Hark!

Did this reversal and addition have something to do with the clues they'd already received from him? //you could even call them clues, the son of a bitch. Or were the numerals merely a preamble to what was coming? In much the same way the Deaf Man had prepared them for his Shakespearean quotes by sending them first a fistful of anagrams that culminated in I'M A FATHEAD, MEN!, the anagram for I AM THE DEAF MAN!

So put that in your pipe and smoke it, as Carella's mother used to tell him when he was a kid and she was exercising maternal authority, put that in your pipe and smoke it, Sonny Boy! His mother who was going to marry Mr. Luigi Fontero from Milano, Italy, on Saturday, the twelfth day of June, this Saturday, his mother Luisa, mind you, not to mention his sister Angela, God bless us one and all!

Carella looked at the new note again:

726+627=1353

What the hell is he trying to tell us? he wondered.

YOUR AVERAGE, RUN-of-the-mill, everyday office romance flourished around the water cooler or in the supply closet, secret glances, surreptitious touches, furtive kisses hastily exchanged. Rarely during the daily routine did lovers who worked in the same office find themselves alone in an automobile — unless they were detectives.

The burglary to which they'd responded was in a fish store off Seventh Street. The theft had probably taken place the night before but it hadn't been detected until late this morning, when one of the employees went into the freezer and discovered that thirty pounds of shrimp was missing.

'What kind of a world is this?' the owner of the store wished to know. 'A person steals shrimp? Thirty pounds of shrimp? What's he going to do with thirty pounds of shrimp? He's got nothing better to steal? He has to steal thirty pounds of shrimp?'

'Well, these guys aren't rocket scientists, you know,' Willis said.

'But thirty pounds of shrimp?'

'Anyone but you have a key to the place?' Eileen asked.

In the car later, Eileen driving, Willis riding shotgun, he said, 'I can understand his point. Why would anyone bother? I mean, thirty pounds of shrimp? The guy's risking jail for thirty pounds of shrimp?'

'You and the owner ought to start a rock group,' Eileen said.

'How so?'

'You've already got a name for it. Thirty Pounds of Shrimp. I hear that one more time, I'll scream.'

Willis slipped his hand under her skirt.

'Hey!' she said. 'I'm driving.'

'So pull over.'

'Why?'

'So I can kiss you.'

'I'm a police officer, I want you to know.'

'So am I.'

'Stop that.'

'Not until you pull over.'

She checked the rear-view mirror, signaled, pulled the car over to the curb. He took her in his arms at once, kissed her fiercely. She yanked her mouth away, looked into his face, her own face flushed, fair complexion, the curse of the Irish. This time she kissed him, even more fiercely, pulled her mouth away again, checked the rear-view mirror, the side mirror, kissed him again, pulled back again, breathless.

'We'll get arrested,' she said.

'Who cares?' he said, and pulled her to him again.

I AM THE DEAF MAN!

And accompanying the announcement that he had returned to plague them once again, he had included the first of his Shakespearean quotes:

We wondred that thou went'st so soon From the world's stage, to the grave's tiring room. We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth, Tells thy spectators that thou went'st but forth To enter with applause.

An Actor's Art,

Can die, and live, to act a second part.

Though damned if Carella could find it anywhere on the web. Here in the office, and again at home on his

son's computer (which had cost him $999, even discounted) he had gone to the RhymeZone Shakespeare Search again and again and again. He had typed in each and every key word or words he could think of, went'st so soon, and world's stage, and grave's tiring room, and thought thee dead, and on and on and on, ad infinitum, straight through to Actor's Art, and act a second part, with no hits at all. Zero. Shakespeare's Greatest Hits. None at all.

It suddenly occurred to him . . .

Christopher Marlowe.

One of the writers suspected of being the real author of Shakespeare's plays. Or his sonnets. Or whatever.

He went to the computer again, and Googled to the name.

THE OWNER OF the liquor store was certain that the man who'd come in wearing a ski mask and gloves was black.

'Big black man wearing a ski mask and gloves,' he said. 'In June. Didn't he know that'd look suspicious? A ski mask? And gloves? In June? How could anyone be so stupid?'

'How'd you know he was black?' Brown asked.

Being black himself - or rather, being more like the color of his name — he was naturally curious. Kling was curious, too, even though he was white and blond. They had responded to the call not ten minutes ago. The robber had cleaned out the cash register and taken a bottle of Johnny Walker Black from the shelf before he'd departed. Maybe that was why the owner thought he was black. The Johnny Black and all. Black by association, so to speak.

'You can tell,' the owner said.

'You can tell a man wearing a ski mask and gloves is black?' Brown said.

'The voice,' the owner said. 'No offense meant.'

'None taken,' Brown said. 'He sounded black, is that what you're saying?'

'Is exactly what I'm saying,' the owner said. 'No offense.'

Kling tended to agree that black people sounded different from white people. Brown was inclined to agree as well. Both men could instantly identify a black person on the phone, even if he wasn't wearing gloves and a ski mask. So why were they both offended now — and they both were — by this scrawny little white man wearing a shabby maroon sweater and smoking a cigarette, telling them that he could tell the man who'd come in and stuck a gun in his face in broad daylight was black because he sounded black?

Was it because his identification was premised less on the robber's voice than on the fact that he was wearing a ski mask and gloves on the ninth day of June? Was the liquor store owner saying, in effect, 'Only a black man would be stupid enough to wear a ski mask and gloves on a holdup in June?'

Neither Kling nor Brown knew exactly why they were offended, but they were. They went about their business, nonetheless, saying nothing about the possibly racist ID, taking down all the details of the robbery, and then telling the owner, who was already on his fourth cigarette in the past twenty minutes, that they'd get back to him if they got anything, to which he replied simply, 'Sure.'

Neither did they discuss the ID when they were alone in the car together, heading back to the stationhouse.

Kling wondered about this.

So did Brown.

AMONG THE MANY quotes attributed to Marlowe were:

Comparisons are odious and Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? and Come live with me, and be my love and Love me little, love me long (which was an Elvis Presley song, wasn't it?) and Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships?

But when Carella typed in the keywords in that first little poem they'd received, he got nothing again. So Marlowe hadn't written it, either. In which case, who was the culprit? Was it Sir Francis Bacon, another candidate for Shakespearean authorship, if Carella remembered correctly; college was a long time ago. Was it Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, or the Tenth Earl of Warwick, or whoever he might have been?

He Googled over to Bacon, typed in the keywords, and got nothing. He typed in de Vere, went through the exercise yet another time. Nothing again. No hits, all misses. Something like a Broadway season in New York. So who had written those lines?

Or was the Deaf Man himself the author?

THE FAMILY DISPUTE had turned violent. That's why Genero and Parker were here. The woman, who'd had about enough of being slapped around by a husband half her size, grabbed a cast-iron skillet from the stove and swung it at her husband's head, splashing fried peppers and eggs all over his face together with the blood that gushed from the big gash the skillet had opened.

The uniforms who'd responded earlier were still at the scene. An ambulance had carted Agustin Mendez to the hospital, but his wife, Milagros, was still here in the apartment, her arms folded across ample breasts. The detectives had to watch where they were stepping

because peppers and eggs were still all over the kitchen floor.

'He slipped and fell in the oil on the floor,' Milagros said.

Perfect English, faintest trace of an accent. Damned if she was going to get sent up for finally striking back at her son of a bitch husband. Parker couldn't blame her. Neither could Genero.

'How'd the oil get on the floor, ma'am?' he asked.

Agustin spilled it.'

'Spilled the oil and then slipped in it, right?' Parker said.

'That's how it happened, yes,' she said, and nodded defiantly.

In the street outside, walking back to the car, Parker said, 'She's lying, you know.'

'Oh, sure.'

'They lie, these spics.'

'Sure.'

'Ollie's dating one, you know,' Parker said.

'I didn't know.'

'A mistake,' Parker said, and shook his head gravely.

CARELLA LOOKED AT the note again.

726+627=1353

If the Deaf Man was reversing the number and then adding it to itself, then why not. . .

Well, let's try it, he thought.

He picked up a pen, pulled a pad in front of him, and wrote 1353 on it. He reversed the number . . . 3531 . . . and then added them together:

1353 +3531

4884

I'll be damned, he thought.

Unless he was mistaken, 4884 was the nonexistent postal box number the Deaf Man had used on his early messenger-service deliveries.

He was leading them back to the very beginning again.

He was telling them to go back.

Backward, men! Backward, you backward men!

And then something sprang off the pad, almost hitting Carella in the left eye.

4884

The number read the same forwards and backwards!

11.

THE DRIVER FROM Regal Limousine was waiting outside 328 River Place South when his customer - a Mr. Adam Fen — came out of the luxury apartment building at precisely one-thirty that Wednesday afternoon. He tipped his peaked hat and immediately went to the curb-side rear door, snapping it open, holding it open as his customer stepped in, and then closing the door behind him. Coming around to the driver's side of the car, he climbed in behind the wheel, and said, 'I'm David, Mr. Fen.'

'How do you do, David?'

'Nice day, i'n it, sir?'

Slight Cockney accent, the Deaf Man noticed. Or Australian, perhaps? Sometimes, they sounded alike. David was a man in his late forties, the Deaf Man guessed, some five-feet eight-inches tall, quite thin, a slight man by anyone's reckoning. He was wearing black trousers and a matching jacket, black shoes and socks, little black cap with a shiny black peak, white shirt, and black tie.

'And where shall it be this afternoon, Mr. Fen?'

'Clarendon Hall, please.'

'Clarendon it is, sir.'

The Deaf Man had ordered what Regal called its 'luxury sedan' because this was the type of limo Konstantinos Sallas and his bodyguard would be riding to Clarendon this Saturday afternoon. He was not at all interested in the backseat reading lamps or vanity mirrors or any of

the other amenities, preferring instead to concentrate on how much room there was in the front seat, where David sat behind the wheel with a blank smile on his face.

The weapon the Deaf Man had chosen was an Uzi submachine gun. Manufactured in Israel, the Oo-zee, as it was pronounced, was a boxy, lightweight weapon measuring only some 470 millimeters, and weighing but 3.5 kilograms. When converted to inches and pounds, this came to a sweet little firearm that was a bit more than eighteen inches long, and weighed a bit less than eight pounds. Certainly small enough to fit in a sports bag on the front seat alongside the driver. Glancing there now, he saw that David had placed on that front seat a folded black raincoat.

'I like the way Regal outfits its drivers,' he said.

'Do you now, sir?'

'Indeed. Do they pay for the uniforms? Or do you . . . ?'

'Sir?'

'I asked whether they pay for the uniforms, or do you supply them yourselves?'

'They gives us an allowance, sir. We can go to any outfitter we choose, so long as the uniform meets Regal specifications, yes, sir.'

'And where did you get your uniform?'

'There's a uniform supply house downtown on Baxter Street, yes, sir. That's where I was outfitted.'

'The raincoat, too?'

'Yes, sir, the raincoat. They know Regal's specifications, they're most accommodating.'

'What's it called?'

'Sir?'

'The supply house.'

'Yes, sir. I'm sorry, I'm a bit hard of hearing.'

'So am I,' the Deaf Man said.

'Then you know what it's like.'

More or less, the Deaf Man thought.

It's Conan Uniforms, sir, the second floor at 312 Baxter. They have a full line of chauffeur, butler, maid, doorman, janitorial, security, and medical uniforms. Was Regal recommended them, in fact. They have all Regal's specifications. Nice people to deal with, too. Are you thinking of becoming a chauffeur, sir?' he asked, smiling at the absurdity of such a notion even as the words left his lips.

'Not just yet, no,' the Deaf Man said, smiling with him, the oaf. 'Are you from London, David?'

Yes, sir. The part what's called Cheapside, do you know it, sir?'

'I do indeed.'

Yes, sir,' David said. 'Sir, we're about there now, would you care for the main entrance or the stage door?'

'The main entrance, please.'

Yes, sir.'

David made his turn at the corner, and pulled up in front of the concert hall.

'I shouldn't be long,' the Deaf Man said.

'I may have to move, sir, if the police come by. But I'll just circle the block till I see you.'

'Fine, David, thank you,' he said, and stepped out of the car.

In the glass-covered display frame to the right of the main entrance doors, there was a poster for this weekend's 'Three at Three' series. It showed a black and white photograph of Konstantinos Sallas holding his violin by the neck, and grinning at the camera. Pasted across the lower half of the photo was a narrow banner that read SAT 6/12 AND SUN 6/13.

The Deaf Man nodded and walked into the lobby. *

BERRIGAN SQUARE WAS near the westernmost end of the Stem, where a largely Jewish citizenry merged seamlessly with an increasingly Hispanic population that changed in a flash to what the real estate agents referred to in code as 'a colorful neighborhood.' Poison Park, as it was familiarly known to police and drug abusers alike, was a triangular-shaped patch of scrawny grass surrounding a bronze statue of Maxwell Wilkerson, Civil War general and later biographer of Abraham Lincoln.

Wilkerson was a witty man with a cheery smile (even in uniform) and graying hair (even in bronze) whose bravery and scholarship had enlightened an entire age. Standing at the apex of the triangle, surrounded by benches peeling dark green paint, sword upraised to the pigeons that soared overhead intent on defecation, and the traffic that zoomed on each of his flanks, east and west, he boldly dominated the small park and indeed the large thoroughfare itself. The shabby assortment of drug addicts and dealers assembled in the park didn't give a shit who Maxwell Wilkerson was or had been. Intent on scoring, each in his own way, they milled about the small triangle in the middle of the avenue, transparently exchanging folded bills for packets of white powder.

The cops in this city — and in most American cities — had long ago decided that the prisons were too full of petty drug abusers and had given up on making small busts. Being an addict was not a crime, but having in one's possession certain circumscribed amounts of controlled substances was. Even so, the law enforcement agencies concentrated instead on destroying the crops in South America and arresting the upper-level chieftains of the posses engaged in the traffic. They probably figured they were doing as good a job in the War on Drugs as the government was doing in its War on Terror even though they

didn't have eighty-seven billion dollars at their disposal.

Fat Ollie Weeks figured it all had to do with money.

Not too long ago, he had busted a vast conspiracy linking counterfeit money to illegal drugs to terrorism. So you didn't have to tell him, thanks, that what was going on in Poison Park, or on the desert sands of Iraq, was all about money. Didn't have to tell that to his good buddy Steve Carella, either, who - Ollie had to admit -had helped a little in busting the big 'Money, Money, Money Case,' as he still fondly thought of it.

With the possible exception of Carella — and, well, Patricia Gomez now, he supposed - Ollie didn't like many people, and he didn't trust anybody at all.

He knew that any of the junkies here in Poison Park would sell his mother to an Arabian rug merchant if he thought the transaction would pay for his next fix. He knew that any of the dealers passing out drugs here would happily kill any of his competitors or indeed Ollie himself if he felt his lucrative livelihood was being threatened. None of these people cared about bringing democracy to Iraq because they knew that nobody gave a damn about sharing the pie with them right here in America.

None of these people had benefited from a tax cut because none of them paid taxes. The junkies didn't vote because they didn't give a shit about anything but heroin or cocaine or meth or you name it. The dealers didn't vote because either they weren't citizens or they felt that whoever was President or Vice President didn't affect their lives in the slightest; in fact, if you asked them, they probably couldn't tell you who was now holding those elected positions.

Right here in America, the people here in Poison Park were as much slaves to using narcotics or selling narcotics as the black man had been a slave to King Cotton.

Right here in America.

So who cared what happened in Iraq?

Not Ollie, that was for sure.

Sitting on one of the benches as General Wilkerson's shadow slowly encroached on the tips of his brown shoes, Ollie merely hoped he was passing as either a junkie or a dealer because he had no intention of getting shot on this fine June afternoon.

True enough, he had never met a junkie of his size in his life. But he was dressed as seedily as every other addict in the park (the dealers fancied expensive leather, of course) and he had not shaved or bathed in preparation for the stakeout, and he tried to appear needy if not desperate. The addicts figured him for a new kid on the block; here in Dopeland, there was always a new kid on the block. The dealers approached him more warily; sometimes the new kid was carrying tin.

Ollie couldn't tell whether the man who sat down next to him on the bench was (a) an addict (b) a dealer or (c) an undercover like himself. This was the One-Oh-One Precinct; he knew some of the cops up here, but not all of them. In character (he felt) he scoped the man suspiciously. Neither said anything for several moments. Traffic whizzed by on either side of them, east and west. Another sort of traffic moved briskly in the park everywhere around them. Business as usual on this sunny June day.

At last, the man sitting beside him said, 'You a cop?'

'Sure,' Ollie said. 'Ain't we all?'

The man laughed.

Five of him would have made one Ollie, he was that thin. Wearing jeans that hadn't been washed in months, it looked like, and a thin cotton sweater, its sleeves pulled down to the wrists to hide his track marks, Ollie

guessed. Must've been twenty-five, thirty, hard to tell with some of these needle freaks. Hollow cheeks, darting blue eyes. The needy look Ollie was trying to emulate. Trying so hard he almost forgot he was here looking for a murderess. Murderer. Whatever, these days.

'You selling?' the man asked.

'No,' Ollie said.

'So what're you looking to buy?'

Was he a dealer? He sure as hell didn't look like one.

Actually, I'm a little short of bread just now,' Ollie said.

Ain't we all,' the man said, and laughed again. 'How about if you wasn't short?'

'I do a little Harry, is all. I just dip and dab.'

