Murder: The Musical (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #5) (34 page)

“I’ll try, but my schedule is erratic. How are the negotiations going?”

“There are none. The negotiating committee for the union went off to Florida for the weekend.” Grace looked down at the box at her feet. “Oh, this just came for you.”

Flowers. In a long, narrow box. Roses. Wake up and smell the roses, Sunny had said.

Wetzon picked up two days’ accumulation of mail, which included a photocopied list of instructions on tenant services. Another list was posted on the wall near the elevator, and inside the elevator was a signup sheet for volunteers to cover the door and take out the garbage. With everyone working or having young children to care for, Wetzon figured they would end up having to hire a guard, at least for daytime. It seemed an illogical economy to have tenants do guard work.

Her apartment was sanctuary. It had felt her absence. She could tell. She’d been away a whole lifetime. It was so good to be home.

But it was after ten, and she’d have to get moving if she was going to meet B.B. and Artie Agron at eleven. She emptied her suitcase on the bed and hung up her clothes. The laundry went into the washing machine. She stared hard at the florist’s box, almost hoping it would go away. Oh, hell. She opened the box. An abundance of roses, long-stemmed and deep red. The card said,
I love coming home to you.

Wetzon’s stomach did a forward roll. Alton did all the right things, the things any woman would give her right ovary for. He was easy to be with. He was attractive. He had plenty of money. He made decisions quickly. He loved her. And he was good in bed. Not in order of importance, she thought. She put the roses in a vase, picked up the phone and called him, knowing his machine would answer. She left word that the flowers were beautiful and she would call him later, that she was back in the city possibly only for the day. She wasn’t at all sure she was ready to see him tonight.

The one thing she wanted—had—to do before she got going was call Smitty. She picked out Smith’s number and listened to the phone ring. Smith refused to buy an answering machine. She was probably the last hold-out in Manhattan.

There was a click, then an exasperated, “Mom, stop calling me!”

“Mark, it’s me, Wetzon.”

“Oh, God, Wetzon. I didn’t mean it.” Mark sounded desperate. “Mom’s called me eight times already this morning.”

“Well, she’s worried about you.”

“I guess.” Sullen and spoiled, which he was. “Only she made Mort send me away.”

“No, Mark, I did.”

“You? Wetzon, I thought you were my friend.”

“I am.” It was all she could do to keep from calling him sweetie or baby. “Mark, you were a sweet package sold to Mort by Dilla for certain favors.”

“Dilla told me. She laughed at me when I told her I loved Mort and he loved me and he was going to do all these things for me.”

“Honey, Mort has been making and breaking those promises to young men for years.”

He snuffled into the phone. “I asked him after you told me that on Thursday night, and he laughed. He said I was a nuisance and was getting in his face all the time.”

“Mark, let’s have dinner tonight, what do you say?”
Oh, God, Mark has a motive for both murders.

“How could he do that to me? I loved him. I’d do anything for him.”

“Mark, honey, this is all part of growing up, I’m afraid. How about if I pick you up around six and we can go some place fun? I don’t want you to be alone.”

“No, please, Wetzon. Don’t you see? They set me up.” His tense voice came to her dead and flat across the phone lines. “And they’re not going to get away with it.”

Doom. Gloom. Rain. A slippery glaze underfoot. Icy fingers playing on her soul strings. Her dream about her parents’ death had wiped her away.

Wetzon stood under her awning waiting with little patience for an empty cab to cruise by. The damp chill seeped through her black wool leggings. There were plenty of unlicensed cabs—known in the city as gypsies—but she’d never felt comfortable getting into one of these because they had no insurance and you had to negotiate your fare.

What was Mark up to? She felt a terrible responsibility for him, and she was afraid. People had killed for less.

But there were other suspects certainly. Perhaps even Mort himself. Phil. Aline with her wrist cast. Fran Burke. What about his fancy cane? A blunt object. But Fran had no motive that Wetzon could see. Unless Mort was asking for a share of the ice.

Two people had been killed with what appeared to be the same, or similar, blunt instrument, and yet no one seemed to have any idea what the murder weapon was.

A cab was coming slowly down Eighty-sixth Street with its roof light on. She left the cover of the awning and rushed into the street, waving. He stopped for her. “Fifth and Fifty-eighth. The General Motors Building,” Wetzon told the cab driver.
Clean your mind and focus on Artie and the job at hand.

