Pedro Knight, husband, musical director and inseparable companion of salsa queen Celia Cruz, died Saturday morning at Methodist Hospital in Arcadia, Calif.

He was 85. Cause of death was not released, but Knight had been in failing health for the past couple of years, suffering complications from diabetes and a series of strokes.

The man who began fading as soon as Cruz died in July 2003 and said time and time again that he yearned to join his wife of 41 years in the afterlife is expected to finally rest beside her in a crypt for two at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

''Sometimes I just want my time to come already so that I can be with her,'' Knight, who toward his end was involved in lawsuits brought against him by Cruz's sister and his own daughter, told The Miami Herald in 2004.

Knight and Cruz met in the storied, swinging Havana of the 1950s, when he played lead trumpet and she was lead singer for one of Cuba's hottest bands, La Sonora Matancera.

They left Cuba in 1960 and married in 1962. Cruz was already a star in her homeland, but her popularity skyrocketed in the early days of the New York salsa scene, which is when Knight laid down his trumpet to help manage his wife's career.

Until she was quieted by brain cancer at 77, Cruz didn't climb a stage anywhere in the world without the tall, dapper Knight at her side. He was a striking figure in trademark mutton-chop sideburns and suits, baton always in hand.

The Queen of Salsa and her cabecita de algodón (little cottonhead), retained an old-fashioned romance through the decades, he opening doors and taking her arm even to cross the street, she insisting on packing his bags every time they traveled and cooking all of his meals herself when they were home in Fort Lee, N.J.

Cruz and Knight had been nothing more than friends who worked in the same band for 12 years before Knight found the courage to even hint at his real feelings. And when he finally did, Cruz demured.

''She said she didn't want to be with me,'' Knight told The Miami Herald in 2004, after a graveside memorial marking the first anniversary of Cruz's death.

``She said musicians had too many women and she didn't want to suffer. And, well, it was true. I had a lot of women. But I told her that if she would have me, she could leave that problem to me. . . . And I stopped seeing all the women. I forgot about every single one. Because Celia was the most special woman in the world.''

''They were two bodies with one soul,'' Omer Pardillo, Cruz's former manager, told The Herald in 2006. He did not respond to several calls Saturday.

The end of Knight's life was consumed with mourning his wife -- and mired in lawsuits brought by Cruz's younger sister Gladys Becquer and his own daughter from a previous marriage, Ernestina Knight.

They originally accused both Knight and family friend Luis Falcón (who Knight had been living with near Los Angeles since Cruz's death), of misleading them into giving back more than $400,000 that each received as beneficiaries of an annuity the couple held jointly.

More recently, Pardillo, an executor of Cruz's estate, filed a suit against co-executor Falcón, who started Cruz's fan club when he was 10 and over the years became known as an adoptive son to the couple. Pardillo accuses Falcón of spending money intended for Knight, and not providing him adequate care at the end of his life. Gilberto Garcia, the New Jersey lawyer for Becquer, Ernestina Knight and Pardillo, says Falcón has blown through $4 or $5 million left by Cruz.

''We had filed a complaint asking Falcón for an accounting,'' Garcia said Saturday. ``A judge appointed a guardian at litem for Pedro and we were due before the judge this coming Friday. But Falcón has not answered. We understand he is representing himself.''

Knight was dropped from the original suit brought by Becquer and Ernestina, Garcia said, because he suffered from ``advanced dementia and didn't have anything to do with this.''

Falcón could not be reached for comment Saturday. ''This whole thing has really hurt Pedro,'' he said when he last spoke to The Herald in 2006.

Becquer's lawsuit claims that Falcón, an importer of religious figurines and a follower of Santeria, is a priest, which he denies, and says that as spiritual advisor to Cruz and Knight he had begun encroaching on business decisions.

''Celia and I never spoke about religion,'' Falcón told The Herald then. ``Her beliefs were always very private. The family now wants to say that I magic-ed her up. They want to take her power away from her, like she and Pedro couldn't think for themselves.''

''It's very sad. It's very sad that I got a call this morning saying my father was dead but that I don't know much else about it,'' said Ernestina, reached at home in Tampa on Saturday afternoon. ``I had not been able to see him in a while.''

Becquer could not be reached.

But Becquer's daughter, Celia Maria Cody, who lives in Atlanta, said in 2006 that she only had praise for Knight.

``He was a good man. I loved him very much. I appreciate everything he did for me and my family. Contrary to the way it's now playing out publicly, they were both great people and I want them to be remembered that way.

In addition to Ernestina, Knight is survived by four other children who live in Cuba: Pedro, Roberto, Emilia and Gladys.

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