“I’m sorry, I’m confused,” she said, crowding the barre.
“The one you gave me had never been used,” he said. “It was freshly cut.”
“How could you tell that?” She felt exposed, as if it had been her idea to make the copy. “It could have been the key Barry gave me.” Damn Smith, she thought. I’m out on a limb because of her. No. Because of me. I always go along because it’s easier. “I thought it was when I gave it to you.”
“But you’d made a copy.”
She stared at him. “How do you know for sure?”
“The edges were still rough, and I’m a good guesser.”
“The other key is in my office,” she said, defeated, unable to look at him. Why did she feel so ashamed?
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” she said, facing him, “but I went along with it, so I am guilty.” For a moment, a quick moment, an odd expression glimmered in Silvestri’s eyes.
“Oh?”
“You think otherwise?” she asked defensively.
“As I understand it, it was your idea, and Ms. Smith persuaded you to let her hold it in the office.” Silvestri’s eyes were hard slate.
Wetzon was shaken. “Smith told you that? I can’t believe she said that—” She stared at him, upset and dismayed.
“But she did,” he said.
“How could she have said that?” She felt herself babbling. “It’s not true, it’s just not true. It didn’t happen that way at all. She’s my friend, she’s supposed to be my friend—”
“I’ll be on my way now. Think about what I said. This is not a game, Ms. Wetzon. I expect to hear from you—and soon.”
“You’re a hard man, Silvestri,” she said, fighting tears.
“I’m a detective,” he said gruffly. “I’m nosy. I ask questions. Things that don’t fit bother me.”
She did not hear him leave. She was holding on to the barre for dear life. Why hadn’t she told him about Smith and the twenty-five thousand dollars. What was Smith trying to do to her? What the hell was going on? She had to confront Smith first thing in the morning.
And worse, she was mortified by the fact that Silvestri had believed Smith. She felt small and cheap, like a piece of garbage. Automatically, she went into first position, left hand on barre, head high, shoulders low, tears starting.
45
“So what do you think, Carlos?” Wetzon said.
They were in tiny Mezzaluna on Third Avenue in one of the window seats on the platform. Every table was full, and there was a noisy waiting line on the white ceramic tile floor and out into the street. In spite of the din coming from the open pizza kitchen and from the music, they seemed to be sitting in a pocket of acoustic perfection. They were in a storefront café of wild clutter, tables close together, surrounded with floor-to-ceiling paintings.
Crowded on the minuscule table were a gigantic bowl of steamed mussels and two small pizzas, a tuna with anchovy and the standard margarita, with tomatoes and mozzarella. They were halfway through a wonderful bolla.
“What do I think?” Carlos said. “You really want to know what I think? Are you ready?”
She nodded. “Come on, Carlos, this is serious.”
“I know it’s serious, buddy mine, and I want to tell you what I’ve said before: that nutcase broad you’re in business with is bad news.”
“Oh, Carlos, I don’t know. I can’t say that. She’s been behaving strangely lately, but ...”
“Strangely? Hey, come on, that’s an understatement.” Carlos pointed a long, double-jointed index finger at her. “And if you don’t dig in, I won’t continue with my incisive analysis of your situation.” He cut the two pies into narrow sections and announced, “Remember, this is my celebration. So let’s celebrate. I demand it. I command it.” He raised his glass and crossed his eyes.
Wetzon raised her glass, reached across the small table, and clicked hers to his, laughing. “You are incorrigible,” she said. “And look at you.” She studied him seriously. “You’re becoming a distinguished gentleman on me. Do I actually see gray at the temples?”
“Oh, please, don’t remind me. I’ll have to get one of those magic combs.” He groaned theatrically, lifting his eyes to the ceiling, the back of his hand to his forehead.
“Assistant choreographer, how about that? Name on the poster, royalties and everything.”
“And everything. And since Marshall is also directing, I get to be very creative.” Carlos was wearing a scarlet satin shirt, open low in front, enough to show cleavage in a woman, but in Carlos’s case, plenty of bare chest and lots of heavy gold chains. “It’s about fucking time,” he said with a touch of the old cynicism. “It’s only taken twenty years. They’ll probably call me an overnight success.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears, my friend,” Wetzon said. “I salute you, my dear friend,” sentimentally, her glass high.
