The Big Killing

by Annette Meyers

  “Poor Barry, nothing,” Smith sniffed. “The scumbag probably stuck his avaricious nose in where he shouldn’t have and got caught.” She was no longer interested in Barry, Wetzon could see, but only interested in the case—attaché case—murder case. Smith raised the lid. “And we both know that if there was a profit to be made on this information, Barry was ready to make it, legally or illegally. You have to admit that.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Wetzon said, sighing. “But what could he have done to deserve being murdered?”

  “Let’s just see if we can find out,” Smith said with a raunchy giggle. “We’ll take everything out piece by piece so we can put it back in the same way we found it.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this at all,” Wetzon said, but her interest was piqued, and she knew she was in just as deep as Smith. “We are probably breaking the law.”

  They looked at each other and grinned.

  “Let’s make a list of what we find.” Wetzon took her Filofax out of her handbag and flipped over the calendar and address pages to where she kept the note pages.

  “Ready?” Smith asked. “We’ll start here and leave this stuff in the accordion file for last.”

  The attaché case had a large basic compartment and an accordion compartment attached to the inside cover. Smith flipped open the cover to the bottom compartment.

  “Okay, here we go. One: research reports and prospectuses from Shearson, Bache, Merrill Lynch, Paine Webber, Alex Brown, his firm ... my God, he has reams of this stuff here.”

  Barry had a network of friends at all of the firms, and they were a never-ending supply of research for one another. Brokers with an instinct for self-preservation tended to develop these reciprocal relationships, cultivating sources other than their own firm’s research. They had to, because brokers swore that their firms were almost never right, and by the time the stock was recommended to the broker’s clients, the institutional investors had already bought and sold the stock and it was on its way down. It was a business of one hand washing the other, in one way or another. A business of tradeoffs, real and psychological.

  Smith stacked the reports on the carpet next to the case.

  “Two: A Gucci address book. Wouldn’t you know. And a very nice one, too,” she said, turning it over in her hand. “I’d like to look this over more closely, but we may not have the time.”

  “What’s this?” Wetzon pulled out a large white, lumpy plastic bag. It was stamped YORK HOSPITAL in horizontal blue block letters. “It feels like snack food—M and Ms, nuts and stuff.”

  “There’s another one under here,” Smith said, pulling it out.

  Wetzon opened the snap and looked in. “Jesus,” she murmured.

  “What is it?”

  “Wait a minute. Give me that ashtray.” With rare obedience, Smith reached for the large frosted glass ashtray on the night table near her bed. A fragment of surprise skirted past Wetzon’s subconscious.... What was an ashtray doing in Smith’s bedroom? She didn’t smoke.

  Wetzon emptied the contents of the plastic bag into the ashtray. Capsules spilled out, a myriad of colors, shapes, and sizes. Pills and plastic vials grew into a huge mound.

  “So—the big rock-candy mountain,” Smith said softly.

  “Do you believe this? What’s in the other bag?”

  Smith snapped it open and peered inside. “More of the same. And there’s another bag back here.”

  “Don’t touch it. Let’s just put everything back where it was. It makes me nervous. Hold this for me.” Wetzon thrust the empty plastic bag at Smith and, while Smith held it, poured the contents of the ashtray back into it.

  For once Smith was silent. She snapped the bags closed the way they’d found them and tucked both bags back into the case. “Your poor Barry was into a lot more than new issues, just as I always said,” she murmured. “Not so poor Barry, after all.”

  “It gives me the creeps,” Wetzon said. “Let’s quit this.”

  “Wait a sec,” Smith said. “Look.” She had pulled out a minicassette recorder. She turned it over. “There’s a cassette in it, half-used. We’ve got to listen,” she said eagerly. “It might be important.”

  She had taken the towel turban off her head. Excitement had brought out her vivid coloring and her dark hair had dried full and wavy.

  Wetzon was excited, too. It couldn’t hurt them to know what the tape said. She pressed the rewind button on the tiny recorder and waited for the small click. Then she pressed “play” and Barry’s voice came metallically into the room.

  “Can you make it louder?” Smith settled her back against the foot of the bed.

