Nocturne by Ed McBain

didn’t know, none of his
     friends knew, the guy behind the counter at the local hangout hamburger joint didn’t know, nobody knew, the whole neighborhood
     had suddenly gone deaf, dumb, and blind. In police work, you took this to mean that
everybody
knew where Santiago was, but you are The
Man
, man, and nobody is going to tell you,
señor
.
    A faint hint of morngloam 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 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 in college.
    “How
did
you know?” he asked.
    Hernandez shrugged as if to indicate he couldn’t waste valuable time answering such a ridiculous question. He had still not
     taken off the overcoat and earmuffs. The store was cold. The entire universe was cold this morning. Ignoring them, he busied
     himself cutting the cords around the newspaper bundles. The big headline on the morning tabloid read:
PIANIST
SLAIN
    On the so-called quality paper, big headlines were reserved for acts of war or national disaster. But a smaller headline over
     a boxed article in the right-hand 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?” Hawes asked.
    What the hell, they’d already asked everyone
else
in the neighborhood. He looked to Carella for approval. Carella was watching the hot plate on a narrow shelf behind the counter.
     Brewing coffee dripped steadily into the pot. The aroma was almost too much to bear.
    “Why, what’d he do?” Hernandez asked.
    “Nothing. We just want to talk to him.”
    Hernandez shrugged again. The shrug said that this statement was 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