Hark!

SHE HAD WATCHED from the park across the street, and had seen the uniformed cop on the front steps first challenge and next detain the wino she'd enlisted. But that was okay because she knew the letter would now be delivered one way or another, and she didn't much care if they later locked the bum up, or hanged him by his thumbs from a lamppost, or whatever.

She now knew that whoever she might recruit to deliver all the remaining letters would also be stopped, but this didn't bother her, either. The letters would get inside the precinct, they would be read, the messengers would protest, 'Hey, I'm only the messenger!', and that would be that. In this city, there had to be two million girls with shoulder-length black hair and bangs. Or feather-cut red hair, for that matter. Well, maybe a million, the redheads.

The problem was rounding up two more guys today, and however many more she'd need for every day next

week, Monday through Saturday, the twelfth of June, which was the date Adam had announced for whatever it was, she didn't know. His caper? His escapade? His prank, his practical joke, his whatever it was that would add seven figures to the coffers, whatever they might be, coffers. She sometimes wished she was smarter than she was.

But she was smart enough to know that she couldn't keep running back and forth between all the way downtown and up here to secure new messengers all the time. That would be both exhausting and time-consuming. So whereas she didn't like to cut anyone else in on the thirty-five grand Adam had allotted for the project, she knew that she needed a middleman here. And the only middleman she could think of was the first pimp she'd had, or vice versa, when she arrived in this rotten city five years ago.

AMBROSE CARTER WAS a black man who still ran a stable of eleven whores, four of them white, and he was very happy to see little Mela Sammarone again because he thought she might be coming back to work for him again. As it turned out, she wanted him to work for her.

'Now juss lemme get this straight,' he said, putting on a baffled black man look. In truth, nothing ever baffled him. He was too damn smart to ever be baffled.

They were sitting in a bar in what was called the Overlook section of Diamondback, appropriately named in that a lot of drug and prostitution shit was conveniently overlooked by the police here. Ambrose was nursing a Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola. Melissa was drinking a Coke without the bourbon. The two wigs she'd purchased were in her tote bag. Sitting there au naturelle, more or less, as it were, she looked as blond and as pert and as pretty as a young Meg Ryan. Ambrose really

regretted not representing her any longer. He thought of himself as not a pimp but a representative.

He still considered her the one who'd got away. Partially because he hadn't been able to hook her on any kind of controlled substance, she'd been too smart for that, but primarily because she'd been socking away bit by bit, piece by piece, what came to a total of fifty-five grand over a period of five years, which she'd offered him in exchange for her freedom. Well, figure it out, man. He wasn't holding her passport or no shit like that, and fifty-five in the here-and-now was worth grabbing on the spot, you never knew how fast these girls would age and become worthless. So he'd said So long, darlin, and kissed her off. But here she was, back again. And asking him to represent her again in a different sort of way.

'You want me to fine however many people it is you'll need in the next however many days . . .'

'That's right.'

'. . . screen them for you befo'hand so you'll be sure they willin to march into apo-lice station

'Yes, Ame.'

'. . . and then senn 'em to way'ever you be waitin for 'em, so you can pay 'em a hunnerd bucks each to deliver an envelope, separate envelopes actually . . .'

'Separate envelopes, yes.'

'. . . into this po-lice station, whichever one it may be.'

'That's exactly right.'

'And what's in this for me, may I be so bold? What do I get for fine-in' these people for you?'

'A thousand bucks today, and a grand a day starting Monday.'

'Till when?'

'Last one'll be next Saturday.'

'That's a total of seven large.'

'Seven, correct.'

Carter thought this over.

'How do I know this won't come back on me?' he asked. 'These people marchin up to a po-lice station, they sure to be stopped, Mel.'

'I know that. They tell the cops they got the money from me. You're out of this completely. I'm the one pays them, I'm the one they describe.'

You don't mine bein' made?'

'Not at all.'

Carter thought this over for another moment.

'Make it an even ten K,' he said.

You've got it,' she said. 'I'll need two people today. I'll tell you where they can meet me.'

'Male or female? Or do it matter?'

'As suits you,' Melissa said. 'I wouldn't send me one of your whores, though.

'Now do I look stupid, Mel?' he asked.

'No one could ever say that about you, Ame,' she said, and grinned.

'How do I get paid?' he asked.

'Three now,' she said. 'Two grand Monday morning, a grand every morning after that, straight through the twelfth.'

'You trust me that far, huh?'

'Got no reason not to, Ame.'

'That when it's going down?' he asked. 'The twelfth? Whatever this thing may be?'

'Now do / look stupid, Ame?' she asked.

THE SECOND NOTE that Saturday morning was addressed to Miss Honey Blair at Channel Four News. It read:

DEAR HONEY:

PLEASE FORGIVE ME AS I DID NOT KNOW

YOU WERE IN THAT AUTOMOBILE.

It was unsigned.

THE DEAF MAN'S second note was delivered to the 87th Precinct at a little past noon that day by a man who admitted under intense questioning that a pretty redhead had paid him a hundred dollars to take it over here. Before he'd met her at a bar called the Lucky Diamond down on Lewis and Ninth, he'd never seen her in his life. Did this mean they would take the money from him? 'That's Macbeth,' Genero said.

To be or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing, end them?

Even Parker knew this was definitely not Macbeth.

'It's Romeo and Juliet,' he said.

Eileen did not think the quote on the lieutenant's desk was from Romeo and Juliet. She knew that play virtually by heart, or at least she knew the Baz Luhrmann movie version, which she'd seen seven times when it was first released, falling in love with Leonardo di Caprio, who now seemed rather pudgy and middle-aged to her. But this was definitely not Romeo and Juliet.

Carella knew the quote was from Hamlet because back in his green and salad days, he'd played a bearded drama-club Claudius to a zaftig Sarah Gelb's Gertrude. Sarah

had thrown herself much too seriously into the Oedipal theory of Hamlet's relationship with his mother, French-kissing twenty-year-old Aaron Epstein during the famous 'Now, mother, what's the matter?' scene in the Queen's closet. 'What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue in noise so rude against me?' young Sarah had demanded, her breasts heaving in the low-cut Elizabethan gown she wore, a crown tilted saucily on her reddish curls.

After the opening night party, Sarah performed the same osculatory acrobatics with Carella, in the back seat of his father's automobile, which led to a somewhat steamy interlude interrupted by two uniformed cops driving past in a radio motor patrol car. Tossing the beams of their torches through both open back windows, surprising the coupling young lovers — Sarah pulling up her panties, Carella zipping up his fly — those two diligent vigilantes caused him to hate all cops for a good long time. But he would never forget Hamlet, oh no, and this now was most definitely Hamlet.

Hal Willis was wondering why the Deaf Man — if indeed the Hamlet quotation had been sent by him — had chosen to bring up the second-act curtain on their dreary Saturday morning routine with perhaps the most famous soliloquy in all literature. Did he feel he had given them information enough about spears and such, and was now ready to move on to another topic? In which case, what might this new topic be, hmmm?

The note had undoubtedly been computer-generated, printed on the same white bond paper he'd used for his previous messages.

'Why Hamlet?' Willis asked.

'Why Macbeth?' Genero insisted.

'Something in Grover Park again?' Brown suggested.

'Like his mischief last time around? Some kind of event in the Cow Pasture?'

'When does Shakespeare on the Green start?' Eileen asked.

'Sometime later this month?'

'Around the fifteenth?'

'Later, I think.'

'But even if it is Shakespeare on the Green . . .'

'Right,' Eileen said.

'Of course,' Meyer agreed.

'. . . it'd be bullshit, anyway.'

'He never tells us what he's really up to.'

'So toss the letter,' Parker suggested, and shrugged.

'He's got to be telling us something,' Carella said.

'Even if it's something misleading?'

'Poetry,' Brown said, shaking his head.

'Shakespearean poetry, no less.'

'Macbeth, no less!' Genero said, agreeing.

MELISSA CALCULATED THAT of the thirty-five large Adam was allotting for operating expenses, Carter was costing her ten, and the various messengers would cost her another, say, two, three thou, depending on how far upward any of them negotiated the basic hundred-dollar delivery fee. That would leave her with a cool profit of, say, twenty thousand.

She had already given Carter three as the down payment for his work, and had paid the twelve o'clock delivery boy a hundred. Because the girl looked so neat and clean and innocent and all, Melissa had given two hundred to the four o'clock messenger Ame had sent; she wondered where the hell in Diamondback he'd found somebody who resembled a college girl. So out of the five K

Adam had laid on her rhis morning, she now had something like sixteen hundred left, after cab fares and drinks and coffees and such while she'd waited for the messengers to show up first at the Lucky Diamond and then at the Hotel Majestic lounge, the separate venues (she liked that word) she'd chosen for their meeting places.

Now what she could have done was take that sixteen hundred and buy herself some goodies with it, including the lingerie Adam had suggested, but she figured a more profitable investment would be a gift for Adam himself. She decided she'd look for a cashmere robe for him; a nice black cashmere robe would put him in a good mood, his blond hair and all.

But then, because at the back of her mind she still had the feeling that one day he might shoot her dead if he became dissatisfied with one thing or another . . .

. . . and since she was already uptown here where she knew most of the criminal element from the days when she was either on her back or her knees, working either day or night to fill the coffers, whatever they were, of her erstwhile representative, Ambrose Carter . . .

. . . she decided to visit a man named Blake Fuller, who sold her a neat little Kahr PM 9, which at only 16.9 ounces empty and measuring only four by five-and-a-half inches overall, would fit nicely into her purse, just in case push came to shove later on down the line.

Only cost her five bills, too, which Fuller advised her was a bargain.

That left eleven hundred for the robe.

Thinking she'd done a good day's work so far, she grabbed a taxi and headed for the big department stores midtown.

Along about then, the cute little college girl lookalike

was delivering the Deaf Man's third and final note of the day.

THE NOTE READ:

Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes And beat our watch, and rob our passengers.

'At least he spelled everything right this time,' Genero said. 'Didn't he?'

Carella was already at his computer, looking for RhymeZone Shakespeare Search.

An arrow again,' Eileen said, just as Carella typed in 'as stand in narrow lanes.' 'Buried in the word narrow.'

'First spears, now arrows,' Kling said.

'Arrows all day long.'

'King Richard II, Act Five, Scene Three,' Carella read from

the screen.

'First The Tempest, then Hamlet, and now Richard II,'

Willis said.

Any importance to these plays he's choosing?' Hawes asked. He was being very careful not to get his open-toed boot stepped on by any of the detectives milling around

Carella's desk.

'He's just choosing them at random,' Parker said. 'It's

all total bullshit.'

'I don't think so,' Carella said. 'First off, he's telling us it's going to happen on our watch. He's going to "beat our watch.'"

'That's very clever,' Genero said.

'Thanks,' Carella said.

'I meant him. It's very clever of him to have found that

reference.'

'He's going to rob our passengers,' Eileen said.

'We don't have any passengers,' Parker said.

'It's something to do with passengers,' she insisted.

'A train?'

'An airplane?'

A boat?'

'Oh, Jesus, not another boat.'

'Not another rock star, please!'

'Who stands in narrow lanes?' Hawes asked.

'Hookers,' Parker said at once.

This he knew for sure.

PARKER SUGGESTED THAT he should be the one who interrogated the girl because he was older and therefore more avuncular than either Hawes, Willis, Genero, or Kling, and perhaps younger but more experienced than Carella, which he wasn't; Carella had been a cop longer than Parker had, and Carella had just turned forty whereas Parker was forty-two.

In any case, because the police department was at best a sexist organization and Lieutenant Byrnes was still clinging to the notion that Eileen Burke could bring a woman's so-called intuition to this case, she was the one chosen to speak to Alison Kane that Saturday afternoon.

'So where'd you get that letter, Alison?' she asked.

Chummy sort of dormy school-girl approach.

'In the lounge at the Hotel Majestic'

'Is it nice there? I've never been there.'

'Very nice, yes,' Alison said.

She was perhaps twenty-four, twenty-five years old, some five-six or -seven, slender and curvy but not too buxom. Wearing a not-too-short dark green skirt, with a paler green twin sweater set, crew neck and buttoned

cardigan. String of pearls around her neck. Truly looked Ivy League. Eileen figured her for a hooker.

"What were you doing at the Majestic?' she asked.

'Just stopped by for a cup of tea.'

Sounded Ivy League, too.

'Happened to be strolling by the Majestic . . .'

'I'd been doing some shopping.'

"Went into the lounge

'Yes. For a cup of tea.'

'And happened to . . . well, how did that letter come into your hands, can you tell me?'

'A woman gave it to me.'

'Ah. What woman?'

A woman I met there. She said she'd had an argument with her boyfriend who was a detective up here, and she wanted someone to deliver this letter of apology to him.'

And you believed her.'

'She seemed sincerely contrite.'

'Uh-huh.'

Also, she offered me money to deliver the letter.'

Ah.'

'Two hundred dollars.'

Ah.'

'So I figured I'd help her out. Why not? Her boyfriend's name was on the letter, some Italian name, so I figured her story was genuine. Otherwise, where would she have got the name?'

And her name? Did she tell you her name?'

'Cookie.'

'Cookie, uh-huh.'

'Yes.'

'Cookie what?'

'She didn't say'

'What did this Cookie look like?'

'Red hair in a feather cut. Brown eyes. About my height, I would guess. Nice figure. About my age, maybe a little younger. Well-dressed.'

'Like you.'

'Thank you.'

'Was she wearing gloves?'

'What?'

'Gloves.'

'No. Gloves?'

'Gloves. I don't suppose you were wearing gloves, either, were you?'

'No, I wasn't. Gloves? It's June!'

'Miss Kane, would you mind if we took your fingerprints before you left the precinct?'

Yes. I mean no. I mean yes, I would mind. Why do you want my fingerprints?'

'Because they're most likely on that envelope you handled, and we'd like to eliminate them when we run our check.'

'What check?'

'To see what other prints may be on it.'

'No,' Alison said. 'No fingerprints.'

'Why not?'

'Because I haven't done anything wrong.'

'Uh-huh,' Eileen said, and looked her dead in the eye. 'Ever been in trouble with the law, Miss Kane?'

She did not answer.

'Alison? Ever been . . . ?'

Which was when she gave up Ambrose Carter.

'WHUT THIS IS,' Ambrose told Willis and Eileen, 'is a tempest in a teapot.'

He was thinking he'd like to put the redhead in his

stable. What the hell could she be making as a cop? 'Girl told us you're her pimp,' Eileen said. 'I been out of that trade a long time now,' Carter said. "We're not looking at a Two-Thirty bust,' Willis said. Carter knew the man was referring to Section 230.25 of the Penal Law, which stated that a person was guilty of promoting prostitution when he knowingly advanced or profited from prostitution by managing, supervising, controlling, or owning either a house of prostitution or a prostitution business involving two or more prostitutes. Which Carter was, in fact, guilty of doing. Owning a prostitution business involving two or more prostitutes. Eleven of them, in fact. But he didn't let on like he knew what Willis was talking about, because that would be the same thing as admitting he was a pimp, and not a mere agent of sorts.

'Then whut is it you are looking at, Detective?' he asked Eileen, deferring to her rank and her beauty and her big tits. 'And whut do it have to do with me?'

'Alison Kane,' Eileen said again, which was exactly how she'd opened the conversation.

'Said you sent her to meet some woman 'I tole you I am no longer engaged in that form of occupation.'

'This wasn't a takee-outee call,' Eileen said. 'This woman needed someone to deliver a letter.' 'To us,' Willis said. 'At the Eighty-seventh Precinct.' 'Woman gave her two bills to do it.' 'I still does not know whut this possibly has to do with me,' Carter said, spreading his hands wide in innocence.

'We want the woman's name.'

'I do not know which woman you is talkin' about.'

'The woman who gave Alison Kane two hundred bucks to deliver a letter to us.'

'I know of no such woman.'

'Alison says you're the one who sent her . . .'

'I do not know anyone named Alison, either. Kane or otherwise.'

'How about Gloria Stanford?' Willis said.

'Her neither. Who are all these women?'

'Gloria Stanford was murdered on Memorial Day,' Willis said.

'And that ain't such a tempest in a teapot,' Eileen suggested.

Which was when Carter gave up Carmela Sammarone.

THE FEDERAL SEARCH came up with a hit for a prostitution arrest in Los Angeles six Decembers ago. A set of partials they'd lifted from the envelope Alison Kane had delivered matched the prints on file for Sammarone, Carmela, NMI in the AFIS system.

Before now, they'd had good reason to believe that the Deaf Man had killed Gloria Stanford. Problem was they didn't know who he might be, or where they could find him.

Now they also had good reason to believe he'd engaged a prostitute named Carmela Sammarone to recruit at least one other person to deliver his messages to the precinct.

Problem here was they didn't know where she might be, either.

Or even that nowadays she was known as Melissa Summers.

7.

THE PHONE RANG at a little past nine that Sunday morning. They were sleeping in Sharyn's apartment that night, and she always slept on the side of the bed closest to the phone because in this city you never knew when another cop would get shot, and the Deputy Chief Surgeon would have to respond.