She had left a message on Sonya’s answering machine asking with some urgency for a session today or tomorrow. “My dream took a nasty turn,” was what she said.

They took the Eighty-sixth Street transverse. The park was raw, trees bereft of leaves, brown, flattened winter grass—deserted but for the few obsessive joggers who run through snow, sleet, hail, and dark of night.

Closing her eyes, she thought: Why can’t I accept that Alton loves me and can give me a good life?
Because
, a voice responded,
you’ve never had a decent relationship with any man.
That’s not true.
Okay, name one
, the voice said.

Name one? Sure. Um. There was ... Well, what about Carlos?

Give me a break,
the voice said.

The driver made a left onto Fifty-eighth Street and pulled up to the curb. She gave him seven dollars, got out and opened her umbrella. It was Saturday and no one had yet strewn around those little white beads that melt ice. The steps were slick.

Probably one of the ugliest buildings in New York, the GM Building was built with a sort of basement plaza—a basement plaza?—where the architect had placed shops, which could scarcely be seen and were therefore often unleased. Still, the building had a Fifth Avenue address, and F.A.O. Schwarz on the ground floor, and it was directly across from the east entrance to Central Park and in the heart of the upscale shopping district —Bergdorf s, Bloomie’s, Tiffany’s—and surrounded by posh hotels like the Pierre, the Plaza and the Sherry Netherland. So it was unlikely that its owners had ever been in financial trouble as so many other Manhattan real estate owners had during the worst of the recession.

Wetzon walked through the lobby to the Madison Avenue side of the building, and there was B.B. in clean and pressed jeans, a red-and-white ski jacket with a lift ticket still hanging from the zipper head, and white joggers, standing near the elevators. He was reading
Institutional Investor.
Wetzon laughed. If they were really hiding their identity, he would have given them away with his choice of reading material.

“You’re a walking advertisement,” she said, sidling up to him.

“Oh, Wetzon.” He blushed and dropped the magazine as if she’d caught him grazing through a porno magazine. “I ... um.”

What was up with him, Wetzon wondered. He looked guilty as hell about something. If she didn’t know better, she’d be adding him to her list of suspects in Dilla’s and Sam’s murders.

But this was no time for probing questions. Her heart wasn’t in it, and Artie Agron, a small, wiry man in gray sweats, a Mets cap over his frizzy hair, was coming into the lobby from Madison carrying an enormous briefcase. He hadn’t shaved and looked so disreputable that a guard asked him for his ID. God, Wetzon thought, these guys don’t know anything about clandestine.

“I don’t know what bug they got up their ass,” he grumbled to Wetzon, shaking hands. “I come in here every day.”

“But not unshaven and wearing a baseball cap, I’m sure. Artie, this is my associate, B.B., short for Bailey Balaban.”

“You related to the supermarket guy? He’s my client.”

“No.” B.B. shook his hand. “I found a copy place on Lexington that’ll take care of everything. We just have to get it over to them.”

“Okay, here’s the story.” In spite of the fact that they were in a no- smoking area, Artie lit a cigarette, keeping his back to the guard. “Me and Balaban go up to the office. Wetzon, you wait down here so Balaban can slip some stuff to you and come back up and get more. If no one’s up there, we can move faster.” He got on the elevator with the lighted cigarette. If he didn’t follow the rules on small things, what did he do on big things, Wetzon thought, watching B.B. follow him. She waited near the window looking out on Madison. Umbrella fought umbrella for a slice of sidewalk space; someone was sure to get a spoke in the eye. Rain never stopped shoppers. B.B. and Artie emerged from an elevator.

“There’s two rookies up there, but they’re so busy trying to keep up with the paperwork—” Artie was carrying his briefcase, bulging open, and B.B. followed with two shopping bags and a stuffed New York Athletic Club gym bag over his shoulder. It had to be B.B.’s. Wetzon didn’t think they’d let Artie within ten feet of the NYAC.

“Three, maybe four trips, Wetzon,” B.B. told her.

She walked with them to the street. The rain slanted down. “Do you want me to hang around?” He’d needed the security of her presence until he had his book. Now he wouldn’t need her anymore.

“Naa. We’re okay, right, kid?”

B.B. nodded, then hung back slightly. “Wetzon, can I talk to you about something?”

“Now?”

