The Big Killing (9 page)
Authors: Annette Meyers
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Women Sleuths, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Crime, #Financial, #Crime Fiction
“Morning, Ms. Wetzon,” he drawled, not getting up. He was about ready to retire, so he didn’t put out more than minimum effort anymore. “There’s a lady waiting for you out front.”
“There is?” She peered out the front door.
“Leaning on the car that’s double-parked ...”
Yes, a woman in brown pants and a brown tweed jacket. “Thanks, Larry.”
She went out the door fast, not looking.
“Oh, Ms. Wetzon, may I speak with you?”
She ignored the call and walked into the street to hail a cab. Several went by, occupied. She grunted and brought her sore arm down to her side. Finding an empty cab at this hour on the Upper West Side was always difficult. The woman came and stood next to her.
“I’m with the
Wall Street Insider
. Julie Davidson. I’d really like to talk with you.” She didn’t push. She just said it easily. No pressure.
Wetzon turned and looked at her. She had a friendly face, lots of freckles, thick, bleached hair in an old-fashioned flip. A solid figure in her brown pants and jacket. She was a little older than she appeared at first glance.
“About what?” Wetzon asked as coldly as she could.
Julie Davidson looked at her, slightly amused. “About the murder of Barry Stark.”
Wetzon nodded, relenting somewhat. “I can’t talk about that. The police have asked me not to say anything.”
“Perhaps at some point you will be able to talk, and I would really appreciate your giving me some time.” Julie Davidson held out a card.
“Okay.” Wetzon took the card, automatically slipping it into her pocket with the key. Then she took the card out quickly and put it in her handbag, and checked her pocket again for the key. It was still there.
It was much later than she usually left for the office, and she saw that Sugar Joe had already pulled up stakes and left his spot on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue near the bus shelter.
Months ago, she had first noticed the addition to the neighborhood of a pile of garbage lying near the bus stop shelter on Amsterdam and Eighty-sixth Street covered by a medium blue wool blanket with a “made in England exclusively for Bloomingdale’s” label. Her first thought had been why would anyone cover garbage like that, then the horrific realization that there was a living thing under the oblong clutter. There was also a cardboard container of coffee at one end. The head end? One of those collapsible luggage carriers lay on the ground, like a pillow, probably where the head was under the blanket.
The individual, who had turned out to be a man of indeterminate age, perhaps mid-fifties or older, immediately became a local fixture. Most of the people in the neighborhood, including Wetzon, had never seen him. But those who had tried to help him get to a city shelter described him as tall and very thin, with shoulder-length white hair. He didn’t like either the city shelters or the do-gooders. He was always back on the street very quickly. He seemed to go somewhere during the day, but he was in place each evening, and he was there early every morning, for she had seen him at those times. He always returned to the same spot.
Wetzon had begun to think of him as a stockbroker. Maybe he went to his office during the day and came back to his spot every evening. It was a joke, but it wasn’t. In New York City these days and in the brokerage business, nothing was too farfetched.
All Sugar Joe ever accepted was coffee, which he liked light, with cream and sugar, three envelopes. Wetzon had discovered this one day when she set two containers of coffee near the lump under the blanket and heard a rough voice say, “Six sugars.” Not “thank you.” Despite her dismay at his lifestyle, she had laughed.
The kids in the neighborhood had begun calling him Sugar Joe, and the name stuck. It became part of Wetzon’s morning ritual to leave him his two cups and for him to grunt at her. How he could see anything from under the blanket, she could never understand.
This was the first weekday morning in months that she did not leave him coffee, and she felt a twinge of remorse.
