“What if we—” Smith said. “What if we didn’t give the key to Silvestri?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean ... not right away.”
Wetzon was quiet for some moments.
“Wetzon?”
“We couldn’t do that,” Wetzon said. “It’s evidence in a murder.”
“Of course, we can’t keep the key, but that’s not the point. We could just hold it for a while and see if we can find out what it unlocks. What could it hurt? And we might even make some money while we’re doing it—let’s say a finder’s fee.” Smith was smiling her crooked smile, being very sweet and persuasive. “Listen, sweetie pie, you’re tired now, and you’ve been through a lot. Why not wait until you’re thinking clearly? I really could handle this for you. For us.”
“No, Smith,” Wetzon said firmly, taking the key. “I don’t want to withhold evidence. It’s bad enough I walked off with Barry’s attaché case without thinking.”
“Now, now, sweetie, I wasn’t suggesting anything about withholding, just waiting. But of course we’ll do whatever you want.” She patted Wetzon’s hand again, obviously humoring her.
Sometimes Wetzon wondered what she was doing in this kind of work. Although she denied it vehemently, Smith seemed to be motivated only by money. “The object,” she always said, “is to get the money out of his pocket and into mine.”
In fact, everyone in this business seemed to be motivated only by money. Oh, the brokers gave lip service to how they protected their clients, but when push came to shove, and the commissions were not rolling in, even the best had sold a stock to someone who had no reason to buy it. And the headhunters? They were no different, although Wetzon had never sold anyone on a move she didn’t think was a good career choice. But she wondered about herself, too. It wasn’t that she didn’t like money. She did. But the securities business was surrounded by an almost overpowering aura of greed. It was as if making money wasn’t enough. It was a contagion, this money, and greed was the disease. How much was enough?
“More coffee, mesdames?”
“Let’s have another cup,” Wetzon said. “We have time, and I’d like some dessert, something very chocolate.”
“Okay. What do you have?” Smith asked the waiter.
“We have a very fine chocolate mousse cake or a zuppa inglese, fresh strawberries, plain or with zabaglione sauce.”
“Mousse cake for me. That’s an easy one.”
“I’ll have the strawberries with zabaglione,” Smith said.
Wetzon opened her palm and looked thoughtfully at the key again. There were definitely numbers scratched in it. “If this were a safe deposit key, I think it would be heavier and more official-looking. Mine has ‘Yale’ in big, important letters across the front. This looks more like a jewelry box key or a mail key.”
“Well, the police have probably gone over Barry’s apartment by this time. Maybe it unlocks a cabinet or a storage box there.” Smith sighed. “You know what the problem is? We’re too honest. Anyone else would have taken Leon’s hint and sold the blasted thing to Jake Donahue.”
The mousse cake was a heaping mound of dark, rich chocolate intersected with chocolate sponge cake, just what Wetzon wanted right now. “Oh boy,” she said, brightening. “This is going to make me very happy.”
“Such small things make you happy.” Smith smiled indulgently.
“I can be bought for a big piece of dark, rich chocolate anything.” Wetzon laughed, letting a forkful melt in her mouth. “See how easy I am?”
But Smith was gazing off in the distance, not really listening. Wetzon’s eyes followed hers. Nothing. She was looking at nothing.
“What’s the matter, Smith?” she asked.
“Wetzon!” Smith grabbed Wetzon’s hand. “I just had a brilliant idea. What time is it?”
“Two-thirty.”
“Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”
“I want to finish my cake,” Wetzon protested. “Tell me your idea.” She really didn’t care about Smith’s idea. She was enjoying the essence of chocolate melting deliciously over her tongue. For the first time since Barry’s murder, she was feeling like her old self. She was not going to let Smith draw her into one of her schemes.
“Oh, poof, Wetzon.” Smith jabbed her fork at a strawberry. “You’re no fun.”
“We have time before we see Silvestri. Why rush out of here? I don’t want to go back to the office.”
“I don’t want to go back to the office either,” Smith said, signaling the waiter for their check. “I want to go to a locksmith.”
