imagination would not take him quite that far. "Maybe," Carella said.

"Where in Italy?" Meyer asked.

"Don't know."

"What'd you find when you tossed her

Byrnes asked.

"Me?"

"You."

"Dead cat lying alongside her," Carella said. "Skip the cat."

"Fish bones all over the kitchen floor."

"I said skip the cat."

"Savings account passbook in a dresser drawer, hundred-and twenty-five thou withdrawn the morning before she got killed."

"What time?"

"Ten twenty-seven A.M." "Cash or bank check?" "Don't know.

"What do you know?" Parker asked.

Carella merely looked at him.

"We know the guy's name," Hawes said.

"If he killed her," Parker said.

"Whether he killed her or not, we know his name." "But not where he is."

"Check the airlines," Brown suggested. "Maybe he did go back to Italy."

"And we've got a clear chain of custody on the murder weapon," Carella said.

"Running from where to where?"

"Registered to a private bodyguard named Rodney Pratt, stolen from his limo on the night before the murder..."

"Who boosted it?" Kling asked.

"Guy named Jose Santiago."

"The famous bullfighter?" Parker asked.

This was a line he'd used before. The expression was his way of putting down anyone of Hispanic descent. Byrnes had heard rumors which he tended to disbelieve that Parker was now living with a Puerto

Rican girl. Parker? Sleeping with a famous bullfighter? "The famous cock fighter Hawes corrected. "He fights with his cock?" Parker asked.

No one laughed.

Parker shrugged.

"So what do you figure?" Byrnes asked. " interrupted burglary?"

"If the him-twenty-five was in the apartment, yes, "What,d you find when you tossed it?" "Us?" Meyer asked. "You."

"Dead fish stinking up the joint." "Piss, too," Kling said. "Cat piss."

"Are we back to the cat again?" Byrnes asked. He was not noted as an animal lover. When he was ten, a pet turtle named Petie had suddenly died.

Canary named Alice when he was twelve. And he was thirteen, his mother gave away his pet named Ruffles. For peeing all over their area Which apparently Svetlana Dyalovich's cat had been fond of doing, too. He did not want to hear a word about the dead woman's dead cat.

"Be nice if cats could bark, huh?" Parker sad.

Be nice if we could get off the goddamn

cat. Byrnes said. "What else did you find?" "Us?" Kling asked. "You."

"Nothing."

"No money, huh?" "Nothing." "So maybe it was a burglar."

"The cat could explain those stains on the Carella said.

"What stains?" Brown asked.

"The fish stains. They could've got on the coat that way."

"There were fish stains on the coat?" Brown asked. Byrnes was watching him. Eyes narrowing, scowl deepening. He was looking for something. Didn't know what yet, but looking.

"If she fed the cat raw fish, I mean," Carella said.

"How do you know there were fish stains on the coat?" Byrnes asked.

"Grossman," Willis said. "I took the call."

"She was wearing a mink while she fed the goddamn cat?" Parker said.

"Are you saying the cat might've rubbed up against her?" Brown asked.

"No, these were near the collar," Carella said. "Near the collar?"

"I took the call," Willis said again.

"Well, what'd Grossman say, actually?" Byrnes asked.