Tender Death (27 page)

T
HE INTERCOM BUZZED
with the signal—two short, one long. They, all three, jumped at the first sound and fell silent, counting mentally to ten between signals. Then two short and one long came again.

Wetzon stood up. She felt wired; nervous energy flowed through her limbs. She looked down at her hands, two claws, tensed. “I’d better let him in.”

Diantha slithered on tiptoes, silent as a cat, to the side of the window, barely separated the blinds, checked the street. “Black Toyota?”

Wetzon nodded, her hand on the banister. “Yes.” Her voice sounded gravelly. She started down the stairs.

“Wait! Remember, not a word about me from either of you until I say okay.” Teddy walked swiftly toward the second set of stairs and ran up, surefooted, disappearing into the darkness of the upper floor. The floor creaked, then all was silent.

The women looked at each other, and Diantha nodded. Wetzon crept down the stairs, listening; she opened the door slowly inward, staying behind it. No one entered. Hand on the door, she peered around it into the small vestibule. “Silvestri?” No one was there.

Perplexed, she edged out the door into the lantern-lit space. Silvestri’s left arm came around her shoulders from the back. “For chrissakes, Les. You have no respect for danger.” He sounded exasperated.

She didn’t care. She held onto his arm because it felt so good having him there, being able to touch him. He let go of her, almost shaking her off, and she turned. He had a gun in his right hand. “Are you alone?” he asked.

“There’s someone upstairs. It’s okay. Really.” She smiled at him tentatively. “You don’t need that.”

He put his gun back in the shoulder holster under his coat. “What’s going on here?” He had shaved since she’d last seen him, but his beard was a dark shadow on his jaw.

“Come upstairs.” She pushed the door and went through. He followed her, closing the door behind them, mounting the stairs, alert and taut. She felt, rather than saw, that he kept his hand inside his jacket, on his gun.

As they reached the top of the stairs, Diantha came forward, her midcalf gray cashmere skirt flowing around her long slim legs. If Silvestri was surprised, he gave no indication.

“This is Diantha Anderson,” Wetzon said.

Diantha extended her hand and gave Silvestri’s face a finite examination. He did the same with her, meeting her eye to eye, for they were about the same height. “Can I take your coat?” Diantha asked.

Silvestri shrugged out of his jacket. “Nah. I’ll just leave it here.” He folded it over the railing of the staircase, his eyes moving upward toward the darkness of the second floor as if he knew someone was up there, listening and waiting. After a brief moment, he left his coat and came back to where Diantha and Wetzon waited. He was wearing his navy blue turtleneck sweater and the brown tweed jacket with the suede elbow patches and blue jeans. “Someone want to tell me what this is all about?” His eyes inventoried the room.

“Making a list, checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty or nice ...” came skimming across Wetzon’s mind. She drowned a giggle in a cough.
Just plain silliness
, she thought.
This is serious.
“Silvestri—”

“Let’s sit down, please,” Diantha said, drawing them to the sofa. Silvestri kept his eyes on her, not giving much.

Wetzon sank into the sofa again. Her nerve ends were raw, her hands and knees shook. Silvestri sat on the arm of the sofa, near enough to Wetzon for her to detect any seams in his flat professional facade. Diantha took the stool, watching Silvestri watching her.

“Silvestri—” Wetzon tried again. His eyes met hers fleetingly, the coldest, toughest slate. They turned back to Diantha. He was on duty all the way. “Silvestri, Diantha ...” She picked over her words, feeling for the right ones. “ ... Diantha was a close friend of Teddy Lanzman’s.”

“Oh?” Silvestri crossed one foot over the other at the knee. He was wearing soft black leather loafers and white socks.

Diantha said nothing. In the sepia shadows of the room, one was left with an impression of high molded cheekbones and dark flinty eyes.

“We have something we want to tell you about Teddy,” Wetzon said, looking up at him.

“Les, if you’re holding out information about a murder, you’re in trouble.”

“I’m not, Silvestri. Honest. I just found out.”

“Ms. Anderson?”

Wetzon leaned forward. “Diantha, I’m begging you,” she pleaded, “you’ve got to trust him.”

“Wait a minute, Les. Ms. Anderson, technically, if this is information about the Lanzman murder, you should be talking to Bernstein at Manhattan North.” He got to his feet.

“Bullshit, Silvestri!” Wetzon’s fist hit her thigh. She was fuming. She felt he was playacting for some reason known only to him.

