The Deadliest Option (40 page)

She started to unlock the outside door, but it was already unlocked. Had B.B. or Harold gotten there early? She stood in the cool reception room. Coffee was dripping in the Bunnamatic. “Hello?” B.B.’s desk was unoccupied.

“Wetzon!” Smith shrieked. “Where have you been? I called you last night and you weren’t home.” Smith stood in the door to their private office, wearing the white linen dress. Her eyes were glinty and manic.

“You didn’t leave a message.”

“I hung up after the fourth ring. I hate your answering machine. I have so much to tell you, sugar. Get right in here and sit down. Wait’ll you hear.” She pulled Wetzon into the office and sat her down in her chair.

“I have to talk with you, too, Smith. When are we due down at Luwisher Brothers?” When, she wondered angrily, was Smith going to acknowledge her bruised face?

“That’s just it, sweetie, we’re not going. Twoey is keeping our appointment.”

As angry as she was with Smith, curiosity overcame her. “Twoey?”

“Yes—your face really looks dreadful, dear—Twoey. He’s—”

“Excuse me,” Wetzon interrupted. “That’s all you’re going to say about what happened to me?”

Smith stared at her, hand over her breast. “Sugar, we’ve been all over this. Your face will heal, and it’s better not to make a big deal out of it.”

“My face will heal.” Wetzon heard her voice rise into screechy registers. Damn, she sounded like an hysteric. She breathed herself calm. “I’m pressing charges,” she said defiantly, “whether you like it or not.”

Smith looked hurt. “I’m on your side, sweetie pie. You do whatever you have to do, but of course it will send out all the wrong signals. We can’t be seen as whiners.”

“Whiners? My God, Smith, get your priorities straight.”

Smith beamed at her. “Doll baby, let’s just agree to disagree here, okay? Now let me tell you my news.”

Why was she in partnership with this woman, Wetzon wondered. They would never agree on important things. She ought to have her head examined. “Be my guest.”

“There was an emergency board meeting on Saturday and they voted to sell if Twoey got more than fifty percent of the shares, and he did. He’s taking over Luwisher Brothers—or rather, L.L. Rosenkind is buying it, and Twoey will run it as a division of Rosenkind.” She clapped her hands gleefully. “There now, what do you think of that?”

“I’m amazed. What happens to Destry Bird and John Hoffritz?” It was pointless to try to get Smith to see it her way. A waste of time. The best she could hope for was—

“They’re out. One of them is a murderer anyway, so who cares. They were probably in it together. They got rid of Goldie, but they couldn’t get the voting shares on their side. Isn’t it exciting?”

“Who else at Luwisher Brothers was in on this takeover? They had to have a major insider besides Twoey and his mother.”

“Well, let’s see ... how about Doug Culver?”

“How about him? Are you telling me Doug sold out his cohorts?”

Smith nodded. She flipped through the pages of
The Journal
“I don’t see anything, except—look, it says ‘rumors continue re the possibility of a large trading loss at Luwisher Brothers. John Hoffritz, president, refused to comment.’ Ha!”

“What does Doug Culver get for his disloyalty, may I ask?”

“Wetzon, there you go again. He wasn’t disloyal. He was entrepreneurial.”

“Oh, so now entrepreneurial is a synonym for ratfink betrayer.”

Smith smiled benignly. “I know you’re being bitchy because you’re mad you weren’t in on all the politics of it.”

“I couldn’t care less.”

“Oh God, it was lovely, just lovely. “ Smith danced around the room. She was ecstatic.

“What’s Dougie getting as his reward?”

“He’s going to run the capital markets division.”

“What about Neil? Is he in or out?”

“He’s head of retail.”

“And salaries for brokers?”

“A good idea whose time has not yet come.”

Wetzon couldn’t squelch a broad grin. “Now that, I like.” She rose and filled her coffee mug. The windows had all been replaced. The office looked as it had before the explosion, except for the disordered stack of suspect sheets on her desk that screamed out to be sorted. “The office looks good.”

“The boys and I did some cleaning. We’ll have to replant the garden.”

“A small thing.” She looked at Smith and could tell there was more; Smith was just bursting with it. “So it’s you and Twoey now?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And poor dear Jake Donahue?”

Smith blew a kiss and waved bye-bye.

Wetzon laughed. Jake Donahue deserved it. “I tried you last night and this morning. I wish you’d get an answering machine. “

Smith smiled indulgently and ruffled her curls. “If it’s important, people will call again.” She opened a drawer and took out a new pair of pantyhose.

