Tender Death

by Annette Meyers

  “Excuse me,” B.B. interrupted. “I have a message for Wetzon.”

  “Really, B.B., this is most unprofessional,” Smith snapped angrily.

  “It’s okay, Smith. What’s the message, B.B.?”

  “Hazel Osborn called. She’d like you to call her.”

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Then you may hang up, B.B.,” Smith said. The chill in her voice was powerful. There was an immediate click.

  “Smith, really. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “He should have given me the message to give to you, Wetzon. What if I was on an important call and he interrupted like that? You’re much too easygoing. That’s why everyone always takes advantage of you.”

  “What—” Oh, forget it, she told herself. “Smith, do me one favor.”

  “Anything, sugar.” Sweetness dribbled across the telephone lines.

  Wetzon switched the receiver to her other ear. “If Silvestri calls, tell him where we’ll be—Katerina’s and then Yorkeby’s. Okay?”

  “Well, of course, I will. You can count on me.”

  She hung up the phone, put another quarter in the slot and punched out Hazel’s number. The line was busy.

  She went out on to Sixth Avenue. Michael Stewart wasn’t around, so she crossed the street, heading for Fifth Avenue. The backstage entrance to Radio City Music Hall was about quarter of the way down the block and the door was open. The dancers were taking a break, eating, gossiping.

  Wetzon stopped for a minute and watched the group of girls in dance work clothes, high-cut leotards, shiny tights, leg warmers, plastic sweatpants, T-shirts and sweatshirts, towels rolled around long thin necks. She closed her eyes for a minute, breathing in the nostalgic smell of perfume, sweat, and makeup, and felt a tiny tug of yearning which drew her closer to the door, like a voyeur.

  “Wetzon! Is that you?” She opened her eyes. One of the dancers pulled away from a group.

  “Margie.” Wetzon went right through the open door and hugged the lithe creature, a flashier double of herself, with a reddish Clairol’d topknot. Margie’s breastbone and collarbones were particularly pronounced. There wasn’t a drop of extra flesh on her.

  They stood holding each other, arms on arms.

  “You look wonderful—”

  “So do you.”

  “Not since Chorus Line—”

  “Remember—”

  “How are you?”

  “What’ve you been doing?”

  “Headhunting? My God, how about Carlos?”

  “You ought to call him.”

  “I’ve meant to. I will. I’ve been here for the last six months. I’m lucky to have it—steady work, I mean.”

  “Your little girl—”

  “Eight now. Do you believe it? Darren’s on the Coast. He got married again, you know.”

  “I didn’t know.” Makeup could not cover the age lines around her eyes and mouth.

  “Break’s over.” The dancers began moving into the depths of the Music Hall’s backstage area.

  “Time to go back, I guess.”

  “I guess.” Wetzon felt wistful.

  “Take care, Wetzon.”

  “You, too, Margie. Call Carlos.”

  “I will.”

  The meeting with Margie Lewis depressed Wetzon. Old dancers. What did they do? They were lucky to get jobs like Radio City. What could they do? She no longer felt like shopping. When she got to Saks, she went to the phone booths on the street floor and tried Hazel again.

  A heavily accented woman’s voice answered after four rings. For a moment Wetzon had déjà vu. The woman sounded like Ida.

  “I’m very sorry. I must have the wrong number. I was calling Ms. Hazel Osborn.”

  “You haff correct number” the voice said. “Ms. Osborn iz resting.” “Who is this?”

  “I am Basha. Home attendant.”

  46.

  WETZON WANDERED THROUGH the designer boutiques on the second floor of Saks, unable to focus on the clothes. She had left a message with Hazel’s home attendant that she would call again; so taken aback was she by the home attendant that she hadn’t even left her name.

  “Is there something in particular you’re looking for?” The sleek young saleswoman with the Caribbean tan and sun-streaked hair was an unwitting intruder. Chunky gold bracelets clunked as the woman straightened the clothes on the sale rack. “We don’t have too much left in your size.”

  Wetzon stared blankly at her. “Thank you. I was just thinking—I’m sorry—looking.”

  But she was just thinking. Was this home attendant part of Hazel’s mysterious plan or was Hazel now so sick she couldn’t fend for herself anymore?