'Don't we all,' the man said again, but this time he didn't laugh. 'I'm Jonesy,' he said, but did not extend his hand.

Andy,' Ollie said.

A name he had used many times before. Andy. Sounded like a large man's name. Andy Fulton was the whole handle he often used on undercover. Big large name. 'Reason I'm here

'Yeah, Andy?'

'. . . is I heard some chick was handing out hundred-dollar bills

'Wish I knew a chick like that.'

'. . . for delivering letters, was what I heard.'

'Right,' Jonesy said.

Ollie didn't know whether the man thought he was shitting him or whether he knew something about Melissa Summers buying messengers. He waited. Nothing seemed to be forthcoming.

'Figured I might pick me up some change,' Ollie offered.

'Right,' Jonesy said again.

Ollie waited.

Traffic zipped by, horns honking, this city.

'You know who might know about that?' Jonesy said.

'Who?' Ollie asked.

Jonesy stood up abruptly. He swung one arm over his head, waved to a bench on the other side of the statue, and yelled out, 'Emma? C'mere a sec, okay?'

Which is how Ollie came face to face with the man who'd stolen his priceless manuscript.

'DO I REALLY have to read all this stuff?' Melissa asked.

He hated questions that did not require answers. Would he have gone to all the trouble of picking up a program and all these reviews if he hadn't wanted her to read them?

'It will familiarize you with what's about to come down,' he said, falling into the vernacular, but perhaps that was all she understood.

Melissa pulled a face.

She looked at her watch.

In twenty minutes, she would have to leave here for Grover Park, where she would watch the stationhouse from across the street, to make sure the last letter of the day was delivered by the Chosen Junkie of the Hour. Meanwhile . . .

The title page of the program read:

Three at Three

'An inadvertent palindrome,' the Deaf Man said. 'What's that?' 'A palindrome?'

'All of it.'

'Inadvertent means accidental. A palindrome is something that reads the same forwards or backwards. I doubt very much that the people who designed that program realized that "Three at Three" is a palindrome.'

'Oh. Yeah,' she said, her eyes widening. 'Three at Three! It is the same forwards or backwards.'

'Actually, a palindrome should read forwards or backwards letter by letter. "Three at Three" only partially qualifies. Then again, I'm sure its use was accidental.'

'So what's 'Three at Three'?'

'Three concerts at three o'clock.'

'Oh. Is this our Saturday concert?'

'The very one,' he said.

'Well, well,' she said, and opened the program.

There was a performance schedule and program for the first of the 'Three at Three' concerts, which had taken place last Saturday and Sunday. She turned several pages and found the schedule for this weekend's performances. First, there was a full-page picture of Konstantinos Sallas, the guest soloist. He appeared to be a man in his late thirties, clean-shaven, very solemn-looking as he peered at the camera past the curved neck of the violin he was holding in his left hand.

The following page offered a biography of the man. Melissa skimmed it. Born in 1969 — she'd guessed his age about right — began studying violin when he was six, continued his studies at the Greek Conservatory, and then Juilliard in New York, won an Onassis Foundation scholarship, made his concert debut in Athens when he was sixteen years old, won the International Sibelius Competition in Helsinki when he was seventeen, and won both the Pa-ganini International and the Munich International while he was still in his teens. Before his concert debut with the

London Symphony, he had also taken top prizes in the Hannover, Kreisler, and Sarasate violin competitions.

On the next page, there was a program of what would be performed at this weekend's 'Three at Three' concerts. The first half of the bill would be Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major, opus 61 . . .

'That's the one Sallas will be playing,' the Deaf Man explained.

The second half would be Brahms' Symphony No 4 in E Minor . . .

'Is he playing this one, too?' Melissa asked.

'No. Poor man would need a rest after the D Major.'

'So he's just playing that one thing, is that it?'

'That's it. A lovely piece. Starts with four timpani beats

'What's a timpani?'

'A kettle drum.'

'Oh.'

'Four soft timpani beats,' he said. 'Read the man's reviews, he's truly phenomenal.'

Melissa picked up the glossy sheet he'd handed her along with the program. She looked at her watch again. Sighing, she began reading.

'This wizard of the strings played Stravinsky's Violin Concerto and Ravel's Tzigane. His interpretations were humorous, fiery, and breathtaking . . .'

'Every sound that the extraordinary Sallas produced on his Stradivarius was like a shimmering crystal, which, against the heavy brass lines . . .'

'Konstantinos Sallas plays with consistent commitment, exquisite clarity and a thrilling

'It takes rare charm and brilliant execution for a solo violinist to hold the entranced attention of an entire

'Konstantinos Sallas brought singularly lustrous tonal

effects and colors to the Sibelius

'I get the picture,' Melissa said, and handed the program and the publicity sheet back to him.

'Anything else you get?' he asked.

'What?' she said.

'Look again,' he said, waving the program back at her.

She turned to the schedule for this Saturday and Sunday.

Konstantinos Sallas, solo violinist with the . . .

'Oh,' she said.

'Yes?'

'His name.'

... Sallas, solo violinist. . .

'Yes?'

'It's what you said before. A whatchamacallit.' Yes?'

'The letters,' she said. 'They spell the same thing forwards or backwards.'

... Sallas ...

'Sallas,' she said. 'His name.'

'Good girl,' he said, and wondered how many other people were beginning to catch on along about now.

'DON'TYOU SEE?' Carella said. 'It reads the same forwards or backwards.'

They were all clustered around his desk now, studying the Deaf Man's final note of the day.

1353+3531=4884

'That number looks familiar,' Willis said.

'It's the . . .'

'Right. The box number I tried to track down.'

'Doesn't exist,' Meyer said.

'But why's he taking us back there?' Eileen asked.

'Because he's leading us back to the beginning again,' Hawes said.

'Also, the size of the numbers is very definitely getting smaller,' Carella said. 'Here, take another look.'

They took another look:

87

78

87+78=165 165+561=726

1353+3531=4884

'Backwards, and smaller and smaller,' Carella said.

'So what the hell does that mean?' Parker asked, and looked at the clock, trying to figure how much longer this goddamn June the ninth was going to last.

FOR A MAN, Emilio Herrera was a damn good-looking woman.

In fact, the detectives up at the Eight-Eight whistled

when Ollie marched him into the squadroom.

'Sit down, Emilio,' he said, and indicated the chair alongside his desk.

'It's Emma,' Emilio said, and sat, crossing his long splendid legs. Five feet seven inches tall in his high heels, weighing a hundred and ten in his padded bra, fingernails painted a glittery gold to match his frizzed blond wig, he tugged at his short blue skirt and then pouted a moist red look at Ollie, who indifferently pulled a pad toward him, and began writing.

Emilio watched.

If he wasn't higher than a hot-air balloon, he'd have at least recognized Ollie's name. But he happened to be floating on some very good Red Chicken and so he didn't know this phat phuck from any other detective up here.

'My book,' Ollie said.

'Pretty,' Emilio said, thinking he was referring to the pad he'd been writing in, which he now saw carried his hand-lettered name across the top of one page.

'The book you stole,' Ollie said.

Emilio looked at him blankly.

'Report to the Commissioner,' Ollie said. 'Which I myself wrote.'

'You did notV Emilio said indignantly.

Ollie looked at him blankly.

'Olivia Watts wrote that report,' Emilio said.

'I am . . .'

'Olivia Wesley Watts!' Emilio shouted.

'I am she,' Ollie said. Or even her, he thought. 'Where's my fucking book?'

'It is not your book! It is Livvie's book!'

'I am Livvie!' Ollie shouted.

'Sure! Same as I'm Emma!'

'Look, you little prick . . .'

'Oh, darling,' Emilio said.

'If you don't tell me what you did with that book

'I got nothing to say to you about Livvie's book.'

'There is no Liwie!'

'Ho ho.'

'I made her up. Liwie is me, I'm Liwie, but she doesn't exist! Olivia Watts is a synonym I. . .'

'Olivia Wesley Watts. And it's pseudonym, not . . .'

'Don't get smart with me, you little . . .'

'And anyway, it isn't. A pseudonym. Because I saw her after the drug bust, and I told her . . .'

'You saw who after what drug bust?'

'Liwie. Detective Watts. The drug bust in the basement at 3211 Culver Ave, whenever it was. I saw her outside the building. I told her I'd burned the report so . . .'

'It wasn't a report, it was a novelV

'It said Report to . . .'

'You what?

'What?'

'You burned it? You telling me you burned it? You burned my novel?'

'To protect Liwie

'I'll give you protect Liwie.'

'So the bad guys wouldn't get it.'

'I'll kill you. I swear to God, I'll kill you!'

Ollie was out of his chair now, coming around his desk, his hands actually reaching for Emilio's throat.

'Do you know how long it took me to write that book? Do you realize . . . ?'

'Relax,' Emilio said, 'I memorized it.'

Ollie looked at him.

'Was it really all fake?' Emilio asked.

'You memorized it?'

'Word for word,' Emilio said. 'Gee, it seemed so real.

You're a very good writer, did anyone ever tell you that?'

You think so?' Ollie said.

'You captured the thoughts and emotions of a woman magnificently.'

Ollie almost asked, 'How would you know?' But he recognized unadulterated praise when he heard it.

'Did the female viewpoint seem convincing?' he asked.

'Oh, man, did it\' Emilio said, and rolled his eyes and began quoting. '"I am locked in a basement with $2,700,000 in so-called conflict diamonds and I just got a run in my pantyhose."'

'What comes next?' Ollie asked.

'"/ am writing this in the hope that it will somehow reach you before they kill me. You will recall. . ."'

'Emilio,' Ollie said, grinning, 'I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.'

STANDING ACROSS THE street from Sharyn's apartment building, Kling saw the taxi when it pulled up, and recognized the girl the moment she stepped out of it. Same white girl Sharyn and Hudson had met with yesterday. Early thirties, he guessed. Black hair and brown eyes. Slim and svelte, five feet six or seven inches tall. She looked up and down the street before she went into the building, as if she suspected someone was following her . . . well, she was half-right on that score.

Sharyn had told him she couldn't see him until later tonight because she had a meeting at the hospital. He'd known even on the phone that she was lying. Didn't have to look into her eyes to detect the lie. So he'd followed her from her office, and sure as he was white and Sharyn was black, she didn't go to any damn hospital, she went straight home to her apartment here in Calm's Point.

He'd half expected Dr. James Melvin Hudson to pull up ten minutes later, but instead it was the dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty they'd had coffee with yesterday. He watched as she went into the outer lobby, studied the bell panel, found what she was looking for - Sharyn's apartment, he guessed, bright detective — pressed a button, and waited for the answering buzz. When it came, he could hear it faintly from across the street. The girl let herself in, and walked toward the elevator bank.

He looked at his watch.

It was almost five-thirty.

OLLIE'S MANUSCRIPT WAS only thirty-six pages long, which he didn't realize was perhaps the length of a mere chapter in most mystery writers' novels, although there were some bestselling practitioners of the craft who seemed to prefer much shorter chapters, like say a page and a half long. In any event, reciting even a thirty-six-page book from memory was not an easy task, especially if you were a drug addict beginning to come down from a truly splendid high.

Almost unable to believe his good fortune, Ollie provided sweets and coffee for his thieving storyteller, and then set a tape recorder going. This was not unlike the good old days when woolly mammoths roamed the earth, and wise old men sat outside caves reciting tales of hunting valor and skill. The other detectives of the Eight-Eight pulled up chairs around Ollie's desk, not so much because they were dying to hear Emilio's story, but more because they wished to sneak a peek or two up Emma's skirt. But as the tale unfolded, they began to get more and more interested in the intricate plot development and intriguing characterization.

It took Emilio precisely an hour and forty-three minutes to recite Ollie's book word for word. By that time, the assembled detectives were all agog.

'Did you really write that?' one of them asked Ollie.

'Ah yes,' he said.

'That is terrific stuff,' one of the other detectives said, shaking his head in wonder and awe. Absolutely terrific'

'You got a sure bestseller there.'

'Make a great movie.'

And, little lady, you did a great job reading it.'

Were it not for the presence of these other detectives, Ollie might have let Emilio go at that point, so grateful was he for the recitation, and the response to it. On the other hand, Emilio was just a no-good little cross-dressing whore who was a disgrace to his fine Puerto Rican heritage, and who, besides, had been pointed out as someone having knowledge pertaining to the hundred-dollar bills Melissa Summers was handing out in the drug community hither and yon, ah yes.

So Ollie picked up a throwdown dime bag of shit which he just happened to find under Emilio's chair, and he said, 'Well, well, well, now where do you suppose this came from, Emilio?'

Which is how Emilio gave up Aine Duggan.

WAITING FOR THE girl to come downstairs again, Kling visualized all sorts of things, none of them very pleasant.

First there was Sharyn and Hudson.

Sharyn in bed with a man blacker than she herself was.

Pornographic images of them doing all the things Kling felt only he himself did with Sharyn.

A black man fucking Sharyn.

(Was this a racist thought?)

A black man going down on her.

Sharyn slobbering the black man's Johnson.

An expression she had taught him.

A black expression.

(Was this damn thing, whatever it was, turning him racist?)

Well, whatever it was . . .

And at first it had appeared to be merely (merely!) Sharyn and Hudson alone, just the two of them, a sweet little love affair between a pair of colleagues, what the Italians called una storia, he would have to ask Carella's intended stepfather if that was correct, una storia, some 'story' here between these two black medical practitioners, some little goddamn fucking storyl

But then it had turned into what appeared to be a genuine three-way, Sharyn, Hudson, and the so-far anonymous white woman, Hudson at the center of an Oreo, the cream on the outside this time around, black Sharyn on his right, the white woman on his left, or vice versa, who gave a damn, it was still lucky Pierre, always in the middle! Would the picture in his mind be less detestable if the man in the middle was white? And if Sharyn had longed for a three-way, why the hell hadn't she invited Kling himself?

And now —

Now this white woman rendezvousing with Sharyn on her own, the three-way turning into a possible lesbian relationship, the movie in his mind suddenly becoming black and white, the women hugging, the women kissing, the women fondling, the women muff-diving, Hudson excluded, Kling excluded, just the two women, black and white, locked in secret, steamy embrace.

The deception.

The deceit.

He snapped off the projector in his mind.

The screen went blank.

He looked at his watch.

Seven twenty-three.

It was starting to rain.

AINE DUGGAN WAS curled up in a fetal ball when Ollie found her in an alley off Thompson and shook her awake. It had begun to rain lightly. She blinked up at him.

He could barely recognize this woman with long stringy bleached blond hair and a few missing teeth, wearing blue jeans and a soiled gray sweatshirt, loafers without socks, scabs all over her ankles. The hooker he'd briefly questioned about Emilio Herrera shortly after his book was stolen had been wearing a cute short black skirt and a neat pink halter top and her hair was Irish-red and cut short and she looked like a teenager even though she was twenty-five at the time, which had not been all that long ago. She now looked thirty-five.

'Whussup?' she asked.

'I want to become a mailman,' he said.

'Yeah?'

'I hear there's money in it.'

'Who told you that?'

'Little birdie.'

'I don't know whut the fuck you're talking about.'

'A woman paying you to deliver a letter.'

'Yeah?'

'To the Eight-Seven.'

'Yeah?'

"Where'd you meet her, Aine?'

'How do you know my name?'

'Little birdie,' he said again.

It was dark in the alley, but if she wasn't so down and out this very minute, she might have recognized Ollie, anyway, from their last encounter in a galaxy far far away. But the black tar had worn off, and she was no longer high, and she knew she didn't have any money and would probably have to jones her next fix, so who was this fat asshole kneeling beside her, with her face getting all wet from the rain? Was he maybe a prospective John?

'You wanna see my pussy?' she asked.

'I wanna see Melissa Summers.'

'Yeah?'

'Where'd you meet her, Aine? Where can I find her?'

'Do I know you?' she asked, and peered at his face through the falling rain.

'Detective Oliver Wendell Weeks,' he said. You know me.'

'Am I busted?'

'For what, Aine?'

'I don't know. I'm not a bad person, Detective.'

'I know that.'

'I'm just a person needs to be comforted and helped . . .'

'Sure,' Ollie said.

' . . . a person to be pitied.'

'Sure, Aine.'

'I'm just a sorry fucked-up piece of shit.'

'I can help you, Aine.'

'I need to make up. I need a fix real bad.'

'I can see that.'

'I need to find the candy man.'

'I can help you do that.'

She blinked at him in the falling rain.

'Tell me where you met Melissa Summers. Tell me where it was.'

'Who?'

'Melissa Summers. Either a redhead or a girl with long black hair.'

'I'm a natural redhead,' Aine said. 'Wanna see my pussy?'

'Focus, Aine. Melissa Summers.'

'Black hair. Bangs.'

Yes.'

'Slipped me a deuce to deliver a letter.'

'That's her.'

Yeah,' Aine said, and nodded in the falling rain.

'Where?' Ollie said.

'How much?' Aine asked.

'SO HOW'D THE meeting go?'Kling asked.

It was ten minutes past eleven. They were in his small studio apartment in the shadow of the Calm's Point Bridge. She'd been here waiting for him when he got home. Here in bed waiting for him, in fact. Wearing a white baby-doll nightgown.

'Boring stuff,' she said.

'Like what?'

He was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. In the bedroom, propped against the white pillows behind her, Sharyn was watching the Eleven O'Clock News on Channel Four.

'The new Medicare stuff,' she said. 'How we'll be handling prescriptions, who becomes eligible, da-da, da-da, da-da,' she said, twirling her fingers in the air.

