Hark! (23 page)

“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.

 

S
HARYN 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.

 

I
T BOTHERED
O
LLIE
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.

 

T
HE 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.

 

T
HE
D
EAF
M
AN'S
letter arrived some forty minutes later. Another junkie delivered it. It was carried up to the squadroom by a patrolman wearing latex gloves. 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:

“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.”

“W
HERE 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?”