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

She was occupying two chairs with her voluminous skirts, and she cleared the way for Wetzon to sit on one. “I shouldn’t be doing this for you.” Queen Bess pointed to the huge banner in purple suede overhead: APPYHAY ORTIETHFAY IRTHBAY, ITHSMAY. “You betrayed me.”
    “Moi?” Wetzon said. She loved being Fred Astaire and couldn’t care less what Queen Xenia had to say about it.
    “Off with her head,” Elizabeth the Queen commanded, pointing to Wetzon. A chorus picked up on it. “Off with her head ... Off with her head ... ”
    The executioner was gray-shrouded; he bent and peered at Wetzon. “You took my seat,” croaked from decaying lips. Brian’s dead face. It whipped off its shroud, making a great wind, and threw it over her, covering her with its cold clammy ether. Her limbs were so heavy. She was being lifted, helpless, thrown over someone’s shoulder, carried to her grave. To her grave. The closing bell tolled. She sank into the shroud, unable to save herself. She was laid into a coffin and the lid slammed shut with the dead sound of the door of Smith’s Jag.
    Someone jerked the shroud from her, and she lifted her head, shaking, frantic. Where was she? Oh God, she was still on the floor of Jerry Gordon’s closet. She’d fallen asleep. Barbara must have just pulled the fur from her without even realizing it covered an intruder.
    Limbs locked, Wetzon gave her brain the signal to loosen up. No sound came from the bedroom or elsewhere. Had the woman gone out? Was the closing of the door what had awakened her? Wetzon crawled to the closet door and listened. Pushed it open a crack. No sound. The light hurt her eyes. She shaded them and waited for them to adjust. The office door was closed. The lamp cast a greenish glow on the brown chaise. She had to get out of here before Jerry and his wife got back and caught her. What the hell time was it, anyway?
    She crept from the closet and found she couldn’t straighten up. Half tilted, she leaned on the desk, tried again, breathing into her lower back. Curses for you, Wetzon. Falling asleep on the job and then throwing your back out. Her watch said ten minutes after ten. Move it, kiddo. Worse still, she had to pee.
    Her briefcase and purse were still in the closet. How was she going to do this? She grit her teeth to cover the pain and slipped to her knees, crawling back into the closet, found her things, backed out. Somehow she got to her feet, teeth rammed permanently into her lower lip. The effort was excruciating. Serves you right. Sticking your nose in—
    The phone on the desk rang, ending the deeply personal silence between Wetzon and the empty apartment. Rang again. And again. Tempting. She rubbed her eyes. Her head was cotton wool. Leaning against the desk for support, she reached her hand out and picked up the phone, put her fingers over the mouthpiece, and mumbled, “Um?”
    What was she doing? She was about to replace the receiver when she heard an infinitesimal click, as if the line were tapped, then, “Penny Ann, good. I’m glad I caught you—”
    “Um,” Wetzon mumbled. She sat down in the chair.
    “Don’t talk. Just listen,” Rona snapped. “No one else should know about this.”
    “Um.” What was Rona up to, anyway? Wetzon picked up her cardcase from the desk and slipped it into her pocket.
    “Listen carefully. Tabitha just called me. You were right. She knows something about Brian. I’m meeting her at Lincoln Center, at the fountain. I want you there.”
    “When?” Wetzon, imitating Penny Ann’s plaintive whine, came close enough for Rona to accept—or was Rona just too single-minded to hear the difference?
    Whatever it was, Rona said, “Now.”

29.
    I N THE BLUE-BLACK sky a waning moon hung over Central Park. A big woman in evening clothes was just getting into a cab in front of the hotel, and two people were waiting for the next one.
    She was jumpy as hell, hearing things. She’d used the bathroom in the apartment and thought she’d heard a door close. Almost gave herself heart failure. Then the elevator had taken forever to come. And the lobby was crowded with people who wouldn’t move or get out of her way. And now cabs were whizzing by, occupied.
    Perhaps she should walk it. Seven or eight blocks. She could do it faster than waiting for a cab. She crossed to the park side and walked swiftly toward Columbus Circle. The park seemed to be in another dimension, expelling danger, redolent with horse dung and