“Oh, no—”
“Oh, yes. Who would it hurt? We’ll just make a copy of the key and hold it. If it turns out the police can’t find what it unlocks, maybe we can. And besides,” Smith laughed her mock wicked laugh, “think of all the grateful people....”
20
After all, Wetzon told herself, how wrong was it? They’d wait and see what the police came up with.... No, it was wrong. All wrong. It smelled wrong. Smith was always so good at turning things around. She was the most seductive of creatures. She could spin flax into gold just by talking.
“No,” Wetzon said, bristling. “It’s wrong.”
“Oh, honestly, Wetzon, you’re such a priss,” Smith said. “Very well, I’ll be responsible ... if something happens ... but really, what could possibly happen?” She was the picture of innocence.
“Okay, okay. I give up. You win.” Wetzon hated being called a priss and Smith knew it.
They were standing in front of Sy’s Locks on the corner of Second Avenue and Sixtieth Street, under the Roosevelt Island aerial tramway. Sy had a storefront business, a sliver of space the width of a door. In fact, it was a door. The upper part opened like a Dutch door, and Sy had made a plank of a tabletop that fitted over the top of the bottom half of the door. On his left, on the side wall, were nails, hundreds of them, row upon even row, with thousands of keys. A bare bulb hanging from the ceiling lighted the ridiculously narrow space. A business created in an alley. It could only happen in New York, where space was at such a premium.
A framed photograph of Milton Berle stared out at them. To Sy, best locks in town after the Carnegie Deli. Love, Uncle Miltie.
“What can I do for youse ladies?” Sy was a runty little man with a pungent Brooklyn accent. His face was a mass of seams and warts, with white and gray beard bristles sprouting through all that activity.
“The key, please, Wetzon.” Smith held out her hand. It wasn’t a request, it was a command.
Wetzon sighed and handed over the key.
“Turn your back, Wetzon,” Smith instructed. “This is all my idea. Remember, I’m taking the responsibility.”
“Let’s just get it over with,” Wetzon said through clenched teeth.
“We’d like you to copy this key.”
Sy took the key and squinted at it. “Uh-huh,” he grunted, moving back into his narrow space, searching. “Here we are.” He held up a key, placed them both into the vise of the machine on his front shelf, turned on the motor for a second or so, then opened the vise. He held up both keys to the light, took a large metal file, and made a few passes at the new key. “Uh-huh,” he grunted again, feeling the new key for rough spots with his deeply callused thumb.
Then he set both keys in front of Smith on the little shelf. Smith put them together. A perfect match.
“Perfection,” she confirmed.
“What do you think it was made for?” Wetzon asked.
“Strongbox,” Sy said, taking off his cap and scratching his bald spot. “The kind you get in a hardware store, maybe. Or a cabinet, like an architect’s or a dentist’s.”
“How much?” Smith asked.
“Three dollars.”
She handed him three dollar bills and took the keys. “One for you, Wetzon, and one for me,” she said, slipping hers into her pocket. “Leave it to me. We’ll put this in a nice safe place and I’ll talk to the cards.”
“It’s three-thirty. We’d better get going.” Wetzon was now certain that the police would find what the key unlocked in Barry’s apartment. The key had been too easy to reproduce. If it was a safe deposit key or a mail key, Sy would have said something ... or would he?
She looked up above the giant concrete structure of the tramway at the clear, blue sky. Everything would be all right. She watched as the aerial tram, a bright red car, pulled into the docking area. It seemed to float in.
“Come on, let’s call Harold and see what’s happening in the office,” Smith said.
They stopped at a pay phone near the Fifty-ninth Street entrance to the D&D Building, and Smith called Harold collect.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Wetzon complained.
“I know, but I’m not going to carry a lot of change in my pockets,” Smith said.
“You could carry a handbag like other people.”
“I am not like other people,” Smith replied. “Hello there, what’s happening, sweetie pie?” She waited, listening. “Lots of calls about you, star,” she said to Wetzon. She listened again. “That’s the best story I’ve heard yet.” She looked at Wetzon. “Monahan said he did the interview and was made an offer.”