“Well, it was important.”

Smith broke the plastic wrap and pulled the new hose out of the package. “Oh?”

“Are you listening?”

Smith wriggled out of her old pantyhose. “Of course I’m listening.”

“Didn’t you say something to me at the banquet about how Wall Street was looking like the UN?”

Smith pulled the new pantyhose on. “Yes. Blacks, Japs ...” She slipped her feet back into her shoes and threw away the old pantyhose in her wastebasket.

“And didn’t you say one of the Asians was good-looking?”

“Yes, the one at the bar with Ellie.”

“Would you recognize him again if you saw him?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Would you try? Let me call Silvestri and see if you can identify him as having been there that night.”

“Who is this he?”

“Maybe David Kim.”

“Well, finally I’m being invited to contribute to this investigation.”

“Oh, Smith. You’ve been so involved with Twoey, you haven’t even noticed anything else. I’m going to call Silvestri and find out when he wants us.” She picked up the phone and tapped out the numbers with the head of her pen.

The outside door opened and Harold appeared, carrying the mail and wearing another new suit. “Good morning,” he said. He seemed surprised to see them both in their office. “Gee, what happened to you, Wetzon?”

Wetzon listened to the ringing of the phone in her ear. “Metzger.”

“Hi, Artie, it’s Les.”

“Hello, Les. How ya doing? When Mo brought you in—”

“I’m okay, Artie. I’m tough.” She flexed her knee where the stitches had been. The healed cut was tight and vaguely itchy under her hose.

“You are. You coming in with your partner to make an I.D.?”

“Yes. When do you want us?”

“He’s going through booking now. How about ten-thirty?”

“Hold on, Artie.” She spoke to Smith. “Ten-thirty, Smith?”

“Yes, fine.”

“Ten-thirty, Artie.” She hung up.

The outside door opened and B.B. came in carrying a duffel bag. “Hi.”

“Nice weekend?” Wetzon asked, looking up. Now both Harold and B.B. were staring at her. “Oh, this?” She touched her face. “Didn’t Smith tell you?” She looked at Smith, who shrugged. “It looks worse than it is.”

“Okay, enough of this lollygagging. Isn’t it time we started dialing for dollars, team?” Smith said. “But stay out of Luwisher Brothers and L.L. Rosenkind. They’re merging and they’ll be
our
client. “ She closed the door. “A
very
good client.”

“Doug Culver sent me a case of wine,” Wetzon said. “I’m going to see if I can catch him.”

“He’s too busy to talk to you right now, Wetzon. Why not wait till tomorrow?”

Wetzon ignored her and punched out Dougie’s direct number.

“Douglas Culver’s office.”

“Hi, this is Leslie Wetzon. Is Doug available?”

“He’s in a meeting, Ms. Wetzon. May I help you—oh, wait—hold on. He wants to talk to you.”

Doug came on the line with an explosive, “Wetzon!”

“Doug. I hear you’ve been very busy.”

“Rather.”

“Well, I guess congratulations are in order, then. I’m really calling to thank you for the wine. It was a very nice thought, but it isn’t going to do you any good. I’m not dropping the charges against Chris.”

“Wetzon, you do what you have to do, but we pink-slipped Chris this mornin’. He’s history.”

“You fired him?” She felt sick. “You didn’t have to—”

“Oh, we didn’t do it for you, Wetzon,” Doug drawled. “He’s just not one of us, he doesn’t fit here.”

What had made her think they’d done it for her? She was really losing it. Actually, even if Chris were to be convicted of assault, it wouldn’t keep him off the Street. She sighed. “Tell me, Doug, since we’re talking so honestly here, didn’t you spot something not kosher going on with Ellie’s accounts when you took over compliance?”

“Not until very recently. David was good at coverin’ his tracks and I was a little busy carryin’ two loads.”

Why didn’t she believe him? Because he was so glib about it. If he was thinking of taking out the firm, this was a perfect situation to make it vulnerable.

“Wetzon, you’ve been very helpful and I’d like you to know we’re grateful. If there’s ever anythin’ we can do ...”

Gee, thanks
, she thought. “You can do one small thing for me.”

“What is it?” He sounded doubtful, as if he’d never expected her to call in her marker.

“Dwayne, Ellie’s assistant. I’d like you to keep him on, find a job for him with someone there.”

Irony colored Doug’s response. “But I intended to do that all along, Wetzon. I owe the little bugger.”

