Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

it was glamorous. They saw themselves as detectives, searching out the best candidates for the positions their clients had to fill. It seemed appropriate that even the biographical profile forms they filled out for each prospect were known as “suspect sheets.”
    The Street called them and those like them, headhunters, and they didn’t mind. Away from the Street, recruiting professionals were executive recruiters, or search consultants, and “headhunter” was a derogatory term. But the Street admired toughness and rewarded piracy. Success and power were what counted. And money brought both.
    Smith and Wetzon’s clients were not ordinary business people; they were the movers and shakers of the all-powerful financial community. The Street with a capital S.
    While Smith and Wetzon were not really insiders, they were not outsiders either. Thus, they were in a perfect position to see every problem objectively and give the client an overview.
    They were truly an odd couple. Smith had come out of personnel, and Wetzon had been a Broadway dancer. That together their names were memorably similar to the gunsmith’s served only to amuse them, but they used it to enhance their singularity. They were women in a man’s world.
    They’d been together over fifteen years and had done extraordinarily well, through feast and famine, on the Street. Smith concentrated on business development—bringing in clients—and Wetzon recruited stockbrokers, the division of duties coming mainly because Smith loathed brokers and was very proprietary about their clients.
    Over the years the shape of Smith and Wetzon’s business had changed gradually. They found they were in demand for a fair amount of management consulting, fees paid with slightly more regularity than those for headhunting.
    The phone rang. She stared at it. Oh, well, she thought.
    “Smith and Wetzon, good morning.”
    “Les, where’s your cell? I’ve been trying to get you.”
    “In my briefcase. Shit, the batteries are probably dead. What’s the matter?”
    “Marty Lawler called yesterday while I was entertaining the FBI. I just spoke with him.”
    “Is he okay?”
    “They sent him home, so I guess. He has something he wants to show us.”
    “Us? Me and you?”
    “Is there another us?”
    She smiled. “Where does he live?”
    “Washington Heights. Where’re you going to be?”
    “Dialing for dollars.”
    “I’ll pick you up at six. And Les—”
    “Yes?”
    “Replace those batteries.”
    “Silvestri—” He’d hung up, but the line was still open. “Silvestri? Are you still there?” It went dead. She’d been about to ask when the media would get hold of the news about Bill Veeder, but it was just as well.
    She dug Rita Silvestri’s card from her purse and called Clo Hightower. An answering machine clicked on, announced, “Law Offices, Hightower and Claeson,” and suggested leaving a message. She left her name, phone number, and Rita Silvestri’s name.
    A muffled sound came from below. She went to the top of the stairs expecting to see someone, but no one was there, and no other unusual sounds, muffled or otherwise, were discernable.
    Extra batteries were in her desk drawer; a quick exchange brought her cell phone back to life. She opened the doors of the wall unit, turned on CNN, bracing herself for the announcement about Bill Veeder and further emotional turmoil. Mug in hand, she walked to the tall windows that looked out at the deck.
    The mug bobbled; coffee and mug hit the floor, exploding china and liquid.
    A man stood on the deck and he was pointing a gun at her.

40
    H E OPENED the door, never taking his eyes—or his gun—off her. “Back against the wall with your hands up,” he said, motioning with the gun. “Don’t come any closer, Miss—” He was looking past Wetzon, talking to someone else.
    “Oh, for pity sakes!” Smith rushed into the room, her Manolo stilettos, nicking the floor. “It’s Wetzon, my partner. Wetzon, you’ve made a mess of our floor.”
    “Strange how coffee trickles right into the nicks from your heels.” Had Wetzon been holding the mug, there was no question in her mind she would have thrown it. Not at the man with the gun, who was doing his job for a security company that Smith had apparently engaged while Wetzon was away, but at Smith.
    Smith humpfed. She dismissed the security man with one of her imperious gestures. “You may go. Your response should have been better. We could have been raped