New York Dead (Stone Barrington 1)

“Tomorrow.”

“What sort of mood was she in?” Stone asked.

“Tired, I’d say. Maybe depressed. She was usually pretty cheerful, had a few words to say to me, but not tonight. She just asked for her mail, and, when I told her there wasn’t any, she just sighed like this.” He sighed heavily. “And she went straight into the elevator.”

“Does she normally get many visitors in the building?”

“Hardly any. As a matter of fact, in the two years she’s been here, I don’t remember a single one, except deliverymen – you know, from the department stores and UPS and all.”

“Thanks,” Stone said. “You go on back to your post, and we’ll probably have more to ask you later.”

Stone stepped into the apartment. He reached high to avoid messing up any prints on the door and pushed it nearly shut. A single lamp on a mahogany drum table illuminated the living room. The place was not arranged for living. The cheap parquet floor was bare of carpets; there were no curtains or pictures; at least two dozen cardboard cartons were scattered or stacked around the room. A phone was on the table with the lamp. Stone picked it up with two fingers, dialed a number, waited for a beep, then, reading off the phone, punched in Nijinsky’s number and hung up. He picked his way among the boxes and entered the kitchen. More packed boxes. He found the small bedroom; the bed was still made.

Some penthouse. It was a mean, cramped, three-and-a-half-room apartment, and she was probably paying twenty-five hundred a month. These buildings had been thrown up in a hurry during the sixties, to beat a zoning restriction that would require builders to offset apartment houses, using less of the land. If they got the buildings up in time, they could build right to the sidewalk. There were dozens of them up and down the East Side.

The phone rang. He got it before it rang a second time.

“Yes?”

“This is Bacchetti.”

“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?”