  Wetzon rewound and started again.

  “Tuesday, March twenty-sixth,” Barry said.

  “Today,” Wetzon said.

  “Shush,” Smith said.

  There was the sound of a buzzer on the tape.

  “Yes,” a male voice rasped.

  “Mr. Seltzer,” a woman’s voice responded.

  “Good,” the male voice said. “Put him through.”

  “Jake?” The second man’s voice.

  “Yeah, Art. What do you have?”

  “They called again,” Art said. “They know something’s going on. I put them off again, but they’re starting to push, and I’m getting worried. I don’t need the SEC nosing around right now. Are you sure you can cover?”

  “Yeah. Will you quit worrying?”

  “Okay, okay, but what about this Mildred business?”

  “That’s my department.” Jake sounded angry. “You take care of yours. I’ve got Mildred hogtied and she doesn’t even know it.” He laughed, and even though the quality of the recording was poor, the downright nastiness in the sound came through to Wetzon, chilling her. “I’ve got something on her that will take her out. Permanently.”

  “Yeah, okay, but get the certificates back before you do anything.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me that, pal.”

  “Yeah, well, my life’s on the line here, buddy. I vouched for you in the audit. I could lose everything.”

  “Okay, okay, but someone knows too much about my business for this to keep happening. We’ve got a fucking spy here, and if I catch him, I’ll kill him. Wait a minute—” Jake broke off at that point and so did the tape.

  “That’s Jake Donahue,” Smith said needlessly.

  “I know. Smith, Barry must have been the spy. Maybe he got caught. He looked as if he’d been in a fistfight when he met me tonight.”

  “If he did, why didn’t they get the cassette and the recorder?”

  Wetzon rewound the cassette and placed the recorder on the carpet next to the Gucci address book. “I don’t know, but it’s pretty small. He could have had it in his inside coat pocket. Or maybe he didn’t have it on him at all, and that’s why they beat him up.”

  “What do you think he found out?” Smith said. “And who is Mildred?”

  “Ah, who is Mildred?” Wetzon said playfully. “‘What is she? That all our swains commend her ...’”

  Smith stared blankly at her. “Really, Wetzon, sometimes you make no sense whatsoever.”

  “I forgot myself,” Wetzon mumbled. She should never try to get literary with Smith. “There’s only one well-known Mildred in this business. And she just happened to have once been married to Jake Donahue. Mildred Gleason.”

  “Ah, yes,” Smith said, imitating W. C. Fields. “Let’s think about that.”

  “This stuff looks like more research,” Wetzon said.

  “Yes, and a ‘Standard and Poor’s Stock Guide,’” Smith held up a hardcover book. “And Super Stocks by one Kenneth L. Fisher.”

  “No wonder that damn case was so heavy.”

  A buzzer sounded from the foyer.

  “Damn. Your friendly detective didn’t waste much time getting here.” Smith stood up and stretched, leaving Wetzon to clean up the mess.

  Hurriedly, Wetzon put the items back in order and moved the top of the case to c
lose it, but a heavy object that was in the accordion section slipped out, blocking the lock.

  “Jesus Christ, Xenia,” Wetzon said breathlessly. “Look—a gun.”

  “What?” Smith was halfway out the bedroom door and returned in a flurry of red and black to stare down at the thick, shiny nose of a small automatic.

  The buzzer sounded again. “Don’t move, I’ll be right back,” she said, heading for the foyer. She spoke briefly to Tony over the intercom and was back. Wetzon hadn’t moved. She was on her knees, sitting on her heels. Her palms were damp.

  They stared at the gun, half in and half out of the attaché case.

  “Push it back,” Smith said urgently, whispering, although she had no need to. “No, with your pen. Don’t touch it.”

  Gently, Wetzon prodded the nose of the gun back into the case. The case closed by itself from the weight of the accordion file. She pressed the top and the lock snapped into place. She was shaking.

  The doorbell rang.

  12

  Wetzon brought the attaché case into the living room and set it down near the large black marble slab of a coffee table. And there were Smith’s Tarot cards spread on the table as if she had just put them down. Great. Silvestri would think she and Smith were flakes.

