Hark!

by Ed McBain

  The Music section this week…

  The Deaf Man’s note this morning seemed to confirm that his target was a concert someplace…

  …was divided into subsections titled “Rock, Pop & Soul,” “Reggae, World & Latin,” “Jazz & Experimental,” “Blues, Folk & Country,” and “Cabaret.” A separate section listed “Classical & Opera” events. The variety of offerings was overwhelming. For this weekend alone, there were 112 listings in the “Rock, Pop & Soul” section; this was not Painted Shrubs, Arizona, kiddies.

  The magazine’s DON’T MISS! column highlighted the “dashing singer-guitarist”John Pizzarelli and his trio, appearing nightly at 8:30 P.M. in the Skyline Room of the Hanover Hotel; “soul legend”Isaac Hayes, performing at 8:00 and 10:30 this Friday and Saturday nights at Lou’s Place downtown; Kathleen Landis, “lovely pianist and song stylist,” nightly at 9:00 P.M. in the lounge of the Picadilly; Konstantinos Sallas, “renowned violin virtuoso, guest-starring with the Philharmonic” at Clarendon Hall this Saturday and Sunday at 3:00 P.M.; and William Christie leading the Paris National Opera and his “stellar early-music ensemble” in Les Boréades at the Calm’s Point Academy of Music, this Friday at 7:15 P.M. and this Sunday at 2:00 P.M.

  There were groups named the Hangdogs, and Cigar Store Indians, and the Abyssinians, and Earth Wind & Fire, and the White Stripes, and Drive-By Truckers, but nobody named the Minstrels was performing anywhere in the city anytime during the coming week.

  “Think there’s a group called ‘A Mad Marriage’?” Kling asked.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Meyer said.

  “Here, you check it out,” Brown said, and tossed him the magazine. “There’s only ten thousand of them listed.”

  “How about ‘Never Was Before’?”

  “Or ‘A Rout Is Coming’?”

  “Good start,” Willis said. “Know any lead guitarists?”

  “Anybody got a garage?” Eileen said.

  “What’s a rout?” Genero asked.

  “A disorderly retreat,” Kling said.

  “I thought it was some kind of rodent.”

  “He’s telling us he’s got us on the run,” Parker said.

  “Maybe he has,” Carella said.

  IT BOTHERED HIM that somehow, in some damn mysterious way, the Deaf Man may have learned about tomorrow’s impending wedding, weddings, and was planning some mischief for them. Carella hated mysteries. In police work, there were no mysteries. There were only crimes and the people who committed them. But the Deaf Man insisted on creating his own little mysteries, taunting them with clues, making a humorous guessing game of crime.

  On Carella’s block, there was nothing humorous about crime. Crime was serious business, and the people who committed crimes were nothing but criminals, period. He didn’t care if they came from broken homes, he didn’t care if they’d been abused as children, he didn’t care if they had what they believed were very good reasons for beating the system. The way Carella looked at it, there were no very good reasons for beating the system. Maybe President Clinton should have kept his zipper zipped, but he was right when he suggested that everyone should work hard and play by the rules.

  Carella worked hard and played by the rules.

  The Deaf Man didn’t.

  That was the difference between them.

  Well, maybe the Deaf Man was working hard at concocting these riddles of his, but he sure as hell wasn’t playing by the rules.

  Carella had to admit that there was nothing he’d have liked better than for someone—anyone—to pop out of his seat and raise his hand when the priest asked the gathered witnesses to speak now or forever hold their peace. But he did not want that someone to be the Deaf Man. He did not want any surprises at tomorrow’s ceremony, ceremonies.

  He wanted all of this over and done with.

  The weddings and whatever the Deaf Man was planning.

  All of it.

  Toward that end, the Deaf Man’s next note was no help at all.

  So glad of this as they I cannot be,

  Who are surprised withal; but my rejoicing

  At nothing can be more. I’ll to my book,

  For yet ere supper-time must I perform

  Much business appertaining.

