Tender Death Page 22

  “Silvestri.” Bernstein’s tone was a touch defensive. “Long time no see.”

  Silvestri put his arm around her waist, lifting her, pressing her against the silky cold of his jacket. “Les? What’s going on here? Bernstein? Jesus Christ! Someone want to tell me why you’re rousting my girl?”

  “Guy was killed tonight. She found the body—”

  Silvestri’s arms tightened around her. She buried her face deeper into his jacket. The stiff bristles of his beard scraped her forehead. “Look at me, Les.” He relaxed his hold.

  “She had his blood all over her,” Ignacio said.

  Wetzon raised her head and looked at Silvestri. Dark circles ringed deep turquoise eyes. He wore a couple of days’ beard. “I didn’t kill Teddy,” she said. She could feel his hands warm on her back through the jacket of her suit.

  “Her prints are on the gun,” Bernstein said.

  35.

  SHE WAS DOING grands jetés in a white tutu up and down the aisles of the trading floor at Whitebread Sallman, which was teeming with activity. The corps de ballet, dressed as shirt-sleeved traders, followed her, clutching stock certificates in their hands. She spun around the frenzy with total assurance, confident that her technique was perfect. How wonderful that Jerome Robbins had done a ballet for her, connecting both of her worlds.

  Having completed her solo, she came to a glowing rest near the maestro, whose back was to her for a moment. “How was I, Maestro?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Wonderful, wonderful, Wetzon.” Leon turned to her. He was wearing a plastic name tag that said Maestro on the lapel of his black cashmere blazer.

  “Leon! What are you doing here?”

  He opened his mouth to answer her.

  “FBI! FBI!” someone shouted.

  “It’s a raid,” a voice near Wetzon cried. “Take this, and snap to it.” She took what was thrust at her and raised it to her eyes. It was a red, enameled figure of a Russian peasant woman similar to those she had seen at the UN gift shop, the kind whose head comes off and there’s another doll inside whose head comes off and there’s another doll inside. She did just that, discarding the pieces until she came to the last tiny enameled figure, which was that of a man whose head did not unscrew. She tucked the figure under her leotard into her bra. It was pulsating weirdly.

  The corps de ballet comme traders surged around her madly, rocking back and forth, making her dizzy.

  “Here, hold this,” Gretchen said, handing her a camera and disappearing into the melee.

  Wetzon looked at the camera, but it was not a camera; it was a metal wastebasket filled to overflowing with ornately designed stock certificates, which must have been collected from the corps de ballet.

  “Tanks for holding, dollink,” Ida said, reaching for the wastebasket. She was wearing Peepsie Cunningham’s mink coat, which was ludicrously too small for her.

  “No!” Wetzon tried to pull away.

  “Let me help you,” Arleen Grossman said. “Tell her how helpful I can be, Xenia.”

  Smith, looking like a movie star in a white strapless evening dress, diamonds in her ears and on her throat, smiled at Wetzon. “Really, Wetzon, Arleen and I know what is best for you. You must do as we tell you. Look at you. You’re nothing but a dancer trying to succeed in the business world. You could never have made it without me.” She pushed Wetzon hard and pulled at the wastebasket.

  “No! No!” Wetzon lost her balance, falling. She would be trampled under the stampeding horde.

  “Gotcha!” Bernstein, wearing the full costume of a Hasidic Jew, bearded, side-curled, long shiny black coat, beaver hat—took the metal wastebasket from her.

  “Caught her with the goods,” Ignacio said. “Fingerprints all over the evidence.”

  “You did it. Admit it.” Someone shook her.

  “Book her.”

  “Book her.”

  They were shaking her back and forth between them.

  “No, I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. Stop shaking me.”

  “Les! Wake up!”

  She opened her eyes and snapped up like a jack-in-the-box. “Silvestri! My God. What a horrible dream. They were all in on it together.”

  “In on what?” He brushed her hair away from her face. He was sitting on her bed, facing her with those wonderful turquoise eyes that made her dizzy when she looked into them.

  She sank back against her pillows and pulled the quilt up around her bare shoulders. “It was like a conspiracy ... I don’t know ...” Her hair was loose, all over the place. “What time is it?”