Lying.

She hadn't been at any hospital meeting. She'd been in her own apartment with a woman whose name was either C. Lawson, L. Matthews, or J. Curtis.

"What time did it end?' he asked.

'Around eight-thirty,' she said.

Which was the exact time she and either Lawson, Matthews, or Curtis had come down from her apartment, walking together arm in arm to the bus stop on the corner, where Lawson, Matthews, or Curtis had hailed a taxi, and Sharyn . . .

'Come straight home?' he asked.

'Caught a bus,' she said.

True enough. But not from any damn hospital.

In a second taxi, Kling had followed the white woman, no clue to her name as yet, just a tall, slender woman with dark hair and dark eyes, apparently comfortable enough to afford taxis all over the city, something Kling himself wasn't too cozy with. 'Follow that taxi,' he'd told his driver, and flashed the tin like a cop in a movie. Joined at the hip, they came over the bridge, yellow cab glued to yellow cab.

Like a cop in a movie, he'd followed Sharyn's three-way lesbian lover to her building after the taxis let them each off, waited till she entered the elevator, and then watched while the indicator showed her getting off on the fourth floor. He checked the lobby mailboxes, no doorman here, no need to conceal or reveal, all the time in the world to check the mailboxes at his leisure.

There were six apartments on the fourth floor. Three of the mailboxes carried men's names: George Santachiaro, James McReady, and Martin Weinstein. The other three carried androgynous, but most likely female, names: C. Lawson, L. Matthews, and J. Curtis. Kling didn't know why the women in this city thought an initial in

front of their surnames would fool anyone into thinking a man lived here. Usually, that single letter was a good invitation to a would-be rapist. He jotted the three names into his notebook, and took the subway uptown. The time was nine-twenty.

He stopped in a Mickey D's for a hamburger and some fries.

Walked around in the rain a little, thinking, wondering what to do.

The city seemed glittery and bleak, bright white lights reflecting on black shiny roadways.

Black, he thought.

White, he thought.

Now, at fifteen minutes past eleven, Sharyn called, 'Come look, it's Honey Blair.'

Black skin against white nightgown against white pillows. He climbed into bed beside her.

Honey Blair, blond and white, wearing a sexy little black mini and standing in her trademark legs-slightly-apart pose, was thanking all of the good citizens out there . . .

'. . . for phoning or e-mailing tips on the man or woman who tried to kill me, I can't thank you enough. And mister, sister, whoever you may be . . .'

'Is that racist?' Sharyn asked.

'. . . we're gonna get you!' Honey said, pointing her forefinger directly at the camera.

'I mean the sister part,' Sharyn said.

'You'd better believe it,' Honey said, and turned to the anchor. 'Avery?' she said.

'Now why do I think that girl's lying?' Sharyn asked.

You should know, Kling thought.

12.

HE HAD BEEN STANDING outside her building since eight this morning, but no sign of Miss (or possibly Mrs.) Lawson, Matthews, or Curtis. If she had a nine-to-five job, which was possible even though she'd met with Sharyn and her doctor boyfriend at a little before three on Tuesday, she'd be leaving for work sometime between eight and nine, was what he figured. But no sign of her yet.

A white girl, not her, came out of the building at eight-twenty, began walking off into what was shaping up as a sunny day, all that rain last night. Another white girl, again not the one he was looking for, came out at eight-thirty, and then a flurry of them a few minutes later, but still not his target. Was it possible she'd slept with the busy Dr. Hudson at his place last night? Nine o'clock, then nine-fifteen, and nine-thirty, no Lawson, Matthews, or Curtis. Maybe she'd overslept. The mailman arrived at a quarter to ten. Kling followed him into the building.

'Detective Kling,' he said, and flashed the buzzer. 'Eighty-seventh Squad.'

The mailman looked surprised.

'Social Security checks?' he asked.

'Something like that. Do you know any of these women by sight?' he said, and showed the three names.

'Lawson's not a woman,' he said. 'Man name of Charles. Charles Lawson.'

'How about these other two? L. Matthews? J. Curtis?'

'Lorraine Matthews is a blonde. Around five-six, sort of stout

'And Curtis?'

'Julie, yeah. Julia Curtis. Around thirty, thirty-five, long black hair, brown eyes. Five-seven, five-eight. That the one you're looking for?'

'No,' Kling said.

But that was the one.

'What'd she do?'

'Wrong party,' Kling said. 'Sorry to've bothered you.'

THE FIRST NOTE was delivered at twenty to eleven that Thursday morning, the tenth day of June.

A rod not a bar, a baton, Dora.

This time they were ahead of him.

'It's a palindrome again,' Willis said.

'What's that?' Genero asked. 'A palindrome?'

'Something that reads the same forwards or backwards.'

'Same as the 4884s he sent us yesterday,' Carella said.

They felt they'd been ahead of him yesterday, too, but this time there was no doubt. The sentence read exactly the same, letter for letter, forwards or backwards.

'That's very interesting, the way that works,' Genero said, clearly fascinated. 'Look at that, Eileen. It's the very same thing, forwards or backwards.'

'Oho!' she said, but nobody got it.

'Dumb Dora, he means,' Lieutenant Byrnes said.

'Who's that?' Genero asked.

'It's an expression,' Byrnes said. 'Dumb Dora. He's telling us we're dumb.'

I never heard that, Dumb Dora.'

'You're too young,' Byrnes said. 'It was a cartoon back in the Forties. Advertising Ralston.'

'What's Ralston?' Genero asked.

'It used to be a breakfast cereal. I used to eat it.'

'How old are you, anyway, Loot?' Parker asked.

'Old enough.'

'Another palindrome, no question,' Willis said, reading the note again, front to back and back again.

'Did I miss something?' Kling asked.

He was back in the squadroom now. About time, Byrnes thought. The clock on the wall read 10:48.

'He's sending palindromes now,' Carella explained.

'Which are?'

'They read the same forwards and backwards.'

Kling looked at the note.

A rod not a bar, a baton, Dora.

'Why?' he asked.

'That's what we're trying to figure out.'

'Join the party,' Brown said.

A rod is a gun,' Genero said. 'Isn't it?'

'Used to be called that, anyway,' Byrnes said, almost on a sigh. 'Or even a gat.'

'Has he given up on darts?'

A gun would be a more practical weapon, you have to admit,' Hawes said.

'Then why all that earlier fuss about darts?' Carella asked.

'Slings to arrows to darts, right,' Meyer said, nodding.

'What does he mean by "not a bar"?'

'Nothing,' Parker said. 'He's full of shit. As usual.'

"Not a bar,"' Eileen repeated.

'He's going to use a gun, not some kind of blunt instrument,' Brown said.

They all looked at him.

'Well, some perps use crowbars,' he explained.

They were still looking at him.

'As their weapon of choice,' he said, and shrugged.

'You think he means a police baton?'

'What we used to call a nightstick,' Byrnes said, again wistfully.

'Or does he mean a conductor's baton?' Willis said.

'Oh, Jesus, not another concert!' Parker said.

'Is it the Cow Pasture again?' Hawes asked.

'That was one of his very first references, remember?' Eileen said, nodding.

They scanned the scattered notes:

A WET CORPUS? CORN, ETC?

'Remember what that became?'

COW PASTURE? CONCERT?

'Is there a concert scheduled in the Cow Pasture?' They scanned the city's three daily newspapers for possible events that might require the use of a baton, and came up with only five that possibly qualified. One was a performance by the Cleveland Symphony at eight o'clock tonight, at Palmer Center. Another was a performance by the city's own Philharmonic, again at eight, this one at Clarendon Hall. There were two jazz concerts in clubs downtown, and a student recital at the Kleber School of Performing Arts.

'So what do we do?' Kling asked. 'Cover them all?'

'Well, if he's really gonna use a gun at one of these events . . .'

'None of them's in the Eight-Seven, did you notice?' Parker said.

'He's got a point,' Genero agreed.

'So let's just alert these other precincts,' Parker said, and shrugged.

Anyone but us, he was thinking.

OLLIE WAS THINKING like a novelist instead of a cop, but sometimes the two overlapped, ah yes. In crime fiction, there was an old adage that maintained 'The Criminal Always Returns to the Scene of the Crime,' or words to that effect, probably first uttered by Sherlock Holmes himself, a fictitional character created by Charles Dickens. In real life, however, as Ollie well knew, a criminal rarely if ever returned to the scene of the crime. What the criminal usually did was run for the hills, which was what Melissa Summers should have been doing instead of hiring assorted junkies to deliver the Deaf Man's messages, whoever he might be.

But he had been told by a truly sad specimen named Aine Duggan (who pronounced her name Anya Doogan, go figure) that a woman who answered the description he'd given of Melissa had approached her last Tuesday afternoon in Cathleen Gleason Park, a lovely patch of green close to the River Harb and the apartment buildings lining River Place South, where Aine had gone to sit and look out over the river and also to wait for her dealer. So this is where Ollie was on this sunny (thank God) Thursday at a little before noon, waiting for Miss Summers to put in a return engagement, either in her

short red wig or her long black wig.

He doubted if she'd come back, but hope springs eternal, ah yes, and hope is also the thing with feathers. So he sat overlapping a park bench in the sunshine, watching the little birdies flutter and twitter, watching too the young mothers with their snot-nosed little toddlers scampering and scurrying, thanking the good lord that he was still a free and single individual, and then - suddenly and quite unexpectedly — wondering where Patricia Gomez was and what she was doing at this very moment.

'WHAT I DON'T understand,' Hawes said, 'is how the shooter knew where I'd be.'

Honey merely nodded.

He had gone to meet her outside Channel Four's offices on Moody Street, and they were now having lunch in a little Mexican joint two blocks away. Honey loved to eat. She was now eating camarones cocoloco, quite enjoying herself and not particularly eager to talk about whoever had tried to kill her. Despite the evidence of the Note, she had convinced herself by now that the shooter was after no one but herself. This notion was fortified by the thousands of letters, phone calls, and e-mails Channel Four had received, encouraging her to continue her crusade against the would-be assassin.

'Because first he had to know I spent the night in your apartment

'Well, that wouldn't take a rocket scientist,' Honey said.

'I know. But it would take someone following us. And watching the building, waiting for me to come out.'

'He probably thought we'd be coming out together.'

'No, I came out alone. He could see you weren't with me. He started shooting the moment I stepped foot

'Well,' Honey said, dismissing the notion and biting into another butterfly shrimp coated with coconut flakes.

'And next, he knew I'd be going to Jeff Ave. How'd he know that? How'd he know a limo would be dropping me off at Five-Seven-Four Jeff?'

'You're forgetting that I was in that limo, aren't you?'

'No, I'm not forgetting that at all. How could I? You broadcast it every night.'

Honey wondered if she was only imagining his sharp tone. She looked up from her plate.

'Who ordered that limo?' he asked.

'I did.'

'Personally?'

'No, my intern did. I asked her . . .'

'What intern?'

A girl from Ramsey U. She's been working with me since the semester began.'

'What's her name?'

'Polly Vandermeer.'

'I'd like to talk her,' Hawes said.

'Fine, Sherlock,' she said.

Hawes wondered if he was only imagining her sharp tone.

Look, sire, paper is kool!

Another palindrome,' Carella said. 'And it's Shakespeare again,' Parker said. Maybe he was right; the word sire certainly did sound like another sly reference to Shakespeare. At least he spelled kool right,' Genero said. 'Reads the same backwards and forwards,' Willis said.

'I love the way that works,' Eileen said.

'But why?' Meyer asked. 'Is he directing us backwards?'

'To where?' Brown asked.

He was scowling. He always looked as if he might be scowling, but this time he really was scowling. He remembered the last time the Deaf Man had graced them with his presence, causing a race riot in Grover Park. Brown did not like race riots, and he did not like the Deaf Man. However much these little messages seemed to promise fun and games, Brown was fearful the games would turn sour soon enough.

'To the early messages, that's where,' Kling said. 'The ones he used that box number on. 4884. The same backwards and forwards. He's saying go back.'

'To the anagrams.'

'To Gloria Stanford's murder.'

And the first of the Shakespeare poems.'

'I can't find that damn poem anywhere,' Carella said. 'I've Googled everywhere, I just can't find it.'

'Maybe he made it up, sire,' Genero suggested.

'It's too good for him to have made up,' Eileen said.

'Let's have another look at it,' Willis said.

We wondred that thou went'st so soon From the world's stage, to the grave's tiring

room. We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth, Tells thy spectators that thou went'st but forth To enter with applause.

An Actor's Art,

Can die, and live, to act a second part.

'Sure as hell looks like Shakespeare,' Parker insisted. 'But why's he taking us back to 4884?' Carella said. 'Could it be a street address?' Eileen said. 'Must be thousands of 4884's in this city.' 'Let me see that new one again,' Willis said. They all looked at it:

Look, sire, paper is kool!

'Well, this is off the wall, I know

'Let's hear it,' Hawes said.

'In this first quote. The third line ..."

We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth

'The last three words

thy printed worth

'What I'm thinking, Willis said, 'is . . . well... I know this is far out . . . but if you print something, you've got to have . . .'

'Paper!' Eileen said, and felt like kissing him, he was so smart.

Look, sire, paper is kool!

'Hey, kool!' Genero said. 'He's telling us to look at the newspapers, see what's playing around town.' 'Find the concert.' If it's a concert.' 'We've already done that,' Parker said sourly.

POLLY VANDERMEER WAS a cute little twenty-two-year-old blonde wearing a pleated plaid skirt and a white long-sleeved blouse with a tie that matched the skirt. Looking more like a preppie freshman than a senior in Communications at Ramsey University, she greeted Hawes with a wide smile and a warm handshake. Miss Blair, as she called her, had already told her that a detective investigating the shooting wanted to talk to her. She did not seem at all intimidated; she'd already spoken to two detectives from the Eight-Six Squad.

'It seems incredibly awesome,' she said, 'that anyone would want to kill Miss Blair. I mean, she's like so nice.'

'She is indeed,' Hawes said.

They were in a small room that served as a coffee-break area for members of the Channel Four staff. A coffee machine, a refrigerator, a four-burner stove top with a tea kettle on it, a soft-drinks machine. One other woman was in the room when they sat down, drinking coffee, absorbed in the morning paper. A white-faced clock on the wall, black hands, gave the time as 11:10.

'Miss Vandermeer,' he said, 'I wonder

'Oh, please, Polly,' she said.

'Polly, do you remember Miss Blair asking you to order a car for her last Friday morning?'

'Yes, sir, I do,' Polly said, blue eyes wide now, face all serious and attentive.

'Do you remember the exact request?'

'Yes, sir, she asked for a pickup at her apartment and a drop-off here at the studio.'

Hawes looked at her.

'No interim stops?' he asked.

'No, sir.'

'A stop at the 87th Precinct, for example? 711 Grover

Avenue? And another one on Jefferson Avenue?'

'No, sir, this was the same as every morning.'

'When did she make this request?'

'When she left for home Thursday evening.'

'For the next morning, correct?'

'Yes, sir. For Friday morning, the fourth of June.'

'Didn't mention my name, huh?'

'Your name, sir?'

'Cotton Hawes, yes. Did she say she'd be picking up and dropping off Detective Cotton Hawes? On her way to the studio?'

'No, sir, she certainly did not,' Polly said, sounding suddenly disapproving.

'So when Miss Blair gave you this request, what did you do with it?'

'Phoned it down to Transportation.'

'On Thursday evening.'

'Yes, for the next morning.'

'Who took your call there?'

'Rudy Mancuso.'

'Is Transportation in this building?'

Yes, sir.'

'Where, Polly?'

BORROW OR ROB?

'Clearly, it's another palindrome,' Willis said.

'Front to back or vice versa,' Brown said.

'Well, he's certainly not about to borrow anything,' Meyer said.

'Then why does he say so?' Genero asked.

'He doesn't say for sure,' Carella said. 'He asks us to guess. Is he going to borrow or is he going to rob?'

'Right,' Kling said. 'He's asking us to guess which.'

'Teasing us again,' Meyer said.

'But why a palindrome?' Willis asked.

'Are we forgetting his first note today?' Eileen said.

A rod not a bar, a baton, Dora.

'Right,' Parker said. 'A baton. He's going to stick a baton up somebody's ass.'

'No, he's going to rob the box office at a concert someplace.'

'That's rob,' Parker said. 'You stick somebody up, you ain't borrowing, you're robbing.'

'The only concerts are the ones we found in the paper,' Carella said. 'And we've already alerted the local precincts.'

'Good,' Parker said. 'So let's forget it.'

'Remember when there used to be those big rock concerts at the Hippodrome?' Genero said, misting over.

'Circus just left there,' Kling said.

'I love circuses,' Eileen said, and glanced at Willis as if she expected him to buy her a balloon.

'Anyway, a palindrome isn't a hippodrome,' Kling said.

'They used to have hippos in them big arenas, you know, back in Roman times,' Parker said. 'That's how they got the name hippodrome.'

No one challenged him.

RUDY MANCUSO WAS a squat burly man, dark-haired and dark-eyed, who sat in shirtsleeves behind a cluttered desk in an office where two other men sat at equally cluttered desks across the room. He was entirely sympathetic to Hawes' quest for the shooter, but he seemed totally unaware that Hawes himself had been the target in the

first rifle assault. In fact, he didn't even know there'd been a previous shooting. He kept clucking his tongue over 'poor Miss Blair,' becoming all business - 'Transportation, Mancuso' - each time the ringing phone interrupted Hawes' questioning. In a comparatively peaceful ten minutes, Hawes managed to get some answers.

