Tender Death Read online

  “I can’t get over that no one stopped you,” Smith was saying.

  “I think people could see that Hazel was sick—” She choked. “Oh, Smith, it’s more than that. Hazel’s cancer has come back. She’s having chemotherapy, and she can hardly walk.”

  “I’m really sorry, Wetzon,” Smith said. “I know how you feel about her. But she is old—”

  “Forget it, Smith. Don’t say another word.”

  “Really, Wetzon, what did I say now?” Smith sounded wounded. “You are getting so sensitive.”

  Wetzon didn’t know why she bothered. She and Smith would never see eye to eye about most things. “It’s all right, Smith, I guess I’m just upset about what happened. I’m going to lie here and try to catch up.”

  “Wait, before you hang up, you had some calls—”

  Wetzon looked at her watch. It was five o’clock. She groaned. “Okay, let’s hear.”

  “Evan Cornell.”

  “He’s looking for something in management. He calls every couple of months. It can wait till tomorrow.”

  “Mary Ann Marusi. I hope she’s not in trouble again. Kidder hasn’t even paid us yet.”

  “I don’t think so. She said she would call me for a drink or lunch after she got settled.”

  “I hope so, but considering her record ...”

  “What record, Smith? Really, I don’t know why you have it in for Mary Ann. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “No, just dummied up her runs from Sontheimer and Company.”

  “That’s not true. You’re taking Don Schwartzman’s word for that, and you know damned well Don’s a liar. He’s lied about the end-of-year production of everyone we’ve placed there. He cheated us. That, if you remember, is why we’re not working with Sontheimer anymore.”

  “How could it slip my mind. I must be losing my grip.” Smith laughed lightly.

  “Any more calls?”

  “Yes. Peter Tormenkov, confirming breakfast tomorrow at seven-thirty at the American Festival Cafe.”

  “Oh shit. I’d forgotten all about that.”

  “Who’s Peter Tormenkov?”

  “Someone Howie Minton referred.”

  “Jesus, Howie Minton, the great mover,” Smith said sarcastically, tweaking Wetzon for always believing Howie Minton when he called her and swore that this time he was really ready to change firms. Wetzon would set up interviews for him with various firms, they would all make him offers, and then he’d stay on with L. L. Rosenkind.

  “Well, you’re right there. I admit it.” Wetzon laughed. “Anyway, this Tormenkov person works for L. L. Rosenkind and he’s unhappy—”

  “Just like Howie, I suppose.”

  “Maybe not. Howie says he really wants to leave and that he has a nice book for a rookie.”

  “A rookie? God, I hate to work with rookies. You spend as much time with them, more, than with a big producer where we can really earn a fee,” Smith complained. “Couldn’t you have gotten him to come to the office? It’s a waste of time and money buying a rookie breakfast.”

  “He was so paranoid about confidentiality, I thought what the hell.” Wetzon didn’t look forward to a seven-thirty breakfast either. She had never gotten used to the Wall Street clock, where the day often started at the crack of dawn and brokers were sitting at their desks at seven o’clock. The day officially began at nine-thirty when the Market opened, but a lot of brokers were on the phone with clients considerably earlier. And those who prospected for new clients knew that the corporate honchos were usually at their desks by seven, without a secretary around to run interference. But Wetzon, who’d spent all those years in the theater, still felt as if her heart didn’t even start beating until ten o’clock. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, one more. Kevin De Haven. No message. Just a phone number. Looks like a Merrill number.”

  “De Haven? Does that name sound familiar to you?”

  “No. Don’t you know him?”

  “No.” Her curiosity was piqued, despite her fatigue. “I wonder if it’s too late. Let me try him and I’ll call you back.”

  She hung up the phone and dialed the number Kevin De Haven had left.

  “De Haven.”

  “Hi, this is Leslie Wetzon. You called me this afternoon.”

  “Oh yeah. I was returning your call.”

  “I didn’t call you.”

  “But I found your name and phone number on my desk this morning when I got back from vacation.”

  “Well, I didn’t call you, Kevin,” Wetzon said, baffled. “What do you do?”

