Tender Death (23 page)
Authors: Annette Meyers
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Women's Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Crime, #Financial, #Contemporary Fiction, #Crime Fiction
“T
HIS JOINT IS
jumpin’ ... This joint is jumpin’ ...” The cast album of
Ain’t Misbehavin
’ could be heard faintly over the din of voices spilling over from the second floor of Sardi’s. The coatrack near the door was loaded with coats, and Wetzon wasn’t going to give up her new coat anyway, so she squeezed into the crowded room wearing her raccoon.’
Dancers—young and old gypsy friends, actors, men and women— leaned against the bar, the walls, the two columns in the center and back of the large room, and each other. Many were smoking, all were drinking, and obviously had been for some time by the look of the bleary eyes, by the slurred voices.
She pushed her way to the bar—wine only. “White, please,” she said. She could really use a beer.
“Wetzon! Hey, where’ve you been keeping yourself?” She took the glass and, turning, saw Phil Rinaldi, a press agent she knew from several of the shows she’d been in.
“Philip! Gee, it’s been years. Are you still working with Mary Bryant?” Mary had been Hal Prince’s press agent on almost all of his musicals.
“No. I did
Phantom
for Fred Nathan, and now I’m out on my own.”
“That’s great. I bet it’s keeping you hopping.”
“It’s okay.” Wetzon remembered Philip had once wanted to be a playwright. “Mary’s over there talking to Mort Hornberg.”
“Mort Hornberg? No kidding? Quite a response Tommy’s getting.” She looked around. “Have you seen Carlos?”
“Yeah, he’s here somewhere. Everybody is.”
Everybody was. Hal Prince gave her a moist peck on the cheek. Bob Avian, who had worked so closely with Michael Bennett, hugged her. Fred Ebb waved and smiled. Margie and Sheldon Harnick greeted her like a long-lost friend.
“Remember me?” she asked Mort Hornberg.
“How could I forget?” He had lost most of his hair and had fat bags under his eyes, partially hidden by his California tan.
She stopped to congratulate Joel Grey on Jennifer’s success. “It’s really wonderful, isn’t it, Wetzon?” he said, holding her hand briefly before someone pulled him away.
Mary Bryant looked good, but tired; Ruthie Mitchell seemed to have shrunk with the years. She had been so formidable when she stage managed the Prince shows. If a dancer or actor was a moment late on a cue, he took a real risk that Ruthie would run him over with a piece of scenery.
“Flossie, chic as ever.” Wetzon bent to place a kiss on costume designer Florence Klotz’s beautifully lined face.
“Wetzon, you look marvelous! What are you doing now?” Flossie took her hand, bracelets clinking.
“I’m a recruiter, a headhunter, on Wall Street.”
Liz McCann, the producer, overhearing, said, “Wetzon, you really left the theater at the right time. It’s just not fun anymore.”
She felt that. She had been part of the glory days and they were over, at least her glory days in the theater had come and gone.
“Atencion, atencion!”
Carlos cried, jumping on a chair. “Now that we are sufficiently sloshed.” He swayed and Marshall Bart steadied him, hand on his back. “So kind, darling.” Carlos surveyed the eccentrically dressed crowd of theater people, fluttering his fingers in answer to Wetzon’s fluttering fingers.
“‘Sing out, Louise,’” someone called, quoting from
Gypsy.
“Thank you, thank you.”
Someone wedged himself into a narrow space next to Wetzon, bumping her. She looked up into the gaunt, haunted face of Steve Sondheim. “Hi, Steve.”
“Wetzon.” Sondheim nodded to her. She was surprised he remembered her. He looked cadaverous under his scruffy beard. She’d heard he had fully recovered from his heart attack a few years ago.
“We are gathered here today,” Carlos said from his chair platform, “to honor our friend, Tommy Lawrence. No pompous words.”
“Here, here.”
“How about a few.”
“All right,” Carlos said. “A few pompous words.
Au revoir
; old friend. Tommy would have loved this turnout—”
“He had a great one!”
“Okay, okay—” Carlos said. “Do you realize that if someone were to throw a bomb into this room right now, he would wipe out what’s left of the whole creative thrust of the theater?”
“Amen!”
“Let’s hoist one for Tommy.” Carlos raised his hand holding a glass of wine. A hush fell over the room. “It’s your bow, Tommy.” Someone near Wetzon sniffled.
“Tommy.” Glasses were raised around the room. “Tommy.”
Then slowly, almost reluctantly, they began to take their leave.
