The Groaning Board Read Free Page B

muscular was it. Which is why fitness shoes over white socks
over panty hose was de rigueur. Olive Oyl feet all over town. Oh, yes.
    Wetzon wasn’t in her Reeboks today,
and although she wore only one-inch heels, her feet began to protest. It was a
legacy from her years as a dancer. Dancers, present and past, ex and otherwise,
always had a host of foot problems.
    When she came to the Delacorte
Theater, where free Shakespeare was performed all summer, every summer, thanks
to the late Joe Papp’s obstinate lobbying, she sat on a park bench. Slipping
off her shoes to massage her feet, she thought about the afternoon.
    What was there about Smith that
attracted her to crazy people—and vice versa? Like those bacteria that are
scattered over an oil spill. Wetzon had felt it the minute they’d walked into
The Groaning Board. Gregory, who seemed to be in charge of the shop, was
flyaway gay, with his touch of pink lipstick, blue eye shadow, and false
eyelashes. He had “the voice-gene,” as her friend Carlos would say. The other
person behind the counter when she and Smith had arrived had been pretty little
Ellen, the girl on the suitcase.
    “Crazies,” Wetzon said aloud,
slipping her feet into her shoes, letting a man in an automated wheelchair whir
past her before she got up.
    He was talking on a cellular phone.
“The Pacific Rim,” he said. “Emerging... there are several that meet my
criteria.” From a wheelchair, no less, and in the middle of Central Park.
    As she walked westward again,
Wetzon’s mind moved to the search she and Smith were doing for Bernard’s Bank.
A multilingual individual with a private banking background as well as some
retail sales from the brokerage side to cover Latin America. Specifically Brazil and Argentina. The bank wanted the person to work from New York. She actually had found four
people who fit the specs, but all were in Miami and refused to come back to New York. Getting to Latin America from Miami made for an easier lifestyle.
    Dusk was settling over the Park now.
Wetzon switched her heavy bag to her other shoulder and began to fast-walk. It
was then she noticed that someone was keeping pace with her.
    Don’t make eye contact, she warned
herself, wishing her heels would sprout wings.
    Still, there were plenty of people
about—the dog walkers and joggers—so not to worry. Then the person spoke.
    “Leslie Wetzon,” he said.
    She stopped and looked at him. He
wore running shoes, shorts, and a clean white V-necked tee, from which white
chest hairs protruded.
    “I thought it was you,” he said.
    “Have you been following me?”
    Bill Veeder laughed, and the lines
around his eyes creased and multiplied. That might have made him ugly, or even
frightening, but it did not. In laughter, his features softened, became more
youthful. Yet everything about him was cold. Blue eyes like a winter sky. Hair
almost white. Tall, with the lean, hard body of a runner. “I suppose you might
say that,” he said. “I’d just done my six miles when I spotted you near the
Delacorte and backtracked. I’ve been meaning to call
    »
    you.
    “Me? Why?”
    Bill Veeder had been Richard
Hartmann’s law partner. Hartmann, the Mafia lawyer and Smith’s late great
lover, had been assassinated by the very people he represented when it became
known he was naming names. Whether Veeder was dirty too, Wetzon didn’t know and
didn’t much care, though there was no denying he was a very attractive man.
    “I thought we’d have dinner one night
and discuss it,” he said.
    “Discuss what?”
    “A business proposition. I understand
the Wall Street headhunting business has slowed down considerably.”
    A little warning bell pinged in
Wetzon’s brain. Now who could possibly have told him that? Smith, of course.
She had undoubtedly kept in touch after Hartmann’s murder.
    “Oh? A business proposition, huh?”
Wetzon dug into her briefcase for her card, found it, and held it out to him.
    “No need.” Veeder