Murder: The Musical (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #5) (6 page)

Walt Greenow had to be somewhere in the wings or backstage even though Wetzon hadn’t seen him. The illusive Phil, possibly. And Carlos.

She switched on the light and called Carlos. His answering machine proclaimed: “What a stroke of good fortune. You’ve reached the residence of Prince Margolies. Neither of us royals can come to the phone right now, but we want to talk to you. So leave a message.”
Beep.

“Carlos? Hello? It’s me. Carlos? Pick up. Carlos?” He wasn’t picking up. How strange. She hung up the phone, uneasy. Was something going on with Carlos? He’d been firm about her not coming over. Oh, dear. Her wild imagination was leading her down uncertain paths. She looked at her digital clock-radio. Eleven. She groped for the remote and turned on the television set and listened to CBS’s local news coverage.

“... a brutal murder in a Broadway theatre. Sounds like the stuff for a play, but reality hit with the force of a sledgehammer when production coordinator—associate producer—Dilla Crosby was bludgeoned to death in the mezzanine of the Imperial Theatre. No suspects, the police admit, but plenty of leads.” They flashed a photo of Dilla from the
Mirabella
article, looking coy and hoydenish in glisteny silver leggings and a long tailored jacket, swinging one leg and one arm from a ladder. “The police have asked that anyone with information about the circumstances of Dilla Crosby’s death call oh four seven, six seven oh oh. All calls will be kept confidential.”

Enough! Off with the TV. Lights out. She was roasting. She got out of bed and opened the window wider, turned off the radiator, then crawled back into bed, thoroughly wiped out.

The dream came again as it had before, and she fought it. Sucked into its vortex of terror, she saw the flash of flame, smelled the cordite, felt the sting. Then something new: intense pain. The pain stabbed her awake, and she lay in the darkness gasping for breath. A heart attack. She was having a heart attack. No. She was too young. There was nothing wrong with her heart. It was indigestion.

Sharp needles of rain attacked her windows, pinging on the air-conditioner. Her heart was racing. Sitting up, she broke into a soaking sweat. She couldn’t breathe. She swung her feet to the floor and stood, terrified, but her legs wouldn’t hold her. She crumpled to the floor. The pain. Call 911. No, she couldn’t. She’d die of embarrassment. It was just indigestion, a stupid virus. She got to her knees, to her feet, and holding the walls, she staggered into the bathroom and turned on the cold water, thrusting her wrists under the faucet, then splashing her face with cold water.

Oppressively, the pain displaced itself and settled in her stomach. She bent over in agony. It might be indigestion, but she was dying of it. Who would even know if she were to die here? Alton was in South America. She wouldn’t show up for work tomorrow, and maybe Smith would investigate if it didn’t conflict with something more important. If she weren’t so frightened, she could laugh at that. Another stab of pain came, and another. She clutched the edge of the sink. She wasn’t going to make it.

When she caught her breath, she thought:
It’s an ovarian cyst
She’d had one once years ago.
Get Dr. Hirsch’s number.
Sweat ran down her forehead, the back of her neck. Fever. She was blazing with fever. Her address book was in her bag. With trembling hands she found the number and crawled into the kitchen, reached for the phone and brought it down on the floor with her.

It rang. Jangling in her hand. Insistently. Four times. She grabbed it. Gasped, a hoarse gasp, into it. She would never have recognized her own voice.

There was a pause as if the person on the other end were trying to decide if he had the right number, then, “Les? What’s the matter?”

“Help—” was all she could choke out as the pain swept over her. The receiver slipped from her hands and bounced once on the floor before coming to a rest. Great chunks of time fell away. A noise at her service door yanked her back, almost fainting with terror. She crawled, panting, into the living room before it came to her that the sound was merely night collection of garbage.

Freezing cold, she found refuge under her dining room table, head on knees, hugging her knees tightly, trying to confine the shaking. Her teeth chattered to their own rhythm. Slowly, she felt herself begin to disappear....

“Les?” She heard his voice. The lights came on. “Where are you? Les?” She tried to call him, but nothing came out. He went into the kitchen; she heard him hang up the phone she’d left off the hook. “Les?”

