The Big Killing (8 page)

Wetzon pulled on her white terry robe and limped down the hall to the dining room, where she kept her answering machine. The phone began to ring just as she turned it on to auto answer. Shivering, she waited to hear who it was. The apartment always had an early morning chill because she kept the radiators turned off, and it took a little time before the sun took over.

It was a reporter from the
News
. Well, it hadn’t taken them long to find her. The reporter very crisply left his name, Calvin Sperling, and two phone numbers.

She leaned against the arched doorway, eyeing her barre warily. In her condition, even with her strong will, she didn’t have the nerve.

The phone rang again. It was Silvestri. He left his name and what he called his direct number. She didn’t feel like talking to him, either, so she let the tape run and he hung up.

She went into the kitchen. The sun streamed through the dusty window, fine New York City dust here, mixed with a little black soot, and her chipper little basil plant was bending toward the light like an acquiescent woman.

She took the apple juice out of the refrigerator and poured herself a small glass.

The phone rang again. She listened to the voice of Teddy Lanzman, an old friend who worked at Channel 8 local news. She hadn’t seen him in a long time.

“Wanna talk, old buddy?” he was saying. There was a long pause. She knew that he knew she was listening. “Okay.” He sounded disappointed. “Call me when you feel like.”

She steered herself to the front door and waited, alert, then opened the peephole very quietly. Nothing. Just regular noise from the other apartments on the floor and the sound of the elevator on another floor.

She unlocked both locks and the chain, opened the door a crack, reached down awkwardly, gritting her teeth through the pain, took the newspapers from the mat, and pulled them in. Shit, there was a picture on the front page of the
Times
of her coming out of the Four Seasons with Jimmy Lyons, with her hand up in front of her eyes, looking as if they were taking her in for the murder. And there was the beginning of the story, STOCKBROKER MURDERED, to be continued in the B Section, page 35. She sat down on one of the stools in the kitchen and began opening vitamin bottles: one 2,000-unit C, one 400-unit capsule dry E, two calcium pills, and two bee pollen for extra energy—her daily fix.

“I really need you guys today/’ she said, popping them into her mouth one at a time and swallowing with the apple juice. Her forehead felt stiff and tender where the cut was healing.

She opened the paper. The phone rang again.

“Wetzon”—Smith again—”pick up if you can hear me.”

Wetzon picked up and said, “Hold on, I’m here.” She waited until Smith responded, then turned off the answering machine. It made a small coo-coo noise, as it always did. And even today, it made her laugh. Even today. Well, why not? She needed the laugh more today than she usually did.

“How are you feeling now?” Smith demanded.

“I’m up and moving. Slowly.”

“Silvestri called here,” Smith said. “He wants you to come to the precinct at four. Something about a statement.”

“I guess I have to do that ...” she said wearily.

“Why don’t I pick you up around three and go over with you?” Smith said it so casually that Wetzon’s ears tingled.

“You don’t have to do that; I’m a big girl.”

“Oh, I’d like to,” Smith said, “after what you’ve been through ... and besides, I’m having dinner with Silvestri tonight.” She giggled suggestively.

Wetzon was silent for a moment, sad about this turn of events. “Aha,” she said. “I knew there was more to it. I was sure he had a thing about you. And you, you were turning on the charm. It was
that
thick.”

“How did you know he was interested?” Smith asked sharply. “Tell me.” It was as if Wetzon had never confided in her that she—Wetzon—was attracted to Silvestri. Could Smith have possibly forgotten?

“Oh, all the questions he was asking about you in the car, before the accident.”

Smith’s voice came back tense: “What kind of questions? What did you tell him?”

“What do you mean, what kind of questions? Whether you were married, that kind of question. What do you think I would tell him?” She was puzzled by Smith’s reaction. But then Smith was eccentric and reacted in peculiar ways to what appeared to Wetzon to be simple events.

Smith laughed now, a hooting, triumphant laugh. “A lot of things are happening,” she said. “Guess who called us and wants to talk about a search?” She loved playing I’ve-got-a-secret, and usually Wetzon went along. At this moment, however, Wetzon was tired and irritated. Probably because of Silvestri. Smith liked conquests, but Silvestri was a detour for her. She usually went after men with a lot of money—money and power. What did Silvestri have? Easy.