Sharyn picked up the receiver and said, 'Cooke here,' and then listened, and said, 'Where?' and listened again, and said, 'I'm on the way,' and hung up and threw back the covers and ran for the bathroom. Kling was dressed before she was. 'I'll drive you,' he said. 'You don't have to,' she said.

'I want to,' he said. 'We'll get breakfast when you're finished there.'

'My dollface,' she said, and went to him and kissed him.

He drove them through a Mickey D's for coffee, and they started the drive to Majesta with the windows down and fresh morning breezes blowing through. There was very little traffic so early on a Sunday morning, and they made it over the bridge in ten minutes flat and were at Mount Pleasant in another ten. Mount Pleasant was one of the city's better hospitals. There'd be no need for Sharyn to arrange a transfer, but a cop had been badly cut trying to break up an early morning gang rumble outside St. Matthew's Church on Camden Boulevard, and she had to be here to make sure he'd get the best possible treatment.

That didn't explain why Dr. James Melvin Hudson was standing outside the main entrance to the hospital.

Kling suddenly remembered that this was where Dr. James Melvin Hudson worked. When he wasn't working at the office of the Deputy Chief Surgeon in Rankin Plaza, four miles and another world away. Medland versus Copland.

Dr. James Melvin Hudson was wearing his hospital togs this morning, looking all pristine and medical in a white tunic with a stethoscope hanging out of the right-hand pocket. Dr. James Melvin Hudson was tall and black and extremely handsome, and he'd been dating Sharyn when she and Kling first met, and here he was now. Standing outside Mount Pleasant Hospital. Where he was Head of the Oncology Department. Which was why he also worked at Rankin Plaza because cops didn't only get shot or knifed or bludgeoned or axed; they sometimes got cancer.

And then Kling remembered that it was someone named Jamie who'd called Sharyn to tell her Hawes had been shot.

And he suddenly wondered if the colleague who'd suggested she give a listen to 'Go Ask' was none other than Jamie Hudson himself.

Sharyn got out of the car.

'Hi, Jamie,' she said. 'Where is he?'

And went into the hospital without telling Kling where they'd be meeting for breakfast later.

THERE WAS NOTHING he appreciated more than thoughtful solitude. Alone in the room he had set aside as his office, sitting behind his computer and contemplating

the week ahead, he knew an intense satisfaction he felt lesser men could not possibly enjoy.

For him, the planning was far more exciting than the execution. He had read somewhere that Alfred Hitchcock felt a movie was finished the moment he laid out his storyboard. In many respects, he felt the same way.

The letters he would . . .

Or rather Melissa would . . .

Or rather Melissa's minions would deliver next week had already been composed and printed and placed in their separate envelopes, each of them addressed to Detective Stephen Louis Carella at the 87th Precinct. Step by step, bit by bit, Monday through Friday, the delivered messages would gradually unfold his meticulous plan, leading the Keystone Kops down the garden path until Saturday, ta-ra! when at last all would be revealed — if they were clever enough. But too late.

Smiling, he hunched over the keyboard and opened first the folder he had titled SKED, and next the file he had titled CALENDAR:

MON 6/7 DARTS

TUE 6/8 BACK TO THE FUTURE

WED 6/9 NUMBERS

THU 6/10 PALS

FRI6/11 WHEN?

SAT 6/12 NOW!

He nodded in satisfaction. Bit by bit, he thought. Step by step.

The actual gig next Saturday held little or no interest for him. Neither did the eventual payoff. It was

the planning that thrilled him to the marrow — to coin a phrase. And this was a magnificent plan! He suddenly burst into jubilant song.

WHEN MELISSA HEARD him singing at the top of his lungs, she thought perhaps he'd finally lost it. Sighing, she picked up the receiver and punched out Ambrose Carter's number in Diamondback. He answered on the third ring.

'Ame,' she said, 'it's me.'

'Li'l early to be callin, ain' it?'

She looked at the clock on the desk. It was ten minutes past ten.

'Sorry, Ame,' she said, 'but I was wondering about tomorrow.'

'Whut about tomorrow?'

'Have you lined up your three people?'

'Whut three people?' he said.

She held the receiver away from her ear, looked at it the way a person might do on television when she'd just heard something she couldn't quite understand or believe. Eyes squinching up. Brow furrowing.

'For the letters,' she said.

'Whut letters?' he said.

'The letters you were going to find people

'Whut letters?' he said again.

'The letters I advanced you three fucking thousand dollars to . . .'

'I don't know whut you talkin bout, girl,' he said, and hung up.

She looked at the phone again.

Just like on television.

*

HOWES COULDN'T QUITE imagine himself dating a so-called celebrity, but he guessed that's what Honey Blair was. Which was why he didn't have to prod the detectives of Midtown South to follow up diligently on the drive-by shooting that had taken place outside 574 Jefferson at a few minutes before eleven on Wednesday morning, June second, four days ago. The other person in that perforated limousine had been Hawes himself, by the way, but this didn't seem of much interest to a detective named Brody Hollister, who was heading up the Mid South investigative team.

'Thanks, Colton,' he told Hawes on the phone. 'We'll keep that in mind, if, when.'

'Thanks,' Hawes said. 'And it's Cotton, by the way. Cotton Hawes.'

'Really?' Hollister said, and hung up.

Asshole, Hawes thought, and made his next call to the Eight-Six, where there was no question that he himself, Cotton (sometimes known as Colton) Hawes, had been the intended victim. The detective who'd caught the squeal there was a First named Barney Olson, and he told Hawes he was still working the case, but they'd had a rash of crib burglaries this past week, and he was sorry to admit he hadn't given the sniper case his undivided attention.

He sounded a bit distracted, but also somewhat sarcastic, landing a mite too heavily on the words 'undivided attention,' hmm? Crib burglaries were not the theft of infants' beds, but merely burglaries committed in dwellings rather than offices, and doubtless of vast importance in a Silk Stocking precinct like the Eight-Six. But, shit, man, a person — Hawes himself! — had been shot at from a rooftop, and it was very likely, in fact virtually indisputable that the Wednesday morning

attempt on his life was linked to the subsequent Friday morning shooting outside his orthopedist's office on Jefferson Avenue. He still wondered what you had to do to get the 'undivided attention' of a cop around here.

He did not yet know that a personal note of apology had been delivered yesterday to Channel Four's seventh-floor offices on Moody Street.

Neither did Honey.

Her weekend off had started yesterday. This was still Sunday. This afternoon, in fact, they planned to go downtown to hear the visiting Cleveland Symphony Orchestra perform an all-Stravinsky program in Clarendon Hall's popular 'Three at Three' series. Meanwhile, Hawes had finished making his calls, and Honey was taking a luxuriant bubble bath.

He wondered if he should go in there and offer to scrub her back.

CARELLA'S MIND WAS on the Deaf Man.

Watching his wife's moving fingers, translating for his mother and sister, his mind was nonetheless on where the Deaf Man might be, and what he might be planning on this Sunday, the sixth day of June.

Carella had checked with the desk sergeant at the Eight-Seven early this morning, as soon as he'd got up, but as of eight-thirty A.M, no message from Mr. Adam Fen had been delivered. He had checked again at twelve-thirty, just about when his mother, and Angela, and Angela's two daughters were arriving for lunch, but again, there had been nothing from the man who'd bar-raged them with missives the week before.

Now, reading and translating, Carella's mind wandered.

While Teddy explained that they had thought a Northern Italian menu might be appropriate, in honor of Luigi and his children and the dozen or more friends who were coming over from Milan for the wedding, Carella was thinking. Two days of anagrams, starting with WHO'S IT, ETC? on Tuesday afternoon and ending the next day with I'M A FATHEAD, MEN! All five notes designed to remind them of his previous mischief and to tell them he was the one who'd killed Gloria Stanford.

And, as Teddy's fingers signaled savory but difficult to sign pass-around starters like bruschetta and crostata di funghi and tartine di baccala, Carella simultaneously spoke the words aloud in his halting Italian while silently pondering the fusillade of Shakespearean quotes that had started on Thursday with three shakes and a spear . . .

Rough winds do SHAKE ... SHAKE off slumber ... SHAKE me up ...

And finally . . .

... footing of a SPEAR.

Announcing without question that whatever might come next, it would most certainly come from Shakespeare. And indeed it had. On Friday morning . . .

'Steve? Are you listening to her?'

His sister's voice. Yanking him forward some five centuries in time.

'Sorry,' he said.

Teddy was starting on the main course.

There'll be two choices, she signed.

'There'll be two choices,' Carella said, reading her

hands. 'Either the roast lamb loin encrusted with mixed Italian herbs . . .'

'Yummy,' Angela said.

'Or the Tuscan-style veal tenderloin.'

'I think I prefer the veal,' his mother said.

'Well, there'll be a choice, Mom.'

'I know, honey. I'm just saying I love veal.'

I thought no fish, Teddy signed. Fish can be tricky.

Which was even trickier to sign.

She went on to explain the entrees would be accompanied by fresh sweet peas and pearl onions . . .

'And new potatoes,' Carella said, reading.

And a spinach salad . . .

'With goat cheese, walnuts, and a warm pancetta dressing,' Carella said.

And, of course, there'll be a choice of desserts, Teddy signed.

'It sounds delicious,' Angela said.

'Steve?' his mother said. 'Don't you think so?'

'Can't wait,' he said, nodding, but his mind had begun to wander again.

So while the women lingered over coffee and cannoli, and the children ran around the house giggling and playing whatever game they'd invented this week, he went to the computer in Mark's room, and again called up the sources of the three 'spear' notes they'd received on Friday.

Tickle our noses with spear-grass — from Henry IV.

Where is your boar-spear, man? — from Richard III.

And the last note that day — Slander's venom'd spear — from Richard II.

Was there any significance to the choice of plays, or the order in which the notes were delivered?

If so, what about yesterday's notes?

No more spears this time around. Now the Deaf Man was into arrows:

Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows Swears he will shoot no more but play with sparrows

Act Four of The Tempest.

The slings and arrows ...

Act Three of Hamlet. And lastly:

As stand in narrow lanes

Act Five of King Richard II.

One historical drama this time around. Plus a straight play and a tragedy. Carella could see nothing significant in their choice.

Or in the sequence of their delivery, either.

He was left with solely spears and arrows, some of them buried, and he still didn't know what the hell was about to happen.

HAWES MENTIONED DURING the intermission that he was getting sort of a brush-off from the upper-crust dicks at the Eight-Six and the overworked ones in Mid South. Honey seemed surprised.

'Even after the show I did Friday night?' she asked.

'Oh, they're aware of you, all right. But they don't seem interested in finding a link to whoever took those potshots at me. Outside your building, I mean.'

'You think the two shootings are linked?'

"Well . . . don't you?'

'Honestly? I don't know.'

'You don't? Honey, it seems obvious that I'm the one they're after.'

'You? Why on earth would anyone ... ?'

'Maybe because I've put away one or two bad guys in my time. And some of those guys are out on the street again. And maybe they still don't like the idea of.. .'

'Excuse me, Miss Blair?'

Hawes turned. A tall thin man with a silly grin on his face was virtually leaning in over Hawes's aisle seat to extend his program to Honey in the seat next to his.

'Could you sign it "To Ben," please?' he asked, and handed her the program and a marking pen.

Hawes shifted his weight, giving Honey the arm rest and more room to write. Feigning indifference, he busied himself with his own program.

It appeared that next week's 'Three at Three' series would kick off on Saturday afternoon with Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, his only full concerto for violin. Konstantinos Sallas, the guest violinist, would . . .

'There you go, Ben,' Honey said, and handed the program and the pen across Hawes to the man, who was standing expectantly in the aisle, still grinning like a schoolboy.

'Thank you, Miss Blair,' he said.

Honey smiled, and then squeezed Hawes's hand.

The house lights were beginning to dim.

AT A LITTLE past four that afternoon, just as Eileen was searching through her refrigerator and discovering there was nothing but yogurt to eat for dinner tonight, her telephone rang. For some reason, she looked at her watch,

and then went into the living room to pick up the receiver.

'Burke,' she said.

'Eileen, hi. It's Hal.'

'Hey, hi,' she said.

'Got a minute?'

'Sure,' she said. 'What's up?'

'I've got some ideas about our Deaf Man.'

'I'm all ears,' she said.

Willis laughed.

'Wanna meet for a cup of coffee or something?'

'Sure,' she said, and for some reason looked at her watch again.

'Horton's on Max?'

'Give me ten.'

'See you.'

There was a click on the line.

She looked at the receiver.

Gave a little puzzled shrug.

Shrugged aside the shrug.

Put the receiver back on its cradle, went into the bedroom to see what she looked like in the mirror there, decided she looked good enough for coffee at Horton's, looked at her watch again, and left the apartment.

HORTON'S ON MAX was one of a chain of coffee joints that took their separate names from the streets or avenues of their locations. Hence there was a Horton's on Howes and a Horton's on Rae and a Horton's on Granger and a Horton's on Mapes and so forth. The Horton's on Max took its name from its corner location on Maximilian Street, which had been named after Ferdinand Maximilian, the deposed emperor of Mexico,

who — at dawn on the nineteenth of June, 1867 — was executed by firing squad on El Cerro de las Campanas . . .

'That means "The Hill of the Bells"' in English," Willis told her.

Maximilian Street was not located on or near any hill, nor was there a church close by that might have sounded bells every hour on the hour and therefore provided a modicum of credibility to naming the street after a long-forgotten and scarcely mourned Mexican emperor. But the street had been named during a heatedly fought mayoral election, when a brief influx of Mexican immigrants to this part of the city seemed to presage (wrongly as it turned out) a full-scale invasion of wetbacks. Ever mindful of the power of the ballot box, the city's incumbent mayor dug into his history books and — seemingly ignorant of the fact that Maximilian had been imported from Austria and was largely despised - changed the name of the erstwhile 'Thimble Street' (but that was another story) to the more acceptable to Mexicans (he thought) 'Maximilian Street.'

The theme of 'independence' being a favorite one in any American election . . .

'The other one being "patriotism,"' Willis said.

. . . perhaps the incumbent mayor was thinking of Maximilian's last words before the bullets thudded home: 'I forgive everyone, and I ask everyone to forgive me. May my blood which is about to be shed, be for the good of the country. Viva Mexico, viva la independencia!'

'But I digress,' Willis said.

'How come you know so much about Mexico?' Eileen asked.

Willis hesitated. Then he said, 'Well, Marilyn spent a lot of time in Mexico, you know.'

'Yes, I knew that.'

'Yes,' he said, and fell silent.

They were sipping cappuccino in a corner window, sitting in armchairs opposite each other.

'You okay with that now?' she asked.

She was talking about Marilyn Hollis getting shot to death by a pair of Argentinian hit men.

'Are you ever okay with something like that?' he asked, and suddenly reached across the table to touch her cheek. 'Are you okay with this?' he asked.

He was talking about the faint scar on her cheek where she'd been cut by the son of a bitch who'd later raped her.

'As okay as I'll ever be,' she said.

'So,' he said, and pulled back his hand, and nodded. He hesitated for what seemed a long time. Then he asked, 'Is there still anything between you and Bert?'

'No,' she said. 'No. Why?'

'Just wanted to make sure I wasn't . . .'

'Yes?'

He shook his head.

'Wasn't what?'

You know.'

She looked at him, nodded. There was another long

silence.

'Remember that time in the sleeping bag?' she asked.

'Oh, God, yes!'

Their first encounter with the Deaf Man. The stakeout in Grover Park. Eileen and Willis sharing a sleeping bag as pretend lovers. A decoy lunch pail on one of the benches, cut scraps of newspaper inside it, instead of the fifty thousand bucks the Deaf Man had demanded.

The 'passionate couple' assignment had been the choice one; Hawes and Willis had drawn straws for it, and Willis had won. He'd worked with Eileen only once before then, on a mugging case. Now they were lying side by side, in somewhat close proximity, in a sleeping bag.

'We're supposed to be kissing,' be told Eileen.

'My lips are getting chapped,' she said.

'Your lips are very nice,' he said.

'We're supposed to be here on business.'

'Mmmm,' he answered.

'Get your hand off my behind.'

'Oh, is that your behind?'

'Listen,' she said.

'I hear it,' he said. 'Somebody's coming. You'd better kiss me.'

She kissed him.

'What's that?' Willis asked suddenly.

'Do not be afraid, guapa, it is only my pistol,' Eileen said, and laughed.

Remembering now, sipping their coffees, they looked at each other across the round table between them. Eileen licked foam from her lips.

'I didn't know what guapa meant,' Willis said.

'Rabbit,' Eileen said.

'I know that now.'

'The line was from For Whom the Bell Tolls. The sleeping bag scene between Robert and what's her name.'

'Ingrid Bergman.'

'I meant in the book.'

'I forget.'

'Ah, how soon we forget,' she said.

They looked at each other again.

'What are these ideas you've got about the Deaf Man?' she asked.

'I don't have any ideas about the Deaf Man,' he said. None at all. Not a clue.'

'Then

'I lied.'

'You didn't have to,' she said, and reached across the table and took his hand. 'But promise me something, Hal.'

'Yes?'

'Never lie to me again.'

'Okay,' he said. 'I want to make love to you.'

She burst out laughing.

