The Deadliest Option (12 page)

A whimper. She could hear it. It was coming from the computer. Someone had left it on. The someone who had trashed the room—or Dr. Ash? She came around the desk and stared at the screen. It was blank. It was making a wheezing sound not unlike the breathing noises Dr. Ash had made. When she touched W for Wetzon, it gave her a lunatic hodgepodge of letters and numbers, as if it had had a nervous breakdown.

On the desk chair lay Carlton Ash’s soft leather portfolio, brutalized, its binding ripped open. She lifted the torn leather flap with her fingernail. Nothing. Whatever had been there—the mysterious report he’d been working on, no doubt—was gone.

She stared out the window. The haze had lifted and the view, the statue, the boats, seemed as sharp and gleaming as if painted on glass.

What could be in that report that would make someone kill for it? But wait. Not so fast. Had Ash been murdered? And if so, was it because he knew something about Goldie’s death?

She fished into her purse for her pen and, crouching, used it to sift through the papers on the floor. Nothing that even looked remotely like pages from a report. Standing, she checked the gaping drawers. Nothing except the usual desk paraphernalia. A stapler, tape dispenser, a tin of paperclips, pencils. One drawer was set up for hanging files, folders ready but empty. She skimmed through, just to be sure, using the closed tip of her pen. Whoever had done this had been thorough. She sighed and put her pen back in her purse.

A row of tall bookshelves covered the short wall next to the door, but the books were on the floor, tossed like rag dolls. Some spines had been broken. She picked her way through the wreckage. She recognized the red Standard & Poor’s
Securities Dealers of North America
, pages rent, the green
Securities Industry Yearbook
, binding in shreds, and several other reference books, all on the subject of compliance in the securities markets. A dictionary, in tatters. A book on trading, two books on options, a half dozen or more books on securities law. She shuddered. Destroyed books were like dead bodies. This was a bad luck room. Its
two
previous occupants were dead.

Silvestri
, she thought.
He should be in on this, even though it’s not his precinct.
She would be breaking no client confidence by calling him because he would get to know soon enough anyway.

She strolled out of Dr. Ash’s office, past the closed doors of the other offices into the boardroom, and waved casually to Juggy Greenfield and his friends a dozen desks away. They were guffawing, as if someone had just told a joke. The worst possible situations were breeding grounds for Wall Street’s black humor.

Picking the closest desk with a phone, she sat down and called Silvestri. No trouble getting a call out. Silvestri and Metzger were both unavailable and she was bumped to Mo Ryan.

“Please tell him I’m at Luwisher Brothers,” Wetzon told the detective. “There’s been an accident here. Dr. Carlton Ash is dead.” She gave Mo Ryan the address and hung up in the middle of Mo’s response. Her hands were shaking.

She walked back to Ellie’s office. Inside, she could hear Ellie talking to someone. Wetzon knocked and opened the door. The room reeked of booze.

Ellie was alone, talking on the telephone. She beckoned to Wetzon and said into the phone, “Gotta go” and hung up. She was wearing gray linen trousers and a white wrap-around silk blouse, cut in a low V. A gold ball charm dangled from a long mesh chain around her neck. “Horrible, isn’t it?” She pointed to the open bottle of Jack Daniel’s on her desk. “Want a swig?”

“No, thanks,” Wetzon declined. “Too early for me.” But it was tempting. The office was freezer-cold. She could feel goosebumps on her arms under the sleeves of her jacket. She sat down in front of Ellie’s desk, sitting on her cold hands to keep them still.

Ellie poured a generous amount of whiskey into a taupe coffee mug, inscribed with the legend WOMEN MAKE THE BEST BUSINESSMEN, and drank most of it. “I told them to carpet those goddam stairs, I told them to put up another railing, but no, they never listen to me. They always know better.” She drained the contents of her cup and poured again. “If the fat fuck had a wife and kiddies, they’ll sue our brains out.”

“Accident? You think it was an accident?”

“Well, of course, Wetzon. What else would it be? I was just telling David—” She pointed to the telephone.

“David called you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“From his office?”

Ellie frowned and pushed her hair back behind her ears. “No, he’s not here. I just spoke to him on the phone. He helps his parents out on Saturdays. He was ...” She stared at the phone, her face haggard.

“I heard someone in his office. I thought it was David.”