Fear. She heard it in his voice. His footsteps raced down the hall, into her bedroom, back out in the hall. She wanted to shout, “Here I am!”

“Les.” His voice softened. “Les. What are you doing there?” He was on his knees, pulling her from her hiding place.

She thought:
I must look like hell

“Come on, come here, it’s okay. Everything’ll be okay.” Gently, he pulled her hands from her knees, and checked her out. “Are you hurt? Where? Show me.” If she weren’t dying, she might be turned on, she thought.

Then he was lifting her, carrying her, and she felt the shoulder harness against her breast through his sportjacket. He put her in bed and covered her with the quilt and the red, white, and blue afghan that she and Carlos had crocheted when they were in Bob Fosse’s
Chicago
during the Bicentennial. But she couldn’t stop shaking.

“Cold,” she moaned. “Hurts. S’matter with me?”

He stroked her hair and bent over her. His eyes were deep turquoise, and she tried to thank him for coming but couldn’t get the words formed.

“Les, listen to me. Can you hear me?”

“Y-y-yes. So ... cold.” She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the trembling. He was moving around the bedroom. Then he was in bed beside her, holding her against him.

“Les.” His warm breath made her skin tingle. He radiated heat. “Breathe very slowly.” He held her tight. “I’m here. Don’t be afraid.”

She shuddered, then rested her forehead against his chest. The trembling slowed. The wild heartbeats began to subside. His heat brought warmth back to her. The tightness in her chest eased. “Oh, Silvestri,” she murmured. She put her arms around him and held on for dear life.

Shortly before six-thirty, when her alarm would go off, Wetzon awoke with a sensation of euphoria that seemed so alien that she was filled with the wonder of it. It was similar to the aftermath of a migraine, when the pain is gone and the muscles are relaxed and the sense of peace and joy are heightened. Was it possible that only a few short hours ago she was sure she was dying?

Lying in Silvestri’s arms, her head on his chest rising and falling to his even breathing, she thought:
This is where I belong.
They had made love twice during the night with an intensity that had amazed and perhaps even frightened her.

She tilted her head and kissed his chin with its familiar dark stubble. He stirred and opened his eyes. A brief flicker of puzzlement about where he was, and then his arms tightened around her.

“What are you feeling?” His voice was gruff and scratchy.

“Peace,” she said. She eased herself on top of him. “And love.”

His hands found the small of her back and ambled up her spine. “Les—”

His beeper went off, and before they could react, her alarm. “Damn,” she said.

They looked at each other. It
was
funny. Wetzon rolled over on her back, stretched out her hand, and turned off the alarm. Silvestri reached for the telephone and called in.

The T-shirt she’d been wearing was on the floor near the bed. She pulled it over her head, aware of Silvestri’s eyes following her, and suddenly she felt shy. Her feet in her moccasins, she danced into the kitchen and got the coffee going, opened her front door and brought in the
Times
and
The Wall Street Journal
from her doormat. She wondered what the
Times
would have on Dilla’s murder.

Silvestri was still talking on the phone in a hushed voice when she stuck her head into the bedroom, so she brushed her teeth and got into a steaming shower. She did some bends and stretches. Well, all right! So what
had
happened to her last night? But that’s as far as she got because Silvestri joined her, and it wasn’t until they were having coffee that he brought it up.

He put down his mug. “Les, have you talked to anybody about last year?” His eyes demanded she look at him.

“What about last year?” She folded her napkin, folded it again.

“Don’t hide,” he said gently. “About getting shot. I’m talking about a shrink.”

“Oh, Silvestri—” She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. She wanted to stop herself, but she couldn’t. It was as if he pressed the buttons and off she went.

“Don’t ‘Oh, Silvestri’ me.” He grabbed her floating hand. “What you had last night was a full-blown, classic anxiety attack.”

She stared at him, shocked. An anxiety attack? She felt foolish. “How do
you
know?” It came out unintentionally belligerent. Or maybe it was intentional. She pulled her hand away from his.

“I’ve had a couple myself in my time. The shrinks call it post-traumatic stress syndrome. They’re particularly likely to follow a life-threatening situation.”

