The Big Killing

by Annette Meyers

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Smith said, exasperated, coming out of the pool. She was wearing a black pinstripe suit and was oblivious to the rivulets of water pouring from her. “You don’t know how to take care of yourself, Wetzon. You’re really impossible. You can’t walk around here like that. You just don’t understand this business. Here, put this on.” She wrapped Wetzon in a big towel that said CARAVANSERIE in giant red letters. Turning to her companion, she said, “Leon will take you home, won’t you, sweetie?”

  “Of course, dear heart,” Leon replied. He had come out of the steaming pool wearing a bikini. “Anything you say ...”

  Wetzon giggled. A scarecrow in a bikini.

  “Here,” Wetzon said to the dripping Leon, handing him the towel. “I think you need this more than I do.”

  “No, no, you can’t do that!” Smith cried, furious. “Look at yourself. Take this.” She took off her wet jacket and put it on Wetzon’s shoulders. Wetzon, resigned, slipped her arms into the wet sleeves, shuddering from the clamminess of the material.

  “Shall I take her home now, dear?” Leon asked Smith.

  “No, I’ll take her home,” Silvestri said. He was running in place on a moving treadmill. “Come on board,” he said, holding out his hand to her. Decidedly relieved, Wetzon took his hand, a workman’s hand, strong and thick, and she jumped up behind him on the treadmill, which moved off through the Stock Exchange.

  The door to the ladies’ lounge was wide open, and Wetzon caught a glimpse of a copper-haired woman sitting in front of a dressing table in a negligee, peeling an apple with a large paring knife.

  Wetzon put her hand in the jacket pocket hoping to find a token for the subway so that she could get home, but the only thing there was a matchbook.

  A Good Humor man in a white jacket was running along beside them. “What’ll you have, babe?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Come on, I don’t have much time. Pick a flavor. You’ve got to tell me. It’s getting late.” He looked at a huge Mickey Mouse watch on his wrist.

  “Why do I have to?”

  “Don’t ask so many questions. Just do it.”

  “Okay, I’ll have a toasted almond,” she said. She always had a toasted almond if she ate a Good Humor. He ought to know that.

  “Sorry,” he said. “All I have is rocky road.”

  “But I don’t like rocky road, and I don’t think it’s a Good Humor flavor.”

  “I’ll get you toasted almond if you give me the key,” the Good Humor man said craftily. His dark eyes looked familiar to her.

  “The key to what?”

  “Nothing,” Silvestri said gruffly. “The key is not the key.”

  “I have to get going, babe. Last night was terrific.”

  “Mmmm,” she said.

  “Hey, open your eyes, princess.”

  She opened her eyes. Rick. She’d been dreaming that weird dream again. It was getting to be like a soap opera. Every time she closed her eyes, a new chapter.

  “Welcome back to the world,” Rick said, smiling at her.

  “Thank you for putting me together again,” she said, remembering.

  “Comes with the white coat,” he said, bending over her. Beads of water from his hair, still wet from the shower, sprinkled her. She reached up and pulled him down on top of the quilt, on top of her.

  “You’re very nice,” she said, kissing his ear. “Come back.”

  “I will,” he said, stroking her through the quilt.

  “Mmmm,” she said.

  “Duty calls,” he said, getting up reluctantly. He kissed her on the lips lightly, touched her cheek. “Lock up behind me, babe.”

  She heard the door close and sighed. He’d cleaned her up, calmed her down, fed her, and made love to her. She had been so needy. She got out of bed and walked naked into the foyer. The apartment smelled of fresh coffee. What a doll. He’d made coffee. She peeped into the kitchen. God, he’d even cleaned up everything from last night and put out the garbage.

  The newspapers lay on the floor near the door. She locked the door, left the papers where they were, and got into the shower. The shower curtain was damp, and there was a subtle change in the atmosphere of her usually pristine bathroom. She smiled. Lovely Saturday. Lovely, quiet Saturday. Healing time.

  It was miraculous that she’d escaped injury last night. Poor Sugar Joe. She felt as if almost all the violence of a lifetime had been telescoped into the last few days.