A cab finally stopped in response to her wave, and she got into it, moving with some difficulty. Everything hurt. Her back was protesting. Sitting forward, she gave the driver her office address and leaned back. She slipped the
Wall Street Journal
out of her shopping bag and unfolded it to the front page. Thank God, the
Journal
didn’t use photographs. She saw the small item in the “What’s News” section: “Broker slain” and just a small paragraph with the facts as she knew them. Nothing new here. She was relieved. She let her eyes run over the front page. They stopped before she was mentally aware of what they were seeing. Her eyes froze on a sharp headline: COLLAPSE OF KAPLAN, MORAN SECURITIES, INC. datelined Atlanta, Georgia. She read quickly:
Kaplan, Moran, a government securities firm based in Atlanta collapsed yesterday when a great number of clients requested delivery of collateral for their loans to the firm. Official word came from federal banking and securities officials. Clients stand to lose over $7 million. Kaplan, Moran was involved in repurchase agreements, repos, a type of borrowing where a securities firm sells government securities to a client, then buys them back at a higher price on an agreed upon date, from 30 to 270 days. The firm also did reverse repos, where it bought the securities from the client, promising to sell them back later.
A spokesperson for the SEC stated that fraud began after the firm started to have heavy trading losses. It then used money from clients’ accounts to cover up these losses....
The lunch crowd on Second Avenue was early today, but that was probably because of the balmy weather. It wasn’t even noon, and people were already lined up at the sandwich shops and salad bars, buying lunch which they would then eat outdoors in one of the pocket parks that dotted Manhattan’s business sections.
Traffic was clogged on Forty-ninth Street between First and Second Avenues because a private garbage-collection truck was blocking the street.
“Stop!” Wetzon commanded. “I’ll get out here.”
The cabdriver braked to a short stop on the west side of Second Avenue. Tires squealed behind them as another cab stopped short. Wetzon paid the fare, got out, and waited for the light to change. A woman in a black leather trench coat, large sunglasses, and a floral silk scarf tied under her chin got out of the second cab and walked in the opposite direction, west on Forty-ninth Street.
The sunlight was dazzling in Wetzon’s eyes.... Kaplan, Moran ... She’d never heard of the firm, but they did the kind of business Barry had said Jake was involved in, and they had gone under. Could that have something to do with Barry’s murder? Had Barry found out something about Jake Donahue that was bad enough to get him killed?
The light changed, but traffic gridlocked; drivers of cars and delivery trucks leaned on their horns. The burly garbage men continued to load garbage, paying no attention to the traffic jam they’d created. Two massive men got out of a stalled moving van and began shouting obscenities at the garbagemen, who dropped what they were doing, to respond in kind. The scene was getting ugly. A boisterous crowd gathered, not averse to mixing into the fracas.
Thinking it was as good a time as any to cross, Wetzon was about to step into the street when she saw a bicycle delivery person, in a sleek black jumpsuit with a blue stripe down the side, come barreling down Second Avenue on a lean racing bike, weaving in and out of the traffic and people. She paused. An ambulance siren screamed. Vehicles squeezed right and left to let the ambulance by. Now the figure on the bicycle seemed to be racing the ambulance. Wetzon stood on the edge of the sidewalk, waiting till the ambulance passed. At that moment, she felt a hand on the small of her back, a sudden tremendous pressure, and she pitched forward. Angry, blinded by the sun, she started to turn and was pushed again, harder, directly into the path of the ambulance.
Wetzon tottered, regained her balance, barely, as the ambulance swerved sharply. And as she stepped back, she was grazed by the messenger on the speeding bicycle. He cursed her angrily, so close that she had felt the heat of him and the breeze in his wake. She stood shaking in the street.
“Hey, close call,” someone said. A man.
“Are you all right?” asked a dumpy little woman carrying a Saks shopping bag. “Those bicycles! They should be outlawed!”
Wetzon nodded, unable to speak. She touched her forehead. Either she was getting accident-prone, or ... All at once, she remembered the purposeful pressure on her back and shuddered.
She scanned the crowd behind her, but no recognizable face stood out among the crush of curious bystanders.
She crossed the congested street with care, avoiding the angry citizens around the garbage truck, and walked down Forty-ninth Street to her office.
