Nocturne

"Man shoots a woman .." "She asked him to shoot her." "That's a good deed by you?"

"That's a mitzvah. Nellie, this man isn't a criminal, he's .. ."

"Then what is he? An angel? He murdered a woman in cold blood. Shot her twice in the chest."

"She wanted to die!"

"How about the cat? Did she want to die, too?" "Okay, I'll give you the cat."

"You'll give me more than the goddamn cat, Alan." "What are you looking for?"

"Are the acoustics in here bad? I told you. Murder Two. Murder for hire. Lethal injection. That's what I'm looking for."

"This wasn't murder for hire, and you know it." "He got twenty-five grand to kill her!"

"But she's the one who gave it to him. This wasn't some outside party who hired him to kill her. This was the victim herself who..."

"Victim, you've got it, Alan."

"... who wanted to die, but didn't have the nerve to kill herself. She's arthritic, she's got a brain tumor, she's about to go stone-deaf, she's about to lose the nerves in her face, all she wants is out. My client helped her."

"Right, he's a Good Samaritan."

"No, he's a compassionate man who..."

"Who murdered her for twenty-five grand so he could pay off his bookie!"

"The best you've got here is Criminal Facilitation One. But this case is something that'll bring tears to a jury's eyes. Give him Facilitation Four, and we've got..."

"Facil . " She almost choked on it. "That's a class-A mis!"

'"Okay, forget it then. Take a look at 120.30 instead. Promoting a Suicide Attempt. A person is guilty of promoting a suicide attempt when he intentionally

"

causes... " or aids another person to attempt suicide," Nellie finished for him. "This wasn't an attempt, Alan! This was eminently successful. The woman is dead. And so's her cat."

"Lay off the goddamn cat, will you? We're talking about a woman in agony and pain, we're talking about a sympathetic man who..."

"You're talking about a lousy class-E felony, is what you're talking about. We're wasting time here, Alan. Let's roll the dice."

"All right, I'll grant you the suicide attempt was a

"

success ..

"What suicide? He murdered her."

"Didn't you just say the attempt was successful? Eminently successful, weren't those your words? So what's it going to be, Nellie? Did the guy go in there and shoot her in cold blood, or did he merely help her commit suicide? You go for Murder Two, that's what the jury'll have to decide."

"Good, let them decide." "Take a look at Michigan." "Don't sing me Kevorkian."

"Gets kicked out each and every time."

"This isn't Michigan. And Kevorkian didn't shoot anybody."

"A jury might not see it that way, Nell."

"Don't call me Nell. I wasn't raised in the woods." "Tell you what..." "Sure, tell me."

"We're forgetting murder for hire, am I right?" "Who said so?"

"Arguendo. And I guess you know that an affirmative defense..."

"Don't insult me, Alan."

"... under 125.25 is that the defendant caused or aided another person to commit suicide."

"That's an affirmative defence, all right."

"Which happens to be the case here. An assisted suicide."

"So?"

"So you're absolutely right. You go for Murder Two,

we'd be rolling the dice. And you just might lose." "What do you suggest?" "man Two." "No way."

"A person is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree..."

"I know the section."

"... when he intentionally causes or aids another person to commit suicide."

"Man One is the best I can give you, Alan. Provided we agree on the max."

"That's too much to pay for a mitzvah."

"A mitzvah, my ass. Man One. The max, Alan.

Eight and a third to twenty-five. Take it or leave it." "Make it two to six." "No."

"The poor bastard's a foreigner."

"Tough."

"He can't speak English, he looks like Robert Redford. You know what they'll do to him in prison?"

"He should've thought of that before he murdered the old lady."

"Come on, Nellie. You know he's not a killer. What do you say? The minimum, okay? Two to six, okay?"

"I'll give you a straight five to fifteen. And we'll oppose parole after five."

"You're a hard woman."

"I'll also throw in the cat. Have we got a deal?" "A hard woman," Moscowitz said, shaking his head. "Yes or no?"

"What choice do I have?"

"Good. Let's go home."

It was almost twelve' thirty when Carella and Hawes finished all the paperwork. They both looked bone-weary.

"Go home," Byrnes told them, "it's been along night."

"Uh-huh," Carella said. "Get some sleep." "Uh-huh," Hawes said.

"You've still got a dead hooker on your plate," Byrnes reminded them.

To qualify, a school had to answer positively to two questions: "Do you have a football team?" and "Are your school colors navy blue and white?"

Didn't matter if he was talking to St. Peter's High or John Parker High. If he got an affirmative answer to both questions, he saddled his horse and rode on over.

By one o'clock that afternoon, Fat Ollie Weeks had personally visited all of the qualifying P schools in the metropolitan area and had struck nothing even faintly resembling pay dirt.