  “I’m a stockbroker.”

  “You are?” She suppressed a chortle. “What a coincidence. I’m a headhunter.”

  “Hey, pal, what field do you headhunt in?” De Haven asked, warming up. Brokers loved to talk. Salespeople loved to talk. So long as you kept the conversation going, you still had a shot at closing the sale.

  “Your field. Stockbrokers. Maybe we should talk.”

  “Maybe we should. I may be interested in using your services.”

  “What kind of business do you do in numbers?” Wetzon asked casually.

  “Oh three quarters of a mil or so.”

  “No kidding. You’re not a stockbroker. You’re a gorilla. When can we sit down and talk?” With the average stockbroker doing somewhere between two hundred and fifty and three hundred thousand in gross production, De Haven was indeed a gorilla.

  “How about tomorrow? After the close.”

  “Great. Where are you located? My office is on Forty-ninth, off Second.”

  “Well, I’m at 200 Park. Maybe I’ll come to see you. Why don’t you call me tomorrow at four?”

  “Great, Kevin, I’ll do that.” She hung up the phone and shouted, “Wowee! Gold!” She dialed the office, and when Smith answered, she said, “Guess who lives right?”

  “What? Tell me. Who is he?”

  “Oh just a little old three-quarters-of-a-million-dollars producer.”

  “Holy shit, how did we get so lucky?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure going to find out. He says I called him and left my name and number, but I know I didn’t. Someone is watching out for me.”

  “I’ll let you know after I check the cards tonight,” Smith said, referring to her tarot reading. “When are you meeting him?”

  “Tomorrow, after the close. Maybe at the office sometime after four o’clock.”

  “Damn it, Wetzon, my party is tomorrow night. You know I have to leave early.”

  “You don’t have to meet him, Smith.”

  “But I want to. It’s not right.” Smith was petulant.

  “Would you rather I put him off and lose him?” Smith sometimes could get so ridiculous. Even though she was older than Wetzon, Wetzon frequently felt older, or less childish anyway.

  Smith’s response was an emphatic, “Humpf!”

  “Look, Smith, I’m beat. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Wetzon, wait a minute. I forgot to ask you. Did she own her apartment?”

  “What? What apartment?”

  “The one that belongs to the woman who killed herself, of course, who did you think? I want you to ask Hazel about it for me. Maybe I can get it at a good price. If Leon and I should get married ... we’re going to need a bigger place.”

  7.

  WETZON WAS FORAGING in the pantry closet. There wasn’t much. Since Carlos had become a choreographer, his visits were erratic, and she fended for herself with groceries. Years ago, when Carlos’s dance career had begun to fade, he had started a housekeeping business. It became so successful that he soon had an army of out-of-work dancers working for him, cleaning and cooking in houses and apartments all over the city.

  She closed the door and then reopened it and took out a can of waterpacked tuna fish, setting it on the counter.

  “When in doubt, bagel it,” she said aloud, and cut a sesame bagel in half.

  She went into the dining room and put her answering machine on
.

  “Hello there, joy of my life, this is the boy choreographer, calling to let you know all is well on the firing line, and I’ll be there tomorrow sometime. Tried you at the office and got the barracuda, so I’m sure she didn’t relay the message.”

  Carlos. And he was right. The barracuda, commonly known as Smith, hadn’t told her. Smith and Carlos hated each other.

  “Hi, buddy,” Wetzon said to the answering machine. “Talk to you later.”

  The machine beeped. The next call was a hang-up. Another beep. Then the strains of Ethel Merman belting out, “There’s no business like show business,” with full orchestra on the answering tape. A Carlos special. He always did that when he cleaned her tape of old messages, something she never bothered to do.

  The apartment was cold. She trailed into the bedroom, shivering, and changed into sweats and heavy socks. The heat was slow in coming up tonight because the thermostat had not caught up with the sudden temperature drop that morning. Outside, the north wind whapped against her windows.