A man was standing in front of the brownstone. He was wearing sunglasses. Wetzon’s heart stopped. She clutched the painted black iron railing of a fence in front of the brownstone two doors away from their office.
It was Barry Stark.
He spotted her and walked toward her. It wasn’t Barry. She breathed again. He looked a lot like Barry, though, at least in the first instant. He was not as tall and his hair was long, but not curly, like Barry’s, and, the fact was, he hardly looked like Barry at all. What was the matter with her?
As he came up to her he said, “Wetzon?”
He had a large head and a square jaw, and though he smiled at her pleasantly, he did not take off his sunglasses, the mirrored kind, and she couldn’t see his eyes, just her reflection in the glasses.
“I’m sorry ...” she began, backing away slightly.
“I’m Georgie Travers.” He held out his hand, and she came forward and took it, thinking how oddly small his hand was. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Just spoke with your partner. She’s a tough broad. Wouldn’t tell me where you were, if you were coming in.” He smiled, narrowly opening his lips. “I called you at home, but got your machine—”
“Barry ...”
“Yeah,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets. He was wearing an off-white cotton hand-knit sweater and foreign-looking pants with pleats in the front and narrowing toward the ankles. He had the musculature of a weight lifter, which she could see through the sweater. On his feet were cut-out brown leather sandals and no socks. He looked like an Italian movie star ... or a gigolo, she thought. “Yeah ... I heard. Can we go somewhere and talk?”
“I can’t now. I have appointments, and the police—” She stopped. It was none of his business.
“How about later? It’s important.”
“I don’t know. Georgie, I can’t tell you anything more than what you read in the papers.”
“He was my best friend, you know.” Georgie stepped closer. She remembered his reputation on the Street, the events that had forced him out.
“I know, Georgie, I know, and I’m sorry. I liked him. I’m really sorry.”
“Please, Wetzon. It won’t take long. He trusted you.
I
trust you.” There was an implication of intimacy in his voice. It was a telephone style that some stockbrokers had, a form of seduction—into a sale. He took her hand in his. He was strong, and she was aware of how small she was. He could easily have pushed her in front of ... She pulled away. This was crazy. He couldn’t have. Georgie had been talking to Smith when it happened. Barry was his friend. Why would Georgie want to harm her?
“How about later, Georgie? I’ll call you. Where can I reach you?”
He shrugged. “I’m around. Do you have a piece of paper?”
Wetzon pulled a clean sheet of paper out of her Filofax and gave it to him with her pen.
“These are my private numbers, at home and at the Caravanserie,” he said.
“I’ll call you late this afternoon. I promise.” She edged around him to the door of her office.
He nodded, then walked a few steps in the direction of First Avenue. She was watching him with a vague sense of relief, when he turned unexpectedly.
“Wetzon,” he said, a clear warning in his voice, “be careful what you say to the cops.”
Smith was feeling disgruntled. Wetzon saw that the moment she came flying through the door after avoiding Harold’s attempt to waylay her with questions about the murder.
She could tell by the set of Smith’s magnificent shoulders, by the slight declination of her mouth, that things were not going the way she wanted.
“Now look here,” Smith was saying into the phone, “don’t you dare put me on hold. I want to talk with your supervisor.”
Uh-oh
, Wetzon thought. Whoever Smith had on the phone was in for it. She dumped her shopping bag with the newspapers on the floor next to her empty briefcase.
Smith turned, phone still at her ear, and gave Wetzon a chilly smile.
“Who’s that in the front office with Harold?” Wetzon decided to ignore Smith’s mood. Hell, she was the one with the real problems at this point, not Smith. Smith was probably in a sulk because she was envious of all the attention Wetzon was getting thanks to Barry’s murder. Smith was usually the center of activity, representing the public image of their firm, handling their clients, thriving on the attention.