“Unbelievable,” Wetzon said. “But believable,” she added.
Smith listened again. “He told Harold he was there for over an hour. Thought Elliot was a hell of a nice guy.”
“Garbage,” Wetzon said.
“Guess what Wetzon just said? Right, garbage. Did he tell you what this mythical offer was?” She shook her head at Wetzon. “He told him he would think about it and get back to him.”
“Think about what?” Wetzon said. “This is great. Another crazy.” Carlos always broke down “crazy” into three categories: nice crazy, crazy crazy, and vicious crazy. At this point Monahan was just plain crazy crazy.
“Anything else? No, we’ll tell Elliot about it tomorrow. Let him cool off a little. Wetzon, Mildred Gleason called again.”
“My new best friend,” Wetzon said, watching a city tow-truck driver attach a towline to a black Audi while the woman in the driver’s seat screamed hysterically and shook her fist at him.
“Harold, please call her and tell her Wetzon will have to get back to her tomorrow. And about six or seven reporters called. And Carlos.” Smith licked her little finger and stroked her eyebrow in a mincing imitation of a homosexual.
Wetzon ignored her. Smith could not tolerate homosexuals, and it was a subject of contention between them. Wetzon, from her years as a dancer, had a great many gay acquaintances and a few close gay friends.
“And me?” Smith was asking. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Who? Well, really. He’s got a lot of nerve. Okay. Give me the number.” She motioned to Wetzon for pen and paper, which Wetzon gave her. “Anyone else? Ah, that’s nice. Just hold the rest for me. I won’t be back today, but I’ll be in first thing in the morning.” She looked enormously pleased with herself as she hung up the phone.
“Anything I should know about?” Wetzon asked.
“Leon,” Smith said with a smug smile. “Dinner tomorrow night.”
“Not with me.”
“No ... just little ol’ me.” Smith threw her arms in the air triumphantly and spun around, wild-eyed, bursting with a strange energy, pulling an astonished Wetzon with her.
21
The cab dropped them off in front of a low, modern building, a construction of pale tan bricks and lots of glass.
“This can’t be it,” Wetzon said. She had expected the station house from Hill Street Blues, an old, battle-worn, gray stone fortress, worse for the wear, high stone steps, NYPD carved in the stone above massive doors. What a disappointment. That style of precinct house had much more verisimilitude.
“It looks like Mark’s first school in Virginia,” Smith said. “Spoils the magic.”
When they opened the door, the inside, too, looked like a school. Stone floors, tiled walls, fluorescent lights, a pay phone on the right amid a forest of plants.
Definitely disappointing. Hard to believe that real crimes were solved in this atmosphere.
There was noise, a lot of it, but it was more like men’s-locker-room noise. In fact, Wetzon thought, the whole place looked and smelled like a gym. There was a battered old metal desk in institutional gray at the door, but no one sat there, and uniformed cops came in and out, brushing by Smith and Wetzon without paying the slightest attention to them.
They walked straight a few paces until they came to a large opening on their left, and turning, they entered an immense room, definitely like a gym. On their left, running the full length of the room, was a low railing, behind which were desks, computers, a switchboard, and men, some in uniform, some not. Everything was painted the same ugly green.
“Help you, ladies?” a uniform asked. He stopped typing.
“Yes,” Wetzon began, “I—”
“We’re here to see Detective Silvestri,” Smith interrupted, smiling that smile again.
“Sure,” the uniform said. He was a nice-looking young man, with a bushy mustache and hair that touched the back collar of his shirt. His name tag said Gallo. “Wait a minute and I’ll tell him ...” He paused.
“Smith and Wetzon,” Smith drawled, for effect.
The nice young man smiled politely, not sure if he was being made fun of.
He picked up the phone, holding the receiver with his shoulder as he resumed typing, and said, “Tell Silvestri there are a couple of ladies here to see him.”
“He’s expecting me,” Wetzon said. “At four.”
