Chill of Night

56

Dust motes rioted silently in a shaft of morning sunlight lancing in between the drapes and casting a Picasso-like symmetry over the wall and bureau.

Nell’s bedroom was cool. The air conditioner had cycled off, and only the blower was on. It was barely light outside the closed drapes, and the morning rush hadn’t yet developed. The city was quiet except for the occasional swish of traffic, and distant shouting and metal clanging somewhere blocks away. A bird chirped determinedly nearby, maybe on the sill.

Nell lay beside the sleeping Terry, listening to the even rhythm of his breathing, and wondered if she’d mentioned to him that the police were pulling protection away from Cold Cat and assigning it to Melanie Taylor? The question nagged her more than it should. She couldn’t remember doing so, but it was possible. Just as it was surely possible that whoever had shot Cold Cat knew with certainty about his reduced protection. The killer had created a diversion, then slipped like grease through the police and the building’s security.

At the precise time when Cold Cat had been killed yesterday, Terry was alone in his apartment, scanning scripts for parts he thought he might have a shot at if he auditioned. Nell thought it odd that Terry seemed almost to make it a point to mention his whereabouts to her.

At about that same time, Nell had been talking with Jack Selig over drinks in the softly lighted lounge at Keys, a new four-star restaurant over on Third Avenue. Her watch at Melanie Taylor’s had ended, and this was, in a way, she told herself, a continuation of the investigation. It had been a few drinks and conversation, nothing more; a gentleman always, Selig had kept his word about that.

But Nell, having been with another man, didn’t think it was a good idea to press Terry about his whereabouts. That would be edging too close to the kind of pot-and-kettle argument that could end a relationship Nell desperately wanted to continue.

She recalled that Terry hadn’t really much of an alibi for the time of Carl Dudman’s death, either.

But Terry lived alone. And she was a cop; she knew how seldom people who lived alone, with no one to witness their lives, had firm alibis.

Terry’s arm was suddenly across her chest, just beneath her breasts, startling her. His big hand closed on her bare upper arm.

“I thought you were asleep,” she said.

“Been lying here looking at you,” he said. “Not much I’d rather do.”

She laughed. “Oh? Is there something you’d rather do?”

He raised his head and kissed her. Bad breath. She didn’t mind.

“There is something I’d rather do,” he said, “but we did it only a few hours ago.”

Another light kiss, and he scooted away from her, sat on the edge of the mattress for a few seconds, then stood up. Nude and without the slightest self-consciousness, he yawned, stretched, then swaggered toward the bathroom.

“Gonna shower?” Nell asked.

“Gotta. And I don’t have time for breakfast this morning. Woman on the East Side needs her oven fixed. It overheats, and she’s desperate for relief.” He winked.

Nell sat up in bed. “Damn you, Terry!” She threw his pillow at him and missed.

In the bedroom doorway, he paused and glanced back at her, smiling. “It’s her ice-maker, actually.”

He continued his nude stroll to the bathroom, and a few minutes later pipes clanked in the wall and she heard the shower begin to hiss. It was an oddly reassuring sound.

Nell lay back and stared up at the slowly revolving ceiling fan, as she’d stared up at it last night during and after sex. As she’d done before. The rhythms and cycles of life. There was something so right about it all. She smiled.

Too much paranoia in the world.

She decided she didn’t really distrust Terry.

She couldn’t.

But if she did distrust him, who would she confide in? Beam? Looper? Hardly. Simply on mere suspicion, they’d be all over Terry. Then the media might find out. They’d swarm. They’d discover one of the investigating officers was sleeping with a suspect.

Nell shuddered. Jesus!

Nobody to confide in there.

She felt a dark contempt for herself. The problem was her disease. Cop’s disease. The creeping cynicism that ruined every relationship, personal or otherwise.

The disease that left you, finally, lonely and alone.

Or was the disease New York? The city was in its own way insular, and everything seemed faster and somehow enhanced. Just the place to lose your perspective, to begin to doubt yourself.

Lonely and alone.

Nell didn’t want that ever to happen to her. Not on a permanent basis. She was still young enough to prevent it. And there was Terry.

Terry.

Selig.

She did love Terry.

But the one person she felt confident to confide in, she realized, was Jack Selig.

Melanie lay in bed alone with her eyes clenched shut.

Cold Cat dead! Richard!