Ellie shook her head violently, her hair rippled forward like a gray satin curtain. “No. You couldn’t have.” Rising suddenly, she picked up her mug and left the room. “Come on, Wetzon.”

Wetzon followed her into David Kim’s office. Ellie turned to face Wetzon and gestured with the mug. “See, he’s not here,” she said.

The office was neatly arranged, functional and attractive. An open black attaché case was standing under the desk. “His briefcase is.”

“Oh, he often leaves it here. Trust me, Wetzon, you were mistaken.” Ellie patted the back of David’s chair in a vague, almost distracted manner. Still, there was something unmistakably proprietary about the gesture.

Wetzon nodded. “I must have made a mistake.” Someone could have been using David’s office, or for some reason either Ellie didn’t know David had been there, or she was covering up for him. It was multiple choice, pick one.

They drifted back to Ellie’s office. Ellie closed the door behind them. “I think you’d better get me out of this place, Wetzon.”

“Where do you want to go?”

Ellie rolled the gold ball charm between her thumb and forefinger. “Oh, I don’t know. I always thought I’d be here for life, but with Goldie gone ... ” She sank into her chair, her eyes half closed, mouth sagging. “I’m so tired of all the infighting. Doug is the only decent one in the group, and who knows for sure about him. He’s got such a coating of Southern honey that it could be covering something equally disgusting. Find me a nice quiet, quality regional firm, like Tucker maybe.”

“You and David, too?”

“Yes. And my assistant, Dwayne.” She looked up at Wetzon. “Our trailing twelve months come to two million.”

“Not bad.”

“Yeah. Not bad for an ex-schoolteacher.” She drained her mug and poured a last dollop from the bottle, emptying it. Then she screwed the cap back on and dropped the bottle in the wastebasket next to her desk, with a crash. “So much for that.” She raised her mug. “To the late, great Dr. Carlton Ash. His demise gives the lie to the adage that only the good die young.” Her mouth twisted. “Are you sure you don’t want to join me, Wetzon?” There’s enough here for you to have a taste.”

“Those are pretty hard sentiments, Ellie.”

“You didn’t know the fat fuck.”

“Is this all about the study he was doing for the firm?”

“What do you mean
this?
What are you doing here today anyway, Wetzon?” Ellie stared at her with clear hostility.

If one more person asked her that, Wetzon was going to start screaming. But now probably there was no harm in telling. “He asked me to meet him here.”

“He? Who?” She took a swallow of bourbon and closed her eyes.

“The late, great Carlton Ash.”

Ellie set the mug down hard. “He did?”

“He was going to give me a copy of the study.”

“Hot off the press, no doubt.” With unsteady hands she drew a cigarette from a crumpled pack and lit it.

“No doubt.” Wetzon paused. “He also said he knew who killed Goldie.”

Ellie smiled. “I don’t think anyone killed Goldie except Goldie. The fat fuck was just trying to make himself look important. Wetzon, you’ve been had.” She laughed and swung around in her chair to study the view. “He’ll make a nice headline in the
Daily News.
”

“God, Ellie—”

“Don’t judge me, Wetzon. You don’t know.”

The door opened and one of the young brokers Wetzon had seen earlier poked his head in. “The cops want to see everyone out in the boardroom, ASAP.”

Ellie sighed. Turning, she took out her blue nylon bag and the makeup mirror and ran a comb through her hair, carefully reapplying powder and lipstick.

Wetzon rose. “Is there a ladies’ room on this floor?”

“Of course. Just past the fat fuck’s office. Men’s on the left, ladies’ on the right.”

“I’ll be back.”

The corridor narrowed as Wetzon came to the far end of the floor, where it formed a T. She went left, walked about ten paces down a hall, and when she saw men in bold black letters on the door, realized she’d made the wrong turn. She backtracked. Stopped. She opened the door to the men’s room tentatively. No one there.
Good thing, too, Wetzon. Fancy catching someone in the middle
... a giggle welled up in her chest.

The narrow hall went beyond the men’s room. Curious, she followed it to where it ended. The sign on the door said, EXIT STAIRCASE 2.

P
OLICE PROCEDURE, SHE
thought, yawning, was never the same from precinct to precinct, murder to murder, but the nitty-gritty of it was always boring, especially when it meant waiting around, and there was always a lot of that. Like rehearsals. The chorus people were always waiting around for the director or the choreographer to get his act together.