Mancuso corroborated essentially what Polly had already told him. The telephone request last Thursday evening was for a Friday morning pickup at ten, at Honey's building, and a drop-off here at Channel Four. No interim stops. Same as every morning.

'If there were interim stops . . .'

'None were ordered, Detective.'

'But if there were

'Okay?'

'Who would have known about them?'

'You mean like if Miss Blair, after she'd been picked up, told the driver to stop someplace on the way here?'

'Yes.'

'Well, the driver would have known

'Who else?'

'He might've called in to say he was stopping at such and such a place before

'Who would've taken that call?'

'Either Eddie or Frankie. Right there across the room.'

YOU'D HAVE THOUGHT Eddie and Frankie were a ventriloquist and his dummy. Everything Eddie said, Frankie repeated. Eddie's full name was Edward Cudahy. He watched while Hawes wrote it down in his little notebook. Frankie's full name was Franklin Hopper. He watched, too. Eddie told Hawes he didn't remember any driver calling in to say he'd be making any interim stops

on Honey Blair's way to the studio last Friday morning. Frankie said the same thing. Eddie said he didn't remember which drivers were on call last Friday morning. Frankie said the same thing. Hawes thanked them both for their time. Both men said, 'You're welcome,' almost simultaneously.

Hawes went back to Rudy Mancuso's desk, and asked for the name of the driver who'd picked up Honey Blair last Friday morning, the fourth of June.

Mancuso told him the driver was off today.

'Then give me his home address,' Hawes said.

'I don't know if I should do that.'

'Would a court order change your mind?' Hawes asked.

THE LAST NOTE of the day arrived at a quarter to four. It was another palindrome. It read:

MUST SELL AT TALLEST SUM

'Now just what the hell is that supposed to mean?' Parker asked.

No one knew what the hell that was supposed to mean.

Besides, the night shift was just coming on, so they all went home.

WHEN YOU'RE IN love, the whole world's Italian.

Or so it seemed to Carella.

Here they all were, ta-ra!, the prospective brides and grooms and their whole mishpocheb or meshpocheh or however 'family' was spelled in Italy, all gathered in a restaurant called Horatio's, in the city's midtown area, not too distant from where Luigi Fontero had put up all

his relatives. Carella wondered who had paid all those air fares to the U.S. and whether or not the visiting Italians all had to be fingerprinted before gaining entrance to these fiercely protected shores — thank you, Bulldog Tom Ridge, and the ever-alert Homeland Security team.

Representing the Fontero family was a small army of relatives from Milan, Naples, Genoa, and/or Rome, kinfolk near, far, or even remote, but certainly numerous and clamorous. Representing the Carellas were Steve and Teddy (minus the children, or 'i creatori,' as he and his sister used to be called when they themselves were small, ah so long ago); and Uncle Freddie who was a casino dealer in Vegas and who had flown east especially for the wedding this Saturday; and Carella's Aunt Josie and his Uncle Mike, who'd come all the way up from Orlando, Florida, hadn't seen them in years, but hey, this was a big double wedding! Aunt Josie loved to play poker. Uncle Mike used to call Angela 'The Homework Kid' when she was small because she always had her nose buried in a book, but now - hey, looka here! - all grown up and about to be married for the second time.

Aunt Dorothy was here, too, summoned from wherever she was living in California with the third of her husbands, Carella's beloved Uncle Salvie having died of cancer shortly after Carella joined the force. He missed Uncle Salvie, a cab driver who'd known the city better than any cop, used to tell stories abut the hundreds of passengers he carried to every remote neighborhood. Carella's grandmother always kept telling him he should have become a writer. Carella guessed he'd've made a good one, too, some of the phony novelists around these days.

Aunt Dorothy was the one who'd first tipped to the

fact that young Carella was enjoying what to him at the time was a wildly erotic relationship with Margie Gannon, a little Irish girl who lived across the street from the Carella family in Riverhead. This steamy adolescent byplay amounted to nothing more than copping a feel every now and then, or sliding his hand under Margie's skirt and onto her silken sexy panties, but oh, such ecstasy! Aunt Dorothy teased him relentlessly about her, referring to her as Sweet Rosie O'Grady, Carella never could figure why.

Aunt Dorothy was telling a dirty joke now. She loved dirty jokes. Carella suspected the joke fell upon deaf ears as regarded most of the Fontero tribe. For that matter, Henry Lowell's stiff Wasp relatives didn't seem to be enjoying his aunt's ribald sense of humor, either. His sister's intended sat holding her hand and smiling tolerantly as the joke unfolded endlessly, something about the Pope, sure to be a winner among the Fonteros, the Pope being stopped by a prostitute outside the Vatican (Careful, Aunt Dotty!) and then running back inside to ask the Mother Superior 'What's a blowjob?' (Watch it!) and the Mother Superior telling him . . .

Carella suddenly wondered if his mother and Luigi . . .

No, he didn't want to go there.

All at once, everyone was laughing.

Even the Fonteros, who, Carella now realized, understood more English than he'd earlier supposed.

The laughter swelled everywhere around him.

He wondered why he couldn't find it in himself to share it.

13.

THE ELEVENTH DAY of June dawned all too soon.

At six-thirty A.M. on what looked like the start of a sunny Friday morning, Melissa and the Deaf Man were sitting in the breakfast nook of his seventeenth-floor apartment, overlooking River Place South, Gleason Park, and the River Harb beyond.

'Your job tomorrow,' he was telling her, 'will be a very simple one.'

She was thinking that her job today wouldn't be a simple one at all. If she didn't get out of here soon to start lining up her junkies . . .

'The luxury sedan from Regal will be arriving here at half past noon tomorrow,' he said. 'All you have to do is deliver the driver to the Knowlton.'

So what else is new? she thought.

And what will you be doing?' she asked.

Far as she could see, all he'd done so far was sit on his brilliant ass while she ran all over the city doing his errands. And he still hadn't told her what her cut of the big seven-figure payoff would be, if there ever was a big payoff, which she was honestly beginning to doubt, now that he was into palindromes and all. If he was so intent on screwing up the 87th Precinct, why was he bothering with word games? Why didn't he just lob a hand grenade through the front door? Good question, eh, Adam? What is this thing you have with them, anyway?

'What is this thing you have with them, anyway?' she asked, venturing the question out loud, what the hell.

'By this thing . . . ?'

'This messing around with their heads.'

'Let's just say our ongoing relationship has been a frustrating one,' he said.

'Okay, but why . . . ?'

'I wouldn't trouble my pretty little head over it,' he said, a line she had heard in many a bad movie, a line she had in fact heard from the late unlamented Ambrose Carter while he was still training her, so to speak, his exact words being, 'I wouldn't trouble my pretty little head over it, swee'heart, just suck the man's cock.'

'Yes, but I do trouble my pretty little head over it,' she said now, somewhat defiantly. 'Because it seems to me you're spending a lot of time and money telling these jerks exactly what you're about to do . . .'

'Exactly what I'm not about to do is more like it,' he said.

'Whatever,' she said. 'Why are you bothering, that's the question? Why not just do the gig and get out of town?'

'That's precisely what I plan to do. Tortola, remember?'

'Who's Detective Stephen Louis Carella?' she asked, straight out.

'A dumb flatfoot.'

'Then why are you addressing these letters to him? If he's so dumb

'It's personal. I shot him once.'

'Why?'

'He was getting on my nerves.'

'Did he send you away, is that it?'

'I've never done time in my life.'

'Did he bust you? Did you beat the rap?'

'Never. Neither Carella nor the Eight-Seven has ever laid a hand on me.'

'Then ... I don't get it. Why bother with them?'

'Diversion, my dear, it's all diversion.'

'I don't know what that means, diversion.'

'It means smoke and mirr . . .'

'I know what it means, I just don't see how it applies here.'

'Try to look at it this way, my dear,' he said patiently. She did not like it when he got so tip-toey patient with her. It was more like condescension when he got so patient. 'In these perilous times of High Alert, with a terrorist lurking under every bush - please pardon the pun - one can't be too careful, can one? So, even with the assistance of policemen from other precincts, they'll still be too late.'

'Who'll be too late?'

'The stalwarts of the Eight-Seven.'

'Too late for whatV

'The foul deed that smells above the earth - to paraphrase Mr. Shakespeare in his brilliant Julius Caesar - shall already have been done. Too late, my love. Altogether too late.'

'I still don't get it,' she said.

'Well,' he said, and sighed heavily, 'I wouldn't trouble my pretty little head over it.'

Which pissed her off all over again.

THE DRIVER WHO'D been behind the wheel of the limo last Friday was named Kevin Connelly, and he did not appreciate being awakened at seven in the morning. Associating Hawes at once with the bullets that had come crashing into the car last week, he immediately looked into the hallway past him, as if expecting another fusillade. Satisfied that Hawes was alone, he stepped aside and let him into the apartment.

He was still in his pajamas. He threw on a robe, led Hawes into the kitchen, and immediately set a pot of coffee to brew on the stove. Like two old buddies about to embark on a hunting trip, they sat drinking coffee at a small table adjacent to a small window.

'I want to know about the Honey Blair call last Friday,' Hawes said. 'What'd the dispatcher give you?'

'Pickup and delivery for Miss Blair,' Connelly said. 'Same as always.'

'So how come you picked me up on the way?'

'Miss Blair told me to stop by for you.'

'Gave you 711 Grover?'

'No, she didn't know the address of the precinct. I had to look it up in my book. This little book I have.'

'How about 574 Jefferson? Did she tell you we'd be dropping me off there?'

'Yes.'

'How long did you figure it'd take from her building to the precinct?'

'About ten minutes.'

'And from there to Jeff Av?'

'Another twenty.'

'Plenty of time for someone to get there ahead of us.'

'Well, sure. As it turned out.'

'But you and Miss Blair were the only ones who knew where we were going.'

'Until' I called it in to Base.'

'Base?'

'The Transportation office. At Channel Four. I called in to give them the new itin.'

'Who'd you speak to there?'

'One of the guys.'

'Which one?' Hawes asked. *

And after me, I know, the rout is coming. Such a mad marriage never was before: Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.

'God, does he know about the wedding?' Carella asked out loud.

'How could he?' Meyer asked.

'He could,' Genero said knowingly. 'He's evil.'

Carella was thinking, It is a mad marriage. Two mad marriages! Like never was or were before. He was already at the computer, searching for the source of the quote. It was eight-thirty in the morning. The other detectives all clustered around the first note that day as if it were a ticking time bomb. Which perhaps it was.

'There's bark,' Willis said. 'I told you it meant listen, didn't I?'

"Hark, hark!'" Kling quoted. 'He's harking us to death.'

'Hokking our chainiks,' Meyer said.

'Which means?' Parker demanded, sounding insulted.

'Which means "breaking our balls," excuse me, Eileen.'

'It's from The Taming of the Shrew,' Carella said. 'Act Three, Scene Two.'

'Think the Minstrels might be a rock group?' Brown asked.

'Here, check it out,' Willis said.

The June 11-18 issue of Here & Now magazine had appeared on the newsstands early this morning. Published every Friday, it covered the city's cultural scene for the following week, alerting its readers to what was happening all around town. Handily divided into sections titled Art, Books, Clubs, Comedy, Dance, Film, Gay & Lesbian, Kids, Music, Sports, and Theater, the magazine offered a neat little guide to all that was going on that week.

The Music section this week . . .

The Deaf Man's note this morning seemed to confirm that his target was a concert someplace . . .

. . . was divided into subsections titled 'Rock, Pop & Soul,' 'Reggae, World & Latin,' 'Jazz & Experimental,' 'Blues, Folk & Country,' and 'Cabaret.' A separate section listed 'Classical & Opera' events. The variety of offerings was overwhelming. For this weekend alone, there were 112 listings in the 'Rock, Pop & Soul' section; this was not Painted Shrubs, Arizona, kiddies.

The magazine's DON'T MISS! column highlighted the 'dashing singer-guitarist' John Pizzarelli and his trio, appearing nightly at 8:30 P.M. in the Skyline Room of the Hanover Hotel; 'soul legend' Isaac Hayes, performing at 8:00 and 10:30 this Friday and Saturday nights at Lou's Place downtown; Kathleen Landis. lovely pianist and song stylist,' nightly at 9:00 P.M. in the lounge of the Picadilly; Konstantinos Sallas, 'renowned violin virtuoso, guest-starring with the Philharmonic' at Clarendon Hall this Saturday and Sunday at 3:00 P.M.; and William Christie leading the Paris National Opera and his 'stellar early-music ensemble' in Les Boreades at the Calm's Point Academy of Music, this Friday at 7:15 P.M. and this Sunday at 2:00 P.M.

There were groups named the Hangdogs, and Cigar Store Indians, and the Abyssinians, and Earth Wind & Fire, and the White Stripes, and Drive-By Truckers, but nobody named the Minstrels was performing anywhere in the city anytime during the coming week.

'Think there's a group called "A Mad Marriage"?' Kling asked.

'I wouldn't be surprised,' Meyer said.

'Here, you check it out,' Brown said, and tossed him the magazine. 'There's only ten thousand of them listed.'

'How about "Never Was Before"?'

'Or "A Rout Is Coming"?'

'Good start,' Willis said. 'Know any lead guitarists?'

'Anybody got a garage?' Eileen said.

'What's a rout?' Genero asked.

'A disorderly retreat,' Kling said.

'I thought it was some kind of rodent.'

'He's telling us he's got us on the run,' Parker said.

'Maybe he has,' Carella said.

IT BOTHERED HIM that somehow, in some damn mysterious way, the Deaf Man may have learned about tomorrow's impending wedding, weddings, and was planning some mischief for them. Carella hated mysteries. In police work, there were no mysteries. There were only crimes and the people who committed them. But the Deaf Man insisted on creating his own little mysteries, taunting them with clues, making a humorous guessing game of crime.

On Carella's block, there was nothing humorous about crime. Crime was serious business, and the people who committed crimes were nothing but criminals, period. He didn't care if they came from broken homes, he didn't care if they'd been abused as children, he didn't care if they had what they believed were very good reasons for beating the system. The way Carella looked at it, there were no very good reasons for beating the system. Maybe President Clinton should have kept his zipper zipped, but he was right when he suggested that everyone should work hard and play by the rules.

Carella worked hard and played by the rules.

The Deaf Man didn't.

That was the difference between them.

Well, maybe the Deaf Man was working hard at concocting these riddles of his, but he sure as hell wasn't playing by the rules.

Carella had to admit that there was nothing he'd have liked better than for someone — anyone — to pop out of his seat and raise his hand when the priest asked the gathered witnesses to speak now or forever hold their peace. But he did not want that someone to be the Deaf Man. He did not want any surprises at tomorrow's ceremony, ceremonies.

He wanted all of this over and done with.

The weddings and whatever the Deaf Man was planning.

All of it.

Toward that end, the Deaf Man's next note was no help at all.

So glad of this as they I cannot be, Who are surprised withal; but my rejoicing At nothing can be more. I'll to my book, For yet ere supper-time must I perform Much business appertaining.

'No, wait,' Willis said. 'I think he's trying to tell us something, after all.'

'Yeah, what? There's nothing at all about a concert this time,' Parker said.

'But he's back to something printed again. 'Thy printed worth,' remember? Now he's specifically mentioning a book. 'I'll to my book.' There it is, right there, in black and white. A book.'

'I looked at all Shakespeare's plays in the library the other night,' Genero said.

'Good, Richard, you get a gold star.'

'Well, maybe he's telling us to go to the library. To find that missing quote, or whatever.'

'Of course he is,' Parker said, encouraging him. 'Maybe in the very same book you looked at the other night.'

'Maybe so.'

'Maybe you can even borrow the book, Richard. Ponder it at your leisure.'

"Well, wait a minute,' Eileen said. 'He did say "borrow or rob," didn't he? In one of his notes? And that's where you borrow a book, isn't it? A library?'

'First book I ever owned,' Parker said, 'I stole from the lib'ery.'

'Where's that Here & Now? Eileen asked. 'Is there anything about a library in it?'

In a section of the magazine titled . . .

AROUND TOWN

. . . they found a subsection titled:

LAST CHANCE DEPARTMENT.

Headlined there was an article titled . . .

Bye Bye, Bard

It read:

To mark the departure of the 6.2-million-dollar First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays, on loan from the Folger Collection in Washington, D.C., Patrick Stewart - renowned Shakespearean actor

and subsequent captain of the starship Enterprise -will read from selected plays in a farewell tribute. Saturday, June 12, at 3:00 p.m. The Molson Auditorium at Langdon Library.

THIS TIME, THEY Googled directly to First Folio. And this time, they found the source of what until now they'd believed was a Shakespearean quote:

We wondred that thou went'st so soon From the world's stage, to the grave's tiring room. We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth, Tells thy spectators that thou went'st but forth To enter with applause.

An Actor's Art,

Can die, and live, to act a second part.

The lines of verse had been written 'To the memory of Master William Shakespeare' by a contemporary poet and translator named James Mabbe. It appeared in the 1623 First Folio of plays as one of several introductory dedications.

'Never heard of him,' Parker said.

But it now seemed possible that the Deaf Man was directing them to the valuable book that would be leaving the Langdon Library this Saturday. And it seemed further possible that he planned to steal it.

'And hold it for ransom,' Eileen suggested. ' 'Must sell at tallest sum."'

'He's gonna kidnap a book?' Genero said.