Only twelve of the blue and white schools had football teams. Only eight of those had parkas with a big white P on the back of them. Of those, only two had a white football logo under the letter P. Ollie talked to some sixty football players, all of them shitting their pants, trying to determine what each and every one of them had been doing this past weekend while a white hooker and two black dudes were respectively being eviscerated, drowned, and stabbed. These kids were used to TV violence, but man, this was real life.

The way Ollie looked at it, nobody in this country was really concerned about violence, anyway. If they were, they'd put the V-chip on football and hockey

games. What really bugged Americans was sex. It was okay to talk about it obliquely on all those morning and afternoon TV programs, but show two people actually doing it, and, man, the house suddenly got hushed, and all at once everybody was running to protect the little kiddies smoking crack in the next room. Sex was The Great American Hang-up, legacy of those fuckin Puritans who came over from England. Speaking of which, he hadn't had any in a week and a half sex, not Puritans and here he was shagging ass all over the universe trying to find three football players who maybe had got a little bit sexy and violent off the playing field, and whose head hairs might just match those he already had.

He was back in the squad room again by a quarter past one.

He checked his computer list again.

Began making phone calls again.

At two-fifteen that afternoon, he began driving upstate to a school named Pierce Academy, whose colors were blue and white and whose football team wore hooded parkas with a white letter P and a white football logo on the back.

At two-thirty that afternoon, Georgie looked up the name Karen Todd in the Isola directory and found a listing for a K. Todd at 1217 Lincoln Street. He dialed the number, and her answering machine told him she could be reached at work and gave him the number for St. Mary's Hospital.

He hadn't known she was a nurse, if she was a nurse, This only whetted his appetite.

He dialed the number and was connected to a woman who said, "Records Office," immediately shattering a young boy's dreams.

"Karen Todd, please," he said.

When she came on the line, he told her who he was, and reminded her that he'd been to see her earlier this morning, did she remember, the tall good-looking guy,

he actually said, with the black hair and brown eyes "I was with a blond woman and another man."

"Oh, yes"' she said, "of course. Svetlana's granddaughter, in fact."

"Yes," he said.

"I remember you, sure," she said. "Did you have any luck finding that guy who delivered the fish?"

"Oh, yes," he said. "The police have him. He killed her, I guess. Was what I could gather."

"No kidding? Wow."

"Yeah," he said. "Uh, Karen," he said, "do you think you might perhaps care to join me for dinner tonight?"

"Sure, why not?" she said.

From where Richard the First stood in the back row of the choir, he could see out over the heads of the two other Richards and all the other singers. Like a true monarch surveying his lordly domain, he looked down the center aisle of the church and beyond the transept to the huge oaken entrance doors. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the leaded stained-glass windows on either side of the massive, vaulted space, illuminating it as if a religious miracle were in progress. Professor Eaton, the choirmaster, had just given them notes on how badly they'd sung the hymn

the last time around. They were now waiting for his hand signal to start the third chorus all over again.

Hand and head dipped at precisely the same moment.

"Keep Thou my all, O Lord, hide my life in thine... "Oh let Thy sacred light o'er my pathway shine..." The central portal doors opened.

A very fat man stepped into the narthex and looked up the aisle.

"Kept by Thy tender care, gladly the cross I'll bear... "Hear Thou and grant my prayer..." "Professor Eaton?" The fat man.

Calling from the back of the church.

"Hold it, hold it," Eaton said, and turned with obvious annoyance toward where the fat man who was coming down the aisle now, a lightweight trench coat open over his beer barrel belly. Under the trench coat Richard could see a plaid sports jacket, also unbuttoned, and a very loud tie. Now he was reaching into the back pocket of his trousers.

"What is it?" Eaton asked.

Now he was holding some kind of small leather case in his hand, a fob, whatever it was, the flap falling open as he waddled toward the altar. Sunlight caught glittering gold and enameled blue, sending shivers of reflected light into the echoing stillness of the church.

"Detective Oliver Weeks," he said. "There's some hairs I need to match. You got any singing football players?"

Georgie was expecting her at six-thirty. The arrangement was that she'd stop by at her own apartment to change her clothes after work, and then come to his place for a drink before they went to dinner. That was why he'd gone downstairs to the liquor store to pick up a bottle of Canadian Club, because what she drank was Canadian Club and ginger ale, she'd informed him on the phone. He was downstairs for no more than fifteen minutes. The phone was ringing when he got back to the apartment. He put the brown paper bag with the booze in it on the pass-through between the kitchen and living room, yanked the wall phone from the hook and said, "Hello?"

It was Tony again.

"What time do you think you'll be here?" he asked.

"Sometime after dinner," Georgie said. "But I may be a little late."

"Like how late?"

"Maybe eleven, twelve o'clock." "Why so late?" "Well." "Who is she?" "Somebody." "Who?" I'll tell you later. I got to go, Tony. She'll be here any minute."