Power. And she, Wetzon, had found him attractive in spite of it. Wetzon was not attracted to men because of power, or money for that matter. So was Smith competing with Wetzon? And if so, why?

“Well?” Smith said. “Did you fall asleep? Aren’t you going to guess?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Wetzon had tuned out. Now she was annoyed with herself for feeling resentful. It was petty of her. If Silvestri liked Smith, he liked Smith, and Wetzon wasn’t going to make any difference. “I don’t know. Tell me.”

“Weinberger Brothers.” She was very excited. It was an account she’d been trying to land for two years.

“Wow! Okay, I’m impressed. Why do you suppose—”

“We’ve been summoned to lunch with them on Tuesday. Actually, they wanted to meet Monday, but I put them off till Tuesday because I didn’t know how you’d feel.”

“You could have gone alone.”

“But, my dear, they specifically asked that we both be there.” There was an odd coolness in the way Smith spoke that indicated she was not happy that they had asked for Wetzon to be there. Wetzon shrugged it off. Smith considered all clients her territory and didn’t like to be thwarted. Well, too bad. For once Wetzon felt a small thrill of pleasure that Smith didn’t always get to have everything her way.

“That’s really very nice, Smith. I’m sure I’ll be fine by next week. Wait a minute ... what’s today ... I’ve lost track.”

“Wednesday.”

“Well, forget my staying home. Carlos comes today. In fact, he should be here any minute, and he’ll be nosy as hell if he’s seen the papers.”

“Are you sure you feel strong enough?”

“I’ll be just fine,” Wetzon said dryly. “I’ll be down in a little while, and we can go to see Silvestri from the office.” She stopped suddenly. “Smith?”

“Yes, what’s wrong?”

“I found a strange key in my jacket pocket.”

“What kind of key?”

“Small. Mailbox maybe. I think Barry must have slipped it to me when I was with him yesterday. I’ll bring it with me and give it to Silvestri.”

She hung up the phone thoughtfully and went back to the kitchen. She filled the kettle with water, placed the paper filter in the Melitta holder, then measured out the coffee—enough for four cups because Carlos liked his coffee and a croissant before he started cleaning.

Carlos Prince had been her housekeeper since they’d met years earlier in a dance class. They had danced together in quite a number of shows in those days. Housekeeping was his way, as he said, of “keeping the wolf from the door,” and he had done very well with it. He had done so well that now he could sit in his Greenwich Village apartment while legions of housekeepers worked for him all over the City.

His very special people he kept for himself. Special people meant people from the old days, good for a gossip. Old friends leading interesting lives. And it was an all-cash business. “Besides, darling, I’m getting a little long in the tooth for the chorus line,” he’d say.

She smiled as she took the chain off the front door. She was sure he’d come early today because he’d have seen her picture in the papers, and this was just the sort of thing Carlos loved to be in on. A murder. Intrigue. Money. The Four Seasons.

The hot shower revived her, and when she came out of the steaming bathroom in her terry robe, she heard music.

“Well, good morning glory,” Carlos said. He was sitting comfortably in the kitchen on one of the high stools, his legs crossed, all the newspapers spread out on the countertop. The Temptations were singing, “My Girl” in splendid voice. “You’ve been a very busy little beaver since I saw you last.” He shook his finger at her. “Naughty, naughty. And you don’t even look too bad.”

“Carlos, come on now, it was terrible,” she said, drying her hair with the towel.

“Oh, tell. Tell everything. Don’t leave anything out,” he said greedily. His dark eyes sparkled. Everything about Carlos sparkled. He was slim and dark and strikingly handsome. Today he was wearing a vivid Hawaiian shirt and tight Guess jeans. He had a large diamond stud in his left earlobe.

“I don’t know much except a man I was interviewing left me to make a phone call and he was murdered in the phone booth.”

“And you saw it—” Solicitously he jumped up and gave her the stool. He pulled over the other stool and sat, watching her. “I brought you a chocolate croissant,” he said, beseeching.

A bribe. As if she didn’t know. The rich smell of chocolate and butter was overpowering. The little rat. “You’re bribing me, you little rat,” she said, kissing his smooth, dark cheek.

