Nocturne (30 page)

“Cash or bank check?”

“Don’t know.”

“What
do
you know?” Parker asked.

Carella merely looked at him.

“We know the guy’s name,” Hawes said.

“
If
he killed her,” Parker said.

“Whether he killed her or not, we know his name.”

“But not where he is.”

“Check the airlines,” Brown suggested. “Maybe he
did
go back to Italy.”

“And we’ve got a clear chain of custody on the murder weapon,” Carella said.

“Running from where to where?”

“Registered to a private bodyguard named Rodney Pratt, stolen from his limo on the night before the murder …”

“Who boosted it?” Kling asked.

“Guy named Jose Santiago.”

“The famous bullfighter?” Parker asked.

This was a line he’d used before. The expression was his way of putting down anyone of Hispanic descent. Byrnes had heard
rumors—which he tended to disbelieve—that Parker was now living with a Puerto Rican girl. Parker? Sleeping with a famous bullfighter?

“The famous
cock
fighter,” Hawes corrected.

“He fights with his cock?” Parker asked.

No one laughed.

Parker shrugged.

“So what do you figure?” Byrnes asked. “An interrupted burglary?”

“If the hun-twenty-five was in the apartment, yes.”

“What’d
you
find when you tossed it?”

“Us?” Meyer asked.

“You.”

“Dead fish stinking up the joint.”

“Piss, too,” Kling said.

“Cat piss.”

“Are we back to the cat again?” Byrnes asked.

He was not noted as an animal lover. When he was ten, a pet turtle named Petie had suddenly died. Also a canary named Alice
when he was twelve. And when he was thirteen, his mother gave away his pet dog named Ruffles. For peeing all over their apartment.
Which apparently Svetlana Dyalovich’s cat had been fond of doing, too. He did not want to hear another word about the dead
woman’s dead cat.

“Be nice if cats could bark, huh?” Parker said.

“Be nice if we could get
off
the goddamn cat,” Byrnes said. “What else did you find?”

“Us?” Kling asked.

“You.”

“Nothing.”

“No money, huh?”

“Nothing.”

“So maybe it
was
a burglar.”

“The cat could explain those stains on the mink,” Carella said.

“What stains?” Brown asked.

“The fish stains. They could’ve got on the coat that way.”

“There were fish stains on the coat?” Brown asked.

Byrnes was watching him. Eyes narrowing, scowl deepening. He was looking for something. Didn’t know what yet, but looking.

“If she fed the cat raw fish, I mean,” Carella said.

“How do you know there were fish stains on the coat?” Byrnes asked.

“Grossman,” Willis said. “I took the call.”

“She was wearing a mink while she fed the goddamn
cat
?” Parker said.

“Are you saying the cat might’ve rubbed up against her?” Brown asked.

“No, these were near the collar,” Carella said.

“Near the
collar
?”

“I took the call,” Willis said again.

“Well, what’d Grossman say, actually?” Byrnes asked.

“He said there were
fish
stains on the coat.”

“Near the
collar
?” Brown asked again.

“High up on the coat,” Willis said, and opened his notebook. “These are his words,” he said, and began reading. “ ‘Stains
inside and outside, near the collar. From the location, it would appear someone held the coat in both hands, one at either
side of the collar, thumbs outside, fingers inside.’ Quote, unquote.”

“I can’t visualize it,” Brown said, shaking his head.

“Okay to use this?” Willis asked.

“Sure,” Byrnes said.

Willis picked up a magazine from Byrnes’s desk, handed it to Brown.

“Hold it with your fingers on the front cover, thumbs on the back cover.”

Brown tried it.

“That’s how Grossman figures the coat was held.”

“You mean there were fingerprints?”

“No. But he thinks somebody with fish oil on his or her hands held the coat the way you’re holding that magazine.”

Brown looked at his hands on the magazine. Everyone in the office was looking at his hands on the magazine.

“Didn’t you say she was wearing a
wool
coat?” Kling asked.

