Ed McBain - Hark!

Walked around in the rain a little, thinking, wondering what to do.

The city seemed glittery and bleak, bright white lights reflecting on black shiny roadways.

Black, he thought.

White, he thought.

Now, at fifteen minutes past eleven, Sharyn called, 'Come look, it's Honey Blair.'

Black skin against white nightgown against white pillows. He climbed into bed beside her.

Honey Blair, blond and white, wearing a sexy little black mini and standing in her trademark legs-slightly-apart pose, was thanking all of the good citizens out there . . .

'. . . for phoning or e-mailing tips on the man or woman who tried to kill me, I can't thank you enough. And mister, sister, whoever you may be . . .'

'Is that racist?' Sharyn asked.

'. . . we're gonna get you!' Honey said, pointing her forefinger directly at the camera.

'I mean the sister part,' Sharyn said.

'You'd better believe it,' Honey said, and turned to the anchor. 'Avery?' she said.

'Now why do I think that girl's lying?' Sharyn asked.

You should know, Kling thought.

12.

HE HAD BEEN STANDING outside her building since eight this morning, but no sign of Miss (or possibly Mrs.) Lawson, Matthews, or Curtis. If she had a nine-to-five job, which was possible even though she'd met with Sharyn and her doctor boyfriend at a little before three on Tuesday, she'd be leaving for work sometime between eight and nine, was what he figured. But no sign of her yet.

A white girl, not her, came out of the building at eight-twenty, began walking off into what was shaping up as a sunny day, all that rain last night. Another white girl, again not the one he was looking for, came out at eight-thirty, and then a flurry of them a few minutes later, but still not his target. Was it possible she'd slept with the busy Dr. Hudson at his place last night? Nine o'clock, then nine-fifteen, and nine-thirty, no Lawson, Matthews, or Curtis. Maybe she'd overslept. The mailman arrived at a quarter to ten. Kling followed him into the building.

'Detective Kling,' he said, and flashed the buzzer. 'Eighty-seventh Squad.'

The mailman looked surprised.

'Social Security checks?' he asked.

'Something like that. Do you know any of these women by sight?' he said, and showed the three names.

'Lawson's not a woman,' he said. 'Man name of Charles. Charles Lawson.'

'How about these other two? L. Matthews? J. Curtis?'

'Lorraine Matthews is a blonde. Around five-six, sort of stout

'And Curtis?'

'Julie, yeah. Julia Curtis. Around thirty, thirty-five, long black hair, brown eyes. Five-seven, five-eight. That the one you're looking for?'

'No,' Kling said.

But that was the one.

'What'd she do?'

'Wrong party,' Kling said. 'Sorry to've bothered you.'

THE FIRST NOTE was delivered at twenty to eleven that Thursday morning, the tenth day of June.

A rod not a bar, a baton, Dora.

This time they were ahead of him.

'It's a palindrome again,' Willis said.

'What's that?' Genero asked. 'A palindrome?'

'Something that reads the same forwards or backwards.'

'Same as the 4884s he sent us yesterday,' Carella said.

They felt they'd been ahead of him yesterday, too, but this time there was no doubt. The sentence read exactly the same, letter for letter, forwards or backwards.

'That's very interesting, the way that works,' Genero said, clearly fascinated. 'Look at that, Eileen. It's the very same thing, forwards or backwards.'

'Oho!' she said, but nobody got it.

'Dumb Dora, he means,' Lieutenant Byrnes said.

'Who's that?' Genero asked.

'It's an expression,' Byrnes said. 'Dumb Dora. He's telling us we're dumb.'

I never heard that, Dumb Dora.'

'You're too young,' Byrnes said. 'It was a cartoon back in the Forties. Advertising Ralston.'

'What's Ralston?' Genero asked.

'It used to be a breakfast cereal. I used to eat it.'

'How old are you, anyway, Loot?' Parker asked.

'Old enough.'

'Another palindrome, no question,' Willis said, reading the note again, front to back and back again.

'Did I miss something?' Kling asked.

He was back in the squadroom now. About time, Byrnes thought. The clock on the wall read 10:48.

'He's sending palindromes now,' Carella explained.

'Which are?'

'They read the same forwards and backwards.'

Kling looked at the note.

A rod not a bar, a baton, Dora.

'Why?' he asked.

'That's what we're trying to figure out.'

'Join the party,' Brown said.

A rod is a gun,' Genero said. 'Isn't it?'

'Used to be called that, anyway,' Byrnes said, almost on a sigh. 'Or even a gat.'

'Has he given up on darts?'

A gun would be a more practical weapon, you have to admit,' Hawes said.

'Then why all that earlier fuss about darts?' Carella asked.

'Slings to arrows to darts, right,' Meyer said, nodding.

'What does he mean by "not a bar"?'

'Nothing,' Parker said. 'He's full of shit. As usual.'

"Not a bar,"' Eileen repeated.

'He's going to use a gun, not some kind of blunt instrument,' Brown said.

They all looked at him.

'Well, some perps use crowbars,' he explained.

They were still looking at him.

'As their weapon of choice,' he said, and shrugged.

'You think he means a police baton?'

'What we used to call a nightstick,' Byrnes said, again wistfully.

'Or does he mean a conductor's baton?' Willis said.

'Oh, Jesus, not another concert!' Parker said.

'Is it the Cow Pasture again?' Hawes asked.

'That was one of his very first references, remember?' Eileen said, nodding.

They scanned the scattered notes:

A WET CORPUS? CORN, ETC?

'Remember what that became?'

COW PASTURE? CONCERT?

'Is there a concert scheduled in the Cow Pasture?' They scanned the city's three daily newspapers for possible events that might require the use of a baton, and came up with only five that possibly qualified. One was a performance by the Cleveland Symphony at eight o'clock tonight, at Palmer Center. Another was a performance by the city's own Philharmonic, again at eight, this one at Clarendon Hall. There were two jazz concerts in clubs downtown, and a student recital at the Kleber School of Performing Arts.

'So what do we do?' Kling asked. 'Cover them all?'

'Well, if he's really gonna use a gun at one of these events . . .'

'None of them's in the Eight-Seven, did you notice?' Parker said.

'He's got a point,' Genero agreed.

'So let's just alert these other precincts,' Parker said, and shrugged.

Anyone but us, he was thinking.

OLLIE WAS THINKING like a novelist instead of a cop, but sometimes the two overlapped, ah yes. In crime fiction, there was an old adage that maintained 'The Criminal Always Returns to the Scene of the Crime,' or words to that effect, probably first uttered by Sherlock Holmes himself, a fictitional character created by Charles Dickens. In real life, however, as Ollie well knew, a criminal rarely if ever returned to the scene of the crime. What the criminal usually did was run for the hills, which was what Melissa Summers should have been doing instead of hiring assorted junkies to deliver the Deaf Man's messages, whoever he might be.

But he had been told by a truly sad specimen named Aine Duggan (who pronounced her name Anya Doogan, go figure) that a woman who answered the description he'd given of Melissa had approached her last Tuesday afternoon in Cathleen Gleason Park, a lovely patch of green close to the River Harb and the apartment buildings lining River Place South, where Aine had gone to sit and look out over the river and also to wait for her dealer. So this is where Ollie was on this sunny (thank God) Thursday at a little before noon, waiting for Miss Summers to put in a return engagement, either in her