Murder: The Musical (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #5) (7 page)

Their office was in the ground floor of a townhouse on East Forty-ninth Street between First and Second avenues. It had been an apartment once, and where the kitchen had been was now their reception area. B.B., whose birth certificate read Bailey Hinson Balaban, had a tiny cubbyhole of an office in a corner of the room. The big room Smith and Wetzon shared, and their rear windows looked out on their own private garden. After renting for years, they had bought the building for a bargain price in 1992, when real estate had bottomed in New York. Now they were landlords.

Smith was all gussied up this morning in a copper knit suit. Her slim skirt came only to mid-thigh and her hose and shoes were a perfect match with her outfit. Now how had she managed that, Wetzon wondered.

“What did you say, sweetie pie?” Smith sat down at her desk and crossed one fabulous leg over the other, posing.

“I said, how nice you look, Smith.” Wetzon grinned at her partner. They were both such phonies.

“Well, we do have a lunch appointment, don’t we?” Smith lowered her lids to slits and peered at Wetzon. “What’s the matter with you? You have no color in your face. And I don’t like the foundation you’re using. It makes your skin sallow.”

“Gosh, I love spending time with you, Smith. You always make me feel so good.”

“I see. You miss Alton.”

“Let’s not discuss Alton.”
No, I don’t miss Alton. I like being with him, but I don’t miss him when he’s not here.
He’d been gone three days and she’d been glad to be alone in her apartment—at least until last night. “And for your information, I don’t miss him.”

“There is a God.” Smith gave Wetzon a smug nod of approval. “Just remember what I told you, sweetie. A relationship is only good if he loves you more than you love him.”

Give me a break, Wetzon thought. She looked down at her suspect sheets, shuffling the most likely candidates to the top of the pile.

“How are we doing with David Dwyer?” Smith demanded.

“Yeah, well, what looked like an easy slam-dunk placement, isn’t working. I don’t think David is asking too much—fifteen a month for six months, but Ron has dug his heels in and won’t budge.”

“Set him up somewhere else.”

“He isn’t interested in any other firm.”

Smith sent Wetzon a you’re-not-trying-hard-enough look and turned her back. “I can’t believe all these messages.” She flipped through the pink slips, folded the lot in half and dropped them into her waste basket. Smith made a fetish of never returning phone calls. It drove Wetzon crazy.

“How do you know there wasn’t something important in one of those?” Wetzon demanded.

“Oh puh
-lease.
If it’s important, they’ll call back. Anything new?”

“B.B. had a start this morning.” Their young associate B.B. had come a long way since Smith and Wetzon had hired him right out of college. He had joined them, a preppy cold caller. In those days their associate had been the duplicitous Harold Alpert, who had subsequently betrayed them and gone to work for their major competition, Tom Keegen and Associates.

Last year they had added Max Orchard, a retired accountant, as a part-time cold caller, over Smith’s loud objections, and he had turned out to be a gem, reliable and efficient. Net-net, they both agreed now, Max was a winner.

“B.B. did? Where? How much? Who?”

“Larry Cooper. Three hundred thou. We’ll see fifteen on him. Rivington Ellis.”

“Larry Cooper? The guy the Stock Exchange censured for laundering money?”

“The very one. He’s a bundle of charm. I hate to work with these guys. They make me want to wash my hands after a simple phone call.”

“Well, I’m certainly glad you put him at Rivington Ellis. At least they pay us on trailing twelve.”

“Do you think I’m a fool, partner? Who knows how long he’ll be around?”

“Let’s light a few candles. You should probably hold his hand until the ninety days are up.”

“I fully intend to, but it’s a toss-up. His past will catch up to him, or he’ll do something terrible at Rivington Ellis. These guys can’t stop themselves before they kill again.” Yikes, Wetzon thought. She had murder on the brain.

Smith tapped her mauve fingernails together and looked up at the Andy Warhol pencil drawing of a roll of dollar bills on the wall. They had purchased it years earlier to celebrate their first fee, both thinking it wonderfully symbolic. “Well, they didn’t buy a pig in a poke.”

“They know what he is. They wanted him anyway. Laura Lee claims Larry had a moral bypass at birth.”

“Humpf. That Laura Lee Day thinks she’s so clever. When are you going to understand that you can’t be friends with these scum?”

“Smith, you know very well that Laura Lee has been a good friend to me. So keep your opinions to yourself.”

“Oh, for pitysakes.” Smith threw up her hands. “What time is lunch?”

