Ed Mcbain - Nocturne

By the time he was ready to begin making his calls, his trimmed-down list seemed like a one... Sort of.

The way the joke goes, a woman is telling a woman about her son in medical school, and she's referring to him as a doctor. The other woman says "By you, your son is a doctor. And by your son, son is a doctor. But by a doctor, is your son a

By Byrnes, Carella was Italian. And by Carella was Italian. But by an Italian, was Italian?

Lorenzo Schiavinato asked for an interpreter. The interpreter's name was John McNalley.

He had studied Italian in high school one because he'd wanted to become an opera singer. never did get to sing at La Scala or the Met because he had a lousy voice, but he did have a certain with language, and so in addition to interpreting for the police and the courts, he also worked for publishers, translating for worthy books from the Italian and Spanish.

He still wanted to sing opera.

McNalley informed Lorenzo that he was charged with murder in the second degree. In this state, you could be charged with Murder One only you killed someone during the commission of felony, or if you'd been earlier convicted of murder, if the currently charged murder was particularly wanton, or if it was a contract killing, or if the victim was a police officer, or a prison guard, or

prisoner in a state pen, or a witness to a prior crime, or a judge all of whom, according to one's personal opinion, might deserve killing.

Murder Two was killing almost anybody else.

Like murder in the first, murder in the second was also an A-1 felony. In accordance with the new law, Lorenzo was looking at the death penalty at worst, or fifteen to life at best, none of which added up to a tea party on the lawn.

Naturally, he asked for a lawyer.

He was an illegal alien in the United States of America, but, hey, he knew his rights.

Lorenzo's lawyer was a man named Alan Moscowitz. He was a tall angular man wearing a brown suit and Vest, looking very lawyerly in gold-rimmed spectacles and shiny brown shoes. Carella disliked most defense attorneys, but hope springs eternal so maybe one day he'd meet one who wouldn't rub him up the wrong way. Moscowitz didn't understand Italian at all. The melting pot realized.

They read Lorenzo his rights in Italian, and he said he understood them, and Moscowitz ascertained, through back-and-forth interpretation, that his client understood Miranda and was willing to answer whatever questions the detectives posed. The questions they posed had to do with shooting an eighty-three-year-old woman at close range in cold blood. Lorenzo didn't much look like a man who'd committed murder, but then again not many murderers did. What he looked like was a slightly bewildered Robert Redford who spoke only basic English like Me Tarzan, You Jane.

The back-and-forth, in English and Italian and

English again, went this way.

"Mr. Schiavinato..."

Very difficult name to pronounce. Skeeahve nah-toe..

"Mr. Schiavinato, do you know, or did you know, a woman named Svetlana Dyalovich?"

"No."

"How about Svetlana Helder?"

"Her granddaughter told us... did you know she had a granddaughter?"

"We've been talking to her. She told us things we'd like to ask you about."

"Umo"

"Mr. Schiavinato, did you deliver to Miss Stetson at the Hotel Powell the key to a pay locker at the Rendell Road Bus Terminal?"

"No."

"Delivered it on the morning of January

twenty-first, didn't you?"

"No."

"Miss Stetson says you did."

"I don't know who Miss Stetson is."

"She's Svetlana Dyalovich's granddaughter."

"I don't know either of them."

"Locker number one thirty-six. Do you remember that?"

"No, I don't."

"Where'd you get that key?"

"I don't know what key you're talking about."

"Did Svetlana Dyalovich give you that key?" "Nobody gave me a key."

"Did Svedana Dyalovich ever come to your stall at the Lincoln Street Fish Market to purchase fish for her cat?"

"No."

"Early in the morning, this would have been."

"No."

"Every morning."

"No. I don't know this woman."

"Ever go to her apartment?"

"How would I? I don't know her. I don't know where she lives."

"Her neighbor down the hall told the granddaughter you went there to deliver fish one morning."

"I don't know her or her neighbor. Or the granddaughter, either."

"Then you never went to 1217 Lincoln Street,

apartment 3A, is that right?"

"Never."

"Mr. Schiavinato, I show you this weapon tagged as evidence and ask if you've ever seen it before." "Never."

"Didn't you buy this pistol from a man named Jose Santiago..."

"No."

"On the night before..."

"No."

"... Svetlana Dyalovich was murdered?" "No."

"Didn't you telephone her a few minutes before you bought the gun?"

"Mr. Schiavinato, we have here a tele company record showing that a call was made from a wall phone at a club called The Juice Bar at one- A.M. this past Friday night to a telephone listed to Svetlana Helder at 1217 Lincoln Street..." "Cosa?"

The precinct's civilian stenographer read back the question. McNalley the interpreter translated it Lorenzo and his lawyer. Moscowitz nodded that it was okay to answer it.

"I don't know who called this woman,"

he said, "but it wasn't me."

"Weren't you in The Juice Bar that night at

A.M.?"

"No. I don't know this place."

"Uptown in Riverhead?"

"No."

"Harris Avenue? Uptown?"

"No."

"Mr. Schiavinato..."

Such a damn difficult name to pronounce.

"Mr. Schiavinato, do you know a man named Bernard Himmel?"

"No."

"Bernie Himmel?"

"No."

"Benny Himmel?"

"No."

'Bernie the Banker Himmel?"

"I don't know any of these people."

"Never placed a bet with him, huh?"

"Never. Any of them."

A good imitation of a Robert Redford smile. Hawes wanted to smack him.

"Ever place a bet with him on the Super Bowl?" "What is this Super Bowl?"

Smack the fucking smile off his face.

"Steelers against the Cowboys?"

"I don't know what any of this means." "Twenty grand on the Steelers?" "What is twenty grand?"

"You lost the bet. Because of the point spread." "What is a point spread?" "Twenty grand gone in a wink." "What is a wink?"

"He sounds like Jeopardy t. ," Carella said.

"Please, Detective," Moscowitz warned, raising an eyebrow.

"Sorry, Counselor," Carella said, and raised his own eyebrow. "Mr. Schiavinato, didn't you lose twenty thousand dollars on the Steelers-Cowboys game?"

"I never had twenty thousand dollars in my entire life."

"You had it when you paid your marker, didn't you?"

"I don't know what a marker is."

"A promise to pay money you owed."

"I don't owe anybody money. I have an honest job. I do honest work."

"You owed Bernie Himmel the twenty thousand dollars you lost on the Super Bowl, didn't you?"

"No."

"You went to see him on Friday night..."

"... and he told you he'd kill you if you didn't the money by Sunday morning."

"I don't know who you're talking about."

"Bernie Himmel. Your bookie. Bernie the B You're a gambler, aren't you, Lorenzo?"

"Sometimes I bet on horse races. At the OTB. B don't know this man you're talking about."

"Then you don't remember him telling you to get money or you'd be swimming with your little fishie

"I don't know him. How could he tell me this?"

"After which you went directly to the wall

telephone..."

"No."

"... and called Svetlana Dyalovich. Why,

Did you want to make sure she'd be out of her apartment when you went there to burglarize it?" "Cosa?" he said again.

The stenographer repeated the question. M translated it. Moscowitz cleared his throat.