Hark!

by Ed McBain

  Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,

  How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,

  But she would spell him backward

  “There’s backward again,” Meyer said.

  “Is he referring to Carmela Sammarone?”

  “The she, you mean?”

  “First time he’s used the word she.”

  “His little hooker emissary.”

  “And all the ‘wise, noble, young, rarely featured’ goddamn junkies she’s sending up here,” Parker said.

  “He may also be commenting on his own bad spelling,” Genero said. “All his ‘haths,’ you know.”

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

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

  “Referring to the ‘fall backward,’ ” Willis said. “In his first note today.”

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

  “Tell us what backwards?”

  “Whatever he’s going to do with these darts of his.”

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

  So was Genero.

  Two wops in concert, Parker thought.

  “Can you imagine him throwing darts?” Carella said.

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

  “I can imagine that,” Meyer said.

  “When did you ever see that?” Hawes asked.

  “I’m sure I’ve seen that,” Meyer said. “This city?”

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

  “Whom,” Willis corrected.

  “Thank you, Professor, Parker said.

  “Well, he’s right,” Eileen said protectively.

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

  “It’s from Much Ado About Nothing,” Carella said. “Act Three, Scene One.”

  “Which is exactly what this is,” Parker said. “Much ado about nothing. A whole bunch of bullshit. He’s not gonna kill anybody, he’s not gonna rob a bank or blow up a building, he’s just breaking our balls.”

  “Not mine,” Eileen said.

  Willis laughed.

  Kling was sure now that something was going on here.

  “Wanna get some lunch?” Hawes asked him.

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

  “Maybe the crime already took place,” he was saying.

  “Maybe so,” Hawes said.

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

  “That’s possible, I guess.”

  Both men seemed preoccupied.

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

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

  “You want them?”

  “No, I’m okay.”

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

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

  “It’s about Augusta.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Will it bother you to talk about her?”

  “No. All water under the bridge.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Actually, in fact, it’s about Augusta as she relates to Honey.”

  “Uh-huh. Their names, do you mean?”

  “No. Their names? What about their names?”

  “Augusta Blair, Honey Blair. I was wondering if you…”

  “No, that isn’t…”

  “…thought maybe they were related or something.”

  “Never crossed my mind.”

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

  “Sure. Hey, Tony Blair, right?”

  “Exactly. Anyway, Blair isn’t Gussie’s real name.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Blair isn’t the name on her birth certificate.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Bludge.”

  “What?”

  “Augusta Bludge.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “No. She changed it when she went into modeling.”

  “Why does that always fascinate people?” Hawes asked. “Who cares what name is on a person’s birth certificate? Nobody is born with a name, you know, there isn’t a name stamped on anyone’s forehead. A person is given a name by his or her parents. A person inherits a surname, like it or not, and then he’s given a first name. That’s why it’s called a ‘given’ name. Because it’s given to him. So if a guy wants to give himself a new name, that’s entirely his business, isn’t it? You think I like the name ‘Cotton’?” he asked, gathering steam. “How would you like to go through life with the name ‘Cotton’? Or ‘Hawes,’ for that matter. You know how many times I was called ‘Horse’ when I was a kid? You know how many times I’ve been tempted to change it? Cotton Hawes? So who cares what Augusta’s real name was? Anyway, you don’t mean her real name, do you? Because the minute she changed it, her real name became Blair, didn’t it? You mean her birth name, don’t you? Isn’t that what you mean?”

  “I guess so,” Kling said, sorry he’d brought up the entire matter.

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

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

  “Bludge, who’da thought? What is that, German? She looks so Irish. I mean that red hair…”

  “Auburn, actually.”

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

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

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

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

  “Or cousins,” Hawes said.

  “Small world, sure,” Kling said.

  Both men fell silent.

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

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

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

  “Oh, sure.”

  “So I was wondering…I mean, I’m just a cop, we’re both just cops…”

  “I know what you mean, yes.”

  “…and these two women make a lot more money than we do…”

  “Yes.”

  “…and are a hell of a lot better-looking than we are…”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “So I wonder…I can’t help wondering…I mean…is it going to work? I know it didn’t work for you, Bert…”
>
  “No, it didn’t,” Kling said.

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

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

  “It’s always best to talk it over,” Kling said.

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

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

  That hot summer.

  The heat that summer.

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

  “You got a taxi waiting?” Hawes asked.

