'Nobody wanted her dead,' Priscilla said.
'How do you know that?'
'She was already dead. No one even knew she existed. Why would anyone go to the trouble of shooting her?'
'But someone did, you see.'
'A burglar then. As you said.'
'The problem with that is nothing was stolen.' 'What was there to steal?' 'You tell us.' 'What do you mean?
'There didn't seem to be anything of value in the apartment but was there? Before he broke in?'
'Like what? The Imperial Czar's crown jewels? My grandmother didn't have a pot to piss in. Whatever she got from welfare, she spent on booze. She was drunk morning, noon and night. She was a pathetic, whining
old bitch, a has-been with nothing of value but her memories. I hated her.'
But tell us how you really feel, Carella thought.
He didn't much like this young woman with her inherited good looks and her acquired big-city, wise ass manner. He would just as soon not be here talking to her, but he didn't like burglaries that turned into murders, especially if maybe they weren't burglaries in the first place. So even if it meant pulling teeth, he was going to learn something about her grandmother, anything about her grandmother that might put this thing to rest one way or another. If someone had wanted her dead, fine, they'd go looking for that someone till hell froze over. If not, they'd go back to the squad room and wait until a month from now, a year from now, five years from now, when some junkie burglar got arrested and confessed to having killed an old lady back when you and I were young, Maggie. Meanwhile... 'Anyone else feel the way you do?' he asked. 'How do you mean?' 'You said you hated her.'
'Oh, what? Did I kill her? Come on. Please.' 'You okay, Priss?'
Carella turned at once, startled. The man standing at his elbow was one of the two Priscilla had been heading to join when they'd intercepted her. Even before he noticed the gun in a holster under the man's arm
Carella would have tapped him for either a or a mobster. Or maybe both. Some and weighing in at a possible two-twenty, he advanced on the balls of his feet, hands dangling
half-clenched at his sides, a pose that warned Carella he could take him out in a minute if he had to. Carella believed it.
'I'm fine, Georgie' Priscilla said.
Georgie, Carella thought, and braced himself when he saw the other man getting up from the table and moving toward them. Hawes was suddenly alert, too. 'Because if these gentlemen are disturbing you...' Carella flashed the tin, hoping to end all discussion. 'We're police officers,' he said.
Georgie looked at the shield, unimpressed.
'You got a problem here, Georgie?' the other man said, approaching. Georgie's twin, no doubt. Similarly dressed, down to the hardware under the wide-shouldered suit jacket. Hawes flashed his shield,
too. It never hurt to make the same point twice. ' 'Police officers,' he said.
Must be an echo in this place, Carella thought.
'Is Miss Stetson in some kind of trouble?' Georgie's twin asked. Two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and bone draped in Giorgio Armani threads. No broken nose, but otherwise the stereotype was complete.
'Miss Stetson's grandmother was killed,' Hawes said calmly. 'Everything's under control here. Why don't you just go back to your table, hm?'
A buzz was starting in the room now. Four big guys surrounding the room's star, looked like there might be some kind of trouble here. One thing people in this city didn't much care for was trouble. First whiff of trouble, people in this city picked up their skirts and ran for the hills. Even out-of-towners in this city (which some of the people in the room looked like),
even foreigners in the city (which some of the other people in the room looked like), the minute they caught that first faint whiff of trouble brewing, they were out of here, man. Miss Priscilla Stetson, Now Appearing 9:00 P.M.-2:00 A.M. was in imminent danger of playing her last set to an empty room. She suddenly remembered the time. 'I'm on,' she said. 'We'll talk later,' and left the four men standing there with their thumbs up their asses. Like most macho fools who display their manhood to no avail, the men stood glaring at each other a moment longer, and then mentally flexed their muscles with a few seconds of eye lock before the two cops went back to the bar and the two gun-toting whatever-they-weres went back to their table. Priscilla, professionally aloof to whatever masculineness were surfacing here, warmly sang a setting of 'My Funny Valentine,' 'My Romance,' I Loved You' and 'Sweet and Lovely.' A woman at one of the tables asked her escort why they don,t write love songs like that anymore, and he said,
now they write hate songs.' It was 2:00 A.M.
Either Georgie (or his twin brother Frankie or or Dominick or Foongie) asked Priscilla why she hadn't played the theme song from The Godfather
She sweetly told them no one had requested it, them both on their respective cheeks and kissed them off. Big detectives that were, neither Carella nor Hawes yet knew they were bodyguards or wiseguys. Priscilla the bar.
'Too late for a glass of champagne?' she asked the bartender.
He knew she was kidding; he poured one in a flute. Dispersing guests came over to tell Priscilla how terrific she'd been. Graciously, she thanked them all and sent them on their early morning way. Priscilla wasn't a star, she was just a good singer in a small cafe in a modest hotel, but she carried herself well. They could tell by the way she merely sipped at the champagne that she wasn't a big drinker. Maybe her grandmother had something to do with that. Which brought them back to the corpse in the shabby mink coat.
'I told you,' Priscilla said. 'All her friends are dead. I couldn't give you their names if I wanted to.'
'How about enemies?' Carella asked. 'All of them dead, too?'
'My grandmother was alonely old woman livin alone. She had no friends, she had no enemies. Period.'
'So it had to be a burglar, right?' Hawes asked. Priscilla looked at him as if discovering him for the first time. Looked him up and down. Red hair white streak, size twelve gunboats.
'That's your job, isn't it?' she asked coolly 'Determining whether it was a burglar or not?'
'And, by the way, she did have a friend,' he corrected.
'Oh?'
'Woman down the hall. Played her old records to her.'
'Please. She played those old 78s for anyone who'd listen.'
'Ever meet her?'
'Who?'
'Woman named Karen Todd. Lived down the hall from your grandmother.'
'No.'
'When's the last time you saw her alive?' Hawes asked.
'We didn't get along.'
'So we understand. When did you see her last?' 'Must'a been around Eastertime.' 'Long time ago.'
'Yeah,' she said, and fell suddenly silent. I guess
'i'll have to call my mother, huh?' she asked. 'Might be a good idea,' Carella said. 'Let her know what happened.' 'Mm.'
'What time is it in London?'
'I don't know,' Carella said.
'Five or six hours ahead, is that it?'
Hawes shook his head, shrugged.
Priscilla fell silent again.
The champagne glass was empty now. 'Why'd you hate her?' Carella asked. 'For what she did to herself.'
'She didn't cause the arthritis,' Hawes said. 'She caused the alcoholism.' 'Which came first?'
'Who knows? Who cares? She was one of the
She ended up a nobody.'
'Enemies,' Carella said again.
