Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

and despicable Richard Hartmann. It was through Smith, who was having a torrid affair with Hartmann, that Wetzon had first met Bill Veeder. The affair had ended badly for Smith but worse for Hartmann. As his illegal activities were being investigated by the D.A., Hartmann came to a violent end.
    Something about the way Smith said “So kind” caught Wetzon’s attention. “You slept with him.”
    Smith’s tears were a torrent.
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    More tears. “It was right after Dickie—we were consoling each other.”
    “I’ll bet.”
    “He was a beautiful man. We didn’t want you to know because I knew you’d take it this way.” More tears.
    “Okay, okay.” Wetzon put her arm around Smith. Would it have made a difference, she wondered. It might have. But all that was history now.
    “He called me only a few weeks ago,” Smith said, blowing her nose into the mascara smudged tissue. “He’d been trying to reach you and was getting worried.”
    “You told him I’d taken a leave of absence?”
    Smith nodded. “Actually, I thought you were with him, and when you weren’t, I began to worry that you’d had some kind of breakdown. I mean, who in her right mind would reject a proposal from Bill Veeder?”
    “He told you all this?” My God, Bill, she thought, how little you understood me.
    “I helped him pick out the ring, which was gorgeous and wildly expensive. I do those things for you, you know, and I never even get a thank you.”
    “Goddammit, Smith! This was between me and Bill. Oh, never mind,” she said, seeing the hurt on Smith’s face. Smith would never, ever get it. “It’s in the past now.”
    The television was showing pictures of McLaughlin’s estate in New Jersey and interviews with neighbors. Wetzon turned up the sound in time to hear a wrap-up of the earlier information and was about to turn off the set when Bill’s picture came up on the screen again.
    “Look at him,” Smith sniffled. “He can’t be dead.”
    “Shush,” Wetzon said. “They’re making some kind of announcement.”
    “ ... just received some new information in our newsroom, information you’ll only see on CNN. One month ago, William Veeder notified the SEC and federal prosecutors in Manhattan that he would be representing the interests of missing financier, Jason McLaughlin.”

41
    I T WAS astonishing. Not that Bill Veeder was Jason McLaughlin’s lawyer because that was logical when you thought about it. What else would Bill have been doing there?
    What was astonishing were the number of phone calls for Wetzon that came surging in, as if some metaphysical entity had alerted all of Wall Street that “sheeeee’s back.”
    “Take a message,” she told Cheryl, whose job it was to cover the phones when Max wasn’t there. “Tell them, I absolutely swear I will return every call before lunch.” And then there were the calls from the media. “Tell them no comment.”
    “It’s great to have you back, Wetzon.” Sean rose, leaned across his desk to shake her hand. His dark gray suit was more Hugo Boss than Brooks Brothers, but his white shirt was crisp, his tie a conservative blue and red stripe.
    “And you’ve done very well. I think you’ve gone way beyond rookie, Sean.”
    “I’ll be happy when they pay their bills,” he said. “I’m still working on my draw.”
    “Yes, well, brokerage firms don’t like to pay headhunters until ninety days after the broker sits, and even then they tell us the check is in the mail. That’s why we have to present them with squeaky clean brokers; otherwise, all our hard work goes down the toilet.”
    “But if the broker lies—”
    “Believe me, it can happen, no matter how carefully we scrutinize the broker’s record. We can’t control that. And we can’t control what happens after the broker joins the new firm. The firms say we’re responsible no matter what. They’ve even demanded their money back after six months have gone by.”
    “We don’t have to give it to them, do we?”
    “We’ve returned half to keep our clients happy. But that’s rare. If the broker behaves himself and there are no problems on his U5, and he does business, they’ll eventually pay.” She held up her hand with crossed fingers.
    Sean smiled. “And if he’s clean but doesn’t bring over all his business?”
    “If he’s working on it, it’ll be okay, but if he’s sitting out his deal, that’s another story.” Since headhunters were paid by the