Her avowed hatred for the rap artist melted away. It was, after all, her fault that he was killed. She recalled those moments during the trial when their gazes had met and they’d looked into each other’s souls. Those were moments suspended in amber, moments that would last a lifetime.

Richard.

The man she loved. One of the few men she’d ever loved. Dead.

The thought was so burning that she couldn’t lie still. Finally, she got up and plodded into the kitchen. The tile floor was cool on her bare feet, and cold air spilled out on her when she opened the refrigerator to get the carton of orange juice.

She sat at the table, her feet up on the chair’s rungs to keep them off the tiles, and sipped juice from the carton. It helped, but not much. Made her feel a little steadier.

Then she looked over at the sink, with its empty beer can, and last night’s takeout pizza box propped on the drain board. Tonight’s supper might be exactly the same.

Lonely damned life. Miserable life.

She thought morosely that if anybody should have been killed, it was that coward Knee High. Maybe he’d get the death penalty for murdering Edie Piaf. He certainly hadn’t been Richard’s friend, sleeping with his wife, killing her, then sitting in court knowing Richard was innocent and watching him suffer, his very life in the balance. Edie Piaf. She’d deserved to die for betraying Richard. What fools some women were! She, Melanie, would never have betrayed such a man, a poet of the streets, a major figure in modern music.

Melanie realized that tears were tracking down her cheeks. She wiped them away with the backs of her fingers and took another sip of cold juice. The refrigerator clicked and its motor began to run, making something glass inside vibrate shrilly with a regular rise and fall, as if taunting her.

A cruel trick had been played on her. She’d been Richard’s fierce and persuasive advocate on the jury and actually believed in his innocence. The jury foreperson who instinctively knew he was too good a man to be a murderer. Now, ironically, she was the one who’d set him free only to be killed by a fool who’d shared most of the other jurors’ misimpressions.

Melanie pushed the juice carton away and rested her cheek on the cool, hard Formica table. “Life is so unfair and unpredictable,” she said in a choked voice. But no one was there to hear.

So goddamned cruel!

So this is how it feels to have a broken heart.

“The word is you’re in love,” Beam said to Nell.

They were walking along First Avenue, sipping lattes from Starbucks, on their way to meet Looper near Cold Cat’s apartment building so they could do follow up interviews and double-check some facts-the kind of drudge police work you don’t read about in mystery novels.

Nell sidestepped a frail, gray woman walking a dog that might have been a horse except for the fangs. Protection. “Whose word would that be?” Nell asked. “Looper’s?”

“Among others. He’s close enough to you to notice.”

Is it that noticeable? “The word could be wrong, otherwise there wouldn’t be much use for our kind of work.”

Beam grinned. “Is the word wrong?”

“Gossip doesn’t become you, Beam.”

“Becomes no one,” he said. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Why do you have to know if I’m in love?”

“I like you. I want to know so I can feel good about it.”

“You’re so full of bullshit, Beam.”

“Sure. Otherwise I wouldn’t be of much use in our kind of work.”

They waited for the traffic signal at Fifty-sixth and First, not speaking.

“Okay,” Nell said, as they were crossing the intersection. “I guess there’s no point in trying to keep a secret from you. Answer’s yes. I’m in love. Now what? Do I get flowers?”

“Not from me. I respect you too much to love you. So who’s the lucky guy?”

“Terry Adams.”

“Don’t know him,” Beam said, after a pause.

“That’s because he’s not a cop.”

“Good.”

“He’s an actor.”

“My, my.”

“And he repairs appliances.”

Beam broke stride, then took a sip of latte. “Your air conditioner. It’s working now.”

“Same guy,” Nell said.

“Didn’t he ride with some of the cops in the Two-Oh a while back, doing research so he could play a cop on Broadway?”

“Near Broadway. Said that’s as close as he wants to get.”

“To Broadway?”

“To being a cop.”

“Smart fella. You and an actor. I can see it. He treat you okay?”

“Wouldn’t put up with him if he didn’t.”

They walked for a few minutes without speaking. “You’re right,” Beam said.

“About not putting up with him if he acts up?”

“No. Well, yes. Also right about something you thought but didn’t mention.”

“Ah!”

“That your love life is none of my business.”

They’d reached Cold Cat’s building. A uniform was still standing outside, helping the doorman shoo away curious fans.

“Here we are,” Nell said.

“Exactly where JK wants us.” Beam glanced around. “He might even be here with us.”

“I wouldn’t disagree with you,” Nell said. “You’re on a roll.”