'Whatever he's gonna do, he's doing it before supper-time,' Kling said.

'Sure, look.'

For yet ere supper-time must I perform Much business appertaining.

'Three o'clock would seem to qualify,' Brown said.

'Where's the Langdon Library?'

'Midtown South Precinct, isn't it?'

'We'd better alert them.'

'You think they don't already know they've got a six-million-dollar book on their hands?'

'Six million two.'

'Security there must be thicker than bear shit.'

'But that's it,' Willis said. 'We doped it out, right?'

'Thank you, Mr. Deaf Man,' Genero said, and bowed from the waist.

You are welcome, gentlemen! come, musicians,

play. A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.

'Friggin guy's a mind reader,' Parker said. 'What's he mean "girls"}'

'I'm a girl,' Eileen said, and beamed a Shirley Temple smile.

'He's back to music again.'

"Musicians."'

'"A hall, a hall!"'

'A concert hall!'

'Where's that magazine?'

'Wasn't there something about. . . ?'

'Here.'

Under DON'T MISS!, they once again found:

Konstantinos Sallas, 'renowned violin virtuoso,

guest-starring with the Philharmonic' at Clarendon Hall this Saturday and Sunday at 3:00 p.m.

'Three o'clock again,' Eileen said. "That's still 'ere suppertime."'

'What does he mean by air?' Genero asked. 'Before.'

For yet ere supper-time must I perform

'That would seem to indicate a concert, don't you think?' Carella said. 'The word perform?'

'No, he's saying he himself has, to perform,' Meyer said. 'He has "much business appertaining.'"

'But it doesn't sound like a book anymore, does it?'

'The son of a bitch is asking us to chooseY Parker said.

'Which? The Sallas concert or the Folger First Folio?'

'The concert,' Eileen said.

'The book,' Genero said.

'Both,' Kling said.

It was Brown who tipped.

A palindrome!' he said. 'Sallas!'

And now they all jumped in like a Greek chorus.

'Sallas!'

'Sallas!'

'He's going after the violinist!'

'He's going to kidnap the friggin violinistV

And hold him for the tallest sumV

'Or maybe the book,' Genero insisted, raining on their parade.

'Which?' Carella asked.

THE NEXT BARRAGE of notes-seven of them in all-ar-

rived in the same envelope at two that afternoon. They were all Shakespearean quotes, which in itself seemed to indicate the Deaf Man's target was not some palindromic Greek fiddler, but the pricey book containing thirty-six of the bard's plays. Contrariwise, as was the Deaf Man's wont, the content of the notes seemed to be challenging the detectives to choose. Either or, lads. You pays yer money, and you takes yer choice.

It is 'music with her silver sound,'

because musicians have no gold for sounding:

But on the other hand:

Was ever book containing such vile matter So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell In such a gorgeous palace!

Then again:

And those musicians that shall play to you Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence, And straight they shall be here: sit, and attend.

Unless:

A book? O rare one!

However:

If music be the food of love, play on

But perhaps:

Devise, wit; write, pen;

for I am for whole volumes in folio.

Thanks for nothing, they were thinking.

You are very welcome, sir,

Take you the lute, and you the set of books

R N D NOW THERE seemed to be an urgency to the Deaf Man's notes. A sense of impending accomplishment. A certainty that time was running out, the deed would soon be done, and if they didn't catch on soon, it would be too damned late.

The previous envelope had contained seven notes.

This one arrived a half-hour later, and there was just a single note in it:

And she goes down at twelve.

'Party's getting rough again,' Parker said, and winked at Eileen.

THE THING WAS, Ollie was looking for either a redhead with short hair, or a brunette with long hair. He wasn't looking for the feather-cut, elegantly dressed blonde who came into the park at three that afternoon and took a bench facing the river. He had no idea that this was Melissa Summers.

Nor did Melissa have any idea that the fat guy sitting on a bench near the playground equipment here in Cathleen Gleason Park was a detective. Most detectives she'd known worked out in the gym and had muscles on their muscles. This guy looked more like a pedophile,

but she didn't have any kids here in the park, so let their mothers worry. Besides, after chasing junkies all day long, all she wanted to do was sit here peacefully and listen to the sound of the distant river.

In any case, neither of the two paid the slightest bit of attention to the other.

At three-fifteen, Melissa got up, heaved a gentle sigh, left the park, and started back for the apartment on River Place South. She was thinking that on Sunday at this time, she'd be basking on a beach in Tortola.

Some five minutes later, Ollie got off his bench, farted, and headed back for the Eight-Eight. It never once occurred to him that he should give the Eight-Seven a little buzz, mention that Carmela Sammarone was going by the name Melissa Summers these days. Neither did he realize how close he'd come to nailing her, whoever she might be, or even whomever.

Tomorrow's another day, he thought, and nothing's over till it's over.

THE NEXT ENVELOPE arrived at the end of the day. It, too, contained just a single note:

Come on; there is sixpence for you: let's have a song.

'A song,' Carella said. 'The violinist again. Sallas.'

'The ransom's gonna be sixpence'.' Genero said.

'Brilliant, Richard. You know what sixpence is?'

'Of course I know what it is! What is it?'

'Six pennies, Richard.'

'Then why didn't he say so?'

'But you notice he's gone from twelve to six?' Willis said.

'That's right,' Meyer said. 'It was twelve in the last note.'

'Now it's six.'

'He's going backwards again,' Kling said.

'Six-twelve,' Meyer said.

' "And she goes down at twelve,"' Eileen quoted.

'Yes, ma'am!' Parker said, and waggled his eyebrows at her.

'Get your mind out of the gutter, Andy. Maybe he's using a different kind of slang.'

'Who, Shakespeare?' Genero asked.

'No, the Deaf Man. Maybe he's telling us when the crime will go down.'

'Twelve noon, you mean?'

'No. Six-twelve.'

'Huh?'

'Maybe that's what all the backwards bullshit was about. Maybe he's saying June twelfth. Maybe he's saying tomorrow.'

'When tomorrow?' Parker asked.

'Sometime before supper?' Willis said.

'How about three o'clock?'

'That's both the library reading and the concert.'

'So let's dog both events,' Carella said.

THE LIEUTENANT IN command of Midtown South totally dismissed the idea of anyone trying to breach the security at the library's Folger Exhibit. Primo, there were armed guards all over the room that housed the alarmed case in which the book was exhibited. Secondo, there was state-of-the-art technology in the alarm system itself. If anyone so much as breathed on that case, alarms would sound all over the museum, and at the offices of Security

Plus, who would call Mid South at once. There was no way anyone could even approach that book, no less get it out of that room.

'How about at the reading tomorrow?' Carella asked.

'What reading?' the lieutenant asked. His name was Brian O'Ryan. Carella figured he'd had a father as comical as Meyer Meyer's.

'The reading Patrick Stewart will be doing,' he said.

'I don't know anything about any reading.'

'Three o'clock tomorrow,' Carella said.

'I'll check it out,' O'Ryan said. 'If I feel it calls for a police presence, I'll supply it. Provided the Captain will authorize overtime pay.'

'I'll let you know if we get anything further from the possible perp,' Carella said.

'The possible perp, uh-huh,' the lieutenant said.

The Chief of Security at the library said much the same thing. The case containing the book was alarmed and there were armed guards in the Elizabethan Room . . .

'Is that where the reading tomorrow will take place?' Carella asked.

'No, no. Do you mean Captain Picard's reading? No, that'll be in the Molson Auditorium.'

'And where will the book be at that time?'

'Right where it is now.'

'The Elizabethan Room.'

'Yes. Under armed guard. In an alarmed case. Moreover, the case is on steel ball bearings. After the reading - which should end around four o'clock, he's only scheduled to read for an hour or so - the Head of Special Collections will accompany the guards when they wheel it out of the Elizabethan Room and into a steel vault, where it will remain locked up and secure until the Folger people came to recover it on Sunday.'

'In other words . . .'

'In other words, the book will not be taken from the case until armed guards remove it and carry it to an armored car that will transport it back to Washington.'

'I see,' Carella said.

'However — since you seem so terribly concerned, Detective Coppola - we'll make sure our security staff is watching for any suspicious-looking characters lurking about the library at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon.'

Carella didn't much appreciate the sarcasm, but he thanked the man, and then called Clarendon Hall.

The Director of Events there was entirely more understanding, perhaps because not too long ago there'd been a terrorist attack at the hall itself. He told Carella that ever since that devastating assault, security had been on red alert at all times. Certainly, no one intent on mischief could conceivably get past the armed guards and metal detectors at the main entrance. And if any attempt was made to do harm to the performing musicians, he would first have to get past an armed guard outside the stage door entrance, and then a battery of guards posted on either side of the stage itself.

However . . .

The director would personally phone the Eight-Four Precinct, to alert them to possible danger at tomorrow's three o'clock concert, and to ask for bulkier police protection. 'Bulkier' was the exact word he'd used. Carella told him he planned to do that himself, but it never hurt to get a request straight from the horse's mouth.

So now there was nothing else the Eight-Seven could do. It was no longer their baby; they could even throw away the bath water. If the Deaf Man was after the Folger First Folio, Mid South would be there at the library to stop him. If he was after the Greek violinist, the Eight-

Four would nab him at the concert hall.

Either way, the end of a brilliant career.

Confident that he'd done all he could do for now, Carella left the squadroom at six that Friday night.

As Fat Ollie himself might have said, tomorrow was indeed another day.

Ah yes.

14.

PREDICTING A BUSY night tonight - because in this city Saturday night was when all the loonies came out to howl — Byrnes assigned only a skeleton crew to the day shift. Arriving at 7:45 A.M. to start their eight-hour stint were Detectives Meyer, Parker, and Genero. Meyer might have wished for slicker partners, but Carella had a wedding to attend, and Hawes was off chasing whoever had tried to kill him twice, and Kling had called in sick, so he was stuck with these two.

The first message came fifteen minutes after they'd signed in. It was delivered by a Caucasian drug addict, aged eighteen, nineteen, in there. The sealed envelope was addressed to Carella.

'I thought we were through with this guy,' Parker said.

Apparently not,' Meyer said, and called Carella at home. Carella was already up and having breakfast. The wedding was scheduled for noon.

'Want me to open it?' Meyer asked.

'Be my guest,' Carella said.

There was a single note in the envelope. It read:

GO TO A PRECINT'S SHIT!

'He spelled precinct wrong,' Genero said. 'Didn't he?' Meyer read the note to Carella, misspelling and all. 'He doesn't make spelling mistakes,' Carella said. 'Unless he's quoting Shakespeare.'

'This isn't Shakespeare.' 'What do you think?'

'An anagram,' Carella said. 'He's starting all over again.' 'Or is he just telling us it's going to happen right here,' Meyer said. 'In the Eight-Seven Precinct.' 'Maybe that, too. Let me talk to my son.' 'Huh?' Meyer said.

THE NAME IN the mailbox was Edward Cudahy.

Hawes had not got the address until eight this morning when finally he'd reached Rudy Mancuso, who'd told him Saturday was Eddie's day off, and wanted to know why Hawes wanted to talk to him again. Hawes told him he needed to confirm some information he'd got from Cudahy's partner, Franklin Hopper. A total fabrication, but Mancuso gave him the address.

The apartment number was 3B.

There was no lock on the glass-paneled inner lobby door. Hawes opened it and found himself facing a steep flight of stairs. A narrow corridor to the right of the steps led to an apartment at the end of the ground-floor level. He began climbing. It was now eight-thirty in the morning, and the building was heavy with sleep. On the third floor, he took his gun from its shoulder holster.

There was no sound from behind the door to apartment 3B. He listened a moment longer, and then tapped at the door. Waited. A voice called, 'Yes?'

'Federal Express,' he said.

'Fed . . . ?'

A puzzled silence.

He waited.

The door came open some four inches, held by a night chain. Eddie Cudahy's face appeared in the narrow open-

ing. His eyes widened the moment he recognized Hawes. The door was already starting to close again. In that single instant, Hawes had to decide whether or not to kick it in. He was not armed with a No-Knock warrant, but the guy in there might have fired a rifle at him on two separate occasions. Possibly blow the later court case, or lose the perp now? Which? Choose!

His flat-footed kick snapped the chain and sent the door flying inward. He followed it into the room, saw Cudahy running for the window and the fire escape beyond, saw too in those next immediate sudden seconds that the walls of the single room were covered with photographs of Honey Blair.

'Stop or I'll shoot!' he shouted, and was grateful when Cudahy stopped and put his hands up over his head.

IT'S EASY TO find things when you're a kid.

It's even easy to find 1,253 anagrams for the words GO TO A PRECINT'S SHIT! because that's exactly how many there were on the internet site Young Sherlock Holmes called up for his big detective father. Scattered among those that made no sense at all were some actual phrases or sentences that seemed to mean something:

GO STOP A CRETIN!

'He's calling himself a cretin,' Mark said. 'That, he ain't,' Carella said.

NICE GROT STOP!

'What's a grot?' Carella asked.

'British slang,' Mark said. 'Brit kid in my class says

that all the time. "I feel a bit grot today.'" 'So what's a "grot stop"?' 'A break when you're not feeling too good?' 'I'm not feeling too good right this minute,' Carella

said, and rolled his eyes.

GRITS TO A PONCE!

'What's grits?' Mark asked.

'Some kind of Southern dish,' Carella said. 'Made out of corn, I think. What's a ponce?'

'That's British, too,' Mark said. 'It's somebody who's gay.' He turned from the computer. 'Is this guy gay? The one who's sending you these notes?'

'I don't think so.'

A NEGRO COP TITS!

'Well, hello,' Mark said, and grinned.

But the anagram the Deaf Man seemed to be indicating, the words that seemed best to fit GO TO A PRE-CINT'S SHIT!, was all the way down near the end of the list:

PROGNOSTICATE THIS!

He was asking them to predict.

He was asking them to forecast exactly what precinct shit would go down in which precinct on the twelfth day of June.

Today.

And she goes down at twelve. GO TO A PRECINT'S SHIT!

PROGNOSTICATE THIS!

But when on the twelfth? And where?

If not the library or the concert hall, then where in their very own precinct?

HAWES MARCHED HIS prisoner into the stationhouse moments after the second note that day was delivered. The clock over the muster desk read 9:10 a.m.

'You want to take this upstairs?' Murchison asked him, and handed the envelope across the desk. He was not wearing gloves. They had given up wearing gloves when handling these envelopes because they knew there'd be no prints on them except those left by the delivering junkies.

On the second floor, Hawes dropped the envelope on Meyer's desk, and then said, 'This way, Eddie.'

'Who's that?' Meyer asked.

'Guy tried to kill me,' Hawes said.

'He's dreaming,' Cudahy told Meyer, but he accompanied Hawes down the hall toward the Interrogation Room.

Meyer shrugged and opened the envelope.

One, two, three: time, time!

'What's that supposed to mean?' Parker asked.

'It means three o'clock,' Meyer said, 'what do you think it means? One, two, three, bingo! He's giving us the exact time, the time\ It's either the folio or the violinist.'

'Or something else at one, is a possibility,' Parker said. 'Or even something at two.'

'I thought it was supposed to be precinct shit now,' Genero said.

He had gone outside to look at the word lettered across the top of the entrance doors, and sure enough the Deaf Man had spelled it wrong.

'Maybe it is something in the precinct,' Parker said. 'At one or two o'clock.'

Actually, he didn't care where it was or when it was. All he knew was that at four o'clock he'd go home.

Meyer was already on the phone with Carella, reading him the note.

'What happened to the anagrams?' Carella asked.

'This is what we got,' Meyer said.

'Call me if anything else comes in,' Carella told him. 'I'll be here till eleven.'

'I SAW YOU the first time you came up to the station,' Cudahy told Hawes. He had decided that maybe it was best to cooperate here. Maybe if he explained his side of it, Hawes would understand. On television, there were sympathetic cops who understood a person's side of it.

'This was after she taped the Valparaiso kidnapping last month,' Cudahy said. 'I spotted you going into the screening room together to watch the tape. The screening room is right down the hall from Transportation. I saw you when you went in, and I saw you when you came out together. I knew something was going on right then. Knew it right off. Figured I had to stop it.'

'Why?' Hawes asked.

'Why? Because I have an investment in her.'

'Oh, you do, huh? What kind of investment, if you don't mind?'

An emotional investment. I watched her from the very

beginning, from when she first came to the station from Iowa, when they had her doing these remotes from godforsaken places all over the city, in weather you could freeze yourself, those little skirts she wears, in rainstorms, snowstorms, even places that were dangerous, drug dealers, hookers, they sent her everywhere! And I was watching her. So I wasn't about to let somebody step in and take my place, not after all those years of her paying her dues.'

'Take your place, huh?'

'Yes! My rightful place!'

'Did she even know you existed? Does she know you exist now?'

Hawes was trying to keep this from getting too personal here. But this little son of a bitch had tried to kill him, twice, no less.

'Oh, she knows I exist, all right. You think she doesn't stop in Transportation every now and then, thank us for the good service we provide, the cars we send her? You think she doesn't know I'm taking good care of her? She gave me a signed picture last Christmas. Autographed personally to me. "To Eddie, With Warmest Wishes, Honey." Warmest wishes. You think that means nothing, warmest wishes?'

'So you decided to kill me.'

'Only when you started sleeping over. Until then . . . listen, she's entitled to friends, that's okay with me. I didn't mind you taking her to restaurants, to movies, that was okay. But . . .'

