The Deadliest Option (10 page)

“Anyone could be a murderer, Les. You ought to know that by now.” There was a warning in his voice. “All it takes is an irrational moment and a motive.”

“Not Chris. He’s from good Episcopalian stock—Connecticut, I think. Greenwich. Fine Wasp credentials. Won a bronze in swimming in the Olympics one year.” And was passed over for partnership at Luwisher Brothers, she thought, holding that for herself. “Is that it?” She rose.

“One more.” Silvestri frowned at her. She could see he was furious. “Dr. Carlton Ash.”

She sat down. “I don’t know him at all.” She thought for a moment. “He’s like the wild card, you know. He doesn’t fit. He’s a consultant with Goodspeed Associates. He was hired by Luwisher Brothers to do a secret study of some sort, and he’s been hanging out there for months.”

“Was he at the dinner?”

“Yes. He was sitting right next to Goldie. Can I go now?” She got up quickly, took her jacket. “Bye, guys.” She opened the door. “Your air-conditioning stinks.” She closed the door.

Silvestri caught up with her in the squad room. “What’s the big hurry, Les?”

“I told you. I forgot to call Laura Lee.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re holding out on me?”

“Me? Would I do that, Silvestri?” she said. She reached up and kissed his cheek. He was sweating; his shirt was wet, particularly around the shoulder harness.

“You’re a liar,” he said. “See you later. “ He rubbed the back of her neck and returned to his office. Metzger had taken her chair and was talking to Mo. Silvestri gestured with the worksheets.

She turned away. Around her the activity of the squad room— phones jangling, a woman screaming drunkenly, a child wailing— seemed to intensify.

Sheldon Amble, the power at Lehman, had died in the saddle, but not in his own bed. His mistress had been a young woman broker with another firm. A woman it was rumored Sheldon had taken away from Goldie Barnes.

The woman had been Ellie Kaplan.

N
EW
Y
ORK
C
ITY
was her dewy-eyed best early on summer mornings. The air was clean, balmy, and faintly moist. The June sunlight came filtering through a light haze which the sun would burn off by midmorning.

In the meantime, there was something almost small townish about the empty streets, the few sleepy joggers, the dearth of traffic.

Wetzon felt overdressed in her two-piece lavender linen, even though it was lightweight and less formal than her usual business attire.

The subway platform on Eighty-sixth and Broadway was hideously hot, having not cooled off from the previous day; it probably would not cool off again until fall. But the “1” train came swiftly, and Wetzon got on a car so air-conditioned that the droplets of perspiration on her face condensed like a cold, wet slap.

The car was sparsely filled, as was to be expected at six forty-five A.M. on a Saturday. She took a seat and opened
The Times
to the business page, automatically folding it in the narrow New York subway fold so she could read without going into someone else’s space when she turned a page. At the far end of the car a woman in a bright yellow sundress screamed loudly in Spanish at two children who were playing tag around one of the center poles. She was surrounded by bundles, one of which was a gigantic red food cooler. They were obviously getting an early start for the beach, maybe Coney Island.

At Seventy-ninth Street a group of athletic-looking, golden-skinned teenagers got on. They were speaking German and both girls and boys wore walking shorts and carried backpacks. Wetzon returned to her newspaper and was reading about problems at Shearson when suddenly they were bending over her, and she realized that she was sitting under the subway map. She smiled at them and slid over to another seat.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked.

“Fulton Fish Market,” a very blond young man said.

“You’re a little late. You won’t see anything now. You really have to get there around five.” She smiled at their disappointed faces. “You could try. Change to the ‘2’ or ‘3’ train at Chambers Street. I think Fulton is the second stop. Or, what you could do is take this train to the last stop, which is South Ferry, and take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry or walk along the waterfront to the South Street Seaport, and save the fish market for another day.”

They settled down in the middle of the car to talk about it, and Wetzon went back to her newspaper.

She was on one of the newer trains, and the coolness and lack of humanity made the ride almost pleasant and certainly a lot more civilized than riding during rush hour on a weekday. But she was tired. And she resented having to get up and come down early on
her
Saturday to appease someone who wasn’t even a client. On the other hand, she was really curious about Ash’s secret report. What could be so top secret it would shake the industry?

