The Big Killing by Annette Meyers

true. “A personal meeting,” she said, “cements the relationship. I’d been talking to Barry on the phone for months—”
    “How did you get to him in the first place?”
    Wetzon pursed her lips, closing her eyes in thought. How had she gotten to Barry Stark in the first place? Ah, yes. “Georgie Travers gave me his name. His friend, Georgie, who worked with him at Merrill—”
    “Georgie Travers? T-R-A-V-E-R-S?” Silvestri made another note.
    “But Georgie is not at Merrill anymore. He owns the Caravanserie. You know, the disco with the health club attached.”
    Silvestri nodded. “What is Georgie Travers like?”
    “I don’t know him at all. Just a couple of conversations on the phone. He had a terrible reputation—unauthorized trading, churning, burning people out on options ... there were rumors about drugs. I think Merrill finally fired him, or he quit before charges could be filed. I don’t remember exactly, and I never met Georgie. But I think he and Barry were close friends.”
    “You’ve never been to the Caravanserie?” Silvestri asked, dubious, writing in his notebook.
    “No,” Wetzon said, feeling defensive, but unable to think why. “Have you?’
    The tall, baggy-eyed detective returned. “Excuse me—”
    “Metzger?” Silvestri stood up but didn’t leave the table. They spoke in low voices. The sounds came to her floating through that long tunnel again. Very far away, growing farther.

9
    The Caravanserie.
    She had taken Barry to Harry’s after meeting him at Jake Donahue’s that day. Harry’s was one of the favored watering places for stockbrokers in the Wall Street area. Everyone was pitching something, mostly himself, and everyone was celebrating his successful day or someone else’s disaster. It was a time for self-aggrandizement. And the numbers that were spoken of often came out of the air or someone’s very fertile imagination.
    Wetzon had always been amazed by the frenzied, almost hysterical voices and actions of all of these men, because there was definitely an abundance of men. It was as if the lunatics had been released from the asylum. So different from actors and dancers after performances. Actors and dancers, her people, preferred to cool out. The performance was a catharsis of a sort. Dancers did what they loved after a performance—they went dancing.
    For the stockbrokers and traders who came to Harry’s, Harry’s was the catharsis.
    “Hey, Barry, how’s it going, man?”
    Coming from bright light into the dimness, Wetzon had to blink several times to focus.
    “Hey, buddy,” Barry had said, “long time no see. How’s it going at Witter? You’re still there, aren’t you?” This last was said deprecatingly. “Buddy” was a short, very well-dressed young man with a deep wave in his light brown hair. It looked to Wetzon like a wave that had been made by a perm or a hair clip, helped along with setting lotion. A dip of hair fell across an unlined forehead.
    “Great, great. I’m having my biggest month. And I like Witter. It’s a great firm, and they’ve been good to me.”
    “Sure. Sure. I bet.”
    “What’re you pushing?”
    “Who’s your friend?”
    “Sorry, this is Wetzon, of Smith and Wetzon.” Barry laughed loudly. “This animal is Scott Fineberg.”
    Wetzon shook hands with Fineberg, not letting on that they had been talking for the past six months. On the telephone—they had never met. They had, in fact, been talking more seriously lately because Scott was ready to leave Dean Witter. He had made some record sales, upped his gross production 100 percent, but the firm still saw fit to treat him as if he weren’t there. He had to share a sales assistant with eight other brokers, so if he stepped out to the men’s room or to lunch with a client, or, heaven help him, he had a doctor’s or dentist’s appointment, chances were better than good that his phone would go unanswered.
    They had finally given him his own office, but it was a