Ed McBain - Hark!

'There's nothing made for grownups anymore,' he said.

'Not all movies are that bad,' Sharyn said.

She was bone weary.

Her police workday was only three hours old, and she was ready to go home. Still had to bus back to the city for her own office hours this afternoon. Sometimes, she wondered.

I'd rather stay home and listen to music,' Hudson said. And then, without preamble, 'Are you familiar with the work of a rap group called Spit Shine?' 'No,' she said. 'I don't much like rap.' "Well, it's come a long way from "Let's All Kill the Police," if that's what you're thinking.'

'I don't know what "Let's All Kill the Police" is.' 'I'm categorizing a form of gangsta rap,' Hudson said. 'Spit Shine went beyond that. Spit Shine addressed the ills of black society itself. Didn't try to lay it all on Whitey. Asked us what we ourselves were doing to denigrate . . .'

'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 thete?'

'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.

'You dig vanilla? 'Now ain't that a killer! 'You say you hate chocolate? 'I say you juss thoughtless. 'Cause chocolate is the color

'Of the Lord's first children 'Juss go ask the diggers 'The men who find the bones 'Go ask them 'bout chocolate . . . 'Go ask them 'bout niggers . . .'

'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.

Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up.

'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 bated 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.

THE CALL FROM Milan 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're having trouble again with a criminal we call the Deaf Man. That would be "El Sordo" in your language.'

'II 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 wed-ding\

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.

HE 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.