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

  Hawes looked at his own watch.

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

  “Sure. If it really bothers you, sure. Talk it over.”

  “Well, actually that’s not what’s really bothering me, exactly.”

  “Then what is?”

  “I just get the feeling…ah, forget it. I’m being a cop, that’s all.”

  “What is it, Cotton?”

  “I get the feeling she’s not being completely honest with me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Holding something back, you know?”

  Join the club, Kling thought.

  “So discuss it with her,” he said.

  “You think so, huh?”

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

  Hawes signaled to the waitress.

  “Where you headed, anyway?” he asked.

  “1214 Haskell,” Kling said.

  But he wasn’t.

  SHARYN WAS WAITING outside her office building in Diamondback.

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

  He had checked her appointment calendar last night.

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

  And below that: My office. 2:30 P.M.

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

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

  Or your significant other.

  Or your lover.

  Or whatever.

  What goes around comes around, he thought.

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

  Ye Olde Tea Room.

  Ye what? Kling thought.

  He didn’t know they even had tea rooms in America, old or otherwise. In the heart of Diamondback, no less. Would wonders never? He hung back while they entered the place, two innocent colleagues out for their early afternoon tea, pip pip and all that. As soon as they were clear, he approached the plate glass window, put his face to it, hands cupped on either side of his head, alongside his eyes, and peered inside.

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

  A white woman.

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

  Kling wondered what the hell he had stumbled into here.

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

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

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

  Yes, well, whatever it was…

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

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

  “The card holder’s name is what I’m looking for!”

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

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

  THE THIRD NOTE that day arrived a little early.

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

  And it wasn’t addressed to Carella.

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

  Parker himself carried it into the squadroom.

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

  “Naturally,” Meyer said. “Same m.o.”

  “Little early, though,” Willis said, looking at his watch.

  “And now he’s picking on you, Richie.”

  “Richard,” Genero corrected.

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

  “Well, ain’t you gonna open it?” Parker asked.

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

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

  Carella looked surprised. He put on the gloves, anyway, picked up a letter opener, slit open the envelope, pulled out the single sheet of white paper inside, and unfolded it. The note read:

  37OHSSV 0773H

  “What’s that?” Parker asked. “Your license plate number?”

  “Why’s he sending us numbers all of a sudden?” Genero asked.

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

  “There’s the H again,” Eileen said. “At the end of the sentence.”

  “H for horseshit,” Parker said.

  “How about the ‘oh seven seven’?” Hawes asked.

  “That’s James Bond’s number!” Genero said.

  “No, that’s Double-Oh Seven.”

  They all kept staring at the message.

  37OHSSV 0773H

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

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

  “Why don’t you turn it upside down, Richard?” Parker suggested.

  “What do you mean?”

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

  Genero turned the letter upside down.

  “Very funny,” he said.

  THE DEAF MAN’S letter arrived some forty minutes later. Another junkie delivered it. It was carried up to the squadroom by a patrolman wearing latex glove
s. They knew they’d find no fingerprints on either the envelope or the message inside it, but one couldn’t be too careful these days. The envelope was addressed to Carella again, the same personal challenge, one on one. The note inside read:

  And here have I the daintiness of ear

  To check time broke in a disorder’d string

  “Whyn’t you turn it upside down again, Richard?” Parker suggested.

  “Whyn’t you go fuck yourself?” Genero said. “Excuse me, Eileen.”

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

  “I’ll say,” Parker said, and shot a glance at her chest.

  Willis shot him a warning look.

  Kling caught this.

  He was positive now.

  But why should he care?

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

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

  “Broken time,” Meyer agreed.

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

  “Starting to repeat himself.”

  “He’s jerking us off again,” Parker said.

  “No, he’s going to tell us when,” Hawes said.

  “I’ll bet,” Eileen said.

  “The exact time.”

  “But backwards.”

  “Time in a disorder’d string.”

  “And signs himself,” Parker said.

  “Huh?” Genero said.

  “Daintiness of ear, Richard.”

  “WHERE WERE YOU, Melissa?” he asked.

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

  “The cops are looking for me,” she said.

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

  “How do you know that?”

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

  “Or vice versa,” he said.

  “Whatever,” she said. “Do you remember Wanda?”

  “I remember her. She of the thong panties.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She showed me. When you went to the ladies room.”

  “So why’d you pick me instead?”

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