"Bring me half of her, too," Tony said.

Smiling, Georgie put up the phone, and checked his watch. Six-twenty: Plenty of time to go look at the money again. It never failed to delight him, looking at all that money. Still smiling, he went into the bedroom.

The window was open.

The smile dropped from his face.

The drawers had been pulled out of his dresser and his shirts and socks and sweaters and underwear were strewn all over the floor and the bed. The closet door was open, too. Jackets and suits had been ripped from their hangers and thrown everywhere.

An open shoebox was lying on the floor.

Two black patent-leather shoes lay on the floor beside the box.

Both shoes were empty.

All of fifteen minutes downstairs, he thought.

This city.

Carella woke up at a quarter to seven that evening. The house was very still. He put on a pair of jeans and a

T-shirt and padded around looking for someone. Not a soul was in sight. "Fanny?" he called. No answer. "Dad?"

Mark, calling from his bedroom down the hall. He was sitting up in bed, reading, when Carella walked in. "Hi, Dad," he said. "Have a good sleep?" "Yes. How do you feel?" "Much better."

"Let's see," Carella said, and sat on the edge of the bed, and put the palm of his hand on Mark's forehead. "Where is everybody?" he asked.

"Fanny took April to ballet and Mom's out shopping."

"Shopping or marketing?"

"What's the difference?"

"About five hundred dollars."

"How can you tell my temperature that way?" Mark asked.

"Your forehead's supposed to feel hot at first. If it continues feeling hot, you've got a fever." "I still don't get it." "Trust me."

"So what's my temperature?"

"Ninety-eight point five. Wait," he said, and looked at his palm. "Five and a half," he corrected. "Either way, you'll be ready for school tomorrow."

"Good. Did you like school when you were a kid?" "I loved it," Carella said. "So do I."

"How's the book?"

"Crap."

"Then why are you reading it?"

"It's the best Mom could find at the supermarket." "Speaks well for our culture."

He tousled Mark's hair, kissed him on the cheek, and was heading into the living room when Fanny came through the front door.

"Well, look who's up and about," she said. "Wipe your feet, April."

April shuffled her feet on the hall mat, put down her black tote bag with the ballet school's name and logo on it, and sat on the hall bench to take off her boots. "How's Mark?" she asked. "Better." "Good," she said. "Better get dinner started," Fanny said, and went off into the kitchen.

Carella watched his daughter, her head bent, as she struggled with the zipper on the left boot. Of the twins, she was the one who most resembled Teddy. The same black hair and dark brown eyes, the same beautifully expressive face. Mark favored his father, poor kid, Carella thought.

"How was dance?" he asked.

"Okay," she said, shrugging. "Where's Mom?" "Shopping."

"Did you sleep good?" "Well," he said. "Well what?"

"Not good," he said.

"That's too bad," she said, and suddenly looked up at him. "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"The other day, when Mark was feeling so awful,

you know?"

"Yeah?"

"And I thought he might die?" "He wasn't going to die, honey." "I know, but that's what I thought." "Well, don't worry, he's okay now."

"Yeah, but that's not what I'm trying to say, Dad."

She seemed suddenly distraught, her brow furrowed, her eyes troubled. He sat beside her on the bench, put his arm around her, and said, "What is it, darling?"

"When I thought he was going to die?"

"Yes?"

"I wished I would inherit his guitar."

And suddenly she was crying.

"I didn't want him to die," she said.

"I know you didn't."

Tears streaming down her face. "But I wanted his guitar." "That's all right, honey." Sobbing bitterly.

"Am I a terrible person?"

"No, darling, you're a wonderful person." "I love him to death, Dad." "We all do."

"He's my very best brother."

"In fact, he's your only brother," Carella said. April burst out laughing, almost choking on her own tears. He held her close, and said into her hair, "Why don't you go say hello to him?"

"I will," she said, "thanks, Dad," and rushed out of his arms and out of the room, yelling, "Mark! Wake up! I'm home I"

The old house was still again.

He went into the living room, and turned on the imitation Tiffany lamp, and sat in the comfortable easy chair under it, thinking about Mark's guitar and Svetlana's cat and the dead hooker with the plastic bag over her head.

When Teddy came home some five minutes later, he watched her as she eased the door shut with her hip, and then put two shopping bags brimming with groceries on the chair near the mirror. Watched her silently in her silent world as she took off her coat and hung it in the closet, thinking that here in this violent city where he plied his daily trade... Here in a universe that seemed to grow darker and darker each day until every day threatened to become eternal night ... Here there was Teddy to come home to.

He almost called her name out loud.

But she hadn't yet seen him, would not have heard him in any event. He kept watching her. She turned toward the living room, seeing him at last, surprised, .... her eyes widening, a smile blossoming on her face.

He rose and went to her.