“But of course, darling.”

The phone rang. They both listened attentively.

“Ms. Wetzon, my name is Carpenter, Walt Carpenter,
Wall Street Journal
. I’d like to talk with you at your convenience.” It was a very polite, nice voice, entirely in keeping with the professionalism of the
Journal.

“Mmmmm,” Carlos cried, licking his lips. “You’re an absolute celebrity. You lucky witch.”

Carlos called her a witch because he felt she’d turned his life around since they’d met.

“It’s a hell of a way to get celebrity,” she complained. “I’d rather have done it with Gower.” They both laughed. It was their bitter, black joke, because Gower Champion had been their choreographer, they’d always worked when he’d worked, and now Gower was dead. He had died during the production of
Forty-Second Street
, and a lot of people in the theater community felt that David Merrick had made it seem as if David Merrick himself had done the direction and the choreography. “I’ve got to get dressed and get to the office,” she said, giving Carlos a quick hug.

“Oh no, darling, tell more.” He poured coffee into a cup and pushed it and the chocolate croissant toward her on the counter. She was starving, and the croissant looked delicious.

“I don’t know more, but stay tuned. I have to give a statement to the detective on the case later this afternoon. This is good, Carlos, you devil.” She polished off the croissant and coffee.

“What a joy. Detectives, statements. I love it.” Carlos jumped off the stool, wriggling to the music. “Remember everything, and I mean
everything
, so you can fill me in.”

She dressed carefully. Dark blue gabardine suit, to match her bruises, and a white silk blouse. She clipped her mother’s cameo pin to the blouse at her throat, and, a little defiantly perhaps, put large gold hoops in her ears. She had ruined the skirt to her gray suit by getting into the shower with it. Maybe the cleaner could salvage it.

She could hear Carlos in the kitchen, singing, clattering, beginning his cleaning. The music was playing loudly, Aretha Franklin’s “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.” Ha! Right now she felt like an unnatural woman, with all her aches and pains, but her body, seduced by the music and finely tuned from years of dancing, began to move and turn with the beat.

She ran a narrow-toothed comb through her hair and with a couple of twists had it up in its knot, without looking in the mirror. She’d been doing it for so many years, she could do it in the dark. She checked the mirror now as she quickly pinned it in place and applied gray eye shadow and mascara sparingly. She didn’t like the look of the bruise on her forehead, so she rolled a silk scarf into a narrow band and tied it around her head. She was ready to face the world.

Wait. The key. Where had she put it? In the matchbook. She found the matchbook on the chest next to her bed, where she had left it last night—or rather, early this morning. She pulled the key out of the matchbook. Innocuous-looking thing. She dropped the gray matchbook, which had a palm tree silhouetted on it, back on the chest.

The telephone rang again. She put the key into her jacket pocket and went to listen to the message. Carlos had turned down the music and was listening, too. She grinned at him. He was such a cutie. So obvious and open. She loved him.

“Hello, Miss Wetzon.” The voice had a Middle European accent. “This is Georgette Klinger. We are confirming your appointment with us for tomorrow at twelve noon with Rosa.”

After the hang-up and the sound of the machine clicking off, there was absolute silence. Then a guffaw from Carlos.

“How about that for celebrity?” She laughed.

“Well,” he said, “you
did
get Georgette Klinger herself.” And they both laughed again because, of course, Georgette Klinger never made phone calls herself to confirm appointments. Anyone who called always said she was Georgette Klinger.

“I’ll have to break that appointment when I get to the office,” Wetzon said.

“Don’t you look great in your uniform,” Carlos said bitchily, one hip forward, flourishing his hands.

“Oh, shush. And don’t answer the phone.” She put the
Times
and the
Journal
into a Bloomingdale’s shopping bag. Her briefcase was still at the office.

“Don’t worry, darling, just keep me informed.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “And take care of yourself,” he said very seriously. “You know, there aren’t very many of us left.”

“I know,” she said, equally serious, closing the door. “I know.”

She got off the elevator warily and felt mildly disappointed when no one was around except Larry, the doorman, who was sitting on the sofa in the lobby, feet planted firmly on the marble floor, smoking and reading the racing form.