Free The Big Killing by Annette Meyers Page B

giggle. “We’ll take everything out piece by piece so we can put it back in the same way we found it.”
    “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this at all,” Wetzon said, but her interest was piqued, and she knew she was in just as deep as Smith. “We are probably breaking the law.”
    They looked at each other and grinned.
    “Let’s make a list of what we find.” Wetzon took her Filofax out of her handbag and flipped over the calendar and address pages to where she kept the note pages.
    “Ready?” Smith asked. “We’ll start here and leave this stuff in the accordion file for last.”
    The attaché case had a large basic compartment and an accordion compartment attached to the inside cover. Smith flipped open the cover to the bottom compartment.
    “Okay, here we go. One: research reports and prospectuses from Shearson, Bache, Merrill Lynch, Paine Webber, Alex Brown, his firm ... my God, he has reams of this stuff here.”
    Barry had a network of friends at all of the firms, and they were a never-ending supply of research for one another. Brokers with an instinct for self-preservation tended to develop these reciprocal relationships, cultivating sources other than their own firm’s research. They had to, because brokers swore that their firms were almost never right, and by the time the stock was recommended to the broker’s clients, the institutional investors had already bought and sold the stock and it was on its way down. It was a business of one hand washing the other, in one way or another. A business of tradeoffs, real and psychological.
    Smith stacked the reports on the carpet next to the case.
    “Two: A Gucci address book. Wouldn’t you know. And a very nice one, too,” she said, turning it over in her hand. “I’d like to look this over more closely, but we may not have the time.”
    “What’s this?” Wetzon pulled out a large white, lumpy plastic bag. It was stamped YORK HOSPITAL in horizontal blue block letters. “It feels like snack food—M and Ms, nuts and stuff.”
    “There’s another one under here,” Smith said, pulling it out.
    Wetzon opened the snap and looked in. “Jesus,” she murmured.
    “What is it?”
    “Wait a minute. Give me that ashtray.” With rare obedience, Smith reached for the large frosted glass ashtray on the night table near her bed. A fragment of surprise skirted past Wetzon’s subconscious.... What was an ashtray doing in Smith’s bedroom? She didn’t smoke.
    Wetzon emptied the contents of the plastic bag into the ashtray. Capsules spilled out, a myriad of colors, shapes, and sizes. Pills and plastic vials grew into a huge mound.
    “So—the big rock-candy mountain,” Smith said softly.
    “Do you believe this? What’s in the other bag?”
    Smith snapped it open and peered inside. “More of the same. And there’s another bag back here.”
    “Don’t touch it. Let’s just put everything back where it was. It makes me nervous. Hold this for me.” Wetzon thrust the empty plastic bag at Smith and, while Smith held it, poured the contents of the ashtray back into it.
    For once Smith was silent. She snapped the bags closed the way they’d found them and tucked both bags back into the case. “Your poor Barry was into a lot more than new issues, just as I always said,” she murmured. “Not so poor Barry, after all.”
    “It gives me the creeps,” Wetzon said. “Let’s quit this.”
    “Wait a sec,” Smith said. “Look.” She had pulled out a minicassette recorder. She turned it over. “There’s a cassette in it, half-used. We’ve got to listen,” she said eagerly. “It might be important.”
    She had taken the towel turban off her head. Excitement had brought out her vivid coloring and her dark hair had dried full and wavy.
    Wetzon was excited, too. It couldn’t hurt them to know what the tape said. She pressed the rewind button on the tiny recorder and waited for the small click. Then she pressed “play” and Barry’s voice came