“Twelve-thirty. I think maybe I should war—tell Twoey you’re coming, don’t you?”

“If you do, I’ll never speak to you again.”

Wetzon shook her finger at Smith. “You’re going to torture him. He’s still in love with you.”

Smith’s only rejoinder was her slow feline smile. She wrinkled her repouse nose.

Now it was Wetzon’s turn to throw up her hands.

“Enter,” Smith called imperiously in response to the knock on their door. “Ah, Max, sweetie pie.” She winked at Wetzon. “You are such a fashion plate today.”

Max was wearing his usual shiny brown suit, white socks, and brown gum-soled shoes. His pants were pulled up to his lower chest and held in place by suspenders. Today he had added a jaunty red-and-white polka-dot tie. A matching handkerchief drooped from the upper left pocket of his coat.

“Thank you.” Max always treated Smith indulgently as if she were an errant daughter. “Your son is on line two.”

Smith blew Max a kiss and scooped up the phone, purring, “How’s my baby boy?” She made kissy-poo noises into the receiver.

“Oh, Smith,” Wetzon groaned. “He’s seventeen years old, for godsakes.”

Smith glared at her. Mark was finishing his final term at Choate and would enter Harvard in the fall, yet Smith still referred to him as her baby boy. It was a wonder he’d managed to grow up at all.

Wetzon picked out Carlos’s number, listened to the phone ring. When the answering machine came on, she said succinctly, “Please call me,” and hung up. He was probably at rehearsal. But still, a little spot of apprehension niggled at her.

The phone rang. Three lines were lit and the in-coming call was on four. Wetzon answered, “Smith and Wetzon. Leslie Wetzon speaking.”

“Oh, hi, Leslie. This is Sunny Browning, Mort Hornberg’s assistant.”

“Right. Are we still on for lunch today?”

“Yes, we are. I just wanted to confirm twelve-thirty at the Four Seasons. I’ve made a reservation for four.”

“Okay, babycakes,” Smith said into her phone.

“Four? Oh, you heard my partner is coming?”

Smith hung up with a clatter and turned her chair ostentatiously to listen to Wetzon’s conversation.

“No. I guess it should be for five then,” Sunny said. “I’m the fourth because I’m in charge of capitalizing Mort’s shows.”

“Okay, make it for five then. My partner, Xenia Smith, is very interested in investing in the show.”

Smith began applauding in slow motion and Wetzon ended the conversation.

“Who was that?” Smith’s expression was pure Eloise.

“Mort Hornberg’s assistant, Sunny Browning. She raises the money for the shows. You’ll meet her at lunch.” But lunch, Wetzon was sure, would be a trial. Smith was in her troublemaking mode.

Inspecting her manicure, Smith said, “I’m sure.” She rose and threw open the bathroom door and smiled at her image in the full-length mirror. “What kind of people name a child Sunny? Is she black?”

“No, she isn’t. And what difference would it make anyway? Her real name is Sunshine.”

“Sunshine! Unbelievable!” Smith began fussing with her makeup, putting blush on her face.

My kingdom for a Valium, Wetzon thought.

The phone rang, rang again, then stopped. Max knocked and opened the door. “Mrs. Orkin for you, Wetzon.”

“For me?” Mrs. Orkin? Susan Orkin?

“Yes.” Max closed the door.

She picked up the phone and said, “Leslie Wetzon.”

“Leslie, this is Susan Orkin.” A soft voice with a kind of sexy croak. There was something vaguely familiar about it.

“Yes?” Wetzon stayed noncommittal.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I was Susan Cohen when we were at Douglass together.”

“Susan Cohen? From Douglass? I can’t believe it.” How astonishing. All this time Susan Orkin had been Susan Cohen, and Wetzon hadn’t known it. She saw the girl who was Susan Cohen as clear as yesterday. Slim, tiny, honey-blond hair, an attractive angle to her nose, dimples. They’d had more than a few classes together throughout their four years of college.

“I’m Susan Cohen Orkin. Dilla and I—”

“I know. I just didn’t know you were the Susan I knew. God, that sounds so convoluted. I’m so sorry about Dilla. Is there anything I can do?”

This time, Susan’s voice broke. “Please, can we talk privately? I need your help.”

They checked their coats in the street-level coatroom and walked slowly up the blue-and-rust diamond carpeted steps. As always, Smith turned heads in her wake. They were late. Wetzon obsessed about being on time to the point where she was always early, but they were always late when Smith was involved.

