The Deadliest Option (43 page)

“O’Connor.”

“Lieutenant Silvestri, please.”

“Not here.”

“Is anyone else there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Waddaya want, lady?”

“This is Leslie Wetzon. Tell Silvestri I’m at 2904B Mott Street with David Kim. He’s going to—” A mighty sledgehammer hit her, glancing off her head, slamming into her shoulder, and she felt herself go down, sprawling across the telephone.

The suitcase
, she thought. He’d bashed her with the suitcase. She lay gasping, trying to catch her breath, heard O’Connor from a distance, crackling from the receiver, heard David’s thudding footsteps down the stairs.
Wetzon, you fool,
she thought, scrambling to her feet. She got to the door and collected enough breath to scream,”Smith!”

Then she came clattering down the stairs, heard brakes squeal, a terrifying shriek, as she threw open first one door then the other onto the street. Paper was flying from everywhere, scraps. Smith was rubbing her ankle, looking pleased with herself. A yellow cab. A crowd was dancing, jabbering in Chinese, in English, grabbing at the floating paper. It was money ... bills. The cab driver, a small Pakistani with a pencil-thin mustache, was standing beside the cab, wringing his hands, crying, “He ran in front of me ... did you see? ... You saw, he ran in front of me....”

“I tripped him.” Smith grabbed her in a smothering hug. “Thank God, you’re all right. I tripped him and he went flying into the street.”

Where was David? Wetzon broke away from Smith. “David!” A siren wailed in the distance. A fifty-dollar bill floated past her nose and Smith clutched at it.

Wetzon pushed her way through the crowd. David lay on the street on his back, twisted among the orange rinds, bits of torn newspaper, and chicken bones, as people snatched at the explosion of bills, fifties and hundreds, that spilled from the split-open suitcase on the hood of the cab.

“David.” His eyes were open. His mouth moved. Wetzon knelt on the filthy street. She touched his face, felt his wrist. There was a pulse, faint but steady. “Oh, David,” she said. “Why? You had it made. Ellie loved you.”

He moaned. “She was going to spoil it. She would have told.”

“Dear God, was it worth it, David? The money”—She waved her hand around—”look, it’s all gone.”

His eyes were wet black marbles. He said, “I can’t feel my legs.”

Wetzon stroked his hand.

He looked at her and said, “I’m sorry, Father.”

The sirens filled the vacuum.

T
HEY’D FOUND A
cab quickly on Chatham Square, Smith chattering, Wetzon silent.

“Altogether, I think it was a very profitable afternoon,” Smith was saying. She patted her bulging pockets.

“You can’t keep that money.”

“Why not? What would it matter, and who would know, anyway?”

“Smith!”

“Well, all those people on the street got theirs, why not us?” She tapped on the Plexiglas divider. “Driver, please drop me at Forty-ninth and First.”

“You’re going back to the office?”

“It’s early. I want to finish the budget, and besides, I left my watch on the desk. We can have that drink now, though, if you want. I could really use one.”

“No. I’ve had it. I’m going home.”

But she didn’t, at least not right away. She couldn’t. She was wound up, and having a drink with Smith was not her favorite way of unwinding. She had the driver drop her at Zabar’s. She’d buy food. A pound of lobster salad, Eli Zabar’s ultraskinny sourdough bread, a sharp chevre from Vermont, decaf espresso for iced coffee. She’d buy vegetables for a white gazpacho and fruit for a tart. Do domestic things.

Silvestri was probably at Bellevue right now, getting a statement from David Kim. He would clean up the case and come home, and everything would be the same as before. Or would it? She felt a dread that bordered on premonition.

Zabar’s turned out to be civilized, without the usual crowds at cheese and deli counters. Probably because the heat had driven people from the City early.

The sky was overcast when she came out of Zabar’s with her shopping bag. At long last, it was going to rain. It might break the long heat spell. A breeze blew up Broadway from the south and cooled the back of her neck.

She stopped at an Asian produce market and bought three boxes of raspberries for the tart, a cucumber, tomatoes, peppers. She had enough white wine to last for months, thanks to Doug Culver.

