I thought no fish, Teddy signed. Fish can be tricky.
Which was even trickier to sign.
She went on to explain the entrees would be accompanied by fresh sweet peas and pearl onions . . .
'And new potatoes,' Carella said, reading.
And a spinach salad . . .
'With goat cheese, walnuts, and a warm pancetta dressing,' Carella said.
And, of course, there'll be a choice of desserts, Teddy signed.
'It sounds delicious,' Angela said.
'Steve?' his mother said. 'Don't you think so?'
'Can't wait,' he said, nodding, but his mind had begun to wander again.
So while the women lingered over coffee and cannoli, and the children ran around the house giggling and playing whatever game they'd invented this week, he went to the computer in Mark's room, and again called up the sources of the three 'spear' notes they'd received on Friday.
Tickle our noses with spear-grass — from Henry IV.
Where is your boar-spear, man? — from Richard III.
And the last note that day — Slander's venom'd spear — from Richard II.
Was there any significance to the choice of plays, or the order in which the notes were delivered?
If so, what about yesterday's notes?
No more spears this time around. Now the Deaf Man was into arrows:
Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows Swears he will shoot no more but play with sparrows
Act Four of The Tempest.
The slings and arrows ...
Act Three of Hamlet. And lastly:
As stand in narrow lanes
Act Five of King Richard II.
One historical drama this time around. Plus a straight play and a tragedy. Carella could see nothing significant in their choice.
Or in the sequence of their delivery, either.
He was left with solely spears and arrows, some of them buried, and he still didn't know what the hell was about to happen.
HAWES MENTIONED DURING the intermission that he was getting sort of a brush-off from the upper-crust dicks at the Eight-Six and the overworked ones in Mid South. Honey seemed surprised.
'Even after the show I did Friday night?' she asked.
'Oh, they're aware of you, all right. But they don't seem interested in finding a link to whoever took those potshots at me. Outside your building, I mean.'
'You think the two shootings are linked?'
"Well . . . don't you?'
'Honestly? I don't know.'
'You don't? Honey, it seems obvious that I'm the one they're after.'
'You? Why on earth would anyone ... ?'
'Maybe because I've put away one or two bad guys in my time. And some of those guys are out on the street again. And maybe they still don't like the idea of.. .'
'Excuse me, Miss Blair?'
Hawes turned. A tall thin man with a silly grin on his face was virtually leaning in over Hawes's aisle seat to extend his program to Honey in the seat next to his.
'Could you sign it "To Ben," please?' he asked, and handed her the program and a marking pen.
Hawes shifted his weight, giving Honey the arm rest and more room to write. Feigning indifference, he busied himself with his own program.
It appeared that next week's 'Three at Three' series would kick off on Saturday afternoon with Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, his only full concerto for violin. Konstantinos Sallas, the guest violinist, would . . .
'There you go, Ben,' Honey said, and handed the program and the pen across Hawes to the man, who was standing expectantly in the aisle, still grinning like a schoolboy.
'Thank you, Miss Blair,' he said.
Honey smiled, and then squeezed Hawes's hand.
The house lights were beginning to dim.
AT A LITTLE past four that afternoon, just as Eileen was searching through her refrigerator and discovering there was nothing but yogurt to eat for dinner tonight, her telephone rang. For some reason, she looked at her watch,
and then went into the living room to pick up the receiver.
'Burke,' she said.
'Eileen, hi. It's Hal.'
'Hey, hi,' she said.
'Got a minute?'
'Sure,' she said. 'What's up?'
'I've got some ideas about our Deaf Man.'
'I'm all ears,' she said.
Willis laughed.
'Wanna meet for a cup of coffee or something?'
'Sure,' she said, and for some reason looked at her watch again.
'Horton's on Max?'
'Give me ten.'
'See you.'
There was a click on the line.
She looked at the receiver.
Gave a little puzzled shrug.
Shrugged aside the shrug.
Put the receiver back on its cradle, went into the bedroom to see what she looked like in the mirror there, decided she looked good enough for coffee at Horton's, looked at her watch again, and left the apartment.
HORTON'S ON MAX was one of a chain of coffee joints that took their separate names from the streets or avenues of their locations. Hence there was a Horton's on Howes and a Horton's on Rae and a Horton's on Granger and a Horton's on Mapes and so forth. The Horton's on Max took its name from its corner location on Maximilian Street, which had been named after Ferdinand Maximilian, the deposed emperor of Mexico,
who — at dawn on the nineteenth of June, 1867 — was executed by firing squad on El Cerro de las Campanas . . .
'That means "The Hill of the Bells"' in English," Willis told her.
Maximilian Street was not located on or near any hill, nor was there a church close by that might have sounded bells every hour on the hour and therefore provided a modicum of credibility to naming the street after a long-forgotten and scarcely mourned Mexican emperor. But the street had been named during a heatedly fought mayoral election, when a brief influx of Mexican immigrants to this part of the city seemed to presage (wrongly as it turned out) a full-scale invasion of wetbacks. Ever mindful of the power of the ballot box, the city's incumbent mayor dug into his history books and — seemingly ignorant of the fact that Maximilian had been imported from Austria and was largely despised - changed the name of the erstwhile 'Thimble Street' (but that was another story) to the more acceptable to Mexicans (he thought) 'Maximilian Street.'
The theme of 'independence' being a favorite one in any American election . . .
'The other one being "patriotism,"' Willis said.
. . . perhaps the incumbent mayor was thinking of Maximilian's last words before the bullets thudded home: 'I forgive everyone, and I ask everyone to forgive me. May my blood which is about to be shed, be for the good of the country. Viva Mexico, viva la independencia!'
'But I digress,' Willis said.
'How come you know so much about Mexico?' Eileen asked.
Willis hesitated. Then he said, 'Well, Marilyn spent a lot of time in Mexico, you know.'
'Yes, I knew that.'
'Yes,' he said, and fell silent.
They were sipping cappuccino in a corner window, sitting in armchairs opposite each other.
'You okay with that now?' she asked.
She was talking about Marilyn Hollis getting shot to death by a pair of Argentinian hit men.
'Are you ever okay with something like that?' he asked, and suddenly reached across the table to touch her cheek. 'Are you okay with this?' he asked.
He was talking about the faint scar on her cheek where she'd been cut by the son of a bitch who'd later raped her.
'As okay as I'll ever be,' she said.
'So,' he said, and pulled back his hand, and nodded. He hesitated for what seemed a long time. Then he asked, 'Is there still anything between you and Bert?'
'No,' she said. 'No. Why?'
'Just wanted to make sure I wasn't . . .'
'Yes?'
He shook his head.
'Wasn't what?'
You know.'
She looked at him, nodded. There was another long
silence.
'Remember that time in the sleeping bag?' she asked.