Nightbird (3 page)

“You slept with her?”

“Gillian and I went together for almost a year. We broke up about six months ago.”

“Did I know this?” Ryan said.

“You kidding—tell the family? You know how they are. ‘When are you getting married?’ When this, when that. It’s all I would
hear.”

“But the bottom line is you haven’t seen her in months, right?”

“Until last night. I was with her last night.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ryan said, and he looked up at the sky. “That’s why you freaked out when Gregory cuffed you. Jesus Christ.
Get in the car, Danny.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Don’t say another word, please,” Ryan said. “Just get in the goddamned car.”

A
nthony Ryan made a hard right off Ninth Avenue and drove toward the river. He wanted no part of the streets around the precinct;
too many cops were coming and going, observing, overhearing. He knew all the clichés about cop paranoia, but still he’d move
the conversation to a safer venue. Never take chances with your own. He’d lost a son, he wasn’t about to lose Danny. His mind
raced in a thousand directions, exploring elaborate escape routes legal and otherwise. Just in case.

“Start from the beginning,” he said as he backed the Olds against the piling that stopped it from rolling into the Hudson.
He cut the engine and faced his nephew. Fifty yards to their left tourists boarded the Circle Line ferry.

“You mean when I first met her?” Danny said.

“No, let’s focus on last night.”

“I want to help out on this. Anything I can do, please. Let me help.”

“Last night, Danny. Did you run into her somewhere? Was it a phone call? Stick to the specifics of last night.”

“Okay, last night. Well, I hadn’t even talked to her in maybe four months. Not a word. Last night my phone rings about seven-fifteen,
seven-thirty. It’s Gillian, and she’s upset. Wants to see me.”

“She called you from where?”

“Home, I guess. I don’t know for sure.”

Ryan pulled a small leather case out of his jacket pocket—his personal notebook, containing index cards, not the official
NYPD notebook. He wasn’t ready for anything written that might become public record. He set a stack of three-by-five cards
on the seat and motioned for Danny to continue. He’d check the LUDs, get the exact time on all local calls from Gillian’s
phone.

“She said she wanted me to meet her in Caramanica’s,” Danny said. “It’s a bar on Third Avenue.”

“Why Third Avenue when you both live on the West Side?”

“The
Cheers
syndrome. She liked to be in a place where everyone knew her name. She used to live around the corner from the place. Models,
jocks, yuppies, wannabes, rich assholes.”

“We don’t have time to editorialize, Danny. Please. Who arrived first?”

“I got there about eight-twenty, she was already there.”

“What was her mood?”

“Angry, but not foaming at the mouth. More of a quiet anger; subdued, actually. Sad may be a better word. She looked tired,
too.”

Danny said they talked for more than an hour, Gillian doing almost all of it. Whispering, with an agitated, husky intensity.
She left alone, shortly after ten
P.M.
Grabbed a cab outside as Danny watched through the window.

“Did you notice anything on the cab?” Ryan said.

“Don’t you want to know why she called me?”

“A medallion number would be nice,” Ryan said, ignoring him. Checking his watch.

“It was yellow, that’s all I know.”

“Did you see or hear from Gillian after that?”

“No,” Danny said softly. “Not until I heard her name on the radio this morning.”

A sudden crash made Danny jump. A UPS truck rear-ended a baby Mercedes whose driver had stopped in the middle of Twelfth Avenue
to gawk at the USS
Intrepid
.

“You need to call that in or something?” Danny said, pointing at the instant traffic jam.

“Nobody’s hurt. The Mercedes has a phone if he wants help.”

“I thought maybe you had some official duty here. Some regulation to follow, rule eighteen point five or something.”

“Let’s concentrate on this right now. Was Caramanica’s crowded?”

“Jammed. All the beautiful people du jour. Sorry, editorializing.”

“It’s okay,” Ryan said, starting to relax a little. “I can see there’s no stopping you.” He rolled down the car window. Water
slapped against the pilings beneath them. “So then some of those beautiful people saw Gillian leave alone. And beautiful witnesses
can verify that you stayed behind?”

“Absolutely. I stayed to watch the last inning of the Mets game. Maybe another twenty minutes.”

“Did you go straight home after that?”

“Absolutely.”

“How?”

“Cabbed it. All by my lonesome. Got home in time to catch the news at eleven.”

