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

cabinet mirror blow-drying her hair. Her eyelids were swollen, with black smudges beneath. She braided her hair and crawled into bed. Lights out. Sweet sleep. She rolled over on her stomach and reached for Silvestri.
    Silvestri. Blast. She sat up and put on the light, blinking to adjust, found the number, and tapped it out on the phone. Then she turned out the light and lay back, listening to the call go through, ringing, one, two, three, four. Odd.
    “Hello?” A woman’s voice.
    “I must have the wrong number.” She was about to hang up.
    “Who do you want?”
    “Silvestri.”
    “Hold on. Silvestri, it’s for you.”
    Wetzon hung up. She was wide awake and she was in a fury. With a thump she was out of the bed, on her knees unplugging the phone. Then into the kitchen, doing the same. The fucking nerve of him. How could he do it to her? And he was flaunting it, too.
    She poured herself a cup of cold coffee and sat at the kitchen table, head in her hands. Was he wrong? Wasn’t she playing around with Alton? But he didn’t know that, she thought resentfully. For all he knew, she was sitting around waiting for him to come home. Oh, hell. There was no clear fault here. They were both wrong, because neither of them wanted to make the final commitment.
    Get on with it , she commanded. Enough self-pity. She rinsed the coffeepot and mugs and put them in the dishwasher. Her bag and briefcase were still on the counter where she’d left them when she came in.
    The diary. She’d read the diary until she fell asleep. It was work, translating. She would certainly get drowsy. She looked in the briefcase. It wasn’t there. Shook everything out on the counter. No diary. Her purse. She’d put it in her purse when Smith had met her in the lobby of the Sussex House. Where was her head?
    She looked in her purse. The diary was gone.

26.
    “H I , F RANK, THIS is—” Wetzon balanced the phone in the crook of her neck as she slit open her mail. Three announcements from brokers she’d placed.
    “Hey!” Which was a warm greeting in Brooklynese. “I’d recognize that voice anywhere, Wetzon.”
    “Thanks, I think. How’s it going?” One announcement from a broker she hadn’t placed and didn’t even know was contemplating a move. Damnation. How to be everywhere at once?
    “Not bad, I guess. I’m sitting here humping and pumping the numbers out, and if we can keep the market from tanking, I might just have my best year yet. Then you can go shop me a great deal.”
    “I’d love to. Anything happening in your office?”
    “Actually, I do have a lead for you, but not here.” Wetzon listened carefully, making notes, asking questions, then hung up and waited for Smith to finish her conversation. Then she said, “Do we want to work with Stan Lavell?”
    “Stan Lavell?” Smith wrinkled her brow. “The manager?”
    “Yes. Burlington Kramer in Red Bank. He was just removed for sexual harassment—and dipping into the till. The latter being the worse offense, of course.”
    “Of course.”
    “He’s sitting in the office as a broker right now.”
    “Why bother? We have no management jobs, and he’ll have to build a book. Why would we want to work with that kind of creep?”
    Wetzon rolled her eyes to the ceiling and pursed her lips. “He produces half a mil.”
    They looked at each other. Smith smirked. “Well, of course we’ll work with him. Tsk, tsk, poor man. These are only charges, aren’t they? And this is the real world. Women want equality, they have to make their own way.”
    Wetzon laughed. Smith would always be Smith. “Right. And isn’t it part of his job as manager to reach out to his employees? Besides, dipping into the till is much worse than copping a little feel, isn’t it?”
    “We’ll have B.B. handle it. He’s been here long enough.” Smith got serious. “Business is so bad we can’t afford to pass it up.” She opened the door and hollered, “B.B., would you step in here, please.”
    Wetzon sighed and wrote Stan Lavell’s name on a fresh suspect sheet, along with the name and address of his firm and branch. On the left, under “Notes,” she wrote, “was producing manager, removed October 1st for sexual harassment and till-dipping.” Under “Production,” she wrote “five hundred range.” She handed B.B. the sheet. “Be sympathetic, but don’t let on you know much about it. Ask if you can be of help.”
    “Will other firms talk to him?” B.B. looked doubtful.
    “Is