  It was yet another similarity between show business and the brokerage business. Everyone had an astrologer, a personal psychic, a card reader, a numerologist, and was always trying out a new one. A very straight, enormously successful stockbroker had once told Wetzon in total seriousness that he only bought stock that he had checked first with Miranda.

  “Miranda?” she had the temerity to ask.

  “My psychic,” he had replied.

  “I’m making a pot of coffee,” Smith called from the kitchen.

  Wetzon padded back into the bedroom to put on her shoes. She looked at herself in the mirror over Smith’s bureau. She was a mess. Haggard. Her hair was coming down. Where had they put her hairpin? She found it on the carpet where they had opened the case, and tried to catch up the loose tendrils of hair.

  The doorbell rang again, more emphatically, and since Smith was ignoring it, Wetzon went to the door, smoothing her blouse, straightening her skirt. Her suit jacket lay where she had thrown it when she came in—in the disorder of Smith’s bed.

  “Now what was so important, Ms. Wetzon?” Silvestri asked when she opened the door. He had his hands in his pockets and he looked tired. The shadow of a dark beard harshened his face. His eyes were flat and dark. Impersonal. Was he annoyed with her for bothering him?

  “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” Wetzon said. “I didn’t expect you so soon, and I wasn’t dressed. And I’m sorry to make you come up here like this.” She was babbling, but she couldn’t help herself. “I’m sure you’ve had a long day, but I didn’t feel comfortable about letting this wait. It’s in here.” She was trying to be professional and brusque, as much as he was.

  She led him into the living room, which was not in Smith’s normally disordered condition. Well, not quite. There were a pair of Reeboks near the sofa and the usual profusion of magazines—Forbes, Vogue, Fortune, People, New York, and Cosmopolitan—piled up on the Berber-carpeted floor. Smith’s taste in magazines was decidedly eclectic.

  The sofa was one of those sweeping L-shaped sectionals covered in a fawn-colored textured velvet.

  Silvestri waited expectantly, looking around. The lovely odor of coffee filled the room. His nostrils flickered.

  “It’s the attaché case,” Wetzon said.

  “What about it?” he asked.

  Smith came sweeping into the room with a tray of coffee and fixings and set it on the marble table. “You must be Detective Silvestri,” she said, giving him the royal treatment. “I’m Xenia Smith.” She shook his hand. “It’s a real pleasure to meet you.”

  Silvestri was clearly dazzled. He stared at her, still holding her hand. She smiled at him and at her hand. He smiled back at her and gave her hand a little pat with his other hand and then released it. He had not smiled at Wetzon that way.

  He looked at Wetzon again, recovering. “The attaché case?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. That attaché case.”

  He looked at it and at her, puzzled.

  “I tried to tell you, and then Jimmy Lyons, when he brought me up here, that it isn’t mine. It’s Barry’s.”

  “I see. And what were you doing with it?” Something in Silvestri’s tone made Wetzon feel guilty. He was disappointed in her. She should have tried harder, earlier, to tell him it wasn’t hers.

  Smith smiled. “Now, Detective Silvestri,” she said, “Wetzon doesn’t discover a body every day. Particularly someone she knows so well. It was pretty much a shock, don’t you think?”

  Why had Smith said she knew Barry so well? Smith knew that wasn’t true. And it made Wetzon seem as if she were covering up something. After all, she had already told Silvestri she hardly knew Barry.

  “Barry left it with me when he went to make the phone call,” Wetzon said defensively. “When he kept me waiting so long, I carried it downstairs to give back to him ... and found him. Then everyone assumed the case was mine, and every time I remembered to tell you, you were busy, or called away, and I just forgot.” What she was saying sounded like so many weak excuses—at least to her ears.

  Silvestri went over and picked up the case. “Don’t imagine there are any decent fingerprints left,” he said. “I thought it was a pretty heavy case for such a little lady. I’ll have that cup of coffee now ... black.” He smiled at Smith, who smiled back intimately. “It smells terrific.”

