Later, she will wonder how this got so out of hand. Nobody seemed to know where Jose Santiago was.

This was now six-forty in the morning. His mother didn't know, none of his friends knew, the guy at the counter at the local hangout hamburger joint didn't know, nobody knew, the whole neighborhood suddenly gone deaf, dumb, and blind. The police

took this to mean that everybody knew where Santiago was, but you are The Man, man, and nobody going to tell you, aeesave for

a faint hint of mom gloam only seemed to touch the sky. It was still thirty-five minutes till dawn, the night refused to yield. The bleak January morning was still flat, dull and dark, but there was activity in the streets right now. Even on a Sunday, there was work to be done in this city, and early risers were beginning to move sluggishly toward the subways and the bus stops,

passing revelers and predators who were just now heading home to bed.

The homeless, sensing dawn, anticipating the safety that would come with full light, were already crawling back into their cardboard boxes.

Outside a candy store on the corner of Santiago's block, a man was carrying in a tied bundle of newspapers. He was still wearing his overcoat and earmuffs. The scalloped edge of the furled green awning over the front of the store read:, HErnandez VARIETY- NEWSPAPERS LOTTERY-COFFEE. They assumed he was Hernandez himself; there was a bustling air of ownership about him. The store lights beckoned warmly behind him. Coffee sounded pretty good just about now.

"Cops, right?" Hernandez asked the moment they stepped inside.

"Right," Hawes said.

"How did I know, right?"

Not a trace of an accent. Hawes figured him for a third-generation Puerto Rican, grandfather probably came over on the Marine Tiger with the first wave of

immigrants from the island. Probably had kids at college.

"How did you know?" he asked. Hernandez shrugged as if to indicate he wasted valuable time answering such a ridicuh question. He had still not taken off the overcoat and earmuffs. The store was cold. The entire universe cold this morning. Ignoring them, he busied himself cutting the cords around the newspaper bundles. big headline on the morning tabloid read:

PIANIST.

SLAIN.

On the so-called quality paper, big headlines reserved for acts of war or national disaster. smaller headline over a boxed article in the right corner of the front page read:

VIRTUOSO MURDERED.

SVETLANA.

DYALOVICH VICTIM OF.

SHOOTING.

Easy come, easy go.

"You serving coffee yet?" Carella asked. "Should be ready in a few minutes."

"Know anybody named Jose Santiago?" asked.

What the hell, they'd already asked everyone else the neighborhood. He looked to Carella for

Carella was watching the hot plate on a narrow shelf behind the counter.

Brewing coffee dripped into the pot. The aroma was almost too much.

"Why, what'd he do?" Hernandez asked. "Nothing. We just want to talk to him."

Hernandez shrugged again. The shrug said that this also too ridiculous even to acknowledge. "Do you know him?" Hawes persisted.

"He comes in here," Hernandez admitted offhandedly. "Know where he is right now?" "No, where?"

Little joke there. Hee hee hee.

"Do you or don't you?" Hawes asked.

They were smelling something besides coffee here. "Why? What'd he do?" "Nothing."

Hernandez looked at them.

"Really," Hawes said.

"Then try the roof of his building. He keeps pigeons."

Richard, the black Richard, has already come all over her face, as a matter of fact, which she didn't quite appreciate, but he's the one set up the party, after all. He's sitting in a corner now, a blanket around him, watching television, so she knows for sure he's not the one who starts this thing going haywire. For once you can't blame the black guy, mister.

She doesn't think it's the Richard with the red hair, either, because he's sort of content to keep toying with her right tit, which she has to admit she has terrific knockers, even back in Cleveland they said so. The Richard with the dark hair is now sticking his fingers inside her, searching for her clit, good luck, mister, the condition you're in. He's very hard. She has his cock in her hand and she is stroking it pretty fiercely, hoping she can bring him off this way, get this thing over with, go home to bed. But he's spreading her legs

now, and trying to climb into her, they're all so stoned nobody knows how to do diddly, except the preppie who's licking her nipple like it's his mother's. He knows just what he's doing, and seems to be having a nice time doing it, maybe he'll come this way, she certainly hopes so, kill two with one stone here.

So it must be the blond Richard who pulls the freezer bag over her head.

She knows at once that she is going to die.

She knows this is going to be her worst nightmare realized.

She is going to suffocate inside a plastic freezer bag one of those sturdy things you stuff a leg of lamb in not the kind of thin plastic that clings to your face, warn you to keep away from children. No, she's n going to die with plastic clinging to her nostrils her lips. Instead, she's going to exhaust all the inside the bag, she's going to die that way, there'll be no more oxygen left to breathe inside the bag, she's going to die... "No, cunt," he says, and takes the bag from her and sticks his cock in her mouth.

She is actually grateful for the cock. She will have a cock any day of the week over a freezer bag on her head, accept the one in her mouth and the one in her hand and the one in her vagina she always thinks of it as her vagina, it is her vagina, thank you, same as vagina on a lady in London. So happy is she that the freezer bag isn't on her head anymore, she will even accept black Richard's big shlong again, if he would like to bring it over right this minute. But no, black

Richard seems content to be lying there in the corner all huddled up, watching television. She wonders if she should yell over to him that this preppie son of a bitch tried to scare her a minute ago by putting a freezer bag over her head.

"Cocksucker," the preppie says.

And pulls the bag over her head again.

Steaming cardboard containers of coffee in their hands, the detectives climbed the six stories to the roof of Santiago's building, opened the fire door, and stepped outside. The city almost caught them by surprise. They almost found it beautiful. They stood by the parapet, sipping their coffees, staring down at the lights spread below them like a nest of jewels. Darkness was fading fast. On the far side of the roof, they could hear the gentle cooing of Santiago's pigeons. They walked over to the coop.

The perching pigeons were hunkered down inside their grey and white overcoats.

The floor of the coop was covered with feathers and shit.

Santiago was nowhere in sight.

The time was 6:5.