Hark! (33 page)

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.

 

T
HE NEXT ENVELOPE
arrived at the end of the day.

It, too, contained just a single note:

“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.

 

T
HE 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.

P
REDICTING 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.

 

T
HE 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 opening. 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.

 

I
T'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.

A 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 PRECINT'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?

 

H
AWES 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.

“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…