'Tell me something,' Byrnes said. 'Doesn't the perp realize we know this girl's name? I mean, he left her in her own apartment, he didn't dump her in the park someplace without any ID on her, he's got to realize we already know who she is. Isn't that so?'
'It would appear to be so, yes, sir,' Carella said.
Byrnes looked at him. He was not used to being sirred by his detectives.
'So why is he asking us who she is? And why is he telling us there's a hint in his note? Where's the hint? Do any of you see a hint? Hot or otherwise?'
'Am I the only one eating here?' Parker asked.
'I can use some coffee,' Brown said.
He appeared to be scowling, but that was merely his normal expression. A big man . . . well, a huge man . . . with eyes and skin the color of his name,
Arthur Brown was the sort of detective who reveled in playing Bad Cop because it fulfilled the stereotypical expectations of so many white people. He particularly enjoyed being partnered with Bert Kling, whose blond hair and healthy cornfed looks made him the perfect Good Cop honkie foil. Going to the bookcase feast now, eating a donut in three bites before he poured himself a cup of coffee and put two more donuts on a paper plate, Brown said, 'Could we see that second note, please?'
Carella passed it around:
A WET CORPUS? CORN, ETC?
'He's telling us we've got a bleeding corpse here,' Brown said.
'Just what I thought,' Meyer said.
'Then why the question marks?' Genero asked.
'He's saying "Get it?"' Kling said. "Wake up here! I'm spelling it all out for you, dummies.'
'Pay attention here!'
'Listen to me.'
'HarkV
They all turned to look at Willis.
'Is actually what he's saying,' Willis said, and shrugged. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, he was the shortest man on the squad, but he was a black belt in karate, and he was ready to knock any one of his colleagues flat on his ass in ten seconds flat if they questioned his use of a perfectly legitimate synonym for 'listen carefully.'
'The third note is where he begins to lose it,' Meyer said. 'In my opinion, anyway.'
'Could we see it again?' Kling asked.
Carella placed it on Byrnes's desk. They crowded around it, munching donuts.
BRASS HUNT? CELLAR?
'Was there any top brass at the scene?' Byrnes asked.
'Not a big enough case to draw their attention,' Carella said.
'So what's this about a "brass hunt?" '
'I figured he might be referring to spent cartridge cases.'
'Did Mobile find any?'
'No, but
'What'd Ballistics say the weapon was?'
'A forty-five automatic'
'So there wouldn't have been any.'
'So what does "brass hunt" mean?'
'And why's he sending us to the cellar?'
'Which, by the way,' Meyer said, 'Mobile went down there this afternoon and found zilch.'
'Down where?' Genero asked.
'The basement of the building,' Carella said. 'Where the girl was killed.'
'She was killed in the basement?'
'No, in her bedroom. I meant the building where she was killed.'
Genero looked bewildered.
'The last note is where he loses it entirely,' Meyer said. 'In my opinion, anyway.'
'Let's have a look,' Byrnes said.
PORN DIET? HELL, A TIT ON MOM!
'Maybe he's referring to the girl again,' Genero said.
'Did he shoot her in the breast?'
'Not according to the ME's report. She was shot twice. Both slugs took her in the heart. Just below the left breast.'
'Was she sexually assaulted?'
'No.'
'Then what's this "porn diet" shit?' Parker asked.
"What's any of it?' Genero asked.
"Who's this Adam Fen?' Byrnes asked.
'I checked the phone books yesterday,' Willis said. 'Fen is a Chinese name . . .'
'Told you,' Genero said.
'. . . but I didn't get an Adam anyplace in the city.'
'Was there an Eve?' Parker asked. 'Adam and Eve? Porn
diet?'
Byrnes glared at him.
'Just a thought,' Parker said, and picked up another
donut.
'What about this P.O. box number?' Byrnes asked.
'Nonexistent,' Willis said.
'Why'd he pick 4884?'
'Why'd he pick us?' Genero asked.
'He's crazy is why,' Meyer said.
'Like a fox,' Carella said.
'Let's go over it again,' Byrnes said.
IN A PENTHOUSE apartment not a mile from where the detectives mulled over the various missives he'd sent them, the Deaf Man was trying to explain the meaning of the word anagram to the girl who sat beside him on his living room couch.
The girl was blond, and perhaps twenty-three years old, certainly no older than that. He had helped her to
remove her white blouse not three minutes ago, so she was at the moment wearing only a black miniskirt, black panties and bra, and black, high-heeled, strapped sandals. Altogether a dangerous look.
'Think of it this way,' he said. 'Suppose I told you your breasts are as ripe as berries.'
'Well, you don't know that yet, do you?' the girl said.
'I can speculate,' the Deaf Man said.
'I suppose we can all speculate,' she said.
'As ripe as berries,' he repeated, and lifted a clean white pad from the coffee table, and with a marking pen wrote on it:
AS BERRIES
'Is that for emphasis?' the girl asked.
Her name was Melissa, Lissie for short. She'd told him this at the bar in the cocktail lounge of the Olympia Hotel, where he'd picked her up. He knew she was a hooker. A hooker was what he needed. But he had never in his life paid anyone for sex, and he did not intend to pay for it now.
'Now if we rearrange those letters,' he said, 'placing them in a different order, we get the word
And here he wrote on the pad again:
BRASSIERE
. . . and reached behind her back to unclasp it, freeing her breasts.
'As ripe as berries,' he said, and tried to kiss her nipples, but she crossed her arms over her breasts, and crossed her legs, too, and began jiggling one black-sandaled foot.
'And what'd you call that?' she asked. 'Rearranging the letters that way?' 'An anagram,' he said. 'That's a neat trick,' she said. 'Can you do an anagram
for Melissa?'
'Aimless,' he said at once. 'But how about this one?' he asked, and on the pad he wrote:
A PET SIN
. . . and reached under her skirt to lower them over her thighs, before writing on the pad:
PANTIES
'Neat,' she said, and uncrossed her legs and her arms, and lifted herself slightly so he could lower the panties to her ankles. She kicked them free. They sailed halfway across the room, hitting the sliding glass doors that opened onto the seventeenth-floor terrace and a spectacular view of the city.
'Let's hope no one can spy us,' he said, and wrote the last two words on the pad:
SPY US
'Can you rearrange those?' he asked. 'Sure,' she said, and took the marker from his hand, and wrote:
'Neat,' he said.
'But,' she said, and wrote:
MORE'S NIFTY
'I'll bet it is,' he said.
'Oh, you bet your ass it is,' she said. 'But it's your game, Adam.'
"Which game do you mean?' he asked.
His hand was between her legs, but her thighs were closed tight on it, refusing entrance.
'This one,' she said, and wrote on the pad:
SNAG A RAM
'Anagrams, do you mean?'
'Bingo,' she said.
'You want an anagram for "more's nifty." Is that it?'