Tender Death Read online

  “It’s okay,” Wetzon said. She began with Peepsie Cunningham’s death, her disbelief that it was suicide, and Teddy’s feature on the elderly. “And how about that this Ida has the same last name as that broker I interviewed?” She ate a portion of a carrot muffin. “This is good.”

  “Which broker?”

  “The one who’s working for the FBI.”

  “The FBI?” Mark said. “Gee.”

  Smith frowned at Mark. “Spare me, Wetzon, the fantasy life of stockbrokers. Do you want more tea?”

  “No.” She described the visit to the Tsminskys and the Cafe Baltic, leaving out Teddy’s peculiar behavior. “Then when I went to the ladies’ room—”

  “What time is it?” Smith stood, dusting muffin crumbs from her lap. She looked at her wrist. No watch. She seemed suddenly distracted. “Mark, sweetie pie, clean up for Mom, that’s a good boy.”

  “It’s almost nine,” Wetzon said. “I think we’d better get going.” She was talking to empty space. Smith had rushed out of the room and Mark had taken the teapot into the kitchen.

  “Smith, why do I always end up talking to myself when I’m trying to have a conversation with you?” She found Smith in her bedroom touching up her lipstick.

  “Oh, was there anything more to your story?” She fumbled under the debris on the dressing table, found her watch and large gold shell earrings, and put them on.

  “Damn it, Smith, you didn’t give me a chance to finish.”

  “I hate foreigners.” Smith fluffed her hair in the mirror. “They come here, abuse our generosity, and get rich. They hate us and they have no gratitude.”

  “And you have no logic and no generosity,” Wetzon said, getting angry. “The Tsminskys weren’t rich. They came from a totalitarian country—” Why did Smith always seem to say outrageous things that aroused Wetzon’s ire? Were they supposed to do just that?

  “They’re Communists.” Smith began to coat her lashes with another layer of mascara. “Probably all KGB spies.”

  “Whatever they were, they’re dead now.”

  “What?” Smith’s mascara wand froze in her hand. She stared at Wetzon’s reflection in her mirror.

  “You heard me.”

  “Well, why didn’t you tell me? God, Wetzon, it takes you so damn long to get a story out. How did it happen? When did it happen?”

  “You cut me short, Smith, and you know it.” She precis’d the events leading to the murders and ended dramatically, “It happened after I was mugged.” She closed her eyes and waited for the explosion. It wasn’t long in coming.

  “That does it, Wetzon!” Smith slammed the mascara tube on her dressing table. “I’m beginning to think you need a keeper.” Wetzon grinned at her in the mirror. Smith turned and glared at her. “You’ve made this all up to distract me from the truth about Leon and Arleen.”

  “I have not.” Wetzon was indignant. She rolled down her turtleneck and showed the black-and-blue bruises.

  Smith jumped to her feet and enveloped Wetzon in a bony embrace. “This is terrible. Just terrible. I told you that reporter was trouble. What did the police say?”

  Wetzon extracted herself from Smith’s smothering embrace. “We didn’t call them. People were rushing out of the restaurant because they’d heard the Tsminskys were murdered.”

  “How were they murdered?”

  “They were Uzi’d right through their store window. It was horrible.”

  “Uzi’d! I told you—KGB. I said it before and I’ll say it again, louder. Why you would want to get mixed up with those people, I don’t know. The old lady was an obvious suicide. You’re looking for trouble when you stick your nose into other people’s business—”

  Wetzon’s eyes flicked over Smith. She was wishing Smith hadn’t used that turn of phrase when the buzzer from the lobby sounded. Wetzon jumped.

  “I’ll get it,” Smith said, charging past Wetzon and pressing the intercom in the foyer. There was a garbled response. “Thank you, Tony. Send him up.”

  “Were you expecting someone, Smith? I thought we were going to the office.”

  Smith’s olive skin tones tinged a deep wine. “I have an appointment. I almost forgot,” she said. “Maybe you should go ahead.” She didn’t meet Wetzon’s eyes.

  The doorbell rang. Mark came out of the kitchen. “Mark, be a sweetie and watch TV in your room till Mother finishes her meeting with Mr. Hodges.”