Inside the market, down the center, was an extensive salad bar with hot and cold food. She would never be able to look at one without remembering David Kim. He had caught the contagious disease of Wall Street—greed. Surely, as a mathematician in academia, there was no motivation or opportunity for the kind of money that could be made on the Street. But could you take someone with good morals, an honest person, and drop him down in the middle of unmitigated greed and think he wouldn’t be tainted? Yes. An individual would have to have a streak of avarice and dishonesty already. Opportunity didn’t change David Kim; it just made it easier for him. But what made him think he could get away with his scam forever? He wasn’t even very smart about hiding it. They never were. He could have stopped after the first killing—the compliance director. But by that time he liked all the money he was making, and he couldn’t stop. He thought he was invincible. So when Dr. Ash began blackmailing him, he killed again.

Thunder rolled faintly in the distance. It was raining somewhere— maybe Washington Heights, maybe New Jersey. She turned toward her building on Eighty-sixth Street. Lichtman’s, the wonderful Austro-Hungarian bakery that used to be on the corner of Eighty-sixth and Amsterdam, was gone now, the victim of rising rents, and in its place was an antique gallery featuring art glass and furniture of the Arts and Crafts Movement. She wondered if she would ever find a bakery that made the perfect chocolate babka that Lichtman’s had.

Lightning flashed behind a purplish cloud, giving it a glittery edge, and rain hovered so close she could almost feel the dampness on her face.

Her apartment was hot and claustrophobic as a tomb. She left the mail on the counter with the raspberries and vegetables, put everything else into the fridge, and turned on all the air-conditioners. After a long, cool shower, she dressed in black cotton leggings and a loose pink tee shirt, and put on Channel 13’s business report. The market had dropped almost three hundred points.
Disaster, darling
, Carlos would say. Well, that would be next week’s drama. This weekend, she was going to give herself time off.

Having rinsed the berries and left them to drain, she measured the ingredients for the tart shell into her Cuisinart and processed it not quite into a ball, then emptied the contents onto the marble counter. When the phone rang she was fitting the dough into the pan carefully so as not to break the circle she had rolled out, and she was not about to stop, clean her hands of the sticky dough, and grab the phone. She’d never make it anyway and would leave a messy film of floury gook on everything she touched. And to this Carlos would say, that’s why God made answering machines. She laughed out loud and felt better. The crust fit neatly into the pan. Her answering machine picked up in the middle of the fifth ring and clicked a few times. Concentrating, she tucked the extra dough smoothly under and flattened the sides.

She was putting the tart shell in the fridge when she heard a frustrated scream. “Wetzon! Where
are
you?” Smith was literally howling. “Call me at the office
at once.
Harold’s gone and he’s taken
everything
with him.”

Damnation. The little shit. Wetzon stuck her hands under the hot-water faucet, got them half scoured, and grabbed the phone, but Smith had hung up. She dried her hands, dried the phone.
Calm down
, she told herself. How could Smith be sure Harold was gone? It was a holiday weekend. He’d probably just neatened up his desk.

She took a beer from the fridge and went into the dining room to check her answering machine. It was blinking two messages. One was from Smith, obviously, but the other must have come in while she was in the shower. Silvestri, maybe, telling her she’d done good—you wish—and he’d be home for dinner.

She called Smith first, before checking the other message, and found her in a frenzy.

“The
snake.
After all we’ve
done
for him, do you
believe
it? He’s
japped
us.”

“Wait, how do you know that? You’re making a judgment without knowing—” She looked at her barre. It was inviting her to stretch and unwind, and how she needed it.

“Babycakes, trust me. He left a note. I’ll kill the little dirtbag.”

“Calm down. What does the note say?”

“Just that he’s resigning as of today and he has enjoyed working with us.”

“That’s it? That’s all?”

“What else do you want? He did it sneaky, too. When we weren’t here.” Wetzon could hear her opening and closing drawers and cabinets. “He cleaned out his desk, and God knows what.” A howl and another slam. “I don’t
believe
it. The little
rat
took our copy of his contract.”

“It wasn’t worth anything anyway.”

“And maybe you’d like to know where he’s gone?”

“How would we know that—uh-oh, don’t tell me.” Wetzon sat down on the floor, stretched her legs out, and folded herself over her knees.

