Buffie dried her eyes with the remnants of her Kleenex, not using the pack Wetzon had offered. She sniffled and coughed. “It was after his boss started hassling him.”
“Jake Donahue?”
“Yeah. Jake said to him, ‘I’ve been known to put bullets in people’s heads.’ Once he even got a gun out of his desk and pointed it at Barry. Barry went crazy.”
“Why would Jake say something like that to Barry?” No wonder Barry had a gun in his attaché case.
“I don’t know, but Barry said Jake would be sorry when he and Mildred Gleason got through with him.”
“What else did he say about Mildred Gleason? Georgie told me Barry was doing a deal with her.” The light was dawning. Mildred Gleason would have to get on line behind Georgie and Buffie and everyone else who was determined to find out Barry’s last words to Wetzon.
“I guess.” Buffie dipped her head and began to pick at her chipped nail polish. “He didn’t talk much about business when he came up.”
“You didn’t live together?”
“Oh, off and on.” Tears welled up in the puffy eyes. “I don’t understand how it could have happened, and why he didn’t tell me where it was.”
“It must be in your apartment—or his.”
“It’s not in his.” She was very matter-of-fact.
“How do you know?” What are you doing? she thought. You are interviewing her like a detective. On the other hand, she had noticed that lately people were telling her things that they might not have told the police. Maybe she could put all the information together and help Silvestri—
“Because Georgie and I went down and looked.”
“I’m really sorry, Buffie, but I don’t know anything that could help you.” Wetzon looked around for the waiter. “Maybe Barry changed his mind about writing it.” Somehow she couldn’t see Barry sitting down and writing his autobiography. “Or maybe he left it with someone else.”
Buffie became agitated. “No! No! He wouldn’t have given it to her. He couldn’t. It was mine, my insurance. He promised!”
“Her? I’m sorry.” Did Buffie know about the other woman, the one from Donahue’s, whom Georgie had said Barry was seeing?
“I saw him with her—”
“Who was she?”
“How would I know?” Buffie seemed annoyed that she’d been interrupted.
“I’m so sorry,” Wetzon said for the umpteenth time, not knowing what else to say. “When was this?”
“It was last fall, October, around Halloween because I remember the jack-o’-lanterns....” Buffie dabbed at her eyes. “He used to meet me at my place.... My last class didn’t end till nine o’clock. He was always on the phone—you know Barry—but this one time he sort of turned his back when I came in. He was acting kind of funny.” Her lower lip pursed querulously.
“What do you mean, funny?”
“Well, you know, kind of secretive, like he was hiding something.”
The waiter drifted in their direction. He moved like a dancer, which he probably was. “Can I get you anything else?” he asked. He had a nice voice. Wetzon shook her head.
“Anyway,” Buffie continued, wound up, “I asked him if something was going on I should know about.” There was a faint suggestion of anger in the swollen brown eyes. Her large hands clenched and unclenched on the table. “And he said it had nothing to do with me, that he was doing a special deal and it was secret, that it was the thing he’d been waiting all his life for. He would tell me about it when it was done.”
“I still don’t understand how you know there was someone else.” Damnation. She was getting more deeply involved, felt herself being dragged into the maelstrom that had led to Barry Stark’s death.
“Because he got up real early the next morning and told me he had to meet someone before work.” The small face hardened. “So I followed him.” She smirked, singularly unwaiflike, almost cunning.
“So you saw what the woman looked like?”
“Not really. He left my place real early, around eight. I waited a few minutes, then I went after him. It was cold, colder than I thought, and I only had a sweater on over my leotards, but I had to see. He was walking fast down Central Park West and then he went into the Park at Seventy-second Street. There were some people around, you know, so I just pretended to be a jogger and kept out of his sight.” She laughed, all involved in the drama of her story. Color crept back in her face. “He was cold, too. I could tell because he kept clapping his hands together.”
Across the street, the car alarm on a white Porsche went off. Two teenagers, leaning on the car, dropped their beer cans and took off, yelling curses in Spanish. A gaunt black man came out of the brownstone closest to the car and walked around it, patted the gleaming hood lovingly, then turned off the alarm and went back inside.