  “No,” she said under her breath. It couldn’t have happened that fast. Worried now, she went down the crowded escalator to the street floor and waited impatiently for a man in a shearling coat, a notepad and a beeper resting on the ledge, to relinquish the phone.

  She called Hazel’s number.

  “Hello.” Good. It was Hazel. Wetzon was so relieved she swallowed a lump in her throat which kept her from responding immediately. “Hello?”

  “Oh, Hazel, it’s you.” She sat down on the tiny corner seat in the phone booth, shaky.

  “Hello, dear, how are you?” Was Hazel’s voice a little strange, a little more formal than usual?

  “It’s you I’m worried about. I’m fine.”

  “I’m really doing quite well. Basha is just wonderful. She is taking such good care of me, aren’t you, Basha? I would really love a cup of hot tea, Basha, please.”

  “I take it she’s standing right there?”

  “Of course, I would just love it if you and your nice young man want to come by tonight.”

  Wetzon heard a faint click as if someone had picked up the phone and was listening. Wetzon responded, “We thought we’d stop by for a bit after dinner. How’s that?”

  “Lovely, dear.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  “No, no. I am being wonderfully cared for.” There was another click now as if someone had hung up. Then Hazel whispered, excitement like a fever in her voice, “Call me later.” The connection was broken.

  Wetzon put another quarter in the phone, ignoring the growing line of impatient people. She called the Seventeenth Precinct for Silvestri. She got Metzger.

  “He’s still downtown,” Metzger droned.

  “Ask him, when he calls in, or gets uptown, if he can meet me at Hazel Osborn’s about seven o’clock. It’s important. I’ll call back later.” Wetzon yielded the booth to an effete man in an ankle-length black mink coat and a pale blue Tiffany’s shopping bag. She buttoned her coat, turned up the collar, and walked up Madison Avenue to the Burger Heaven on Fifty-fourth Street. There was time to stop for a burger before she met Smith.

  The restaurant was crowded. She ordered her favorite, a Roquefort burger, rare, and brewed decaf, then slipped her coat off and draped it over the back of the chair. Dishes clattered, voices—loud and modulated—with Asian, Indian, Brooklyn, and New York accents, blended.

  Why did Hazel want to see Silvestri? Did that mean she was onto something? All the same, when she called her again, Wetzon was determined to ask Hazel the name of the home care service she was using. The one Teddy had mentioned had the unforgettable, creepy name Tender Care.

  The burger oozed meat juices and melted Roquefort cheese. She stared at the bloody mess on her fingers and her plate and gagged, setting the half-eaten remnants down. She put her napkin over the plate so she wouldn’t have to look at it, covering the body. It was like a flashback. She found a Wash ‘n Dri in her carryall and wiped her hands and mouth.

  “Here’s your coffee, dearie.” The waitress set the cup down in front of her. “Are you finished with that burger?”

  Wetzon nodded. Efficiently, the woman cleared the plates from the next table as well, stacking them on her arm as she worked, wiping down the table for the next customers. She was a
pleasure to watch—a real professional—well over fifty, Wetzon guessed, lined, heavily made-up face, yellow-pink-dyed hair, strong, very pronounced muscles in her arms and shoulders. This was her career and it was obvious; she was not just another performer waiting for a big break as so many waiters and waitresses in Manhattan were.

  Smith was getting out of a cab in front of the Galleria on Fifty-seventh Street as Wetzon approached the building, and they went up in the elevator together.

  “Any calls for me?” An unshaven man in a soiled trench coat stared at them openly. Wetzon studied him out of the corner of her eye. He was wearing corduroys that hung too far over his worn blue Adidas with knotted laces.

  “Nothing important. Laura Lee Day. Howie Minton. The usual psychic vampires.” Smith stuffed her gloves into the inside pocket of her mink coat.

  “Smith, you are so uncharitable.”

  “I am not a charity.” She played with the diamond-and-emerald ring, rolling it around and around on her finger.

  “Anything with De Haven?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, tell, for godsakes.” Wetzon edged away from the man in the trench coat. Was he FBI? No, he couldn’t be. He was too messy. The belt of the trench coat had slipped from one loop and dragged on the floor.

  Smith’s laugh bubbled. “It’s a done deal. He signed a contract!”