Happily, she hadn’t had to answer any questions about her appointment because the night before was Silvestri’s poker night, and since it was his turn to host, they’d played at his apartment in Chelsea, and he’d slept there.

The train hurtled through the five or six miles between Eighty-sixth Street and Cortlandt Street, which was the World Trade Center station, stopping every eight or nine blocks to pick up or expel passengers. Even during a busy rush hour, the trip took only about half an hour. Today, without the surges of people getting on and off, it had taken twenty minutes.

Wetzon quickly climbed the steep steps of the out-of-order escalator to the mall-like ground floor of the massive World Trade Center. Except for a few coffee shops, most of the stores in the giant complex were closed. Surprisingly, a lot of tables in the biggest coffee shop were occupied. She let her eyes flit through, thinking how much she’d like to stop for an iced decaf. But it was a quarter after seven already, and she would be late if she indulged herself.

Later in the morning, tourists would flood the area and the shops and restaurants would open. It would be a day—almost but not quite—like any other day in the Financial District, except, of course, its frenzied, high-voltage spine—the salesmen and traders—would be absent. And their absence was palpable to those who were there every day.

On Wall Street—metaphorically, not literally, because very few of the brokerage firms were actually on Wall Street—even on summer Saturdays and Sundays, the deal makers would be coming to work shortly. Sometimes a particularly ambitious stockbroker would saunter into his office in informal attire to make some calls and catch up on paperwork, but the pace was decidedly slower.

And now and again, a stockbroker (or as the firms had taken to calling them, a financial consultant) would come in on a weekend prior to his resignation and his move to another firm, to Xerox his “book,” which contained valuable client account statements.

Unofficially, the firms knew brokers did this and resented it, but understood they couldn’t stop a client from pulling out his account and going with the broker. The pre-resignation time was particularly treacherous, for if a broker was caught copying his book, he was usually peremptorily fired and his papers confiscated. That didn’t mean that the new firm wouldn’t take him, however. They still wanted him; it would just make the transition harder, longer.

Officially, the firms, particularly Merrill, fought the transfer of accounts tooth-and-nail. In some states, firms had taken to putting a restraining order on the broker when he moved, in an effort to stop him from luring his old clients to his new firm. But it never worked for any length of time. It only succeeded in upsetting the broker, which was the reason they did it. If the broker was upset and couldn’t work, the account might stay with the original firm. Some firms had also taken to putting a bounty on the broker’s accounts; that is, offering the remaining brokers in the office high commissions—seventy percent or more—to go after the departed broker’s accounts, offering the clients huge discounts in commission charges on the first few trades. It could get vicious. One major firm actually announced over the speaker system how many accounts the firm had held on to after the broker left. It was a form of emotional abuse, terrifying brokers into staying put.

Wetzon left the World Trade Center via the Tower One entrance, crossed the street, and walked up the covered walkway to the Luwisher Tower Building.

She paused for a moment in the huge, luxurious shop-filled lobby. Where had Dr. Ash—or the fat fuck, as Ellie had called him—asked her to meet him? The elevator bank. Downstairs? No, upstairs.

The lobby was empty except for a uniformed attendant who was sipping coffee from a Styrofoam container. He looked at her and nodded sleepily. She had learned long ago that if you were pulled together and knew where you were going, or acted as if you did, no one stopped you.

She got off the elevator at sixty-seven and walked smack into Chris Gorham who was rushing to get on. They hit each other with enough force for each to stagger backward. He recovered first and charged onto the elevator, pushing Wetzon back roughly just before the doors closed. The programmed voice filled the car as Chris pressed the lobby button without releasing her.

“Hey,” she said angrily, recovering. “Let go.” She tried to push him away. “Do you mind? What do you think you’re doing?”

“What the hell do you think
you’re
doing, Wetzon?” Chris let go of her and rested against the wall of the elevator, panting. His face was flushed. He was wearing perfectly pressed khakis and a blue LaCoste shirt, deck shoes without socks, and was carrying a tennis racket in a white-and-blue-striped canvas bag.

“It’s a private matter, Chris.”