“Thank you, thank you,” Carlos said, eyes downcast, in mock modesty. “But now let’s get back to you.”
“Me ... yes ... well, I seem to have gotten in over my head everywhere. I don’t understand what’s happening. I feel as if I need a trot to my life.... Everyone, including the police, thinks Barry told me something before he died, and an assortment of certifiably crazy people keep telling me things about each other they refuse to tell the police, and I haven’t told the police what they’ve told me, and oh, God, I don’t get Smith....”
“Hold on there, sweet thing.” Carlos set down his glass to take her hand. “You always think everyone is as good and honest as you are.”
“Like you?”
“Now, there’s what I’m saying. I’m neither good nor honest.”
“Oh, Carlos, come on now, I’ve known you for ten years, and you are a faithful, honest friend.”
“True.”
“And you would never do anything to hurt your friends.”
“True.”
“So why would Smith have told Silvestri such an out-and-out lie about the key?”
“To save her ass, of course.” Carlos shook his head. “You are such a trusting soul. How long have you known Xenia Smith?”
“Almost three years. She’s my partner, for godsakes.”
“And what do you really know about her before that?”
“Well, she has a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia, and she worked on the staff of the Menninger Clinic for five years.”
“And how do you know all that, pray tell?”
“She told me, you foolish person.”
“Ha! Which one of us is the foolish person?” Carlos said triumphantly. “I rest my case.” He threw up his hands dramatically.
“Maybe she felt trapped. Maybe Silvestri cornered her.”
“The cop, you mean?”
She nodded. “The detective on the case.”
“Tell me more. I’m dying to hear—get it?”
“Stop being so crazy for a minute. Yes, I got it. Seriously, do you agree I should confront Smith tomorrow?”
Carlos’s eyes flashed. “Damn right. I’d be furious with you if you let her get away with this. You’re already starting to make excuses for her—listen to yourself. Let me tell you, there’s no way she can weasel out of this. Now, enough about her. I want to know all the delicious dirt about the slayings.”
“Okay, I’ll begin at the beginning. This stockbroker I know—Barry Stark—calls me about some trouble he’s having and wants me to meet him at the Four Seasons, which I do. He looks as if he’s been in a fistfight and he’s nervous as hell. We sit down and right away he jumps up, says he has to make a phone call, and doesn’t come back. He leaves his attaché case with me. The rest you know.”
“Only what I read in the papers. I want it from the eyewitness. It sounds like a real whodunit.” Carlos rubbed his hands together in anticipation and ran his tongue over his lips lavishly, in a broad, villainous caricature.
Wetzon reached across the table and punched him gently. “Carlos, stop
licking your chops, you bum. This is serious. And I’m not the National Enquirer.”
“Oh, do go on.” His dark eyes with their gorgeous dark lashes teased her. “Don’t be so touchy. I leave you alone for two days, two more people get iced, and you’ve lost your sense of humor. How are we going to solve these murders if you can’t see the forest for the trees?”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said, crinkling her eyes at him. “I’ll accept that under advisement.”
“Good girl!” He gave her an abundant, loving smile and opened a mussel. “Continue.”
“Okay, so I wait and wait and finally I go down to the phone booths and open the door and he falls out at me with a knife in his chest. No more questions about that scene, please,” she said as Carlos opened his mouth to ask for more gory details. “Unless you want me to embarrass you and barf all over this lovely table of food.”
“I give up,” he said, making a face at her. “Then what happened?”
“I get interviewed by Silvestri—”
“What’s he like?”
“Who?”
“Silvestri.”
“Why?”
“Because you get all fussy and blushy every time you mention him. Who are you kidding, darling? I know you better than anyone in the world. Is he the new interest?”
“No. He likes Smith.”
“Too bad, no taste. Erase him.”
She felt her face flush, and she took a nibble of pizza, avoiding Carlos’s eagle eyes.