“I’m a little drunk, Birdie,” Carlos said, giving her an immense hug. “What do you think? Was it all right? Was it enough?”
“Yes. Tommy would have loved it.” She kept her arm around Carlos. He was wearing a red velvet jacket over a black silk turtleneck. “You look very elegant tonight.”
“Mmmm, so do you. That’s some coat. A gift from a client?”
“A client? Are you crazy? Only two clients have ever even
thanked
me since we opened our firm.”
“Then surely a thank-you from a grateful broker.”
“A contradiction in terms. It says here that her face broke up with hysterical laughter.”
“Ah, of course, a loving cop? Is that a contradiction in terms.”
Wetzon curled her lip at him. “You wanna lose your dearest friend? No, this coat is my treat to me. Anyway, my black alpaca had an unfortunate accident.” She felt depressed as she spoke. She felt surrounded by sudden, unexpected death.
“What are you doing for dinner, dear heart?”
“I was about to ask you.”
“Let’s grab a cab and go to David K’s for Peking Chicken.”
“And lots of beer.”
When they were standing on the sidewalk, Wetzon looked up and down the street.
“There’s a cab.” Carlos waved at an unoccupied taxi.
“No, wait.” Wetzon saw what she’d been looking for—Michael Stewart’s cab with its dented right fender. “Here’s the one I want.”
Carlos gave her his this-lady-has-lost-her-marbles look, but he followed her into the cab. “My Birdie has turned mystical,” he commented, settling back.
“David K’s on Sixty-fifth and Third, please, Michael.” She sank back against Carlos and put her head on his lynx shoulder.
“Me oh my, we have a personal chauffeur and a raccoon coat.” Carlos kissed the top of her beret. “Business must be booming.”
“Oh shut up, Carlos. Michael is my bodyguard, aren’t you, Michael?” She paused, then added mischievously, “Arranged by agreement between my lover and your lover.” She raised her eyes in time to catch the startled reaction in Michael Stewart’s, reflected in the rearview mirror.
It was too early for the normal East Side dinner crowd, so they were seated without delay.
“You are such a Little Iodine,” Carlos said fondly as he speared a dumpling with one chopstick. “This is the best sesame sauce I’ve ever had.”
“Silvestri’s mad at me,” Wetzon said, trying to pick up a dumpling with both chopsticks.
“I don’t wonder.”
“Says I hold back information. Butt in where I don’t belong.”
“Which you never do.”
“Oh, Carlos.”
“Oh, Birdie.”
They ordered two more Heinekens and attacked the Peking Chicken.
“Listen, let me try something out on you.” Wetzon bit into the envelope of chicken meat, crispy skin, and hoisin sauce, and rolled her eyes. “Enchanting.”
“Shoot.”
She shivered. “Don’t say that.”
“Sorry. Tell me already.” Carlos spooned rice from a bowl and sopped up the sesame sauce, scooping the mixture expertly into his mouth with his chopsticks.
“There are all these elderly people who are incapacitated for one reason or another. They have home care attendants taking care of them. Most of them can afford to pay for their own care. Are you with me?”
“Always, luv.”
“Say the elderly person owns stocks and has the stock certificates. Couldn’t the home care attendant have fairly easy access to all of this, plus identification and stuff?” She broke a wing apart and ate through the crisp skin to the tender white meat. “What if the attendant took the certificates to a brokerage firm and pretended to be the elderly person and cashed in the stock?” She brandished the wing bone for emphasis.
“But, Birdie, brokerage firms aren’t that stupid. And don’t you think the home care person would be taking a major risk of getting caught?”
“Yeah.” She plunked the bone down on the plate in disgust. “You’re right, of course. There must be more to it than that.”
“Unless of course it wasn’t just the home care attendant involved.” Carlos dipped a big piece of white meat into the crock of hoisin sauce, tipped his head back, and dropped it in his mouth.
Wetzon knocked over the bottle of Heineken with her right hand, spilling the small amount of beer left in it on the tablecloth. “Holy shit, Carlos, that may be it. Why not a stockbroker? Why not a manager? Why not a
whole
brokerage firm working on the scam with a
group
of home care attendants? Maybe that’s what Peter Tormenkov told Teddy that got them both murdered.”
W
ETZON CALLED
H
AZEL
from David K’s, and she and Carlos stopped at Greenberg’s on Madison Avenue and bought half a dozen rich, buttery brownies, then chased over to the Food Emporium and picked up a pint of Häagen-Dazs vanilla while Michael Stewart waited patiently in the cab.
