Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4)

want to see you. Don’t run away. I’m sorry about—I’ll see you.
    Oh, God, she thought. What was happening to her? How could she feel this way about two totally different men?
    Beep. Leslie, this is Sheila. I think I’ve found what you were looking for.

57.
    S HEILA WAS NOT at home, or at the very least, was not answering her telephone. Wetzon hoped fervently that the Smokestack hadn’t dropped from the skies on one of his trips, because Sheila would be incommunicado for the extent of his stay.
    It probably wasn’t going to make much difference anyway. It had seemed an ingenious thought, because Dr. Jerry made such a thing of it. Her experience told her that people don’t normally drop their alma mater into conversation heavy-handed, particularly if it was Ivy or close to it. Of course, once in a while she’d met someone insecure enough to drop a non sequitur about the Harvard Club or Yale Club into a conversation.
    Having left word for Sheila to call her, Wetzon went to bed. She had an important seven-thirty breakfast meeting in midtown, and she knew she damn well better be alert.
    Schiff, McConnell, a classy boutique with a century-old history on the Street, was opening a second office—their headquarters was on Wall Street—in midtown, just for million-dollar producers. Brokers whose gross commissions annually came to over a million dollars were a vanishing breed on the Street. Wetzon—no grass grew under her feet—had been compiling such a list, with input from B. B. and Max, of brokers from all firms. The genius behind the idea was Eliot McConnell, and it was Eliot whom Wetzon was meeting for breakfast. He would do his dog-and-pony show and give her the grand tour. It was his baby, and he was going to run it.
    Her alarm went off at six, and she went on automatic, downed her vitamins with orange juice, showered, did her morning stretches, blow-dried her hair, and rolled it into its knot. She needed a trim; the ends were splitting. She’d do it tonight when she got home. Dressed in her most conservative pinstripe, a light gray, she was on the still-lamplit street at six forty-five and heading for the Seventh Avenue subway at Sheridan Square. The sky was overhung with rain clouds, and a misty fog had settled over the city, which had gone overnight from balmy to chill. She parked her briefcase between her feet, buttoned and belted her Burberry, pulled her slouchy fedora down over her topknot.
    The dogwalkers were just appearing, owners sleepy-eyed and shivering, dogs hyper after a night indoors.
    Sheila hadn’t called her back. Wetzon would have to try her again after she got to the office. Right now she had to psych herself to be on her toes— Easy for you, Wetzonova —because this assignment could mean a windfall for Smith and Wetzon. Although Schiff, McConnell was already a client, Wetzon wanted to cement the relationship so that Eliot McConnell would be more comfortable working with them than with any other headhunter.
    Schiff, McConnell had chosen for the elite branch, worse luck, the same building on Sixth Avenue as Bliss Norderman. She found herself praying she wouldn’t run into that scuz Maglia, or Rona, for that matter.
    Face it, Wetzon, it is one of midtown’s most outstanding buildings. It had a beautiful, sweeping plaza, benches, and a waterfall. Yet as she approached it, she saw a bag lady in a tattered fur coat, gray hair grizzling out from under a black velour stovepipe hat with a stiff brim, ensconced on one of the benches surrounded by a half-dozen crammed black plastic garbage bags, a lifetime of belongings. On her feet were cracked and worn black patent-leather tap shoes, the taps still in place. Her face was made up for the stage, down to the false eyelashes. An open tissue on her scrawny lap showed a half-eaten almond horn. She lifted it daintily and took a bite, eyes fixed on Wetzon as if she knew her.
    The intensity of the gaze gave Wetzon a start, but it was no one she knew. She’d been afraid it might be an aging Broadway gypsy. Was it every dancer’s nightmare or just her own, the fear of ending up alone and broke on the street, a bag lady? Controlling a shiver, Wetzon had to choose whether to pass right by the woman or take a detour and come in on the other side of the building. The woman eyed her with, it seemed to Wetzon, a challenge. That did it. No way was Wetzon going to be intimidated into choosing another entrance. The woman’s eyes found hers. God, she was