“Anyway, I ended up at Smith’s with the attaché case.”
“Did you open it?”
She nodded guiltily. “How did you guess?”
“Simple. I know you and I know Smith. But honestly, I would have been desperate for a look-see myself. I hope you were smart enough to use gloves.”
She shook her head, chagrined. They hadn’t even thought of it.
“Jesus! Your prints are probably all over everything. Don’t you ever watch television, darling? Even a six-year-old knows better than to muck with evidence.”
Wetzon sighed. The pizza suddenly tasted like cardboard. “It was a dumb move, I guess, but it seemed harmless. All except for the gun.”
“Gun? What gun?” The joy on Carlos’s handsome face disappeared and in that moment he looked every bit of his thirty-eight years.
“Barry had a gun in the case.” She was depressed again. She’d picked up the change in Carlos’s humor immediately. “There’s more,” she said. “Drugs, blackmail, I think. More murder … Georgie Travers, Sugar Joe, Mildred Gleason ...”
“I’m sorry I teased, birdie,” he said, taking her hand. “What can I say? This is the real world, and you have every reason to be upset.”
“I know, but you were right before. I have lost my sense of humor. I’ve lost all sense of who I am and who everyone else is.” She gave him a miserable smile.
“Let’s make a detour, darling,” Carlos said. “Who is the new love interest?”
“Not much of a detour. When Silvestri was driving me home, someone cut us off, stole Barry’s attaché case, and we ended up in the emergency room at York Hospital ... that’s how I met this very nice doctor....”
“Aha, the new love interest.”
“Well, sort of.” She picked at an anchovy on the pizza and kept her eyes down.
“Look at me for a second,” Carlos said knowingly. She raised her eyes reluctantly. When they met his, he said, “But you prefer the cop.”
“The detective.” She blushed.
“Oh, now I do rest my case.” He looked smug. “Go on.”
“You already know about the key I found in my jacket pocket, but what I didn’t tell you is that Smith sold it for twenty-five thousand dollars to Leon Ostrow, presumably for Jake Donahue.”
“Christalmighty, she’s really a low-level cunt.”
“Carlos, come on, she had a lapse. It’s because she was so poor when she grew up.”
“Sure.” Carlos’s voice dripped sarcasm.
“I told her I wouldn’t touch the money, that she’s to give it back.”
“Very likely she’ll do just that,” he said even more sarcastically. “But do go on.”
“Then I’m accosted by one of Barry’s girlfriends, who wants me to help her look for a diary of some sort that Barry’s supposed to have hidden, and we go to her apartment and find Georgie Travers there, dead.”
“Who—” Carlos began.
“You wanted to hear the whole story,” she grouched, “so don’t interrupt. I’m on a roll. Then Mildred Gleason pleaded with me to come see her, so I did, and it turned out that Barry was working for her as a spy while he was also working for Jake Donahue. She told me that he was on the phone talking with her when he was murdered.”
“And you think show business is sleazy?”
“I know. You’re right. While I was talking to Mildred Gleason, Jake Donahue crashed in and threatened to kill her. That’s when I sneaked out.”
“Oh, joy. Delicious. Better than Dynasty. Why didn’t you stay and watch?”
“Because I had an appointment with a broker, silly,” she said. Carlos had such a mad sense of humor that she was starting to feel good again. He made her laugh. At the situation. At herself.
“Okay,” Carlos said, devouring another slice of pizza. Nothing ever seemed to hurt his appetite. “I’ve got another question for you. Who wasted Georgie Travers?”
Wetzon stared at him. “Wasted ... You’ve been watching too much television, Carlos.”
“I knew him, birdie.” A trace of a frown crossed his face as he poured the last of the wine into their glasses.
“You did? How?” Carlos always surprised her.
“Through the Caravanserie—some people he and I both knew.”
“You must have some interesting little black book.”
“Oh, boy, do I.” He laughed. “I’ll leave it to you in my will. You can auction it off.”
“Jesus, don’t say that.” She shuddered. “It’s almost what Barry did.” She filled Carlos in on Buffie and the mysterious autobiography. “But I’ll bet there was nothing in writing. Maybe he was just trying to keep himself alive. He figured the story was his insurance.”