“Yeah. When she went down to buy the booze.”

“When was that?” Byrnes asked.

“Eleven o’clock that morning.”

“The day she was killed?”

“Yes. Half an hour after she made the bank withdrawal.”

“Something’s fishy here,” Byrnes said, not realizing he was making a pun, and not realizing how close he was, either.

When Priscilla and the boys drove up in a taxi at eight that morning, the superintendent of Svetlana’s building was out front
with the garbage cans, wondering if the Sanitation Department would ever start pickups again. Priscilla told him she was Svetlana’s
granddaughter, and he expressed his deepest sympathy, clucking his tongue and shaking his head over the mysteries and misfortunes
of life. They chitchatted back and forth for maybe three or four minutes before he finally mentioned that Mrs. Helder’s closest
friend in the building was a woman named Karen Todd, who lived just down the hall from her.

“Probably there right this minute,” he said. “Doesn’t leave for work till about eight-thirty.”

Georgie fell in love at once with the slender young woman who opened the door to apartment 3C. He guessed she was in her mid-twenties,
a very exotic-looking person who reminded him of his cousin Tessie who once he tried to feel up on the roof when they were
both sixteen. Tessie later married a dentist. But here was the same long black hair and dark brown eyes, the same bee-stung
lips and high cheekbones, the same impressive bust, as Georgie’s mother used to call it.

Karen was just finishing breakfast, but she cordially invited them into the apartment—batting her lashes at Georgie, Priscilla
noticed—and told them she had to leave soon, but she’d be happy to answer questions until then. Although, really, she’d already
told the police everything she knew.

Priscilla suggested that perhaps the police hadn’t asked her the same questions they were about to ask.

Karen looked puzzled.

“For example,” Priscilla said, “did you ever happen to notice a tall blond man visiting my grandmother’s apartment?”

“No,” Karen said. “In fact, I did not.”

“How well did you know the old lady?” Georgie asked kindly.

Karen looked at the clock.

Then she gave them much the same information she’d given the police, telling all about her and Svetlana sipping tea together
in the late afternoon, listening to her old 78s …

“It reminded me of T. S. Eliot somehow,” she said again, and smiled at Georgie, who didn’t know who T. S. Eliot was.

She told them, too, about accompanying Svetlana to her internist’s office one day …

“She had terrible arthritis, you know …”

… and another time to an ear doctor who told her she ought to see a neurologist. Because of the ringing in her ears, you know.

“When was this?” Priscilla asked.

“Oh, before Thanksgiving. It was awful. She was crying so hard in the taxi, I thought her heart would break.”

“And you’re sure you never saw her with a tall blond man?”

“Positive.”

“Never, huh?”

“Never. Well, not
with
her.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think he went inside.”

“Inside?”

“Her apartment. But one morning, when she was sick …”

“Yes?” Priscilla said.

“He brought fish for the cat.”

“Who did?” Tony asked.

“A tall blond person.”

“His name wouldn’t have been
Eliot
, would it?” Georgie asked shrewdly.

“I have no idea what his name was.”

“But he brought
fish
to her apartment?” Tony said.

“Fish. Yes.”

“But didn’t go in?”

“Well, actually, I don’t really know. I was leaving for work when he knocked on her door. Svetlana answered, and he said …
mm, yeah, that’s right, wait a minute. He
did
give her his name, but I don’t remember it. It was something very foreign. He had a foreign accent.”

“Russian?” Priscilla asked.

“I really don’t know. He said he was here with the fish for Irina.”

“For Irina. So he knew the cat’s name. Which means he knew my grandmother, too. But he didn’t go in? When she opened the door?”

“Well, in fact I really can’t say. I was already starting down the stairs.”

“What
kind
of fish?” Georgie asked.

“I have no idea.”

“Where’d he
get
this fish?”

“Well, I would guess at the fish market, wouldn’t you?”

“What fish market?” Priscilla asked.

“Where Svetlana went for the cat every morning.”

“And where’s
that
?” Priscilla asked, and held her breath.