The night was black and cold with a kind of cutting dampness typical of New York City in winter. It sliced through cloth, but not fur apparently, for Wetzon felt the intensity only on her face.
She touched Carlos’s nose as they waited for Hazel to open her door. “You have a cold nose,” she said.
“At least mine’s not red.”
“Well, who could tell on you, anyway.” She nudged him with her hip.
When Hazel opened her door, she found them jostling each other like two little kids. They stopped and stared at her for a long second and burst out laughing. “I think we rang the wrong chimes,” Carlos said.
Hazel was dressed in bright red sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt that Wetzon had given her last year for Christmas. On her head she wore a startling red Afro wig. Her face was chalky white, but she was smiling. “Come on in, kids.” She stood back, holding onto the door with one hand, leaning on her cane with the other. “You both look beautiful as always. My, my, look at your coats.” She patted Wetzon’s raccoon, admired Carlos’s lynx.
“Yes, don’t we look just ever so smart and successful?” Carlos said, hanging his and Wetzon’s coats on the coatrack.
Wetzon took the box of brownies and the ice cream from Carlos and headed for the kitchen. “You guys just sit and have a gossip.” She wrinkled her nose. A sweet, familiar odor floated in the air.
Carlos stood at the steps to the living room and flared his nostrils. “Ah yes. I do believe an old friend has been here.”
Hazel looked embarrassed and giggled.
Wetzon inhaled deeply. There it was. Pot. Once recognized, its essence reminded Wetzon in one fell swoop of road tours and summer stock, cramped living quarters, tired muscles. She felt no nostalgia for those days.
“Oh me, oh my,” Carlos said. He danced down the two steps into Hazel’s living room.
“I might have known you’d pick it up,” Hazel said. She seated herself in the rocking chair. She was wearing white socks and Reeboks. “It’s for medicinal purposes—and I’m not sharing.”
Carlos laughed and kicked his shoes off, settling down on her gold damask sofa.
“Selfish. No matter. I’ve sworn off. I’ll just sit here and breathe it in. I can get a room high.”
Wetzon served the brownies, each with a scoop of ice cream, and sat down on the sofa next to Carlos. She had read an article about how smoking marijuana helped combat the side effects of chemotherapy. Hazel’s face was drawn under the comical red wig, but she did look a lot better than when Wetzon had last seen her. A metal walker stood unobtrusively next to the rocking chair.
“What have you been up to all week?” Wetzon asked. “For some reason I get this feeling you’ve been avoiding me.”
“Leslie dear, that was your friend who was killed, wasn’t it?” Hazel rested the plate in her lap, giving Wetzon her total attention.
“Yes. It was awful.” She closed her eyes and saw the scene again, the blood ... She shuddered and almost dropped the plate. She opened her eyes and the image disappeared.
“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry.”
Wetzon sighed. The ice cream on her plate began to melt into the brownie. “Did he ever call you, Hazel? To interview you?”
“Someone from his office did call—to get my schedule—and said he’d be calling to make an appointment. But of course, that was before—” Hazel placed a large forkful of brownie and ice cream in her mouth, clearly relishing the taste.
Wetzon eyed her enviously and set her own plate down on Hazel’s walnut coffee table, next to the large book on women artists. She felt sick. “I think Teddy’s murder may have had something to do with Peepsie’s,” she said.
Hazel’s hand holding the dessert shook and she steadied the plate with her other hand. “Then you are convinced Peepsie was murdered? Please explain. Why do you think they are connected?”
Wetzon quickly ran through the events of the previous week.
“Well, of course,” Hazel said thoughtfully, “Peepsie did have a lot of stock. Alden was on the board of directors of so many different corporations ... I’m sure it’s all been accounted for ... she did have a lawyer ... I’m so glad Marion will be here soon ... early next week, I should think ...” She rocked back and forth slowly in the chair, eating the brownie with an absent expression on her face.
“I smell wood burning,” Carlos said, poking Wetzon and pointing at Hazel.
“What are you thinking, Hazel?” Wetzon demanded, standing. That sharp mind was cooking away on something. And she had managed to evade Wetzon’s question about whether Hazel had been avoiding her.
Hazel’s clear blue eyes focused, and she smiled reassuringly at Wetzon and Carlos. “I’m sorry, my dears, it was nothing. I guess I was just thinking how peculiar life is. Somehow it seems a relief to me that Peepsie was a murder victim rather than a suicide. Isn’t that ironic?”
“Not so ironic.” Carlos put his empty plate on the table and began on Wetzon’s untouched portion. “At least you know that your friend had not done something totally unlike herself, even though she was sick.”