For Wetzon, the Four Seasons was a magical place. Eighteen steps led to the most dramatic restaurant setting in New York. Ceilings soared at least twenty feet. This season being winter, the pottings contained the stark straight-arrow stalks of white birches. The staff uniforms were brown. All year round the restaurant was the home of the let’s-do-business drink, the power lunch—in the Grill Room—and the reward dinner in the Pool Room. Actually, Wetzon could never really take the Pool Room seriously. It was just on the line of precious with a dash of pretension, and you were more likely to see tourists there than in the Grill Room, which was her favorite spot, and lunch was her favorite time.

She and Smith had been introduced at the Four Seasons by the man who was then their mutual attorney. They had formed their company over drinks in the Grill Room. Wetzon interviewed brokers there. One—Barry Stark—had been murdered in the phone booth just off the ground floor anteroom. The detective who caught the case had been Silvestri.

Although she still interviewed brokers at the Four Seasons, Wetzon could never erase the rush of jitters that passed over her whenever she climbed those stairs.

Without a sense of haste, Smith was engaged in exchanging pleasantries with Paul Kovi, one of the owners, who today stood behind the reservations desk. Wetzon surveyed the room. Wouldn’t you know, they were all there, even Mort, who was as conscientiously tardy as Smith. They were sitting at one of the rectangular tables along the rosewood-paneled backdrop below the balcony.

The men leapt to their feet with a sight more energy than Wetzon thought necessary. Mort, the bags under his bloodshot eyes pronounced today, was well into his role of creative genius, wearing jeans and a red cashmere pullover—to match his eyes no doubt—a tweed jacket and a flashy silk tie. His tortoiseshell glasses were parked on top of his bald pate. He was focused on Smith.

Twoey Barnes, dear Twoey, wore his heart on his face. Goldman Barnes II was a gangly, red-haired, myopic softy, all six feet plus of him. A killer on the trading floor, maybe, but a pushover where Smith was concerned.

“Mort, my partner Xenia Smith,” Wetzon said. She felt as if she were not part of the scene at all.

“Mort Hornberg,” Mort said, riding over her, practically falling on Smith’s extended hand, his eyes on her legs. He was notoriously ambivalent about women. Still, he’d always liked attractive ones around. Legs were his thing. And Smith had fabulous legs.

“Charmed,” Smith said.

“And this is Sunny Browning.” Mort motioned to Sunny Browning to change her chair so that Smith could sit next to him. He was drinking some sort of evil brown liquid in a glass.

Smith’s eyes flicked over Sunny Browning in her Armani jacket and stark white shirt and loosely knotted purple silk tie, and then moved on to Twoey. “Sweetie pie, I’ve missed you desperately.” Her voice was husky. She gave him a dazzling smile and turned back to Mort.

Wetzon caught Sunny’s eye. The woman didn’t miss much. You could almost see her totaling things up. Wetzon gave Twoey a peck on the cheek and sat between him and Sunny. Smith was up to her usual tricks: seduction and manipulation, and once again Wetzon had an aisle seat.

The baked salmon won out. A waiter in a brown toreador jacket took their food and drink orders, and Mort added a bottle of champagne. Smith beamed. Mort was doing all the right things.

“I’m sorry we kept you—” Wetzon was stopped in her tracks by Smith’s glare. Smith’s motto was
never apologize,
along with
if they give, you take and if they take, you scream.

Smith smiled sweetly at Mort and patted his hand. “Do go on. We’ll just sit here like quiet little mice and listen.”

“I was just telling Mr. Barnes—”

“Twoey, please.” Twoey’s eyes crinkled behind gold-rimmed glasses.

“Twoey it is,” Mort said with another burst of heartiness and brushed imaginary dandruff from one shoulder, then the other. “I was just telling Twoey that
Hotshot
is a ten-character musical, six dancers and four actors, but of course, everyone will be equally important to the whole.” He took a sip of the evil liquid and smiled at Smith. “Each actor is a principal on a white contract. Of course, Carlos Prince, our choreographer, has his work cut out for him. Getting actors to do review pieces is my job; getting them to dance is his.” He gave Wetzon an exaggerated wink. “And he’s done his usual amazing sleight-of-hand.”

A waiter arrived with their platters and another brought a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice. Tulip glasses were filled halfway. Wetzon and champagne did not agree so she left it sparkling in the glass, and whispered to the waiter, “Amstel Light.”