  She wrapped herself in a towel and was struck by the sense that she had just done this same exact thing. Had she already taken a shower this morning? No. Then what was troubling her? It was that damn dream.

  Too quiet. Very strange. Her phone had not rung since she’d come home last night, and she had not checked the machine. She picked up the phone in the bedroom. Dead. What the hell ... She went into the dining room and picked up the phone on top of the answering machine. Dead. Crazy.

  She played back her messages. The newspaper people again, every last one of them. She’d heard all that before. Smith. Carlos. Jake Donahue. Jake Donahue? Just that, Jake Donahue and a phone number. Then Smith again, sounding agitated.

  “Where are you? Call me right away”

  The downstairs buzzer sounded. “Yes?”

  “Ms. Smith coming up.”

  “Shit,” Wetzon said, hanging the wet towel back on the rack in the bathroom and putting on her terry robe. There went her private, quiet Saturday.

  Her doorbell rang imperiously several times. “Okay, okay, I’m coming,” she grumbled.

  She opened the door and Smith, in snug, straight-legged jeans and a shapeless, yellow Shaker knit sweater, was standing there, arms full of newspapers. “Jesus, Wetzon, what’s with your phone? Do you know there’s something wrong with your phone?”

  “Yeah, I just tried to call you,” Wetzon lied.

  Smith walked past her, dumped the newspapers on the floor, and picked up the phone in the dining room. “Dead,” she said unnecessarily.

  “I know,” Wetzon said, rolling her eyes, humoring her.

  Smith got down on her hands and knees and looked behind the old pine dry sink. She groaned. “Did you ever think of plugging it in?” She plugged in the phone and stood up, dusting off her hands. “Your wonderful treasure of a maid does not clean behind furniture. He’s certainly not good for much.”

  “Now how could that have happened?” Wetzon said, puzzled. “And with both phones, too.”

  “You lead a wild and unpredictable life, Wetzon.” Smith pulled off her bulky sweater, draping it over the barre. She was wearing a yellow T-shirt with a lot of black question marks across her breasts.

  “I love you, Smith, but what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Haven’t you seen the papers or heard the news, you dummy?” Smith sounded miffed. “Look.” She bent and picked up the New York Post from the floor. “Look at this.”

  Wetzon stared at the familiar face in the photograph that covered most of the front page but didn’t focus on the headline for a few brief seconds. It was Mildred Gleason, one of those “before” pictures, before facial surgery, but definitely Mildred Gleason. And the headline said: SECOND WALL STREET MURDER.

  38

  “I still can’t believe it,” Wetzon said.

  They had spread out all the papers on the living room floor. The clear northern light coming through the windows made the blaring headlines seem unreal. There were pictures of Jake Donahue, old pictures of Mildred Gleason in a Joan Crawford outfit with the shoulders out to here, when she’d been one of the first women members of the New York Stock Exchange. There was even a stiffly posed picture of Jake, Mildred, and her father, Joseph F. Gleason, all in a group of officers of the Joseph F. Gleason Company. Mildred’s and Jake’s faces were singled out with black rings.

  Mildred Gleason, president of M. Gleason & Co., the investment banking and brokerage firm, was stabbed to death sometime last night in her elegant executive su
ite at 61 Broadway. According to police spokesman Edward McCarthy, Ms. Gleason’s body was discovered by a cleaning woman about 11:00 p.m. last evening. There were no signs of a struggle. The body was found face down in the doorway leading to her private bathroom. The wound was in the back, and there appeared to be no sign of a struggle, indicating that Ms. Gleason may have known her attacker. The report of the medical examiner noted that Ms. Gleason died at approximately 9:00 p.m.

  “I just can’t believe it,” Wetzon said again. She flipped through the papers for an item on Sugar Joe. Nothing.

  “What are you looking for?” Smith asked suspiciously. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her eyes bright and excited.

  “Just more on Mildred Gleason,” Wetzon said, not ready to tell Smith about last night. She got to her feet. “I should get dressed. Come on, talk to me. Do you know there was a message from Jake Donahue on my machine?”