Well, Wetzon thought, Smith could have it all. Wetzon was very happy working with the brokers, holding their hands through the interview process and listening to their problems. She liked the nurturing; Smith could keep the P.R. Smith was so wrapped up in herself that she hadn’t even noticed Wetzon’s bruised head.
“What?” Smith slammed the phone down. “What did you ask me?”
“I’m sorry I asked you anything.” Wetzon sat at her desk and looked at her calendar.
“Oh, now, Wetzon, don’t get mad. I’ve had such a trying morning.”
Trying?
She’d
had a trying morning? “How could you have had a trying morning when Silvestri asked you out to dinner?”
“Oh, that’s minor. I knew he would because I did the cards this morning.”
Minor. So Smith thought it was minor when—
“What I mean is,” Smith continued, riding roughshod through Wetzon’s thoughts, “what I’m saying, sweetie, is that of course I know you find him attractive, but believe me, he’s not for you. You could never handle him. You’re so naive about people. I told him that. I told him how worried I am about you, how anyone can take you in with a hard-luck story.”
“Did you really? And what did he say to that, pray tell?”
Smith shrugged. “Truthfully, he was not very sympathetic. He would make mincemeat of you, sweetie. You should thank me.”
The intercom buzzed. She snapped up the phone. “What?”
Wetzon turned her back on Smith and growled, “Thank you.”
“Later,” Smith said, hanging up. “Wetzon, I’ve told Harold to just take messages for you. The phones haven’t stopped. This murder of yours is tying up our lines. Your notoriety is interfering with business.”
Wetzon would have responded in kind, but Smith was saved by a knock on the door, and Harold scooted in without waiting for a response.
“Aaaaaa, Smith ... Wetzon ...” Harold hesitated. “Our interview ... he’s been waiting....” He was twitchy with barely contained excitement because someone he had talked to on the telephone had been spectacularly murdered, and Wetzon was involved.
Wetzon couldn’t help smiling. “What interview? That’s what I’ve been trying to ask, Smith. Who is that young man in our outer office?”
“The cold caller,” Harold said. “What do I do about him? Should he wait, or what?” He drummed his fingers on the door frame.
“Oh, that—” Wetzon had forgotten they were interviewing someone to take Harold’s place so that they could move him up to associate.
Harold’s drumming increased in intensity.
“Harold Alpert,” Smith said sharply, “stop doing that this minute. It’s very annoying.”
“Please, Smith,” he had that whine in his voice that she couldn’t stand, “what do I do about the cold caller? Should he wait, or what?”
Smith swiveled in her chair and stared at him hard. “Cool down, Harold,” she said. “You’re making me crazy, and I can’t think.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he stammered. His skinny little body drooped. “But what should we do with him?” He always got depressed when Smith was disappointed in him. He wanted so much for her to think well of him.
“Why don’t
you
interview him,” Wetzon suggested.
“Of course, you interview him,” Smith said, as if it had been her idea, turning on her most radiant smile, warming and reassuring him. “You don’t care, Wetzon, do you? Of course you don’t. Harold, you know what to ask him, and you can explain to him that we’ve had a personal emergency. If you like him, we’ll ask him to come back and meet Wetzon and me.”
“That’s great, Smith, gee, that’s great,” Harold said, his chest expanding, all puffed up because Smith had given him the authority to do an interview.
“Just excuse yourself about having to answer the telephone, and keep screening those calls. Wetzon, that is what you want for now?”
Wetzon nodded.
Smith gave Harold a piercing look. “And tuck your shirt in, if you please.”
He started to leave, obediently stuffing in his shirt. “And don’t forget your jacket.” His jacket hung sloppily half off his shoulders. He straightened his jacket, shamefaced, and tugged at his sleeves. Smith and Wetzon looked him over critically. It really didn’t help. He was an untidy mess.
“Oh, here, I forgot.” Harold thrust a mass of pink message slips at Smith and Wetzon and closed the door behind him.
Smith sighed. “I don’t know why we bother. He’s like another son.”
“Except that Mark is more mature,” Wetzon said.