The detective in charge was a lieutenant named Weiss, a swarthy man with a great shock of black hair. He was wearing a very well-tailored, summer-weight gray suit, blue button-down shirt, and crisply tied light-blue-on-dark-blue dotted silk tie, soft black Bally shoes. Very fashionable for a Saturday morning.

Wetzon, sitting in the boardroom—
bored
in the boardroom— waiting her turn, felt her mind wander restlessly. Hoffritz, Bird, Dougie were not here. Presumably they’d been questioned separately, treated with some deference. After all, they were managing directors. The three other brokers were also gone, having been dealt with—and out—quickly, probably each vouching for the others.

She picked up the phone, pressed 9, and called Smith in Connecticut. Smith answered in a voice smothered in sleep. “Sorry I woke you,” Wetzon whispered.

“Speak up. Where are you?”

“I can’t talk any louder. Carlton Ash was just murdered.” She overrode Smith’s gasp. “I’m still at Luwisher Brothers. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up on Smith’s squeal.

She got up and stretched; she would have liked to put one leg on the desk and fold herself over it, but her skirt was far too slim and she wasn’t alone. She looked at her watch. Ten o’clock. It seemed as if she’d been here all day. She walked over and sat down next to Ellie, who was wearing red-framed half glasses and was thumbing restlessly through
Barron’s.

“So?” Ellie said. Her eyes met Wetzon’s over the top of her glasses.

“They’re taking a long time with Neil.”

“This is ridiculous.” Ellie slapped the magazine down and looked at her watch. “Damn, I’ve lost the crystal again.”

“Do you often work on Saturdays?”

“It’s very hard to keep up if your eyes are glued to your Quotron all day—the sweet sad song of the options broker.”

“Does that mean yes or no?”

Ellie smiled ironically. “What is this, Wetzon? The third degree?”

“Sorry.” Wetzon looked at her hands. She’d broken a nail.

Two uniformed policemen stood in the entrance to the boardroom, talking. Both were young men with bushy mustaches and long hair curling over their collars.

Ellie sighed. She took off the glasses and folded them into a blue nylon case and tucked the case into her quilted Chanel handbag. “No,
I’m
sorry, Wetzon. I miss Goldie, I hate what this place has become, and God save me, I didn’t wish that poor slob dead, but I’m not sorry he’s gone. Ash was a troublemaker.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He was a snoop. He had us all at each other’s throats. Oh, dear.” She giggled. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You against Goldie?”

“Oh no, never. Goldie, Neil, and I on one side and Search and Destroy on the other.”

“And Dougie?”

“Who knows? He’s his own best friend.” Ellie shrugged. “How long have you known Dougie? Years, I’ll bet. Me, too. He’s a sphinx. I mean, do you get any sexual vibes from him?”

Wetzon considered that. “No,” she admitted. “Although he is touchy-feely.”

“Yes, isn’t he though. But my guess is it doesn’t mean anything. He’s probably lined up with Search and Destroy, but only if he thinks they’re going to win.”

“Win what?”

“Everything. This firm. Luwisher Brothers is a pot of gold. That’s all they really care about.”

“I don’t get any sexual vibes from any of them. Oh, maybe Neil.”

“Well, Neil has real blood running through his veins.”

“And Goldie?”

“Goldie was sexual. Oh, my, yes.” She looked at Wetzon, exposed, daring her to comment.

“Ms. Kaplan?”

Startled, both women stood up. An overweight detective in tan slacks and a brown sports jacket looked from Wetzon to Ellie.

“I’m Ellie Kaplan.”

“Come with me then, if you don’t mind. Lieutenant Weiss is ready for you.” The detective turned and walked past the uniforms, toward the reception area.

“But am I ready for Lieutenant Weiss?” Ellie murmured. “And of course I mind. I could put this time to better use.”

So could I,
Wetzon thought, watching Ellie go off down the hall. Still standing, she called out to the uniforms, “May I be excused for a minute?” She pointed to the rear of the floor.

The men looked at each other and nodded. Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Good thing one wasn’t a woman because then she’d have company she didn’t want.

She went back past David’s office, staying close to the wall, and ducked through Ellie’s open door, closing it quietly behind her. Her back against the door, she surveyed the room. What on earth was she doing here? What was she looking for?