The Deadliest Option Read online

  The table rocked violently, then crashed to the floor under the dead weight of Goldie Barnes.

  3.

  THE AFTERNOON SUN streamed through the open French doors and the heady scents of summer wafted into the room, tickling Wetzon’s nose. She sat with her feet on her desk, eyelids drooping, struggling to concentrate on Goldie Barnes’s extensive obituary in The New York Times.

  “Dishyonotherwashashon?” Smith’s mouth was packed full of Fig Newtons.

  “Kindly translate that for me.” Wetzon looked up over the edge of the newspaper at her partner, who had the unmitigated gall to look as if she’d had eight hours of restful sleep and was perky and full of energy.

  “Did-you-know-he-had-a-son?”

  “Who?”

  “Why are you being so obtuse? Goldie Barnes, of course. Who else?”

  “No, I didn’t.” She skimmed the obituary. “Here it is. ‘Survivors ... Janet Barnes ... Goldman Barnes, II.’ ... Hey, he’s with L.L. Rosenkind. Isn’t that interesting?”

  “Fathers and sons,” Smith said knowingly.

  Wetzon nodded, half listening to Smith and half listening to the smooth way B.B.—their assistant, Bailey Balaban—was handling a cold call. He was getting really adept, zeroing in on some good prospects for Wetzon to follow up.

  “It was cardiac arrest.”

  “I think I heard he had severe asthma—oxygen tank everywhere he went, that kind of thing.”

  The phone rang once, twice, a third time. Wetzon reached for it. “Smith and Wetzon.”

  “What do we have B.B. for?” Smith grumbled.

  Wetzon put her hand over the receiver. “He’s in the middle of a cold call.”

  “Hi, Wetzon, it’s Sharon.”

  “Do we have a Harold Alpert here?” Smith’s question was loud and rhetorical.

  “Hi, Sharon, I’ve been trying to catch up with you.” Wetzon shook her head at Smith and swung her feet off the desk, swept the newspapers to the floor, and rifled through suspect sheets until she came up with Sharon Murphy’s.

  “Sharon Murphy?” Smith mouthed.

  Wetzon gave her a thumbs-up signal.

  Harold Alpert appeared in the doorway, looking nervous and apprehensive. It was almost four years now since Harold had started with Smith and Wetzon as a summer intern, general factotum, and cold caller. They had made him a junior associate, but on the condition that he also back up B.B. when it got busy. Smith rose and waved Harold out into the garden.

  “I think I’m ready to talk to people now, Wetzon.” Sharon had a husky, sultry voice that was an immensely successful sales tool—she could get people to listen to her. “Things are just awful here ... I guess you’ve heard.”

  “Heard what?” Wetzon had heard there had been major defections in that branch office. It was a shame that she hadn’t had her hand in some of it. But you couldn’t be everywhere, and she had stopped beating herself up about it. No matter how good you were, some potential candidates always slipped through the cracks.

  “Well, I don’t like to say too much—I think they’re taping our calls—but we’ve lost three really big producers here in the last six months, and Wally is suddenly taking managing the office very seriously.”

  “If he doesn’t, he’s going to lose the office. The Street is full of managers looking for offices.” Since the Crash in October of 1987, the absorption of Hutton by Shearson, the sale of the retail division by Drexel, Pru-Bache’s purchase of Thomson McKinnon’s retail operation, and Drexel’s spectacular bankruptcy, the retail industry had shrunk considerably; managers had become a dime a dozen, and the firms could be—and were—increasingly particular. The major problem was that a great many of the managers were second-rate, couldn’t motivate, couldn’t recruit, and couldn’t close—that is, get a broker to commit to join. It was the continuing nightmare of a headhunter to have perfect candidates lined up and have the manager unable to write the ticket.

  “Morale is horrible. Wally took me to lunch—to talk about my progress, he said, after ignoring me for the three years I’ve been here—and then all he did was talk about himself, how hard it is to keep everyone happy.”

  “Let’s see ... you finished last year at three-fifty thou. What do you have in for the first five months this year?”

  “Two-fifty.”

  “Well, of course he’s going to take you to lunch. He should have taken you to Lutèce.”