Hazel’s eyes turned vague again. Then, as if she suddenly remembered them, she said, “Oh dear, I was just thinking about something I want to do tomorrow. My, my.” She looked pained. “I’m getting as bad as Peepsie was.” She finished her brownie and ice cream and set her plate on the floor beside her. “So forgetful.” There was a smile behind her eyes.
“You’re not forgetful at all, Hazel, and you know it,” Wetzon said, picking up the plate, frowning.
“Oho!” Carlos cried, watching the interplay. “We have another keeper of secrets here. A plotter.” He put his shoes on. “I hate to break this moment up, but we girls have to get our beauty sleep or we look oh so haggard in the morning.” He collected the plates and disappeared into the kitchen. Hazel and Wetzon could hear the water running in the sink.
“You’re not going to tell me what you’re up to, I take it?”
“Not just yet, dear. I want to work it out for myself. But I promise you I will tell you as soon as I do.”
That was all Wetzon could get out of her before they left.
“I’m worried,” she told Carlos when they were back in Michael Stewart’s cab. “I think something I said clicked when I told her my theory about the home care service and the stock certificate scam.”
“Well, not to be. Hazel is a lot smarter than you are about mucking in where she could get hurt.”
“Oh yeah?”
I wouldn’t count on it,
she thought, but she kept her thoughts to herself because she could tell by the tenseness of Michael Stewart’s shoulders that he was extremely interested in what they were saying.
Traffic was backed up on the transverse between the East Side and the West Side on Eighty-sixth Street, and they were stuck in the middle of the Park for fifteen minutes before the traffic started moving again. When they got to Central Park West, they saw there had been an accident. A cab had skidded on the icy street, into the crosstown bus near the exit to the transverse. A uniformed policeman was directing traffic around the accident scene. It did not look, in spite of all the lights and police cars, as if anyone had been hurt, but a lot of broken glass lay on the street amid the ice.
There was a parking place in front of Wetzon’s building and Michael Stewart pulled into it and turned off his lights and his motor.
“Oh joy,” Carlos gushed. “You mean I get to walk home all by my lonesome on this cold night?”
“Gee, Michael, can’t you just take Carlos ... Carlos, are you going to Arthur’s?”
“Where else?”
“Can’t you just take him over to West End and—?”
“Ninetieth Street.”
Michael Stewart didn’t answer. He took a peaked cap from the seat beside him and put it on his head.
“I guess not, Carlos.”
“Ah well.”
They climbed over a mound of frozen snow onto the cleared sidewalk strewn with white ice-melting beads and stood under Wetzon’s awning. Carlos put his arms around her. “Good night, Birdie. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She kissed him between the eyes and he shivered delicately.
“I have four words for you.” His voice was a sexy whisper in her ear.
“What are they?”
“Buy low, sell high,” he said.
“You’re terrible.” She pushed him away and watched him trudge off with a brief wave.
Javier opened the inside door for her. “There was lady here looking for you little while ago,” he said.
“There was? Did she leave her name?”
“She said ...” He shrugged. “I forget.”
“What did she look like?”
“Tall, black lady. Very nice. She wait awhile, then go.”
“Damn.” Could it be that Diantha Anderson again? She was the only tall black lady Wetzon knew. “Was her name Ms. Anderson?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
What the hell could that woman want of her? She had been calling her all week. Now she was invading her home. “If she comes back, tell her I’m not home, please.” She would deal with Diantha Anderson tomorrow, from the office. What could be so urgent that she was tracking Wetzon down at home?
She decided to ignore the little blinking light that announced she had messages on her answering machine—just this once—but found herself back in the dining room after her shower, staring at the exasperating thing. Finally, she sat down at the table and pushed the button to rewind the tape and once that was done, the other button to play back her messages.
Smith.
Bernstein. He left two numbers. Screw him. She was glad she hadn’t been home and she didn’t intend to call him back until she talked to Arthur.
Smith again, sounded annoyed.
Diantha Anderson. There was a pleading tone in her voice that disconcerted Wetzon. “Oh dear, I’d really better call her,” she murmured.
There were two hang-ups.
Silvestri hadn’t called.
She was about to turn the machine off when Hazel’s voice came on. “Leslie dear, I hoped you’d be home because I’m very tired and I’m about to turn my phone off and go to bed. I don’t want you to worry, but I have something in mind that may help us find out what really happened to Peepsie. I’m going to sleep on it and I will let you know more as soon as I have it worked out. In the meantime, you are not to take personally anything I do or say.”