Hark! (8 page)

“I don't like the expression ‘Whitey,' ” Sharyn said.

“Sorry. Didn't mean it in a derogatory way. In any case, Spit Shine no longer exists. Guy who wrote their stuff got killed in the Grover Park riot a few years back. Remember the riot there?”

“Yes.”

She remembered. The day after the riot, a white detective named Bert Kling had called her from a phone booth in the rain to ask if she'd like to go to dinner and a movie with him.

“Twenty-three years old when a stray bullet killed him,” Hudson said. “His name was Sylvester Cummings, his rapper's handle was ‘Silver.' Wrote wonderful lyrics. Wonderful.” And again without preamble, he began beating out a rhythm on the table top, and began singing in a low, somehow urgent voice.

“I don't like
that
word, either,” Sharyn said.

“Man was trying to make a point,” Hudson said.

Their food arrived.

He seemed about to say something more. Instead, he just shook his head, and began eating.

“Adam,” Meyer said.

“Adam Fen,” Carella said.

“The Chinese guy again,” Genero said.

“The Deaf Man,” Kling said.

“If he's deaf, then how can he
hear
?” Parker asked. “ ‘Thou shalt
hear.
' ” “And what's with all this Quaker talk all at once?” Willis asked. “ ‘
Thou
shalt hear?' What's that supposed to be?”

“ ‘Thy hat and thy glove,' ” Eileen said. “That was a good movie.”

This was now ten minutes past three. She'd been back in the squadroom since a quarter to. As she'd suspected, the FirstBank safe-deposit box was empty. She was wondering now if it was worth sending Mobile over there to dust it for prints. Had “Gloria Stanford” put on gloves before opening it?

“
Friendly Persuasion
,” Kling said, remembering.

They had seen it together on television, Eileen lying in his arms on the couch in his studio apartment near the Calm's Point Bridge. That was when they were still living together. That was a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.

“ ‘Thee I love,' ” Eileen said, remembering.

“He's telling us he plans to shake us up,” Parker said.

He
hated
this fucking Deaf Man. Made him feel stupid. Which maybe he was. But he didn't even like to consider that possibility.

“Shake us up
how
?” Brown asked.

“You think he's gonna tell us all at once?”

“Oh no, not him.”

“Piece by piece.”

“Bit by bit.”

“Listen.”

“Go apart and listen.”

“Hark!” Willis said.

And this time, no one questioned his use of the word.

 

T
HE CALL FROM
M
ILAN
came at three-thirty, which Carella figured was either nine-thirty or ten-thirty over there in Italy. The call was from Luigi Fontero, the man who was about to marry Carella's mother on June twelfth and whisk her off to Italy shortly thereafter.
Life With Luigi
, he thought.

“Hey, Luigi,” he said, feigning a jovial camaraderie he did not feel. “What a surprise! How are you?”

“Fine, Steve, and you?” Fontero said.

Mild Italian accent. Somehow it grated.

“Busy, busy,” Carella said. “We've having trouble again with a criminal we call the Deaf Man. That would be ‘
El Sordo
' in your language.”

“Il
Sordo
,” Fontero corrected.

“Right,” Carella said.

Thanks, he thought.

“So what can I do for you?” he asked.

“I don't know how to begin.”

Carella immediately thought
He's calling off the wedding
!

He waited.

“About the wedding…”

Breathlessly, he waited.

“I don't know how to say this.”

Just say it, Carella thought. Just tell me you've made a terrible mistake, you've now met a lovely Italian girl drawing water from the well in the town square, and you'd like to call off the entire thing. Just
say
it, Luigi!

“I don't wish to offend you.”

No, no, Carella almost said aloud. No offense, Luigi, none at all. I quite understand. We all make mistakes.

“I want to pay for the cost of the wedding,” Fontero blurted.

“What?” Carella said.

“I know this is not customary…”

“What?” he said again.

“I know the groom is not supposed to make such an offer. But Luisa is a widow…your mother is a widow…and we are neither of us youngsters, there is no father of the bride here, there is only a loving, devoted son who has taken it upon himself…”

He's rehearsed this, Carella thought.

“…to shoulder the burden of a
double
wedding, his mother's
and
his sister's. And, Steve, I cannot allow this to happen. You are a civil servant…”

Oh,
please
, Carella thought.

“…and I cannot allow you to assume the tremendous expense of a double wedding. If you will permit me…”

“No, I can't do that,” Carella said.

