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

promised, but Wetzon’s board had given their approval to the renovations and Louie and her crew were starting work on Monday. She hoped Louie would remember to pick up her mail.
    Metzger, tall, lanky, with mournful basset-hound eyes, was standing in front of Rusty Staub’s watching the passing parade. She hadn’t seen him in months. She’d grown very fond of him in the time she’d been with Silvestri.
    “Artie,” she called, waving. He turned to look, spotted her, and his smile dispelled the solemnity. She gave him a great hug and he kissed her cheek.
    It was obvious immediately that Metzger was known here, because they were shown to a somewhat private table without waiting. After they ordered their burgers and beer, Artie gave her the eye. “What are you up to?”
    “You sound like Silvestri.”
    “I’m standing in for him.” The way he said it told her that he was au courant with their situation.
    “Oh, shit, Artie, things aren’t good with us.” Her voice cracked, failed her.
    “Listen, kid.” He looked down at his plate and said quickly, as if the words embarrassed him, “It’ll be okay. You love each other. There are just these bumps along the way. Carol and I’ve been married eight years. I ought to know. And being separated doesn’t help. You ought to get yourself down there.”
    She shook her head. “I tried that. He can damn well get himself up here one weekend or two a month.” She felt angry tears, took out a tissue and dried her face, blew her nose. “Let’s not talk about this now, okay?”
    The beers and the hamburgers materialized.
    “So you wanna tell me what you’ve gotten involved in?” Metzger put a bunch of fries between the burger and the bun and added enough ketchup to blanket them.
    Wetzon discarded the roll and cut into the burger with a knife and fork. She told him about Brian, how they were hired to find Tabitha—he groaned—and she left nothing out, not even hiding in Jerry Gordon’s closet. Metzger kept shaking his head, but he didn’t scold her, as she knew Silvestri would have.
    Finally, he took a swig of beer and said, “What are we going to do with you?”
    She grinned at him. “Humor me.”
    “What do you want to know?”
    “What did the autopsy find?”
    “The girl was dead before she hit the water. She was killed at close range with the same gun, a .32, that was used on Middleton.”
    “Did they find the gun?”
    “Nope. You’re not eating those?” When she shook her head, he helped himself to her fries.
    “Any surprises in the autopsy?”
    “A couple. She was three months pregnant.”
    “God! What’s the other?”
    “There were too many broken and healed bones, burns, scars. Looks like she was one of those poor abused kids from upper-class homes that slip through the cracks. It’s amazing that she made it through alive.”
    Wetzon stared at him. “But she didn’t, did she?”

43.
    “B E A GOOD girl,” Metzger said. “Cut him some slack.”
    “Be a good girl?” Wetzon was outraged.
    “Now don’t get pissed at me.”
    “Ha!”
    “Do you want a ride?” He had his hand on the car door.
    “No, thanks. Okay, Artie, he wants slack. I’ll give him slack, but it’s going to be quid pro quo from now on.”
    She was pissed at Metzger, pissed at Silvestri, generally pissed. On Fifth Avenue between Forty-seventh and Forty-ninth, three different sets of Senegalese peddlers were selling “replica” watches, mainly Rolex and Carrier, from attaché cases. Five dollars will get you nice faces and empty cases. Tourists were inspecting the merchandise. These unlicensed entrepreneurs made more in one day than most stockbrokers, paid no taxes, and were always one step ahead of the police. They had lookouts posted and seemed to know when to snap the lid shut and hightail it out of there before their junk could be confiscated.
    Metzger’s information about Tabitha as a battered child fit what that scumbag Maglia had told her. Rona was Tabitha’s godmother. Why hadn’t she done something about it? Then again, maybe she had. Maybe that’s how Tabitha had ended up staying with the Maglias.
    Wetzon walked into Saks and toured the ground floor, looking at the handbags on the countertops, trying on the leather gloves. A smoky-blue silk shawl woven with tiny red flowers lay on a counter.
    She held it up to her throat. The effect was startling, making her gray eyes vivid. On an impulse she bought it, then took the escalator up to the lingerie