Hark!

Unless:

A book? O rare one!

However:

If music be the food of love, play on

But perhaps:

Devise, wit; write, pen;

for I am for whole volumes in folio.

Thanks for nothing, they were thinking.

You are very welcome, sir,

Take you the lute, and you the set of books

R N D NOW THERE seemed to be an urgency to the Deaf Man's notes. A sense of impending accomplishment. A certainty that time was running out, the deed would soon be done, and if they didn't catch on soon, it would be too damned late.

The previous envelope had contained seven notes.

This one arrived a half-hour later, and there was just a single note in it:

And she goes down at twelve.

'Party's getting rough again,' Parker said, and winked at Eileen.

THE THING WAS, Ollie was looking for either a redhead with short hair, or a brunette with long hair. He wasn't looking for the feather-cut, elegantly dressed blonde who came into the park at three that afternoon and took a bench facing the river. He had no idea that this was Melissa Summers.

Nor did Melissa have any idea that the fat guy sitting on a bench near the playground equipment here in Cathleen Gleason Park was a detective. Most detectives she'd known worked out in the gym and had muscles on their muscles. This guy looked more like a pedophile,

but she didn't have any kids here in the park, so let their mothers worry. Besides, after chasing junkies all day long, all she wanted to do was sit here peacefully and listen to the sound of the distant river.

In any case, neither of the two paid the slightest bit of attention to the other.

At three-fifteen, Melissa got up, heaved a gentle sigh, left the park, and started back for the apartment on River Place South. She was thinking that on Sunday at this time, she'd be basking on a beach in Tortola.

Some five minutes later, Ollie got off his bench, farted, and headed back for the Eight-Eight. It never once occurred to him that he should give the Eight-Seven a little buzz, mention that Carmela Sammarone was going by the name Melissa Summers these days. Neither did he realize how close he'd come to nailing her, whoever she might be, or even whomever.

Tomorrow's another day, he thought, and nothing's over till it's over.

THE  NEXT ENVELOPE arrived at the end of the day. It, too, contained just a single note:

Come on; there is sixpence for you: let's have a song.

'A song,' Carella said. 'The violinist again. Sallas.'

'The ransom's gonna be sixpence'.' Genero said.

'Brilliant, Richard. You know what sixpence is?'

'Of course I know what it is! What is it?'

'Six pennies, Richard.'

'Then why didn't he say so?'

'But you notice he's gone from twelve to six?' Willis said.

'That's right,' Meyer said. 'It was twelve in the last note.'

'Now it's six.'

'He's going backwards again,' Kling said.

'Six-twelve,' Meyer said.

' "And she goes down at twelve,"' Eileen quoted.

'Yes, ma'am!' Parker said, and waggled his eyebrows at her.

'Get your mind out of the gutter, Andy. Maybe he's using a different kind of slang.'

'Who, Shakespeare?' Genero asked.

'No, the Deaf Man. Maybe he's telling us when the crime will go down.'

'Twelve noon, you mean?'

'No. Six-twelve.'

'Huh?'

'Maybe that's what all the backwards bullshit was about. Maybe he's saying June twelfth. Maybe he's saying tomorrow.'

'When tomorrow?' Parker asked.

'Sometime before supper?' Willis said.

'How about three o'clock?'

'That's both the library reading and the concert.'

'So let's dog both events,' Carella said.

THE LIEUTENANT IN command of Midtown South totally dismissed the idea of anyone trying to breach the security at the library's Folger Exhibit. Primo, there were armed guards all over the room that housed the alarmed case in which the book was exhibited. Secondo, there was state-of-the-art technology in the alarm system itself. If anyone so much as breathed on that case, alarms would sound all over the museum, and at the offices of Security

Plus, who would call Mid South at once. There was no way anyone could even approach that book, no less get it out of that room.

'How about at the reading tomorrow?' Carella asked.

'What reading?' the lieutenant asked. His name was Brian O'Ryan. Carella figured he'd had a father as comical as Meyer Meyer's.

'The reading Patrick Stewart will be doing,' he said.

'I don't know anything about any reading.'

'Three o'clock tomorrow,' Carella said.

'I'll check it out,' O'Ryan said. 'If I feel it calls for a police presence, I'll supply it. Provided the Captain will authorize overtime pay.'

'I'll let you know if we get anything further from the possible perp,' Carella said.

'The possible perp, uh-huh,' the lieutenant said.

The Chief of Security at the library said much the same thing. The case containing the book was alarmed and there were armed guards in the Elizabethan Room . . .

'Is that where the reading tomorrow will take place?' Carella asked.

'No, no. Do you mean Captain Picard's reading? No, that'll be in the Molson Auditorium.'

'And where will the book be at that time?'

'Right where it is now.'

'The Elizabethan Room.'

'Yes. Under armed guard. In an alarmed case. Moreover, the case is on steel ball bearings. After the reading - which should end around four o'clock, he's only scheduled to read for an hour or so - the Head of Special Collections will accompany the guards when they wheel it out of the Elizabethan Room and into a steel vault, where it will remain locked up and secure until the Folger people came to recover it on Sunday.'

'In other words . . .'

'In other words, the book will not be taken from the case until armed guards remove it and carry it to an armored car that will transport it back to Washington.'

'I see,' Carella said.

'However — since you seem so terribly concerned, Detective Coppola - we'll make sure our security staff is watching for any suspicious-looking characters lurking about the library at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon.'

Carella didn't much appreciate the sarcasm, but he thanked the man, and then called Clarendon Hall.

The Director of Events there was entirely more understanding, perhaps because not too long ago there'd been a terrorist attack at the hall itself. He told Carella that ever since that devastating assault, security had been on red alert at all times. Certainly, no one intent on mischief could conceivably get past the armed guards and metal detectors at the main entrance. And if any attempt was made to do harm to the performing musicians, he would first have to get past an armed guard outside the stage door entrance, and then a battery of guards posted on either side of the stage itself.

However . . .

The director would personally phone the Eight-Four Precinct, to alert them to possible danger at tomorrow's three o'clock concert, and to ask for bulkier police protection. 'Bulkier' was the exact word he'd used. Carella told him he planned to do that himself, but it never hurt to get a request straight from the horse's mouth.

So now there was nothing else the Eight-Seven could do. It was no longer their baby; they could even throw away the bath water. If the Deaf Man was after the Folger First Folio, Mid South would be there at the library to stop him. If he was after the Greek violinist, the Eight-

Four would nab him at the concert hall.

Either way, the end of a brilliant career.

Confident that he'd done all he could do for now, Carella left the squadroom at six that Friday night.

As Fat Ollie himself might have said, tomorrow was indeed another day.

Ah yes.

14.

PREDICTING A BUSY night tonight - because in this city Saturday night was when all the loonies came out to howl — Byrnes assigned only a skeleton crew to the day shift. Arriving at 7:45 A.M. to start their eight-hour stint were Detectives Meyer, Parker, and Genero. Meyer might have wished for slicker partners, but Carella had a wedding to attend, and Hawes was off chasing whoever had tried to kill him twice, and Kling had called in sick, so he was stuck with these two.