Buffie leaned forward, sat back, pulled at her tunic, and crossed her legs. “When he got to the Tavern on the Green, he cut downtown, and I don’t ever remember being in that section of the Park. We went down this steep hill, and he stopped to look at, you know, some statue of a dog. I began to smell something funny and then I remembered about the zoo being there. He went right in, but I couldn’t follow him—it was too open. The only person around was this fat old lady with a supermarket cart stuffed with bundles and bags. She smelled worse than the animals.” Buffie’s nose wrinkled. “I sort of hid behind her. Barry kept looking at his watch and walking back and forth like he was trying to keep warm. Once I thought I lost him but then I saw him with a container of coffee.” She twitched nervously in her chair. “He didn’t see her coming, but I did—”
“How did you know—”
The waiter brought the check, and Wetzon put five dollars on the table, anchoring it under her mug. The late afternoon shadows had lengthened almost grotesquely. Wetzon shivered.
“I don’t know ... she didn’t fit there, I guess. They walked a little while. At first I thought they were arguing. Then he put his arm around her, and they went into one of the animal houses. There was nobody around and I thought they were going to do it right there. I hid near the entrance—and I saw them talking real close, but I couldn’t hear anything except the monkeys screaming. And all the time he was holding her hand.” Again, decidedly unwaiflike, Buffie glared at Wetzon. “I could have killed him.”
Wetzon stiffened. In spite of everything, she was shocked by the confession and by the sudden change in Buffie’s personality.
“But I didn’t—I couldn’t,” Buffie said hastily.
“I know you didn’t.” But Wetzon couldn’t help wondering just how upset Buffie had been. She reached for her briefcase. She wanted to run away, get home, hide. “I have an appointment,” she murmured.
Buffie was staring down at her hands, rubbing the protruding knuckles of her thumbs. “Barry always said he could trust you. He must have told you where he put his stuff.”
Wetzon sighed. Why was everyone continually carping at her about this? “But he didn’t. If it’s not in his apartment and it wasn’t in his locker, as Georgie claims, where else could it be?”
Buffie stood. “Please, Wetzon, it won’t take long—I live near here—could you come up and help me look again? Barry always said you were real smart. Maybe you’ll see something we didn’t see.”
Why did she always have such a tough time saying no? Wetzon mused as she walked with Buffie up Columbus to Seventy-fourth Street. If she had said no to Barry in the first place, she would never have gotten involved in this mess. But as Carlos said, no wasn’t in her lexicon.
“Buffie, how do you know Barry was still seeing this woman? That was at least six months ago. Maybe it was just a—”
“Because he was still talking to her on the phone and making dates with her last week, that’s how,” Buffie responded belligerently.
“What did she look like? Could you see her from where you were standing?”
Buffie played with the strap of her pink shoulder bag, swinging it as she walked. “I could t
ell she was tall, almost as tall as Barry. And she was wearing this long, black leather trench coat. I couldn’t see her face because she had big, dark glasses and a scarf on her head, tied under her chin.”
29
They turned west on Seventy-fourth Street toward Amsterdam, Buffie talking distractedly about Barry and “her insurance.” Wetzon listened halfheartedly. The woman Barry had met wore a black leather trench coat and a scarf tied under her chin. She had seen someone dressed like that recently.
In the middle of the block, several yards away, Wetzon noticed a man getting into a cab. Tall, awkwardly thin ... glasses, smallish head ... Leon Ostrow. “Leon,” she called. “Leon!” The cab door slammed shut and the cab pulled away. She saw the dark shapes of two heads in the back seat. No. She must be wrong. What would Leon be doing in this part of town at this time of day?
Buffie was staring at her. “I thought I saw someone I know,” Wetzon explained. “Guess I was wrong.”
Buffie lived in an old residential hotel that had been converted into tiny apartments. The lobby was small and rundown, with ugly imitation wood paneling, linoleum floors, cheap Danish modern furniture. A sign on the concierge’s desk said: ALL VISITORS MUST BE ANNOUNCED, but the concierge was conspicuously absent, while the switchboard next to the desk buzzed, unattended.
