“Let me speak to him.”

“He’s in the can. I just saw him go in there with a Hustler, so he’ll be awhile.”

“Tell him I’ve stumbled onto a possible homicide. Lady took a twelve-story dive. I’m in her apartment now.” He gave the address. “An ambulance is already here, but we’ll need a team to work the scene. Rumble whoever’s on call. Bacchetti and I will take the case.”

“But you’re on limited duty.”

“Not anymore. Tell Leary to get moving.”

“I’ll tell him when he comes out.”

“I wouldn’t wait.” He hung up. He had not mentioned the victim’s name; that would get them here in too much of a hurry. He heard the elevator doors open.

“Stone?” Bacchetti called from outside the door.

“It’s open. Careful about prints.”

Dino Bacchetti entered the room as he might a fashionable restaurant. He was dressed to kill, in a silk Italian suit with what Stone liked to think of as melting lapels. “So?” he asked, looking around, trying to sound bored.

“Sasha Nijinsky went thataway,” Stone said, pointing to the terrace.

“No shit?” Dino said, no longer bored. “That explains the crowd on the sidewalk.”

“Yeah. I was passing, on my way home.”

Dino walked over and clapped his hands onto Stone’s cheeks. “I got the luckiest partner on the force,” he said, beaming.

Stone ducked before Dino could kiss him. “Not so lucky. I chased the probable perp down the stairs and blew it on the last landing. He walked.”

“A right-away bust would have been too good to be true,” Dino said. “Now we get to track the fucker down. Much, much better.” He rubbed his hands together. “Whatta we got here?”

“She was moving to a new apartment tomorrow,” Stone said. He beckoned Dino to the table and opened the diary with the pen.

“Not in the best of moods, was she?” Dino said, reading. “Skydiving without a parachute. The papers are going to love that.”