“One of us is going to have to tell him to shave off his mustache and beard. With that nose and those glasses he looks as if he’s wearing a disguise.”
“Well, it ain’t gonna be me.” Wetzon laughed and flipped through her messages, separating the business calls from the personal ones. She knew that Smith was angling for her to do the dirty work.
“Damnation,” Smith said, “that rotten Jeff Monahan didn’t show up for his appointment in New Haven with Shearson Lehman. These brokers are all alike. You can never depend on them.”
“Too bad. That ends him as a viable candidate, I suppose.”
“I don’t know. I’ll have Harold call him and see what his excuse is this time. This is the second meeting the sleaze hasn’t shown for. The last time, his car broke down, but he never even called to say he couldn’t come.”
“Well, we won’t be able to show him to Shearson again, that’s for sure.”
“Wetzon, goddammit, look at this!” Smith waved a message in Wetzon’s face. “Elliot Dunham, the branch office manager for Shearson in New Haven, left me a message saying just that, very succinctly. Harold should have told me about it when I walked in this morning, but he’s distracted by this damn murder you’ve gotten involved in.”
That’s right, Smith, keep dumping on me
, Wetzon thought, but she said, “Do you think we can show Monahan to another firm?”
“I don’t know if it’s worth the bother.”
“He’s a good producer.”
“We’ll see,” Smith said. “Let’s talk about it after Harold calls him and gets the latest excuse. More important, how are you? That’s an ugly bruise on your forehead.”
So you finally deigned to notice
. “It looks worse than it feels,” Wetzon evaded. “I’ll be a lot better tomorrow.” Her head throbbed and she had a burning sensation behind her eyeballs.
“That sleazebag Georgie Travers tried to muscle his way in here this morning,” Smith said.
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I just met him outside.”
“The nerve,” Smith said angrily. “I told him you weren’t coming in today. I can’t believe he’s been hanging around out there all this time.”
“What do you mean, all this time? I thought he just got here.”
“Did he tell you that?” Smith demanded, hands on hips. Wetzon nodded. “What a creep. He was here over an hour ago. Ask Harold.” She laughed. “Harold thought he was applying for the cold caller job.”
“I don’t understand.” Wetzon shook her head, momentarily forgetting her wound. The unwary action brought on another spasm of pain, this time accompanied by nausea.
“You look terrible, sweetie,” Smith said. “You should have stayed home today. I could have handled everything.”
“But Silvestri—”
“Him, too.” Smith patted herself on the shoulder.
I’ll bet
, Wetzon thought, feeling sorry for herself.
“Do you have the key?” Smith demanded. When Wetzon nodded, she said eagerly, “Let’s see.”
Wetzon reached into her pocket for the key, her heart fluttering for one moment when she felt for it and didn’t find it, until her fingers located it in the corner of the pocket. She held it up in the sunlight that poured through their garden windows. The light made an enlarged reflection of hand and key in Smith’s eyes. “Herewith, the McGuffin,” Wetzon said dramatically, dropping the stubby key into Smith’s outstretched hand.
“The what?” Smith mumbled, studying the key, not really listening.
“The McGuffin. What Hitchcock said was the object of the mystery—that which everyone is searching for, or something like that. You know, like
The
Maltese Falcon
.”
“Hitchcock? Are we working with a Hitchcock?” Smith looked up from the key and stared at Wetzon.
“No, no, I’m sorry, just a joke. I meant Alfred Hitchcock. Forget it.”
“Mmmm,” Smith said, “there are some numbers on this key. Scratched in.”
Wetzon put her personal messages under the heavy marble peach paperweight that had been a thank-you gift from Laura Lee Day, a stockbroker she’d placed at Oppenheimer, and went through her business calls again, shuffling the important ones to the top. “Uh-oh, Rudy Reilly. They’re zeroing in on me. Help.” She slumped in her chair, suddenly tired and depressed. “It’s too much ... it’s all too much.” She groped for a Kleenex from the box in the desk drawer. Her head hurt, her back and shoulders ached. And she had ruined her favorite suit. “I’ve ruined my gray suit,” she said tearfully.
