Ed McBain - Hark!

'Even if it's something misleading?'

'Poetry,' Brown said, shaking his head.

'Shakespearean poetry, no less.'

'Macbeth, no less!' Genero said, agreeing.

MELISSA CALCULATED THAT of the thirty-five large Adam was allotting for operating expenses, Carter was costing her ten, and the various messengers would cost her another, say, two, three thou, depending on how far upward any of them negotiated the basic hundred-dollar delivery fee. That would leave her with a cool profit of, say, twenty thousand.

She had already given Carter three as the down payment for his work, and had paid the twelve o'clock delivery boy a hundred. Because the girl looked so neat and clean and innocent and all, Melissa had given two hundred to the four o'clock messenger Ame had sent; she wondered where the hell in Diamondback he'd found somebody who resembled a college girl. So out of the five K

Adam had laid on her rhis morning, she now had something like sixteen hundred left, after cab fares and drinks and coffees and such while she'd waited for the messengers to show up first at the Lucky Diamond and then at the Hotel Majestic lounge, the separate venues (she liked that word) she'd chosen for their meeting places.

Now what she could have done was take that sixteen hundred and buy herself some goodies with it, including the lingerie Adam had suggested, but she figured a more profitable investment would be a gift for Adam himself. She decided she'd look for a cashmere robe for him; a nice black cashmere robe would put him in a good mood, his blond hair and all.

But then, because at the back of her mind she still had the feeling that one day he might shoot her dead if he became dissatisfied with one thing or another . . .

. . . and since she was already uptown here where she knew most of the criminal element from the days when she was either on her back or her knees, working either day or night to fill the coffers, whatever they were, of her erstwhile representative, Ambrose Carter . . .

. . . she decided to visit a man named Blake Fuller, who sold her a neat little Kahr PM 9, which at only 16.9 ounces empty and measuring only four by five-and-a-half inches overall, would fit nicely into her purse, just in case push came to shove later on down the line.

Only cost her five bills, too, which Fuller advised her was a bargain.

That left eleven hundred for the robe.

Thinking she'd done a good day's work so far, she grabbed a taxi and headed for the big department stores midtown.

Along about then, the cute little college girl lookalike

was delivering the Deaf Man's third and final note of the day.

THE NOTE READ:

Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes And beat our watch, and rob our passengers.

'At least he spelled everything right this time,' Genero said. 'Didn't he?'

Carella was already at his computer, looking for RhymeZone Shakespeare Search.

An arrow again,' Eileen said, just as Carella typed in 'as stand in narrow lanes.' 'Buried in the word narrow.'

'First spears, now arrows,' Kling said.

'Arrows all day long.'

'King Richard II, Act Five, Scene Three,' Carella read from

the screen.

'First The Tempest, then Hamlet, and now Richard II,'

Willis said.

Any importance to these plays he's choosing?' Hawes asked. He was being very careful not to get his open-toed boot stepped on by any of the detectives milling around

Carella's desk.

'He's just choosing them at random,' Parker said. 'It's

all total bullshit.'

'I don't think so,' Carella said. 'First off, he's telling us it's going to happen on our watch. He's going to "beat our watch.'"

'That's very clever,' Genero said.

'Thanks,' Carella said.

'I meant him. It's very clever of him to have found that

reference.'

'He's going to rob our passengers,' Eileen said.

'We don't have any passengers,' Parker said.

'It's something to do with passengers,' she insisted.

'A train?'

'An airplane?'

A boat?'

'Oh, Jesus, not another boat.'

'Not another rock star, please!'

'Who stands in narrow lanes?' Hawes asked.

'Hookers,' Parker said at once.

This he knew for sure.

PARKER SUGGESTED THAT he should be the one who interrogated the girl because he was older and therefore more avuncular than either Hawes, Willis, Genero, or Kling, and perhaps younger but more experienced than Carella, which he wasn't; Carella had been a cop longer than Parker had, and Carella had just turned forty whereas Parker was forty-two.

In any case, because the police department was at best a sexist organization and Lieutenant Byrnes was still clinging to the notion that Eileen Burke could bring a woman's so-called intuition to this case, she was the one chosen to speak to Alison Kane that Saturday afternoon.

'So where'd you get that letter, Alison?' she asked.

Chummy sort of dormy school-girl approach.

'In the lounge at the Hotel Majestic'

'Is it nice there? I've never been there.'

'Very nice, yes,' Alison said.

She was perhaps twenty-four, twenty-five years old, some five-six or -seven, slender and curvy but not too buxom. Wearing a not-too-short dark green skirt, with a paler green twin sweater set, crew neck and buttoned

cardigan. String of pearls around her neck. Truly looked Ivy League. Eileen figured her for a hooker.

"What were you doing at the Majestic?' she asked.

'Just stopped by for a cup of tea.'

Sounded Ivy League, too.

'Happened to be strolling by the Majestic . . .'

'I'd been doing some shopping.'

"Went into the lounge

'Yes. For a cup of tea.'

'And happened to . . . well, how did that letter come into your hands, can you tell me?'

'A woman gave it to me.'

'Ah. What woman?'

A woman I met there. She said she'd had an argument with her boyfriend who was a detective up here, and she wanted someone to deliver this letter of apology to him.'

And you believed her.'

'She seemed sincerely contrite.'

'Uh-huh.'

Also, she offered me money to deliver the letter.'

Ah.'

'Two hundred dollars.'

Ah.'

'So I figured I'd help her out. Why not? Her boyfriend's name was on the letter, some Italian name, so I figured her story was genuine. Otherwise, where would she have got the name?'

And her name? Did she tell you her name?'

'Cookie.'

'Cookie, uh-huh.'

'Yes.'

'Cookie what?'

'She didn't say'

'What did this Cookie look like?'

'Red hair in a feather cut. Brown eyes. About my height, I would guess. Nice figure. About my age, maybe a little younger. Well-dressed.'

'Like you.'

'Thank you.'

'Was she wearing gloves?'

'What?'

'Gloves.'

'No. Gloves?'

'Gloves. I don't suppose you were wearing gloves, either, were you?'

'No, I wasn't. Gloves? It's June!'

'Miss Kane, would you mind if we took your fingerprints before you left the precinct?'

Yes. I mean no. I mean yes, I would mind. Why do you want my fingerprints?'

'Because they're most likely on that envelope you handled, and we'd like to eliminate them when we run our check.'

'What check?'

'To see what other prints may be on it.'

'No,' Alison said. 'No fingerprints.'

'Why not?'

'Because I haven't done anything wrong.'

'Uh-huh,' Eileen said, and looked her dead in the eye. 'Ever been in trouble with the law, Miss Kane?'

She did not answer.

'Alison? Ever been . . . ?'

Which was when she gave up Ambrose Carter.

'WHUT THIS IS,' Ambrose told Willis and Eileen, 'is a tempest in a teapot.'

He was thinking he'd like to put the redhead in his

stable. What the hell could she be making as a cop? 'Girl told us you're her pimp,' Eileen said. 'I been out of that trade a long time now,' Carter said. "We're not looking at a Two-Thirty bust,' Willis said. Carter knew the man was referring to Section 230.25 of the Penal Law, which stated that a person was guilty of promoting prostitution when he knowingly advanced or profited from prostitution by managing, supervising, controlling, or owning either a house of prostitution or a prostitution business involving two or more prostitutes. Which Carter was, in fact, guilty of doing. Owning a prostitution business involving two or more prostitutes. Eleven of them, in fact. But he didn't let on like he knew what Willis was talking about, because that would be the same thing as admitting he was a pimp, and not a mere agent of sorts.