Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

arrived, it was Silvestri who stepped out, looking delicious, no worse for the wear. He checked the lobby frowning, walked toward Walsh and the doorman. Wetzon turned her back.
    “Patrice?” he said, “What the hell—?”
    She swivelled, he stared, began coughing and choking. “Oh, for crissakes!”
    “Easy there, big boy.” Draping herself on him, she did Mae West, but Leslie Wetzon got the benefit of Silvestri’s arm around her waist.
    The doorman’s mouth hung open.
    “I’m on the job,” Silvestri told Walsh, trying to keep a straight face. “I’ll take it from here. Thanks for your trouble.”
    Wetzon blew a kiss to Walsh. “Thank you, my Galahad.”
    “Enough. Come on,” Silvestri said, steering her onto the elevator. Back against the wood paneling, she unfastened one platform shoe and massaged her foot, then repeated the process with the other. He took out his cell and made a call, breaking up every time he glanced at her.
    “She’s here. Yeah. I don’t know. Okay, but a little weird. No. Go on. We’ll see you later.” He returned the cell to his inside pocket. “Where the hell were you? Rita went back to look for you.” He was trying to be stern but was having a hard time of it.
    “I took a header in the alley and knocked myself out. Patrice found me and fixed me up.”
    “I would never have guessed.”
    “I stopped traffic,” she said with some pride. “That’s why I got a police escort.” She rolled her shoulders and tilted her pelvis at him. “Actually, I think I look pretty good—”
    “For a midget transvestite.” He was laughing again. “Come on, here we are.”
    Rita Silvestri’s apartment was tiny, but choice, just as she’d described. They stepped into a small foyer, rust-glazed walls, a Hudson Valley scene, and a Shaker style love seat, a nice mohair throw. Galley kitchen off to the right and straight ahead, a decent sized living room with the same rust-glazed walls, a plump sofa in a beige stripe, a wooden trunk coffee table full of empty glasses and half-read newspapers, and two small club chairs in milk chocolate velvet. On the floor a Chinese patterned rug, beige with blues and yellows. And all around, the terrace.
    “Nice,” she said.
    He came up behind her, and she turned into him, brushing her face against his shirt. The eyelashes peeled off and fell on the rug. “Les, I went nuts when you weren’t here.” He removed the angora jacket and tossed it on the sofa. His gun and holster followed. Same with the black wig.
    “We left a message on your machine.” She unbuttoned his shirt, taking her time, fingers glancing skin, feeling little electric shocks.
    He detached the black net overskirt and stepped back and circled her. “Mmmm. Hot stuff, kid. You have it all over Patrice.”
    “I should hope so, big boy,” she said, with a pelvic grind.
    “That’s some boob corset. Is that all you?”
    “It’s a bustier.”
    “Good place to hide something. This is a security issue. Requires a body search,” he said, pulling her into the bedroom.
    “Rita,” she said.
    “She had an appointment.” He pushed the quilt aside and pulled her down on top of him as he worked the hooks on the bustier. The laugh started deep inside him. She could feel it filling him and then her. “Socks,” he said.
    Elbowing him, she said, “I’ll thank you to stop laughing and make love to me.”
    “Socks.”
    The bathrobe was white terry. Rita’s. Silvestri had wrapped her in it after their shower. Her lip was swollen, the cuts and scrapes raw from the hot water. She doctored herself and dried her hair while Silvestri ran over to Bleecker Street for a couple of John’s pizzas and a six pack.
    Now curled up on the sofa under the mohair throw, she thumbed through the latest issue of The Voice , the Greenwich Village newspaper that became the voice of the left in the sixties. How different Silvestri was. Or could it be she was seeing him from another dimension? Through refracted light.
    When he came back lugging their dinner and saw her lying on the sofa, it was obvious. It could only be described as joy. He dumped the clutter from the coffee table onto the floor and set the boxes down, piled up napkins, opened two beers. Pizza filled the small apartment with a luscious fragrance. She set The Voice aside.
    Handing her a slice, he said cheerfully, “You ought to stay out of the ring.”
    “You’re different, Silvestri,” she said, filling her mouth with pizza. “Oh,