“Okay, let’s cut through this,” Silvestri said, talking to Diantha, ignoring Wetzon. “What do you have?”

“I know someone,” Diantha began slowly, “who may have some information about this, but he feels his life is in danger and he wants protection before he comes forward.”

“Shove over, Les.” Silvestri settled on the sofa next to Wetzon. He sat back, totally relaxed, as if what Diantha had just said was something he had been waiting to hear. “Is there more coffee in the pot?” he asked casually.

Diantha gave him a questioning look. “Wetzon, I wonder if you’d be good enough to bring us another cup and the rest of the coffee.”

Wetzon stared down at the tray on the antique Chinese trunk. It held three cups with coffee in each at various levels. Three. Silvestri knew. She looked quickly at Diantha.

Diantha smiled a cautious smile at Silvestri. “Touché,” she said. Her fingers worried the gold stud in her earlobe.

As Wetzon creaked across the long expanse of floor into the dining room, she heard Silvestri ask, “What do you do, Ms. Anderson?” Ha! That was good for a small laugh. Last year when he and Wetzon had first met, she had to explain what a headhunter was. Now he knew three headhunters.

There was a fine Oriental carpet in mellow roses, browns, and greens under the cherry French country dining table. To her right was an arched doorway that led, as she had thought earlier, to a small but immaculate kitchen, very efficiently laid out. All white, cabinets and countertops, with black trim,
Eurostyle
was the word for it.

The Braun coffee maker was also white and black. She opened and closed two of the tall cabinets before she found the cups and saucers. Everything was so neat and orderly, she summoned up guilty thoughts about her own messy cabinets. She had let things go because Carlos wasn’t housekeeping for her anymore.

She detached the coffeepot, carried it and a cup and saucer back into the living room, where she found Silvestri leaning across the trunk talking intently to Diantha, gesturing with a half-eaten rusk.

“I give you my word,” he was saying, “that if need be I’ll go directly to the commissioner—”

“If need be? Who will decide that?” Diantha asked tersely.

“I will. You’ll have to trust me.”

Wetzon silently set the cup and saucer down and poured coffee for Silvestri, placing the coffeepot on a folded napkin to protect the old trunk from the heat.

“Ah,” Silvestri said, but he wasn’t looking at her or the coffee. He was looking over Wetzon’s shoulder. She and Diantha turned. Teddy had come down the stairs and was walking slowly toward them.

Silvestri went to meet him, extending his hand, his smile broader than Wetzon had ever seen. “Dr. Livingston? Or should I say, Ted Lanzman?”

“I have no one else to trust, Silvestri,” Teddy said, taking his hand. “This better be good.”

Wetzon felt a tiny surge of pride as she watched Silvestri. He was the director of the play, without any doubt. There he was, slightly shorter, stockier, nor nearly as handsome as Teddy, but he was very much in charge. “You knew, Silvestri,” she said. “You knew all along.”

Teddy sat on the floor next to Diantha. He rested his hand on her thigh. She touched his hand, his face, his neck, his hand again.

“I didn’t know anything,” Silvestri said, pleased. “But the dead man was carrying someone else’s ID, and then the M.E. report came through. That did it.” He sat down again next to Wetzon. “Man, I thought you’d never come out.”

“Who was it?” Teddy asked.

“An FBI agent, name of Lawrence King.”

“Dear God,” Diantha murmured.

“FBI again,” Wetzon said. “Maybe that’s why they were trying to pick me up.” She described what had happened at the Hyatt.

“Yeah,” Silvestri said. “But they get a little too pushy. This is our case and one of their guys stuck his nose in. They’re looking for you, Lanzman. They think you did it.”

“Me! But I didn’t even know who this King was. He was going through my desk. That’s not exactly legal, is it?”

“Will you go to the commissioner now?” Diantha demanded.

“Yes. But I want the whole story. Beginning to end. I knew if you hadn’t done it, you would have to surface at some point, and there was a good chance you would get in touch with my friend here.” His hand fell lightly on Wetzon’s knee and then left.

Teddy asked, “How do you want to do this?”

Silvestri’s notepad and pen came out from his inside pocket. The movement revealed his gun in the shoulder holster. Diantha’s eyes met Wetzon’s across the trunk.