  The elevator stopped at the eighteenth floor, and the man in the trench coat picked up his canvas briefcase and got off. Wetzon’s relief was extreme; she was getting decidedly obsessive.

  “How long were you going to let me wait?” she grumbled at Smith.

  “Oh come on, Wetzon.” Smith shook her arm. “Lighten up. Count the gorgeous dollars, you dummy. Money, God, how I love it.” She hugged herself and closed her eyes.

  Jesus, Smith was having a goddam orgasm about the fee. “When does he start?”

  “Monday!”

  “That’s quick. Why is he going so fast? Do you think he has a problem?”

  “Oh, Wetzon, you are so suspicious. The only problem is they want to cap the fee.”

  “What? How much?”

  “At fifty thou.”

  “Oh no! They want to cheat us out of thirty thousand dollars. What did you say?”

  The elevator opened on the fortieth floor. “Here we are,” Smith said.

  The women stepped into a large white-and-silver salon with pale gray upholstered sofas and chairs in the waiting area. A dark-haired woman wearing an open pale gray lab coat sat at a clear Lucite desk. She wore gray hose on her long slim legs, and high-heeled, open-toed gray shoes. On the desk in front of her were a phone and an appointment book. A Lucite nameplate said Lois-Jane Lane. Two women, perhaps in their late thirties or midforties, in expensively tailored sports clothes, sat on the sofa, chatting. A plate of carrot sticks on ice slivers was on a small Lucite cart near them. They looked up, appraising Smith and Wetzon.

  “I said,” Smith drawled slowly, “‘Joe, I’m afraid we have to kill the deal, then.’”

  “You did? You really did? What did Joe say?” Wetzon loved how Smith played hardball with the boys.

  “Listen, sugar, I knew how much he was drooling for De Whoozis. I knew he wouldn’t kill it. I settled it with a cap at seventy-five.”

  “The dirtbag took us for five.”

  “Yeah, well I figured after-tax dollars for us—I could afford to be generous.” She fluffed her hair and grinned at Wetzon. “You have to let them win something in a negotiation.”

  “You did great, Smith.”

  “Ladies?” Lois-Jane Lane smiled at them. She wore just enough makeup to highlight her smooth, translucent skin. The two women on the sofa went back to their conversation but kept their eyes on Smith and Wetzon.

  Smith said imperiously, “I’m Xenia Smith and this is Ms. Wetzon. We have two-thirty appointments.”

  “Yes, uhum.” Lois-Jane checked off their names with an immaculately cared-for hand. Her nails shone with a pale matte gold. She pressed a small white button on the desk and moments later a svelte woman with a long thick fringe of straight blonde hair appeared. She, too, wore a long crisp pale gray lab coat over a charcoal-gray cashmere sweater and skirt and had clear, beautiful skin.

  “Ms. Smith, Ms. Wetzon. Please come with me,” the blonde said. She had a slight accent and a Lucite name tag on her lab coat that said Margot.

  They were led up a broad curved staircase, carpeted in pale gray plush; the walls were papered in gray-and-pink peppermint stripes.

  “Katerina and Saskia will be with you shortly,” Margot said, opening the doors to two side-by-side rooms. “There are hangers for your clothes. You may put on the robes and sit comfortably. Enjoy your facials, please.” She smiled a cool, reserved smile without opening her lips.

  Wetzon waved to Smith and entered a white-on-white room, empty except for a large white Naugahyde extension chair that was made to tilt back and become a massage table. A pink-and-gray quilted throw lay over the footrest part of the chair. On one wall were glass-enclosed shelves containing row upon row of jars and bottles. A small pink-tinted globe hung from the ceiling.

  Stripping down to her camisole and half-slip, Wetzon hung her coat and clothes neatly on the hangers and wrapped herself in the pink-and-gray robe. The room was cool. She pulled off her boots and sat back in the Naugahyde chair, covering herself with the pink-and-gray quilted throw.

  “Hello, hello!” The door opened. “I see you make comfortable. Good. Good. I am Saskia. I take good care of you.” Saskia, a woman of indeterminate age, small, with curls of unnatural auburn pinned back under a gaudy floral and rhinestone hair clip, spoke with a Slavic accent. She smiled at Wetzon through glossy pink lips, showing crooked, yellow teeth. “Sit back. Rest.” She pressed her hands solidly on Wetzon’s shoulders, then covered Wetzon’s hair in a tight paper turban. “First I clean face.” She wet a wad of Kleenex and twisted it expertly into a cool cover for Wetzon’s eyes, tilting the chair back into a reclining position.