“You’re a little early. He’s in a meeting. Take a seat.” He motioned toward the long row of plastic and metal chairs, green again, lined up on the opposite wall. They were unoccupied except for an elderly woman sitting forlornly in the middle of the row, who seemed to be carrying on a running conversation in heavily German-accented English with someone who wasn’t there. She had a large shopping bag at her feet and she kept rummaging around in it.
“Charming,” Smith said. “Let’s not sit. We can look around.”
“I’m too achy not to sit when I have a chance.” Wetzon made a beeline for one of the plastic chairs. “You look around, if you want to.” She took a mirror out of her handbag and looked at herself. Awful. Dark circles under her eyes, drooping lids, raw scabby bruise on her forehead. She put the mirror away and leaned back, closing her eyes.
Restless, she opened them again in time to see Smith disappear in the direction from which they had come. Uniforms came and went, dropping off papers, picking up radios. Steady action with no sense of urgency. She counted three policewomen.
Smith came back and sat down next to Wetzon. “You look rotten, sweetie. After you finish here, go home and get to bed—”
“Gee, Ma, do I have to?” Wetzon said with a faint grin. She saw that Smith had combed her hair and put on lipstick. She looked very attractive in her black suit and burgundy silk blouse. There was a vivid spot of color on each cheek. She had obviously found a bathroom on her tour.
“Ladies, you can take the stairs on the right or the elevator out in the hall on your left.”
Wetzon turned right when they left the big room.
“Where are you going, Wetzon?” Smith demanded. “You’re so tired you can’t stand, but you’re going to take the stairs?”
“Never ride when you can walk,” Wetzon replied. “It’s good for the calves.”
“Thanks, but I’ll take the elevator.”
More space with more green desks; telephones ringing. The desks were piled with papers. Men in street clothes lounged around, standing, sitting, talking to one another and talking on the telephones. The staccato clatter of typewriters took the place of the tickertape, but it seemed familiar territory to Wetzon.
“It looks like the boardroom of a brokerage house,” she whispered to Smith when she got off the elevator and joined her. “A lot like Jake Donahue’s, as a matter of fact.”
Smith was positively
luminous. Was it Silvestri, the environment, or just the excitement? The more Smith glowed, the drabber Wetzon felt.
Silvestri came out of an office in the back of the room and waved them toward him. He was wearing the same rumpled brown suit, and he didn’t look as if he had a dinner date planned for that evening.
“Ms. Wetzon,” he said formally, shaking Wetzon’s hand. “How are you doing today?”
“All I need is a full night’s sleep,” she answered. “How is your arm?”
“All I ever need is a full night’s sleep,” Silvestri said, but he was looking at Smith.
“It’s a little crowded in here,” Smith remarked, looking over Silvestri’s shoulder. Two desks and several well-worn metal chairs were squeezed into a tiny room. One desk was occupied. Wetzon recognized Metzger from last night at the Four Seasons. His eye pouches looked even worse in the light of day. Metzger was on the phone, making notes in a dog-eared notebook. “I’d better wait downstairs, or out here,” Smith said, pointing to the “boardroom.”
“Are you sure?” Silvestri seemed a little disappointed. “We can bring in another chair.”
“No, I’m fine. I want to call the office anyway.”
“Well, you can use one of the desks out here.”
“I’ll go downstairs to the pay phone,” Smith said cheerily. “Don’t you two bother your heads about me.”
Wetzon looked at Smith suspiciously. Smith was up to something. It was when she was most innocent-looking and -sounding that she was up to the most mischief.
“Here, Ms. Wetzon, sit down, and I’ll get a stenographer.” Silvestri went into the main room and spoke to a neatly dressed man in a plaid sports jacket and gray pants. The man picked up a metal carrying case and followed Silvestri back to the office. He set up his stenotype unit on its stand and waited. Silvestri slid into the chair behind the desk and motioned to Metzger, who ended his phone conversation.
Wetzon saw Smith wait until they were settled, then turn quickly and disappear toward the staircase. She was wearing slingbacks, and the noise of her clicking heels on the steps carried all the way back to Silvestri’s office. Why had she insisted on using the elevator to come up and had now taken the stairs down? Sometimes Smith was such an enigma.
The Big Killing Page 12