  “Okay, that does it. I’m leaving,” Wetzon said. “Is my coat in here?” She put her hand on the brass knob of the closet door.

  “No! No!” Smith pushed her away from the door. “Mark!”

  The doorbell rang again.

  Mark came running with Wetzon’s things. Smith took her coat, rushing her on with it. Wetzon, her scarf trailing, picked up her leather carryall and opened the outside door.

  A tall man in rimless sunglasses, wearing an open tan trench coat, a brown suit, and a brown hat was waiting in the hall. He had just lit a cigarette and Wetzon saw a flash of gold lighter as his gloved hand went into his inside pocket.

  Wetzon inhaled smoke and coughed.

  “Sorry,” he said. His lips were a narrow line, almost not there, followed by a receding chin on a long neck with a pronounced Adam’s apple. He stepped back to let her out. Under his arm he carried a large manila envelope. He went into Smith’s apartment and closed the door behind him.

  “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” Wetzon grumbled, dropping her bag and leaning down to pull on her boots. Her scarf, wrapped loosely around her neck, pressed painfully against her bruises. She straightened to relieve the pressure. The edge of the scarf was caught in Smith’s door. She pulled at the scarf and the door opened a crack. The scarf came free.

  “Did you bring it with you?” she heard Smith say.

  Hodges had a gruff voice with a distinct Harvey Lacey Queens accent. “Hold your horses,” he said. The door clicked closed.

  27.

  WHY IS IT, she thought, hanging her coat in the office closet, that whenever I get involved in Smith’s personal life, or I involve her in mine, I feel as if I’ve been through a meat grinder? She poured herself a cup of coffee. Why do I put up with her at all?

  They had been partners for almost five years, and it had been hard work and a lot of fun in the beginning. And it still was, most of the time. If Wetzon were to dissolve their partnership ... Smith would be devastated, she would never understand.

  Wetzon took a sip of the coffee and missed her mouth, dribbling liquid down her chin. After all, Smith is my friend. She cares for me—she even loves me in her own way. She dabbed at her chin with a Kleenex. What it breaks down to is, I’m comfortable with her. I wouldn’t want to work alone, and the idea of starting all over with someone new ... the explanations to clients and candidates. Oh hell, she concluded, shrugging, I’m too old to change.

  Harold’s door was closed. B.B. was on the phone and a second button was also lit, indicating Harold was talking to someone. B.B. smiled at her. “I’ll have one of my associates give you a call about management opportunities on the Island,” he said. He was getting to be a pretty good prospector. “In the meantime, why don’t you give me your home address and I’ll send you our business card?” He wrote out the address the broker gave him on the suspect sheet. Wetzon looked over B.B.’s shoulder. The home address was Oceanside, and the broker was presently working in Manhattan. That meant he had a long commute, particularly on a day when the immediate world was digging out of a major blizzard.

  “Very good, B.B.,” she said when he hung up. She patted his shoulder. “I think it’s a good idea to stick with the Manhattan brokers today. If they’re commuters they might be ready to work closer to home. The Long Island Expressway had to be a disaster this morning, and I’m sure the trains are all running late coming in from Connecticut and Westchester, too.”

  B.B. handed her the suspect sheet. “You might want to talk to this guy at some point, Wetzon. Aren’t we looking for a manager in Melville
?”

  She studied the profile of the broker and sipped coffee from her Wall Street Journal mug. “Ten years with Merrill, so he’s vested ... and Merrill doesn’t let brokers transfer to other offices ...”

  “Why not?”

  “Perversity. That, and the fact that a manager is paid an override, that is, a percentage of the profits his office makes. They’ve lost so many good brokers because they won’t let them relocate to another office closer to home. It’s stupid and shortsighted, and I hope they keep it up because it’s good for us.” She went into the office she and Smith shared.

  “Do you need Smith? Harold’s on with her now.”

  “No.” She slipped her carryall under her desk and looked at her schedule for the day. “I just left her.” There were no messages propped on the buttons of Wetzon’s phone, where they were usually placed. She looked over at Smith’s desk. There were at least a dozen pink message slips on Smith’s phone. She stood in the doorway. “No messages for me?”