'What'd you do, follow us?'

'Just to make sure you didn't harm her.'

'Followed us all over the city, is that it?'

'To protect her! But when you started staying at her place nights ... no. That wasn't right. It just wasn't right. No.'

He was shaking his head now, convincing himself that this wasn't right, trying to convince Hawes as well that this simply wasn't right.

'Did you know I was a cop?' 'Not at first.' 'How about later?' 'Yes.'

'But you didn't think I could protect her, huh? A police officer? Couldn't protect her, huh?'

'You're the one I was trying to protect her from!' 'So you tried to kill me.' 'Tried to keep you away from her.' 'And almost killed her in the bargain!' 'I didn't know she was in the car. I thought the driver had dropped her off at Four, and then gone to pick you up. I was waiting for you on Jefferson Avenue, but I didn't know she was with you.' 'Waiting to kill me,' Hawes said. 'To warn you.'

'But killing me would've been all right, too, huh?' 'You should have kept away from her. It was your fault I almost hurt her. I apologized for that.' 'Oh, you did, huh?' 'In the note I wrote.' 'What note?'

'I sent her an apology. Told her I was sorry, I didn't know she was in the limo.' 'When was this?'

'Right after what happened on Jefferson Avenue. The incident there.'

'Incident! Attempted murder, you mean!' And then, suddenly, what Cudahy had just said sunk in. If he'd really written Honey a note of apology, then she'd known all along that she hadn't been his intended

victim. All that stuff on television . . .

'Go ask her, you don't believe me,' Cudahy said. Hawes guessed he'd have to.

MEYER AND HIS two brilliant sleuths were still pondering the first two notes when the third one arrived at twelve minutes to ten. It read:

Why, sir, is this such a piece of study?

Now here is three studied, ere ye'H thrice wink:

Meyer called Carella at once.

'He's zeroing in on three,' he told him.

'Going backwards, too,' Carella said. 'Halving the numbers each time. First twelve, then six, now three.'

'Backwards and smaller.'

'Right. Spears, arrows, darts, remember?'

'If he's saying three o'clock,' Meyer said, 'then it's still either Clarendon Hall or the library.'

'Neither of which is in our precinct.'

'So what was all that about "a precinct's shit"?'

'Might've had nothing to do with anything. Just an anagram for "prognosticate this." Just him telling us to predict.'

'Or. . .' Meyer said.

Yeah?'

'Did you notice he said "a precinct's shit"? Not "the precinct's shit." What he said was "Go to a precinct's shit.'"

'So?'

'So . . . if it's three o'clock, then it's Clarendon Hall or the library. It's either the Eight-Four's shit, or Mid Souths. Not ours.'

'Yeah, I get what you're saying.'

'Although

'Yeah?'

'He says, "Go to a precinct's shit." Go to it. Maybe he's telling us to send some of our own people to both venues.'

Yeah, maybe.'

'It's a thought, isn't it?' Meyer said.

Carella could almost see him smiling.

'It's a good thought,' he said. 'Let's see what he sends next.'

You put on your tuxedo yet?'

'Just about to.'

THE NEXT NOTE came at 10:27 a.m.

My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon

'Three o'clock for sure,' Meyer told Carella on the phone. 'That still makes it either Sallas and the Eight-Four, or the folio and Mid South.'

'We're covered either way,' Carella said.

'Right.'

Both men fell silent.

'The thing is . . .'

'I know.'

'If it's either Mid South or the Eight-Four, why's he breaking our balls?'

'Maybe we're reading this all wrong,' Meyer said.

You think?'

'No, I think we've got it right.'

'But, you know . . .'

Yeah.'

'All that tight security.'

'Right.'

'He can't really be telling us it's three o'clock, can he?'

Both men were silent again.

'So how do you want to work this?'

'I've got a wedding to go to.'

You know what I think?'

'Say.'

'We have nothing to worry about. The Eight-Four is sending its people over, and so is Mid South.'

'Right. So we're okay.'

'I think so.'

'Me, too.'

'Don't you think?'

'I guess.'

'What?'

'I don't know. It's just . . . with this guy . . .'

'I know.'

'He may be planning to blow up the Calm's Point Bridge, who the hell knows? All the rest of it may be bullshit, just like Parker says.'

Yeah, well, Parker,' Meyer said, lowering his voice.

Carella looked at the clock again.

'I gotta get out of here,' he said.

'Good luck,' Meyer said.

NOSTRADAMUS!

It was writ large. And the slanted exclamation point lent urgency to the word, demanding attention.

'Another anagram, right?' Genero said.

'Wrong,' Parker said. 'Nostra Damus is a college in the Midwest.'

Meyer was thinking about the anagram they'd received first thing this morning:

GO TO A PRECINT'S SHIT!

Which they'd rearranged as:

PROGNOSTICATE THIS!

He'd been taught by his grandfather that Nostradamus was a sixteenth-century French physician who'd become famous during his lifetime and afterward because of his talent for prophesying the future. Prophecies. Prognostications. Prognosticate this, amigo! And now Nostradamus, who had fascinated Meyer's grandfather only because he'd been born of Jewish parents.

'Nostradamus was . . .' Meyer started to explain, but Genero said, 'There's 'SUM' again.'

'Where?' Parker asked.

'Backwards,' Genero said. 'Don't you remember?'

'Remember what?' Parker asked impatiently.

'All those notes we got. Where are those copies, Meyer?'

Meyer found the copied notes, spread them on his desktop.

'Here you go,' Genero said. 'Here's the one I mean.'

But she would spell him backward

'So?' Parker said.

And this one,' Genero said.

MUST SELL AT TALLEST SUM

'So?' Parker insisted.

'So here's "SUM" again,' he said. "Backwards,"' he said, and tapped the most recent note:

NOSTRADAMUS!

'Start at the end of the word,' he said.

'It's not a word, it's a name,' Meyer said. 'Nostradamus. He was

'Whatever,' Genero said. 'M-U-S is S-U-M backwards. The last four letters of the word . . .'

'The name.'

'. . . are an anagram for "A SUM.'"

Parker was nodding. He had to admit the little jackass was right. A sum,' he said. 'The ransom he'll be asking.'

'In fact,' Genero said, if you keep going backwards . . . look at this, willya? . . . you get "DARTS." Isn't that what he was telling us a long time ago? Arrows to slings to darts? Here . . . where is it?' he said, and began rummaging through the notes on Meyer's desk. 'Here. Here you go.'

Filling the air with swords advanced and darts, We prove this very hour.

'Three o'clock is the hour he gave us,' Meyer said, and looked up at the clock; this very hour was now a quarter to twelve.

'The point is,' Genero said, beginning to enjoy his role as visiting lecturer, 'we've got anagrams for both "A SUM" and "DARTS" ... so what else might there be in this single word?'

'It's a name,' Meyer told him again.

'The name of a college,' Parker agreed.

They all looked at the note again:

NOSTRADAMUS!

'As a matter of fact,' Parker said, 'it's "NO DARTS."'

'We're back to him using a gun again,' Meyer said.

'A rod, right.'

At a concert.'

'Maybe.'

'Let's see what that looks like,' Parker said, beginning to have a little fun here himself. ' "NO DARTS" and "A SUM,'" he said, and lettered the words on a sheet of blank paper:

NO DARTS A SUM!

'Try it backwards,' Meyer said. 'He keeps telling us to go backwards.'

A SUM NO DARTS!

Add a comma to it,' Meyer suggested. 'Where?' After "SUM."' Parker pencilled it in:

A SUM, NO DARTS!

'Pay a sum,' Genero said, 'a ransom, and I won't shoot you with poisoned darts.'

'That's ridiculous,' Parker said.

'He says so right in this other note here,' Genero said, and found it, and, using his forefinger, tapped it with great certainty:

For piercing steel and darts envenomed Shall be as welcome to the ears

'Poisoned darts,' he said, nodding in agreement with his own deduction. 'If you don't pay the ransom, I'll shoot you in your ears with poisoned dartsV

'No, he's talking music there,' Meyer said.

'Where?' Parker asked.

'Here.'

Shall be as welcome to the ears

'He's referring to music. "Welcome to the ears." The violinist again.'

'Sallas.'

'Clarendon Hall.'

'Three o'clock,' Meyer said, and again looked up at the clock.

The time was now 11:56 A.M.

HERE COME THE brides, Carella thought, all dressed in white, one on each arm, mother and daughter looking somewhat alike in their nuptial threads and short coiffed hairdos, neither wearing a veil, each radiant in anticipation.

And there at the altar, looking up the center aisle of the church as Carella approached with their imminent wives . . .

There at the altar were the two grooms, Luigi Fontero and Henry Lowell, each looking serious albeit nervous, the priest standing behind them and between them and looking happier than either of them.

The organ music stopped.

They were at the altar now.

Carella handed off his mother to Luigi on his left, and his sister to Lowell on his right . . .

So long, Mom, he thought. So long, Slip.

. . . and went to sit beside Teddy in the first row of pews. Teddy took his hand and squeezed it. He nodded.

He listened dry-eyed as the priest first told the gathered assemblage that they were here today to join in holy wedlock not just Louise Carella and Luigi Fontero, but also Angela Carella and Henry Lowell . . .

Someone in the pews behind Carella tittered at the novelty of it all; some novelty, he thought.

. . . and listened dry-eyed as the priest first recited the words for his mother and Luigi to repeat. . .

. . . and watched dry-eyed as Luigi slipped the wedding band onto his mother's hand and kissed his bride, Carella's mother . . .

. . . and listened again dry-eyed as his sister and Henry Lowell repeated the same words . . .

. . . and watched dry-eyed as the man who'd allowed his father's killer to walk sealed their marriage with a golden circlet and a chaste kiss . . .

Till death us do part, Carella thought.

Teddy squeezed his hand again.

Again, he nodded.

He felt no joy.

15.

IT WAS ALMOST twelve-thirty when Sharyn got back to the apartment. Kling was waiting for her, waiting to confront her. He'd known she was lying the moment she told him she was going to her office this morning. He knew the office in Rankin Plaza was closed on Saturdays, and he knew her private office on Ainsley Avenue was similarly closed. So while she was in the shower, he yelled to her that he was heading out, and then he went downstairs and waited for her to come out of the building. He then followed her not to Rankin and not to Ainsley but to a coffee shop on Belvedere and Ninrh where who should be waiting for her but Dr. James Melvin Hudson himself in person.

Kling had watched them through the plate glass windows fronting the street.

Hudson leaning over the table.

Sharyn's head close to his.

Taking earnestly, seriously.

Taking her hands at one point.

Crying?

Was he crying?

Now, at three minutes to one, he waited for her in his own apartment, waited for the sound of her key in the latch, the key he had given her, waited to confront her.

He was sitting on the couch facing the entrance door. On one end of the couch was the small pillow she'd had needlepointed with the words:

Share

Help

Love

Encourage

Protect

. . . the first letters of which spelled out the word SHLEP, a Yiddish word that translated literally as 'to drag, or pull, or lag behind,' but which in this city's common usage had come to mean 'a long haul,' a 'drag' indeed, as in 'a shlep and a half.'

The words on Kling's pillow were needlepointed in white on black. Those on the identical pillow in Sharyn's apartment were black on white. They were in this together, for the long haul. Or so he'd thought. They knew it would be a shlep and a half, a white man and a black woman. But they knew they could get through it if they merely respected those five simple rules: Share, Help, Love, Encourage, Protect. Or so he'd believed until now.

He heard the key turning in the lock.

The door opened.

WHEN THE DOORMAN called upstairs to tell her the driver from Regal was here, Melissa said, 'Ask him to wait, please. I'll be right down.'

She checked herself in the hall mirror . . .

Sweater tight enough to warrant admiration, skirt short enough to inspire whistles, strappy high-heeled sandals, altogether the image of either a top fashion model or a high-priced call girl, often indistinguishable one from the other these days. Satisfied, she picked up her purse, and went downstairs to meet whatever destiny awaited her on this bright Saturday afternoon.

LUIGI'S BROTHER WAS taking to Carella. Or rather, the brother - who possessed another fine old ginzo name, Mario - was talking at him, regaling him in broken English with stories about Luigi when he was young.

Mario Fontero was telling him they'd been born into a poor family in Milan. Luigi and Mario, the Nintendo brothers. Mario was telling him that even when he was a boy, Luigi had been a hard worker. Mario was telling him that Luigi had gone to university and graduated with honors. Mario was telling him that Luigi had started his own furniture business.

On the dance floor, Luigi was holding Carella's mother close.

His wife now.

Luigi Fontero's wife.

SHARYN CLOSED THE door behind her.

Locked it.

'How'd it go at the office?' Kling asked.

'I didn't go to the office,' she said.

He looked at her.

'Why'd you follow Julie?' she asked.

'What?'

'Julia Curtis. Why'd you go to her building and ask her letter carrier . . . ?'

'Why'd you go meet Jamie Hudson this morn . . . ?'

'What the hell is going on, Bert!'

'You tell me!'

The room went silent.

'Have you been following me?' she asked.

'Yes,' he said. 'Have you . . .'

'Why?'

'. . . been lying to me?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Because . . .'

She cut herself short.

'Yes, tell me. Why'd you lie to me?'

'To protect Julie.'

'Who the hell is she, Sharyn? Have you and Hudson been . . . ?'

'She's a very troubled girl . . .'

'Oh, please, spare me the

'. . . who has to make the most difficult decision in her life. And if she decides the wrong way

'Is she in trouble with the law?'

'Of course not!'

'Then why do you have to protect her from me?'

'Because you wouldn't understand the situation.'

'What situation? You and your colleague Dr. Hudson meeting her on the

'What's wrong with you? You surely don't think . . .'

'. . . sly? You mean you and your little Jamie boy . . .'

'Is that what you th . . . ?'

'What am I supposed to think? You go sneaking around

'Julie has a serious problem!'

'Oh? Does her Mama disapprove of a three-way with two black . . . ?'

Sharyn slapped him.

'I'm sorry,' she said at once.

The room went utterly still.

'It's not what you think,' she said.

'Then tell me what it is,' he said. *

THE DRIVER'S NAME was Jack.

'Is it still Burtonwood's, ma'am?' he asked.

Burtonwood's was a department store downtown on Jefferson. Adam had given this as the destination when he'd called Regal.

'Yes, but I have to make a stop first,' she said.

Yes, ma'am,' he said.

'I have to pick up a lamp,' she said. 'To return to the store.'

'Very well, ma'am,' he said.

She was sitting on the backseat, positioned so that he could see her in the rear-view mirror. She wasn't wearing panties, and her skirt was high enough on her thighs for Jack here to see China 'crost the bay.

'Will it fit in the trunk, ma'am?' he asked. 'The lamp?'

'Oh yes,' she said, and gave him the address of the Knowlton Hotel on Ludlow Street.

The game was afoot.

NOSTRADAMUS!

'Here's another one spelled backwards,' Genero said. 'Where?' Meyer asked.

'Right here,' Genero said, pointing. "MAD ARTS." That's "STRADAM" spelled backwards.' Indeed it was:

STRADAM MAD ARTS

"STRADAM" ain't even a word,' Parker said.

'Who said it was?'

'Just what are you saying, Richard?'

'I'm saying "MAD ARTS" is a word. Two words, in fact.'

'And just what is "MAD ARTS" supposed to mean?'

A crazy modern painting.'

'Right,' Parker said. 'He's gonna kidnap the Mona Lisa.'

'Or some other crazy modern painting,' Genero said.

Meyer looked again at the anagram in Parker's handwriting:

A SUM, NO DARTS!

He still didn't get it.

'KNOWLTON HOTEL, M A'AM,' Jack said. 'Shall I just wait here?'

'Can you help me carry it down?' she asked. 'The lamp?'

He looked as if he didn't fully understand, but his role in all this would be over in the next ten minutes or thereabouts, so it didn't matter whether he quite got it or not.

'It's sort of heavy,' she said, and uncrossed her legs to afford him a better view of the dawn coming up like thunder.

'Of course, ma'am,' he said, thinking he was beginning to get the drift. 'I'll be happy to.'

He followed her into the elevator and up to the sixth floor. He followed her down the hall to room 642. He waited behind her while she inserted a key into the lock. She felt certain he was checking out her splendid ass in its short tight skirt.

'Come in, please, Jack,' she said, and smiled over her shoulder in blatant invitation.

He stepped into the room, thinking there wasn't a lamp at all, and grinning in sly anticipation, when all at once all the lamps in the world went out because that was when the Deaf Man hit him on the head with a somewhat blunt instrument.

AT TWO O'CLOCK sharp, a uniformed driver from Regal Limousine pulled up to the parking area in front of the Intercontinental Hotel, stepped out of the luxury sedan, and told the doorman he was here for Mr. Konstantinos Sallas.

The doorman went inside, buzzed the suite upstairs, and told Mr. Sallas that his car was here. Sallas, in turn, rang his bodyguard's room, told him the car was here, told his wife he'd see her backstage after the concert, kissed her goodbye, and picked up his violin case. He met Jeremy Higel at the elevators, and together they went down to the lobby and out into the street, where the uniformed driver was standing outside the black car, waiting for them.

'Mr. Sallas?' he asked.

'Yes?'

'Nice to meet you, sir,' the driver said, and rushed to open the rear door for them. When they were comfortably seated, he climbed in behind the wheel, turned to them, and asked, "Would you be more comfortable with the violin up front, sir?'

'Thank you, no, I'll keep it here,' Sallas said, and gave the case a little proprietary pat.