  “Nine.”

  She sat up again and tried to get out of bed, but he was sitting solidly on the quilt, pinning her down. “Jesus, Silvestri, I’ve got to get to the office.”

  “Not just yet.” He had that steely look on his face, and she knew she was going to get a lecture on interfering in police business.

  She leaned back and closed her eyes. “All right. Let me have it.”

  “You are really the fucking nosiest buttinsky. You were told to stay out of it. O’Melvany told you. I told you. You almost got yourself killed last night. I still can’t figure out why the killer didn’t—”

  “You know I didn’t kill Teddy.”

  “I know.”

  “How could they think I did?”

  “They can think anything, Les. They don’t know you. They were doing their job. The paraffin turns out to make it unlikely that you fired the gun, but there was a slight residue on your hand and your prints are all over the silencer.”

  “But I explained that. I tripped over something on the floor in Teddy’s office and picked it up. I didn’t know what it was. I only held it for a second because the lights came back on and I dropped it when I saw Teddy. I didn’t even know what it was until they told me.”

  “Les, you’re a material witness. They can’t make a case on you, but they sure as hell think you know more than you’re telling.”

  “Oh, Silvestri—”

  “Listen, kiddo, I know you damn well by now, and I think you’re holding out.”

  “I’m not,” she protested weakly.

  “None of that who-me crap, please, Les.”

  “Okay. Can I get up now?” She stretched under the quilt. Her muscles were stiff. She could do with some barre work.

  “Only if you promise me you’ll let the department handle this.”

  “Oh, Silvestri.” When he looked at her like that she felt herself dissolving inside out.

  “No, I mean it.”

  The downstairs bell buzzed.

  “Jesus, who is that?” Saved by the bell.

  “That lawyer, Margolies. He called this morning. You left a message for him to call you at Manhattan North. When he called here, I told him to come over at nine-thirty.” The buzzer sounded again. Silvestri stood up. “I think you’re okay. Bernstein can get rough, but I don’t think they can prove a case. Otherwise they would have had someone from the D.A’s office there.”

  As soon as he left the room, Wetzon got up and scooted to the bathroom, hair flying.

  “Hey, what are you up to?”

  “Shower, Silvestri. Be right out” She closed the door on him firmly. One minute more and she would have promised him anything. She turned on the shower and stood under the hot water, letting it gush like a waterfall over her. She was missing something. Something that connected Peepsie, Ida, Teddy, and Peter Tormenkov. Maybe she could get Peter to tell her whatever it was he told Teddy. Shit, maybe that’s what had gotten Teddy killed. She rinsed the soap out of her hair and then turned off the hot water, giving herself a final jolting icy rinse.

  She felt clean and renewed with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, wrapped in her white terry robe. Now she could face whatever she had to face.

  “Birdie, I swear.” Carlos was carrying a big, fragrant pot of coffee into the living room as she came down the hall. “You always manage to be right on the cutting edge of things.” She followed him as he put the coffeepot on a t
rivet on the glass top of the antique rope bed she used as a coffee table. The mugs were already there. He turned to her; his beautiful dark eyes with their long lashes had a trace of sadness. “Give us a hug. Are you okay? Can’t have anything happen to you.” They held each other for a moment and then let go.

  Silvestri was leaning against her built-in wall of books, hands in his pockets, watching.

  “I’m okay,” she said through a big lump in her throat.

  “Well good! That’s what I want to hear.” Carlos took her shoulders and turned her around. “This is Arthur.”

  He steered her to the sofa and sat her down next to a thin, well dressed man of about fifty with thick wiry iron-gray hair, mustache, and beard. The subtle glen plaid of his dark gray suit matched where his sleeves fit into his shoulders and across the breast pocket, so that it looked like one continuous pattern. A very expensive, hand-tailored job. He looked at Wetzon with serious but kind brown eyes behind hornrimmed glasses. Arthur Margolies had dignity and class—and she liked him.

  “Well, Birdie?” Carlos was reading her mind again.

  She grinned at him. “Flying colors.”