  Through the wooden blinds she could see the small trees around the penthouse of the building behind hers, bobbing and bending. As she watched, the stem of a giant sunflower broke off and slammed into her window. She jumped back. The dead sunflower clutched at the glass with tiny dried tendrils, as if it were human, trying to hold on, and failing, finally got whipped away.

  Something danced and clutched similarly in the back of Wetzon’s mind, teasing her. Peepsie Cunningham in her dark blue silk dress, tossed like a rag doll in the lashing wind amid assorted debris that the wind had churned up.

  The tiny dark blue Gucci walking shoe with the gold stirrups. It was still in her carryall, which was leaning against her bed. She took it out and stared at it. It was a real Gucci, monogram and all, not an imitation, and it was hardly worn. There were only a few scratches on the sole. She held it up and matched the sole to the black suede boots she had removed earlier.

  “You’ve got big feet, kid,” she said, imitating Silvestri, imitating Bogart.

  Silvestri. Thinking of him, she smiled. She had met him last year when she had gotten involved in Barry Stark’s murder. He had substance, and it was a real relationship. As real as two people could have with two careers and totally different working hours.

  She put Peepsie Cunningham’s shoe down on the rug next to her boots, sat up, and called Silvestri at the Seventeenth Precinct.

  “Metzger.”

  “Hi, Artie. Is he there, by any chance?”

  “No, he’s downtown.” Silvestri’s partner’s voice was raw with fatigue. “Something just came up, and we’re in for a long night, I think.” She could picture Metzger, with that long, hang-dog face and the pouches under his eyes, slumped at his cluttered desk in the tiny office he shared with Silvestri.

  “Okay, I hear you,” she said. She hadn’t seen Silvestri in three days, hadn’t talked with him in two. She missed him. “Just say I called.”

  “Want me to tell him anything in particular?” Metzger asked halfheartedly.

  “No, Artie, thanks.” She paused and frowned. “Yes. Not to call me tonight. I have a seven-thirty breakfast and I’m going to bed early. I’ll talk with him tomorrow.”

  The Peepsie Cunningham story could wait. Mrs. Cunningham was, after all, a suicide, not a murder.

  Wetzon lay down on her bed again and unfolded the red, white, and blue afghan she and Carlos had crocheted as a backstage project in honor of the bicentennial when they danced for Bob Fosse in Chicago in 1976. They had agreed to share it, each taking it for a year, and this was her year—at least until July Fourth. She thought about the choreographers she and Carlos had worked with who were gone. Gower Champion first. And then Michael Bennett and Bob Fosse had both died in 1987. It made her sad and nostalgic.

  Drawing the afghan up around her ears, she thought about Silvestri.

  The truth was, she was crazy about him, but she didn’t find it easy to admit. Not to herself. And certainly not to him. If she admitted it, wouldn’t she begin to depend on him more and more and less on herself? She had been by herself for a long time, and except for a few short—very short—affairs there had been no one since Bud Silverberg, whom she had met in college. He had been with the Air Force in exotic Morocco. He had just stopped writing, and she had found out not long afterward from a mutual friend that he had fallen in love with and married a Moroccan girl.

  “I can’t believe he didn’t tell you,” the friend had said.

  Neither can I, she had thought. Well, this was one relationship she intended to handle very carefully.

  She wriggled under the afghan. Silvestri. Smith had no inkling, at least Wetzon devoutly hoped she didn’t. Only Carlos guessed, and that was because he knew her so well. “He’s good for you,” Carlos said. They had been doing basic barre exercises. “And you know I wouldn’t just say that. I don’t like cops.”

  “He’s a detective,” she corrected automatically, bending her leg slightly and straightening it, raising it slowly to the barre.

  “Shit, he’s a cop,” Carlos said, his back to her, doing the same movement. “But I like him anyway, and I like how he treats you.” He came back into first position. “And look at you—you’ve got this glow on all the time now. Come on, let me show you.” He turned her reluctant body to the mirror, his handsome face for once very serious. “Look. All the points are softening. It’s a by-product of good sex,” he added with a lascivious grin.