'Clarendon Hall then,' the driver said, and started the car.

Neither of them noticed that there was a hearing aid in his right ear.

LUIGI FONTERO'S SISTER was telling Carella all about the gardens of Rome, where she lived. He gathered this was what she was talking about since he heard the word Roma and also the word giardini. Otherwise, he caught little else of what she was saying because she was speaking in rapid-fire Italian.

'Uh-huh,' he said.

'A Roma,' she said and rolled her eyes, 'bella Roma, ci sono molti giardini . . .'

'Uh-huh,' he said.

'Per esempio,' she said, 'ci sono i giardini della Villa Aldobrandini a Frascati, ed anche i giardini

'Uh-huh,' he said.

'. . . della Vila d'Este a Tivoli. Ma, secundo me . . .'

'Excuse me,' Carella said.

'. . . ipiu belli giardini . . .'

'Scusi,' he said, 'excuse me,' and got up and moved through the dancers on the crowded floor — his sister dancing with Uncle Mike now, all suntanned and bald from Florida, his mother dancing with her new son-in-law, the assistant district attorney Henry Lowell — and worked his way to the men's room. On his way back to the table, where he now saw Alberta Fontero was bending somebody else's ear about the fabulous gardens of Rome, he stopped in the banquet hall's office, and asked a twenty-year-old kid behind the desk there if he could use the phone.

'There's a pay phone in the men's room,' the kid said.

'This is police business,' Carella said, and showed his shield. The kid looked at it as if he thought it might be fake, but he indicated the phone, shrugged, and walked out.

Carella began dialing the squadroom.

'Eighty-seventh Squad, Meyer.'

'It's me,' Carella said.

'Is that music I hear?'

'Yeah, let me close this door.'

He got up, came around the desk, closed the door on the Sonny Sabatino Orchestra, and came back to the phone again.

I'm glad you called,' Meyer said. 'Have you got a pencil?'

Carella took a pencil from a cup on the desk. He found a crumpled sheet of paper in the wastebasket, pulled it out, smoothed it, and said, 'What've you got?'

'Nostradamus,' Meyer said. 'That's N-O-S

'T-R-A . . .' Carella said, nodding.

'You know it?'

'Nostradamus, sure. The Greek prophet.'

'French,' Meyer said.

'Whatever.'

'Write it down.'

Carella wrote it down:

NOSTRADAMUS

'Okay, got it,' he said.

IN THE MOVIES, this was that stretch of turf alongside the river, under the bridge, where the nasty bad guys pulled up in their big black cars for a face-off about dope or prostitution.

In real life, this was that very same spot.

And Konstantinos Sallas knew this was not Clarendon Hall.

'Driver?' he said, and tapped on the glass partition separating them from the front seat. The glass slid open. 'Where are we?' he asked. 'Is something . . . ?'

And realized he was looking into the barrel of an automatic weapon.

Jeremy Higel, the Greek's bodyguard, was already reaching under his jacket.

'No, don't,' the Deaf Man said.

The hand stopped.

The Deaf Man gestured with the Uzi.

'Get out,' he said. 'Both of you.'

'Wh ...?'

'Get out of the fucking carl'

Sallas reached for his violin case.

'Leave it,' the Deaf Man said.

NOSTRADAMUS

'That's the latest from our friend,' Meyer said. 'Nostradamus.'

'Just the name?' Carella asked.

'That's all. We've been juggling it around up here. So far, we've got "A SUM" backwards . . .'

'Uh-huh, "A SUM," I see it . . ."*

A MUS

'Backwards, right?' 'Right. Backwards.'

A SUM

And "DARTS" is buried in there, too. You see it there? "DARTS"?'

'Right,' Carella said, 'I've got it.'

DARTS

'The way arrows was buried in sparr — ' Meyer started, and then interrupted himself. 'Help you?' he asked. Carella heard a muffled voice on the other end, away from the phone. 'Thanks,' he heard Meyer say.

'What've you got?' he asked.

Another one.'

Another what?'

A letter. A note. Addressed to you again.'

There was a crackling silence on the line.

'Well, open it!' Carella said.

Outside the closed door to the office, he could hear the Sonny Sabatino Orchestra playing Mezzo Luna, Mezzo Mare. . .

Heard wedding guests joining in with the lyrics . . .

Heard Meyer ripping open the envelope . . .

'Meyer?'

'Yeah.'

'What does it say?'

To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late

'Meyer?'

Meyer read it to him.

'What's he mean?' Carella asked.

'Mama mi, me maritari. . .'

'I don't know,' Meyer said.

'Figghia mi, a cu . . .'

Carella glanced at the note on his desk:

NOSTRADAMUS

'Damn it, what's he . . . ?'

'Mama mi, pensaci. . .'

A SUM

'Si ci dugnu . , .'

DARTS

'Oh, Jesus, it's DARTS backwardsV Carella said.

STRAD 'It's the violin!'

THE VIOLIN IN the case now tucked under the Deaf Man's right arm was one of a precious few created by Antonio Stradivari, the master violin-maker, in the early 1700's — the so-called Golden Period during which he made only twenty-four violins. Sallas's violin was one of them, a year older than the so-called 'Kreutzer' Stradivarius that had recently sold at auction for $1,560,000. The 'Taft,' another Stradivarius violin made in that same period, sold at Christie's for a million-three. The 'Mendelssohn' Strad had sold for a million-six. The 'Milanollo' of 1728, conserved rather than played over the centuries, was largely considered to be worth at least that much. By a conservative estimate, the Deaf Man calculated that Sallas's precious little fiddle here was worth something between a million-two and a million-seven — not bad apples for a few weeks' work, eh, Gertie?

He had driven back to the Knowlton Hotel to make certain that Jack the driver was still securely bound and gagged, had patted him on the head, smiled, and gone to

change out of the chauffeur's uniform he'd purchased last week at Conan Uniforms on Baxter Street. Driving the Regal luxury sedan to a side street some ten blocks from his apartment, he'd bid the car a fond farewell, and left it there locked. The last words he'd heard on the car radio were, 'Jack? Are you there, Jack? Have you got your passenger? What the hell is going on, man?'

Now, at twenty minutes to three — wearing a blue suit with the faintest gray shadow stripe, wearing as well a gray shirt that picked up the stripe, and a blue tie that echoed the suit, black shoes, blue socks, the black violin case tucked under his arm — the Deaf Man whistled a merry tune as he strolled jauntily back to the apartment on River Place South — where Melissa Summers was busy cracking his computer.

ON THE PHONE to Midtown South, Carella told the lieutenant there what he thought was about to happen; the Deaf Man was planning to steal Konstantinos Sallas's priceless Stradivarius violin. The lieutenant promised to send a contingent of his detectives over to Clarendon at once. He called back five minutes later to say the boys were on the way. But he'd also called Clarendon and the director there was concerned because Sallas hadn't shown up yet, and it was already twenty minutes to three.

'Where was he coming from?' Carella asked.

'The Intercontinental,' the lieutenant told him.

'Right here in the Eight-Seven,' Carella said, and remembered the Deaf Man's first note that Saturday morning:

GO TO A PRECINT'S SHIT!

'How was he getting there?' 'Car and driver.'

And Carella remembered another note from what now seemed a long time ago:

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

'Carella? You still there?'

'I'm still here,' he said.

Outside, he could hear the Sonny Sabatino Orchestra starting another set, saxophones soaring. The words of the Deaf Man's final note echoed in his mind:

To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late

. . . and he realized all at once that the violin had already been stolen, yes, right here in the old Eight-Seven.

Outside, the orchestra was playing a sad sweet song.

For no good reason he could discern, Carella put his head on his folded arms and began sobbing.

THE THING ABOUT a computer was that it not only told you where to find things, it also told you where you'd gone to find those things. So right here in Adam's little office at the rear of the apartment, there was a pretty good record of all the sites he'd visited in the past few weeks, especially those he'd marked as favorites. Which showed he trusted her. She guessed. Leaving them there for her to see. Or maybe he wasn't as smart as she thought he was.

All this stuff about violins made by this guy Stradivari.

Oh my! So that's what Adam was after, the Greek's fiddle. My, my, my. Page after page of computer information about Stradivari and Amati and Guarneri and the 18th century, and the prices all these various violins had fetched at various auctions, and who owned which violin when, or even now, and even what kind of varnish was used on them, my, my, my, Melissa thought.

So that's what he'd meant about a seven-figure payday. My, my. A violin. Who'd've imagined it? A mere violin. And, oh my, lookee here. All the sites he'd visited while composing the little notes she'd delivered for him, and folders he'd made to store files from those sites, folders with titles like SPEARS, and ARROWS, and DARTS, and more folders titled ANAGRAMS, and PALINDROMES, and yet more folders titled NUMBERS, and TIMES, and on and on, oh my oh my.

There was also a folder titled SKED, and when she opened that she found a file titled CALENDAR. She thought at first that this might tell her something about their trip to Tortola, but no, it was just a sort of coded timetable for the past week:

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!

But he'd been serious about taking her to Tortola once this was all over, because sure enough here was a folder titled TRAVEL, and inside that was a file called AIR. And there before Melissa's very eyes, right there on the computer screen, was a flight itinerary:

Date: 13JUNE-SUND AY

Flight: AMERICAN AIRLINES 1635

Departure: SPNDRFT INTL 9:30 AM

Arrival: SAN JUAN PR 2:11 PM

Date: 13JUNE-SUNDAY

Flight: AMERICAN AIRLINES 5374

Departure: SAN JUAN PR 3:00 PM

Arrival: TORTOLA BEEF IS 3:39 PM

Which made her wonder if he'd already booked the flights.

So she kept surfing.

CARELLA WAS SITTING there at the desk with his head on his folded arms, wondering why this wedding today had been so joyless for him, wondering why he hadn't danced with either his mother or his sister today, wondering why both the champagne and the music had seemed so flat today. And he thought, My father should be here today. He thought, My father should still be alive. But of course, his father was dead.

Luigi Fontero stopped in the doorway to the banquet hall's small office, looked in, puzzled, and then went to the desk, and came around it, and put his hand on Carella's shoulder.

'Steve?' he said. 'Ma che cosa? What's the matter?'

Carella looked up into his face.

'Figlio mio,' Luigi said. 'My son. Dica mi. Tell me.'

And Carella said, 'I miss him so much,' and threw himself into Luigi's arms, and began sobbing again.

*

SHE WAS WRITING for him when he got back to the apartment with the violin. He set it down on the hall table, next to the phone there, as casually as if the Strad were worth a nickel instead of more than a million. He put the blue sports bag containing the Uzi on the floor then, just under the table. Turning to her, he said, 'I see you got back all right.'

'Oh, yes,' she said. Took a taxi over from the Knowl-ton. Hardly any traffic at all.' She nodded at the violin case. 'I see you got back all right, too,' she said.

'Indeed.' He came across the room to her, arms outstretched. 'What've you been doing?' he asked.

'Surfing your computer,' she said.

'Oh?'

'Yes.'

He looked at her. Arms still stretched to embrace her, but not so sure now. She couldn't tell whether the look on his face was quizzical or amused or just what. She didn't much care what it was; she knew what she knew.

'Now why'd you do that?' he asked.

Quizzical, she guessed. The look. Or amused. Not at all menacing. Not yet, anyway.

'Oh, just keeping myself busy,' she said. 'A girl can learn lots of things from a computer.'

'And did you learn lots of things?'

'I learned how much the fiddle there is worth.'

'I told you how much it's worth.'

'Seven figures, you said. Isn't that right?'

'Yep.'

'That's what the computer said, too.'

'Why'd you have to go to the computer to learn what I'd already . . . ?'

'You didn't tell me you were stealing a precious violin, Adam.'

'There was no need for you to know that.'

'No, there was only a need for me to socialize with junkies . . .'

'You were free to choose your own messeng

'. . . and fuck a bodyguard, and let a chauffeur think I was about to fuck him.'

'Is something wrong, Lissie?' he asked, trying to look concerned and pleasant and caring.

'Oh yes, something is wrong,' she said, and reached into her handbag, and pulled out an American Airlines ticket folder and flapped it on the air. 'This is wrong,' she said.

'Where'd you get that, Liss?'

'Top drawer of your office desk. Right under the computer.'

'You have been busy.'

'It's a one-way ticket to Tortola,' she said. 'Made out to Adam Fen.'

'There's another ticket in that drawer, Liss.'

'No, there isn't. I turned it upside down and inside out, I looked through that whole damn desk, and your dresser, too, and all the pockets in all the suits and jackets in your closet, and there is no other ticket. There is just this one ticket, Adam. Your ticket. You never planned to take me with you at all, did you?'

'Where'd you get such an idea, Liss? Of course you're coming with me. Let me find the other ticket. Let me show you

'There is no other ticket, Adam.'

'Liss.'

'There is none!' she said, and shook the folder on the air again. 'You never planned to give me any part of that million-whatever, did you? You just used me, the same way Ame Carter used me. I was just a handy little whore to you, wasn't I?'

'Well,' he said, and smiled, and spread his hands reasonably, 'that's what you are, isn't it, Liss.'

Which was perhaps a mistake.

He realized this when he saw her dip into her bag again and come up with not another airline ticket, but with what looked instead like a small nine-millimeter pistol.

'Careful,' he said.

'Oh yes, careful,' she said, and waved the gun recklessly in the air. 'Know what else I found on your computer, Adam? I found

'I can assure you, Lissie, there is another ticket in my desk. Let's go look for it, shall. . . ?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'We'll look for it togeth

'No, we won't look for it together because it doesn't exist. Would you like to know what else I found?'

He said nothing.

He was wondering how he could get to that blue sports bag under the hall table, wondering how he could get his hands on the Uzi in that bag before she did something foolish here. He was not eager to get shot again. It had taken too long for Dr. Rickett to fix him up after the last time a woman shot him. He did not think she was going to shoot him, but he did not like the way she kept tossing that gun around so negligently.

'I found a file titled "PROSPECTS,"' she said, 'and another one titled "BUYERS," which had some of the same names and addresses in them, little bit of duplication there, Adam? Little redundancy?'

He said nothing.

He was wondering how he could back slowly away from her, toward the sports bag, without tipping his hand. He certainly did not want to get shot here. Not again.

'I'm figuring these are the names of people who might care to own that little Stradivarius across the room, Adam, am I right?'

He still said nothing.

'Names and addresses of all those prospects and buyers, I don't think they'd give a rat's ass who they bought that fiddle from, you or me, so long as they get their hands on it, am I right?'

'Backups, Liss. Merely backups. In case the fiddler refuses to pay the piper.'

'Meaning?'

'We'll offer the Strad to Sallas first. If he pays what we want for it. . .'

'We?'

'Of course, Liss. You and I. We. Us. If he gives us what the fiddle's worth, it's his again. If not, as you surmised, there are all those redundant prospects and buyers out there. Can you imagine such people in this world, Liss? People who don't know how to play the violin, who don't care at all about music, people who just want to own something beautiful and precious.'

'I can imagine them, yes.'

'Like you,' he said, and tried a smile. 'Beautiful and . . .'

'Bulshit!' she said, and waved the gun again.

'Careful with that thing,' he said, and spread the fingers of his right hand on the air, sort of patting the air with them, urging caution.

'What I'm going to do right now,' she said, 'is buy myself a ticket to Paris or London or Rome or Berlin or Buenos Aires or Mexico City or Riyadh, where all these backups seem to live, and see which one of them might care to take this fiddle off my hands. I feel sure

'Why don't we just do that together?' he suggested.

'No, why don't we just not do that together!' she said, and rattled the gun on the air again. 'I want to be on that plane alone. Without you, Mr. Fen. Just me and the Strad, Mr. Fen. And then I'll see about all these violin-lovers all over the world. Maybe they'll be willing to pay a handy little whore even more than

'I never called you a . . .'

'Oh, didn't you?' she said, and waved the gun at the floor. 'Lie down, Adam. Face down. Hands behind your head. Do it!'

'Liss . . .'

'Do it! Now!'

'You're making a big mis . . .'

'I said now!'

He turned swiftly and moved closer to the hall table, and then got down on his knees, and then lowered himself flat on the floor, positioning himself so that his head and his hands were close to the hall table. He could feel her presence behind him, the gun level in her hand. If he did not make his move now . . .

In that next crackling instant, she realized he was reaching into the blue sports bag on the floor under the table, and she saw what was in that bag, saw his hand closing around the handle of the automatic weapon there. And in that same crackling instant, he saw from the corner of his eye the little gun leveling in her hand, steady now, no longer uncertain, and he tried desperately to shake the Uzi loose of the bag before . . .

Almost simultaneously, they thought exactly the same thing: No, not again!

She meant getting fucked by yet another pimp.

He meant getting shot by yet another woman.

Actually, she did manage to say just that single word aloud, 'No/', before she shot him in the back the same

way she'd shot that other pimp, Ambrose Carter. Twice. The same way.

16.

IN THIS CITY, there are beginnings, and there are sometimes endings. And sometimes those endings aren't quite the ones imagined when you and I were young, Maggie, but who says they have to be? Where is it written that anyone ever promised you a rose garden? Where is it written?

'I understand someone sent you a note,' Hawes said.

'I get notes all the time,' Honey said.

'This note was an important one,' he said.

They were in her apartment. The apartment on the seventeenth floor of the building where Eddie Cudahy had taken a potshot at him on Wednesday morning, the second day of June. Several potshots, in fact.