“Oh, no, I mean Monday.”

“Smith will be back Monday.”

“No, not Smith. You. Privately.” He was very earnest.

“You coming, kid?” Artie was getting restless, and wet. He hadn’t bothered with an umbrella.

“Sure, B.B. Go on now. We can have a drink after work Monday if you want.” She patted his arm. Was she getting maternal, or what?

“Thanks, Wetzon.”

Something was definitely up with him. She wondered if Harold, their ex-associate, had lured B.B. away to work with him and Tom Keegen. Smith would be wild.

Remember, Wetzon told herself, nothing is ever final. Except death. She opened her umbrella and threaded her way up Madison, finally leaving the crowds behind her around Seventieth Street. The shops all had sale signs in their windows, but Wetzon, although she stopped to look, wasn’t really seeing anything but her reflection.

She was convinced that Susan would come to Boston if Mort were willing to change the billing. Bill her as lyricist. Who would complain? Sam’s agent or lawyer? Sam was dead. It was in the agent’s or lawyer’s best interest to get the show open.

St. Ambroeus was the perfect place for an elegant brunch or lunch on the East Side, and as usual, it was crowded. It seemed as if everyone in New York had had the same idea. Wetzon was a little early. Maybe she should call Susan and head her off. She left word with the maitre d’ that if Ms. Orkin should appear, Ms. Wetzon would be right back.

There was a phone on the street. She’d passed it on the way.

The rain had become a soggy mist. Her hair curled wispy and annoying around her cheeks and forehead. She pushed it away. It was time, she thought, to begin putting it up again in the old, comfortable dancer’s knot. She popped a quarter in the slot and called Susan, checking the number first in her Filofax.

“Hello. I’m unable to come to the phone right now. Please leave me a message after the tone.”

She must be on her way. Wetzon went back to St. Ambroeus, squeezing by two well-dressed, very proper senior citizens with four boys of various ages from about four to eleven or twelve, all in dark blue suits, white shirts, and blue-and-red striped ties. Grandparents and their perfect little grandsons.

“Did Ms. Orkin arrive?” she asked the maitre d’.

“No.”

Fifteen minutes became a half hour. She was hungry and tired. She tried again. “You’re sure you didn’t seat Ms. Orkin?”

“Yes.”

Behind the baked goods counter filled with croissants and lovely pastries, a striking young woman with long brown hair had looked up when Wetzon mentioned Susan’s name. “Ms. Orkin comes in for chocolate croissants every morning.”

Wetzon smiled. “A girl after my own heart.”

The salesgirl looked confused.

“Forget it,” Wetzon said. “Did she say anything about lunch?”

“She didn’t come in this morning. Did you try calling her? Maybe she was delayed.”

Wetzon nodded. What the hell, she would try again. She went back out on the street and called Susan’s number. The line was busy. She’d been held up, that was obvious. Probably by Mort calling from Boston. Moisture formed on Wetzon’s face. Lovely for the skin, she thought. The temperature had warmed perceptibly. She was only a few blocks from Susan’s. Who needed a fancy lunch? She’d do her mission for Morton, tell Susan that looking for Dilla’s murderer among the vampires was hopeless, and be off.

Just ahead of her a black nanny, her white uniform showing under her navy coat, pushed a child in a stroller, plastic-encased like a closet bag.

When Wetzon turned on Eightieth Street, she had to sidestep twenty or more noisy, hyper youngsters emerging from a yellow school bus with New Jersey plates. A teacher and what looked like two harried mothers were trying to herd them into a line. Sheep dogs would have done it better.

She gave them a wide berth and arrived at Susan’s building about the same time a short, gray-haired black woman in a storm coat came from the opposite direction, pulling a sniffing and cavorting Izz, on the leash. There were four pickets in front of the building. The strikers all looked wet and surly. When Izz caught sight of Wetzon, she yelped, broke away from the elderly woman and leaped at Wetzon, landing wet paws and all on the fur coat. “Hi, Izz.”

“Oh, oh, I’m sorry, Miss.” The woman tried to recapture Izz. “She was overnight at the vet, so she’s a little wild.”

“It’s okay. I’m a friend of Ms. Orkin.” Wetzon snuggled the damp little dog. “What was wrong with her? She looks okay to me.”

“Upset stomach or something. Ms. Orkin’s not home. I’m Rhoda, her housekeeper.”