'Eileen? I want to make love to you,' he said.

'I heard you,' she said.

'Eileen?'

'Yes, Hal, yes. I heard you.'

'So . . . do you think ... do you think you might . . . ?'

'Yes,' she said, 'I think so,' and reached across the table, and took his other hand in hers. 'Yes, Hal,' she said softly. Yes.'

MELISSA KNEW WHERE to find him because she'd worked for the bastard. Knew all his haunts, all his hangouts, all the places he slept and didn't sleep. He was a busy little man, Ambrose Carter was. When she located him at seven o'clock that Sunday night, it was just beginning to

grow dark.

She spotted him through the front plate-glass window, sitting at the bar, nursing what was probably a Blackjack, his favorite drink. She knew better than to go inside there, confront him where there'd be all his homies to help him out. Drag her out of there, do her fore and aft to teach her a lesson, a dozen of them, two dozen of them, however many it took to teach the little whore a lesson once and for

all.

Well, she was here tonight to teach him a lesson.

Teach Mr. Ambrose Carter a lesson.

Teach him you don't go taking money from a person, even if she was a whore, and then not deliver on your promise. You just don't do that.

Not to Melissa Summers, anyway.

She waited till he finished his drink, waited till he paid for it and came out of the bar, walking a bit unsteadily, watched him from across the street, and then caught up with him just as he was unlocking the door to his car.

'Ame?' she said.

He turned.

He was looking at a small gun in her hand. Seemed like some kind of toy gun made out of plastic.

'Well, look who the fuck's here,' he said.

'I'll need my money back, Ame,' she said.

'Get lost, ho,' he said, and went back to unlocking his car door, turning his back on her.

It was calling her a whore that did it, she supposed. He shouldn't have called her a whore. Shouldn't have turned his back on her, either. Shouldn't have dissed her that way. She thought maybe that was why she shot him twice in the back, once while he was still standing, and another time after he'd crumpled to the sidewalk.

Or maybe it was because she'd sucked too many cocks for the son of a bitch in the five years she'd worked for him.

Maybe that was it.

SHE CAME OUT of the bathroom wearing only a white garter belt and red high-heeled pumps. The garter belt, white, made her look somewhat virginal. The pumps matched her lipstick, a red much brighter than her hair, too bright to be worn by anyone but a whore. She had pulled the hair back into a ponytail that again made her appear girlish, a teenager surprised, echoing the pristine white of the garter belt. The garter belt exposed the wild red tangle of her pubic hair, enforcing the whore image

again. She was a study in contrasts tonight, Eileen Burke.

'I think I look beautiful,' she said, sounding amazed by the discovery.

'You are beautiful,' Willis said, and held out his hand to her.

She came to the bed and sat on the edge of it. He kissed first her hand, and then the faint scar on her left cheek. He kissed the hollow of her throat and her nipples. He kissed her below, where the red hair curled recklessly beneath and around the garter belt, and then he found her lips and kissed her longingly and tenderly, murmuring 'Eileen, Eileen, Eileen' against her mouth, and her hair and her ears and her shoulders and her neck, making her feel beautiful, genuinely beautiful and clean for the first time since she was raped and stabbed.

He took her in his arms and lowered her onto the bed.

Discovering her, marveling at her presence beside him, he repeated over and over again, 'Eileen, Eileen, Eileen, Eileen, Eileen.' Her name. No one else's name. Hers alone.

8.

WELL, WELL, WELL, now what have we here?' Detective Oliver Wendell Weeks asked.

He was talking to the uniformed cops who'd called in what appeared to be a homicide at eight-fifteen this bright Monday morning, June 7, which was when Police Officers Mary Hannigan and Roger Bradley found what appeared to be a dead body on the sidewalk alongside what appeared to be a BMW sedan.

Long before the two officers happened across the stiff on their first circuit of Adam Sector during the first half-hour of the day shift, a great many other people had noticed it lying there on the sidewalk in a huge puddle of blood. All through the livelong night and early morning, these passersby glanced down at the body and hurried on along because, this neighborhood being what it was, nobody thought it prudent to report what sure as hell looked like a murder. Especially those good citizens who recognized the corpse as being the remains of one Ambrose Carter, an influential, what you might call, pimp.

Ollie recognized Carter the moment the ME rolled him over.

'Ambrose Carter, Pimp,' he announced, spreading his hands on the air and raising his voice to the world at large, but especially to the two Homicede cops who'd been sent over to lend authority to the vile goings-on up here in the Eight-Eight.

'I know all the girls in his stable,' Weeks said.

'Biblically, no doubt,' the ME commented drily. 'You think one of them might've aced him?' Muldoon asked.

'It's been heard of,' Mulready said. The two Homicide dicks were wearing black suits, black socks and shoes, black ties, white shirts, black snap-brimmed fedoras. They looked like Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith, except that they were both white. They had already decided there was nothing important for them up here. A dead pimp? Who cared?

'Shell casings there,' Muldoon said, indicating them with a nod of his head. 'I saw them,' Weeks said.

'By the way, you ever find the guy who stole your book?'

'Not yet,' Ollie said. 'But I will.' 'What book?' Mulready asked. 'Detective Weeks here wrote a book,' Muldoon said. 'You're kidding me.' 'Tell him, Ollie.'

'I wrote a book, yes,' Ollie said. 'What's so strange about that?'

'Nothing at all,' Muldoon said. 'Every detective I know has written a book.' 'Not me,' Mulready said.

'Not me, neither,' Muldoon said. 'But we're exceptions to the rule, right, Ollie?' 'I don't need this,' Ollie said. 'Can I buy this book on Amazon?' Mulready asked. 'It ain't been published yet,' Muldoon said. 'That's what's so fascinating about it. The manuscript was stolen from the back seat of Detective Weeks's car by some transvestite hooker.'

'You're kidding me, right?' Mulready said.

'Who you ain't caught yet, am I right, Ollie?' 'Shove it up your ass,' Ollie explained. The Mobile Crime boys were just arriving.

MELISSA HAD BEGUN looking for her next three messengers immediately after she ran from what she supposed the cops would now be calling the 'crime scene.' Hadn't thought to clean up after herself, pick up those little brass thingies from the sidewalk, whatever you called them, she'd thought of that only later; they could identify a weapon from stuff like that, couldn't they? She just wanted to get the hell out of there fast. Before last night, she'd never shot a person in her life, no less killed one, and she was just plain scared.

But that was last night and now was now.

Sitting in the Starbucks on Rafer and Eleventh, her hand shaking only slightly as she lifted a cup of espresso macchiato to her lips, she read both morning newspapers and could not find a single article about the death of a pimp named Ambrose Carter. Not a single paragraph. Not a single word. As her mother was fond of saying: Good riddance to bad rubbish.

She was feeling exceptionally fine this morning.

'Tis pity she's a whore and all that, but it wasn't every day you got to kill the pimp who'd turned you out.

Smiling secretly, she sipped serenely.

Along about now, the first of the three envelopes should be arriving at the Eight-Seven. She had arranged to meet later with her next two chosen messengers, exchange cash for envelopes. One, two, three, and finished for the day.

The way she'd found all three delivery boys was by

remembering once again what her mother had taught her at her knee: Desperate people do desperate things.

Only this time, she'd looked for the most desperate people she could find.

Simple.

She took another satisfying sip of espresso.

Maybe she'd even buy herself one more cup.

Maybe a double this time.

And a chocolate chip cookie.

What the hell.

You know his nature,

That he's revengeful, and I know his sword Hath a sharp edge: it's long and, 't may be said, It reaches far, and where, 'twill not extend, Thither he darts it. Bosom up my counsel, You'll find it wholesome.

'A sword now?' Meyer asked. 'From spears to arrows to a sword,' Carella said. He was already at the computer. 'Shouldn't it be "Has a sharp edge"?' Genero asked. 'Hath is what they said back in those days,' Parker explained.

'Sounds like a lisp,' Genero said. 'Maybe he's gay,' Parker suggested. 'This guy whose sword hath a sharp edge.'

'Don't forget it's long, too,' Eileen said, looking all wide-eyed and innocent.

And reaches far,' Willis added. Kling darted a look at both of them. 'Party's getting rough again,' Hawes said. '"Bosom," yeah,' Genero said, grinning.

'It's from King Henry VIII,' Carella said. Act One, Scene One.'

'Which tells us nothing at all,' Kling said.

'It tells us we know him,' Brown said, 'and we know he's out for revenge.'

'That's for sure.'

'You think he's really gonna use a sword?' Hawes asked. 'For whatever he's planning?'

'Well, he said no more arrows, didn't he? Where's that other note?'

Carella went searching through the notes they'd received the week before. He found the one he was looking for, put it on the desk for the others to look at again:

Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows, Swears he will shoot no more but play with sparrows

'Doesn't say anything about swords,' Parker said. 'Just says from now on he's gonna play with sparrows.'

'Does he mean girls?' Genero asked. 'Chicks?'

'They call 'em birds in England,' Willis said, nodding.

'Sparrows,' Meyer said, and shrugged. 'Could be. Who the hell knows?'

'The Shadow knows,' Genero said.

'Dee Shadow know,' Brown said, affecting a thick, down-home, watermelon-eating accent.

'Sparrows has arrows in it, you know,' Willis said.

'Hath,' Parker corrected.

'I mean, the word sparrows. It has the word arrows in it.'

'So you told us,' Hawes said.

'Just mentioning it. I mean, if we're still on the spears-to-arrows-to-swords kick.'

'Don't forget he hath a long sword,' Eileen said, look-

ing innocent again.

'And that thither he will dart it,' Willis said.

'It doesn't say that,' Kling said, sounding annoyed.

Carella looked at him.

'Well, more or less,' Willis said, and shrugged.

Eileen shrugged, too.

'Or maybe we're missing the point,' Hawes said, and grinned.

'Is that another sword joke?' Genero asked.

KONSTANTINOS SALLAS SEEMED to be a creature of

habit.

The Deaf Man had been trailing him for the past week now, and his routine never varied. The man was staying at the new Intercontinental Hotel on Grover Avenue, at the high-rent reaches of the 87th Precinct, facing Grover Park. Enter the park at Sakonuff Street, follow the footpath uptown, past the zoo, wander crosstown past the lake, under the arches, and you'd come out a few blocks from the 87th Precinct stationhouse, where just about now — he glanced at his watch — someone should be delivering the second of his notes that day.

Every day since he'd arrived from Athens, Sallas left his hotel at 8:30 A.M. and in the company of his bodyguard walked directly to Clarendon Hall, which took him precisely seventeen minutes. At 8:48, he entered the concert hall by the stage door, where a uniformed guard challenged him on only the first day.

It was no different today.

It was now 8:48:17 by the Deaf Man's digital watch, and Sallas was just entering the hall, the bodyguard trailing dutifully behind him.

Later, the Deaf Man thought.

THE DEAF MAN was not the only cheap thief working the Eight-Seven and environs that Monday morning.

At a quarter past nine, Parker and Genero went to investigate the apparent strangulation of a seven-month-old baby in her crib. The father, a letter carrier, had left for work at five this morning. The mother was in hysterics when she let the detectives into the apartment. There were purple bruises on the infant's throat. Her tongue bulged out of her mouth. A window alongside the baby's bed was open to the fresh breezes of early June. The mother told them she was sleeping soundly when her husband left for work. She didn't know the baby was dead till she woke up around a quarter to nine. She'd called the police at once.

In the hallway outside, Genero said, 'The father did it.'

'Wrong, Richard,' Parker said. 'The mother.'

Twenty minutes later, Willis and Eileen went out together to investigate a burglary in a lingerie shop the night before. The owner of the shop, a woman who spoke English with a French accent, told them she'd opened the shop at ten o'clock this morning to find everything 't'rown all over zee place like you see it now, eh?' Waving her hands on the air. Indeed, there were panties and slips, bras and garter belts, kimonos and teddies, tangas and boyshorts, merry widows and bustiers strewn all over the shop. The cash register drawer was open, but the lady told them she'd taken its contents home with her when she left last night at seven. Which might have accounted for why the intruder had gone berserk inside there.

'In England, they call these "suspenders,"' Willis told Eileen, lifting from the floor a garter belt trimmed in black lace.

'Do you have this in white?' Eileen asked the lady. Cost her sixty bucks.

She winked at Willis when they left the shop. At ten-thirty that morning, Carella and Hawes went out to investigate an apparent suicide on Silvermine Oval, in a building not too far from where Gloria Stanford had been shot to death a week ago today. The woman in the tub was naked. The ME pronounced her dead, and suggested she'd electrocuted herself by dropping a hair dryer into the water.

'Nice tits, though,' Monoghan said. 'Great jugs, you mean,' Monroe corrected. Carella wondered if someone other than the dead woman had dropped that dryer into the tub. The super of the building told them the woman's husband was a stockbroker downtown, left for work very early every morning. At a little before eleven, they headed down to the financial district to ask him a few questions.

Kling and Brown, the Good Cop / Bad Cop team, caught a squeal closer to home at five past eleven. Drive-by shooting. Gang stuff. Dead boy on the sidewalk. Nobody saw or heard anything. They were back in the squadroom by twelve-fifteen. Everyone else drifted in by the half-hour.

IT WAS NOW twelve-thirty, and here came Konstantinos!

Striding out of the stage door, saying hello to the armed guard there, and then marching off up the avenue toward his favorite little deli.

Dutifully, the Deaf Man followed.

Every day so far, Sallas left the concert hall at twelve-thirty, walked to the Greek delicatessen — surprise! — on Sakonuff, had lunch there, and then walked back to the

hall to resume rehearsal at 1:00 P.M. At 4:00 P.M. every day, he exited through the stage door, bodyguard beside him, violin case swinging from his right hand, took a brief brisk stroll up Grover Avenue, pasr the museum and the 87th Precinct stationhouse, and then turned back toward the hotel again. Later, the Deaf Man thought.

IT WAS ONLY after the second messenger arrived that the police detected a pattern here: Carmela Sammarone was drafting junkies to do her legwork. At least today, anyway. At least in the selection of her delivery boys.

It wasn't too difficult to find a junkie on any street corner in this city. Lay some shit on him, or just the cash to buy the shit, and he'd go out to kill his own mother for you. It wasn't difficult to recognize a junkie, either. There were always the red watery eyes, the pupils either roo large or too small. There was the puffy face, or the cold, sweaty palms, or the shaking hands, or the pale skin. Sometimes there was the smell of this week's substance of choice — cocaine or heroin or ecstasy or merh or OxyContin — on the breath or the body or the clothes.

But more than any of these, there was the blank desperate stare of the addict. And behind those dead eyes, the knowledge that he or she was married to a tyrannical slaveholder. And the further knowledge that not a single soul on earth — sister, mother, brother, father, spouse, significant other, social worker, doctor, or cop — looked upon you with anything but pity or contempt because they felt you had no one but yourself to blame for your predicament.

'Where'd you get this letter, Joseph?' they asked the first messenger.

At the time, they suspected he might be a junkie, but they didn't yet realize a pattern was about to emerge.

'Girl give it to me Langley Park.'

'What girl?'

'Doan know who she was.'

'She give you a name?'

'Nossir. Lay a C-note on me, say she be watchin me deliver the en'lope.'

'Where was this, Joseph?'

Tole you. Langley Park.'

'How old was she?'

'Ain' no good with ages. Young.'

'How young? Young like you?'

'Older.'

'How old are you, Joseph?'

'Seventeen.'

'What'd she look like?'

'Short red hair, brown eyes.'

The second messenger was a girl with bleached blond hair and green eyes. Her hair was matted and stringy and greasy. Her eyes had lost all their luster, and she was as thin as a rail, and her clothes were bedraggled and stained and smelled of vomit and Christ knew what else. She was probably somewhere in her mid-twenties, but she could easily have been mistaken for a woman in her thirties. Maybe even older. A tired woman in her thirties.

Speaking with a Calm's Point accent — the Irish, not the black or Italian variety — she told them she'd been an addict since she was seventeen, a hooker since she was eighteen. Started with crack, which was all the rage then, moved on to gremmies and sherms and even did some fry before starting to shoot hop directly into the vein, welcome to the club, sweetheart! She told them this girl

with long black hair had made her an offer she couldn't refuse, two bills to deliver this envelope here, told her she didn't know who the girl was, didn't know her name, had never seen her before this morning, wouldn't recognize her again if she tripped over her in church.

She was stoned out of her mind when she delivered the envelope, and she couldn't remember where, or even when, she'd met the girl with the long black hair.

'I'm a natural redhead, wanna see?' she said, and lifted her skirt.

She spelled her name Aine Duggan, but she pronounced it Anya Doogan.

They figured her for a lost cause.

But now they knew for sure that Carmela Sammarone was finding her messengers in the city's pool of drug addicts.

And the pool was bottomless.

I may say, thrusting it;

For piercing steel and darts envenomed

Shall be as welcome to the ears

'He's sticking it to us,' Parker said.

'That's what he means by "thrusting it," ' Genero agreed.

'Sticking it right in our eye.'

' "Thrusting it.'"

'"I may say,'" Meyer said, quoting from the note. 'He sounds like Rumsfeld. Next thing you know, he'll be saying "Golly!" and "Gee whiz!'"