  “That cheap bastard. We went to the deli around the corner. He couldn’t get into Lutèce anyway. I don’t know, Wetzon. Just to go to another wire house—I don’t know. I think I need a very aggressive cold calling atmosphere, and I want upfront. I’m not going without money.”

  “You could go to Luwisher Brothers—get into a cold calling set-up. Neil Munchen runs a good program with all the support and leads you can handle. But they don’t do upfront deals.”

  “And they’re downtown. I just bought an apartment on Fifty-ninth Street. I want to walk to work. Taking the subway downtown every day will make me crazy. I’ll end up spending a fortune on cabs; besides, my therapist is uptown.”

  “Okay, why not talk to Dayne Becker and Loeb Dawkins? You’ll get the deal you want and maybe you can factor in your own cold caller.”

  “Oh, God, all right. Set me up before I chicken out. Do one this Wednesday about five and the other next Wednesday. Midtown. And not with the Dayne Becker manager you set me up with last year. I didn’t like him. He was too laid-back.”

  “Yes, you’re right. He is. There’s a super young manager on Fifty-fourth and Fifth. You’ll like him.”

  Wetzon hung up as Harold shuffled past her desk, eyes downcast, and returned to his tiny cubbyhole in their outer office. They had talked him into shaving off his beard, so he didn’t look like an Orthodox rabbi anymore, but with his mustache and his horn-rimmed glasses and his slouch, he was a dead ringer for Groucho Marx. She smothered a grin.

  “Well?” Smith stood in the doorway to the garden.

  “She wants an aggressive atmosphere and upfront.”

  “They never know what they want, Wetzon. You should never listen to them. Just tell them.”

  “Where did you go last night?” Wetzon was not about to let Smith get on her kick of how brokers constantly took advantage of her. “I looked for you after—”

  Smith smiled a little cat smile. “Jake knows Janet Barnes from way back. Did you know she’s a Fingerhut?” She was scrutinizing her face in a hand mirror and plucked out a stray eyebrow hair.

  “The liquor dynasty? No kidding.”

  “They probably got all that booze last night wholesale.” Smith put the mirror and her tweezers in her desk drawer. “Maybe I’ll call her and offer my condolences. I knew Goldie fairly well....” Her voice trailed off.

  She’s scheming, Wetzon thought, watching Smith’s mind work, click, click, click. She‘s thinking about whether Janet Barnes could be useful in some weird way. Smith was determined to be part of New York’s social scene, and now that she was seeing Jake Donahue, she just might make it. Jake was a conjurer when it came to connections.

  Wetzon took her jacket off and hooked it on the back of her chair. “Janet is probably in good hands with family and friends, Smith. And you hardly knew Goldie at all. Perhaps a note from both of us—”

  Smith cut her off with a curt, “I’ll take care of it.” She hummed something under her breath. “You know, Wetzon, you’re getting to be a regular little black cloud. “ She wrinkled her fine nose and gave Wetzon a hard look. “Do you realize people keep dropping like flies all around you?” She adjusted the silk scarf at her throat.

  “Do you really think so?” Wetzon tried to keep her tone light, but faltered. The same thought had been going through her mind. “Am I some kind of magnet who makes things happen? Or is it just this crazy business we’re in?” She found herself doodling a dagger on Sharon Murphy’s suspect sheet, then caught herself and erased it.

  “Honestly, sweetie, I don’t think all these insider
trading and fraud indictments have helped.”

  “The public perception of brokers is awful, and lately some of the people we’re dealing with make me feel so grungy I want to wash after I talk to them.”

  “Stop!” Smith held up her hand. “I don’t want to hear any of that. We’re in an insane business. Just remember, our motivation is to get the money out of their pockets and into ours.” She unwrapped a refill for her gold Cross pen and replaced the old one, tossing it clattering into her brass wastebasket. “But I have to tell you that for the first time since—”

  “Please don’t say it.” She knew that Smith was going to mention the last time Wetzon had been involved in a murder, the winter of the big blizzard.

  Smith nodded solemnly. “The cards, sweetie pie. I don’t know ... I can’t explain ... it’s a sense of something inevitable around you.” She smiled. “Now don’t get mad. I think you should consult a psychic.”

