Nocturne

'You see The Birds he asked. 'That movie Alfred Hitchcock wrote.?'

Carella didn't think Hitchcock had written it. 'Birds tryin'a kill people all over the place?' 'Whut about it?' Mrs. Jackson asked impatiently.

'Musta been birds got in the car,' Jackson said. 'Maybe cause it was so cold.'

'What makes you figure that?' Hawes asked reasonably.

'Bird shit and feathers all over the place,' Jackson said. 'Hadda put Abdul to cleanin it up fore the man came to claim his car. Never seen such a mess in my life. Birds're smart, you know. I read someplace when they was shootin that movie, the crows used to pick the locks on their cages, that's how smart they are. Musta got in the car.'

'How? Did you notice a window down?'

'Rear window on the right was open about six inches, yeah.'

'You think somebody left that window open overnight?'

'Had to've been.'

'And a bird got in, huh?'

'At least a few birds. There was shit and feathers all over the place.'

'Where was all this?' Carella asked.

'The backseat,' Jackson said.

'And you asked Abdul to clean it up, huh?'

'Directly when he come in Saturday mornin. I seen the mess put him to work right away.' 'Was he alone in the car?' 'Alone, yeah.'

'You didn't see him going into that compartment, did you?'

'Nossir.'

'Fiddling around anywhere in the front seatg' 'No, he was busy cleanin up the mess in back.' 'Did you watch him all the time he was in the car?' 'No, I din't. There was plenty other work to do.' 'How long was he in the car?'

'Hour or so. Vacuuming, wiping. It was some you better believe it. Man came to pick it up at ten, was spotless. Never've known some birds was nesting in it overnight.'

'But the birds were already gone when you noticed, that open window, huh?'

'Oh yeah, long gone. Just left all their feathers and shit.'

'I wish you'd watch your mouth,' Mrs.

Jackson said, frowning.

'You figure they got out the same way they got in Hawes asked.

'Musta, don't you think?'

Hawes was wondering how they'd managed a little trick.

So was Carella.

'Well, thank you,' he said, 'we appreciate your time. If you can remember anything else, here's my...' 'Like what?' Jackson asked.

'Like anyone near that glove compartment.'

'I already tole you I didn't see anyone near the glove compartment.'

'Well, here's my card, anyway,' Carella said. 'If you think of anything at all that might help us... 'Just don't come around five o'clock again,'

Jackson said.

Mrs. Jackson nodded.

What we'd like to do,' Carella said on the phone, 'is send someone around for the car and have our people go over it.'

'What?' Pratt said.

This was a quarter past five in the morning. Carella was calling from a cell phone in the police sedan. Hawes was driving. They were on their way to Calm's Point, where Abdul Sikhar lived.

'When do I get some sleep here?' Pratt asked.

'I didn't mean someone coming by right this minute. If we can...'

'I'm talking about you waking me up right this minute.'

I'm sorry about that, but we want to check out the car, find out...'

'So I understand. Why?'

'Find out what happened inside it.'

'What happened is somebody stole my gun.'

'That's what we're working on, Mr. Pratt. Which is why we'd like our people to go over the interior.' 'What people?' 'Our techs.' 'Looking for what?'

Carella almost said feathers and shit. 'Whatever they can find,' he said. 'You're lucky it's Sunday,' Pratt said. 'Sir?'

'I'm not working today.'

The three Richards were beginning to sober up beginning to get a little surly. They had come all way up here to Diamondback which was not such a good idea to begin with and now they couldn't find any girls on the streets, perhaps because a sensible girl was already asleep at five-twenty in the morning. Richard the First wasn't afraid of black people. He knew that Diamondback was a notoriou dangerous black ghetto, but he'd been up here in search of cocaine not for nothing was he nicknamed Lion-Hearted and he felt he knew how to deal with African Americans.

It was Richard the First's contention that a man, or a black woman, for that matter, could tell in a wink whether a person was a racist or not. Of the only black men and women he knew were dealers and prostitutes, but this didn't lessen his conviction. A black person could look in a man's eyes and either find those dead blue eyes he' been conditioned to expect, or else he might that the white person was truly colorblind. the First liked to believe he was color-blind, which was why he was up here in Diamondback at this looking for black pussy.

'Trouble is,' he told the other two Richards, 'We are here too late. Everybody's asleep already.'

'Trouble is we're here too early,' Richard the Second said. 'Nobody's awake yet.' 'Man, it's fuckin cold out here,' Richard the said. Up the street, three black men warmed hands at a fire blazing in a sawed-off oil drum, oblivious to the three preppies in their hooded

The lights of an all-night diner across the street threw warm yellow rectangles on the sidewalk. The sun still an hour and forty-five minutes away. The three boys decided to urinate in the gutter. This was perhaps a mistake.

They were standing there with their dicks in their hands--what the hell, this was five-thirty in the morning, the streets were deserted except for the three old farts standing around the oil drum looking like three monks in their hooded parkas, certainly intending no affront, merely answering the call of nature, so to speak, on a dark and stormless night. It was not perceived in quite this manner by the black man who came out of the night like a solitary guardian of public decency, the sole member of the Pissing in Public Patrol, dressed in black as black as the night, black jeans, black boots, a black leather jacket, a black O.J. Simpson watch cap pulled down over his ears.

He came striding toward them at exactly the same moment Yolande stepped into a taxi a mile and a half downtown.

'Thing I hate about the boneyard shift,' Hawes said, 'is you just start getting used to it and you're back on the day shift again.'

Carella was dialing his home number.

The boneyard shift was the graveyard shift, which was the so-called morning shift that kept you up all night.

Fanny piked up on the third ring.

'How is he?' Carella asked.

angel.' She paused for the briefest tick of 'Which is what I'd like to be doing,' she said.

'Sorry,' Carella said. 'I won't call again. See you in a few hours.'

That's what he thought.

'You a working girl?' the cabbie asked. 'You a cop?' Yolande said. 'Sure, a cop,' he said.

'Then mind your own business,' she said.