  Smith had made another conquest. Wetzon poured the coffee. There was a plate of Oreo cookies on the tray. Wetzon hated Oreos and all packaged, processed cookies. They were full of chemicals and artificial ingredients. Smith didn’t care about those things.

  Silvestri sat on the sofa, and Smith curled up opposite him on the matching ottoman. “Aren’t you going to open it?” she asked eagerly.

  Wetzon handed him a cup of coffee. He was looking at Smith.

  “No,” he said, “I’m going to want my lab people there when we open it.” His eyes drifted from Smith to Wetzon. “You didn’t open it, by any chance?”

  Wetzon busied herself pouring coffee into the other two cups, contriving not to be free to look up. “Us? Oh, no,” Smith replied innocently. “The case is police evidence, isn’t it? We wouldn’t do that.”

  Silvestri looked dubious but didn’t pursue it. He sipped the coffee, checking out the room. Wetzon was certain he had seen the Tarot cards and wondered what he thought.

  “Who reads the cards?” he asked, as if reading her mind.

  “I do,” Smith said. “I read danger and death around Wetzon tonight. Danger and death and a dark-haired stranger.” She smiled charmingly at Silvestri. Silvestri smiled back at her. “I’ll read yours for you sometime, Detective.”

  Wetzon suddenly felt de trop. She wanted desperately to be home in her apartment, in her clean, neat bed. “Do you know anything more about who killed Barry?” she asked.

  With seeming reluctance, Silvestri took his eyes from Smith’s. “No … nothing conclusive. Too much data has to be gone through before we can narrow it down. We know he did make a phone call because he used a credit card, so we were able to trace the number.” He looked at Wetzon intently, as if wanting or waiting for her to react.

  “But you’re not going to tell us whom the call was to,” Wetzon said.

  “Right.” He finished his coffee and stood. “Now I’ll thank you, ladies. I have a long night ahead of me.” He looked at Wetzon. “Do you want that ride home?”

  “Oh, no,” Smith said, obviously dismayed. “You can’t go home tonight, Wetzon. I really think you should stay here. You don’t want to be alone.”

  But she did, and Smith didn’t argue with her. She knew Wetzon was immovable when she set her jaw like that. Wetzon went into the bedroom to rescue her jacket and handbag. She slipped the jacket over her sho
ulders and examined herself in the mirror again. Forget it, she thought. Silvestri wasn’t thinking of her that way. When she returned to the living room, Silvestri and Smith were still smiling at each other. Wetzon felt put upon and jealous. It was Smith’s incredible magic with men. All men. What was it about her? She wasn’t beautiful. She was tall and angular. It was an aura; something she gave off. But Wetzon had seen Silvestri first. And had even told Smith she liked him. It didn’t seem at all fair.

  God, she was bone weary.

  Silvestri’s silver Toyota was parked illegally in front of the building. Under the streetlight it sparkled. It was probably the cleanest car in New York City—on the outside. He wiped an invisible speck of dirt off the fender, then unlocked and opened the door for her. The inside of the car was even more of a horror than she remembered. The front seat was strewn with papers. On the floor were empty cans of Diet Pepsi. There were empty cardboard coffee containers and napkins, and half a hamburger was graying in another container ... ROY ROGERS, it said.

  “Maybe I should sit in the back,” she suggested.

  “Naa, just as bad.” He was right. The back was filled with the laundry bag she remembered, and several cleaning boxes of shirts she hadn’t noticed before. Silvestri collected the papers and books that were scattered on the front seat and dumped them unceremoniously on the backseat. The cartons and soda cans he swept up and stuffed in a crumpled paper bag that also lay on the seat. He leaned over and brushed the seat off with the sleeve of his jacket and helped her in, closing the door, then he carried the attaché case around to his side and put it in the back with his shirt cartons. The night was cool, and Wetzon took her jacket from her shoulders and slipped it on.

  “Tell me about her,” Silvestri said after he had settled himself in his seat and started the car.

  “What do you want to know?” She didn’t have to ask him who.

  “Is there a husband?” He made a left on Seventy-ninth Street.

  “She’s divorced. She has a twelve-year-old son, Mark. What else would you like to know?” He was squinting at the lights. He probably needed glasses.