  “No, wait,” Willis said. “I think he’s trying to tell us something, after all.”

  “Yeah, what? There’s nothing at all about a concert this time,” Parker said.

  “But he’s back to something printed again. ‘Thy printed worth,’ remember? Now he’s specifically mentioning a book. ‘I’ll to my book.’ There it is, right there, in black and white. A book.”

  “I looked at all Shakespeare’s plays in the library the other night,” Genero said.

  “Good, Richard, you get a gold star.”

  “Well, maybe he’s telling us to go to the library. To find that missing quote, or whatever.”

  “Of course he is,” Parker said, encouraging him. “Maybe in the very same book you looked at the other night.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “Maybe you can even borrow the book, Richard. Ponder it at your leisure.”

  “Well, wait a minute,” Eileen said. “He did say ‘borrow or rob,’ didn’t he? In one of his notes? And that’s where you borrow a book, isn’t it? A library?”

  “First book I ever owned,” Parker said, “I stole from the lib’ery.”

  “Where’s that Here & Now?” Eileen asked. “Is there anything about a library in it?”

  IN A SECTION of the magazine titled…

  AROUND TOWN

  …they found a subsection titled:

  Last Chance Department.

  Headlined there was an article titled…

  Bye Bye, Bard

  It read:

  To mark the departure of the 6.2-million-dollar First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays, on loan from the Folger Collection in Washington, D.C., Patrick Stewart—renowned Shakespearean actor and subsequent captain of the starship Enterprise—will read from selected plays in a farewell tribute. Saturday, June 12, at 3:00 P.M. The Molson Auditorium at Langdon Library.

  THIS TIME, THEY Googled directly to First Folio. And this time, they found the source of what until now they’d believed was a Shakespearean quote:

  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.

  The lines of verse had been written “To the memory of Master William Shakespeare” by a contemporary poet and translator named James Mabbe. It appeared in the 1623 First Folio of plays as one of several introductory dedications.

  “Never heard of him,” Parker said.

  But it now seemed possible that the Deaf Man was directing them to the valuable book that would be leaving the Langdon Library this Saturday. And it seemed further possible that he planned to steal it.

  “And hold it for ransom,” Eileen suggested. “ ‘Must sell at tallest sum.’ ”

  “He’s gonna kidnap a book?” Genero said.

  “Whatever he’s gonna do, he’s doing it before suppertime,” Kling said.

  “Sure, look.”

  For yet ere supper-time must I perform

  Much business appertaining.

  “Three o’clock would seem to qualify,” Brown said.

  “Where’s the Langdon Library?”

  “Midtown South Precinct, isn’t it?”

  “We’d better alert them.”

  “You think they don’t already know they’ve got a six-million-dollar book on their hands?”

  “Six million two.”

  “Security there must be thicker than bear shit.”

  “But that’s it,” Willis said. “We doped it out, right?”

  “Thank you, Mr. D
eaf Man,” Genero said, and bowed from the waist.

  You are welcome, gentlemen! come, musicians, play.

  A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.

  “Friggin guy’s a mind reader,” Parker said.

  “What’s he mean ‘girls’?”

  “I’m a girl,” Eileen said, and beamed a Shirley Temple smile.

  “He’s back to music again.”

  “ ‘Musicians.’ ”

  “ ‘A hall, a hall!’ ”

  “A concert hall!”

  “Where’s that magazine?”

  “Wasn’t there something about…?”

  “Here.”

  Under DON’T MISS!, they once again found:

  Konstantinos Sallas, “renowned violin virtuoso, guest-starring with the Philharmonic” at Clarendon Hall this Saturday and Sunday at 3:00 P.M.

  “Three o’clock again,” Eileen said. “That’s still ‘ere suppertime.’ ”

  “What does he mean by air?” Genero asked.

  “Before.”