There were two elevators at the end of the shallow lobby. One had an out-of-order sign on it. They took the other to the sixth floor and started down a long narrow hall with dim overhead lighting, red-flocked wallpaper. The entrance to Buffie’s apartment was in a particularly dark alcove. As Buffie started to unlock the door, Wetzon noticed something lying on the floor, partially caught in the doorjamb. She bent to pull it out. It was a narrow silk tie with mauve cabbage roses, like the one Smith had worn today. Wetzon bit her lip, perplexed. What the hell was going on?
“That’s funny.” Buffie backed away from the door.
“What’s funny?”
“It’s unlocked. I know I locked it when I left....”
“You were upset. Maybe you forgot.” Distracted, Wetzon looped the tie around the shoulder strap of her purse, thinking only that she wanted to get this over with and be on her way.”Maybe,” Buffie concurred, uncertain.
Wetzon moved around her and pushed the door open. A hideous odor hit them with the force of a sledgehammer, driving them back, unwittingly, against each other.
“My God! What’s that?” Buffie cried.
Wetzon gagged. It was an animal smell but not like the zoo as Buffie had described. It was a dead animal smell—like on the farm, when her father had slaughtered.... She couldn’t bear to think about it.
Buffie looked stunned. She pushed the door open tentatively. The stench was overpowering. The apartment was in violent disarray, furniture overturned, drawers hanging open, an imitation oriental rug flung back, exposing the stained wooden floor.
The two women moved gingerly into the room, hands over their noses. In a doorway to what might be the bedroom Wetzon saw a brown leather sandal. She moved forward, mesmerized. The sandal was attached to the foot of an individual who lay twisted unnaturally near the bedroom door. “Oh, no!” she gasped. She pivoted, instinctively trying to shield Buffie, just behind her, from seeing.
“Georgie, oh, God, Georgie!” Buffie shrieked, frozen. She covered her face and began to wail.
Wetzon willed herself to turn. Georgie’s frightening eyes were now vacant. He seemed to be floating in a mass of congealed brown slime ... there was so much of it.... She swallowed hard, put her hand over her mouth. One arm was twisted abnormally behind him. The long wooden handle of what appeared to be a butcher knife was in his hand, half out of his back, as if he had been trying to pull it out. Her stomach lurched. Slaughtered, she thought. The smell was ghastly.
“We’ve got to get an ambulance, the police. Come on!” Wetzon yanked Buffie away, stepping over the mess on the apartment floor, slamming the door. In the hallway Buffie doubled over and began to vomit. Wetzon pressed her lips together to keep from joining her. She had to get out of there. “Buffie,” she whispered hoarsely. The girl seemed not to hear her. “Buffie,” she implored, “please, we have to go downstairs and call the police.” The girl looked shattered. The jaunty hair drooped, the funny earrings seemed freakish, the outfit, bedraggled. Vomit was spattered on her white boots.
Wetzon, who felt the way Buffie looked, had no recourse but to take charge. They took the creaking elevator back to the lobby, where there was still no evidence of the concierge. Wetzon left Buffie on the black-and-white tweed sofa and went behind the desk and picked up the phone.
“Here, here, you can’t do that!” an angry voice yelled. A fat man in a tight blue T-shirt came out of a back room. The missing concierge. His gross belly protruded over dirty gray uniform pants. Wetzon saw a greasy gray jacket that matched the pants hanging on the back of the chair behind the desk.
“I’m calling the police,” she said. “There’s been a murder upstairs.”
“Are you crazy, lady?” When Wetzon didn’t respond, his face blanched. “You’re serious. Jesus! I’d better get the building manager.”
She took a deep breath and spoke to the 911 operator, gave her name, Buffie’s address, and reported what had happened. Then she hung up and sat next to Buffie to wait for the police. It was a kind of déjà vu. She had been here before. It was getting like quicksand. Wherever she placed her small pointed foot, she sank deeper and deeper.
She had a sudden, urgent thought. “Buffie,” Wetzon asked, “how did Georgie get into your apartment?”
