The Groaning Board

I’ll know where you are until we get this
business straightened out.”
    “My God, the cassette. It’s still in
my apartment.”
    “No,” he said. “It’s here. I took
it.”
     
    She wasn’t in good shape. She’d
dropped the phone twice, trying to make her call. Her hands vibrated as if her
brain were sending some kind of garbled warning signal.
    When she finally punched in the
numbers and heard the ring, she almost hung up.
    Then he answered, “Yeah?”
    “Silvestri—”
    “Jesus Christ, Les, it’s five A.M.”
    “Silvestri, he called me.” She was
whispering into the phone in the bedroom, although with the shower on, Bill
wouldn’t be able to hear anyway.
    “Speak up, goddammit,” Silvestri
said. “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “Stop shouting at me.” She hung up on
him.
    “Leslie?” Bill stood in the doorway
in a short terry-cloth robe, diamonds of moisture in his hair, concern on his
face. “Nice shower?”
    “Who were you calling?”
    “Don’t be angry.”
    “Why would I be angry?”
    “I called Silvestri because he’s
working on Sheila Gelber’s murder. I told you that Sheila got the same message
on her machine before she died.”
    “Okay.” He sat on the bed beside her.
“What did Silvestri say?
    “ He started
yelling at me. So I hung up on him.”
    “ Give me his
number.”
    “ You’re going
to call him?”
    “ Why not?” He
took the phone from her and punched in the number she’d given him.
    He held the receiver away from him
and Wetzon heard Silvestri shout, “Goddammit, where the hell are you?”
    “She’s with me, Silvestri.” Bill
looked at Wetzon and smiled, stroked her hair back from her face. “She had a
frightening message on her answering machine, like the one Sheila Gelber
received before her death. No, she’s fine. But this creep seems to know where
she lives. I didn’t want her staying there alone.” He covered the mouthpiece
and said to Wetzon, “He wants to
come over.
    “Okay.”
    “Come ahead. Museum Tower. Thirty-second floor.” After replacing the receiver, he said, “Get dressed. I’ll make
some coffee.”
    A short time later while she was
putting her hair up into its topknot, he came into the dressing room and gave
her a mug of coffee. “I thought I’d cancel my appointments and we’d spend the
day together,” he said.
    Wetzon was taken aback, covered her
confusion by sipping the coffee. He would do that for her? “I don’t want you to
do that,” she said. “I’m going to the office and get on with my life. I can’t
hide, and I don’t want him to see he got to me.”
    “Him?”
    She shrugged. “With those distorting
gadgets, could be a her, I guess, but it feels like a him.”
    “Todd Cameron?”
    “Seems as if it might be something
he’d enjoy doing, but I don’t think so. I’ve been getting these calls since
April, in the office and at home. Artie Metzger—-do you know him?— he was
Silvestri’s partner and Sheila Gelber’s brother-in-law— told me how to report
it and the phone company gets the info to him. All we know is that some came
from a phone in Saks.”
    “Not exactly an isolated place.”
    “There’s a piece I’m not seeing,
Bill. Something I should know....”
    Silvestri’s arrival was announced by
the concierge, then signaled by Izz’s shrieking leap at the door.
    “You don’t look too bad.” He gave
Wetzon the once-over, nodded at Bill Veeder.
    “Thanks,” she said drily.
    “You have the tape?”
    Bill handed Silvestri the cassette
from Wetzon’s answering machine.
    Silvestri looked at the cassette,
then dropped it into his pocket. “Let’s go, Les.”
    “Go? Go where?”
    “Wait a minute,” Bill said.
    “We’re going to get some breakfast
and then we’re going to the lab. I want the guys to compare this with the other one.”
    “I’m going with you,” Bill said.
    “Forget it, Veeder.”
    “Hold on there, Silvestri.”
    Wetzon put her hand on Bill’s arm.
They were getting all pumped up on her. “It’s okay, Bill. I’ll call you when I
get to the office. You’re not going to keep me long, right, Silvestri?” He
looked down at Izz, who was trying to get his attention. “I’ll take you to your
office myself.”
    “Will you excuse us a minute,
Silvestri?” Wetzon said. “Take ten. Izz and I are going for her constitutional.
Where’s the leash?”
    As she left the room to find the
leash, she heard the two men talking. The leash was hanging from the