Hark!

by Ed McBain

  “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, who ever 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 over-slept. 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 f
orwards. 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.