“What were you catching at one
A.M.
?”

“Nothing but zees. Snug in my bed.”

“All by your lonesome?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. It happens.”

“Yeah, but for once it’s not a good thing.”

“Am I a suspect?”

“No suspects, Danny. It’s a suicide, remember.”

“Then why the third degree?”

“To make sure you’re out from under.”

“Out from under what?”

Ryan didn’t know exactly
what
. Probably nothing. It was too complicated to explain. Just an instinctive reaction to protect someone he loved.

“There’s more to this, isn’t there,” Danny said. “It’s not a suicide, is it.”

“I thought you came here today to
give
information.”

“The minute you finish your interrogation, I’ll be glad to give you everything.”

“It’s not an interrogation. I want you to understand that another detective will be running the show.”

“I thought you said you were working this?”

“Not after what you just told me. So if you need me to do anything for you, let me know immediately. While there’s still time
to maneuver.”

“I have nothing to hide,” Danny said, wondering what his uncle could possibly do if he was involved. What maneuvering room
could there be?

“Good,” Ryan said. “Good.”

“I can give you a solid suspect in this case. This producer, Trey Winters. He’s a big mucky-muck on Broadway.”

“I know who he is,” Ryan said, putting the car in gear.

“That scumbag had something to do with this, Uncle Anthony. I know it.”

“Save it for a few minutes. We’re going up to her apartment.”

With the window open Ryan could feel heat rising from the blacktop, warning that the day would be another scorcher. He knew
his nephew wasn’t finished talking. He hoped he wouldn’t complicate things any further.

“Last night,” Danny said, “I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I remembered her smell, stupid jokes she’d told me. I kept thinking,
She could have called anybody… but she called me. That means something to me. Then, this morning…”

Danny Eumont had his mother Nancy’s good looks, her deep brown eyes and fair skin. The same coloring as her sister, Ryan’s
wife, Leigh. And their son.

“Why did you break up with her?” Ryan asked.

“She dumped me, that’s why. It wasn’t my idea. She dumped me for a part in
West Side Story
. Her almighty career. She knew taking the role and that apartment had strings.”

As he waited for the light, Ryan tapped his index cards against the steering wheel. Behind them a jackhammer beat a steady
rat-a-tat, breaking concrete to make way for the bright new, user-friendly waterfront. He longed for the old dark, dangerous
waterfront and the huge swinging nets filled with crates of Scotch being dropped on traitorous longshoremen; of fights to
the death with curved box hooks; of tarantulas lurking in a ton of bananas. It was a less complicated city then, a less complicated
time. A time when all Detective Anthony Ryan’s family knew about dark, dangerous places were the things he told them.

A
t the corner of Broadway and West Forty-seventh a pair of female uniformed cops from Mid-Town North stood outside the yellow
tape that encircled a van with a crushed roof. The body of the young actress had been removed to the morgue hours earlier,
but investigators from the Crime Scene Unit were still going through the paces of their particular specialties. Although a
uniformed cop’s only job was to secure the scene and protect the evidence, midtown cops knew the moment they set foot on the
street in uniform that they became walking information booths: Where is Broadway? “You’re on it.” Where can I find a cheap
place to eat? “Jersey.”

The two attractive rookies were also accustomed to being gawked at by men, particularly foreign men. At the edge of the curb
a dark, muscular man carrying a large blue duffel bag inched closer to them, straining to make eye contact. He wore a tight
white turtleneck shirt, accentuating wide shoulders and a narrow waist. His black hair and copper brown skin shone as if oiled
and polished. The cops ignored him, figuring he’d be gone when the light changed.

“Another Latin lover to contend with,” one cop said.

“That’s the juggler,” the other said. “Thinks he’s God’s gift.”

The light changed and the juggler moved away gracefully despite the heavy bag. When he reached the center island he found
his performing partner sprawled against the statue of George M. Cohan, snoring peacefully in the morning sun. He let the duffel
bag slip from his shoulder. The bag contained his juggling props, including three bowling balls, and weighed almost seventy
pounds. It hit the sidewalk like a clap of thunder.

“Bastard,” the man yelped. “What is wrong with you? I thought it was bombs.”

“Russian bombs, Pinto,” the juggler said, laughing. “Your own people’s bombs. Who else would bomb New York?”