“It’s okay, honey, it’s really okay.” Smith got up from her chair, the key put aside for the moment, gathered Wetzon up, and patted her head. “You’ve been through a lot, and you haven’t had much sleep. We’ll go and have a nice lunch at Cafe 58, and then we’ll let Silvestri handle everything. Okay?”
Wetzon smiled. Smith wasn’t much of an intellect, and she could be selfish sometimes, but basically she was a decent, caring person. “I’d like that,” she said, gratefully letting Smith take charge. She felt very shaky and vulnerable.
“I’ll hold on to the key,” Smith said, putting it into her pocket and patting it. “I think we ought to call Leon and try to get him to meet us for lunch so we can get a clear legal opinion on how to approach this.”
Wetzon nodded. Smith was right. Smith was always right where business was concerned. She seemed to be so levelheaded, especially in times of crisis.
“I’ll get him on the phone. You wash your face and fix your makeup.”
Smith was humming when she dialed Leon Ostrow’s office. Wetzon could see she felt much better now that she was taking charge. She was not at all good at being swept along in someone else’s life.
“Oh, my God, I almost forgot,” Wetzon whispered. “Take a look at this.” She put the
Journal
article about Kaplan, Moran on top of Smith’s desk. “This is what Barry started to tell me about, only he was talking, I think, about Jake Donahue’s.”
Smith stared at her, then glanced absently at the paper. She put her finger to her lips. “Oh, yes, is Leon there, sugar?” she said sweetly into the phone. “Yes, Xenia Smith. Well, hi there, you old sweet thing. How’re you doing? I know.” She became cool and professional. “
Everybody
recognized her. No, she’s okay. No, I hadn’t noticed your call, sweetie, we’ve had so many calls this morning. Listen, Leon, dear, we were wondering if you’d be able to join us for lunch. We have a four-ish appointment with the detective who’s working on the case. How’s one o’clock? Cafe 58. See you ... What?” She looked startled. She stared at Wetzon. “You do? How interesting. We can talk about it when we see you, sweetie pie.” She hung up.
“What did Leon say just now?” Wetzon asked.
“Wait a minute.” Smith buzzed Harold.
“Yes, Smith.” He sounded harassed.
“Reservation for three at one o’clock at Cafe 58.”
“Ohhh, you’re not going to leave me all alone here to handle the calls? What if the phones get tied up and I lose some calls?” He was whining again.
“You do the best you can. You’ve handled things alone before. This is no different. Don’t be such a baby,” she said icily.
“Right, Smith, I’m sorry. Gee, I didn’t mean it. You know that. Smith, I liked Bailey Balaban.”
“Who is Bailey Balaban?”
“The candidate for cold caller for us. You know, the one I interviewed. He just left.”
“Okay, we’ll talk about it tomorrow and arrange for him to come back and meet us next week.” She looked at Wetzon. Wetzon nodded. “Do we have anyone with appointments to be confirmed today?”
“Yes. George Mallow with Alex Brown, after the close, at four-thirty.”
“Well, you do it. And call Monahan and find out what the hell made him miss the second appointment. But take care of the reservation first.”
“Okay.”
Smith hung up the intercom. “I don’t know what we’re going to do with him.”
“He’s feeling left out.” Wetzon was standing with her back to Smith, looking at their pretty, sunny garden with the white cast iron chairs. It seemed such a long time ago—and it was only yesterday—that the garden furniture was delivered.
“Who cares how he feels,” Smith said. “It’s his job to adjust to us.”
“What did Leon say that was so interesting?” Wetzon turned back to look at Smith.
“Oh, nothing much,” Smith said casually. There was a long pause. After Wetzon had turned back to the garden, Smith added, “Just that he represents Jake Donahue.”
