Hark!

'Think. The hotels downtown. Think, Wanda.'

'Oh. You mean . . . ?'

Yes? What do I mean?'

'Melissa? You talking about Melissa?'

'Is that what she calls herself? Melissa?'

'Melissa Summers, yes.'

'Do you know where she is?'

'No, I don't. I'm not her fucking mother.'

'Language,' Ollie scolded.

'What'd she do?'

'That's what I'd like to ask her.'

'I don't rat out friends.'

'Then you do know where she is.'

'I told you I don't.'

'Where'd the two of you go last Wednesday night?'

'Who said we went anywhere?'

'Three girls so far. You want their names?'

'What'd Lissie do?'

'Tell me where she scored last Wednesday.'

'Why? She rip off the guy, or something?'

'There was a guy, right?'

You got me,' she said, shrugging. 'Was there?'

'How'd you like getting mugged and printed again tonight?'

Wanda said nothing.

'Wanna spend the night in a holding cell, Margie?'

Still nothing.

'You want some dyke forcing you to lick her pussy?'

'Been there, done that,' she said.

'Okay then, we're through talking,' he said, and stood up. 'Let's go.'

'Go where? Nobody solicited you.'

'Gee, didn't somebody? I could swear you said you'd blow me for a C-note.'

She looked up at him.

'Sit down,' she said.

He kept standing.

'Sit down,' she said again.

THE BARTENDER AT the Olympia Hotel was washing glasses when Ollie got there at a little before three that morning.

'Sorry, sir,' he said. 'Last call was half an hour ago.'

'How come?' Ollie asked.

He was surprised. In this city you could legally serve alcoholic beverages till four in the morning.

'We discovered traffic slows down after two, is all,' the bartender said. 'Sorry.'

Ollie flashed the tin.

'Few questions,' he said.

'Can't this wait?' the bartender asked.

'Afraid it can't,' Ollie said, and pulled out one of the bar stools, and sat.

The bartender sighed, dried his hands on a dish towel.

'Wednesday night last week,' Ollie said. 'Were you working?'

'I was.'

'Two hookers,' Ollie said. 'One blond . . .'

'We don't allow hookers here at the Olympia,' the bartender said.

'Yes, I'm sure you don't. But you probably didn't recognize them as hookers. One was blond, short hair, what they call a feather cut, brown eyes. The other one had hair down to her shoulders, brown, with blue eyes. Good-looking girls, both of them. Probably well-dressed.'

'We get lots of women in here could answer that description,' the bartender said.

'This particular woman, the one with the brown hair, told me her and her friend were in here about ten o'clock last Wednesday night and that her friend, the blonde with the short hair, picked up some guy here and left the bar with him around eleven. Would you happen to remember that occurrence?'

'No, I don't.'

'Big handsome guy, blond like the girl. Hearing aid in his right ear, would you recall now?'

'We get lots of. . .'

'Yes, I'm sure you get ten thousand blond guys wearing hearing aids every night of the week,' Ollie said. 'But on this specific night last Wednesday, this particular blond guy with the hearing aid paid for the bar tab with a credit card. According to my source, anyway, who I feel is a reliable one.'

'What do you want to know?'

'His name.'

'All that stuff went to the cashier that same night.'

All what stuff?'

'The credit card slips.'

'Do you remember the man I'm talking about?'

'I seem to recall someone with a hearing aid, yes.'

'Tall blond guy?'

'Yes.'

'Do you remember the hookers, too?'

'I didn't know they were hookers.'

'Of course not. Did you look at his credit card?'

'I must've checked the signature on the back, yes. When he signed for the tab.'

'Would you recall the name on that card?'

'Come on, willya? How do you expect me to remember .. . ?'

'Or what kind of card it was?'

'We honor all the major credit cards here. How do you expect me to . . . ?'

'Is the cashier's office open now?' Ollie asked.

'The credit card slips from last Wednesday are long gone, if that's what you're think . . .'

'Gone where?' Ollie asked.

THAT NAZI BASTARD Deaf Man had kept him awake most of the night, so Meyer had come to work early this morning, arriving at the tail end of the Graveyard Shift, with only Fujiwara and O'Brien here in the squadroom, the rest of the Eight-Seven's courageous team out preventing crime in these mean streets.

Now, in the comparative 6:30 A.M. stillness, no phones ringing, no keyboards clattering and clacking, he tried to make some sense of what they'd got so far. Copies of all the delivered notes were spread across his desktop. A copy of the list of plays plundered by Mr. Adam Fen was close at hand. All he had to do was piece it all together, ha!

Compared to all this Shakespearean lore, the earlier anagrams seemed elementary.  Well, perhaps not. On

their simplest level, the quotes were telling them:

1) This is going to be Shakespeare 101, kiddies.

2) I am going to dribble out the information bit by bit, piece by piece.

3) I am going to use darts as my weapon.

Perfectly clear.

But on the Deaf Man's turf, nothing was ever what it seemed. All was illusion and deception, a showoff smirking at them, telling them how goddamn smart he was while they were so goddamn stupid.

So what else was he trying to tell them?

Was there something here other than the obvious 'Shakespeare, boys! Patience, girls! Darts, anyone?'

He set aside the anagrams, looked at the Shakespearean quotes again. Arranged them in order on his desktop. Okay. If the Deaf Man had chosen to start with shakes and then spear, he was without question telling them 'Shakespeare.' Step to the head of the class. Shakespeare. We're finished with all the anagrammatic fun and games, kiddies, and now we're moving on to more scholarly matters. Graduate school, kiddies.

Okay.

So what next?

More spear quotes.

Spear-grass, boar-spear, and venom'd spear.

All right, separate the non-spear words, maybe there's something there.

Grass, boar, venom'd.

Anything?

Not that he could see.

Well, grass was pot, and a boar was a pig, and venom was poison.

Pot, pig, poison.

Still nothing.

He looked more closely at the arrows notes.

Broke his arrows.

Slings and arrows.

Narrow lanes.

The arrow buried in the narrow of the last note.

The unrelated words were broke, slings, and lanes.

Nothing there, either.

How about the darts?

Thither he darts it.

Darts envenomed

Advanced and darts.

Thither, envenomed, and advanced.

Mean anything to you, Meyer, old boy?

No? Then how about the three kings he'd chosen?

Beats three jacks any day of the week.

Raise you a dollar.

Henry the Fourth, Richard the Third, Richard the Second.

Fourth, third, second.

Four, three, two.

Hold it . . .

The numbers were getting smaller.

Four, three, two.

Well, maybe that was an accident.

No, with the Deaf Man, nothing was accidental.

He was giving them information in reverse order!

Four, three, two. Spears, arrows, darts.

Moving from larger to smaller, in effect heading backwards. Zeroing in on the weapon he would use.

Their reasoning yesterday had been right on the mark.

The Deaf Man's weapon would be darts.