'Try it,' she said, and handed him the marker.
He thought for merely an instant, and then wrote:
MONEY FIRST
'How clever of you,' she said, and spread her legs wide, and held her hand out to him, palm upwards.
'I think not,' he said, and slapped her so hard he almost knocked her off the couch.
LATER, WHILE MELISSA was still tied to the bed, he asked if she knew that 'Adam Fen' was an anagram for 'Deaf Man.'
Aching everywhere, she said she guessed she did.
He wrote both words on the pad for her, one under the other:
ADAM FEN DEAF MAN
'Gee, yeah,' she said.
Along about then, a courier was delivering the final note in what the Deaf Man thought of as the first movement of his ongoing little symphony.
THE NOTE IN the inside envelope read:
We wondred that thou went'st so soon From the world's stage, to the grave's tiring room. We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth, Tells thy spectators that thou went'st but forth To enter with applause.
An Actor's Art,
Can die, and live, to act a second part.
I'M A FATHEAD, MEN!
There was also a line drawing in the envelope: 'Who the hell is that supposed to be?' Parker asked. 'Looks like a rag picker,' Byrnes said. 'You have rag
pickers in your neighborhood?'
'We called him the Rags Man,' Brown said, nodding.
'Why would he be sending us a picture of a rag picker?' Meyer asked.
'No, Artie's got it,' Carella said. 'It's a rags man. Oh, Jesus, it's a rags man!'
They all looked at him.
He seemed about to have a heart attack.
'It's an anagram!' he said.
'Huh?' Genero said.
'An anagram, an anagram, a rags man! That's an anagram for anagrams!'
'Huh?' Genero said again.
All at once the letters under the note's poetry seemed to spring from the page, I'M A FATHEAD, MEN, leaping into the air before Carella's very eyes, rolling and tumbling in random order, IAFMHATDEAN M E, until at last they fell into place in precisely the order Adam Fen had intended.
I AM THE DEAF MAN!
'Shit,' Carella said, 'he's back.'
And now, of course, all of it made sense.
All of the notes, when read as anagrams, clearly told them what the Deaf Man had done and possibly why he had done it.
WHO'S IT, ETC?
A DARN SOFT GIRL?
O, THERE'S A HOT HINT!
Rearranged in their proper order, the letters became:
SHOT TWICE?
GLORIA STANFRD?
SHOT IN THE HEART!
Move that dangling 'O' from the third line to the first line and you had her full last name: STANFORD. Similarly:
A WET CORPUS? CORN, ETC?
. . . became:
COW PASTURE? CONCERT?
. . . the scene of the Deaf Man's last chaotic diversion in Grover Park.
And once they rearranged:
BRASS HUNT? CELLAR?
... they got:
STASH BURN? RECALL?
. . . which merely asked them to remember his true target the last time out, the incinerator on the River Harb Drive, where thirty million dollars worth of confiscated narcotics was scheduled to be burned by the police.
And lastly:
PORN DIET? HELL, A TIT ON MOM!
Put in their intended order, the letters in both lines formed the words:
RED POINT? HAMILTON MOTEL!
. . . the name of the motel in a town across the river where a man who'd registered as Sonny Sanson had left behind a bloody trail apparently inspired by a woman who'd betrayed him.
Had that woman been GLORIA STANFORD?
A DARN SOFT GIRL-O!
Because, boy-o-boy-o, Sonny Sanson was sure as hell Son'io Sans Son, who was in turn ADAM FEN, who was none other than the DEAF MAN, who'd entered with fanfare and flourish to act yet another part.
I'M A FATHEAD, MEN?
Oh, no, not by a long shot.
I AM THE DEAF MAN!
Bravo, lads, that was more like it!
He was back, and the very thought sent a collective shudder through the detectives gathered in the lieutenant's office.
'Anyone care for another donut?' Byrnes asked.
4.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May And summer's lease hath all too short a date ...
'Actually, that's kind of nice,' Genero said.
'He's back, all right,' Willis said.
'With more poetry, no less.'
' "The darling buds of May,'" Eileen said. 'That's Shakespeare, isn't it?'
'Sure sounds like Shakespeare.'
' "The darling buds of May.
'But it's June already,' Carella said.
'Just barely,' Meyer said.
This was Thursday morning, the third day of June. The lieutenant had virtually double-teamed the squad because whenever the Deaf Man put in an appearance, his people all suddenly began behaving like Keystone Kops, and one could not be too careful lest disapprobation thunder down from the brassy skies above. The nine Shakespearean scholars grouped around Carella's desk were Carella himself, Meyer, Kling, Genero, Parker, Hawes, Willis, Brown, and Eileen Burke.
'Kind of nice, though,' Genero said. '"The darling buds of May," you know? I really like that.'
All the squadroom windows were open to the balmy breezes of early June. The note on Carella's desk was the first one delivered today. He felt sure there'd be more.
'What's he trying to tell us this time?' he asked.
'Nothing about the homicide, that's for sure.'
'He's already said enough about that,' Meyer said. 'I killed Gloria Stanford, I shot her twice in the heart, now come find me, dummies.'
'Where does it say that?' Parker asked.
He had shaved this morning. Maybe he expected another round of coffee and donuts.
'In his previous notes,' Meyer explained. 'All those
anagrams.'
'Yeah, anagrams, right,' Parker said, not giving a shit
one way or the other.
'What does he mean about "summer's lease"?' Willis
asked.
'When does summer start this year?' Eileen asked.
Limping around the lieutenant's office in his soft cast, Hawes didn't much care when summer started this year. Or any year. He was still fuming because the dicks from the Eight-Six hadn't found any ejected shells on any of the rooftops opposite Honey Blair's building, and so far nobody knew nothing about whoever had fired half a dozen shots at him yesterday morning. It was one thing to get all excited about someone who might or might not be the Deaf Man perhaps being responsible for the death of a woman named Gloria Stanford, but bygones were bygones, easy come, easy go, and Hawes himself was still in the here-and-now and luckily among the living, and whoever had tried to render him otherwise was still out there someplace, on the loose, so where the hell was a cop when you needed one? 'Miscolo!' Brown yelled. ' "Summer's lease hath all too short a date,"' Eileen
quoted.
'Nice,' Genero said again, smiling wistfully.
Miscolo came in from the Clerical Office down the hall. He'd put on a little weight and lost a little hair at the back
of his head. But he still resembled a somewhat moist-eyed basset hound. 'You want coffee, right?' he said.
'Have you got a Farmer's Almanac in the Clerical Office?' Brown asked.
'Why would I have a Farmer's Almanac?'
'We're trying to find out when summer comes this year.'
'Why?'
'Because it hath all too short a date,' Genero explained.
You guys,' Miscolo said, and walked out shaking his head.
'Anybody got a calendar?' Brown asked, and went to his own desk. He flipped open the pages to June, ran his forefinger across the dates. The words Summer begins were printed in the box for June 21. 'Here it is,' he said. 'June twenty-first. First day of summer.'
'"Summer's lease,'" Eileen said.
'Is he planning something for the twenty-first?'
'Or not planning it, as the case may be,' Meyer said. 'He never tells us exactly what he's up to.'