Tender Death by Annette Meyers

come to you.”
    “You always put other people before me, even strangers come before me,” Smith said, sulking. “I am your dear and trusted friend.” She sat down to pull on her boots.
    Sometimes you are , Wetzon thought, watching her. You are certainly my most demanding friend. But she said, “Not fair, Smith. You know when you really need me, I’m there.”
    “Humpf. And who are you bringing to my table tonight? Silvestri, perhaps?”
    “No, he’s working,” Wetzon lied, not daring to look at Smith.
    “Of course, I don’t have to tell you that disgusting pervert is not welcome in my house,” Smith said.
    “Smith.” Wetzon’s voice held a warning. “I will not let you talk about Carlos like that, and if you continue to, you will not see me at your party either. And by the way, when he calls me, I expect you to give me the message. He’s my oldest friend.”
    “It’s just a wee bit like having Typhoid Mary as your friend, don’t you think?” Smith stamped out and slammed the door, leaving Wetzon furious and unfulfilled. The war between Smith and Carlos had been initiated by Smith, although Carlos was a willing participant. They— Smith in particular—now lavished guerrilla attacks on each other and Wetzon was always caught in the cross fire.
    She sat down at her desk again and wrote Maurice Sanderson’s appointment with Curtis Evans in her calendar.
    It was dismaying that the firms did not want to hire senior brokers unless they had huge books and a very active business, which was not very likely. As a broker aged he usually stopped increasing his client base; he expended less energy. His client base aged with him. To the firms, it was all a matter of money. Real estate was costly, overhead was an expensive burden, space was at a premium. Management felt it was more efficient to give desks to younger brokers who were in the process of building a client base. By law, Smith and Wetzon were not permitted to ask a candidate’s age, but their clients wanted to know, so they did, circuitously. “What college did you go to, Joe? Oh really? What year did you graduate?” It wasn’t difficult, given that information, to guess the candidate’s age.
    The older broker had become a dinosaur. He usually did a clean business, did not hustle his clients, pitched only stocks he was comfortable selling, like the Dow stocks, and generally acted like the family doctor, building close relationships with clients. But more and more, the larger firms gave lip service to service, pressuring younger brokers to build up gross production, sell, sell, sell. The young brokers swiftly saw the emphasis was on selling the firm’s product whether it was good for the client or not.
    Wetzon had observed the brokerage business change radically over the last three years. The large firms pushed the broker to sell in-house products, and the young brokers generally did because the tickets for these products were bigger. The older brokers stuck to the stock and bond business, taking seriously the old name for stockbroker, “customer’s man.”
    She respected these older brokers. They had dignity and class and longevity. They considered what they did a profession. They were not in it for the big killing.
    Odd, how she kept coming back to aging. Hazel, Peepsie Cunningham, Maurice Sanderson, even the scam Peter Tormenkov had alluded to. Teddy Lanzman’s TV series on the elderly. Wait a minute. She looked at her watch. Three-thirty. The phones had gotten very quiet. She opened the door to the reception area.
    “What’s going on?” she asked.
    “Everyone’s leaving early because of the storm,” B.B. said.
    “Tell you what—”
    Harold came out of his cubbyhole and stood in the doorway.
    “Tell you what,” Wetzon said, “we’ll wait till the Market closes at four and shut down ourselves. Just tell me when you’re leaving.” She went back into her office and closed the door.
    In her address book she found Teddy Lanzman’s