'There's that sword again,' Eileen said.

'Where?' Willis asked.

'"Piercing steel.'"

'Poisoned darts, too,' Kling said.

'I don't see any poisoned darts,' Genero said.

' "Darts envenomed."' That's poisoned darts, Dickie-boy.'

'No one calls me "Dickie,"' Genero told Parker.

'Not even your mama?'

'Everyone calls me Richard.'

' "Darts envenomed" are poisoned darts, Richard.'

'Thanks for the information.'

'"Welcome to the ears,'" Carella said, typing the words into the computer.

'Joking about his own infirmity,' Hawes said.

'You think so?'

'Signing the note, in effect. I am the Deaf Man,

remember?'

'Julius Caesar, Act Five, Scene Three,' Carella said,

reading from the screen. 'How many is that so far?' 'How many is what?' 'The plays he's quoted from.' 'Nine?' Kling said. 'No, ten, I think.' 'No, wait

'Plus one from the sonnets. The one about the darling buds of May,' Eileen said, and glanced at Willis.

'And we still don't know where the first one came from,' Carella said. 'Which one?'

About "an actor's art," all that.' ' "An actor's art can die, and live, to act a second part,"' Kling quoted.

'So how many is that?'

'Nine plays for sure. Or ten. Plus the sonnet.'

'Out of how many?' Genero asked.

They all looked at him.

'How many did he write?'

'Thousands,' Parker said.

'Must be a place we can find out,' Genero said. 'Isn't there a collection or something?'

'What difference does it make how many he wrote, Richard?'

'I thought if there was a collection someplace

'Yes, Richard?'

'We could figure out how many he wrote.'

And then what?'

'One thing could lead to another,' Genero said, and shrugged.

THE DEAF MAN was thinking that almost anywhere in America, almost anyone could walk in with a bomb and blow the place to smithereens. Walk into any restaurant, any theater, any sporting event, any prayer meeting with a bomb strapped around your waist, and the rest was late-night news. When death was preferable to life, when death promised a heaven where there'd be seven, or seventeen, or seventy waiting virgins, however many there were supposed to be — he personally didn't think there were any virgins left in the entire world — then what was to stop any lunatic from walking in with his ticket to paradise strapped around his waist?

Security?

Impossible to maintain in a free society.

Right this minute, he was walking into the biggest library in the city, stopping at a checkpoint where uniformed guards examined his briefcase, peering into it like the trained watchdogs they were, but never asking him to open his jacket or take off his shoes because so far

no one in America had marched in loaded. Once that happened, things would change. Before long, you'd be strip-searched before you were permitted to watch the latest hit movie. But for now . . .

'Thank you, sir. If you'll check the bag, please.' He walked across the echoing, vaulted marble lobby to a cloakroom behind and to the right of the security guards. He handed the briefcase across the counter, received a claim check for it, and followed the signs to FOLGER FIRST FOLIO.

THERE USED TO be a time when Ollie frequented girls like the ones employed or previously employed by Ambrose Carter. Not that he'd been personally intimate with anyone in the man's stable. But he was certainly familiar with the species. There was a time, too, when Ollie might have called a prostitute of the Hispanic persuasion a 'spic slut,' but that was before he'd met Patricia Gomez, who was Puerto Rican and a police officer besides and who was . . . well . . . not his girlfriend, quite, but someone he was . . . well. . . sort of seeing. And nowadays, he would break anyone's head who called Patricia a spic.

The first hooker he talked to was, in fact, a spic slut named Paquita Flores, a very dark-skinned voluptuous cutie dressed somewhat scantily for so early in June, not even summer yet here in the city, sitting on the front stoop of her own building, skirt up to her ass, long legs flashing, licking a lollipop, as if she needed further advertisement.

'Yo, hombre,' she said, looking up, licking. 'Long time

no see.'

He tried to remember those days back then when

he frequently traded police lenience for sexual favors. Paquita had been sixteen or thereabouts. She was now, what, twenty, twenty-one? He sat down beside her. Her skimpy frilled skirt flapped about her knees in a mild breeze. She kept licking the lollipop.

'Quepasa, maricon?' she said.

'What's the word on Carter?' he asked.

'Oh, man, he's like dead, you dinn know?' she said, and grinned around the lollipop.

'The street guessing why?'

'Maybe he ratted out a whore.'

'Which one?'

'Don't know, man.'

'Who would know?'

'Carter wasn' my abadesa,' Paquita said. 'You axin the wrong person.'

'Who should I ask?'

'Go the Three Flies. His girls hang there.'

THE BOOK WAS in a thick glass case surrounded on all four sides by uniformed guards. The Deaf Man knew that the case was alarmed and that if anyone so much as touched the glass, the alarms would sound not only here on the second floor of the library, but also at the offices of Security Plus, who would immediately alert the Midtown South Squad, four blocks from the library.

A red velvet rope hanging on stanchions kept visitors back some four feet from the exhibit. The book in its glass case was opened to its title page:

A notice behind a plexiglas shield was fastened to one wall of the library's Elizabethan Room, advising visitors that the book on display was on loan from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., home to the largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works. Included in the Folger's collections were more than 310,000 books and manuscripts, 250,000 playbills, 27,000 paintings, drawings, engravings, and prints, and musical instruments, costumes, and films.

The notice further advised that the rare book on exhibit was one of only four copies of the earliest complete editions of plays written by William Shakespeare. Whereas only eighteen of his plays had appeared in print during his lifetime, the First Folio collection contained thirty-six of his plays, together with a list of the names of the principal actors in the company, as well as comments and eulogies from them. The book had been printed in London in 1623, at an estimated cost of a bit more than six shillings per copy, marked up to a London retail

price of fifteen shillings for the unbound edition, and an even one pound for the edition bound in plain calf. It was now worth 6.2 million dollars.

THE THREE FLIES was a bar in what used to be a notorious red-light section of the Eight-Eight once upon a time before an off-duty cop got shot in the neighborhood by a pimp who didn't like one of his girls having sex with the cop a few dozen times. The girl's developing bad habit led to all the other neighborhood pimps calling the pimp in question — to his face, no less - un ahuevado. Which subsequently led to the hapless cop getting shot, and incidentally killed. So the other cops of the Eight-Eight took offense and went marching in there like it was Iraq. The area was now relatively clean, but the Three Flies was still a hangout for hookers and college boys who wandered over from Beasley U across the park, looking for sex or dope or both.

When Ollie got there at three that afternoon, the place was still comparatively empty; the schoolboys were still at their studies, and most of the hookers were still sleeping off last night's revelries. The jukebox was playing some kind of bullfight music, and two girls were sitting in a booth bullshitting in time to it. Ollie walked over to them. He didn't know either one of them, so he flashed the buzzer to let them know this was the Law here, and sat down opposite them, and grinned across the table at them. The girls didn't look scared in the slightest; cops were some of their best customers.

'Ambrose Carter,' he said.

One of the girls stared at him. She was a black girl with blond hair. The other one was white, also blond. Both of them in their twenties, Ollie guessed. Both of

them smoking and drinking beer straight from the same bottle, passing it back and forth between them. Ollie wondered if they worked as a team, passing similarly shaped things back and forth between them.

"What about him?' the black blonde asked.

'Who'd he rat out? And why?'

The two blondes looked at each other.

Dead-panned, they turned back to Ollie.

'So?' he said.

'What's in it for us?' the white blonde asked.

'Look, almeja,' Ollie said, which meant 'cunt' in Spanish, but which the white blonde didn't understand because she happened to be of Scotch-Irish descent, 'I don't have time to waste here, okay?'

The black blonde didn't know what almeja meant, either, her great-great grandparents having come from the Ivory Coast. But she knew what the look on this fat hump's face meant.

So she said, 'Carmela Sammarone.'

Which was what led him to the Eighty-seventh Precinct.

OLLIE ARRIVED JUST a few minutes after the third note that day was delivered.

'She's got the city's whole damn powder crowd marching in here with her damn messages,' Byrnes told his assembled detectives.

'Your needle freaks and sleepwalkers, too,' Parker said.

This after they realized the third messenger was a heroin addict.

The third note read:

And that you not delay the present, but, Filling the air with swords advanced and darts,

We prove this very hour.

'Swords again,' Meyer said.

'Spears to arrows to swords.'

'Or darts,' Carella said. 'Maybe that's where he's leading us. Darts.'

'Like you throw at a board,' Genero said, nodding. 'Like in a pub.'

'What do you know about pubs, Richard?'

'They're like these bars they have over there.'

'Over where, Richard?'

'In England. Where Shakespeare came from,' Genero said, and hesitated. 'Didn't he?'

'Smaller and smaller,' Eileen said. 'The weapons.'

Willis looked at her. So did Kling.

'They're getting smaller and smaller.'

'A sword ain't smaller than an arrow,' Parker said.

'A dart is,' Hawes said.

'He's gonna shoot somebody with a poisoned dart!' Genero announced triumphantly.

'Who is?' Ollie Weeks asked.

He had just pushed his way through the gate in the slatted rail divider that separated the squadroom from the corridor outside. Now, sauntering in as if he owned the place, he walked over to where the detectives were gathered around the note on Carella's desk, peeked at it, shrugged, and said, 'Who's Carmela Sammarone?'

'Why?' Eileen asked.

'Hey, Cutie, how you like it up here?' Ollie said, referring to her recent transfer, and grinning like a shark.

'I like it fine, thanks,' she said, almost adding 'Fatso,' but she felt he might be sensitive. 'Why do you want to know about Carmela Sammarone?'

'Because I caught a dead pimp, and from what I

understand, he gave up one of his girls to you. Is that correct?'

'One of his former girls, yes.'

'So mayhaps his ratting her out pissed her off,' Ollie said. 'And mayhaps, as a consequence, she pumped a pair of nines into him.'

'You speak Shakespeare, too?' Genero asked.

'Huh?' Ollie said.

'Mayhaps, I mean.'

'Huh?' Ollie said again.

'We're getting notes from Shakespeare.'

'Don't be ridiculous. Shakespeare's dead.'

'Quotes from him,' Genero explained.

'So what?' Ollie said.

'Sammarone is delivering them,' Willis said.

'Paying people to deliver them.'

'That's what Carter spilled.'

Ollie thought this over for a moment.

'That doesn't sound like a reason to kill him,' he said.

'Maybe it does,' Parker said. 'We think she's working for the guy who stiffed a broad last week.'

'Puts a different slant on it, I will admit,' Ollie said. 'So why don't we just go bust her and the guy both?'

'Where?'

'Last address we have for her is L.A.'

'I could go on the earie again,' Ollie suggested. 'See if any of the other girls know where she's at.'

'You could do that,' Willis agreed.

'It's from Coriolanus,' Carella said at the computer.

'That makes an even ten plays. Or eleven maybe.'

'I'd still like to know how many he wrote,' Genero said.

'So go to the lib'ery, Richard.'

You know that one about Bush?' Ollie asked.

'What one?'

'When they asked him how he liked Liberia, he said "I love it. Well, you know, my wife used to be a lib'erian."' 'I don't get it,' Parker said.

'What do you make of this last line?' Carella asked. They all looked at it. Even Ollie looked at it.

We prove this very hour.

They all looked at the clock on the wall.

It was 3:45.

'Maybe he's about to tell us when he's going to do it,' Eileen said.

'Do what?' Ollie asked.

'Whatever he's planning. The time he's going to do it. The "very hour.'"

'Who?'

'The Deaf Man.'

'Do I know him?' Ollie said.

'Nobody knows him,' Genero said.

'This is getting too deep for me,' Ollie said. 'I'm sorry I came up here. See you,' he said, and started out.

'Wait up,' Parker said.

The two men strolled out into the corridor together. Parker took Ollie's elbow, leaned in close.

'So you still dating her?' he asked.

'Who you mean?'

'The little spic twist.'

'If you're referring to Officer Gomez, yes, we are still seeing each other.'

'You get in yet?' Parker asked subtly.

'I got work to do,' Ollie said, and shook his elbow free.

'Still tryin'a find that masterpiece of yours?'

'So long, Andy,' Ollie said.

'Still tryin'a find the little spic faggot who stole your precious book?'

But Ollie was already going down the iron-runged steps that led downstairs.

THE TOPIC OF discussion at Channel Four's afternoon meeting was what everyone was already calling 'The Note.'

DEAR HONEY:

PLEASE FORGIVE ME AS I DID NOT KNOW

YOU WERE IN THAT AUTOMOBILE

Present at the meeting were Honey Blair, of course; Danny Di Lorenzo, the show's Program Director; Avery Knowles, its News Director and Head Anchor; his co-anchor, Millie Anderson; Jim Garrison, the Weekday Sports Anchor; and Jessica Hardy, the show's Weather Person, or — as she preferred being called — its Meteorologist.

'I think we should suppress the Note,' Di Lorenzo said.

As news director, Avery Knowles felt the Note was indisputably newsworthy. But he wasn't the program director, so he listened.

'The Note specifically says Honey wasn't the target . . .'

'Thank God,' Jessica said.

She was a very religious person. She almost crossed herself.

'. . . which is nice for Honey, but not so good for us,' Di Lorenzo said.

'Who was in that car with you, anyway?' Millie asked.

'A friend of mine,' Honey said.

'What friend?' Di Lorenzo asked.

'A detective I know.'

'A police detective?'

'Yes.'

'That makes it even worse.'

'How so?' Avery asked.

'If he's a detective, he'll be trying to find out who did the shooting.'

'So?'

'So that's our job. That's the job of Channel Four News. Find the demented individual who decided Honey Blair was a prime target for . . .'

'But I'm . . .'

'. . . extermination.'

'. . . not\ He says as much in his note. He didn't even know I was in the car. Cotton was the target.'

'Cotton?'

'Cotton Hawes. The detective who was with me.'

'Is that his name? Cotton?'

'Yes. Cotton Hawes.'

She said this somewhat defensively. She didn't want to get into a brawl with Di Lorenzo because he was, after all, the program director, whereas she was but a mere roving reporter, though not quite so mere anymore, not after Friday's shooting had granted her America's seemingly obligatory fifteen minutes of fame. But shouldn't they go on the air to tell their viewers that she hadn't been the intended target at all, her fame had been ill-earned, the true focus of the attack was . . .

'Cotton Hawes,' Di Lorenzo said, shaking his head in disbelief. 'An insignificant little nobody.'

Honey wanted to say that at six feet two inches, Cotton wasn't what anyone might consider 'little.' Not

anywhere, as a matter of fact. Nor was he exactly a 'nobody'; he was, in fact, the Detective / Second Grade who'd recently helped crack the Tamar Valparaiso kidnapping case. Nor was he 'insignificant,' either. He was, in fact, well on the way to becoming what Honey considered the 'significant other' in her life. But she didn't mention any of this to Di Lorenzo because she was beginning to catch his drift and beginning to understand what his approach could mean to her career.

"What we've got here,' Di Lorenzo said, 'is someone shooting at one of our star reporters

'But he wasn't,' Millie said. 'His note . . .'

'Nobody's seen the Note but us,' Di Lorenzo said.

'I'd have to show it to Cotton,' Honey said.

'Why?'

'Because someone's trying to kill him, for Christ's sake!'

This time, Jessica actually did cross herself.

'You said he's a detective, didn't you?' Di Lorenzo asked.

'Yes, but. . .'

'So I'm assuming he knows how to take care of himself. The point is, for reasons as yet unknown to any of us, someone shot at your limo this past Friday morning. It's not our job to find this person, whoever he . . .'

You said it was,' Avery reminded him. 'Our job.'

'No. Our job is to keep this story alive. The longer we keep it alive, the longer the Great Unwashed will tune in to Channel Four at six and eleven every night. I don't care if we never find him. The point is, somewhere out there . ..'

Where did I hear that line before? Honey wondered.

'Somewhere out there,' Di Lorenzo repeated, pointing to the seventh-floor windows and the magnificent view of the skyline beyond, 'there's a killer intent on slaying

our own Honey Blair. Let's not let anyone forget that.'

He'd already forgotten the Note that said Honey wasn't the target at all.

THE LAST TIME he'd followed a woman he loved was when he was still married to Augusta. Top fashion model, should have known better than to marry her, a mere cop, should have known it would turn out the way it finally did. He hadn't felt good about following her, and he didn't feel good following Sharyn now.

He had been waiting across the street from her office on Ainsley Avenue since a quarter to five. Her usual routine was to subway over to Rankin Plaza and the Deputy Chief Surgeon's office there, where she'd stay till noon, break for lunch in Majesta, and then bus back to the city and uptown to her private practice. Deputy Chief Surgeon Sharyn Cooke in the morning, Dr. Sharyn Cooke, internist, in the afternoon. He knew he was living with a Deputy Inspector whereas he was a mere Detective/Third. This didn't matter; he loved her. He was white and she was black. This didn't matter, either; he loved her.

What mattered . . .

He'd found Augusta in bed with another man.

Almost killed the son of a bitch.

His eyes had met Augusta's.

Their eyes had said everything there was to say, and all there was to say was nothing.

Across the street, Sharyn was coming out of her office.