“Bomb is joke to you?” Pinto, the Russian said, squinting into the sunlight. “Scaring people to heart attack is joke. Everything
big joke.”

Pinto was a baggy pants clown who specialized in magic. Time and vodka had dulled his skills, but he could still work a crowd.
His given name was Nickolai Timoshenko. A skin condition, called vitiligo, had earned him the nickname Pinto when he worked
the one-ring Mexican circuses. That was where he’d first met the juggler Victor Nuñez, twenty years ago. Only eight years
old then, Victor Nuñez was already a vital part of his family’s trapeze act, which was on its way to becoming the premier
trapeze act in all the world.

Victor flattened his back against the cool base of the statue. He shoved Pinto over and they sat shoulder to shoulder in a
spot they called the best seat on Broadway.

“Your head should be examined,” Pinto said, peeking around to check the lines.

The lines for the TKTS booth behind them were already past the statue of Father Duffy, the doughboy priest. The booth carried
half-priced tickets for that day’s non-sold-out theater performances. On matinee days like today they opened at ten
A.M.
In a few minutes the lines would stretch all the way back to where they sat, back to the statue of the Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Hours of waiting, a bored crowd. It was a street performer’s dream.

“So, last night where was the Mexican stud horse?” Pinto said. “Performing between whose legs?”

“You wish you were between someone’s legs, you jealous Russkie.”

“Tell me jealous when I visit you in the AIDS ward. I have enough to worry with living in the same house with you.”

“If you saw this
chica
, ooh, baby. You should be jealous.”

“I should get another roommate, that’s what I should. You chase too much pussy. I boil the forks after you eat.”

The pair had worked the New York theater district for many years. They knew where to find every back door, open bathroom,
free meal, and loose woman in a ten-block radius. They appeared only in the hot months, Memorial Day to Labor Day, then went
south. They loved the big city’s money but hated the cold weather, Victor especially. Jack Frost strummed cruel tunes on his
arthritic joints.

“We’ll have a crowd today, my friend,” Pinto said. And the day did look promising: plenty of young, well-dressed Europeans
with money to burn. “I can smell the shekels already.”

“Shut up, Russkie. Don’t talk about work, talk about women.”

On Wednesdays they did two shows: one for the matinee line, one for the evening ticket seekers. Matinee days were always a
strain on Victor Nuñez; he’d hurt tomorrow. But today was different; he could feel the adrenaline rush, an excitement that
had nothing to do with juggling. He needed to calm down.

Victor closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun. The sun was important to him; his bronzed skin made him stand out in
any crowd. Every day he rubbed baby oil into his face. A man needed lubrication to keep his skin young. Especially a man who
worshiped the sun. And getting sun in this city was not an easy task. A bare sliver of morning sun sliced between the buildings.
Noon was the best time, when the sun stood directly overhead. Two hours either way and the narrow floor of the canyon turned
dark enough for vampires. In front of them a steady stream of tourists crossed the small concrete island that separated Broadway
from Seventh Avenue.

“We need the bucks today,” Pinto said. “To pay the blood money in the parking lot.”

“Why do you bring the stupid car? Take the subway. Leave the car in the Bronx.”

“With this bag to carry? Besides, too many spics in the subway.”

Pinto had his own bag of props containing the tools of prestidigitation. He’d learned his craft in the Moscow Circus, but
the lure of easy rubles in con games and the pickpocket trade won him over, and he wound up having to do a disappearing act…
to America. For eighteen years he’d plied magic in every flea-bitten circus and side show this side of the Atlantic. At least
those desperate enough to hire him.

Victor’s part of the act ran about twenty-five minutes depending on crowd banter. But banter, as long as it was gentle and
funny, established rapport, and that was Pinto’s most valuable contribution. Victor with his dark good looks zeroed in on
the ladies. Always the ladies. And that drew more cash than any artistry. On days like today, with the weather warm, Pinto
worked the kids, while Victor did his entire routine—the pins, the bowling balls, then finishing with the torches. The bowling
balls were the hardest part, ravaging his elbows and shoulders, but fire was the big ending. Guaranteed to open wallets. They
liked to finish at the exact moment the ticket booth opened. Moods changed at that moment, people sensed movement, progress,
and happy people were generous people.