  “Well, now that that’s settled, we can get the show on the road.” He poured coffee into each mug and handed them around.

  Arthur Margolies stroked his beard and took a gold Cross pen out of his inside pocket and a yellow legal pad from his soft leather briefcase, which lay on the sofa between him and Wetzon. “As your lawyer, I must advise you that I don’t think Sergeant Silvestri should be present when we talk. What you tell me is protected by the attorney-client relationship. But what Sergeant Silvestri hears, he is honor-bound to disclose if he feels the law has been broken.”

  Dismayed, Wetzon looked at Silvestri, who remained impassive. “I understand what you’re saying, but I did not break any laws, and I want him here.” Besides, wasn’t she his girl? He had said she was, and in that moment, it was what she wanted him to say, needed him to say. But she was nobody’s girl. She was her own person, and there was a part of her that resented Silvestri’s proprietary statement and part of her that was drawn to it.

  “All right then, suppose you tell me everything from the beginning.” Arthur had a nice calm voice with a trace of New York City accent.

  “Okay.” She looked over at Silvestri. He stared back at her over the mug of coffee he held to his lips. She took a deep breath. He was going to kill her when he heard the whole story.

  Arthur cleared his throat politely. Carlos made a conductor movement with his hands as if he held a baton. She was keeping everybody waiting while she tried to solve the enigma of modern man and modern woman.

  She started with Peepsie Cunningham, mentioned Ida, and paused when she came to Peter Tormenkov, looking thoughtfully into her coffee.

  “Everything, Les, and while you’re at it, kindly include an explanation of those marks on your neck.” Silvestri left the bookcase and sat down on the big ladder-back chair facing her. She saw his gun in his hoister when he adjusted his jacket. Dismayed, her hand flew to her throat as if to hide the evidence. “No editing.”

  Carlos, sitting cross-legged on the floor, took in the drama through narrowed eyes and chortled.

  “Oh shit!” Wetzon looked from Silvestri to Carlos, back to Silvestri. “You guys act as if I purposely leave things out.”

  “Why don’t you surprise us.”

  She shot Silvestri an outraged look, but it was wasted. She sighed and skipped mention of Peter Tormenkov. She could always tell them later.

  “I called Teddy Lanzman, who was an old friend—” Her voice cracked. “I still can’t believe it—I can’t—” She swallowed hard. “We met for a drink. He was doing a feature for Channel Eight on the elderly. I thought he might have a clue about some scam ... something that would help me prove Peepsie was murdered. Anyway, he agreed to go to Brooklyn with me to help me find Ida—”

  Silvestri made a noise like a growl. She flushed and put her hands to her face, keeping her eyes on Arthur, who was making copious notes.

  She’d done everything wrong. When she flipped lightly over the attempted assault at the Cafe Baltic, Silvestri put his mug down on the glass top of the coffee table a little too hard. He got to his feet. Carlos wagged a finger at her. “Naughty, naughty,” he mouthed.

  Silvestri was furious. She could tell by the set of his shoulders, by his eyes. He began prowling around her living room, bristling with anger.

  Arthur stopped writing. “Anything wrong here?” He looked at Silvestri.

  Wetzon studied her palms. “Silvestri warned me to stay out of it—”

  “But you didn’t, did you, Les?”

  “I couldn’t—”

  “Enough.” Arthur held up his hand. “You can argue about it later. I just want to know what I’m dealing with here.”

  “You’re dealing with a hardhead,” Silvestri said.

  Carlos clapped his hands. “Amen. But do go on.”

  She sped over the Tsminskys’ deaths and Teddy’s confrontation with Gretchen. Finally, she described the phone conversation with Teddy, again leaving out Peter Tormenkov. “When I got to the studio—”

  Her phone rang.

  “Sit still. Your machine is on,” Silvestri ordered. “Finish this.”

  They all listened automatically to the click, click of her answering machine as it took the call. A woman’s voice said, “Leslie Wetzon, this is Diantha Anderson. We met the other day at the American Festival Cafe. I would like to talk to you about something very important. Please call me as soon as possible.” The machine clicked off.

