Nocturne Read Online Free Page B

perhaps because it is
     so empty.
    At one-thirty in the morning the theater crowd has been home and in bed for a long time, and many of the hotel bars have been
     closed for a half hour already. The clubs and discos will be open till four a.m ., the outside legal limit for serving alcoholic beverages, at which time the delis and diners will begin serving breakfast.
     The underground clubs will grind on till six in the morning. But for now and for the most part, the city is as still as any
     tomb.
    Steam hisses up from sewer lids.
    Yellow cabs streak like whispered lightning through deserted streets.
    A black-and-white photograph of Priscilla Stetson was on an easel outside the entrance to the Cafe Mouton at the Hotel Powell.
     Like an identifying shot in a home movie, the script lettering above the photo read
Miss Priscilla Stetson
. Below the photo, the same script lettering announced:
    Now Appearing
    9:00 p.m .–2:00 a.m .
    The woman in the photo could have been Svetlana Dyalovich on the cover of
Time
magazine. The same flaxen hair falling straight to her shoulders and cut in bangs on her forehead. The same pale eyes. The
     same high Slavic cheekbones. The same imperial nose and confident smile.
    The woman sitting at the piano was perhaps thirty years old, dressed in a long black gown with a risky décolletage. A creamy
     white expanse of flesh from bosom to neck was interrupted at the throat by a silver choker studded with black and white stones.
     She was singing “Gently, Sweetly” when the detectives came in and took stools at the bar. There were perhaps two dozen people
     sitting at tables scattered around the smallish candlelit room. It was twenty minutes to two in the morning.
    Here with a kiss
    In the mist on the shore
    Sip from my lips
    And whisper
    I adore you …
    Gently,
    Sweetly
,
    Ever so completely,
    Take me,
    Make me
    Yours
.
    Priscilla Stetson struck the final chord of the song, bent her head, and looked reverently at her hands spread on the keys.
     There was a spatter of warm applause. “Thank you,” she whispered into the piano mike. “Thank you very much.” Raising her head,
     tossing the long blond hair. “I’ll be taking a short break before the last set, so if you’d like to order anything before
     closing, now’s your chance.” A wide smile, a wink. She played a little signature riff, rose, and was walking toward a table
     where two burly men sat alone, when the detectives came off their stools to intercept her.
    “Miss Stetson?” Carella said.
    She turned, smiling, the performer ready to greet an admirer. In high-heeled pumps, she was perhaps five-eight, five-nine.
     Her blue-gray eyes were almost level with his.
    “Detective Carella,” he said. “This is my partner, Detective Hawes.”
    “Yes?”
    “Miss Stetson,” he said. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but …”
    “My grandmother,” she said at once, looking certain rather than alarmed.
    “Yes. I’m sorry. She’s dead.”
    She nodded.
    “What happened?” she asked. “Did she fall in the bathtub again?”
    “No, she was shot.”
    “Shot? My grandmother?”
    “I’m sorry,” Carella said.
    “Jesus, shot,” Priscilla said. “Why would …?” She shook her head again. “Well, this city,” she said. “Where’d it happen? On
     the street someplace?”
    “No. In her apartment. It may have been a burglar.”
    Or maybe not, Hawes thought, but said nothing, just allowed Carella to continue carrying the ball. This was the hardest part
     of police work, informing the relatives of a victim that something terrible had happened. Carella was doing a fine job, thanks,
     no sense interrupting him. Not at a quarter to two in the morning, when the whole damn world was asleep.
    “Was she drunk?” Priscilla asked.
    Flat out.
    “There hasn’t been an autopsy yet,” Carella said.
    “She was probably drunk,” Priscilla said.
    “We’ll let you know,” Carella said. It came out more harshly than he’d intended.