Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

trouble, but you didn’t call me. You always call me when you’re in trouble.”
    She was outraged. “I do not, Silvestri! You know that’s bullshit.”
    “Gotcha, Les.” He was grinning at her.
    “Hey,” she said. “Now if I can only remember what happened.”
    “If you were at that explosion site, you were in New Jersey. How did you get back to New York?”
    “Bus,” she said without thinking. “Bus! I was on a bus and there was a blind man and a dog, a golden retriever.” She closed her eyes. “Nora.”
    “Nora?”
    “The dog’s name was Nora.” Excited, she grasped his hand. “It’s coming back!” She wondered if it was because she felt safe with him, safe enough to let what had happened out of her subconscious. “I’m hungry,” she said.
    “Finish the tea and I’ll toast a bagel.” He handed her the mug.
    “Silvestri, wait. There was phone number and a reward for information about Mary Lou Salinger. I called it, and I was patched through to someone who said she was Special Agent Blue. She must have recognized my voice because she said it was okay to come in now.”
    “Goddammit!” Silvestri’s fist punched the bedroom door. “Goddam those Feebs!”
    “The FBI?”
    “Oh, yeah, I knew it stank. This is another one of their fiascos.”
    Izz, who’d been cocking her head back and forth, leaped off bed, barking. She ran from the room, her tail fanning. Then came the thumping on the door.
    The familiar fear swelled in her chest, crowding out air. “Are you expecting anyone?” The thumping stopped.
    “No. I told Patrice to stay away.” More thumping. “And you can’t get upstairs without a key.” He slipped his gun from its holster.

23
    “S TAY STILL , don’t speak,” Silvestri said, gun long down his side. He closed the bedroom door, but the lock didn’t hold, leaving a sliver opening.
    She got out of bed, carrying with her a billow of stale beer. Damn, where were her clothes? She was wearing one of Silvestri’s sweatshirts and her underwear, feet bare on a wood floor that desperately need sanding. What a thing to think of at a time like this.
    His apartment was one floor up, the windows looking down on a tree lined street. A fast getaway was out. The floorboards creaked as she backed away from the window. She peered through the narrow gap. A grotesque woman. No. A transvestite. Masses of black curly hair, a lot of eye makeup and a diamond stud in a Streisand nose.
    “Going to shoot me with that sexy gun, ya big Palooka?” The voice was nicotine coated, teasing.
    “What do you want, Patrice?” Silvestri parked his gun in the waistband of his jeans.
    She held out a palm. Her nails were long daggers. “Moolah for cat food. The monster has a ferocious appetite. She won’t let my poor Tallulah near her dish. A twenty? Dearie, that’s hardly enough. That’s better. How long will she be visiting?”
    “I’ll get her out as soon as we find her owner.”
    “Marvelous. What’s her name?”
    “Chat.” He was crowding the door, not letting her inside.
    “Chat,” Patrice said, tasting the French of it. “How wonderfully original, dearie, don’t you think?”
    “Get out of here, Patrice.”
    “It’s Les, isn’t it?” Patrice was bouncing, craning her neck, trying to see beyond Silvestri. “You’ve found her. I can tell. You’re a changed man.”
    The door slammed.
    “Les, it’s okay.”
    She pushed the door open all the way. “What a trip.”
    “Yeah. Patrice. She’s okay, though. I didn’t want her to see you. The fewer people who know you’re here, the better.”
    “Does she know me?”
    “She met you once, but she’s sharp. She recognized your picture immediately and came down and flapped the newspaper in my face.”
    “Where’re my pants?”
    “I had to take them, and everything else. They’re scene of the crime evidence.”
    “Oh, fine. That makes me a prisoner. Is that what you want?”
    He went into his tiny kitchen and took two bagels from a grocery bag, sliced them and put them in the toaster oven. “I want to keep you safe until I find out what’s going on.”
    “Oh, Silvestri, you’re always trying to protect me, but you can’t. I’m my own person.” She paused, catching the look on his face, playing back what she had just said. “Ah, I see. Are you always trying to protect me? And do we fight about it?”
    Abashed, he put the hot bagels on paper plates, set them on a card table with a slab of cream cheese. “Come on, we