It was now three o'clock on the afternoon of the twelfth, ten days and some eight hours later, but who was counting? Hawes had already arrested, questioned, and booked Eddie Cudahy, but Honey Blair was still in her nightgown and peignoir, trying to look innocent when she knew exactly which note Hawes was talking about. He was talking about the Note.

DEAR HONEY:

PLEASE FORGIVE ME AS I DID NOT KNOW

YOU WERE IN THAT AUTOMOBILE.

'According to a man named Eddie Cudahy,' he said, 'who works for Chann 'Yes, I know,' she said.

'You know him . . . ?'

'Vaguely.'

'. . . or you know the note I'm talking about?'

'Both.'

'Why didn't you tell me about it?'

'Because Danny decided not to broadcast it.'

"Who's Danny?'

'Di Lorenzo. Our Program Director.'

'That was withholding evidence,' Hawes said.

'Well, it certainly wasn't truth in broadcasting,' she said, and smiled.

'This isn't funny,' he said. 'The man was trying to kill me.'

'Yes, well, me too, you know.'

'No, not you too.

'Well.'

'He specifically wrote . . .'

'I know.'

'. . . that he didn't know you were in that limo. He was after me, Honey. Me and me alone.'

'Well, probably. Yes.'

'So why'd you suppress that note?'

'I didn't. Danny suppressed it.'

'But you went along with it. You went on the air every night

'Well, yes.'

'Why, Honey?'

'Be good for my career,' she said, and shrugged.

'But bad for my health,' he said.

'Well, that too.'

'Uh-huh,' he said.

They looked at each other.

'This note,' he said. 'Was it handwritten?'

Yes.'

'Where is it now?' 'I have no idea.' 'I'll need it.' 'Why?'

'For evidence. We've charged Cudahy with attempted murder.'

'That's a shame. He seemed nice.'

'Murder would've been a bigger shame,' Hawes said.

They kept looking at each other.

'Why don't we go back to bed?' she asked.

'No, I don't think so,' he said.

'Cotton ..."

'See you,' he said, and walked out.

THEY WERE ON the thin edge of ending it here, and they both knew it. Sharyn had lied to him, and Kling had followed her like the detective he was, and both transgressions were grounds for packing toothbrushes. So they sat together in his apartment, silent now, Sharyn having explained (sort of) and Kling having defended (sort of), each waiting for more because each still felt betrayed.

Someone had to break the silence here.

If this thing was going to work here.

They both knew they had to make this thing work, because if it couldn't work right here, between this white man named Bertram Alexander Kling and this black woman named Sharyn Everard Cooke, then maybe it would never work anywhere in America between any two people of different colors. It had got down to that between them; thinking of each other as two people of different colors. But someone had to break the silence here, someone had to reach across this widening chasm.

So, reluctantly, but like the good detective he was, he weighed in his mind which had been the heavier offense, lying or following someone you were supposed to love, and he guessed his breach had been the greater one. So he cleared his throat and looked across the room to where she sat turned away from him in stony silence, arms folded across her chest, and he said, 'Shar?'

She did not answer.

'Shar,' he said, 'I'm sorry, but I still don't quite understand.'

'What is it you don't quite understand, Bert?' she said.

'If Jamie Hudson really wants to marry this Julie person . . .'

'She's not this Julie person. She's a woman named Julia Curtis, who happens to be a physician, just like Jamie and . . .'

'Oh, forgive me, a physician, please, do I need an appointment here?'

'Go to hell, Bert.'

'How was I supposed to know she's a doctor? I see the three of you running around like spies in . . .'

'Yes, go to hell.'

'If he wants to marry her, why's he meeting you?'

'He asked me to talk to her.'

'Why?'

'Damn it, she's not sure!'

'Not sure of what, damn it!'

'That she wants to marry a black man!'

'So what are you, a marriage broker all of a sudden?'

'No, I'm Jamie's friend. The girl has serious doubts. She loves him, but her entire life . . .'

'Oh, I get it. You're the shining example, right? You and me. Black woman, white man, you're supposed to show her it can work, is that it?'

'You still don't get it, do you?'

'No, I'm sorry, I don't. Are you sure that's the only reason she won't marry him? Because he's black and she's white? Or is there . . . ?'

'She's black, too,' Sharyn said.

'What?'

'I said she's black. We're all three of us black. Jamie, Julie, and me. We're all black. Get it now?'

He let this sink in. She watched him letting it sink in.

'She looks as white as . . .'

Yes, Bert?'

'She looks white,' he said.

'White enough to pass ever since she turned sixteen. She left home, left the south, went to Yale Med. She's afraid if she marries Jamie, she'll lose her white practice, lose everything she's worked so hard for all these years.'

The room went silent again.

You should have told me,' he said.

'I'd have broken her trust.'

'How about my trust?'

'How about mine, Bert?'

She said his name softly this time.

You shouldn't have followed me,' she said.

You shouldn't have lied to me.'

'Here we go again,' she said.

There was another silence.

He wondered if they could ever again breach the silence.

'Whatever happened to SHLEP?' he asked, and picked up the needlepointed pillow, and held it against his chest so she could read it:

Share Help

Love

Encourage

Protect

'I should've had them put a T on the end,' she said. 'For Trust.'

'Sharyn

'You don't trust me, Bert. Maybe it's because you don't love me . . .'

'I love you with all my

'. . . or maybe it's because I'm black . . .'

'Sharyn, Sharyn

'But whatever it is, the T's missing, Bert. It should've been SHLEPT. Maybe that's what it should be now,' she said, and took the pillow from his hands. 'SHLEPT. Past tense.'

He looked at her.

'Should it?' he said.

'I don't know,' she said. 'Should it?'

FOR EILEEN AND Willis, this was still the beginning, and this was still Saturday, the start of a weekend off for both of them, and so they were still in bed together.

'What do you think?' he asked.

'About?'

'Us?'

'Oh.'

'You. Me.'

'Uh-huh.'

'Does that mean "Uh-huh, I think this will last forever, we'll get married one day, and have kids, and . . .'"

'Uh-huh.'

'Or does it mean "Uh-huh, I understand your question, and I'm thinking about it"?'

'It means "We'll see,"' she said. 'But meanwhile,' she said, and rolled over into his arms, and kissed him on the mouth.

Under her lips, Willis grinned.

OLLIE SAW HER coming up the street in her tailored blues, the nine on her right hip, the weight of it giving her a sort of lopsided gait, long black hair tucked up under her cap, silver shield pinned just above her left breast, eyes casually checking out the perimeter as she came sailing toward the diner, good cop, he thought, beautiful girl, he thought, woman. Her name tag, white letters on black plastic, read: P. GOMEZ. Who'd have thunk it? he thought. Gomez.

Her eyes lit up when she saw him, who'd have thunk that, either? The sun was shining, her eyes sparkled in the sunlight. Beautiful brown eyes. Patricia Gomez. He almost shook his head in wonder.

'Hey, Oll!' she said. 'What're you doing here?'

Oll, he thought. Only person in the universe who calls me Oll. Not even my sister calls me Oll. Not even my mother called me Oll, may she rest in peace. Oll.

'Thought we could have a late afternoon snack together, ah yes,' he said.

'Hey, that's terrific!' she said.

He knew she'd just been relieved on post. Knew that before she headed back in to change out of uniform, she usually stopped for a cup of coffee either here or in the coffee shop up the street. He knew all this. He prided himself on being a good cop.

She opened the door to the diner, holding it open for

him to follow her inside. The proprietor knew her, of course, made a big fuss out of showing Officer Gomez to a fine booth in the corner. She took off her cap, hung it on one of the racks flanking the booth. Her hair was all pinned up, like.

'Well, this is a nice surprise,' she said.

'I was hoping you'd be here,' he said. 'I'm glad I caught you.'

'Me, too.'

'How's it going today?'

'Quiet. How about you?'

'I'm off today. Put in a long week, though.'

'You working something big?'

'Yeah, some pimp got aced.'

'Lucky you,' she said.

Yeah. All day yesterday, I was sitting in that pocket park off River Place, you know the one?'

'Sure. Gleason Park.'

'Waiting for this girl to show up, but she never did. This woman.'

'That's too bad, Oll'

Yeah.'

'Kinda sad, these girls,' he said.

She looked at him.

'Which girls is that, Oll?'

'These hookers, you know. I spent a lot of time in Ho Alley, too. These hookers. Standing out there, you know. Half naked.'

She kept looking at him.

'Raining, too,' he said.

She put down the menu.

You okay, Oll?' she asked. You seem kind of. . .'

Yeah, I'm fine,' he said.

'Oll?'

He nodded. Waited a long time. Then he said, 'Patricia, I have to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the God's honest truth.'

You're scaring me, Oll.' 'No, no. I. . .' 'Oil?'

'Patricia . . . am I a person to be comforted and helped?'

'You need a little comfort and help, Oll?' she asked, and smiled faintly. 'Is that it, honey?'

'Am I a person to be . . . pitied?' he asked. 'Pitied?' she said. 'No. What are you talking about, Oil? Pitied?' She almost reached across the table to grab both his hands, but then she remembered she was in uniform, and reached across with her eyes, instead, her eyes fastening to his. 'What is it, Oll?' she asked. 'For God's sake, what is it?' He shook his head. 'Oll, Ollie, please,' she said. Am I a sorry fucked-up piece of shit?' he asked. 'Ollie, Jesus, don't say such Am I a fat person?' he asked.

She reached across the table, anyway, the hell with the uniform. Took both his hands in her own. Held them tight. 'Tell me the truth,' he said.

She almost said, No, you're not fat, who's been telling you that, Oll? She almost said, You're a good dancer, Oll, very light on your feet.

Yes,' she said. You're fat.' He nodded.

'But that's just eating,' she said. He nodded again.

'Cut back a little,' she said, and tried a smile. 'Don't order four burgers for an afternoon snack.'

'How many are you going to have?' he asked.

'You folks decided yet?' a waitress asked.

'Just a glass of skim milk,' Patricia said.

Ollie hadn't even looked at the menu yet.

'I'll have what the lady's having,' he said.

'Thank you, folks,' the waitress said, and swiveled off in her pink uniform.

'Remember that movie?' Patricia asked. 'Where Meg Ryan fakes the orgasm? And the woman across the room says, 'I'll have whatever ...'?'

'Yeah, that was funny,' Ollie said. He was silently thoughtful for a moment. Then he said, 'I never tasted skim milk in my life.'

'You'll like it,' Patricia said.

'I doubt it,' he said glumly.

'But you know, Oil,' she said, 'fat, thin, who cares? I don't mind, really.'

You like going out with a fat person, huh?'

'I like going out with you,' she said.

'Wanna go out tonight?' he asked.

'Yep.'

'Why?'

'Because I like you,' she said. 'I find you creative, and . . .'

'Creative? No, Patri . . .'

'Yes, Oll! You wrote a book!'

'Well

'How many people can write a book? I can't write a book!'

'Well

He almost said, 'I caught the faggot spic hump who stole it,' but he didn't say that out loud because Patricia probably'd had lots of people calling her a spic in her lifetime, and he didn't think she'd appreciate the word com-

ing from his mouth, although it probably was short for Hispanic, what writers called an elision, he supposed.

'I caught the guy who stole it,' he said.

'Get out!'

'I did. He recited the whole thing for me. I taped it. I can start all over again, Patricia. I can listen to it, and find out what's good or bad, and make it really work this time.'

'You see what I mean? That's so creative, Oll, and inquisitive, and . . .'

'Come on, you'll make me blush.'

'So blush,' she said. 'I'll bet blushing burns calories. And lively and . . . and . . . yes, you are a good dancer!'

"Who said I wasn't?'

'Well. . . nobody.'

'So are you, Patricia.'

'Thank you, Oll. I really do like the way we dance together, don't you?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Maybe we can go dancing again tonight. Burn some more calories.'

'Better than exercise, that's for sure,' he said.

'But it is exercise. Dancing. You know what else you should do, Oll?'

'No what?'

'You should think about going down the police gym, run the track, lift some weights. Be good for you.'

'I'd have a heart attack.'

'Nah, come on, a heart attack! What's the matter with you? A little exercise? Come on!'

'Exercise is boring.'

'Sure. So?'

Ollie shrugged.

'By the way,' she said, 'tonight's my treat. I owe you one.'

'Okay, I accept,' he said.

'Be a cheap date,' she said, and winked. 'Now that you're on a diet, right?'

He hadn't realized he was on a diet. 'And, by the way, when are you gonna learn "Spanish Eyes" for me?' she asked. 'I almost have it down pat.' 'The Al Martino version, right?' 'Right.'

'Not the Backstreet Boys.'

'Right. My piano teacher says I'm almost there.' 'I want you to play it for my mother.' 'Maybe I should lose a few pounds first.' 'Nan, she's fat, too,' Patricia said, and burst out laughing.

Ollie found himself laughing, too. 'Two skim milks,' the waitress said, and set them down. 'Anything else?' she asked, and looked at Ollie expectantly.

'Thank you, no,' he said.

'You know,' Patricia said, 'fifty percent of all Americans want to lose twenty pounds, did you know that?'

'Yeah, well not me,' he said. 'I want to lose weight, too,' she said. 'You do?'

'Sure. Ten pounds or so. I would love to lose ten pounds or so.'

'You think I should lose ten pounds or so?' 'Well... to start.'

'Then what? Twenty pounds? Like fifty percent of Americans want to lose?'

'No, fifty pounds. Like twenty percent of Americans want to lose.'

Ollie looked at her. She grinned, shrugged. 'I made up that last statistic,' she said. 'Good thing. Cause I don't plan to lose no fifty damn pounds.'

'Okay, start with ten.'

'Ten, I could maybe manage.'

'Good, we'll both lose ten pounds.'

'Both of us, huh?'

Sure. We'll lose ten together.'

'Together,' he repeated.

Somehow, together sounded good.

This was all very strange.

'Patricia?' he said.

'Yes, Oil?'

'If Report to the Commissioner is ever published

Yes?'

'I'm gonna dedicate it to you.'

Her eyes went suddenly moist.

She squeezed his hands across the table.

This was all so very strange.

He sipped a little of the skim milk.

It tasted like goat piss.

MEYER WAS JUST about to sign out when the phone call came. He looked up at the wall clock. 3:43 p.m. 'Eighty-seventh Squad,' he said. 'Detective Meyer.' 'May I speak to Detective Carella, please?' 'Not in today. May I take a message?' 'Yes. Will you tell him Adam Fen called . . . ?' Meyer immediately looked at the caller ID number flashing on his screen. A 377 prefix. Right here in the precinct. He signaled to Parker across the room, waved

him over to the desk. On a sheet of paper, he scribbled the single word:

ADDRESS!

Parker nodded, wrote down the caller ID number, and went back to his own desk.

'Are you still there?' the Deaf Man asked.

'Still here,' Meyer said.

'I hope you're not doing what I think you're doing. I'll be gone long before you get here.'

'What is it you think I'm doing?'

'Please, dummy,' the Deaf Man said, 'you're way out of your league. Give this message to Carella. Have you got a pencil?'

'Ready,' Meyer said.

'Tell him a woman named Melissa Summers may try to leave the country in the next few days. Tell him

At his own desk, Parker was talking to a phone company supervisor, trying to get an address for the 377 number. With his free hand, Meyer gestured Hurry up!

'. . . to watch the airports. She's in possession of. . .'

'How do you spell that name, please?'

'Summer with an s on the end!' the Deaf Man shouted. 'Melissa Summers. Stop . . . stop trying to keep me on this line!'

He seemed to be suddenly struggling for breath.

'Are you okay?' Meyer asked.

'No, as a matter of fact, I've been shot. But don't . . .' He struggled for breath again. 'Don't bother putting out... a med alert, I've got my own doctor, thanks.'

'Why don't you let us come help you?' Meyer suggested. We'll get you to a hos ..."

'Please don't be ridiculous,' the Deaf Man said, and caught his breath again.

Across the room, Parker was just getting off the phone.

'Tell Carella she has the Strad.'

'The what?'

'Tell him I hope he gets her.'

There was a click on the line.

'It's 328 River Place South,' Parker said.

GENERO KICKED IN the door to apartment 17D at four-fifteen that Saturday afternoon. It was the first time in his life he'd ever kicked in a door. It made him feel like a television cop. He was not alone — in storming the apartment, that is. Parker and Meyer had both done this sort of thing before, and they did not feel like television cops at all. In fact, they felt more like firemen, breaking down the door this way. Whoever had lived here —

According to the super, the man renting the apartment was named Adam Fen, though recently a good-looking blonde had begun living with him. They figured this had to be the Melissa Summers the Deaf Man had mentioned, but the super didn't know her name. Whoever had lived here had left in a very big hurry. There were blood stains in the entry hall, on the carpet near the hall table. Heavy stains. They figured this was where he'd got shot and where he'd done most of his bleeding. There was also a trail of blood leading first to the bathroom, where a roll of cotton gauze on the sink seemed to indicate he'd tried to stanch the blood and bind the wound, and next to a small office at the rear of the apartment, where blood smears on the computer keyboard seemed to indicate he'd been typing something before he left.

When they booted up the machine, they discoveted that all the files had been deleted. The only thing that popped up on the screen was a yellow Stickie note that read:

I'LL BE SEEING YOU, BOYS!

'Guy's bleeding all over the floor, he stops to write us a note,' Genero said.

'That's his style, all right,' Meyer agreed..

'I'LL BE SEEING you, huh?' Carella said into the phone.

'Is what the Stickie said.'

'And you think he's wounded, is that it?'