The Groaning Board

she
thought. Smith figured what I had to say could wait on whatever she had on her
agenda first. What was on her agenda anyway? Wetzon checked Smith’s datebook.
Time was blocked out between nine and eleven that morning, but Smith’s scrawl
was illegible. Damnation.
    She shuffled through her suspect
sheets, made a follow-up phone call to a manager about an interview the
previous day. “How did it go, Frank?”
    “I think it went great. I want him. I
don’t know if he liked me, though. Find out what he thought.”
    “I’m sure he thinks you’re great,
Frank.” Salesmen are all the same, Wetzon thought. And Wetzon was a salesman,
no question. We want people to like us—hell, love us—so we’re constantly trying
to prove ourselves lovable. “I’ll talk to Rich and get you some feedback.”
    When she got the broker on the phone,
she asked, “So, Rich, what did you think of Frank?”
    “He’s never going to float my boat, Wetzon.”
    “Can you live with him and a check
for half a mil?”
    “I said he’s never going to float my
boat, Wetzon, not that I’m stupid enough to turn down half a mil.”
    “Fine, then, I’ll let him know you
want to go forward.” So it went. She reported back to Frank that Rich really liked him. Everybody lying to each other. For money.
    For love.
    Silvestri was wrong about Bill. It
was Silvestri who had an ulterior motive. He wanted to poison the well. That’s
right, Wetzon, you, my dear, are the well. But she felt certain that if her
interests and one of Bill’s client’s interests were on a collision course, the
Bill she’d come to know would opt out of the client relationship.
    On the deck, the sun had about burned
off the haze as Wetzon began her third cup of coffee. Where the hell was Smith?
She leaned back in the deck chair.
    “Wetzon?”
    She jerked awake. Where was she?
Jesus, on the deck. Sound asleep.
    “Wetzon, excuse me.” Max stood in the
doorway. He looked sick.
    “What’s the matter, Max? Are you all
right?” She got up and they went inside. The phones all seemed to be ringing at
once. No one was answering them.
    “No, yes. It’s—” Max was incoherent.
    “Smith? Has something happened to
Smith?”
    “No, Wetzon.” He picked up the phone.
“Smith and Wetzon, good morning. She’ll have to call you back.” Answered the
next line the same way, and the next. When he finally replaced the phone he
said to Wetzon, “I think you should come downstairs.”
    She followed Max down the stairs.
Something wasn’t right. She could feel it. “Max? Where’s Darlene?”
    “I don’t know. It was like this when
I got here.”
    Like this meant, the usual stack of
suspect sheets atop Darlene’s desk was not there, her knickknacks were gone.
The filing drawer in her desk was open and empty. The top of Max’s desk was
similarly cleaned off.
    “Well, well, well,” Wetzon said,
hands on her hips. “The worm has turned.” And she’d done all her mischief that
very morning right under Wetzon’s nose.
    The months of breather calls had been
a campaign designed to upset and distract Wetzon, while Smith was already
distracted by show business. They had been so easy.
    “I don’t get it,” Max said. He
grabbed the phone when it rang again. “Smith and Wetzon, good morning.” Looking
at Wetzon, he said, “She’s right here.” He handed Wetzon the phone. “It’s
Smith,” he said.
    “Well, it’s about time. Where are
you?”
    “Listen to me, sweetie pie.” Smith
was breathless. “Are you alone?”
    “No, I’m downstairs with Max.”
    “Go upstairs where we can talk
privately.”
    “What’s going on, Smith?”
    “We have a problem. I know who
Darlene’s lover is.“
    “Do you really? May I hazard a guess?
It couldn’t possibly be Tom Keegen, could it?”
    A deathly silence, then Smith said,
each word dripping venom, “Don’t tell me.”

Chapter Fifty-Nine

     
     
     
    “That lying,
cheating little bitch is not going to get away with it.” Smith stood in the middle of the
office bristling. She pointed a magenta fingernail at Wetzon. “And you should
have suspected something was up.”
    “If we’re looking to place blame
here, I’m not the one who hired her and gave her a big cut and a fancy title.“
    “Now, ladies,” Shirley Boley
intervened, “recriminations are going to get us nowhere. Let’s just give her a
dose of her own medicine and hit her with a restraining order. Darlene stole
papers that belong to Smith and