Hark!

'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.

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.

And now I will unclasp a secret book, And to your quick-conceiving discontents I'll read you matter deep and dangerous, As full of peril and adventurous spirit As to o'er-walk a current roaring loud On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

'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 EnglishV

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

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May And summer's lease hath all too short a date ...

'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.'

Shake off slumber, and beware: Awake, awake!

'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.'

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

'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.'

'Going to shake us up with what he's planning next.'

'Big summer movie.'

'Coming attractions.'

'You notice they release the lousiest movies in the summer and around Christmastime?'

'There's that word again.'

'What word?'

'Shake. He's gonna shake us up. That's what he's telling us.'

'Oh shitV Eileen said. 'Excuse me, Andy.'

'What?' Carella asked at once.

'Check out these first three notes again. What's the word common to all of them?' They all studied the notes again:

Rough winds do SHAKE ...

SHAKE off slumber ...

SHAKE me up ...

'Now take a look at this last note.'

I'll read you matter deep and dangerous, As full of peril and adventurous spirit As to o'er-walk a current roaring loud On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

'And single out the last line. . . '

On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

'Then skip to the last word in that line. . . .'

... footing of a SPEAR.

'Put them all together . . .' '. . . they spell MOTHER,' Parker said. 'No,' Eileen said. 'They spell Shakespeare. Shake and spear spell Shakespeare.'

'Doesn't Shakespeare have an e on the end?' Genero

asked.

'Don't you see?' she said. 'He's telling us all his references will be coming from Shakespeare.'

'I doped that out from the very start,' Parker said.

'How come everybody in the world always dopes out everything from the very start?' Willis asked.

'Well, I did,' Parker insisted. 'Right after we got all that anagram shit. I knew that would be his plan. All Shakespeare, all the time. Where's that note?' he asked, and began rummaging through the messages arranged on Carella's desktop. 'Here,' he said. 'This one.'

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.

'Now if that ain't Shakespeare,' he said, 'then I don't know what is!'

WHEN CfiRELLfl GOT home that night, he was carrying a thick book he'd borrowed from the library three blocks from his house.

His daughter, April, was curled up in the armchair under the imitation Tiffany lamp, reading.

'Hi, Dad,' she said, without looking up. 'Catch any crooks today?'

'Hundreds,' he said.

'Good work, Jones,' she said, and tossed him a salute. He went to her, kissed the top of her head. 'What are you reading?' he asked.

'Math,' she said.

'Where's your brother?'

Here,' Mark said, and came striding in from his room down the hall. The twins favored their mother more than Carella, he guessed. Or perhaps hoped. Mark gave him a hug. Carella went into the kitchen. Teddy was at the stove, cooking. She turned her face to him for a kiss. Raven hair pulled back into a ponytail. Long white apron made her look like a French chef or something. She lifted a cover, stirred something, put down the ladle, noticed the book. Her hands moved on the air, signing. He read her flying fingers, read the words she mouthed in accompaniment.