“What about the tapes?”
“I think there really may be more tapes hidden somewhere.”
“Maybe the police have found them.”
“Maybe.”
“So who killed Barry Stark?”
“Jake Donahue ... One of his clients? One of his girlfriends? And who killed Georgie?”
“One of his boyfriends.”
“Oh, Carlos. Don’t be bad. What about Mildred Gleason?”
“Simple. Jake Donahue.”
“No. Wrong. But they’re all related. I know it. I feel it.”
“Okay. Smith did it. Believe me.”
“Which brings us back to the key,” Wetzon said, ignoring him.
“The key is easy. The key unlocks the safe where the tapes are.”
“No, I don’t think so. Silvestri said the key was to a medical cabinet.”
“Hey, wait a minute. I know,” Carlos said. “The key belongs to Silvestri, the cop with absolutely no taste, who likes Smith. It’s for his little tin box, where he keeps his loot.”
“Loot?” She shook her finger at him like a schoolteacher. “Carlos, what are you talking about?”
“You know, the payoff money cops always get.”
“That does it,” Wetzon said, slapping her hand on the table. “Carlos, you are truly demented. I think it’s time we hit the Caravanserie before you overdo it.” She felt sad. “And you were doing so well there for a while.”
“Trust me, my love, Carlos knows. Carlos has second sight,” he said, waving for the bill. “And now that I’ve done all this head work, I truly feel we should be dancing our little hearts out.”
46
It was business as usual at the Caravanserie, no matter that the man who had created it had been brutally murdered only two days earli
er. The entrance line stretched all the way down Sixty-fifth Street to First Avenue, but there was very little jockeying for position. Some hopefuls were absolutely straight types in business suits and simple dresses and others were a little more colorful. A tall man in a pink polo shirt with I’M THE CATCH OF THE DAY written across it and a Mets cap on his head chatted with another man, slightly younger, in a white cutaway and black tuxedo pants chopped off at the knee, wearing rolled white athletic socks and high, black Reeboks. There were girls in sequins and glittery miniskirts, and a middle-aged man and woman in black leather and chains. And there was the usual crowd of slummers from SoHo, writers, show-biz folk. Everyone was an original, one step removed. A touch of punk, a little Madonna, and a smattering of S&M.
“Andy Warhol was right,” Wetzon said when they got out of their cab in front of the Caravanserie. The door was manned by two stunning women, one black and one white, and four big, big men in the uniform of a private security service.
“What?” Carlos said, paying the driver.
“That everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. Georgie the celebrity. Georgie who?”
A massive woman in a long gray skirt and a gray cape pulled over her head, shroudlike, was howling in front of the line, “The broadcast is over! God says everyone can leave the country!” No one was paying the slightest attention to her, and she paid no attention to anyone else.
Carlos took Wetzon’s hand and gave a square invitation card to the black woman at the door, who was wearing a white knit suit, very Chanel, with cascades of gold chains.
“Hi, Carlos, what’s doing, baby?” she said, giving him a high five.
“Hi, Gwen. Meet my friend, Les Wetzon.”
“How do, friend Les.” Gwen winked at Wetzon and dropped the invitation into a huge metal bin that was painted in Picassoesque blue period, clowns and all.
“Hey, Carlos,” the other doorkeeper said, allowing a couple wearing matching gold lame Tshirts and denim overalls through. “Doctor Schweitzer, good to see you again.”
The setting was the great old Episcopalian church, St. Eustis, which had received landmark status. Years earlier, most of St. Eustis’ parish had moved on to Queens, and the church had been used by a succession of other denominations, including the Hari Krishnas and even the Jews for Jesus, but not for very long, and it had actually been empty for some time when Georgie Travers got the idea to make it into a disco, and then added on his exclusive health club above and behind the ornately baroque church building with its large, round rosette stained glass window in the front. There was something almost obscene and sacrilegious about it, and groups of Moral Majority types still picketed from time to time.
The Big Killing Page 27