Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

toward Seventh Avenue. Time was running out, Wetzon knew. And she had to stay in character or she was lost. Still, no one, with the possible exception of Judy Blue, was paying any attention to her. She gave her shoulders a sensuous roll and began to sashay off.
    “There she is! She’s the one!”
    They’d stopped fighting among themselves and all seemed to be pointing at her, moving toward her. She could see Judy Blue getting closer. One way or the other, she was fucked.
    “She did it! Get her!”
    “She’s a goddam freak!” a woman yelled.
    What a lot of noise they were making. Her head hurt. Forget it, she’d go down fighting. Lose the platforms and make a run for it, she told herself.
    She gave no thought to the blue and white until it came up on the sidewalk and blocked her way.

36
    “F OR CRISSAKES , Patrice, whaddaya wanna do, get yourself strung up?” The cop—his tag said P. Walsh—was a grizzled, bulky veteran, broad Irish face, chapped lips, jowls. The surging mob, the cacophony of horns, were enough to make him yell out the window to another cop. He jerked his thumb for her to get in the back.
    She didn’t need a second invitation. With Wetzon hunkered down on the backseat, the blue and white rode the sidewalk a way past the congestion, then edged onto the street.
    And not a minute too soon. Judy Blue had reached the corner and was scanning the area. The blue and white passed her by. Soon enough the agent would ask a bystander what happened to the transvestite ...
    “Hey!” The cop was staring into his rearview mirror. “You’re not Patrice.”
    “I’m her betheth fwiend, deawie,” Wetzon lisped, fluttering the long lashes, flipping her big black hair.
    “You oughta know better’n standing out there stopping traffic during rush hour.”
    “I wath only twying to get a cab. I have thith weally important appointment at Eighteen Fifth Avenue with a movie produther whothe going to make me a thtar. Could you be a lovely boy and dwop me there?”
    “Chauffeuring transvestites around the city ain’t part of my job description.”
    “Pleathe, dear boy, I’d be ever tho gwateful.” She made kissy noises through fat, crimson lips. “Of courthe, I could twy to find another cab ... ”
    “Never mind.” He drove east on Fourteenth and down Fifth to number eighteen, which turned out to be an elegant pre-War high-rise with gargoyles and carved turrets on its upper reaches.
    She adjusted her accoutrements—the socks were creeping out of the bustier—catching the knowing expression of the cop in the rearview mirror. “Oh, well,” she murmured. “Up and at ‘em.”
    On the sidewalk, she wriggled her hips, adjusted the fishnet stockings with finesse, to the ogles of three teenaged boys, and set forth. She didn’t get far. A swarthy doorman in a light opera uniform blocked her way.
    “Where you think you’re going?”
    She looked back at Walsh, who hadn’t pulled away. “Rita Silvestri in the Penthouse. I have a key.” She took it from the palm of her glove. “See? She’s expecting me.”
    “Oh, yeah? Well, she left here an hour ago.”
    “She couldn’t have. She’s expecting me. Just ring up.”
    “Stand back,” the doorman said, with snooty disrespect. He held the door for a young woman pushing twins in a wide stroller, along with a champagne colored standard poodle prancing on his leash beside them.
    “Is there a problem?” Walsh had gotten out of the blue and white.
    The doorman said, “Yeah. She don’t belong here.”
    “But I do. I have a key.” Exasperated, weary, Wetzon stamped her foot, not an easy exercise in ankle strap, platform wedgies. “Can’t you see this is a costume? Just ring up for me and it’ll be okay.”
    Walsh gave her a sharp look.
    “Okay, okay, Officer Walsh. I am a friend of Patrice’s. She got me gussied up like this for a party.”
    “Call up,” Walsh told the doorman.
    Wetzon and Walsh were close on his heels as he went back into the building and called upstairs. “What name?”
    They were both watching her intently. “Les.”
    He buzzed Rita’s apartment. Someone answered. “Someone down here, name of Les, with a cop. Oh, okay.” He hung up the phone and turned back, saying, to Walsh, not to Wetzon, “Coming right down.”
    Wetzon put a smile on for Walsh. “See? I told you. It’s okay. You can leave me now.”
    “I think I’ll just stick around a little while longer ... Les,” Walsh said.
    When the elevator finally