  “How would I know that?” Smith asked innocently.

  In the bedroom Wetzon bent, reaching behind the nightstand, and reattached the telephone. Smith followed her, kicked off her shoes, and lay down on the unmade bed, inhaling deeply. “Mmmmm,” she said, “there’s been a man in your bed.”

  “Oh, shush,” Wetzon said, opening her lingerie drawer. “That’s odd.”

  “What’s odd?”

  “I don’t know. Something’s stuck in here.” She put her hand into the partly open drawer as far as it would go and groped around. “What the hell is this doing here?” She pulled out a white half-slip trimmed with lace.

  “Very pretty.”

  “I must have moved it without thinking. It’s usually on the bottom of everything. I haven’t worn it in years.” She refolded it and tucked it away on the bottom of the drawer, took out clean panties and a bra, and closed the drawer smoothly.

  “So how was the good doctor?” Smith asked, plumping up Wetzon’s pillows.

  “Good. How was Leon?” She pulled a new Ralph Lauren red sweatshirt over her head and looked at herself in the mirror. Not bad, considering all that had happened.

  “Leon.” Smith looked at Wetzon disapprovingly. “That’s much too big on you.”

  “I like things big,” Wetzon said, irritated.

  The phone rang. “Hello,” Wetzon said, adjusting the elastic on her old gray sweatpants, which were also probably too big in Smith’s eyes.

  “Hi, babe, just checking up on you. How are you feeling? Good medicine last night?”

  “Good medicine, Rick.” She felt herself blushing.

  Smith closed her eyes and sighed audibly. Wetzon turned her back on her.

  “How about tonight?” he asked. “Movie and pizza or sushi?”

  “That would be nice. Either. What time?”

  “I’m off earlier today and on late afternoon and night tomorrow. Let’s see. Do you like old movies? Notorious is at the Regency.”

  “Oh, I’d love to see it again,” she said. “It’s my favorite Hitchcock.”

  “Great. I’m going to do a workout first. Do you want to come with me?”

  “Where?”

  “The Caravanserie ... we get a membership through the hospital.”

  “Ordinarily, I’d join you, but ...” She flexed her knees. “Ouch,” she said. “Forget it.”

  He laughed. “Okay, meet me at the Regency at five-thirty. There’ll probably be a line, so whoever gets there first should get on line. Oh, and, babe, leave your hair down. I like it that way.”

  She hung up the phone, smiling. She turned around and saw Smith laughing.

  “The cards say two dark men for you,” Smith said. “Two, you pig.” She got up and stretched.

  “Oh come on,” Wetzon said. “It’s either feast or famine with me, not like you.”

  “And they say one of them is not so nice.”

  “Oh yeah?” Wetzon said. “Well, I only know of one dark man in my life, and he’s very nice, and he’s not really dark—he has gray hair. Let’s have some of the coffee that nice gray man left for me.” Still barefoot, she moved into the kitchen, Smith at her heels.

  “I had such a deep sleep,” Wetzon said, pouring the coffee, “and now that I think of it, such a strange dream. You, Leon, Silvestri ... people I didn’t know ...”

  They took their mugs of coffee and went back to the papers on the living room floor.

  “It’s related to Barry, isn’t it?” Smith said, sitting on the floor, leaning against the coffee table and reading the accounts of Mildred Gleason’s murder again.

  “It has to be. She kept asking what he’d said to me. Can you imagine, Smith, she said she was talking to him on the phone when he was being murdered....”

  “How awful. But she must have figured out who did it. That’s why she got taken out.” Smith actually had a gleeful expression on her face, as if she were talking about a placement, not a murder.

  “Barry was working for her. He’d made some tapes, and she was going to use them to get Jake Donahue. That piece of tape we heard must have been one of them.”

  “No kidding,” Smith said lightly.

  Wetzon eyed her friend. How strange. There it was again: the odd feeling that Smith already knew about the tapes, what they meant. How could she? Wait a minute. Leon. Leon represented Jake Donahue. The key. The key. How could she have forgotten?