  She had felt herself flush, but it was true. When she was with Silvestri, she could feel all her spikes, as Carlos called them, softening. Chin, nose, elbows, knees. She could feel herself turning to mush, and only half of her liked it. She didn’t like not having complete control.

  “Damn you, Carlos,” she had said, whacking him with her towel. “Get out of my head.”

  “Listen, dear heart,” he said, tenderly, ducking too late. “I’m your best friend, and I love you like a mother, like a brother. And I know you love me. But it’s safe to love me, because you know I’m never going to do anything but love you.”

  She turned her back on him, hunching over the barre, and Carlos came up behind her, placing his hand on her hunched shoulders. She stared at him in the mirror.

  “Take a chance,” he said softly. “For your sake. I don’t want you to be alone.” Her image looked at his image in the mirror, stricken. It was the time of the Plague and too many people they knew had died and were dying, would die of AIDS. “No, I’m all right, but I mean I’m not going to be around forever,” he said sadly. “None of us can think long term anymore.” She had turned away from their images and they had held each other and cried.

  So she was trying, but she was frightened by all the emotion of her feelings about Silvestri.

  She threw off the afghan and sat up and dialed information for Lenox Hill Hospital, then called to see how Hazel was doing.

  “We’re not putting calls through to Ms. Osborn tonight,” the operator said, “but she is in satisfactory condition.”

  “All right, then, please tell her that Ms. Wetzon called and will talk to her tomorrow.”

  “Ms. Weston.”

  “Wetzon. W-e-t-z-o-n.”

  “Weston.”

  Wetzon laughed as she put down the phone. She picked up the dark blue Gucci walking shoe and turned on the television, parking the shoe on top of the set.

  The picture came on clear and sharp, and suddenly she was looking at her friend, Teddy Lanzman, solemn-faced, doing a promo for a special coming up on the plight of the elderly in the city. He had come a long way from his days as the token black at Channel 8. It had been ages since she’d last seen him. She remembered he’d been dating someone, a production secretary, or something like that, in David Merrick’s office when Wetzon was in 42nd Street. He had risen from community relations to feature writer and producer. She stood staring down at the screen, her mind elsewhere, then she turned off the news in bright living color and went back to the kitchen.

  The kettl
e was filled, the Zabar’s ground decaf measured into the Melitta filter, the tuna fish drained and mixed with Marie’s garlic Italian dressing. She put the bagel halves in the toaster oven and sat at the counter in her kitchen.

  She loved her little kitchen with the blue-and-white French country tiles on the wall and the white counters. She turned on the tiny television and listened to the business news at six-thirty while she sliced a tomato. Nose to the plate, she inhaled the wonderful smell of a summer-ripe hydroponic tomato, almost as good as the Jersey beefs she had grown up on.

  Damn, someone else had been arrested for trading on insider information. Would they never learn? Did no one remember Ivan Boesky? It was really disturbing because almost every one of these men was young, younger than she, graduates of the best schools, and they were already making big dollars. It was another kind of plague. One didn’t die from it, but it was corrupting the entire financial community. She listened to the stock quotes and then switched to the national news.

  When the coffee had stopped dripping, she threw the paper filter with the grounds away and poured herself a mug of coffee. She piled tuna fish and slices of tomato on each half of the bagel and ate them one at a time as she read her notes on Peter Tormenkov.

  The hunger was still with her, but it wasn’t real. She needed a chocolate fix. The chunks of dark chocolate from Li-Lac on Christopher Street that Silvestri had brought her last week. They were in the pantry closet. She took a small chunk and put the rest back on the shelf.

  Teddy Lanzman came on the TV screen again with another promo for his special report on the elderly, starting next week. “ ... which help and which defraud,” Teddy said. “Please join me and tell your friends. You may not be part of the aged population in this city now, but you will be. And right now, we all know people who are.”

  “Are and were,” Wetzon said, thinking about Peepsie Cunningham and her friend Hazel Osborn.

  The rich bittersweet chocolate melted in her mouth and wrapped her in a warm cloak of well-being. She was safe, she thought guiltily. She was healthy. She was young.