Hark!

'Take your place, huh?'

'Yes! My rightful place!'

'Did she even know you existed? Does she know you exist now?'

Hawes was trying to keep this from getting too personal here. But this little son of a bitch had tried to kill him, twice, no less.

'Oh, she knows I exist, all right. You think she doesn't stop in Transportation every now and then, thank us for the good service we provide, the cars we send her? You think she doesn't know I'm taking good care of her? She gave me a signed picture last Christmas. Autographed personally to me. "To Eddie, With Warmest Wishes, Honey." Warmest wishes. You think that means nothing, warmest wishes?'

'So you decided to kill me.'

'Only when you started sleeping over. Until then . . . listen, she's entitled to friends, that's okay with me. I didn't mind you taking her to restaurants, to movies, that was okay. But . . .'

'What'd you do, follow us?'

'Just to make sure you didn't harm her.'

'Followed us all over the city, is that it?'

'To protect her! But when you started staying at her place nights ... no. That wasn't right. It just wasn't right. No.'

He was shaking his head now, convincing himself that this wasn't right, trying to convince Hawes as well that this simply wasn't right.

'Did you know I was a cop?' 'Not at first.' 'How about later?' 'Yes.'

'But you didn't think I could protect her, huh? A police officer? Couldn't protect her, huh?'

'You're the one I was trying to protect her from!' 'So you tried to kill me.' 'Tried to keep you away from her.' 'And almost killed her in the bargain!' 'I didn't know she was in the car. I thought the driver had dropped her off at Four, and then gone to pick you up. I was waiting for you on Jefferson Avenue, but I didn't know she was with you.' 'Waiting to kill me,' Hawes said. 'To warn you.'

'But killing me would've been all right, too, huh?' 'You should have kept away from her. It was your fault I almost hurt her. I apologized for that.' 'Oh, you did, huh?' 'In the note I wrote.' 'What note?'

'I sent her an apology. Told her I was sorry, I didn't know she was in the limo.' 'When was this?'

'Right after what happened on Jefferson Avenue. The incident there.'

'Incident! Attempted murder, you mean!' And then, suddenly, what Cudahy had just said sunk in. If he'd really written Honey a note of apology, then she'd known all along that she hadn't been his intended

victim. All that stuff on television . . .

'Go ask her, you don't believe me,' Cudahy said. Hawes guessed he'd have to.

MEYER   AND   HIS two brilliant sleuths were still pondering the first two notes when the third one arrived at twelve minutes to ten. It read:

Why, sir, is this such a piece of study?

Now here is three studied, ere ye'H thrice wink:

Meyer called Carella at once.

'He's zeroing in on three,' he told him.

'Going backwards, too,' Carella said. 'Halving the numbers each time. First twelve, then six, now three.'

'Backwards and smaller.'

'Right. Spears, arrows, darts, remember?'

'If he's saying three o'clock,' Meyer said, 'then it's still either Clarendon Hall or the library.'

'Neither of which is in our precinct.'

'So what was all that about "a precinct's shit"?'

'Might've had nothing to do with anything. Just an anagram for "prognosticate this." Just him telling us to predict.'

'Or. . .' Meyer said.

Yeah?'

'Did you notice he said "a precinct's shit"? Not "the precinct's shit." What he said was "Go to a precinct's shit.'"

'So?'

'So . . . if it's three o'clock, then it's Clarendon Hall or the library. It's either the Eight-Four's shit, or Mid Souths. Not ours.'

'Yeah, I get what you're saying.'

'Although

'Yeah?'

'He says, "Go to a precinct's shit." Go to it. Maybe he's telling us to send some of our own people to both venues.'

Yeah, maybe.'

'It's a thought, isn't it?' Meyer said.

Carella could almost see him smiling.

'It's a good thought,' he said. 'Let's see what he sends next.'

You put on your tuxedo yet?'

'Just about to.'

THE  NEXT NOTE came at 10:27 a.m.

My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon

'Three o'clock for sure,' Meyer told Carella on the phone. 'That still makes it either Sallas and the Eight-Four, or the folio and Mid South.'

'We're covered either way,' Carella said.

'Right.'

Both men fell silent.

'The thing is . . .'

'I know.'

'If it's either Mid South or the Eight-Four, why's he breaking our balls?'

'Maybe we're reading this all wrong,' Meyer said.

You think?'

'No, I think we've got it right.'

'But, you know . . .'

Yeah.'

'All that tight security.'

'Right.'

'He can't really be telling us it's three o'clock, can he?'

Both men were silent again.

'So how do you want to work this?'

'I've got a wedding to go to.'

You know what I think?'

'Say.'

'We have nothing to worry about. The Eight-Four is sending its people over, and so is Mid South.'

'Right. So we're okay.'

'I think so.'

'Me, too.'

'Don't you think?'

'I guess.'

'What?'

'I don't know. It's just . . . with this guy . . .'

'I know.'

'He may be planning to blow up the Calm's Point Bridge, who the hell knows? All the rest of it may be bullshit, just like Parker says.'

Yeah, well, Parker,' Meyer said, lowering his voice.

Carella looked at the clock again.

'I gotta get out of here,' he said.

'Good luck,' Meyer said.

NOSTRADAMUS!

It was writ large. And the slanted exclamation point lent urgency to the word, demanding attention.

'Another anagram, right?' Genero said.

'Wrong,' Parker said. 'Nostra Damus is a college in the Midwest.'

Meyer was thinking about the anagram they'd received first thing this morning:

GO TO A PRECINT'S SHIT!

Which they'd rearranged as:

PROGNOSTICATE THIS!

He'd been taught by his grandfather that Nostradamus was a sixteenth-century French physician who'd become famous during his lifetime and afterward because of his talent for prophesying the future. Prophecies. Prognostications. Prognosticate this, amigo! And now Nostradamus, who had fascinated Meyer's grandfather only because he'd been born of Jewish parents.

'Nostradamus was . . .' Meyer started to explain, but Genero said, 'There's 'SUM' again.'

'Where?' Parker asked.

'Backwards,' Genero said. 'Don't you remember?'

'Remember what?' Parker asked impatiently.

'All those notes we got. Where are those copies, Meyer?'

Meyer found the copied notes, spread them on his desktop.

'Here you go,' Genero said. 'Here's the one I mean.'

But she would spell him backward

'So?' Parker said.

And this one,' Genero said.

MUST SELL AT TALLEST SUM

'So?' Parker insisted.

'So here's "SUM" again,' he said. "Backwards,"' he said, and tapped the most recent note:

NOSTRADAMUS!

'Start at the end of the word,' he said.

'It's not a word, it's a name,' Meyer said. 'Nostradamus. He was

'Whatever,' Genero said. 'M-U-S is S-U-M backwards. The last four letters of the word . . .'

'The name.'

'. . . are an anagram for "A SUM.'"