The Big Killing by Annette Meyers Page B

ex.”
    So that was Mildred Gleason. One of Wall Street’s famous first ladies, Wetzon thought, and wouldn’t you know she’d be a gross woman who looked and talked like a man.
    “Boy, does she hate him,” Wetzon noted.
    “She has a right to, I guess.” Barry scowled. “She got him started. He used her money, then dumped her. He started as a broker at her father’s firm, married the boss’s daughter, took over the firm when the old man died, and changed the name to his. She gets pissed off when she even hears he’s hiring good people and making big money, making any money.”
    “But she has her own firm now, doesn’t she?”
    “Yeah, but I hear she’s not making money hand over fist like Jake’s doing. Jake’s raking it in. And she doesn’t get quoted all the time.” He laughed. “She can’t help being so mean, but I understand her. So I can say we’re friends of a sort. She’s just a little hard to take sometimes.” He was calming down.
    “What pyramid scam is she talking about?”
    “When some clients are put in a stock when it opens and others are put in when it’s run up, so the clients who get in at the bottom make the money and those who go in at the top make less—”
    “Or nothing.”
    “Or lose. But it all works out, believe me, because you give everybody a chance at one point or another to come in at the bottom, all except the creeps.”
    “What constitutes a creep?”
    “Someone who complains all the time that you’re not making enough money for him. Stuff like that.”
    “I see.”
    “It’s fair,” Barry said. She looked at him doubtfully. “Well, it’s as fair a shot as you’re going to get in the new-issues market anywhere.”
    “Even at Jake Donahue’s?”
    “Yeah.” He was only half-listening now. Barry, the social animal, was checking everyone out, his eyes darting everywhere with a kind of nervous intensity. They’d finished their beers, and Barry had stopped to talk with another broker to give him a tip on a new issue. Wetzon found a waiter and paid for the drinks.
    “Come on,” Barry said, “I’ll give you a ride uptown. Where’re you going?” He hailed a cab right outside Harry’s with a piercing whistle.
    “West Eighty-sixth Street.”
    “Good, then you can drop me.” He held the door for her, his assumption being that she would have taken a cab to get uptown anyway. But she would not have. She would have gone down into the pit of the IRT and subwayed home. A cab ride cost upward of twenty dollars, and Wetzon worked too hard for her money to throw it away on a cab ride on a nice day.
    “Where to?” the driver asked, bored. A pair of dice dangled from his rear view mirror and a small statue of the Virgin Mary sat on top of the dashboard. The radio played hard rock.
    “Sixty-fifth and York.” Barry turned to Wetzon. “I’m going to the Caravanserie. Great place. You been there yet?”
    “Not yet. I know your friend, Georgie Travers, owns it.”
    “Yeah, I’m the charter member. Got the first card ever issued.”
    “What exactly do you get for membership, besides a card?”
    “The health club, the racquet ball and squash courts, the pool, and let us not forget the disco. The disco is the best.”
    “You’re going to work out now?”
    “Not yet. Georgie uses the disco for networking sessions before disco hours. He has them once a month, from six to seven-thirty. I’m going to one right now. You want to come with me? It’s not your crowd tonight, it’s the entertainment industry, you know, show business.”
    She smiled at him. “You’re right, not my crowd. What does Georgie charge for this?”
    “Six bucks, with an invitation. I’ve made more contacts there than anywhere else, all business of course. You interested?”
    “I can’t tonight—”
    “I’ll get you on the list.” Barry spoke with a kind of self-important generosity. “A lot of brokers go there. I’ve opened a lot of big accounts through these sessions.”
    They