“I’ve got Tormenkov on tape. He spilled the whole scam.” Teddy bit nervously on his knuckles. “They killed him—”

“Yeah. Where is it? Do you have it?”

“It’s in the office.”

Silvestri’s face fell. “It’s probably gone. Either the killer has it or the FBI does.”

“Nah,” Teddy said lazily. “I guarantee it’s still on the shelf with the others.” He licked his thumb and wiped it on the front of his sweater.

“How could you know that, Teddy?” Wetzon grumbled. Teddy had switched from earnest and sincere to egotistical and obnoxious again.

“Oh, I know, Wetzi-Petzi. I marked it ‘Interview with Dan Quayle.’”

Diantha let out a shriek of near-hysterical laughter, shocking them, and Wetzon followed. Even Silvestri laughed.

“Look, Silvestri,” Teddy said, “I want a promise from you.
You
give me that and I’ll cooperate all the way.”

“I’ll see the commissioner, Lanzman. We’ll give you protection until we get the killer, and then some.”

“Nah, man, I have to go with that. That’s understood. But what I want is an exclusive. I want this story, it’s mine. It’ll get me to
Sixty Minutes
. That’s what I want, man.”

“Ted, for godsake,” Diantha said.

Wetzon stared at the handsome, arrogant face. Teddy knew what he was doing.

“I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll talk to the commissioner.” Silvestri didn’t seem a bit put off, but then Silvestri hardly ever reacted to anything.

“You do that,” Teddy said.

“I could really use a beer,” Wetzon said, trying to keep her sentiments about Teddy out of her voice.

Diantha got up. “Anyone else?”

“Yeah,” Teddy said. “Silvestri?”

Silvestri nodded.

“I’ll help you.” Wetzon stood and stretched her arms high, lowering them slowly.

They settled in with Millers, which was not Wetzon’s choice but all Diantha had, drinking from the cans.

“The lawyer,” Teddy explained, “feeds the old folks to this home care service, Tender Care. Tender Care sends an attendant into the home and practically takes over the old person’s life. That’s how it starts. They’re looking for stock certificates and bonds. Lots of these elderly don’t trust brokerage houses. They like to have the certificates at hand or in safe-deposit boxes. The bare bones is, they rip these old people off of everything they own that’s negotiable, and if an old guy or gal gets suspicious, accidents happen. A peaceful death in sleep, by asphyxiation with a pillow, a fall.”

“Oh God, Peepsie Cunningham.”

“You got it, Wetzi. Tender Care deals with some guy in management, who has to okay transactions, and at least one broker at L. L. Rosenkind. The broker asks no questions and cashes in the certificate or the bond when some old lady comes in with identification. Then they split it three ways: the lawyer, Tender Care, the manager at L. L. Tender Care pays off the attendant and the manager takes care of the broker.”

“Did it hit other brokerage houses?” Wetzon asked. She put the can to her lips and took a swallow, then described the incident at Bradley, Elsworth and the old man named Mitosky with the Russian accent. “His obituary, if it was his, said he’d been born in England.”

“Could be. Tormenkov thought maybe. Tender Care employs a lot of Russian immigrants. These people usually don’t talk. Remember, Wetzi, how we ran into a stone wall in Little Odessa?”

Silvestri looked down at his notes, folded the pad, and slipped it back in his pocket. “I’ll deal with the tape.”

“You and only you, Silvestri. It’s hot. And so am I.”

“Okay, Les, let’s go.”

“Where?”

“I’m taking you home and then I have work to do.”

She didn’t even protest. It would have done no good. Besides, she was exhausted. The shock of seeing Teddy suddenly alive, the escape from the FBI ... She listened as he curtly instructed Diantha and Teddy not to leave the apartment for any reason, not to make any phone calls out or let anyone else know where Teddy was until he got in touch with them.

“So, coach,” she said, as Silvestri put on his seat belt and started the car. “How’d I do this time?”

Silvestri didn’t respond. He pulled out of the parking place, made a right, and drove over to Third Avenue, where he made another right. Wetzon looked out the window. Maybe he was still mad at her. She thought about Teddy.
So we all have our buttons, don’t we,
she thought. Teddy’s was fame. She looked at Silvestri’s hard profile, the set of his jaw.
What’s yours, Silvestri?
She looked down at her hands in her lap and sighed.
What’s mine?

As if in response, not taking his eyes from the road, Silvestri reached over and covered her hands with his, giving them a gentle, lingering squeeze.