“Let’s try a timetable on this thing, okay?” Byrnes said. He was getting exasperated. He didn’t like little old ladies in
faded mink coats smelling of fish getting shot with a gun stolen from a limo that had transported a fighting rooster uptown.
He didn’t like animals, period. Turtles, canaries, dogs, cats, fish, roosters, cockroaches, whatever.

“Where do you want us to start, Pete?” Carella asked.

“The gun.”

“Belongs to a man named Rodney Pratt. Licensed. Keeps it in the glove compartment of his limo. Car breaks down Thursday night,
he takes it to the nearest garage off the Majesta Bridge. Place called Bridge Texaco. Forgets the gun in the glove box.”

“Okay, next.”

“How do you know
he’s
not the murderer?” Parker asked.

“We know,” Hawes said, dismissing the very idea.

“Gee, excuse me for fucking
breathing
!” Parker said.

“Next,” Carella said, “they work on the car all day Friday. One of the mechanics, guy named Jose Santiago,
borrows
the car, quote unquote, to drive his prize rooster uptown that night to a cockfight in Riverhead.”

“Excuse me while I puke,” Parker said.

“Puke,” Kling suggested.

“A fuckin
bird
in the backseat of a
limo
?”

“So puke,” Kling suggested again.

“Santiago’s bird loses. He finds the gun in the glove box, decides to shoot the winning bird, changes his mind when the Four-Eight
raids the place. He goes to a nearby after-hours joint called The Juice Bar …”

“I know that place,” Brown said.

“… where this tall blond son of a bitch we’re trying to find is meeting with a bookie named Bernie Himmel who tells him he’s
gonna be swimming with the fishes unless he pays him by Sunday morning the twenty grand he lost on the Cowboys-Steelers game.”

“
Swimming
with the fishes,” Hawes corrected.

“What?”

“He stressed the word ‘swimming.’ ”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“He told Schiavinato he’d be
swimming
with the fishes.”

“As opposed to what?” Meyer said. “
Dancing
with them?”

“I’m only telling you what I heard.”

“Let me hear the rest of the timetable,” Byrnes said.

“Okay. Saturday night, a quarter to twelve, we get a DOA at 1217 Lincoln Street, old lady named Svetlana Helder, turns out
to be Svetlana Dyalovich, the famous concert pianist.”

“I never heard of her,” Parker said.

“Two to the heart,” Hawes said.

“I saw that picture,” Kling said.

“Was that the name?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Next morning, around seven, we get a dead hooker in an alley on St. Sab’s.”

“Any connection?”

“None.”

“Then why bring her up?”

“A policeman’s lot,” Carella said, and shrugged.

“He also called them the
blond
guy’s fish,” Hawes said.

“I’m lost,” Parker said.

“So am I,” Byrnes said.

“Himmel. The bookie. Bernie the Banker. He said they didn’t have much to talk about after he mentioned Schiavinato swimming
with his little fishies.”

“I’m
still
lost,” Parker said.

“Yes, can you please tell us what the hell you’re driving at?” Byrnes asked.

“
His
little fishies. Not
the
little fishies, but
his
little fishies.
Schiavinato’s
little fishies.”

Everybody was looking at him.

Only Carella knew what he was saying.

“The cat,” Carella said.

“Not the goddamn
cat
again,” Byrnes said.

“She went out every morning to buy fresh fish for the cat.”

“Where’d you say her apartment was?” Parker asked, suddenly catching on.

“1217 Lincoln.”

“Simple,” Parker said. “The Lincoln Street Fish Market.”

“
Selling
fish,” Meyer said, nodding. “As opposed to
swimming
with them.”

A
t eight-fifteen that morning, the Lincoln Street Fish Market was not quite as bustling as it had been between four and six
a.m
. when fish retailers from all over the city arrived in droves. As Priscilla and the boys pulled up in a taxi, only housewives
and restaurant owners were examining the various catches of the day, all displayed enticingly on ice—well, enticingly if you
liked fish.