  Wetzon could hear bottles opening and closing. Saskia’s hands flew over Wetzon’s face with a soft cream cover, a wipe-off, an astringent, another layer of cream, and finally a slow, gentle massage of the cream into the skin. With her eyes per force closed under the cool cover and the warm cream being massaged into her face with fairy fingertips, Wetzon felt her body releasing, ping, ping, ping into deep relaxation. “Enjoy, enjoy.” Saskia’s soft voice was soothing, hypnotic. “Now vee clean pores.” The voice came from a great distance. A door closed. A door opened. “I have hot, very hot herb pot. I put towel here.” She covered Wetzon’s head with a bath towel. The heat was wonderful. She smelled lavender and chamomile essences. “You rest now,” Saskia said. “I come back ten minutes. Sleep.”

  Wetzon lay in the chair and the herbal heat, almost dozing under the towel. She could hear her own breathing magnified, and she could hear the faint murmur of Smith’s voice from the room next door. What did Smith have to talk about? Who wanted to talk during a facial?

  A woman sobbed softly. “I beg you.”

  A voice whispered, “No ... dangerous ...” and then lapsed into what sounded like Russian.

  “They send me back.” Crying again.

  “Shshsh. My clients ...” Russian in harsh whispers.

  The voices, one voice in particular—the tone.... Wetzon forced herself out of the heavy stupor and pushed the hot pot of herbs away. She swung her feet to the gray carpet, displacing the small quilted throw to the floor. Listening, she could no longer hear the voices. She crept to the door, opened it, and looked out. The corridor was empty. She stepped out of the room. Smith’s room was on the left. She edged to the right. She came upon an open space, a small kitchen. On the stove, pots of hot herbs simmered, waiting to be put to work steaming open pores. No one was there.

  A large, round woman in a gray lab coat and bleached blonde hair rounded the corner and saw Wetzon. “Oh, miss, you should not be here. Should be in room. Vhich room? Who is your—”


  “Saskia.” Wetzon knew she looked a horror in her robe and turban, grease on her face. Well, everyone looked like that here.

  The plump woman took her arm firmly and steered Wetzon back to the room, waiting until she sat back in the chair and then covered her with the quilted throw. “I send Saskia. Must be more patient.” The woman smiled a decidedly unfriendly smile and left, closing the door behind her.

  Wetzon lay uneasy in the chair until she was sure the woman had gone. Could she have dreamed the fragment of conversation? Throwing off the quilt again, she rose and shook some change from her wallet. She was sure she had recognized the voice of one of the women who may have been in the kitchen area, the one who was crying. It was Ida.

  47.

  WETZON STOOD AT the end of the peppermint-striped hallway at a white pay phone mounted in the open on the wall and punched out Silvestri’s direct number at the Seventeenth Precinct. The phone rang about twenty times. A click finally intercepted the ring, and the ringing continued as a buzz. A woman’s voice answered, “Rodriguez.” The sound was garbled; Rodriguez was eating her lunch.

  Wetzon could hear laughter in the background. “I’m looking for Sergeant Silvestri.”

  “Not here.”

  “How about Metzger?”

  “Not here.”

  Damn. “Did they say when they’d be back?”

  “No,” Rodriguez said through swallowing noises. “Anything I can do?” She sounded bored.

  “I don’t think so. Tell them Ms. Wetzon called.” She started to hang up and had a thought. “Hello?”

  “Yeah?” Rodriguez’s voice was muffled again. She had gone back to eating.

  “Can you give me the number of the Detective Squad at the Nineteenth Precinct?”

  Wetzon hung up quickly, repeating the number over and over in her head, put a quarter in the slot, and punched out the numbers, jiggling from one foot to the other, listening to the ringing.

  “Galvin.”

  “Sergeant O’Melvany, please.” Over her shoulder, she saw Saskia round the corner down the hall and stop short when she caught sight of Wetzon on the telephone. “I’ll be right with you, Saskia,” she called hurriedly, putting her hand up to keep her away.