“Dino, it’s Stone. Where are you?”
“A joint called Columbus, on the West Side. What’s up?”
“Hot stuff.” Stone gave him the address. “Ditch the girl and get over here fast. Apartment 12 – A. I’ll wait five minutes before I call the precinct.”
“I’m already there.” Bacchetti hung up.
Stone hung up and looked around. The sliding doors to the terrace were open, and he could hear the whoop- whoop of an ambulance growing nearer. There was an armchair next to the table with the lamp and the phone, and next to it a packed carton with a dozen sealed envelopes on top. Stone picked up a printed card from a stack next to the envelopes.
Effective immediately,
Sasha Nijinsky is at
1011 Fifth Ave.
New York 10021.
Burn this.
The lady was moving up in the world. But, then, everybody knew that. Stone put the card in his pocket. The ambulance pulled to a halt downstairs, and, immediately, a siren could be heard. Not big enough for a fire truck, Stone thought, more like an old-fashioned police siren, the kind they used before the electronic noisemaker was invented.
He walked out onto the terrace, which was long but narrow, and looked over the chest-high wall. Sasha Nijinsky had not fallen – she had either jumped or been muscled over. Down below, two vehicles with flashing lights had pulled up to the scene – an ambulance and a van with SCOOP VIDEO painted on the top. As he watched, another vehicle pulled up, and a man in a white coat got out.
Stone went back into the apartment, found a switch, and flooded the room with overhead light. He looked at his watch. Two more minutes before this got official. Two objects were on the drum table besides the lamp and the phone. He unzipped her purse and emptied it onto the table. The usual female rubbish – makeup of all sorts, keys, a small address book, safety pins, pencils, credit cards held together with a rubber band, and a thick wad of money, held with a large gold paper clip. He counted it: twelve hundred and eleven dollars, including half a dozen hundreds. The lady didn’t travel light. He looked closely at the gold paper clip. Cartier.
Stone turned to the other object: a red-leather book with the word DIARY stamped in gold. He went straight to the last page, today’s date.
Hassle, hassle, hassle. The moving men are giving me a hard time. The paparazzi have been on my ass all day. The painters haven’t finished in the new apartment. My limo caught on fire on East 52nd Street this afternoon, and I had to hoof it to the network through hordes of autograph-seekers. And the goddamned fucking contracts are still not ready. For this I have a business manager, a lawyer, and an agent? Also, I haven’t got the change-of-address cards done, and the ace researchers don’t have notes for me yet on the Bush interview, and What’s-his-name just called and wants to come over here right now! I am coming apart at the seams, I swear I am. As soon as he leaves, I’m going to get into a hot tub with a gigantic brandy and open a vein. I swear to God it’s just not worth it, any of it. On Monday, I have to smile into a camera and be serious, knowledgeable, and authoritative, when all I want to do with my life is to go skydiving without a parachute. Fuck the job, fuck the fame, fuck the money! Fuck everybody!!!
Skydiving without a parachute: his very thought, what, ten minutes ago? He gingerly picked up the phone again and dialed.
“Homicide,” a bored voice said.
“It’s Barrington. Who’s the senior man?”
“Leary. How’s the soft life, Barrington?”
“Let me speak to him.”
“He’s in the can. I just saw him go in there with a
“Tell him I’ve stumbled onto a possible homicide. Lady took a twelve-story dive. I’m in her apartment now.” He gave the address. “An ambulance is already here, but we’ll need a team to work the scene. Rumble whoever’s on call. Bacchetti and I will take the case.”
“But you’re on limited duty.”
“Not anymore. Tell Leary to get moving.”
“I’ll tell him when he comes out.”
“I wouldn’t wait.” He hung up. He had not mentioned the victim’s name; that would get them here in too much of a hurry. He heard the elevator doors open.
“Stone?” Bacchetti called from outside the door.
“It’s open. Careful about prints.”
Dino Bacchetti entered the room as he might a fashionable restaurant. He was dressed to kill, in a silk Italian suit with what Stone liked to think of as melting lapels. “So?” he asked, looking around, trying to sound bored.
“Sasha Nijinsky went thataway,” Stone said, pointing to the terrace.
“No shit?” Dino said, no longer bored. “That explains the crowd on the sidewalk.”
“Yeah. I was passing, on my way home.”
Dino walked over and clapped his hands onto Stone’s cheeks. “I got the luckiest partner on the force,” he said, beaming.
Stone ducked before Dino could kiss him. “Not so lucky. I chased the probable perp down the stairs and blew it on the last landing. He walked.”
“A right-away bust would have been too good to be true,” Dino said. “Now we get to track the fucker down. Much, much better.” He rubbed his hands together. “Whatta we got here?”
“She was moving to a new apartment tomorrow,” Stone said. He beckoned Dino to the table and opened the diary with the pen.
“Not in the best of moods, was she?” Dino said, reading. “Skydiving without a parachute. The papers are going to love that.”
“Yeah, they’re going to love the whole thing.”
Dino looked up. “Maybe she jumped,” he said. “Who’s to say she was pushed?”
“Then who went pounding down the stairs at the moment I arrived on the scene?” Stone asked. “The moving men?”
“No sign of a struggle,” Dino observed.
“In a room full of cardboard boxes, who can say?”
“No glasses out for a guest, if What’s-his-name did show.”
“The liquor’s packed, like everything else. I’ve had a look around, I didn’t see any. She didn’t sound in any mood to offer him a drink, anyway.” Stone sighed. “Come on, let’s go over the place before the Keystone Kops get here.”
“Yeah, Leary’s got the watch,” Dino said.
The two men combed the apartment from one end to the other. Stone used a penlight to search the corners of the terrace.
“Nothing,” Dino said, when they were through.
“Maybe everything,” Stone said. “We’ve got the diary, her address book, and a stack of change-of-address cards, already addressed. Those are the important people, I reckon. I’ll bet the perp is in that stack.” He took out his notebook and began jotting down names and addresses. Apart from the department stores and credit card companies, there were fewer than a dozen. Had she had so few friends, or had she just not gotten through the list before she died? He looked over the names: alphabetical. She had made it through the W’s.
They heard the elevator doors open, and two detectives walked in, followed by a one-man video crew. He was small, skinny, and he looked overburdened by the camera, battery belt, sound pack, and glaring lights.
“You, out,” Dino said. “This is a crime scene.”
“Why do you think I’m here?” the cameraman said. He produced a press card. “Scoop Berman,” he said. “Scoop