He turned away, still watching her in the reflecting plate-glass window of a pharmacy, a trained cop. When she started away from the building, stepping out with that quick, proud stride of hers, he turned and began

trailing her, still on the other side of the street, a hat hiding his telltale blond hair. Black and blond. A doctor and a cop. Should he have known better this time, too?

She swung into a Starbucks up the street, came out five minutes later, carrying a cardboard container. Sipping at the coffee, she strolled along almost jauntily, enjoying the mild weather, walking right past the bus stop where she could have caught a bus that would have taken her crosstown to his apartment. Tonight was his place again; tomorrow night would be hers. They alternated haphazardly; they were in love. Or so he devoutly wished.

The neighborhood in which Sharyn maintained her office had been gentrified ten years ago and was already sliding inexorably back into the morass of a full-time ghetto and slum. What had once been a pool parlor and was later transmogrified to a fitness center was now a seedy cuchifrito joint catering to the area's small Hispanic population, a minority here among the predominant blacks. A similar transformation-retransformation process had taken place when condemned tenements became sleek brick apartment buildings that were already crumbling into decrepitude. Drugs — flourishing when crack was all the rage, virtually vanquished when the Reverend Gabriel Foster launched his famously popular No Shit Now! campaign — were back on the street with a vengeance, the preferred controlled substance now being heroin, seems like old times, don't it, Gert?

In this stretch of all too sadly familiar black turf, blond Bert Kling followed the gorgeous black woman he adored, and hoped against hope that she was not hurrying to meet Dr. James Melvin Hudson.

But she was.

THE NAME OF the cafe was the Edge.

It was called this because it was on the very edge of Diamondback, in a sort of no-man's-land that separated the hood from the rest of the city. Jumping the season somewhat, the Edge had put tables out on the sidewalk, and as Sharyn approached, half a dozen patrons were sitting there in the quickly fading light, sipping coffees or teas, munching on cookies or cakes. One of them got to his feet, and walked toward her, hand outstretched.

Dr. James Melvin Hudson.

Kling hung back.

Ducked into a doorway.

She took his hand, Dr. James Melvin Hudson's hand, reached up, kissed him on the cheek, which Kling thought an odd greeting for a pair of physicians; cops never even shook hands with other cops. She sat opposite him, and he signaled to a waiter. She'd just had a coffee . . .

Kling could imagine her explaining this to him . . .

So if he didn't mind, she'd just sit here . . .

Turning away the waiter's proffered menu . . .

And then leaning into him over the table, Dr. James Melvin Hudson, her elbows on the table, heads close together, talking seriously and intimately as on the sidewalk passersby hurried on along, unknowing, uncaring, this was the big bad city.

Kling watched them for the next half-hour, hidden in his secret doorway, a cop, shoulders hunched as if it were the dead of winter and not the seventh day of June, hat pulled down low on his forehead, hiding his blond hair. The blond guy and the black girl. Had it been a mistake from the start? Was it now a mistake? Would black and white ever be right in America?

He looked at his watch, Dr. James Melvin Hudson

did, and signaled to the waiter. Sharyn watched him as he paid the bill, rose when he did, kissed him on the cheek again when he went off, and then sat again at the table, alone now, seemingly deep in thought as the shadows lengthened and evengloam claimed the distant sky.

GENERO HADN'T BEEN inside a public library since he was twelve years old and checked out John Jakes' Love and War with his new Adult Section card. His current reading ran to the Harry Potter books, but he actually bought those because he felt people should support starving writers who wrote on paper napkins in coffee shops.

The library he went to that Monday night was in his Calm's Point neighborhood and stayed open till ten P.M. He got there around eight, after having dinner with his mother and father in their little one-story house nearby. His mother made penne alia puttanesca, which she told him meant 'whore style,' in front of his father, too. When he asked the librarian if she had a book that had everything Shakespeare ever wrote in it, she looked at him funny for a minute, and then came back with a heavy-looking tome that he took to the reading room, which was as quiet as a funeral parlor.

He didn't plan to read everything Shakespeare ever wrote; he simply planned to count all the stuff he'd written. The numbers he came up with were thirty-seven plays, five long poems, and a hundred and fifty-four sonnets, which up to now he'd thought were also poems, but since they were in a separate section of the book labeled SONNETS, he now guessed otherwise. He also guessed this was a very large body of work. In fact, he could hardly think of anyone else who'd written so many wonderful

things, he supposed, in his or her lifetime.

He didn't know to what use he could put this newfound knowledge, but he considered it very sound detective work. And besides, when he returned the book, the librarian looked at him with renewed respect, he also supposed.

LYING IN BED, waiting for her to come to him, Kling told her they'd probably figured out what weapon — or weapons, actually — the Deaf Man planned to use, but not whom he planned to kill, or even if he planned to kill anyone at all.

'It's darts,' he said. 'Plural. D-A-R-T-S. Probably poisoned. We figured out it's, like, the law of diminishing returns. In his notes, he went from spears to arrows to darts, in descending order. Like backward. So we're pretty sure it's darts, but we don't know who or how — or even when, for that matter.'

'Mmm,' Sharyn said.

She was in the bathroom, brushing her teeth. She seemed preoccupied, but she often got that way while getting ready for bed. Lots of things a woman had to do before bedtime. Even so . . .

'Thing is, that's not his usual style,' Kling said. 'Announcing a murder, I mean.'

Sharyn spit into the sink.

'We think he killed this woman last week, but that may have been getting even for her betraying him or something. Mayhem is more his style. Subterfuge. Leading us in one direction and then moving in another.'

'He sounds like a real pain in the ass,' Sharyn said, and came back into the bedroom. She was wearing a baby-doll nightgown, no panties, fuzzy pink slippers.

'A supreme pain in the ass,' Kling said. 'But dead serious.'

'Are you cold in here?' Sharyn asked. 'Or is it just me?'

'It is a little chilly,' he said. 'Such a nice day, too.'

'Lovely.'

The room was silent for a moment.

'How'd your day go?' he asked.

'Okay,' she said.

He hesitated. Took the plunge.

'What'd you do?'

'The usual,' she said. 'Parade of the halt and lame at Rankin, lunch at a Chinese restaurant, march of the poor and oppressed up in Diamondback. Same old, same old.'

She took off her slippers, climbed into bed beside him.

And afterward?' he asked.

'After what?'

After work?'

'Bought a coffee at Starbucks, and caught a bus borne. Come warm my feet,' she said, cuddling close to him.

9.

IT WAS ALREADY one o'clock on Tuesday morning, the eighth day of June. Despite the light drizzle wetting the streets and dampening the libido, the stroll in Ho Alley had been underway since eleven or so last night.

There was a time when Ollie might have found these nocturnal adventures exciting . . . well, actually had found them exciting, never mind the 'might have.' Half the girls out here looked like they were parading in their underwear. The other half were wearing skirts cut high on their thighs, some of them slit up the side to expose even more flesh, barelegged, with strapped stiletto-heel sandals or boots of the dominatrix variety, leather laces up the side. If you were a red-blooded American male, how could you not get excited?

Especially when these girls reeked of everything forbidden. He didn't mean just the casual blowjob; junior high school girls were giving those away free nowadays. He meant the very concept of Anything Goes. In a society becoming more and more restrictive, here on this five-block stretch of turf, everything was permitted. Anything imagined by the Great Whores of Babylon had been refined to perfection over the centuries and was now for sale in this outdoor bazaar where girls talked freely and seemingly without fear of arrest about such delicacies as the Moroccan Sip, and the Acapulco Ass Dip, and the Singapore Slide.

There ought to be a law, Ollie thought.

There was, in fact, a law, but you couldn't guess it

existed on this street at this hour of the night. As short a time ago as only last month, Ollie would have found all these flashing legs and winking nipples and glossy wet lips . . . well . . . arousing. Even now, he felt a faint stirring in his groin, but he suspected that was a conditioned response and not anything generated by true desire. Or maybe it was because one of the girls had just grabbed his genitals and asked, 'What you got here, Big Boy?'

'Nothing for you, honey,' he said.

'Sure about that? I'm a virgin from Venezuela.'

'And I'm a bullfighter from Peru,' he said.

'Less see what you got there, torero.'

'Unzip him, Nina.'

'Want me to suck your espada?

'Come on, torero, less see that acero you got there.'

'Or maybe juss a puntilla, eh?'

'Feels like a nice big package here, Anita.'

'Wha' you say, matador?

'We have our'sess a real fiesta brava, eh?'

'Some other time, girls,' he said, and walked away.

'You'll beeee sorrr-eeeeel' they chanted in unison behind him.

Ollie wondered if he might be coming down with something.

For the past half-hour, he'd been looking for a girl named Wanda Lipinsky. From all accounts, Wanda was not Jewish. She had chosen the surname only because of its echoing proximity to the name Lewinsky, which slant rhyme seemed to promise all sorts of oral delights. Toward that end (and no pun intended) Wanda could be recognized, he'd been informed, by the thong panties she affected in imitation — if ever anyone got past her mouth to explore the hidden treasures under her skirt. But these

were not the good old days, and these promised delectations, ah yes, were not what interested Ollie about Ms. Lipinsky, whose real name, he was further told, was Margaret O'Neill.

Little Margie, it seemed, was a freelance like the Carmela Sammarone who had possibly aced the pimp who'd given her up to the Boys of Grover Park. Little Margie, it further seemed, had gone on the town with Little Mela this past Wednesday night, cruising the hotels midtown, where Mela had scored, but not, alas, the thong-wearing Lewinsky sound-alike. Or so the grapevine maintained, and Ollie had no reason to doubt a story now corroborated by three skimpily dressed hookers freezing their asses off in what had turned into a somewhat chilling rain.

In the old days, there might have been something exciting about these girls — white, black, Latina, Asian, there was pure democracy in Ho Alley — shivering in their underwear and openly peddling their wares. But now, on this early morning in early June . . .

Surely he was coming down with something. . . . they seemed only poor damn creatures who needed to be helped and comforted. Or perhaps even pitied.

Frowning, puzzled, he hunched his shoulders and moved on through the falling drizzle.

HE DID NOT find Wanda Lipinsky until two that morning. She was backing her way out of a blue Chevy Impala where she'd undoubtedly just blown the little spic behind the wheel, her skirt halfway up her ass, exposing her buttocks and the red silk ribbon of a pair of thong panties buried in her crack.

He waited till she was clear of the car, waited until she

turned, tugging at the short skirt, and began walking off.

'Wanda?' he asked.

She stopped dead on the sidewalk.

Turned toward him with a hooker's welcoming smile on her face. She was not an unattractive girl — woman, he guessed — in her mid- or late twenties, with long brownish hair and what he perceived in the near-dark to be blue eyes. Short tight skirt, the line of the thong panties clearly visible. Low-cut, swoop-necked blouse, uplift bra thrusting her breasts in his face. Eyebrows raising slightly. Do I know you?

'Police,' he said, and showed the tin. 'Few questions I'd like to ask you.'

'Sure,' she said wearily.

Another night in the cooler, she was thinking.

HE WANTED TO know about last Wednesday night.

'Were you with Carmela Sammarone last Wednesday night?' he asked.

'Carmela . . . ?'

'Sammarone. You know who she is, Wanda. Were you with her?'

They were sitting in an all-night joint on Carson and Mclntyre. Wanda was nursing a beer; she still had a long night ahead of her. She hoped. Ollie was sipping a club soda with a slice of lime in it; he was officially off duty, but he wanted to keep his wits about him. He had a feeling that Little Margie O'Neill here could turn out to be a slippery little customer.

'Carmela Sammarone,' he said again.

Wanda said nothing.

'You do know her, don't you?'

'Never heard of her.'

'Were you with her last Wednesday night?'

'Wednesday night, Wednesday night,' Wanda said, rolling her eyes, thinking.

'Yes or no, Wanda?'

'I don't recall.'

'Wanda,' he said, 'don't fuck with me.'

'Language,' she scolded.

'I need to find her. I understand you went downtown cruising

'I told you I don't remember.'

'Think. The hotels downtown. Think, Wanda.'

'Oh. You mean . . . ?'

Yes? What do I mean?'

'Melissa? You talking about Melissa?'

'Is that what she calls herself? Melissa?'

'Melissa Summers, yes.'

'Do you know where she is?'

'No, I don't. I'm not her fucking mother.'

'Language,' Ollie scolded.

'What'd she do?'

'That's what I'd like to ask her.'

'I don't rat out friends.'

'Then you do know where she is.'

'I told you I don't.'

'Where'd the two of you go last Wednesday night?'

'Who said we went anywhere?'

'Three girls so far. You want their names?'

'What'd Lissie do?'

'Tell me where she scored last Wednesday.'

'Why? She rip off the guy, or something?'

'There was a guy, right?'

You got me,' she said, shrugging. 'Was there?'

'How'd you like getting mugged and printed again tonight?'

Wanda said nothing.

'Wanna spend the night in a holding cell, Margie?'

Still nothing.

'You want some dyke forcing you to lick her pussy?'

'Been there, done that,' she said.

'Okay then, we're through talking,' he said, and stood up. 'Let's go.'

'Go where? Nobody solicited you.'

'Gee, didn't somebody? I could swear you said you'd blow me for a C-note.'

She looked up at him.

'Sit down,' she said.

He kept standing.

'Sit down,' she said again.

THE BARTENDER AT the Olympia Hotel was washing glasses when Ollie got there at a little before three that morning.

'Sorry, sir,' he said. 'Last call was half an hour ago.'

'How come?' Ollie asked.

He was surprised. In this city you could legally serve alcoholic beverages till four in the morning.

'We discovered traffic slows down after two, is all,' the bartender said. 'Sorry.'

Ollie flashed the tin.

'Few questions,' he said.

'Can't this wait?' the bartender asked.

'Afraid it can't,' Ollie said, and pulled out one of the bar stools, and sat.

The bartender sighed, dried his hands on a dish towel.

'Wednesday night last week,' Ollie said. 'Were you working?'

'I was.'

'Two hookers,' Ollie said. 'One blond . . .'

'We don't allow hookers here at the Olympia,' the bartender said.

'Yes, I'm sure you don't. But you probably didn't recognize them as hookers. One was blond, short hair, what they call a feather cut, brown eyes. The other one had hair down to her shoulders, brown, with blue eyes. Good-looking girls, both of them. Probably well-dressed.'

'We get lots of women in here could answer that description,' the bartender said.

'This particular woman, the one with the brown hair, told me her and her friend were in here about ten o'clock last Wednesday night and that her friend, the blonde with the short hair, picked up some guy here and left the bar with him around eleven. Would you happen to remember that occurrence?'

'No, I don't.'

'Big handsome guy, blond like the girl. Hearing aid in his right ear, would you recall now?'

'We get lots of. . .'

'Yes, I'm sure you get ten thousand blond guys wearing hearing aids every night of the week,' Ollie said. 'But on this specific night last Wednesday, this particular blond guy with the hearing aid paid for the bar tab with a credit card. According to my source, anyway, who I feel is a reliable one.'

'What do you want to know?'

'His name.'

'All that stuff went to the cashier that same night.'

All what stuff?'

'The credit card slips.'

'Do you remember the man I'm talking about?'

'I seem to recall someone with a hearing aid, yes.'

'Tall blond guy?'

'Yes.'

'Do you remember the hookers, too?'

'I didn't know they were hookers.'

'Of course not. Did you look at his credit card?'

'I must've checked the signature on the back, yes. When he signed for the tab.'

'Would you recall the name on that card?'

'Come on, willya? How do you expect me to remember .. . ?'

'Or what kind of card it was?'

'We honor all the major credit cards here. How do you expect me to . . . ?'

'Is the cashier's office open now?' Ollie asked.

'The credit card slips from last Wednesday are long gone, if that's what you're think . . .'

'Gone where?' Ollie asked.

THAT NAZI BASTARD Deaf Man had kept him awake most of the night, so Meyer had come to work early this morning, arriving at the tail end of the Graveyard Shift, with only Fujiwara and O'Brien here in the squadroom, the rest of the Eight-Seven's courageous team out preventing crime in these mean streets.

Now, in the comparative 6:30 A.M. stillness, no phones ringing, no keyboards clattering and clacking, he tried to make some sense of what they'd got so far. Copies of all the delivered notes were spread across his desktop. A copy of the list of plays plundered by Mr. Adam Fen was close at hand. All he had to do was piece it all together, ha!

Compared to all this Shakespearean lore, the earlier anagrams seemed elementary. Well, perhaps not. On

their simplest level, the quotes were telling them:

1) This is going to be Shakespeare 101, kiddies.

2) I am going to dribble out the information bit by bit, piece by piece.

3) I am going to use darts as my weapon.

Perfectly clear.

But on the Deaf Man's turf, nothing was ever what it seemed. All was illusion and deception, a showoff smirking at them, telling them how goddamn smart he was while they were so goddamn stupid.

So what else was he trying to tell them?

Was there something here other than the obvious 'Shakespeare, boys! Patience, girls! Darts, anyone?'

He set aside the anagrams, looked at the Shakespearean quotes again. Arranged them in order on his desktop. Okay. If the Deaf Man had chosen to start with shakes and then spear, he was without question telling them 'Shakespeare.' Step to the head of the class. Shakespeare. We're finished with all the anagrammatic fun and games, kiddies, and now we're moving on to more scholarly matters. Graduate school, kiddies.

