Hark!

by Ed McBain

  “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 darts!”

  “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 Ninth 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, MA’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.

  “…i piu 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 car!”

  Sallas reached for his violin case.