“Yes. I called Tom Keegen’s office, said I was with Merrill Lynch, and asked for Harold. They said he was away from his desk and would call back. Do you
believe
it?”

“Smith, let’s calm down and think this through rationally. If brokers want to deal with him, they’ll deal with him. It works the same way as brokers’ clients. Isn’t that the chance we take?”

“Logic is not what I need right now, Wetzon. I am having the locks changed as we speak. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up.

Wetzon rose, weary, and replaced the receiver with a sigh. What a day this had been. First David. Now Harold. She was sorry to see Harold go. He was a pain sometimes, with all his airs, but he’d been a good competitive worker. Perhaps they could move B.B. up now and hire a new cold caller.

Idly, she pressed the playback button and the machine clicked several times and rewound the tape, clicked again. Then she heard Chris Gorham say in an intimate whisper, “Now I’m going to kill myself, Wetzon, and you’re going to have to live with it forever.”

S
HE PLAYED THE
tape back. Chris was going to kill himself.
Don’t overreact
, she told herself.
Panic won’t help
. She found his home number in her client book, and with shaking hands, called it. It rang three times, then, “Gorham residence.”

“Oh, thank God—” Someone was there.

“No one is here to answer your call right now. Kindly leave your name and number and a brief message after the beep and your call will be returned.”

She hung up before the beep, and called Silvestri at Midtown North. The line was busy. Chris couldn’t have called more than a half hour ago, maybe less. She paced the apartment, tried again. Still busy. Lightning twitched through the sky and thunder cracked right overhead; then came the rain, slapping down hard on her windows, smacking the air-conditioner. She felt trapped. She ran into the bedroom and slipped on her Keds, grabbed an umbrella and her handbag.

She skidded to a stop at her front door, came back, and dialed Smith in the office. It rang and rang.
Pick up, damn you, Smith, pick up.
Finally, “Smith and Wetzon.” Smith sounded rotten.

“Smith, listen, we’ll deal with Harold. We can handle it, don’t forget, we’re terrific. Just say okay.”

Smith sniffed. “Okay.”

“Smith, I want you to do something for me. It’s very important.”

“What?” She sounded suspicious.

“I can’t get through to Silvestri.” She was breathing hard and couldn’t seem to get enough air. “I want you to keep trying him. Chris just called me. He’s going to kill himself. I’ve got to stop him.”

Smith sucked in her breath and said sharply, “You’ll do no such thing.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. I’ve got to get out of here.” She gave Smith Silvestri’s number and Chris’s address and hung up on her, hoping she’d gotten it all down.

In the elevator she wondered what the hell she was getting herself into. Why was she making herself responsible for Chris Gorham after what he’d done to her? He wanted to make her responsible. Her fingers played on the buttons. The minute she got to the lobby she would hit 12 and go right back up. Let the creep kill himself.

But when the door opened to the lobby, she stepped out, greeting tenants just coming home, dripping umbrellas, faces she recognized, names she didn’t know. She had wanted him dead, had wanted to kill him herself, but her anger had ebbed. He had two children. She didn’t want him to kill himself. How could kids live with that? How could she? What was she waiting for? She raised her umbrella and stepped out of her building into a monsoon of sweeping rain and wind.

With daylight entirely obscured, the world had a yellowed, sulphurous aura. Headlights beamed hazily on wet streets, where oil slicks formed patches in rainbow streams.

No cabs. Her best bet was to go over to Columbus and try to get one coming downtown. Choking the umbrella on its stem, she staggered against the wind to the corner of Eighty-sixth and Columbus. The cool rain smelled sweet and fresh, like wild honeysuckle. The wind buffeted her umbrella as she struggled to hold on to it, blowing it inside out, and when she lowered it, perversely, blowing it whole again.

People were hurrying by, holding newspapers or briefcases over their heads; others didn’t even bother to protect themselves, it felt that good. Smiling faces everywhere. Comradery. The heat wave was over—at least for now. Look, we’ve come through.

The rain had soaked her in spite of the umbrella, which she fought to keep upright. Her Keds had gone squishy as she darted out on Columbus and flagged a cab down only minutes later, just as a bolt of lightning seared the sky and a sharp clap of thunder followed.