The store was a wonderland of beautiful things. She led him to the third floor, where she found a rack of tweed jackets. In seconds she had extracted one and helped him into it.

A salesman sidled up. “Our forty-two long fits you perfectly,” he said. “That jacket won’t require the slightest alteration.”

Stone felt for the tag, but Cary ripped it off and handed it to the salesman. “Never look at price tags,” she said. “That’s not the way to shop. Buy what’s right for you, and worry about the money later. That’s what credit cards are for.”

She found another jacket, then some trousers, then she started on the suits. He managed to hold her to two, but they were beautiful, he had to admit, and they did fit him perfectly. She shook his wallet out of the old jacket and handed the garment to the salesman. “Send this,” she said. “He’ll wear the plaid one.”

“I guess I should get some shirts,” Stone said.

“Downstairs,” the salesman said, handing him a credit card chit to sign.

Stone followed instructions and didn’t look at the amount. He tried to stop in the shirt department, but she pulled him away.

“They’re wrong for you,” she said. “We’ll get those elsewhere.” She hailed a cab. Shortly, they were in a Fifth Avenue department store; she guided him to a shop within the store. “These are English,” she said, hauling out a stack of shirts from a shelf, “and they suit you.” A dozen shirts later, they were in an Italian shoe store, trying on loafers and featherweight lace-ups.

By the time they reached Central Park, Stone felt like a new man. The mimosas still buzzed in his veins, and the clear, autumn air elated him. Autumn always seemed like the beginning of the year to Stone; New Year’s was an anticlimax.

“You look wonderful in that jacket,” Cary said.

“I feel wonderful in it,” he replied. “I feel wonderful with you.”

“That’s the way you’re supposed to feel,” she said. They walked north along the Fifth Avenue side, enjoying the color in the trees, and, at Seventy-ninth Street, she led him from the park. “My place,” she said.

The doorman didn’t seem to recognize him. On her floor, he glanced at Sasha’s door.

“Don’t think about that,” she said, pulling him into her apartment.

The place was a mirror image of Sasha’s, and it was beautifully put together – feminine, without being cloying, beautiful fabrics, good pictures, expensive things. “This is wonderful,” Stone said. “You’re hired as my decorator.”

“You know the best thing about this apartment?” Cary asked.

“What’s that?”

“It has a bedroom. And a bed.”

“Oh. I’d better have a look at that.”

“Yes, I think you’d better,” she said, unbuckling his belt.

Later, when they fell asleep, exhausted, it was with his soft penis in her hand. He liked sleeping that way.

When he got home, the following evening, the Saturday mail awaited him. There was a letter from his bank:

Dear Mr. Barrington:

Just a reminder to let you know that your note is due at the end of the month. The note is, of course, adequately collateralized by your house, and I will be happy to renew it, but I must tell you that, with the softening market in large properties, the bank’s new lending policy will require a substantial reduction of the principal when renewing. I might be able to persuade the loan committee to accept a reduction of $25,000. And, of course, there will be $4800 interest due.”

The letter hit him like a blow to the belly. He’d borrowed the money to renovate the house, but the banker had promised to keep renewing until he had a buyer. Then he had another thought. He dug out the receipts for the clothing he had bought. The total came to nearly four thousand dollars.

Stone went into the bathroom and lost his lunch.

Stone was twenty minutes late to work. When he walked into the squad room, the place went quiet. Dino stood up from his desk and waved Stone toward the stairs.

“What’s up?” Stone asked as they trotted up the steps together.

“Leary wants us in the conference room. There’s brass here.”

“Oh, shit,” Stone said.

Down one side of the long table were arrayed the detective squad commander, Lieutenant Leary; Chief of Detectives Vincent Delgado, a slim, rather elegant man in his fifties; and an imposing black man Stone recognized from his photographs, who was wearing the well-pressed uniform of a deputy commissioner. Deputy commissioners were mayoral appointees. Stone didn’t know the other man, who looked like a banker, in a pin-striped suit, white shirt, and sober necktie.

“Chief, you already know Barrington and Bacchetti,” Leary said.

Delgado nodded, managing a tight smile.

“Commissioner Waldron, these are detectives second grade Barrington and Bacchetti,” Leary said unnecessarily.

“I’m glad to meet you, men,” Waldron said. “I’ve heard a lot about both of you.”

“Oh, shit,” Dino said under his breath, not moving his lips.

“Right,” Stone whispered back. Waldron had been a hot assistant DA when he had joined the campaign staff of the mayor, and, after the election, he had been the mayor’s first appointee to a law enforcement position. It was said Waldron had mayoral ambitions of his own, since the mayor had let it be known that he would not be running for a third term. Waldron had a reputation for meddling in police investigations.

“And, Detectives,” Leary continued, “this is John Everett, special agent in charge of the New York office of the FBI.”

Everett, expressionless, nodded sleepily.

“If you’ll forgive me, gentlemen,” Waldron said to Leary and Delgado, “I’ll tell the detectives why we’re here.”

“Of course, sir,” Leary said.

Delgado merely nodded.

Waldron turned to the detectives. “I want to forget what I’ve read in the reports and what I’ve read in the papers. I want to hear from you every step that has been taken in the Sasha Nijinsky investigation, from day one. From minute one. And don’t leave anything out.”

Goddamn Leary, Stone thought. If he’d given them a few hours’ notice he could have put together some kind of presentation. Now he would have to wing it.

“From minute one,” Waldron repeated. “Go.”

“Sir,” Stone began, “I was proceeding on foot down the west side of Second Avenue at approximately two A.M. on the night of the… occurrence. I was off duty. I happened to look up, and I witnessed the… Ms. Nijinsky’s fall.” He was still having trouble calling the event a crime and Nijinsky a victim.

“This actually happened?” Waldron interrupted. “The papers got it right?”

“Mostly, sir.” He continued to relate the events of that night. When he got to the collision of the ambulance with the fire engine, Waldron started shaking his head.

“Jesus H. Christ,” he said, “that’s the goddamndest worst piece of luck I ever heard of.”

“My sentiments exactly, sir,” Dino said.

Leary and Delgado laughed.

“Go on,” Waldron said.

Stone took the man through his and Dino’s actions for the rest of the night, then asked Dino to describe the subsequent investigation by the detective squad. Neither detective referred to his notebook.

When they had finished, Waldron spoke again.

“Detectives, have you left any avenue uninvestigated?”

“Sir,” Stone said, “the detective squad of this precinct interviewed sixty-one witnesses, co-workers, and friends of Ms. Nijinsky and made more than eight hundred telephone calls, all within thirty hours of the occurrence. Since that time, Detective Bacchetti has reviewed each of the interview reports, and he and I have conducted a search of the home and business premises of the possible suspect, Van Fleet.”