“A private matter,” he mimicked her. “I’ll bet.” His eyes narrowed to slits over his high cheekbones. “Well, forget about it. It’s over.” He slumped, appeared to shrink like a balloon someone had let the air out of.

“Is it Abby? I’m really sorry about that, Chris.” He seemed so deflated. Feeling sorry for him, Wetzon reached out and touched his tanned, muscular forearm.

“Who? Oh, yeah. Abby. Right.” He looked down at her hand on his arm. “Come and get a cup of coffee with me.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. I’m going to be late as it is.” She was sorry for him, but she didn’t want to get involved in his messy private life. This was the new Leslie Wetzon, and she was making a real effort not to give too much of herself to everyone.

The doors opened on the lobby and Chris got off. He turned back. “Don’t go up there, Wetzon.”

“What are you talking about? I have to.” She pressed sixty-seven. The elevator pronounced its good-morning wishes.

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged and turned his back on her as the doors closed.

What peculiar behavior
, she thought, yawning and rotating her jaw for the pop in her ears as the elevator rose. There was something about Chris that was bogus. As if he were in costume, a boy imitating an adult. She couldn’t put her finger on it. As if he was blue-collar putting on white, so he wasn’t entirely accepted ... and he wasn’t entirely real.

She stepped off the elevator on sixty-seven into almost total silence. No Carlton Ash. No one. She walked into the reception area past the empty desk. The sun poured through the skylight high over her head onto the tree, making dazzling patterns on the walls, carpets, and furniture. It was quite lovely.

“Hello?” she said tentatively. “Dr. Ash?” Where had he said he’d meet her? She was sure he had said by the bank of elevators. She looked at her watch. Seven-forty. The silence and emptiness were eerie, as if she were the only human being left in a world after the hydrogen bomb had been dropped.

She shuddered. What a dreary thought on such a beautiful day. She turned to the marble staircase and started up. Maybe Ash was waiting for her in the conference room.

Something glinted in the sunlight about three steps above her. She bent to get a closer look. She picked it up. It was a watch crystal, in one piece, but shattered. It was small and oddly shaped. A woman’s watch. Anyone could have lost it; though there were few women brokers, the firm was full of women in subsidiary positions. She walked back down the stairs and placed the crystal on the reception desk.

She climbed the stairs again slowly, her heels clicking on the marble. Total silence, but for that. At the top, she called again, “Dr. Ash?”

No response.

She opened the door to the conference room. It was empty. Three Styrofoam cups were on the conference table. The ashtray was full of cigarette butts and ashes. She walked into the room.

Behind her, the door slammed shut with a thud. Startled, she jumped, bumping the table. Coffee spilled from one of the cups.
Get with it, Wetzon, it was only the goddam door
, she told herself. What was there to be jumpy about? A draft can close a door. She went back to the door and turned the knob to open it. It was locked.

W
ELL, HERE
’
S A
fine how-do-you-do
, Wetzon thought, and she laughed out loud. Then,
this isn’t funny, Wetzon. You could be here all weekend, and what would you eat and where would you pee?

That did it. She jiggled the knob and thumped on the door with her fist. “Hey! I’m locked in!” She bruised the side of her hand, looked at it, rubbed it. “Oh, shit!” she yelled and did Rumpelstiltskin with her foot. Instinct told her the room was probably soundproof. “Oh, hell, blast and corruption!” She stamped around the conference table and sneered at the spilled coffee. “And I’m not cleaning up either.”

She pulled out a chair and sat down. She looked up at the large spot on the wall where Goldie’s portrait had been, then let her eyes roam quickly around the room searching for an exit she had, perhaps, missed. There were twelve chairs around the conference table; three were askew. The credenza ...
Dope
, she thought—
the phone.
She jumped up, ran around to the other side of the table and grabbed the phone from the sideboard. She got a line, punched out 411 for information—she would just call the building number and they would send someone up to let her out—got a line, tried again, got a line again. She tried her home number; the same thing happened. She pressed nine. Nothing at all. She threw down the phone. “Damn this!” She went back to the door and pounded on it with both hands, then stalked back to the table. She was dripping sweat in spite of the air-conditioning.