  Wetzon groaned. “Oh, Smith, no. I don’t want to know. Can’t I just let it happen? I like surprises. That’s what makes life so damn much fun.” She meant it, too. “Besides, Goldie Barnes wasn’t murdered.” She looked down at her list of people she had to talk to.

  “Humpf.” Smith was miffed. “Well, I’m just making a sincere suggestion. I’m afraid you’re in for some—”

  “Phone for you, Smith.” B.B. tapped on the door frame. “Destry Bird.”

  Wetzon and Smith stared at each other. Smith reached for the phone. “Destry ... yes ... well, of course, you have our deepest condolences ... yes ... you know we are at your service.” She was making grotesque faces at Wetzon and her eyes sparkled. “Monday? We could come at nine ... oh, I see. Eleven-thirty would be fine.” She looked at Wetzon, who nodded impatiently. “We’ll see you then.” She replaced the receiver.

  “What is that about?”

  “We’ve been invited down to Luwisher Brothers to talk about new hiring procedures.”

  “New hiring procedures? Who’s taking over the firm?”

  “He didn’t elucidate.”

  “The king is dead, long live the king.”

  Smith eyed the phone, then Wetzon. “They couldn’t meet at nine because there’s going to be a police inquiry.” She shivered.

  “A police inquiry? Into what? Procedures? An audit? What?”

  Dark clouds had slipped almost furtively over the sun without their noticing. A windstorm burst through the open doors, scooping up their papers, sending them every which way. The women jumped up and with some effort closed the French doors. A jagged bolt of lightning streaked out of the dark pewter sky and slammed into the high wooden fence that backed their neighbor’s yard. Just as the fence burst into flame, the sky opened up and rain fell in heavy sheets, dousing the fire.

  “It’s started,” Smith said.

  4.

  THEY TOOK A CAB to the Luwisher Tower building opposite the World Trade Center, Smith decked out in her plum suit and Wetzon in dark blue pinstripes. Smith had been late, as always, and they were now part of the snarl of cars, trucks, and cabs inching off the FDR Drive in lower Manhattan. Temperatures had risen dramatically since early morning, and it was hot.

  “He says he’s worried about the algebra final.” Smith was reading a letter from her son, Mark, who was finishing his first term at St. Paul’s and living away from home for the first time. “God, I miss him,” she said suddenly, touching the corner of her eyes with a fingertip.

  Wetzon patted her shoulder. “I do, too, but isn’t he having a wonderful time?”

  “I don’t know.” Smith looked out the window at the construction that had eliminated one lane of the highway, and frowned. “I can read between the lines, and I know he misses me. But Jake thinks he needs to be on his own for a while.”

  Wetzon hated to admit it, even to herself, but Jake Donahue was right. Mark was fifteen now, and it was time for him to ease out of the intense relationship he had with his mother.

  “Well, the term is almost over. He’ll be home soon.” Their cab nudged the back bumper of the van ahead of them and the driver, a small Latino, exploded from the vehicle and began screaming at their driver, a stone-faced black man, in Spanish. Their driver opened the door, yelling, “Spick mother-fuck—” when a traffic cop appeared and inspected the bumper, then waved both drivers back to their places. Horns blared through the tumult, and traffic began moving again.

  “Please don’t tell anyone, Wetzon, but I think Jake’s jealous of Mark.”

  It was totally unlike Smith to sound so worried. But Smith had changed a lot recently. She had been seeing a therapist for over a year; her life appeared to have stabilized since the disaster with Leon, and she was certainly much easier to work with.

  “Good grief, Smith, who would I tell? And why would he be jealous of a fifteen-year-old boy?” If indeed, the great Jake Donahue was jealous, it was because Smith had created the situation, playing her son against her lover.

  “Jake’s made arrangements for Mark to spend the summer in Arizona, working on a cattle ranch.”

  “Oh? Sounds like fun. Is Mark excited?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him about it. I was waiting till he got home.”

  “It’ll be all right, I’m sure. And if it’s not, I’ll go and you and Mark can run the business for the summer.”

  “Wetzon,” Smith said. “If I haven’t told you lately, you’ve been a wonderful friend—and I love you.” She folded the letter back into its envelope and tucked it into her briefcase.