Buffie made a mewing noise and looked at her, dazed. “He had a key. They all did.” She mewed again and swayed. Her head slipped to Wetzon’s shoulder. Wetzon put her arm around Buffie and held her. That’s when Wetzon noticed the silk tie on her handbag. She had forgotten it. She untwisted it awkwardly, so as not to dislodge Buffie, who was probably beyond feeling anything. She sat still and closed her eyes, trying to clear her thoughts. It appeared to be a duplicate of Smith’s. What if it was Smith’s? Smith had written “G.T.” in her appointment book. Smith was her partner. Murder. Two murders, maybe. It was more than she could cope with right now. She pushed the tie into her purse.
“Are you Ms. Wetzon?” She opened her eyes and saw a burly, overweight black man in a short-sleeved white shirt, tieless, dark pants, sportjacket over his arm. “You the lady that called about a murder?” Amber lights danced on the street. A police emergency van was parked in front of the building.
“Yes,” Wetzon said. “In six-o-five, this woman’s apartment—” She shook herself mentally. Why was she speaking like a moron? “He’s a friend of hers, Georgie Travers. I think he’s dead.”
Another man in street clothes motioned to several uniformed policemen and one policewoman. They started cordoning off the entrance to the building.
She was learning more than she had ever wanted to know about police routine.
The black detective sneezed and blew his nose.
“God bless you,” Wetzon said.
“Rose fever,” the black detective said. He spoke with an asthmatic wheeze. “I’m Walters.” There were beads of sweat on his high forehead. He mopped his brow with the handkerchief he had sneezed into. “This is Conley. We’re going upstairs. We’ll want to talk to you and—” He pointed to Buffie.
“Ann Buffolino,” Wetzon said.
“I’m going to leave you with Bellman.” He nodded to the short policewoman, who looked almost comically overburdened with the gun belt, book, billy club, and other paraphernalia that were standard-issue to uniformed police in New York City. The large hat with its patent leather brim hid most of her face. “If there’s anything you need, ask her.”
The fat concierge hovered like a toady, muttering, “Mr. Goldstone is coming, he’ll be here soon, you’ll see, he’ll be here,” as if it were an incantation. The switchboard buzzed and buzzed and buzzed. He made no move to answer it.
Silvestri should be told, Wetzon thought
. She struggled to her feet and Buffie tumbled onto the couch, half-conscious. “Detective Walters,” she called. Was he a sergeant like Silvestri? “Georgie Travers, the—uh—dead—the man upstairs—is involved in another murder case.”
Walters looked impatient. His stubby finger was on the elevator button. The elevator door opened and two men got out. “What’s this? What’s this?” the taller, older one asked.
“You have to call Silvestri, Sergeant Silvestri, at the Seventeenth Precinct,” Wetzon insisted. Her voice cracked.
Walters ignored her. “There’s been an accident,” he told the two men. “We’d like you to stay, if you would, and answer a couple of questions.”
“How exciting,” the younger man said sarcastically. The taller man poked him in the ribs, and the younger man clamped his mouth shut.
Walters raised his arm to one of the uniformed policemen. “Just get verification from the doorman,” he said. “The nervous fat guy. And keep them here till I get back.” He looked at Wetzon for a moment, thinking. “Conley, Silvestri at the Seventeenth. See if he can get over here.” He sneezed again.
“God bless you,” Wetzon said. She went back to the sofa and Buffie and waited. It was six o’clock. She would never get home in time for her date with Rick Pulasky, and even if she did, she was in no mood to see him, or anyone, for that matter.
Policewoman Bellman smiled at her kindly. She had crooked front teeth. She was perched on the arm of the sofa, trying to comfort Buffie, who was sobbing into a fresh clump of Kleenex.
“Oh God, oh God,” Buffie keened, rocking back and forth. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
People were beginning to come home from work. They were identified by the concierge and allowed in, their names and apartment numbers noted on a list. A flustered, balding man in a checked suit turned out to be the managing agent, Mr. Goldstone. He took over the switchboard, which had been buzzing incessantly.
Wetzon, watchful, saw Silvestri through the glass front doors before he saw her. Her heart did a jeté. He was wearing a dark blue suit, just as rumpled as his brown one. He flipped his I.D. at the policeman at the door, and stood aside to let a tenant in. Silvestri had a slight hook in his nose which Wetzon hadn’t noticed before. It made him even more attractive.
The Big Killing Page 17