Okay.

So what next?

More spear quotes.

Spear-grass, boar-spear, and venom'd spear.

All right, separate the non-spear words, maybe there's something there.

Grass, boar, venom'd.

Anything?

Not that he could see.

Well, grass was pot, and a boar was a pig, and venom was poison.

Pot, pig, poison.

Still nothing.

He looked more closely at the arrows notes.

Broke his arrows.

Slings and arrows.

Narrow lanes.

The arrow buried in the narrow of the last note.

The unrelated words were broke, slings, and lanes.

Nothing there, either.

How about the darts?

Thither he darts it.

Darts envenomed

Advanced and darts.

Thither, envenomed, and advanced.

Mean anything to you, Meyer, old boy?

No? Then how about the three kings he'd chosen?

Beats three jacks any day of the week.

Raise you a dollar.

Henry the Fourth, Richard the Third, Richard the Second.

Fourth, third, second.

Four, three, two.

Hold it . . .

The numbers were getting smaller.

Four, three, two.

Well, maybe that was an accident.

No, with the Deaf Man, nothing was accidental.

He was giving them information in reverse order!

Four, three, two. Spears, arrows, darts.

Moving from larger to smaller, in effect heading backwards. Zeroing in on the weapon he would use.

Their reasoning yesterday had been right on the mark.

The Deaf Man's weapon would be darts.

No question about it. They had broken the code.

IN AMERICA, IT is not a crime to be a drug addict.

This means that you can walk into any police station and announce, 'I am a drug addict,' and they will tell you to run along, sonny. Unless you're in possession of drugs. That's another matter.

In this city, the subsections of Article 220 of the Penal Law define the various degrees of criminal offense for possessing any of the so-called controlled substances listed in Section 3306. There are a lot of them. More than a hundred and thirty of them. Some of them you never heard of. Unless you're addicted to them. Like, for example, Furethidine. Or Alfentanil.

In the eyes of the law, you can be a drug addict, but you cannot possess any of the narcotics that make you an addict. If this sounds somewhat bass-ackwards, consider the law that makes it a crime to solicit a prostitute. The pertinent section of the Penal Law's 'solicitation' articles reads:

A person is guilty of patronizing a prostitute when he patronizes a prostitute.'

Swear to God.

This means you cannot go into a police station to confess that you're either a prostitute or have just patronized a prostitute because then you're guilty of two separate crimes, whereas if you say you're a drug addict you're not guilty of anything but being a damn fool.

That's why the girl who delivered the first note that morning at 8:30 A.M. freely admitted that she was a drug addict who'd been approached in Harrison Park in River-head by a girl with long black hair who'd paid her a

hundred and fifty dollars to deliver this here letter here, but she did not mention that she was also a prostitute who'd been working the park all night long the night before.

This was her prerogative here in the land of the free.

'AH-HA!' MEYER said. 'This time we're ahead of you, wise guy!'

The first note that Tuesday morning read:

'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit

'Romeo and Juliet,' Willis said from the computer. 'Act One, Scene Three.'

'Didn't he use that play before?' Parker asked. ' "To be or not to be?" Didn't he?'

'He's simply telling us he's doing it backwards. But we already know that, big shot!' Meyer said, and jabbed his extended forefinger at the air like a pistol.

'Now he's saying hast, "the friggin faggot," Parker said, modifying his language in deference to the presence of a lady.

'He's telling us we're witless,' Eileen said.

'Telling us when we smarten up, we'll fall over backwards.'

'Is he gonna blow some poisoned darts at somebody's back?' Genero asked.

LUIGI FONTERO HAD boarded Alitalia's flight 0413 at Milan's Linate airport at 4:05 p.m. yesterday. He'd spent two hours and fifteen minutes on the ground in

Frankfurt and was scheduled to arrive here at 9:00 A.M. It was now twenty minutes to ten, and he still wasn't here. Carella, waiting in the area just outside Customs with his mother and what appeared to be ten thousand other people,'was beginning to get itchy. He'd told the lieutenant he'd be in by eleven o'clock latest. Now he was beginning to wonder.

'Do you think we should ask again?' his mother said.

'Mom, they said a half-hour late.'

'That was forty minutes ago.'

'He'll be here, don't worry.'

For the occasion, his mother was wearing a simple pale blue suit and French-heeled shoes. She would not have her hair done until the day before the wedding; she was wearing it now in a youngish bob under a cloche hat Carella's grandmother had probably worn as a Twenties flapper, blue velvet with blue satin trim. Her brown eyes sparkled. She kept looking at the clock across the hall.

'You don't think anything's . . . ?'

'No, Mom, they'd've told us.'

'Sometimes they don't,' she said.

'Everything's fine.'

'These days,' she said, and let the sentence trail.

It had occurred to him, too.

He, too, looked at the clock.

HONEY BLAIR HAD not told Hawes about the shooter's note, and she felt absolutely rotten about keeping such vital — well, probably not — information from him. But she justified this by telling herself the Note wouldn't be of much value, anyway, fingerprint-wise, since it had been passed from hand to hand at yesterday afternoon's

meeting. Besides, the overnights had shown that during her second defiant challenge to the shooter at a quarter past six yesterday, ratings had soared.

So, naturally, whereas she wanted Cotton to catch the guy who was trying to kill him, at the same time she hoped he wouldn't catch him too soon, not while she was enjoying the kind of celebrity she'd only dreamed about before now. It was one thing to have some guy ask you to sign his program at a concert; it was quite another to be stopped on the street, six seven times in a single morning, people telling her 'Go get him, Honey!' or "We're with you, Honey!'

Celebrity was a funny thing.

People could turn on you in a minute — witness the whole Michael Jackson circus — or they could suddenly make you their darling. She enjoyed being their darling. But of course she didn't want anyone hurting her own precious darling, who at that very moment was on his way to the orthopedist's office building downtown, not because his foot was hurting him but because Jefferson Avenue wasn't the Eight-Seven where nobody never saw nothing nohow.

Actually, Honey wished him luck.

LUIGI FONTERO CAME striding out of Customs wearing a brown silk suit with a matching brown-and-yellow striped tie over a beige shirt, a brown homburg tilted rakishly over one eye. He looked like Rossano Brazzi about to seduce Katherine Hepburn, all grins, hopeful expectation in his eyes.

When he spotted Carella's mother, he rushed to her at once. They fell into each others' arms like young lovers who'd been parted by war or famine. Luigi kissed her.

Kissed Carella's mother. Not on the cheek, or even both cheeks the way Europeans did, but full on the lips, Carella's mother, a real smackeroo, right there in front of her own son.

'You are so beautiful,' Luigi told her.

Carella wanted to retch.

'How are you, Steve,' Luigi said at last, and offered his hand.

Carella accompanied them to the baggage claim area, listening invisibly to his mother's questions about the flight and the food on the flight, and the weather when Luigi left Milan, and when his relatives and friends would be arriving, listened to Luigi's answers, hearing him call Carella's mother 'Luisa,' his eyes never leaving her face, calling her 'cara mid and 'tesora bella,' kissing her again and again, not on the lips, on the nose instead and the forehead and the chin, not offering to help when Carella yanked first one heavy suitcase, and then another, off the carousel, Luigi's arm around Carella's mother's waist, Luisa's waist, cara mia's waist, tesora bella's waist, her head on his shoulder, the big furniture-maker from Milan, Luigi Fontero.

Carella wheeled their luggage cart out to the curb for them, and hailed a taxi for them. He watched as the taxi pulled away. They both waved back at him through the rear window, beaming. It occurred to him that his mother really could have come out here by herself.

Alone, he walked back to the parking lot where he'd left the car.

574 JEFFERSON AVENUE was a monolithic polished black granite structure flanked by a fur emporium on one side and a huge bookstore on the other.

When Hawes came walking up from the subway kiosk four blocks away, a full-scale demonstration was going on outside the fur place. The manager of the bookstore was out on the sidewalk, telling a police sergeant that these fur freaks were keeping customers away from his store. The sergeant was telling him this was a free country.

'Then you should be free to wear furs if you like,' the manager said. He himself owned a raccoon hat that had cost him a hundred and eighty dollars, though not in the fur emporium next door.

Hawes walked through the line of chanting pickets and into the fur shop. A smartly dressed saleswoman in her fifties, he guessed, came over to him, the smile on her face belying the obvious concern in her eyes. Neatly coiffed hair. Blue eyes in a porcelain face. Eyes darting toward the plate-glass windows fronting the store, afraid a brick would come crashing through at any moment. Store dummies wearing mink, sable, red fox, silver fox, raccoon, muskrat, coyote, and a veritable zoo of other animal furs stared eyeless at the protesters outside.

'Yes, sir, may I help you?' the woman asked.

Faint accent there? Nordic? He wondered if they protested the wearing of furs in Sweden or Denmark. He showed her his shield.

'Detective Hawes,' he said. 'I'm investigating the shooting outside last Friday.'

'Why don't you do something about the shouting outside right this minute?' the woman said.

'Sorry, ma'am,' he said, 'but I'm not here about that. May I speak to the manager, please?'

'I am the manager,' she said.

'I'd like to talk to whoever may have been working here last Friday morning at eleven o'clock,' he said.

'Whoever may have seen or heard anything at all.'

'Do you realize what's happening here?' the woman said.

'Yes, ma'am, I have some idea. But someone tried to kill two people last Friday

'Someone's trying to kill us right now!'

'I'm sure the sergeant outside will keep it under control.'

'I'm not talking about physical violence. They're too smart for that. I'm talking about ruining our pre-season business.'

Yes, ma'am,' Hawes said.

It occurred to him that not too many good citizens were eager to help a cop investigating a crime, whether it was uptown in the asshole of creation or here in a fancy fur palace on the city's luxury shopping avenue. He was thinking he should have become a dentist, as his mother had suggested.

'Could I talk to your people, please?' he said softly.

She stared at him a moment longer, incredulously, and then said, 'I'll see who was here,' and walked off toward the back of the store.

Hawes stood there among all the dead animals, waiting.

THE SECOND NOTE arrived at twenty minutes to one.

Hawes was just telling them he'd struck out at the fur salon, where everyone had either been deaf or blind last Friday, where nobody working in the place had heard any shots or seen anyone pumping a dozen or so slugs into the limo. The manager of the bookstore was so incensed about the marchers next door that he could hardly concentrate on anything Hawes was asking. In

any case, there were thirty-eight employees in the shop and they serviced thousands of customers every day, so how did he expect them to have heard or seen a mere murder attempt right outside? Why don't you go get those freakin fur freaks off the sidewalk? he'd wanted to know.

Which was when a uniform brought in an envelope that had been delivered downstairs not five minutes ago, interrupting Hawes' doctoral dissertation on the indifference of the citizenry. At that very moment, Murchison was questioning the indisputable hophead who'd delivered it. The addict interrogations had moved from Captain to mere Sergeant in the space of a mere three days. Sic transit gloria mundi, even though it was Tuesday.

The note read:

Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man, How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured, But she would spell him backward

'There's backward again,' Meyer said.

'Is he referring to Carmela Sammarone?'

'The she, you mean?'

'First time he's used the word she.'

'His little hooker emissary.'

'And all the "wise, noble, young, rarely featured" goddamn junkies she's sending up here,' Parker said.

'He may also be commenting on his own bad spelling,' Genero said. All his "haths," you know.'

Nobody thought the Deaf Man was commenting on his own bad spelling. Or Shakespeare's, for that matter.

In fact, Willis was of the opinion that the word spell as

used herein referred to the woman in question placing a spell on someone, a hex, that is, causing him to fall backwards, as it were, as though in a charmed faint.

'Referring to the "fall backward,"' Willis said. 'In his first note today.'

'In any case, the key word is backward^ Meyer insisted. 'Four, three, two. Spears to arrows to darts. In fact, he's telling us we've already cracked the code. 'Why, you speak truths he says. The truth is he's going to tell it to us backwards.'

'Tell us what backwards?'

'Whatever he's going to do with these darts of his.'

Sitting at the computer, Carella was already shaking his head.

So was Genero.

Two wops in concert, Parker thought.

'Can you imagine him throwing darts?' Carella said.

'Or blowing them from some kind of pipe?' Genero said.

'I can imagine that,' Meyer said.

'When did you ever see that?' Hawes asked.

'I'm sure I've seen that,' Meyer said. 'This city?'

'In which case, who's the friggin victim?' Parker asked. 'Who's he gonna blow these darts at?'

'Whom,' Willis corrected.

'Thank you, Professor,' Parker said.

'Well, he's right,' Eileen said protectively.

Kling wondered what the hell was going on between these two all of a sudden.

'It's from Much Ado About Nothing,' Carella said. Act Three, Scene One.'

'Which is exactly what this is,' Parker said. 'Much ado about nothing. A whole bunch of bullshit. He's not gonna kill anybody, he's not gonna rob a bank or blow up

a building, he's just breaking our balls.'

'Not mine,' Eileen said.

Willis laughed.

Kling was sure now that something was going on here.

'Wanna get some lunch?' Hawes asked him.

THE TWO MEN chose a diner a few blocks away from the stationhouse. Hawes ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, a coffee, and a side of fries. Kling ordered the bean soup, a chicken salad, and an iced tea.

'Maybe the crime already took place,' he was saying.

'Maybe so,' Hawes said.

'Maybe he's just leading us back to Gloria Stanford. Go back, he's telling us. Rubbing our noses in it, you know? Nyaa nyaa, I killed her, and there's nothing you can do about it.'

'That's possible, I guess.'

Both men seemed preoccupied.

Even though they were discussing the Backward-Forward- Whatever machinations of the Deaf Man, Kling kept looking up at the clock behind the counter and Hawes kept using his fork to move French fries around in the ketchup on his plate.

'You gonna eat those or just play with them?' Kling asked.

'You want them?'

'No, I'm okay'

Hawes kept playing with the fries. At last, he looked up and said, 'Bert. . . there's something I want to ask you.'

Ah, Kling thought. This is why he wanted to have lunch. Never mind Mr. Adam Fen.

'It's about Augusta.'

'Uh-huh.'

'Will it bother you to talk about her?'

'No. All water under the bridge.'

'You sure?'

'Positive.'

'Actually, in fact, it's about Augusta as she relates to Honey.'

'Uh-huh. Their names, do you mean?'

'No. Their names? What about their names?'

'Augusta Blair, Honey Blair. I was wondering if you . . .'

'No, that isn't..."

'. . . thought maybe they were related or something.'

'Never crossed my mind.'

'Because Blair is a common name, you know,' Kling said.

'Sure. Hey, Tony Blair, right?'

'Exactly. Anyway, Blair isn't Gussie's real name.'

'What do you mean?'

'Blair isn't the name on her birth certificate.'

'Then what is it?'

'Bludge.'

'What?'

'Augusta Bludge.'

You're kidding me.'

'No. She changed it when she went into modeling.'

'Why does that always fascinate people?' Hawes asked. 'Who cares what name is on a person's birth certificate? Nobody is born with a name, you know, there isn't a name stamped on anyone's forehead. A person is given a name by his or her parents. A person inherits a surname, like it or not, and then he's given a first name. That's why it's called a "given" name. Because it's given to him. So if a guy wants to give himself a new name,

that's entirely his business, isn't it? You think I like the name "Cotton"?' he asked, gathering steam. 'How would you like to go through life with the name "Cotton"? Or "Hawes," for that matter. You know how many times I was called "Horse" when I was a kid? You know how many times I've been tempted to change it? Cotton Hawes? So who cares what Augusta's real name was? Anyway, you don't mean her real name, do you? Because the minute she changed it, her real name became Blair, didn't it? You mean her birth name, don't you? Isn't that what you mean?'

'I guess so,' Kling said, sorry he'd brought up the entire matter.

'Because Augusta Blair is her real name now,' Hawes insisted. 'Whatever it used to be. Bludge, Shmudge, who cares?'

'I guess so,' Kling agreed. 'She even kept Blair when we got married.'

'Bludge, who'da thought? What is that, German? She looks so Irish. I mean that red hair

Auburn, actually.'

'Who'da thought?' Hawes said, and moved some more fries around on his plate.

Anyway, I don't think they're related,' Kling said. 'Her and Honey. If that's what you wanted to ask.'

'Unless Honey's real name,' Hawes said, landing hard on the real to make his point yet another time, 'was Henrietta Bludge or something.'

'Yes, in which case, they might be sisters,' Kling said.

'Or cousins,' Hawes said.

'Small world, sure,' Kling said.

Both men fell silent.

'But what I wanted to know,' Hawes said, and moved another fry, 'is what it was like being married to a celebrity.'

'Well, we're divorced now,' Kling said. 'I guess that tells you what it was like.'

'I meant, the celebrity part. Cause Honey's something of a celebrity herself, you know. Not like Augusta, I mean she's on the cover of every fashion magazine you pick up. But lots of people watch Honey on the news . . .'

'Oh, sure.'

'So I was wondering ... I mean, I'm just a cop, we're both just cops . . .'

'I know what you mean, yes.'

"... and these two women make a lot more money than we do . . .'

'Yes.'

