Ed Mcbain: Nocturne

"Detective," he said, "my client has told you repeatedly that he did not know Svetlana D) did not know her granddaughter, and never went to her apartment on Lincoln Street. Nor does he know a bookmaker named Bernie Himmel or a guy named Jose Santiago. Now, if..."

"He's not a gun dealer."

"Excuse me, I thought he's supposed to have my client a gun."

"He did sell him a gun. But he's not a dealer. He pumps gas at a Texaco station."

"Whatever he does, my client doesn't know him."

Carella figured he kept calling him "my client" only because he couldn't pronounce his last name.

"So unless you have something new to..." "How about a clear chain on the gun, Counselor?" "You!" Moscowitz shouted, and pointed his finger at the stenographer. "Hold it right there." He turned to

Carella. "Is this off the record?" he asked.

"Sure."

The stenographer waited. Carella nodded.

"Then let me hear it," Moscowitz said.

"We've traced the gun from its registered owner..." "Named" "Rodney Pratt."

"TOT"

"Jose Santiago, who stole it from the glove compartment of Pratt's car..." "He's admitted this" "He has."

"And from there... ?"

"To Mr. Schiavinato here, who bought it from him for two hundred and fifty dollars."

"Well, this is where it begins to get speculative, Detective. But let's assume for the moment, arguendo, that my client did buy a gun from this man. How does that make it the murder weaponT"

"The bullets that killed Mrs. Helder and her cat were fired from it. We found them embedded in the door behind her body and the baseboard behind the cat. We recovered the gun itself in a sewer outside her building. The only thing we don't have is Mr. Schiavinato's fingerprints on the gun, and frankly..."

"Well, that's a very big negative, Detective.

could have fired the gun."

"Perhaps your client..." Byrnes said.

He couldn't pronounce the name, either.

"can explain why he telephoned the minutes before he bought the gun that killed her." "Why exactly did he call her, Lieutenant?" The weak spot.

Byrnes knew it, Carella knew it, Hawes knew it now Moscowitz had zeroed in on it: Why had he called Svetlana before buying the gun he later used to kill her?

"We think he was planning to burglarize her apartment," Carella said. "He called to find out would she be safe. When she'd be home."

It still sounded weak.

"Are you saying he called to ask her when she'd be home? So he could run right over to burglarize..." "Well, no, he didn't ask her flat out." "Then how did he ask her?"

"I don't know the actual conversation that took

"But you think he was trying to determine she'd be out of the apartment..."

"Yes."

"So he'd know when it would be safe to go into burglarize it." "Exactly." "In Italian" "What"

"This conversation. Was it in Italian" "Yes, it was. According to a witness." "Because he doesn't speak English, you see."

"I suspect he speaks some English."

"Oh. And why is that?"

"He sells fish to English-speaking people, I'm sure he must speak at least a little English."

"We'll have to ask him, won't we?" Moscowitz said, and smiled sweetly. "In Italian."

Hawes wanted to smack him, too.

"How long was this phone conversation, do you know?"

"No, I don't."

"The phone company would know, I suppose." "Yes, but..."

"Should we contact them?"

"Why?"

"Find out how long it took my Italian-speaking client to learn when his prospective victim would be out of the apartment so he could burglarize it."

He's trying his case right here in the interrogation room, Carella thought. And winning it.

"By the way, were there any signs of burglary at the scene?" Moscowitz asked.

"The window was open."

"Oh? This means a burglary was committed?"

"No, but Mr. Schievinato must have know there was money in the apartment..."

"Oh? How would he have known that?"

"He knew the woman. Talked to her every morning at the market. Even made a delivery to the apartment when she was sick one morning. She was a lonely old lady. She confided in him. And he took advantage of her trust."

"I see. By shooting her and killing her, is that it?"

"Yes"

"He was surprised during the commission of..."

"But I thought he called her to find out when she'd be out."

"Yes, but..."

"If he knew when she'd be out, how come he was surprised?"

"People come home unexpectedly all the time." "So he shot her. Was that after he found out that he supposedly knew that she was in the apartment?"

"It had to've been. He paid off his bookie the next day."

"Gave him twenty thousand dollars the next day that right?"

"Yes. Himmel told us..."

"A bookie," Moscowitz said, dismissing him with an airy wave of his hand.

"He had no reason to lie."

"Oh? When did bookmaking become legal?" "We offered no deals."

"How about offering me one?"

"Like what?"

"We all go home. My client included."

"Your client is a murderer."

"Who stole twenty thousand dollars from an old lady, right?"

"Maybe more."

"Oh? How much more?"

"She withdrew a hundred and twenty-five from her bank the morning before she was killed."

Moscowitz looked at him.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "Are you now saying he stole a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars from her?"

"I'm saying the money is gone. I'm saying twenty thousand of it was turned over to a bookie the following morning. I'm saying it's highly likely, yes." "Stole all that money and then shot her, is that it?" "Yes, that's it. That's what it looks like to us." "Detective, I'll tell you what. This is so preposterous that I'm going to ask that you stop the questioning of my client right this..."

"It's Schiavinato," Carella said. "Skeeah.veenah-toe." "Thank you. All we're doing here is going over the same tired ground over and over again. You're wasting everyone's time here, and I think you know a grand jury will kick this right out the window in ten seconds flat."

"I think not."

"We think not," Byrnes amended.

"Either way, let's quit. Right now."

"Sure," Carella said. "In fact, I have a suggestion." "And what's that, Detective?" "Let's hold a little lineup." Moscowitz looked at him.

"Let's drag Himmel and Santiago out of bed, and let's go wake up the man who saw your client kneeling over the sewer where we recovered the gun."

Moscowitz was silent for what seemed a very long time. Then he said, "What man? You don't have such a witness."

"Wanna bet, Counselor?"

"What I don't understand," Priscilla said, "is what happened to the other hundred and twenty."

"Me, too," Georgie said.

They were sitting in Lieutenant Byrnes's office Priscilla in the comfortable black leather winged chair behind the lieutenant's desk, the men in straight-backed wooden chairs across the room, near the bookcases. Outside the lieutenant's office was the squad room proper. They could hear a telephone ringing out there. Outside the grilled corner window" there was the steady sound of traffic on Grover Avenue and the intersecting side street. Beyond slatted wooden railing that divided the square from the corridor outside, in a little room with words INTERROGATION lettered on its frosted glass upper panel, Lorenzo Schiavinato was still being questioned. The little digital clock on the lieutenant's desk, alongside a picture of a woman Pr presumed to be his wife, read 10:32 A.M. The day beginning to cloud over. It looked as if it might snow again.

"He said she'd withdrawn a hundred and five from the bank, didn't he?"

"The cop, yeah," Tony said

"Told us a hundred and twenty-five, didn't he?" "Carella, yeah."

"So how come there was only five in the envelope Priscilla asked.