“But that was last year, Silvestri.” She unwound the turban of towel from her head, dropped it on her shoulders, and ran her fingers through her damp hair. Her fingers sought the tiny ridge in her scalp; she shuddered.

He took her hand away from her head, where it seemed to have frozen. “It doesn’t matter when. You haven’t dealt with it. You have—”

“I think I’ve dealt okay with it.”

“Don’t get on your high horse, Les. Okay?” He sounded exasperated. “I know you. I can bet you parked it away in your mind somewhere and left it there. And now you’re up to your ass in this new thing.”

She tugged at her hand. She was furious. “You
know
me? You don’t know me at all, Silvestri. I haven’t seen you in eight months, and you still think you can tell me what to do.”

“Nine.”

“Nine? Is it really?”

“Yup.”

“Oh, God, nine months ...

“And I’ll bet you have that dream at least once a week.”

“What dream?”

“The dream about getting shot.”

“How do you—”

“I told you, Les. I’ve seen big brave cops and soldiers have panic attacks.”

“It felt real to me. It’s not psychosomatic.”

“It was real.”

“Silvestri.” Her voice was so tiny, she could barely hear herself. “I dream I see the flash of the flame from the gun. I can smell the cordite, feel the sting. But I’ve never had an anxiety attack before.”

“Then you’re lucky, Les. What happened yesterday did it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the Dilla Crosby murder.”

“Dilla.”

“Your subconscious is trying to tell you something, Les. You’re in overdrive. Listen to it. You’re not going to be okay till you learn how to ask for help.”

She sighed. “You’ve changed, Silvestri.”

He looked confused, frowned. “This is not about me, Les. Stick to the subject.”

She ignored him. Refolded the napkin the other way. “Are you doing one of your psych profiles on me?”

“Maybe I should. I might figure out why I—” He stopped short, rose and left the room.

She was stricken. She pushed away the coffee mugs, put her head on her arms on the table. When he returned, he was dressed, except for his jacket. He was adjusting the shoulder harness.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured without lifting her head. “Thank you for last night.”

He put his palm on her head. “Oh, Les, you’re such hard work.”

She bristled—she couldn’t help herself—and stood up to him, all sixty-two inches of her. “Thanks a heap, Silvestri.”

“Tell me you’re not.”

She shook her head.

“Are you still seeing Pinkus?”

She nodded.

“He’s too old for you.” Then he added, “And you probably have him wound around your little finger. He never says no to you, does he? Poor slob.”

“Get out of here, Silvestri. Stop telling me what to do.” She was burning; her hands were fists.

But Silvestri only seemed amused, which made her even more furious. And Alton never did say no to her. That was true.

“Must be a little boring.” He put on his jacket.

“Huh?”

“Like having a Big Daddy—”

She flew at him, pelting him with punches, and he laughed, catching her hands, and kissed her, and they were back to square one again.

“Get out of my life, Silvestri,” she whispered into his shirt.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “Besides, I’ll be working with Bernstein on the Crosby case.”

“Chump change, Wetzon. That’s what he offered me. He wants me to fucking relocate to New York and take a pay cut.”

“Let me get this straight, David. He offered you ten K a month for six months versus a sixty percent payout? That’s not chicken feed.”

“Wetzon, he offered me a draw, a goddamn draw, of ten K a month with a payback if I don’t make it. I want fifteen or I’m not coming. You tell him if he fucking thinks he’s such hot stuff and can make me a million-dollar producer, he can fucking take a risk, too. He wants me to take all the risk. Do you know what it costs to live in New York?”

Do I ever
; she thought. “I’ll see what I can work out, David.”

“Wetzon, listen to me. All he has to do is make it fifteen a month for six months versus sixty percent and I’ll be there tomorrow.”

She hung up. This wasn’t going to work. There were very few surprises for her left in the business after almost seven years. She’d developed a sixth sense for which situations were going to work and which would not. In this case, two gigantic egos were dueling and both would lose.

The phones bleated, blinking lights. It was busy. It had been for the past year since the brokerage industry had burst out of the recession while the recession continued to hold the rest of the country in a death grip.

“I’m not going to kill myself over this,” she told Smith, who had just arrived, bringing a cold breeze in with her.