'. . . and are a hell of a lot better-looking than we are . . .'

'That's for sure.'

'So I wonder ... I can't help wondering ... I mean ... is it going to work? I know it didn't work for you, Bert

'No, it didn't,' Kling said.

Neither of the men mentioned what was common knowledge in the squadroom: Kling had caught his wife in bed with another man.

'What I want to know . . . should I talk it over with Honey? The possible . . . you know . . . problems that may come up?'

'It's always best to talk it over,' Kling said.

Same advice Carella had given him a long time ago, when Kling first began to realize there might be trouble in Paradise.

But, of course, talking it over hadn't helped a damn bit.

That hot summer.

The heat that summer.

'Let her know how you feel,' Kling said, and looked up at the clock again.

'You got a taxi waiting?' Hawes asked.

'No, it's just I have to talk to this guy whose pawn shop was held up.'

Hawes looked at his own watch.

'Tell her it bothers me, huh?' he asked. 'Her being a celebrity?'

'Sure. If it really bothers you, sure. Talk it over.'

'Well, actually that's not what's really bothering me, exactly.'

'Then what is?'

'I just get the feeling ... ah, forget it. I'm being a cop, that's all.'

'What is it, Cotton?'

'I get the feeling she's not being completely honest with me.'

'Uh-huh.'

'Holding something back, you know?'

Join the club, Kling thought.

'So discuss it with her,' he said.

'You think so, huh?'

'I think so,' Kling said, and looked up at the clock again. 'We'd better get a check, I don't want to be late. I told the guy two-thirty.'

Hawes signaled to the waitress.

'Where you headed, anyway?' he asked.

'1214 Haskell,' Kling said.

But he wasn't.

SHARYN WAS WAITING outside her office building in Diamondback.

The address was 3415 Ainsley Avenue, and she wasn't waiting for Kling.

He had checked her appointment calendar last night.

For today, June the eighth, she had written in Jamie.

And below that: My office. 2:30 p.m.

He had supposed, or hoped, that the two of them would be meeting for some sort of medical consultation, in her actual office upstairs, her space. But it was now two thirty-five, and here was Sharyn standing outside her building, and up the street came Dr. James Melvin Hudson, wearing a neatly tailored gray suit this time, white shirt, dark tie. Nodding in greeting, he leaned down to kiss her on the cheek, as was apparently the custom between medical folk these days. Sublimely unaware of Kling's presence, they went ambling up the street together.

He followed behind at a discreet distance, the police term for keeping tabs on your girlfriend.

Or your significant other.

Or your lover.

Or whatever.

What goes around comes around, he thought.

They were going around the corner, he quickened his step, didn't want to lose them. Rounded the corner after them, almost bumped right into them, turned quickly away to avoid discovery. They were some ten feet ahead, checking out the lettering on a plate-glass window.

Ye Olde Tea Room.

Ye what? Kling thought.

He didn't know they even had tea rooms in America, old or otherwise. In the heart of Diamondback, no less. Would wonders never? He hung back while they entered the place, two innocent colleagues out for their early afternoon tea, pip pip and all that. As soon as they were

clear, he approached the plate-glass window, put his face to it, hands cupped on either side of his head, alongside his eyes, and peered inside.

They were approaching a table on the right, a small table against the wall, under a sconce that cast scant light onto the woman already sitting there.

A white woman.

The moment they sat, one on either side of her, the woman reached for their hands. Sharyn's right hand, Dr. James Melvin Hudson's left. A hand in each of her own. She gripped their hands tightly, and then burst into tears.

Kling wondered what the hell he had stumbled into here.

IT BOTHERED OLLIE that none of the credit card companies could help him on this thing. All he wanted was a damn name and address for the guy who'd picked up Melissa Summers - or vice versa - in the Olympia Hotel bar last Wednesday night, the second day of June. Now was that a big deal to ask?

Well, yes, they explained, it was a very big deal to ask. Because lacking the name of the card holder, it would be impossible to scan the thousands of purchases . . .

'This wasn't a purchase,' Ollie told each and every one of them, American Express, Visa, MasterCard, even Discover. 'This was a guy paying for drinks in a bar

Yes, well, whatever it was . . .

'A particular bar,' he explained to one and all, 'at a specific time. All you got to do is kick in your computer and zero in on the Olympia Hotel bar at eleven o'clock last Wednesday night, and bingo, we've got our customer, ah yes.'

But, ah no, they explained, that isn't the way it works, our computers aren't programmed that way. If you had the card holder's name . . .

'The card holder's name is what I'm looking for!'

And round and round the mulberry bush, but no cigar.

Ollie figured he'd have to hit the whores again.

THE THIRD NOTE that day arrived a little early.

A quarter past two instead of the usual three-thirty or so.

And it wasn't addressed to Carella.

Instead, it was addressed to Detective/ Third Grade Richard Genero.

Parker himself carried it into the squadroom.

'Desk sergeant gave me this,' he said, handing the envelope to Genero. 'Says a junkie dropped it off

'Naturally,' Meyer said. 'Same m.o.'

'Little early, though,' Willis said, looking at his watch.

'And now he's picking on you, Richie.'

'Richard,' Genero corrected.

He was staring at the envelope as if it contained some malevolent evil chemical worse than anthrax, whatever that was, some kind of hoof and mouth disease?

'Well, ain't you gonna open it?' Parker asked.

'Here,' Genero said, and handed the envelope to Carella. 'You open it.'

Carella was starting to pull on a pair of gloves when Parker said, 'Murchison already dusted it.'

Carella looked surprised. He put on the gloves, anyway, picked up a letter opener, slit open the envelope,

pulled out the single sheet of white paper inside, and unfolded it. The note read:

370HSSV 0773H

'What's that?' Parker asked. 'Your license plate number?'

'Why's he sending us numbers all of a sudden?' Genero asked.

'Letters, too,' Meyer said, leaning in for a closer look. 'HSSV. Mean anything to any of you?'

'There's the H again,' Eileen said. 'At the end of the sentence.'

'H for horseshit,' Parker said.

'How about the "oh seven seven"?' Hawes asked.

'That's James Bond's number!' Genero said.

'No, that's Double-Oh Seven.'

They all kept staring at the message.

370HSSV 0773H

'Well, it's addressed to you,' Parker said. 'So maybe he's trying to tell you something personal.'

'I doubt that very much,' Genero said, sounding somehow offended.

'Why don't you turn it upside down, Richard?' Parker suggested.

'What do you mean?'

'See if it makes any sense that way. Go ahead. Turn it.'

Genero turned the letter upside down.

'Very funny,' he said.

THE DEAF MAN'S letter arrived some forty minutes

later. Another junkie delivered it. It was carried up to the squadroom by a patrolman wearing latex gloves. They knew they'd find no fingerprints on either the envelope or the message inside it, but one couldn't be too careful these days. The envelope was addressed to Carella again, the same personal challenge, one on one. The note inside read:

And here have I the daintiness of ear

To check time broke in a disorder'd string

'Whyn't you turn it upside down again, Richard?' Parker suggested.

'Whyn't you go fuck yourself?' Genero said. 'Excuse me, Eileen.'

'Whyn't you guys stop tiptoeing around me?' Eileen said. 'I'm a big girl now.'

'I'll say,' Parker said, and shot a glance at her chest.

Willis shot him a warning look.

Kling caught this.

He was positive now.

But why should he care?

Like a professor prodding a particularly dull class, Meyer asked, 'So what's he telling us this time?'

Like an ass-kissing A-student (or so Kling thought) Willis said, 'Well, time would seem to be the central theme, wouldn't you say?'

'Broken time,' Meyer agreed.

At the computer, Carella said, 'Richard II again, Act Five, Scene Five.'

'Starting to repeat himself.'

'He's jerking us off again,' Parker said.

'No, he's going to tell us when,' Hawes said.

'I'll bet,' Eileen said.

'The exact time.'

'But backwards.'

'Time in a disorder'd string.'

'And signs himself,' Parker said.

'Huh?' Genero said.

'Daintiness of ear, Richard.'

"WHERE WERE YOU, Melissa?'he asked.

It was only five o'clock, she didn't know why he sounded so pissed.

'The cops are looking for me,' she said.

That got to him, all right. Eyebrows going up, eyes opening wide.

'How do you know that?'

'Friend of mine told me. Remember the girl I was with the night you picked me up . . .'

'Or vice versa,' he said.

'Whatever,' she said. 'Do you remember Wanda?'

'I remember her. She of the thong panties.'

'How do you know that?'

'She showed me. When you went to the ladies room.'

'So why'd you pick me instead?'

'Ah, but you picked me, little Lissie. You've got it backwards. The punto reverso!'

'The what?

'Exact quote! Perfect, Benvolio!'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Romeo and Juliet, Act Two, Scene Four. The brittle exchange between Benvolio and Mercutio. "The what?' says Benvolio. "The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes," replies Mercutio. "These new tuners of accents!"'

'That explains it, all right,' Melissa said.

'What'd she say? This Wanda person?'

'A fat cop was around asking about me. She had to tell him about Wednesday night.'

'Had to tell him? Nobody has to do anything, Lissie.'

'He was about to bust her!'

'So she told him what, exactly?'

'That the three of us were at the Olympia last Wednesday night, and I went home with you.'

'Is that all?'

'She described you.'

'Did she tell him my name?'

'She didn't know your name. Neither did I, at the time.' She hesitated, and then said, 'I still don't know it.'

'Adam Fen,' he said.

'Sure.'

'And this cop? Does he have a name?'

'Ollie Weeks. He's a detective up the Eight-Eight. They call him Fat Ollie Weeks, most people.'

'Is he going to cause us trouble?'

'He's looking for me,' Melissa said. 'I suppose that could be trouble. If he finds me.'

'If he finds you, he finds me,' the Deaf Man said.

'Is what I meant.'

'So make sure he doesn't find you.'

'I got no desire to meet him, believe me.'

'You still haven't told me where you were.'

'Uptown. Lining up tomorrow's Junkie Parade. Talking to Wanda.'

'I was worried you might have run out on me.'

'And miss the big payoff?' she said. 'Whenever that may be.'

'Soon,' he said.

'Whatever it may be,' she said.

You'll find out.'

'Promises, promises.'

'Meanwhile, there's something else I'd like you to do for me. Tonight.'

'My place or yours?' she said, and tried a smile. 'There's a man I want you to meet,' he said. So what else is new? she thought.

10.

THE WAY MELISSA understood this, there was this Greek violinist named Konstantinos Sallas, who was staying here at the Intercontinental Hotel with his wife, his violin, and his bodyguard. It was the bodyguard who interested Adam, the bodyguard who had information Adam needed, the bodyguard Adam wanted her to sleep with, if she had to, in order to gather this information.

Melissa had never slept with a bodyguard before.

Neither had she ever clasped anyone to her bosom, so to speak, with the express purpose of getting information from him. She felt a little bit like Mata Hari, especially wearing the black shoulder-length wig. Adding to this femme fatale image was a strappy little slinky little black silk shift Adam had bought for her that afternoon, on the assumption that she'd be coming back to the apartment, which of course she had.

It was now three minutes past midnight on the ninth day of June.

According to Adam, it was the bodyguard's habit to stop into the hotel bar for a glass or two of ouzo after he'd tucked in the violinist each night. Adam did not know the bodyguard's name — he had only observed him from a distance, here at the hotel and on his accompanying walks to the concert hall. But he gave Melissa a fairly good description of him, and she knew to expect a burly, bearded man some six feet four inches tall, barrel-chested and dressed entirely in black, including the black shirts and ties he wore with his black silk suits. He sounded

less like a Greek bodyguard than one of the Hollywood agents she'd known on the Coast before she got busted that one time when she was but a mere slip of a girl just learning the trade, before Ambrose Carter taught her what it was really all about, girlfriend. She did not particularly enjoy sex with big hirsute men. But in anticipation of her share of the seven-figure payday, whenever that might come, if it ever came, she would have gone to bed with a gorilla.

So where the hell was he?

OLLIE'S REASONING W R S that if he couldn't find the john she'd picked up last Wednesday night, then he just had to find Melissa Summers herself. No shortcuts this time, he guessed. Just the tireless legwork of the truly dedicated public servant.

It wasn't that he gave a damn about one dead Negro pimp more or less, which word he enjoyed using to describe so-called persons of color because he knew it pissed them off - not pimp, but Negro. Which words were eponymous, anyway. Or synonymous. Or whatever. Negro and pimp. In his experience, all the good criminal endeavors that used to be operated by decent white crooks were now the sole province of evil, grasping, upward-striving Negroes. He sometimes wished for a return to slavery. Wish in one hand, he thought, and shit in the other. See which you get first. One of his mother's favorite expressions, though not within earshot of his darling sister Isabel, who was probably still a virgin.

What primarily disturbed Ollie was that some little tart thought she could come into his neighborhood, his precinct, in the dead of night, and pump two nine-millimeter slugs into somebody, into some person's back

and head, no less, white or black, anybody, it didn't matter to Ollie. What mattered was the violation of his turf!

So watch out, Melissa, he thought.

Beware!

The Large Man is on the prowl, and he's gonna find you, you better believe it, ah yes, m'little chickadee.

In his mind, he sounded like W C. Fields.

He wondered if Melissa Summers even knew who W C. Fields was — what was she, twenty years old, something like that, in her twenties somewhere?

A prostitute.

In her twenties, and a prostitute.

No, a murderer.

Murderess.

Whatever.

And he was gonna get her.

HE LOOKED LIKE that guy in the Harry Potter movies, whatever his name was, ask any ten-year-old. The big bearded guy with the pot belly and the gruff voice. Except that he was wearing a black suit, and a black shirt and tie, black socks, and highly polished black shoes. The Harry Potter guy dressed up like a gangsta, gee! Or a bodyguard, she guessed, if this was her man, which she had no doubt he was.

She was sitting at the bar when he came in. Big ox of a man barging into the hotel lounge like he owned it. Steely blue eyes flicking this way and that like a cop expecting street trouble. Satisfied that no one was about to jump him, he sat some two stools down from hers, giving her a quick once-over before he ordered a double ouzo. Just a sideward flick of those ice-blue eyes, but Melissa didn't miss such things, Melissa was a pro.

She was expecting some sort of Greek accent — wasn't he supposed to be Greek? The ouzo and all? — but no, he sounded as American as she did. Ordered the double ouzo, checked out the bar mirror as if he was scanning the room, but she caught that sideward glance at her again, he was aware of her.

'I never tasted ouzo,' she said, bold as brass, turning toward him. 'What's it like?'

'Do you like licorice?' he asked.

Turning to face her. Smiling encouragement. Nice smile. Blue eyes becoming warm and friendly . . . well, why shouldn't they? Good-looking girl sitting alone at the bar strikes up a conversation? Hey, what am I, a fool?

'Oh, it's like some kind of liqueur, is that it?' she said.

'Yes, that's exactly what it is,' he said. 'Thank you,' he said to the bartender, who had just put his drink down. 'Would you care to taste it?'

'Not if it's sweet, no,' she said.

'Depends on what you think is sweet,' he said.

Little bit of come on there?

She smiled.

'Cheers,' he said, and lifted his glass and sipped at it. 'Actually,' he said, 'it's made from . . . may I?' he asked, and without waiting for permission, moved over a stool so that he was sitting right alongside her now, big shoulders crowding her. 'Jeremy,' he said, and extended one enormous paw.

'Melissa,' she said, and took his hand.

'Nice to meet you. Sure you don't want a little taste?'

'Maybe later,' she said, and smiled.

'I was saying,' he said, picking up his glass again, holding it up to the light, 'ouzo's a combination of pressed grapes, herbs, and berries. It's the star anise that gives it the licorice taste.'

'That's what I don't think I'd like. The licorice taste. Candy's candy, booze is booze,' she said, and smiled.

'Oh, this is booze, all right, believe me. Eighty proof.'

'That strong, huh?'

Intending a little innuendo there, which he seemed to miss.

'Some ouzos are even stronger,' he said. 'Your Barbayannis is ninety-two proof. That's forty-six percent alcohol.'

'That's strong, all right,' she said, trying again.

'It's not produced in any other part of the world but Greece, you know. In fact, it's the Greek national drink.'

'You seem to know a lot about it.'

'Well, I spend a lot of time in Greece.'

'Doing what?' she asked.

'My job.'

Avoiding the question. She tried again.

'Doing what?' she asked.

'I'm a personal bodyguard.'

'No kidding?'

'Yes,' he said.

'Gee. I don't think I've ever met a bodyguard before.'

'Well, that's what I am.'

'Come to think of it, that's what you look like. Big and . . . well, strong.'

Get it? she thought.

'Thanks,' he said.

'Though I guess you don't have to be big or strong if you carry a gun, am I right?'

He said nothing.

Are you carrying a gun?'

'Shh,' he said, and winked.

'I'll bet you are.'

'It's licensed, don't worry,' he said.

'I guess you'd have to. Carry a gun, I mean. I mean, if you're a bodyguard.'

'Well, you never know.'

'What does he do, anyway, your boss? Is he a diamond merchant or something?'

'No, no, nothing like that,' he said, and smiled.

'So why do you need a gun?'

'Well, I'm a bodyguard. Like you said.'

