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

but was told Peiser wasn’t available.
    The phone rang almost as soon as she’d hung up, and Max knocked. “Paul Schlessinger for you, Wetzon.”
    “Who?”
    Max read back the name he’d written down.
    She rolled the name over her tongue, searching her memory. “All right! He’s B. B.’s big producer.” She reached for the phone. “Let B. B. know I’m talking to him, will you, Max?” She pressed the lit button. “Paul Schlessinger? This is Leslie Wetzon—” As of this morning she had something unique to sell him on. With surety, she began her pitch.
    Schlessinger listened without interrupting, then said, “I’ve been here eight years and never made a move. They tend to take you for granted if you don’t make noise. I may be moderately annoyed from time to time, but enough to make a move? I don’t think so. I’ve been around long enough to know it’s not any different anywhere else.”
    “Paul, look at the changing face of the industry over the last five years. Schiff, McConnell has a unique situation to offer. A highly unusual environment, designed for the top of your profession. And the perks are commensurate with your status.” She was so engrossed in the sale that she only vaguely heard Max go out to the garden and call Smith to the phone.
    “Well, that’s all very interesting,” Schlessinger was saying. “You’re a great salesperson. You should have been a broker.”
    “Thanks, Paul. So what do you think?”
    “Tell you what, you arrange a meeting with McConnell for me, Leslie Wetzon, and we’ll see where it goes.”
    When she hung up the phone, she was on a euphoric high, all pumped up, larger than life, as when you do a turn on the stage and bring down the house. So she didn’t see Smith at first, hadn’t even noticed her come in.
    “Wetzon! Are you listening to me?”
    Wetzon turned, not even trying to brush aside the glow. “Congratulate me! I just got the biggest producer at Dean Witter to agree to meet Eliot McConnell.”
    “Congratulations. I just had a call from the Westport police. They dug a rifle bullet out of my shingle an hour ago.”

60.
    T HE SCISSORS WERE sharp enough. Wetzon sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor, the Journal spread in front of her, guiding the scissors slowly through her hair, which hung like a curtain in front of her. An inch or two would do it. Ash-blond mowings began to pile up on the newspaper. Why not cut it all off? She flexed the scissors, poised, then dropped them as if burned.
    On the kitchen counter next to the remains of a small pizza from John’s, the bridal bouquet lived on. She got up on her knees and shook her hair out over the newspaper, which she then crumpled into a ball and hook-shot into the garbage bag, and made it. She was patting herself on the back when the downstairs buzzer sounded.
    The small TV screen showed Marissa Peiser and, dammit, Ferrante and Martens. There went her evening. Wrong! Cancel that , she told herself in no uncertain terms. They were on her side, and someone was trying to kill her. She buzzed them in and opened the door.
    When the elevator door slid open, she said, “Greetings,” and waved them inside.
    Peiser, made up and pulled together, had a peculiar look on her face. “What’s wrong?”
    “Oh, nothing much, aside from someone with a rifle taking potshots at me. Why?”
    “You look different.”
    “Well, of course I do. Did you think I was a pinstripe? This is the real me.” She looked down at herself, barefoot, in white midthigh leggings and one of Silvestri’s gray sweatshirts, sleeves cut off; her hair hung loosely down to her waist. “Yeah, Alice in Wonderland.”
    Martens and Ferrante came right in and sat down at the table, not impressed with what she looked like, although Ferrante gave her a tight smile that translated into a leer. What did Peiser, who seemed intelligent, see in him?
    “There’s leftover pizza, if anyone’s hungry,” Wetzon said, closing the door. She was determined to be pleasant, to see this encounter through without losing her temper. “I’ll make coffee.”
    No one responded. Peiser sat down.
    “I understand from my partner that there was a bullet in the shingle. Can we assume it came from Wilson Boyd’s missing rifle?” Wetzon filled the filter with coffee and, when the water in the kettle boiled, poured hot water into the container and pressed the on button.
    “We can’t assume anything,” Ferrante growled.
    Charming, Wetzon thought, and people