  For yet ere supper-time must I perform

  “That would seem to indicate a concert, don’t you think?” Carella said. “The word perform?”

  “No, he’s saying he himself has to perform,” Meyer said. “He has ‘much business appertaining.’ ”

  “But it doesn’t sound like a book anymore, does it?”

  “The son of a bitch is asking us to choose!” Parker said.

  “Which? The Sallas concert or the Folger First Folio?”

  “The concert,” Eileen said.

  “The book,” Genero said.

  “Both,” Kling said.

  It was Brown who tipped.

  “A palindrome!” he said. “Sallas!”

  And now they all jumped in like a Greek chorus.

  “Sallas!”

  “Sallas!”

  “He’s going after the violinist!”

  “He’s going to kidnap the friggin violinist!”

  “And hold him for the tallest sum!”

  “Or maybe the book,” Genero insisted, raining on their parade.

  “Which?” Carella asked.

  THE NEXT BARRAGE of notes—seven of them in all—arrived in the same envelope at two that afternoon. They were all Shakespearean quotes, which in itself seemed to indicate the Deaf Man’s target was not some palindromic Greek fiddler, but the pricey book containing thirty-six of the bard’s plays. Contrariwise, as was the Deaf Man’s wont, the content of the notes seemed to be challenging the detectives to choose. Either or, lads. You pays yer money, and you takes yer choice.

  It is “music with her silver sound,”

  because musicians have no gold for sounding:

  But on the other hand:

  Was ever book containing such vile matter

  So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell

  In such a gorgeous palace!

  Then again:

  And those musicians that shall play to you

  Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence,

  And straight they shall be here: sit, and attend.

  Unless:

  A book? O rare one!

  However:

  If music be the food of love, play on

  But perhaps:

  Devise, wit; write, pen;

  for I am for whole volumes in folio.

  Thanks for nothing, they were thinking.

  You are very welcome, sir,

  Take you the lute, and you the set of books

  AND NOW THERE seemed to be an urgency to the Deaf Man’s notes. A sense of impending accomplishment. A certainty that time was running out, the deed would soon be done, and if they didn’t catch on soon, it would be too damned late.

  The previous envelope had contained seven notes.

  This one arrived a half-hour later, and there was just a single note in it:

  And she goes down at twelve.

  “Party’s getting rough again,” Parker said, and winked at Eileen.

  THE THING WAS, Ollie was looking for either a redhead with short hair, or a brunette with long hair. He wasn’t looking for the feather-cut, elegantly dressed blonde who came into the park at three that afternoon and took a bench facing the river. He had no idea that this was Melissa Summers.

  Nor did Melissa have any idea that the fat guy sitting on a bench near the playground equipment here in Cathleen Gleason Park was a detective. Most detectives she’d known worked out in the gym and had muscles on their muscles. This guy looked more like a pedophile, but she didn’t have any kids here in the park, so let their mothers worry. Besides, after chasing junkies all day long, all she wanted to do was sit here peacefully and listen to the sound of the distant river.

  In any case, neither of the two paid the slightest bit of attention to the other.

  At three-fifteen, Melissa got up, heaved a gentle sigh, left the park, and started back for the apartment on River Place South. She was thinking that on Sunday at this time, she’d be basking on a beach in Tortola.

  Some five minutes later, Ollie got off his bench, farted, and headed back for the Eight-Eight. It never once occurred to him that he should give the Eight-Seven a little buzz, mention that Carmela Sammarone was going by the name Melissa Summers these days. Neither did he realize how close he’d come to nailing her, whoever she might be, or even whomever.

  Tomorrow’s another day, he thought, and nothing’s over till it’s over.

  THE NEXT ENVELOPE arrived at the end of the day.

  It, too, contained just a single note:

  Come on; there is sixpence for you: let’s have a song.

  “A song,” Carella said. “The violinist again. Sallas.”

  “The ransom’s gonna be sixpence!” Genero said.

  “Brilliant, Richard. You know what sixpence is?”

