Free Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4) by Annette Meyers

her. Then it was noon and she couldn’t waste any more time.
    The big suitcase had to be unpacked, her lingerie and sweats put in the empty bureau drawers. When she reached the bottom of the suitcase, she found the black leather box containing the gun and sat on the bed and stared at it for a moment. It went into the drawer under her panty hose. Knowing Silvestri, it wasn’t loaded. Nothing to worry about. Besides, she wouldn’t know how to check it anyway.
    She dressed in her black leather pants and red silk shirt, put a bit of gray shadow on her eyelids, some blush on her cheeks. A neutral lip gloss. Brushed out her braid and rolled her hair up into her usual dancer’s knot on top of her head.
    The phone rang. Should she let the machine catch it? She did.
    Hi, there, came a voice , only it came out Ha, thar . I surely think I must have the wrong number.
    Wetzon grabbed the phone. “Hold on, Laura Lee.”
    Her friend Laura Lee Day had come to New York a decade ago to be a concert violinist and, having to support herself, took a job with Merrill Lynch as a stockbroker. Wetzon had met a lot of stockbrokers who were or had been musicians. It was a strange combination: music and finance. When Wetzon got Laura Lee’s name as a confidential referral, she’d cold-called her and they’d become acquaintances, and then friends. Wetzon had moved Laura Lee to Oppenheimer, where she was a top money manager. She was even managing Wetzon’s money.
    Because of her classical music background, Laura Lee attracted successful people from the arts and had built a broad, if demanding, client base. As with many successful financial managers, for many of her clients she had become more than a financial consultant. She fulfilled the various roles of mother, sister, friend, and even therapist. She was godmother to her clients’ children and peacemaker between clients who divorced. It took its toll on her, but Laura Lee’s good humor always bubbled close to the surface, and she rarely let most situations get to her. The stock-market crash in ’87 had so freaked her and everyone connected with the market, there was nowhere to go, she said, but up.
    “Who is the charmer on your answerin’ machine? What haven’t you told me, darlin’?”
    “Nothing, only that I was flooded out of my apartment last night, and for the duration, I am living in Carlos’s loft in the Village,” Wetzon said. “And don’t say I could have called you, please.” She heard the defensiveness in her voice, and kicked herself. That’s what Smith always did to her.
    “Far be it from me to criticize, darlin’, but you are actin’ uncharacteristically cranky, so it must have been truly terrible.”
    “Truly. The idiot upstairs fell asleep and let his tub overflow. I had Niagara Falls. I’ve got to get someone to give me an estimate. Oh, shit, Laura Lee.”
    “Get a grip, darlin’, it’ll be okay. Think of the fun you’ll have redecoratin’, and I’m here to tell you your accounts are up thirty-two percent this year, so you can spend—”
    “Oh, who cares, Laura Lee? Who cares?”
    “Darlin’, let me ask you somethin’. Did you get injured in this flood?”
    “No, but—”
    “Do you have a life-threatenin’ illness?”
    “No.”
    “Need I say more?”
    Wetzon swiped at her eyes and sighed. “Oh, you’re right, of course. You’re right. I’ve just had two really bad days, which began when my next big placement got himself murdered the morning he was supposed to start at Loeb Dawkins.”
    “Oh my, Brian Middleton. Was he yours?”
    “You knew Brian, Laura Lee?”
    “I met him once. Recently, too. And to tell the truth, darlin’, I wasn’t impressed. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but what a sleaze. He was interviewin’ here, through another headhunter. And you know how they like to parade li’l ol’ me past these prospects. Anyway, they brought him in to say hi, how’re you.”
    “Wait a minute. Did you say he was working