  “Why, thank you, Smith.” Wetzon was amazed and just a little moved.

  “Now, then.” Smith wriggled to straighten her skirt, which had crawled up to midthigh. “Back to business. I want you to let me do the talking at this meeting.”

  “What—” Just then their cab came to a shuddering stop and the driver flipped his flag down. The meter read sixteen dollars and eighty-five cents.

  “Give the man a twenty, Wetzon, please. I forgot to bring my wallet.” Smith opened the door and slid out of the cab.

  The Luwisher Tower was one of the new granite-and-glass monstrosities rising sixty-eight floors above the Financial District in lower Manhattan. Constructed on landfill, it would have boggled the minds of the small group of traders who had gathered under the buttonwood tree at 68 Wall Street on May 17, 1792, and founded what became the New York Stock Exchange.

  Any other time Wetzon might have been fuming, but on this beautiful, sunny day in June, she was in a benevolent frame of mind. Smith was Smith and even with the therapy, her basic narcissistic nature was not going to change. She looked at her watch. “We’re fifteen minutes early.”

  “See, I told you not to rush me. You always want to leave so early.”

  “I loathe being late.”

  “You’re the one who should be seeing a therapist, I think.” Smith beamed at her.

  “Do you want to go in for coffee?” Wetzon pointed to a terminally cute croissant shop with gingham curtains on the lobby level next to a WaldenBooks outlet the size of an airplane hangar.

  “No, let’s go on up. We can powder our noses.”

  A special elevator was programmed to go directly to Luwisher Brothers, which occupied the top eight floors. The construction had been a joint venture between Luwisher Brothers and an international real estate conglomerate, which occupied ten floors of the building. The remainder of the skyscraper was divided among the New York home of a major insurance company, the headquarters of Merryweather Funds, mutual funders of some repute, and Grover, Newman, one of the largest law firms in the world.

  The walls of the elevator were covered with tufted brown leather like a chesterfield, and the lighting was subdued, diffused through the mottled glass of the dropped ceiling. And the elevator talked. “Good morning,” it said in a digital voice. “This elevator goes to Luwisher Brothers. Please choose your floor.”

  “What floor did Destry say?”

  “Sixty-seven.” Smith pressed the shiny brass square, and the elevator
rose almost imperceptibly, like a hot-air balloon. The lights above the doors began blinking at the sixtieth floor and stopped when the doors slid softly open on the sixty-seventh.

  To the right of the bank of six elevators, three on each side, was a small reception area carpeted in pale taupe. A wide corridor cut through left and right, seeming to run the width of the building. The ceiling, topped by a skylight, rose two floors, giving the space the look of a cathedral. Wetzon stifled a laugh. Some cathedral. Here everyone prayed to Mammon, god of gold. Goldie’s Church, some wit had called it.

  The walls were painted in a paler taupe and hung with those Georgia O’Keeffe flower paintings that always made Wetzon feel she was looking at colorful depictions of female sex organs.

  A real tree, with a whitish bark and beautiful silver leaves, grew hydroponically from a huge pot of water and stones, reaching its branches up to the skylight. The windows soared from floor to ceiling.

  But by far the most prominent feature in the room was the sweeping marble staircase, with an open iron railing on one side. From where she stood, looking upward, Wetzon could see a battalion of pantslegs belonging to a group of men who were milling at the top of the curved stairs.

  A young woman with blunt-cut, shoulder-length hair sat behind a glass-topped desk talking on the phone and writing on a message pad. “Thank you for your thoughts,” she said. “I will convey them to everyone.” She hung up and smiled at them. She had perfect teeth and wore very little makeup. “How may I help you?”

  “Xenia Smith and Leslie Wetzon. We have an appointment with Destry Bird.”

  “We know we’re a bit early,” Wetzon added and got a glower from Smith.

  The woman picked up the phone and pressed a button. “Hi, this is Maggie. Ms. Smith and Ms. Wetzon are here.” She waited. “Okay.” She hung up and gave them another vision of her perfect orthodontia. “Mr. Bird is in a meeting, but he should be with you shortly.”

  “Where is your ladies’ room?” Smith asked.

  “Just past the elevators. The second door on the right.”