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

spoke to you. “Look, I’m in for the long haul, and if you burn a client, you burn him. You lose him. You find another client. That’s the way the business is. The trouble with Dov was that he couldn’t burn a client. He got all those accounts open with good clients, and then he couldn’t take the risks you have to take to make it in this business.”
    The callous words were incongruous, coming from someone so clean-cut. So what else is new, Wetzon , she asked herself. “Okay, guys, why do you want out of Bliss Norderman? You’ll be asked that. Do you have a good answer? No manager likes to think you’re coming to his firm just for the money, even when they know in their hearts you are.”
    “They’re schmucks, then. If you don’t go for the big bucks on a move in this business, you gotta have your head examined,” Stu said. “Besides, it’s a distinct possibility that Bliss is heading south.”
    Of course, she’d heard those rumors, rumors about the insurance-company parent of Bliss Norderman being disgusted with the losses of the brokerage firm. “I can’t believe Jefferson Mutual will allow that to happen.”
    “Think again, Wetzon,” Larry said. “Shit, everyone knows we’re on the block. The losses in real estate keep piling up. Any buyer is going to have to write in a fat slush fund.”
    “So, Wetzon,” Stu said impatiently, “tell us what the deals are out there.” He ordered two more beers with no thought to what Wetzon was drinking.
    “For you guys, they’re great. Thirty to thirty-five percent upfront from one of the big wire houses.”
    “How does it work? Is it a loan or what?”
    “You get a check for the whole thing when you walk in the door, and it’s called a loan, with a third forgiven each year. You’ll have to sign a contract for the three years.”
    “What’s the bogie?”
    “You keep your gross production at least at seventy percent of what it was when you walk in the door. That should be easy. If you come in the door doing five hundred thousand, you have to come in the next year at a minimum of three fifty to meet the bogie and not lose the deal. You can do that.”
    They looked at each other and nodded. “But what if there’s another crash, or one of us gets in an accident and is laid up?” Larry asked.
    “There are two of you. If there should be a crash, no firm is going to hold anyone to the bogie. They didn’t in 1987.”
    Grabbing a fistful of salted nuts, Stu devoured them without closing his mouth, so that pieces of nuts spilled over his lips and stuck to his mustache.
    Larry looked at his watch. The ubiquitous timekeeper of Wall Street, the gold Rolex. “What about Rosenkind, Luwisher? We heard they do deals.”
    “Not really. A decent guarantee and a high payout for a year.”
    “Well,” Stu said, “they gave Rona Middleton a deal and she didn’t even have a book. Now they got nothing.” He looked at Larry, and they both laughed.
    So word had spread over the Street only hours after Rona’s arrest. The Street was a maze of networks, all attuned to spreading gossip. “You heard about Rona?”
    “Yeah.” Stu looked gleeful. “I just spent the last two hours calling her and Brian’s accounts.”
    God , Wetzon thought. “You’re not even waiting until the body is cold, Stu?”
    “Aw, come on, Wetzon, I deserve those accounts. Rona got them the easy way—on her back.” He gave a lewd guffaw, and Larry joined him.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Why did the men of Wall Street always assume a successful woman made it to the top on her back? Was it too threatening to think she made it because she was smart? Maybe smarter than they were?
    “Wake up, Wetzon. Rona and Tony have been taking each other’s temperature since she got into the business.”
    “You have to be kidding.” She felt her mouth drop open and gave herself a silent order: Close your mouth, Wetzon. “Silly me, I thought they loathed each other.”
    “Word of honor,” Stu said, hand on his heart. “They think it’s top secret, but you’d have to be blind and dead not to know.”
    Larry said, “They’re getting it on, all right. Everyone knows about it.”
    “Oh, come on, fellas.” The idea was preposterous. They must be setting her up. Tony was half Rona’s size. They loathed one another. “This is a joke, isn’t it?”
    They exchanged smirks, and Stu nodded knowingly. “They got this place, whadayacallit, a shtup nest?” He hooted. “In that Jap