  “Sure there are. I left them on your phone.” B.B. wrinkled his forehead and got up from his chair. He was wearing a gray wool flannel suit and a light blue lamb’s wool sweater over his white oxford cloth button-down shirt and blue-and-red rep tie, preppie all the way. If and when he would be ready to interview brokers, they would have to make him over into the crisp investment banker mode. “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe I mixed them up with Smith’s ... although I was sure I separated them.” He thumbed through Smith’s messages.

  “Oh, hi, Wetzon.” Harold stood in the doorway, blinking. “I didn’t know you were here.” He was holding a wad of pink message slips in his right hand.

  “Have you seen my messages, Harold?” She eyed the ones in his hand.

  “Yeah, I have them.” He handed them to her and actually looked embarrassed.

  The phone rang. B.B. scooted around Harold, back to his desk. “Smith and Wetzon, good morning.”

  “I don’t understand, Harold,” Wetzon said. “Why do you have my messages?”

  “ Ah ... um ... Smith called in while I was sorting them and I guess I forgot I still had yours in my hand.”

  B.B.’s head jerked around. He stared at Harold before he said, “Kevin De Haven for you, Wetzon.”

  “Okay.” Wetzon took her messages from Harold’s grasping little fingers. “If you don’t mind, of course,” she said, voice dripping irony, which was wasted on him. The little shit had read her messages to Smith. “Go to your room,” she said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. Normally, she didn’t mind if Smith knew who was calling her because they worked in the same room, so it was impossible to keep secrets, but this was blatant interference. The big question was why did Smith want to know who had called her?

  “Wetzon, pal.” De Haven spoke with a Nelson Rockefeller drawl. “Sorry about the other night. Didn’t mean to stand you up.”

  “I didn’t mind, believe me. How about today? After the close?” She sorted her messages, crooking the receiver between her shoulder and her ear.

  “Looks good. Call me at four.”

  She hung up.

  Hazel ... Maurice Sanderson ... the seventy-year-old broker. He’d left a message confirming his appointment with Curtis Evans today at four-fifteen.

  “B.B.,” she called, “please call Bob Curtis’s secretary and confirm Maurice Sanderson for four-fifteen today.”

  “Okay.”

  She waited until she heard him talking to Curtis’s secretary, then she dialed Sanderson’s number.

  “This is Maurice Sanderson.”

  “Hi, Maurice, Wetzon here. Hope you weathered the storm all right.”

  “A little snow doesn’t hurt me, Ms. Wetzon. Is everything still on for today?” He had a slow, deliberate delivery.

  B.B. came to the doorway and gave her the high sign.

  “Yes. How long do you have to make a decision?”

  “Till the end of the week ...” His voice trailed off.

  “Well, let’s see how your meeting goes with Curtis Evans. And, oh, Maurice, bring your production runs. Curtis Evans, if you remember, clears through Blander Horowitz. It costs them if their brokers write a lot of small tickets.” If Sanderson’s ticket size was small, he was dead in the water. She didn’t think she could sell him anywhere, not with his age and low production figures. She hung up the phone with a sigh.

  “What does ‘clear through’ mean?” B.B. asked.

  “It’s the operations side of the business, the exchange of securities for cash on delivery. All of the large and medium-size firms do their own clearing, but it’s too expensive for most of the small ones, so the large firms rent their clearing facilities for a fee, and the small firms get the advantage of the large firms’ research and product. And then there are firms that are just clearing firms, do nothing else but.”

  The phone rang. B.B. backed out of the office. “Good morning, Smith and Wetzon. She’s not in. May I take a message? I expect her momentarily.”

  Wetzon closed the door and went back to her messages. Howie Minton had called. The message said, “To remind you.” Okay, okay, Howie, she would get on Peter Tormenkov. She looked at Peter Tormenkov’s suspect sheet and punched out his number.

  “Mr. Tormenkov’s office.”

  “Is he in?”

  “He’s meeting with a client and he’ll be in later. May I take a message?”

  “No, thank you. I’ll call later.”

  One of her messages was from Arleen Grossman. She might as well deal with it before Smith got in and put on the pressure. She dialed the number Arleen had left.