  “Diantha Anderson ... Diantha Anderson ...” She frowned. The legal recruiter. “I wonder what she wants and what could be that important. I met her only that once ...”

  Silvestri shrugged.

  “Then if it’s not urgent, I’d like to go on,” Arthur said, taking a clean page and folding the used ones back. His writing was very neat and cursive.

  Wetzon recounted the funny popping noise she’d heard on the seventh floor.

  “Silencer,” Carlos commented.

  “Maybe,” Silvestri said, hands in pockets again, pacing.

  “And I know someone was in the hallway with me.” She looked at Silvestri. “Two someones.”

  “Forgive me,” Arthur interrupted, “but if that person was the murderer, why didn’t he try to kill you?”

  Silvestri muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

  “I don’t know,” Wetzon said. “It was dark. He couldn’t have seen anything more than I could. And I know that after I heard the first person on the stairs, there was still someone in the hallway with me. Then I heard the stairwell door open and close a second time and another set of footsteps on the stairs.” She concluded with her fall over the round object that had turned out to be a gun with a silencer.

  “That may explain why you weren’t shot. The murderer dropped, or left, the gun after he shot Lanzman,” Arthur said. He flipped through his pages of notes on the yellow legal pad. “Is there anything else? Anything you may have forgotten to mention?”

  “Not our Birdie. She has a mind like a steel trap.” Carlos arched an expressive eyebrow at her.

  “Shut up, Carlos.” She was starting to get testy about being on the hot seat with them. “Yes, Arthur. There was a button. The police found a gold blazer button. They asked me about it. It wasn’t mine.”

  Arthur took a final sip of coffee. “I’ll get the police report, but I think you’re all right for now, Leslie. If your prints were only on the silencer and not on the gun, it’s unlikely they can make a case—”

  “What about the paraffin test? Won’t that prove I didn’t fire the gun?”

  “You touched the silencer,” Silvestri said.

  “Damn it all, he was my friend,” Wetzon cried, anguished. “And I think maybe something he was checking on for me got him killed. What could he have found out that made someone kill him?” She had to get to the office and try to find Peter To
rmenkov.

  “I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions. He was an investigative reporter.” Arthur put his notes in his briefcase and took her hand. “It may not have had anything to do with Mrs. Cunningham’s death, but I think you ought to have some protection.” He looked over at Silvestri. “What do you think, Silvestri?”

  “I don’t need—” Wetzon began.

  “Agreed.” Silvestri cut her off. His girl again? Does his girl have any say in it? She smoldered on the sofa, sure if she stood up she’d leave a round smoking hole in the upholstery.

  “Good, that’s a relief.” Carlos jumped up and went to the hall closet, handing Arthur a conservative Harris tweed and slipping on his own full-length white-and-fawn lynx.

  Wetzon sat on the sofa and watched Silvestri huddle with Margolies in her foyer. “You are all acting as if I can’t take care of myself.”

  “You can’t.” Carlos came around the coffee table and sat down next to her. “This is serious, Birdie. You listen, just this once.” He gave her a furry hug.

  “I like Arthur, Carlos.”

  “That’s good. I told him you had to.”

  “You did? You’re terrible!” She felt depressed suddenly. “I think he thinks I’m an idiot.”

  “You are.” Carlos kissed her forehead. “But Carlos loves you anyway. And I hate to say it, but I think maybe Silvestri does, too.”

  “Yeah? Well, he doesn’t show it.”

  “Carlos. I’m on my way downtown,” Arthur called from the door. He wrapped a black-and-gray houndstooth scarf around his neck and shook hands with Silvestri.

  “Wait, I’ll go with you.” Carlos went to the door, pulling Wetzon along with him. “The memorial service is next Tuesday, at five-thirty, Birdie, at Sardi’s, in the Belasco Room.”

  “I’ll be there.” She shook Arthur’s hand. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” Arthur said. “Keep a low profile.”

  When she closed her door, she saw Silvestri was talking on her phone, back to her. She looked at the Times and the Journal on the floor near her umbrella stand. Carlos must have carried them in. Teddy’s picture was on the front page of the Times. He would have liked that coverage. She sighed. She’d have to catch up on the rest of the news later.