  “Of course I know what it is! What is it?”

  “Six pennies, Richard.”

  “Then why didn’t he say so?”

  “But you notice he’s gone from twelve to six?” Willis said.

  “That’s right,” Meyer said. “It was twelve in the last note.”

  “Now it’s six.”

  “He’s going backwards again,” Kling said.

  “Six-twelve,” Meyer said.

  “ ‘And she goes down at twelve,’ ” Eileen quoted.

  “Yes, ma’am!” Parker said, and waggled his eyebrows at her.

  “Get your mind out of the gutter, Andy. Maybe he’s using a different kind of slang.”

  “Who, Shakespeare?” Genero asked.

  “No, the Deaf Man. Maybe he’s telling us when the crime will go down.”

  “Twelve noon, you mean?”

  “No. Six-twelve.”

  “Huh?”

  “Maybe that’s what all the backwards bullshit was about. Maybe he’s saying June twelfth. Maybe he’s saying tomorrow.”

  “When tomorrow?” Parker asked.

  “Sometime before supper?” Willis said.

  “How about three o’clock?”

  “That’s both the library reading and the concert.”

  “So let’s dog both events,” Carella said.

  THE LIEUTENANT IN COMMAND of Midtown South totally dismissed the idea of anyone trying to breach the security at the library’s Folger Exhibit. Primo, there were armed guards all over the room that housed the alarmed case in which the book was exhibited. Secondo, there was state-of-the-art technology in the alarm system itself. If anyone so much as breathed on that case, alarms would sound all over the museum, and at the offices of Security Plus, who would call Mid South at once. There was no way anyone could even approach that book, no less get it out of that room.

  “How about at the reading tomorrow?” Carella asked.

  “What reading?” the lieutenant asked. His name was Brian O’Ryan. Carella figured he’d had a father as comical as Meyer Meyer’s.

  “The reading Patrick Stewart will be doing,” he said.

  “I don’t know anything about any reading
.”

  “Three o’clock tomorrow,” Carella said.

  “I’ll check it out,” O’Ryan said. “If I feel it calls for a police presence, I’ll supply it. Provided the Captain will authorize overtime pay.”

  “I’ll let you know if we get anything further from the possible perp,” Carella said.

  “The possible perp, uh-huh,” the lieutenant said.

  The Chief of Security at the library said much the same thing. The case containing the book was alarmed and there were armed guards in the Elizabethan Room…

  “Is that where the reading tomorrow will take place?” Carella asked.

  “No, no. Do you mean Captain Picard’s reading? No, that’ll be in the Molson Auditorium.”

  “And where will the book be at that time?”

  “Right where it is now.”

  “The Elizabethan Room.”

  “Yes. Under armed guard. In an alarmed case. Moreover, the case is on steel ball bearings. After the reading—which should end around four o’clock, he’s only scheduled to read for an hour or so—the Head of Special Collections will accompany the guards when they wheel it out of the Elizabethan Room and into a steel vault, where it will remain locked up and secure until the Folger people came to recover it on Sunday.”

  “In other words…”

  “In other words, the book will not be taken from the case until armed guards remove it and carry it to an armored car that will transport it back to Washington.”

  “I see,” Carella said.

  “However—since you seem so terribly concerned, Detective Coppola—we’ll make sure our security staff is watching for any suspicious-looking characters lurking about the library at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

  Carella didn’t much appreciate the sarcasm, but he thanked the man, and then called Clarendon Hall.

  The Director of Events there was entirely more understanding, perhaps because not too long ago there’d been a terrorist attack at the hall itself. He told Carella that ever since that devastating assault, security had been on red alert at all times. Certainly, no one intent on mischief could conceivably get past the armed guards and metal detectors at the main entrance. And if any attempt was made to do harm to the performing musicians, he would first have to get past an armed guard outside the stage door entrance, and then a battery of guards posted on either side of the stage itself.