'Why does he need a bodyguard?'

'You never know,' he said, and smiled again.

'Is he a movie star or something?'

'Not quite.'

'How can you be "not quite" a movie star? Is he a rock star?'

'Close. He's a musician.'

'Ah.'

'A classical musician. A violinist.'

'What's his name?'

'Konstantinos Sallas.'

'Wow.'

'A mouthful, I know.'

'Is he Greek?'

'Yes.'

'Which is why you drink ouzo.'

'Which is where I learned to drink it, yes. But he performs all over the world.'

'That famous, huh?'

'Yes.'

'Which is why he needs a bodyguard, I guess.'

'Well, not only that.'

'You sure he's famous? Cause I have to tell you, I never heard of him.'

'Take my word for it.'

'So you just follow him around day and night, is that it?'

'Not night,' he said.

'Uh-huh,' she said, and lifted her glass, and sipped at her drink, and looked over the rim at him, eyes raised like an innocent virgin.

Are you a working girl?' he asked.

Busted.

'Yep,' she said.

'How much for the night?' he asked.

THE STREET WAS full of working girls.

Good-looking, too, many of them. This always surprised him. You expected scaly-legged whores, you got these sleek racehorses instead, they looked like they could be actresses or models, but here they were on the stroll. Selling themselves on the street. He could never figure it out.

Well, most of them were bag brides. Sold themselves to feed their habits. Most of them, in fact, it was their pimps got them hooked. So they'd be like slaves to the nose candy or the chick or the bazooka, whatever shit they were on, and that was it. They didn't care what they had to do to get the money to pay for it, or in most instances the shit itself, supplied by Mr. Pimp, that's a good girl, here's your tecata, baby, go do yourself.

Still. . . how could these good-looking young girls, most of them — well, some of them - let this happen to themselves? Where along the line did they . . . you know . . .fall into this? How did it happen? Well, he wasn't a sociologist, he was a cop, and a cop had to ignore such poking and probing, appropriate terms when a person was considering the plight of the poor downtrodden

streetwalker, but that's the way it was, Charlie, and who gave a shit? Not me, Ollie thought. But still, he wondered.

He got his first lead to Melissa Summers from a black hooker who told him she'd spotted her Monday in Poison Park up on the Stem . . .

'Berrigan Square,' she said.

'What was she doing there?' Ollie asked.

'Chattin up the poison people, you know.'

'What do you mean, chatting them up?'

'Axin 'em diss an dat.'

'Like what?'

'Some a dem cotton shooters, they do anythin for bread, you know.'

Like you, Ollie thought, but didn't say.

'What was she asking them to do?'

'None of mah business.'

'What time was this?'

'Monday afternoon sometime.'

'Thanks, honey.'

'Doan "honey" me, Big Man. Juss lay a nice slice on me, you know whut I'm sayin?'

Ollie slipped her a double-dime.

CARELLA NEVER USED to worry about money.

Now he worried about money all the time.

Three in the morning, he was awake worrying about money. There used to be a time when he thought his salary was enough to satisfy all their needs. Well, not the base salary. But overtime boosted the base by a tidy little sum each year. Bought them anything they needed, everything, clothes, food on the table, vacations down by the shore, whatever. They never wanted for anything.

Then...

He didn't know how or why it happened, but all at once money seemed to be in scarce supply, to put it mildly. Maybe it was the kids growing up all of a sudden. April suddenly becoming a young lady before his very eyes, Mark growing at least two inches overnight, needing cell phones and laptops and zip sneakers and makeup kits and whatever else all the other kids in their class had. Almost thirteen years old. Seemed like yesterday the twins were born. Almost thirteen already, he could just imagine what it would be like when they were sixteen or seventeen, no money put aside yet for college, how'd he ever manage to get himself into such a tight financial situation?

Well, the wedding.

The wedd-ings.

Two of them.

He couldn't imagine what had possessed him to offer paying for them. Well, you couldn't let your mother pay for her own wedding, could you? Your father dead? You couldn't say, Gee, Mom, sorry, this one's on you, could you? You made your bed, Mom, now lie in it. What kind of son would that be? And if you offered to pay for hers, then you had to offer to pay for your sister's as well, didn't you? I mean, they were getting married together, it was going to be a double ceremony, two brides, two grooms, I do, I do, I do, I do. So if you were going to be a good son and pay for one of the weddings, then you had to be a good brother, too, didn't you, and pay for the other one as well? Why, of course! So Mr. Magnanimous, Mr. Generosity, Mr. Deep Pockets offered to pay for both. Gee, thanks, son. Thanks, bro.

Meanwhile, bro is broke. Sonny Boy, too.

Because Big-Hearted Bro, Loving Son and Benefactor,

turned down Mr. Luigi Fontero's subsequent offer to pay for at least part of the double-bash. Luigi Fontero, the Furniture Maker of Milan, Future Husband of the Widow Carella, I will vomit!

I will vomit because I still don't understand how my mother could be marrying this big . . . wop, yes, excuse me ... or how my sister could be marrying this . . . inept, yes . . . prosecutor who allowed Pop's murderer to . . .

Don't get me started.

Please.

I am broke.

I am awake at three in the morning.

And the double wedding will take place this Saturday at noon.

Sweet dreams, Big Shot.

HE WAS ASLEEP beside her, snoring like a bull, and she still hadn't found out what Adam needed to know. Yes, Jeremy Higel was a bodyguard. Adam already knew that, though not his name. And yes, he was protecting a violinist whose name was Konstantinos Sallas. Adam already knew that, too, name and all.

But the devil was in the details.

And details were what she needed.

What she figured she'd do was wake him up by playing with his dick — a very small one for such a large, hairy man — and then Deep Throat him, which would be a piece of cake, so to speak, in his case. Then, when he was close to imminent ejaculation, you should pardon the expression, she would start asking him questions which, if he didn't answer them, she'd leave him hanging here till next month at this time.

How does that sound, Jere?

Sounds good to me, she thought, and finger-walked the forefinger and middle finger of her right hand down his hairy chest and across his hairy belly and down into the wild bushiness of his crotch to discover at last, hidden there in the weedy black forest of his pubic hair, a weapon of mass destruction so formidable that it would have shocked and awed Bush, Blair, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and indeed the entire civilized world - all two and a half inches of it.

Wake up, Woolly Bear, she thought.

We've got some serious pillow-talking to do.

THE FIRST NOTE was delivered at eight-thirty that Wednesday morning.

Another junkie, ho-hum.

When they unfolded the single sheet of paper inside the envelope, the message fairly leaped off the page:

87

'Gee, looka that,' Genero said. 'That's us,' Parker deduced.

THE SECOND NOTE came at 9:30 that morning.

They didn't realize it as yet, but there would be a veritable parade of junkies today, one every hour or so. They questioned each new shabby messenger, hoping to pick up a fresh trail for Carmela Sammarone, but she seemed to be recruiting her people from all over town, wherever addicts congregated, which was virtually everywhere.

The second note read:

78

'That's us backwards,' Parker calculated.

He felt he was getting good at this.

'Backwards again,' Meyer said.

Carella searched for yesterday's notes, the ones that told them everything was going to be backwards from now on. He hadn't slept much the night before, and he had trouble finding them. In fact, he almost knocked over his second cup of coffee.

'Here we go,' he said at last, and displayed the two notes.

The first one read:

'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit

The second one read:

Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man, How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured, But she would spell him backward

'You know,' Willis said, 'there are many different meanings to the word backward. It doesn't necessarily have to mean "in reverse."'

'It specifically says "spell him backward"' Brown said.

'Yes, but that could mean cast a spell on him that would make him bashful or hesitant or shy. That's another meaning of backward.'

'He's certainly not bashful or hesitant,' Hawes said.

'Or shy, either,' Genero agreed.

'You think he might get her to hypnotize someone?' Brown asked.

'Who?'

'The Sammarone woman. Carmela. Get her to cast a spell, you know?'

'Is she a hypnotist? Do we know that?'

'It's just, Hal said it could mean casting a spell.'

'It also means "late in developing," Willis said. 'Backward. You say someone's backward, you mean he's retarded.'

'Retarded ain't politically correct no more,' Parker said.

'Slow then,' Willis said. 'Backward.'

'Maybe he's telling us we're slow,' Meyer suggested.

'Maybe we are slow,' Carella said, and looked at the most recent note again.

Now they had 78.

First 87 and now 78.

Which was indeed 87 spelled backwards, or even backward, as the 'she' in yesterday's second note would have it.

'Do backward and backwards mean the same thing?' Genero asked. 'Cause I always said backwards. Is that wrong?'

'Backwards is the plural of backward,' Parker explained.

'Is something going to happen in the Seven-Eight?' Eileen asked.

'Where is the Seven-Eight, anyway?' Hawes asked.

Meyer was already looking through his list of the city's precincts. It seemed there was a Seventy-eighth Precinct across the river, in Calm's Point.

'"Him" spelled backwards is "mih,"' Genero observed. "She would spell him backward."'

'In Vietnamese, "mih" means "son of the crouching tiger,'" Parker said.

They all looked at him. 'Just kidding,' he said. But nobody was laughing.

YOU SEE A girl walking up the avenue at ten o'clock in the morning, wearing a slinky black silk dress and high-heeled black sandals with rhinestone clips, you know she's either an heiress or a hooker. And unless you're from Elk Horn, North Dakota, you know she didn't spend the night sleeping.

The Deaf Man was still asleep when Melissa let herself into the apartment. She went into the kitchen, poured herself some juice from the fridge, got a pot of coffee going, and then slipped out of her shoes and sat there at the kitchen table, waiting for the coffee to perk, looking out at the skyline, elbow on the table, chin resting on the heel of her right hand.

The aroma of the brewing coffee brought back memories of a childhood she'd almost forgotten. How'd I get here all these years later? she wondered. Whatever happened to little Carmela Sammarone? Where'd you go, Mela? she wondered. Mel? Where are you now, honey? Only place the name exists is on my passport, that one time Grandpa took me to Italy with him, to his hometown there, a walled city, she couldn't even remember the name of it anymore. Sort of sighing, she got up to pour herself the coffee.

'How'd it go?' he asked.

Startled, she turned from the stove.

He was wearing the black cashmere robe she'd bought him that made his eyes look very blue. Broad shoulders,

narrow waist, belt around it. Blond hair tousled, made him look somewhat boyish.

'Good,' she said. 'Want some coffee?'

'Yes, please,' he said. 'Learn anything?'

'Oh, oodles,' she said, and poured him a cup, carried it to the table, went to the fridge for milk, the cabinet for sugar. Sitting there at the table, in the sunlight streaming through the window, they could have been a cozy married couple having breakfast. She wondered what it was like to be a married couple.

'So tell me,' he said.

'His name is Jeremy Higel, he's not Greek.'

'He looked Greek. The beard, maybe. Or the association with Sallas.'

'Are Greeks supposed to have beards?'

Anyway . . .'he prompted.

Anyway, he's not Greek. But he'is Sallas' bodyguard.'

'That I know.'

'Who is a violin player.'

'Correct.'

And the concert will take place at three o'clock this Saturday, you were right about that, too.'

'So far, so good,' he said.

'Oh, it gets much better.'

'Tell me,' he said, and smiled.

'They'll be picked up at the hotel at two o'clock. Sallas and his bodyguard.'

'Why so early? The concert doesn't start till three.'

'In case there's traffic. They're supposed to be at Clarendon by two-thirty.'

'Who's picking them up?'

'A limo.'

'Which company?'

'Regal.'

'Good. You got that, huh?'

'Regal Limousine, yes. The car will be a luxury sedan, is what they call it.'

'That's very good, Melissa.'

'I think so.'

'Is he armed . . . Jeremy, is it?'

'Jeremy, yes. Jeremy Higel.'

'Is he armed?'

'Yes.'

'What kind of weapon?'

'A Smith & Wesson 1911.'

'I didn't know you were that familiar with guns.'

'I'm not. He gave me a guided tour. It's a forty-five caliber automatic, five-inch barrel length. Magazine holds eight rounds, plus one in the firing chamber. Satin stainless finish with a Hogue rubber grip. Very proud of that gun, he is. Nice-looking weapon, in fact. Big weapon, too. Which is more than I can say for the one in his pants.'

'Did he give you a guided tour of that one as well?'

'A walking tour, let us say. Nothing to brag about, believe me.'

'Par for the course, from what I gather.'

'Meaning?'

'According to the e-mails I receive in the hundreds of thousands every day of the week, every man in America is deficient in that department and in serious need of enlargement.'

'Present company excluded,' Melissa said, and glanced shyly at where his legs were crossed in the black cashmere robe.

'Bust enhancement, too,' he said. 'According to my e-mails, every woman in the world needs her bust enhanced.'

'Not me,' she said. 'I noticed.'

'Cause I already had them done.' 'Oh?'

'Right after I started calling myself Melissa.' 'Oh?'

'I thought I might become an actress, you see.' 'I didn't know that,' he said.

Yeah,' she said, and looked out at the magnificent skyline again. 'Girlish dreams, right?'

87+78=165

'Well, now there's news,' Parker said.

'But is it correct?' Genero asked, and began adding 78 to 87 on his calculator. Much to his surprise, eighty-seven plus seventy-eight did indeed add up to a hundred and sixty-five, more or less.

'What's he trying to tell us?' Carella asked.

'Why's he adding those two numbers?'

'Is there a One-Six-Five Precinct?' Eileen asked.

Meyer checked his list again.

'No,' he said. 'Highest is the Hun' Twenty-Third.'

'We're slow, and he's getting faster,' Parker said. 'The notes are coming in faster and faster.'

They all looked up at the wall clock.

It was now ten minutes to eleven.

THE NEXT NOTE came at 11:47 A.M. It read:

165+561=726

Genero looked up from his calculator. 'Right on the button!' he said triumphantly. 'The arithmetic is absolutely correct]'

'The sums are getting bigger and bigger, too, did you notice that?' Hawes asked.

'Meaning?' Parker asked.

'Just commenting.'

'Also,' Brown said, 'the size of the numbers is getting smaller and smaller.'

'No, bigger,' Hawes insisted.

'I don't mean the numerical value,' Brown said, sounding like a mathematics professor all at once. 'I mean the size of the type. Go ahead. Compare them.'

87

78

87+78=165 165+561=726

'The Incredible Shrinking Deaf Man,' Willis said, and Eileen laughed.

The door to Lieutenant Byrnes' office opened.

Scowling, he said, 'Doesn't anyone have anything to do around here?'

THEY HAD PLENTY to do.

This was the 87th Precinct, and this was the Big Bad City.

So while in his apartment crosstown and further downtown the Deaf Man was calling Regal Limousine to

arrange for a car and driver to pick him up at one-thirty this afternoon for what he'd described to Melissa as a 'trial run . . .'

. . . and while further uptown, Melissa herself was once again seeking out those poor deprived and demented individuals who were addicted to controlled substances of every stripe and persuasion to do her bidding for negotiable fees, the smaller the better . . .

. . . and while yet further uptown, in Berrigan Square, Detective Oliver Wendell Weeks was himself sitting on a bench in the midst of similarly depraved dope fiends, seeking information leading to the whereabouts of one Melissa Summers, presumed Slayer of Ambrose Carter, Infamous Procurer of Female Flesh . . .

While all these sundry people scurried about their busy little businesses, the men and women of the Eight-Seven scattered far and wide in pursuit of what was their usual daily routine when someone not quite as glamorous as the Deaf Man wasn't on the scene.

ANGELA WAS THE only person here who knew sign language. But, of course, she was the bride-to-be, and there were thirty some-odd (some of them mighty odd, yuk yuk) women fluttering about her. And although she came over to Teddy every so often to exchange sister-in-lawly chitchat with her hesitant but well-meaning hands, she had to move on because there were other guests to welcome, other air-kisses to exchange, other . . . well, Teddy knew she was very busy. This was her shower, after all.

Sitting with the other women, Teddy could not hear their laughter or their speech, and she could not talk to them because her only language was in her hands.

Whenever she used her hands, she mouthed the words as well, her lips matching her flying fingers. But without the signing, her mouthing came over as exaggerated grimacing, and people unaccustomed to reading lips merely frowned or smiled patiently in response. By reading lips herself, Teddy could catch words, or phrases, or sometimes even complete sentences, but at a gathering as large as this one, with so many people talking at once, it was impossible to keep track of any single conversation. So she sat essentially alone and apart in the midst of the chattering women, a fixed smile on her face, her dark brown eyes scanning the room, and the faces of the other women, and their lips, trying to read those lips, a silent spectator in a world she had never heard.

She had never heard her children's laughter.

She had never heard her husband's voice.

She imagined his voice to be soft and kind, the way his hands were soft and kind.

Smiling, she sat alone and apart.

ALONE IN THE squadroom, Carella was manning the phones and the fax machines when the fifth note that day arrived. He pulled on the gloves, and opened the envelope:

726+627=1353

No surprises there. The Deaf Man was merely reversing the number each time out, and then adding it to the existing number. But why? And why was the font size getting smaller and smaller, while the numbers themselves got larger and larger? For comparison, he placed the numbers one under the other yet another time:

87

78

87+78=165

165+561=726

726+627=1353