Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

to the Ninth Precinct. The woman who took Les in got murdered last night.”
    “Murder!” Smith brightened. “Perfect. You’ll need me.”
    “What we need right now, Xenia, is for you to put up a front. You haven’t seen Les, you don’t know anything about this.”
    “But I have to be involved.”
    “It’s the best way to keep Les alive, and you want that, don’t you?”
    “What a horrible question, Silvestri. How can you even ask me that?” The sunglasses were back in place.
    “Then go home. If they connect you with Les, your life will be in danger, too. The longer you’re here, the more dangerous it gets.”
    Smith turned pale, took quick glances over each shoulder, drifted a couple of steps back.
    “Les needs you to be there for her.”
    “Well, of course, sugar bun. You can count on me.” She got into her car, got out again. “Wetzon! Where is Bill in all this? I’ve been calling his office and they keep telling me he’s out of town.”
    “Who is Bill?” Leslie whispered to Silvestri through her clenched smile.
    “She doesn’t remember him, Xenia,” Silvestri said.
    “How could she not remember him? He’s the love of her life.”
    She got back in the car, gunned the motor, pulled away.
    “What a major bitch.”
    “Big time,” Silvestri said, looking down at her. Arm around her waist, he hugged her to him.
    “Who is Bill?”
    “Veeder.” He put on his dark glasses.
    “The love of my life?”
    “So Xenia says. Let’s get going.”
    “Silvestri?”
    “Yeah?” He flagged down a cab, took her hand. “Come on.”
    “Silvestri, I think maybe you’re the love of my life.”
    They didn’t speak in the cab. He was still holding her hand.
    “Stop here,” he told the driver.
    “It’s another coupla blocks to Federal Plaza.”
    “S’okay.” He gave the driver a ten and waved off the change, then walked her into a Rite Aid. “Sunglasses, dark,” he said. “Try these.”
    She tucked a stray strand under the beret. “I look like a French film star.”
    “Fine.”
    Twenty-six Federal Plaza was a cold, ugly fortress of a building. Next to a security booth, a police car was a horizontal buffer across the parking entrance. Inside the huge lobby were two uniformed cops and three security guards manning the metal detectors. Silvestri showed his badge and was waved around.
    “Elevator bank A for FBI,” one of the guards said.
    On either end of elevator bank A were two more security men, their uniforms different from the others.
    “Special Agent Blue,” Silvestri told the one closest to them. “She’s expecting us.”
    Leslie was startled. When had he called her?
    The guard took their names and called upstairs. “There must be some mistake. Agent Blue is not in today.”
    “I think she’ll want to know that Leslie Wetzon is here to see her.”
    Ah, a surprise tactic, Leslie thought. Not bad.
    “Wait here, please.” The guard stepped away from them and spoke into his phone.
    “This place does not look familiar to me, Silvestri,” Leslie said, uneasy. “It’s probably a waste of time. She’s not here anyway. Maybe we should leave now.”
    “Take it easy, Les. Here comes security.”
    The guard held out two temporary visitors passes. “Please put these on. Twenty-eighth floor.”
    She could feel Silvestri’s tension. It was like her own, but hers was mixed with fear.
    A man in gray flannels and a sport jacket was waiting for them on the twenty-eighth floor. “If you’ll have a seat,” he said. “Special Agent Blue is on her way.” He pressed his finger to a raised panel and a buzzer sounded. He passed through the door.
    They sat on one of the couches. It could have been a corporate reception area, but no magazines, and the reception counter had the big FBI seal and said FBI, New York Division.
    Now she allowed herself to remember the sick feeling, her reaction to Silvestri’s telling her the height of the other man who’d died in the explosion. “Why did I know it wasn’t Jason McLaughlin?”
    “That’s what Special Agent Blue is going to tell us when she gets here.”
    Agent Blue was black. Leslie choked back a giggle. Blue is black and black is blue became a refrain in her head. A short woman in a charcoal pantsuit, Agent Blue was a collection of lumps and bumps of bosom, belly, and thighs. She bustled into the reception area, a Starbucks coffee container in her hand, looked Leslie over and said, “Welcome home.”
    “This is not her home,”