  “What did you do with the key, Smith?” Wetzon demanded.

  “The key?” Smith asked vaguely. “Oh, yes, the key. It’s in my desk. I decided you were right. We should stay out of it.”

  Not we, Wetzon thought. You. “Oh, Smith, that’s great,” she said, breathing easier.

  “I’ll give you the key on Monday, okay?”

  “Sure, that’s wonderful. We can throw it away and forget about it.”

  “I wonder if there’s anything more about the murder on the radio,” Smith said.

  “Let’s see.” Wetzon walked on her knees over to the stereo, wincing at the tenderness from last night’s escapade. “It’s eleven o’clock. There should be some news.” She switched on the radio.

  They listened to a rundown of the world news, then: “Locally, police report no further developments in the Wall Street murders. The second murder, that of investment banker and socialite—”

  “Socialite,” Smith snorted.

  “... Gleason, took place in her executive suite at approximately nine o’clock last evening. Employees of M. Gleason and Company have reported a violent altercation earlier in the day between Gleason and estranged husband Jacob Donahue, noted Wall Street guru. An employee, who did not wish to be named, declared it had stopped just short of blows and that there had been bad blood between them.”

  “Bad blood, Jesus,” Smith said. “Who writes their copy?”

  “... reported but not confirmed by police that stockbroker Barry Stark, who had worked for Jacob Donahue, had been talking to Gleason on the phone at the time he was murdered. We will continue to follow up on this case as events unfold…. The sanitation workers, who have been working without a contract for—”

  Wetzon snapped off the radio. “Sooo ...” she said. “I saw some of that violent altercation.”

  “Oh, tell.”

  “Jake broke into Mildred’s office screaming and yelling. He was angry enough to kill her.”

  “Aha!”

  “Damn, now Silvestri will find out I was there.”

  “Probably.”

  “And want to question me again.”

  “Probably.”

  “He’ll think it’s a little weird that I’ve been close to three murders ... I certainly do.” Wetzon was silent for a moment as Smith watched her. Then she said thoughtfully, “You know, Smith, I bet if we put the pieces together right, we can solve this before the police do. Everyone I’ve talked to has told me something he or she hasn’t told the police.”

  Smith waited, eyes veiled.

  “I’m sure Barry must have told me something that I haven’t remembered. He wouldn’t have just given me the key without an explana
tion....”

  “I’m starving,” Smith said. “What do you have to eat?”

  “You know me. Bagels.”

  They went into the kitchen, and Wetzon took a bagel and sliced it in three pieces. They sat at the counter with their coffee.

  “What are you doing tonight?” Wetzon asked.

  “Leon is taking Mark to the Planetarium this afternoon and then we’re having dinner at Tavern on the Green.” She made a face.

  “I thought you didn’t like Tavern on the Green.”

  “I was outvoted. They’re supposed to have a new chef.”

  “What happened to Silvestri?”

  “Oh, he’s around, but after all, he’s just a cop. An attractive cop, I admit, but he’s not really for me. Mark needs a role model.”

  “Silvestri would be a good role model.”

  “Wetzon, don’t be obtuse. You know what I mean,” Smith said, not looking at her.

  “Yes, you mean Silvestri doesn’t make enough money for you.”

  “Well, he can’t take me to the Four Seasons.”

  She had stopped listening to Smith. Something had skimmed across the surface of her memory, eluding her again.

  “Mildred’s assistant, Roberta, sat through most of the meeting,” Wetzon said, thinking out loud.

  “So?” Smith opened Wetzon’s refrigerator and took out a bag of dried papaya.

  “I don’t know. There was something creepy about her.” Wetzon wrinkled her forehead, eyes distant. “Tall, very chic, but covered up.”

  “Covered up?” Smith bit into a piece of papaya and chewed gingerly. “Not bad ... the papaya, I mean.”

  “Dark glasses, turban—you know—no eyes, no hair. Peculiar relationship.”

  “Well ... Mildred Gleason ... she was a notorious dyke—”