  “TC Associates, good morning.”

  “Arleen Grossman, please. Leslie Wetzon returning her call.” She was put on Hold while Mantovani played in the background.

  “Wetzon, dear Wetzon, what perfect timing you have.” Arleen’s throaty voice was full of affection. “I was just about to go out on a consultation for a major Fortune 500 corporation.” She paused, to let the importance of it sink in. Wetzon wrinkled her nose at the telephone. Arleen was obviously not just a name-dropper, but also an event dropper. A see-how-important-I-am person. “I do hope you’ll be able to join me for dinner tonight.”

  “I’d be delighted,” Wetzon lied. “I’m doing an interview with a major stockbroker later in the day ...” She swallowed hard to keep from laughing. She hadn’t been able to resist and Arleen probably wouldn’t even notice. “ ... and I’d like to drop in on a friend of mine who hasn’t been well.... But after that, I’m all yours.”

  “Lovely.” Arleen’s warm voice didn’t react to Wetzon’s mischief. “Shall we say seven-thirty, then? Does that give you enough time? Where does your friend live?”

  “On the Upper East Side.” The conversation was beginning to irritate her. She wanted it over with. The phone rang.

  “My dear, I hear your telephone and I’m keeping you. Shall we say Le Refuge? It’s quite nice and the food is—”

  “I know it, Arleen.” She did, having been there with a client, the principal with a small firm, and a stockbroker the client was trying to recruit. In fact, it had been her friend, Laura Lee Day, who was now a stockbroker at Oppenheimer. Le Refuge was bistro-charming and the food was good, solid but uninspired. It was just barely on the right side of la-di-da, which is what Carlos and she called the self-consciously smug spots, popular with the yuppie crowd, that had blossomed all over their New York.

  B.B. knocked at the door, opened it, and mimed a phone call.

  “Hold,” Wetzon mouthed.

  “Good,” Arleen said briskly. “Till then.”

  “Yes, fine. Bye now,” Wetzon said.

  “Oh, and, Wetzon dear,” Arleen said with an oddly melodious laugh. “Don’t try to resist me. I intend us to be great friends.”

  The receiver still nestled in the crook of her neck, Wetzon parked the near-threat in the back of her mind to retrieve and think about later. She looked at her watch and sighed. It was nearly lunchtime. “Who’s on my line, B.B.?” She heard th
e faint sound of conversation from the earpiece in her neck.

  “Donna Rhodes.”

  Wetzon put the phone to her ear and was about to say, “Hello, Donna,” when she heard two voices arguing in a foreign language. Russian? A man and a woman. The woman was doing most of the talking and from her tone, she was in a fury. The man’s voice was muffled. She hadn’t known that Donna was Russian ... Wetzon looked down at her phone. The Hold light was blinking. Puzzled, she pressed the Hold button. “Donna?”

  “Hi, Wetzon, how are you?”

  “Great, Donna. Can you hold a couple of seconds more or shall I call you back?”

  “It’s all right. I’ll hold. I’ve been thinking about what you said a few weeks ago—”

  “I’ll be right back.” Wetzon put Donna back on Hold and pressed the line where she’d heard the argument in Russian. Dial tone. They were gone. She’d probably cut the connection when she switched to Donna. Crossed telephone wires again. It happened frequently in heavy rains and bad weather, as if the fragile digitals broke down under excessive moisture. And they were so close to the UN, it was understandable that sometimes when the wires crossed, the languages were other than English.

  Wetzon’s thoughts were tripping over each other. On the other hand, had the lines somehow not disconnected after she had completed her conversation with Arleen Grossman? And had she just overheard Arleen speaking Russian? Russian, with what seemed to Wetzon’s ear, as much fluency as Ilena and Misha Rosenglub.

  28.

  “DONNA, I’M SORRY.” Wetzon pulled out her file drawer and leafed through the R’s for Donna Rhodes’s suspect sheet.

  The outside door slammed, and Smith barreled in. She kicked their office door shut and dropped her new black diamond mink coat carelessly on her chair, making no move to stop it as it slid to the floor.

  “Wetzon,” Donna said, “I think I’m finally ready to sit down and talk.”