38.

WETZON WATCHED AS Smith squeezed the bacitracin ointment from a tube onto the gauze bandage.

“Hold this,” Smith said, handing her the bandage. “I’m going to wash the blood off again. If you’d sat still, it wouldn’t be bleeding like this.”

“If I’d sat still, we wouldn’t have heard Neil tell Ellie about what could be a policy meeting on the salaries, and we wouldn’t have heard Hoffritz threaten her—ouch. That hurt.”

“Give me that.” Smith wrapped the wound loosely with the bandage.

“It’s going to slip off.”

“I’m not going to make it too tight because it’ll stop your circulation. Just sit still.” She rolled adhesive tape expertly on the top and bottom of the bandage and dumped everything back willy-nilly into the first-aid kit.

“Here, I’ll do that,” Wetzon said, taking the kit and putting the cap back on the tube, rolling up the gauze.

Smith washed her hands in the sink and dried them on another clean towel. “I’m starving,” she announced.

“So am I.” Wetzon did a waist bend and picked up the bloodstained remnant of her skirt from the floor. Regretfully, she dropped it into a plastic-lined garbage pail under the sink.

“Well, let’s get out of here then. Ellie’s obviously gone out to that meeting.” Smith chuckled. “Or maybe she went out with dear Johnny Hoffritz.”

“Laugh,” Wetzon said, “but dear Johnny Hoffritz—all of them, in fact, have sold us out. I wonder what Ellie has on him. Do you suppose he killed Goldie and Ash?”

“Oh, Lord,” Smith sighed. “If they wanted to put brokers on salary, and Goldie was against it, it was very convenient for him to die. How’s your wound?”

“Actually ...” Wetzon flexed her leg. “It’s okay. You did a good job—Mom.” She flexed again and winced. Pink stained the bandage.

“Why do you sound surprised?” Smith was pouring coffee into the two waiting cups. “Don’t yap about caffeine, please. A little stimulation will do you good, sweetie, perk you up.”

They drank the hot coffee slowly, both lost in their own thoughts.

“There goes my theory about Goldie being killed by accident,” Wetzon said.

“Oh, Hoffritz wouldn’t be such a fool.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Hmmmm, well, they were pushing Goldie out—”

“What if he threatened to go public with their plans before they could get everything in place?”

“I don’t know, sweetie. It’s very confusing.”

“I was certain that Carlton Ash was getting money for keeping something quiet. Now I don’t know.”

“How do you want to handle it?” Smith put her empty cup on the saucer.

“What?”

“The announcement, of course—if that’s what it is—about salaries.”

“I think we should not send them any more brokers, collect what they owe us and start raiding them with a vengeance. The really entrepreneurial brokers will want to leave.” Wetzon took the cups and saucers to the sink, rinsed them, and stacked them in the dishwasher.

“I’m inclined to agree with you. What do you think the meeting at Neil’s is about?”

Wetzon shook her head. “Don’t know. Maybe the brokers are strategizing, too.”

“How about organizing?” Smith walked into the living room, leaving all the kitchen drawers and cabinets yawning. “I have to pee.”

Wetzon picked up the first-aid kit, closed the drawers and cabinets and followed her. “Where did you find this?” She held up the kit.

“In the sink cabinet in the second bathroom. I’m going to use Ellie’s.” Smith ran up the stairs and disappeared.

Wetzon followed her slowly, one step at a time. Her wound had stiffened and felt numb. From the top of the stairs she looked back down at the living room. There was something empty and forlorn about it. She shuddered, dreary thoughts.

She found the light switch on the right-hand wall in the guest bedroom and turned on the light. Two lamps on either side of the bed came on.

The first-aid kit went back under the sink in the bathroom, then she washed her hands and face, dried herself with a guest towel. In the medicine cabinet, she found a bottle of moisturizer and rubbed it into her face and hands. We are certainly making ourselves at home in Ellie’s house, she thought with a spasm of guilt, as she wandered into the guest bedroom. It was a pretty place. Girlish, almost. The one-eyed teddy bear stared knowingly at her.

“Smith?” Smith didn’t respond, but Wetzon heard the toilet flush and the water running.

The window had white ruffled curtains with tie-backs, over closed pink slat blinds. Several books rested on the bedside table, next to a photograph in a silver frame. Guest room or not, this had a personality. You could almost feel it. David Kim? No, certainly not. This was a feminine presence.

She went into Ellie’s austere bedroom and knocked on the closed dressing room door. “Smith! Come on!”

“I’ll be right out.”

She ambled back into the pretty bedroom. The windows must look out over the garden. New Yorkers would kill for a garden. She wondered how Ellie had fixed it up. Every garden in Manhattan was a tiny, unique pocket of a place. It was probably too dark now to see it.

Wetzon opened the pink blinds and looked down. Moonlight drizzled through the dark fuzz of the hot June night. Glazed light came from surrounding apartment windows. She could make out a high fence, a tree, a glimmer of water—perhaps a Lilliputian fish pond—bushes, yard furniture. A striped umbrella attached to a white metal table was open, shading moonbeams.

Positioned near the tree was a cushioned chaise, its back to the windows. Someone had left a towel or piece of clothing on it. She stared down, thinking, choked, backed up into Smith, whom she hadn’t heard come into the room.

“Excuse me,” Smith said.

“Smith—” Wetzon pulled the side cord of the blinds and opened them up and away from the windows.

“What are you doing?”

“Smith, look down there. What do you see?”

Smith glanced down at the garden. “A garden. A big one. This building must be worth a fortune.”

“Smith,” Wetzon nudged her. “Look at that chaise. What do you see?”

“What do you mean ... oh, dear God!” She grabbed Wetzon.

Wetzon broke away from her, forgetting about her knee, and made for the stairs.