“You owe him?”

“I was the one who clobbered him with the vase that night at Ellie’s.”

Wetzon inhaled and almost choked. “God, Doug, you could have killed him. What the hell were you doing there anyway?”

“Why should I tell you, Wetzon?”

“Why not, Doug? Let me admire your Machiavellian thought process.”

“Funny, Wetzon. Okay, since what I say to you is confidential, and you still work for us, I don’t mind hypothesizin’.” He sounded amused. “Now, what if both Melissa and Ellie had votin’ shares—not much, but enough? And what if Ellie was givin’ me their proxy? And what if I found Ellie lyin’ there with her head in the fishpond, dead? Christ.”

“So
you
put her on the chaise and gave her the rose.”

“I couldn’t very well leave her in the fishpond.”

“Touching, Doug. Why didn’t you call the police so they could try to—”

“She was dead. There wasn’t anythin’ I could do. Grow up, Wetzon. This is the real world. When the ball’s in play, you either run with it or you’re out of the game.”

“Is that what this is, Doug? A game?”

“That’s exactly what it is, and losin’ is no option.”

“Too bad you weren’t able to get the proxies.”

“Ah, but I did,” Doug drawled. “They were just lyin’ on the kitchen counter, signed. That’s when Dwayne walked in on me. As it turned out, we didn’t need them. We got the votes elsewhere.”

“Oh, really? From whom?”

“Gail Munchen. She’s a Luwisher.”

M
IDTOWN
N
ORTH WAS
housed on Forty-second Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, a half block from the Manhattan Plaza complex. This had been an old-time ethnic neighborhood, mostly Italian, and still was, only now the butcher shops, bakeries, and grocery stores catered to the diverse population that had settled in this area near the Lincoln Tunnel passage to New Jersey.

In the early seventies the boom in building new residential high rises burst with New York City’s fiscal crisis, and Manhattan Plaza, which had been built as luxury housing, sat empty until someone had the bright idea that it might be a boon to theater people, performers, musicians, and production people. A compromise was reached: the rent rolls were quickly filled with subsidized tenants, one-third entertainment people, one-third elderly, and one-third local residents. For theater people, it had been a miracle in affordable housing near the theater district. For a derelict, even dangerous, neighborhood, it had been heavensent. Charming little bistros sprang up everywhere, and thriving non-profit, Off-Broadway theater groups surrounded Midtown North, which had moved into the old McGraw-Hill Building.

Smith and Wetzon waited in an anteroom, where an oversized window air-conditioner expulsed cold air with the maximum amount of noise.

“Humpf,” Smith said, looking at her watch. “We’ve been here a half hour already. Don’t they know we have a business to run?” She crossed one long leg over the other. “What are we waiting for?”

Wetzon wondered herself. The facility was a corporation of controlled energy, with both uniformed police and detectives going about their business. She’d picked up something subliminal, though, from a distracted Mo, who had brought them in hurriedly and left them there. “Maybe we’re waiting for the A.D.A. It’s Rachel Konstantin.”

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Smith asked irritably.

“She was on the cover of
New York
magazine this past winter. Don’t you remember? She was prosecuting that murder at Madison Square Garden.”

“Rachel Konstantin ... fat and ugly ...”

“No, not really. She’s quite nice-looking in person. Alex Konstantin is her brother.” She knew Smith would know Alex Konstantin because he was an M&A genius who had just left Shearson to form his own firm.

“Reeeally?” Smith perked up and the petulant frown left her face just as Mo reappeared without an apology.

“Will you come this way, please.” Mo led the way out of the room and down a wide corridor.

Smith gave Wetzon an exaggerated poke in the ribs as they followed. She pointed with her chin at Mo’s rear. Mo was wearing tight cotton leggings and a loose shirt that barely covered her attractive round butt. A gun belt settled on her hip, protruding from under the shirt. Her long auburn hair hung below her shoulders. There was something overripe and sultry about her. “Silvestri must love that,” Smith stage-whispered.

Mo squared her shoulders. “Shut up, Smith,” Wetzon hissed, but of course it was too late. The dead could have heard Smith’s loud whisper.

“Leslie.” Metzger, his gun in his waistband, was waiting for them at the end of the corridor. He brought them into a room with two rows of folding chairs facing a large dark picture window. An immense floor fan, scaly with dust, rustled hot air from here to there. Metzger studied her face. “How are you? You gave us a bad scare.”