He looked over to the knot of reporters around Kidd, and noticed that his a.d. had finally managed to grab hold of Kidd’s elbow, and was gently urging him toward the steps where the camera crew was waiting. Kidd was perhaps six feet two inches tall. Garcia guessed, weighing in at about two and a quarter, a huge, burly man in his early thirties, wearing Western gear and a white Stetson hat. The a.d. was practically shoving reporters aside now as he led Kidd toward Garcia.
“Roll it,” Garcia said to his cameraman, and began his lead-in. As the a.d. brought Kidd within camera range, Garcia was saying, “... perhaps the finest and most extensive collection of Impressionist art in the world. The owner, Robert Sargent Kidd, is here with us at Sotheby’s...”
He nodded to his cameraman who panned slightly to where Kidd was standing and waiting. Garcia joined the shot.
“Mr. Kidd,” he said, “can you tell us why you’ve decided to sell your collection at this time?”
Kidd grinned into the camera. In a drawl that sounded more Southern than it did Western, he said, “Oh, just tired of it, I guess.” The word tired came out as “tahd.”
“I’ve been told it’s worth something like twenty million dollars,” Garcia said. “What do you plan...?”
“Well, I couldn’t say just what it’s worth, actually,” Kidd said. “That’s for the bidders to determine, isn’t it?”
“What do you plan to do with all that money?” Garcia asked.
Kidd grinned. “Spend it, I reckon,” he said.
Garcia smiled and — mindful that his television audience liked a little joke now and then — said, “Well, Mr. Kidd, try not to spend it all in one place.” He looked directly at the camera and said, “This is Julio Garcia at Sotheby’s...” and suddenly broke off mid-sentence, his eyes flashing off-camera. “Miss Kidd?” he called. “Excuse me. Miss Kidd!”
He almost moved out of frame, but the cameraman was swift and sure and he managed to follow him as he moved through the crowd to where a tall blonde woman was just leaving the lobby to enter the main room. The woman was wearing a mink coat over a dark blue Chanel suit. The blouse under the suit was a paler blue, with a stock tie. Her long blonde hair was swept back from an exquisitely beautiful face, her revealed sapphire earrings echoing the blue of the blouse and the deeper blue of her eyes. She was, Garcia knew from all he’d read about her, somewhere in her late thirties — thirty-six, maybe thirty-seven — but she looked a great deal younger, her complexion flawless, her face free of any makeup but lipstick and eye shadow. She turned as he approached.
“Miss Kidd, excuse me,” he said, “Julio Garcia, Channel Five News. Could I have a moment of your time, please?”
Olivia Kidd arched one eyebrow and looked down her nose, as though something unspeakably vile had crawled up onto the lapel of her mink coat.
“Miss Kidd,” Garcia said, unfazed, “how do you feel about your brother selling all these valuable paintings?”
Outside the Luna Mare restaurant, two Fifth Precinct radio motor patrol cars were angled into the curb alongside an ambulance from Beekman Hospital and a police Mobile Lab van. The cardboard crime scene signs were already up on the striped barricades as Reardon and Hoffman pulled up m their unmarked, black Plymouth sedan. Hoffman had wanted to take Santa Claus along with them, give him a taste of something bigger than shoplifting. Reardon had turned the collar over to one of the blues on Mott Street. They were both pinning on their shields as they approached the patrolman outside the door of the restaurant, Reardon to the ribbed bottom of his black leather jacket, Hoffman to the flap pocket on his mackinaw. Reardon had taken off the blue watch cap and left it on the front seat of the car. A sharp wind was tossing his red hair. Hoffman was still wearing the peaked baseball cap.
“Medical Examiner here yet?” Reardon asked the patrolman.
“A few minutes ago,” the patrolman said, nodding. He was thinking it was going to be a long, cold, fucking night standing outside the door here, and he hadn’t put on his long johns.
“Who’s the victim, do you know?” Hoffman asked.
“Owner of the place, guy named Ralph D’Annunzio. His wife and son are inside there. The son’s name is Mark, I didn’t catch the lady’s.”
Reardon nodded and shoved open the door.
The body was lying in a pool of blood near the bar. The body seemed incongruous. Minus the body, the restaurant would have looked and felt cozy and warm. A gray homburg and a pair of gray suede gloves were on the bartop. A man wearing a gray overcoat was crouched over the body. He looked up when Reardon and Hoffman came in.
“Reardon, Fifth P.D.U.,” Reardon said.
“Dr. Norris,” the man said, and went back to the body. A lab technician and a man with a Polaroid camera were waiting for Norris to get through with the body. They were talking about girls. Reardon looked into the dining room. Christmas decorations all over the place, Christmas tree in one corner of the dining room on a table with a white tablecloth. A couple of uniformed cops were standing around looking bewildered, the way they always did at a homicide. A woman in her early fifties was sitting at one of the tables, weeping. A young man stood beside her, trying to comfort her, a stunned look on his face. Reardon figured this was the wife and the son. He nodded to Hoffman, who nodded back, and both men stepped around the body and went into the dining room.
“Mrs. D’Annunzio?” Reardon said.
She looked up at him, her face streaked with tears.
“I’m Detective Reardon, Fifth P.D.U., this is my partner, Detective Hoffman.”
She nodded and then dabbed at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.
“I’m sorry we have to ask you questions at a time like this,” Reardon said, “but if you can tell us what happened...”
Mrs. D’Annunzio burst into tears. Her son — they assumed he was the son — patted her hand and murmured sounds of comfort, no words, only sounds. He, too. seemed as if he would burst into tears at any moment.
“Are you Mark D’Annunzio?” Reardon asked.
D’Annunzio nodded. He was in his late twenties, Reardon guessed, a tall, dark man with curly black hair and dark brown eyes. Thin, with a longish nose. Reardon was willing to bet he’d taken a lot of ribbing about that nose.
“Mr. D’Annunzio,” he said, “can you tell us what happened?”
“They came in here with guns,” D’Annunzio said.
“How many of them?” Hoffman asked.
“Two.”
“When was this?”
“Half an hour ago.”
“What’d they look like? White, black...?”
“They were wearing ski masks.”
“How about their hands?” Hoffman asked.
“Hands?”
“Were they white or black?”
“I didn’t notice,” D’Annunzio said. “Everything happened all at once. One minute everything was normal, and the next it... it...”
“Did they say anything?” Reardon asked.
“They said to be quiet and no one would get hurt. They asked me what my... no, wait. First they told us to put our hands up, and then they asked me what my name...”
“Excuse me,” a voice behind Reardon said.
He turned. Norris, the Medical Examiner, was standing there with the gray suede gloves clutched in his right hand, and a small black satchel in his left.