This was puzzling.
Why had Larry Whoever called a woman who was murdered the very next night with a gun he'd purchased not five minutes after he'd got off the phone with her?
Meanwhile, Carella was dialing the number the Banker had given them. This was now a quarter past six in the morning. A woman's sleepy voice 'Pronto.'
'Signora?' he said.
'St'?'
'Voglio parl are con Lorenzo, per piacere.'
' '
'Non c e.
In the next five minutes, in tattered Italian shattered English, the woman whose name was Carmela Buongiorno and who said she was landlady of a rooming house on Trent Street, blocks from where Svetlana had been Carella that Lorenzo Schiavinato had been living there since October the twenty-fourth, but had moved out last Sunday. She did not know where he was now.
seemed to be a nice man, was something the 'Che succese?' she asked. 'What happened?'
'Niente, signora, niente,' Carella said.
Nothing, signora, nothing. But something indeed happened.
Murder had happened.
And Lorenzo Schiavinato had purchased the weapon the night before someone used it on Dyalovich.
They now had his full name. They ran it through the computer. There was niente, signora. Niente.
Ollie figured Curly Joe Simms would turn out to be a bald guy and he wasn't disappointed. He made a note to mention to Meyer Meyer, up at the Eight-Seven, that he would start calling himself Curly Meyer. Curly Joe was wearing yellow earmuffs and a brown woolen coat buttoned over a green muffler. His eyes kept watering and he kept blowing his nose as he explained to Ollie that he was a night person, which meant that he only slept during the daytime. He was beginning to get a little drowsy right now, in fact, but he. felt it was important to do his civic duty, wasn't it? Ollie was a little drowsy, too, but only because he'd just got up half an hour ago. At six forty-two in the morning, there weren't too many places open near the 88th Precinct station house. They met in the coffee shop of the Harley Hotel on Ninety-second and Jackson. The Harley was a hotbed dive catering to hookers and their clientele. A steady stream of girls walked in and out of the coffee shop while Ollie and Curly Joe talked.
Curly Joe was bothered that someone had drowned poor Richie Cooper.
'Richie was a close friend of mine,' he said.
So close you didn't know he hated being called Richie, Ollie thought, but did not say. The man had come all the way over from Ainsley and Eleventh, six in the morning, he deserved a hearing, even if he was bald. Ollie ate another donut and listened.
Curly Joe sipped at his coffee and told him how on Saturday night he was sitting with Richie in one of the window booths at the Silver Chief Diner, both of them having coffee, when all at once Richie jumps up and yells, 'Look at that, willya?'
'Look at what?' Curly Joe said. 'Out there. Those three guys.' Curly Joe looked.
Three big guys in hooded parkas were at the curb, pissing in the gutter. This was not an unusual sight up here, so Curly Joe couldn't understand why Richie was so upset by it. But he certainly was annoyed, jumping up out of the bar and putting on his black leather jacket... 'He was dressed all in black,'.' Curly Joe 'Black jeans, black shirt, black boots, the jacket...'
'Yeah, go on,' Ollie said. putting on the jacket, and tossing a couple of bucks on the table as his share of the bill, and storming out of the diner and walking over to the three guys who were still standing there, shaking their dicks. From where Curly Joe watched from the diner window, he saw, but could not hear, conversation taking place between the four of them. Richie dressed all in black and appearing before them like an avenging angel of death. They almost all of them peed on his boots, he was standing that close
-Now what do you call this?
--We call it pissing in the gutter.
-I call it disrespect for the neighborhood.
what the letter P stand for? Pissing? -Join us, why don't you? My name is Richard.
Big white guy zipping up and extending his hand to Richie.
So is mine.
Second white guy holding out his hand, too. --Me, too.
Third guy holding out his hand.
--As it happens, my name is Richard, too.
Richie holding out his hand, shaking hands with the three white guys, one after the other. And now there's a serious conversation at the curb, Richie probably explaining that what he did up here in Diamondback was sell crack cocaine to nice little boys like the three preppies here in their hooded parkas. In a minute or so, he begins leading them up the street, past the diner where Curly Joe is still sitting in the window booth, probably taking them to a place called the Trash Cat, which is an underground bar where there are plenty of girls all hours of the night, just like the Harley here.
They stop again not far from the diner, like at an angle to it, for another serious conversation Curly Joe can see but not hear.
You dudes interested in some nice jumbo vials I happen to have in my pocket here? You care for a taste at fifteen a pop?
And now Curly Joe sees crack and money changing hands, black to white and white to black, and all at once a taxi pulls up to the curb, and a long-legged white girl in a fake-fur jacket and red leather boots steps out. She looks familiar but Curly Joe doesn't recognize her at first. The driver's window rolls down, he's got like a dazed expression on his face, as if he just got hit by a bus.
Thanks, Max.
The girl blows him a kiss and swivels onto the sidewalk, a red handbag under her arm... Hey, Yolande, you jess the girl we lookin and Curly Joe recognizes her all at once hooker Jamal Stone fixed him up with one time Jamal laid two bills on a pony and was a little cash. Her name was Marie St. Claire, she'd given Curly Joe the best blow job he'd ever had in his lifetime, did in his llie ever hear of a Moroccan now there's another big conference at the curb, Joe watching but not hearing, Richie's hands Six hundred for the three preppies here, shy? Two hundred apiece for the next few hours, bobbing, you take me on, I'll throw five jumbos pot, whutchoo say, girlfriend? big summit here on Ainsley Avenue We all go up my place some crack, get down to realities, sistuh, you whut I'm sayin?
--Well, I've been out since eleven last night, been along one, bro. So maybe we ought to just unless we can sweeten the pot a little, mm?
--Whutchoo mean sweeten it? How sweet do' wish to sweeten it?
If you 'll be joining the party I'll need ten No problem.
And a grand from the college boys here.
you're all so cute, I might do it for nine.
Make it eight.
I can't do it for less than nine. Hey, you 're cute, but... How about eight-fifty?
-It has to be nine or I'm out of here.
--Will you accept travelers checks?
-Done deal.
' and they all start laughing. They musta concluded their negotiation, don't you think?' Curly Joe said. 'Cause next thing you know, she's looping her hands through two of the guys' arms, and they' all marchin off toward Richie's buildin, her in the red jacket, and Richie in his black leather, and the three kids with these hooded blue parkas got big white Ps and footballs on the back of them.'
Daybreak is aptly named.
Unlike sunset, where colors linger in the sky long after the sun has dropped below the horizon, sunrise is heralded by a similar flush, but the display is brief, and suddenly it is morning. Suddenly the sky is bright. Day literally breaks, surprising the pinkish night, setting it to rout.
From the windows of the squad room on the second floor of the old precinct building, they watched the day
