him.”

  “Humpf.” Smith put magenta eye shadow on her narrow eyelids and accented her almond-shaped eyes with a small upward dark line and finished with black mascara in three layers. Her sure hand with makeup always fascinated Wetzon. Her touch was more theatrical than Wetzon’s had ever been.

  “Seriously, Smith. Why would he be having an affair with Arleen Grossman? She can’t hold a candle to you.”

  “Oh, Wetzon, I love you dearly, but sometimes you are so dim. Don’t you see how manipulative she is? And men are such fools.” She took the glass of orange juice and went into the living room. “Bring the tray, would you, Wetzon, there’s a dear, and put it in the kitchen.”

  “But I thought you liked Arleen.” She never seemed able to keep up with Smith’s rapidly changing emotions.

  “Well, I did, but I wasn’t stupid enough to fall for that line of garbage she was handing out.”

  Oh, weren’t you, Wetzon thought, leaving the tray on the counter in the kitchen and returning to the living room. “Well then, I certainly don’t intend to have dinner with her.”

  Smith was stirring the tarot cards on the table, her palms barely touching them. They seemed to be moving of their own accord. Wetzon shivered. Smith turned and gave Wetzon a piercing look. “What a totally selfish thing for you to say, Wetzon. I’m really surprised at you.”

  “What?”

  “You have to have dinner with her to find out for me what is going on between her and Leon.” She gathered up the cards and began laying them out in some kind of order.

  I give up, Wetzon thought. “Okay, I’ll have dinner with her, but only for you. And not tonight. I’m really beat.” She sat down on the sofa, watching Smith’s sure hands on the cards.

  “Didn’t she want you to have dinner with her tonight?”

  “Yes—but—”

  “Wetzon, you really don’t care about me at all, do you?”

  “Smith, you know that’s not true. All right, I’ll have dinner with her tonight. I have to see if I can meet Kevin De Haven after the close and get that going ...”

  Smith gathered up the cards again and shuffled as if she were shuffling a regular deck of cards. Then she palmed them and held her palms out to Wetzon. “Cut” she ordered, narrowing her eyes, intent on the cards.

  Wetzon touched the smooth oversized cards and pulled her hand back in surprise. The cards were hot, as if they had been heated. Smith glared at her until she cut the deck.

  I hate this, she thought, watching Smith lay out the cards. She still makes me feel inadequate, even after all this time.

  “It’s that dark man again,” Smith muttered. “So much danger.” She tapped a crimson fingernail to a card showing a man lying dead, his body pierced by many swords. “It’s Silvestri, sweetie pie, it has to be ... he’s your dark man and he’s surrounded by death.”

  In spite of herself, Wetzon felt a chill of fear. She didn’t want anything to happen to him. Not Silvestri. “There are other dark men in my life, Smith, besides Silvestri.”

  “If you mean that fag, he’s irrelevant. He doesn’t qualify—”

  “No, I did not mean Carlos. I meant Teddy Lanzman.”

  “Teddy Lanzman ... Teddy Lanzman. Who is that? Is he a broker? His name is so familiar.” She tapped the card again. “This is not Silvestri’s usual card. Teddy Lanzman ... wait a minute, not the newsman on Channel Eight? That Teddy Lanzman?” She pu
t the cards down carefully.

  “He’s pretty dark,” Wetzon said, smirking.

  “He’s black.” Smith was scornful.

  “So?”

  “Black, Wetzon. If you ask me—”

  “Don’t say it. I’m not asking you.”

  “Are you going to tell me about it?”

  “Not if you don’t keep your personal prejudices to yourself.”

  “I don’t know, Wetzon, it’s getting harder and harder to have a conversation with you about anything, but I’ll accept your reservation.”

  “Teddy is doing a feature on the life of the elderly in the City—”

  “Hi, I’m back.” Mark burst through the front door, still wearing his boots.

  “Boots! Boots!” Smith called reprovingly.

  “Oh gee, I’m sorry, Mom.” He backed out of the apartment, still clutching the large paper bag.

  “Why don’t you set up in the dining room, sweetie pie, while Wetzon and I finish talking.” Smith seemed transfixed by the cards on the coffee table. “He’s a very dangerous man. I don’t like him.”

  “Smith, honestly, you don’t even know him.” But Smith’s firmness combined with that little seed of doubt Wetzon already felt after her trip to Little Odessa with Teddy. After all, Smith had been right about Rick Pulasky, the doctor Wetzon had gotten involved with last year.

  “I don’t have to know him. The cards know him. I’ve seen him on television.” Suddenly the cards fell from her hand. Her eyes turned oblique. “Of course, I could be wrong. It could be Silvestri.” She gave Wetzon a radiant smile and stood up, yawning. “I’m really hungry,” she said.

  “Do you want me to make an omelet for you and Wetzon, Mom?”

  “Oh no, sweet baby, this is just perfect.” Mark had set up a large platter of assorted muffins and a separate platter of croissants. A fresh pot of tea sat on a Salton warmer. There were three little jelly bowls of jam and a crock of butter. And three place mats with matching napkins were set with glass mugs, silverware.

  “What a love you are, Mark,” Wetzon said as he poured herb tea into the glass mugs.

  “Isn’t he though?” Smith reached for a corn muffin. “Oh nice, still warm.” She broke it into sections and buttered each section deliberately. “So tell me what happened to you yesterday. You may sit and listen,” she said to Mark, “if it’s all right with Wetzon, but no interruptions.”