“I've offended you.”

“Not at all. But I'm perfectly comfortable paying for both weddings. In fact it's been fun talking to caterers and musicians and…”

“I can hear it in your voice.”

“No, Luigi, truly. It's very kind of you to make such an offer, but you're right, this isn't something the groom should have to do, pay for his own wedding, no, Luigi. No. Truly. When do you plan to come over?”

“Are you certain about this, Steve? I'm ready to wire to my bank there…”

“No, no. Not another word about it. How's the weather there in Milan?”

“Lovely actually. But I long to be there. I miss your mother.” He hesitated. “I love her dearly,” he said.

“I'm sure she loves you, too,” Carella said. “So when do you think you'll be here?”

“I fly in on the eighth. Four days before the wedding.”

“Good, that's good,” Carella said.

There was a long silence on the line.

“Well, I'd better get back to work here,” Carella said.

“Are you sure I haven't offend…?”

“Positive, positive. See you next week sometime. Have a good flight.”

“Thank you, Steve.”

Carella broke the connection.

 

H
E WONDERED NOW
if actually he
had
been offended.

Here at the ragtag end of the day's shift in this grimy squadroom he had called home for such a long time now, he wondered if the offer from the rich furniture-maker in Milan had offended him.

As a working detective, Carella currently earned $62,857 a year. By his most recent calculation, the double wedding was going to cost almost half that. Without doubt, Mr. Luigi Fontero could more easily afford to pay for the coming festivities than could Detective/Second Grade Stephen Louis Carella.

But there was this matter of pride.

When he was still in college, one of his professors—and he truly could no longer remember which class this had been—called him in to discuss his term paper and his final grade. The professor told him it was a very good paper, and he was grading it an A, and then he said he was giving Carella a B-plus for the semester.

He must have seen the look on Carella's face.

“Or do you really
need
an A?” the professor asked.

Carella didn't know what that meant. Did he really
need
an A?
Everyone
really needs an A, he thought.

He looked the professor dead in the eye.

“No,” he said. “I don't really need an A. B-plus will be fine.”

And he'd picked up his term paper and walked out.

A mere matter of pride.

So what the hell? he thought now.

My mother and my only sister are getting married. So thanks, Mr. Fontero, but no thanks. I'll find a way to pay for it myself. Even if it takes me to the poorhouse.

Which was just when the Deaf Man's final note of the day arrived.

“Now we're getting there,” Meyer said.

“
Where
are we getting?” Parker wanted to know. “It's just more damn Shakespeare.”

“But he'll be sending us a book!”

“ ‘A
secret
book,' ” Kling corrected.

“Didn't Shakespeare write sonnets?” Genero asked. “I hope it's a book of his sonnets. I like his poetry.”

“Personally, I find it somewhat shitty,” Parker said.

“We've got to put them all together,” Carella said. “His notes. The four notes we received today.”

“Why?”

“Because they won't make sense otherwise. Same as the anagrams.”

“You're right,” Willis said. “We've got to look at them as a whole. Otherwise they're just nonsense.”

“You want my opinion,” Parker said, “they're just nonsense, anyway. I mean, what the fuck—excuse me, Eileen—is
this
supposed to mean? ‘As to o'er-walk a current roaring loud on the unsteadfast footing of a spear.' I mean, that isn't even
English
!”

“Let's take a look at the other ones,” Carella suggested, and removed the previous three notes from the center drawer of his desk.

“He's telling us he's planning something for the summer.”

“Or maybe even
sooner.
”

“Sometime closer to May…”

“ ‘The darling buds of
May
,' ” Eileen said.

“ ‘Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May' ”

“He's telling us the party's gonna get rough.”

“Let's see the second note.”

“Previews of coming attractions,” Meyer said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“We can expect a full-screen ad for a furniture store next,” Parker said. “I
hate
going to the movies nowadays.”

“Oh, me, too,” Eileen agreed.

“Wake up, he's telling us. ‘Shake off slumber.' ”

“Let's see the third one.”

“Uses the name ‘Adam' this time,” Willis said.

“Lets us know this is the same Adam Fen who sent us the anagrams.”

“Same Deaf Man who told us who he killed last Sunday.”

“Whom,” Genero corrected.

“Same fuckin
murderer
,” Parker said heatedly. “Excuse me, Eileen.”