to be back in their coffins. The Juice Bar offered booze, beer, wine and the occasional fruit drink right up to the legal closing limit, and then to the accompaniment of a three-piece jazz band began serving anything that turned you on. At six, the club offered breakfast while alone piano player filled the air with dawn like medleys.
It was close to three o'clock when Priscilla rang the bell button set in the jamb to the right of the blue door.
'The fuck is this?' Georgie wanted to know. 'Joe sent us?'
They waited.
A flap in the door opened.
Fuckin speakeasy here, Georgie thought. Priscilla held up her card. 'I'm here to listen to the band,' she said.
'Okay,' the man behind the flap said at once, and opened the door. Fact of it was he hadn't even glanced at her card. Until four A.M. the club would be operating legally and he'd have admitted even a trio of Barbary pirates carrying swords and wearing black eye patches.
The club was constructed like a crescent moon, with the bandstand at the apogee of its arc, farthest from the entrance door. The entrance and the cloakroom were side by side on the curving flank of the arc's left horn. The bar was on the right horn, a dozen stools ranked in front of it. Priscilla and the boys left their coats with a hat check girl who flashed a welcoming smile as she handed Georgie the three claim checks. She was Wearing a black mini and a white scoop-necked blouse, and Georgie looked her up and down as if
auditioning her for a part in a movie. The a maitre d' that is to say, he was wearing a jacket offered to seat them at a table, but Priscilla said she preferred sitting at the bar, closer to the In any club, it was always the bartender who came in when and did what where. It was the bartender who had information.
The band was playing 'Midnight Sun.'
The tune almost brought tears to Priscilla's eyes, possibly because she realized she could never hope to play it as well as the piano player here in a Riverhead dive, possibly because her pathetic note had expressed a hope abandoned ago. Priscilla knew she would never become a pianist. The thought that Svetlana had still this a viable ambition was heartbreaking, when one considered the meager sum of money left for the achievement of such an impossible goal, had there been more in the envelope? Which, after all was why she was here looking for the tall blond man who'd delivered it. But even so, even if there'd been a million dollars in that shabby yellow packet, knew she didn't have, would never have the How could she even begin to approach a beast like presto agitato movement of the Moonlight when she hadn't yet truly mastered the chart 'Midnight Sun'? She dabbed at her eyes and
Grand Marnier on the rocks. The boys ordered again.
The bartender looked like an actor.
Every would-be actor in this city was a bartender or a waiter.
Long black hair pulled into a ponytail. Soulful brown eyes. Delicate, long-fingered hands. Great profile.
His name was Marvin.
Change it, Priscilla thought.
I'll tell you why we're here, Marvin,' she said. Marvin. Jesus.
He was looking at her card, impressed. He figured the two goons were bodyguards, Lady played piano at the Powell, she needed bodyguards. He hoped that one day, when he was a matinee idol, or a movie star, or both, he would have bodyguards of his own. Meanwhile he was honored that she was here in their midst. Shitty little dump like this, hey.
'The man we're looking for, Marvin...'
Jesus.
'... is someone who would've been here yesterday morning around eleven-thirty, maybe a bit later.'
She was figuring half an hour or so to get uptown by cab, on a Sunday morning, when the traffic would've been light The blond man had left the hotel at a little past eleven. Placing him on Harris Avenue at eleven thirty was reasonable.
'Yeah, it's possible,' Marvin said. 'We start serving breakfast at six.'
'Are you still serving at eleven-thirty?'
'On Sundays, yeah. We-get a big brunch crowd, serve till two-thirty, three o'clock, then open again at nine. We're open all weekend, closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, dead nights here in the city.'
'Were you working this past Saturday night?'
'I come on at four every night. That's when underground and the shift changes. Well, Tuesdays or Wednesdays.'
'Did you come on at four this past Saturday nil 'Yeah. Well, Sunday morning it was, actually.' 'Four A.M.' right?' 'Yeah.'
'Were you here at eleven-thirty, twelve o'clock 'Yeah, I work through till we close. Sunday's a day I put in almost twelve hours. Rest of the close at nine in the morning. It's like a breakfast we serve. For the all-night crowd.'
Georgie was wondering how come, if Marvin on at four every morning but Tuesday and how come he was here, now, at three- whatever the hell it was on a Monday morning? looked at his watch. Twenty after. So how Marvin?
Marvin was a mind reader.
'Jerry called me to come in early,' he
Who's Jerry? Georgie wondered. 'Cause Frank started throwing up.' Who's Frank? Georgie wondered.
'Must've been one of those flu bugs,' explained.
'So today you came in early, is that what saying?' Tony asked.
'Yeah, I got here about an hour ago.' 'How about yesterday?' Priscilla asked. 'I got here the usual time.' 'Four A.M.' 'Right.'
'The man we're looking for would've been blond,' Priscilla said.
'You're a cop, right?' Marvin said.
'No, I'm an entertainer. You saw my card.'
'How about your two friends here? Are they cops?' 'Do they look like cops?' Priscilla asked. They didn't look like cops to Marvin.
'Tall blond man wearing a blue coat and a red scarf,' Priscilla said.
Marvin was already shaking his head.
'See anyone like that?' Georgie asked.
He was pleased that Marvin was shaking his head. What he wanted to do now was get out of here fast, before Marvin the mind reader changed his mind.
'I don't remember anyone who looked like that,' Marvin said.
Good, Tony thought. Let's get the hell out of here.
'But why don't you ask Anna?' Marvin said. 'She's the one who would've taken his coat.'
They finally found Jose Santiago at 3:25 A.M. that Monday. They figured that a man who kept pigeons, and also drove a fighting rooster around in the backseat of a borrowed limo, had to be a bird fancier of sorts. So they checked out the roof of his building again, and sure enough, there he was, sitting with his back against the side wall of his pigeon coop. Last time they were here, dawn was fast approaching on a cold Sunday morning. Now, on an even colder Monday morning, sunrise was still approximately four hours away, and they were no closer to learning who killed Svetlana Dyalovich on Saturday night. Nor
did it appear that Santiago was going to offer assistance in that direction. Santiago was also very, very drunk.
'Jose Santiago?' Hawes asked.
'That is me,' Santiago said.
'Detective Cotton Hawes, Eighty-seventh Sc 'Mi gusto,' Santiago said.
'My partner, Detective Carella.' 'lgualmente,' Santiago said, and tilted a Don Quixote rum to his lips and took along
It was perhaps two degrees below zero out here, Santiago was wearing only blue jeans, a white shirt, and a V-necked cotton sweater. He was a slender man early thirties, Carella guessed, with curly black hair anda pale complexion, and delicate features. His brown eyes seemed out of focus, moist at the moment because he was still
