'Whom,' Genero corrected.
'Same fuckin murderer,' Parker said heatedly. 'Excuse me, Eileen.'
'Going to shake us up with what he's planning next.'
'Big summer movie.'
'Coming attractions.'
'You notice they release the lousiest movies in the summer and around Christmastime?'
'There's that word again.'
'What word?'
'Shake. He's gonna shake us up. That's what he's telling us.'
'Oh shitV Eileen said. 'Excuse me, Andy.'
'What?' Carella asked at once.
'Check out these first three notes again. What's the word common to all of them?' They all studied the notes again:
Rough winds do SHAKE ...
SHAKE off slumber ...
SHAKE me up ...
'Now take a look at this last note.'
I'll read you matter deep and dangerous, As full of peril and adventurous spirit As to o'er-walk a current roaring loud On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.
'And single out the last line. . . '
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.
'Then skip to the last word in that line. . . .'
... footing of a SPEAR.
'Put them all together . . .' '. . . they spell MOTHER,' Parker said. 'No,' Eileen said. 'They spell Shakespeare. Shake and spear spell Shakespeare.'
'Doesn't Shakespeare have an e on the end?' Genero
asked.
'Don't you see?' she said. 'He's telling us all his references will be coming from Shakespeare.'
'I doped that out from the very start,' Parker said.
'How come everybody in the world always dopes out everything from the very start?' Willis asked.
'Well, I did,' Parker insisted. 'Right after we got all that anagram shit. I knew that would be his plan. All Shakespeare, all the time. Where's that note?' he asked, and began rummaging through the messages arranged on Carella's desktop. 'Here,' he said. 'This one.'
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.
'Now if that ain't Shakespeare,' he said, 'then I don't know what is!'
WHEN CfiRELLfl GOT home that night, he was carrying a thick book he'd borrowed from the library three blocks from his house.
His daughter, April, was curled up in the armchair under the imitation Tiffany lamp, reading.
'Hi, Dad,' she said, without looking up. 'Catch any crooks today?'
'Hundreds,' he said.
'Good work, Jones,' she said, and tossed him a salute. He went to her, kissed the top of her head. 'What are you reading?' he asked.
'Math,' she said.
'Where's your brother?'
Here,' Mark said, and came striding in from his room down the hall. The twins favored their mother more than Carella, he guessed. Or perhaps hoped. Mark gave him a hug. Carella went into the kitchen. Teddy was at the stove, cooking. She turned her face to him for a kiss. Raven hair pulled back into a ponytail. Long white apron made her look like a French chef or something. She lifted a cover, stirred something, put down the ladle, noticed the book. Her hands moved on the air, signing. He read her flying fingers, read the words she mouthed in accompaniment.
'Shakespeare,' he answered. 'The complete works.'
Mark materialized in the kitchen doorway.
'Why Shakespeare, Dad?'
'Some guy's sending us quotes from Shakespeare. I want to find out where he's getting them.'
'There's an easier way,' Mark said.
CRRELLA WAS THINKING no home should be without a twelve-year-old boy going on thirteen. Sitting before the computer in his room, Mark went first to GOOGLE, and then typed in the keyword SHAKESPEARE and from the seemingly hundreds of choices there, he zeroed in on a site called RhymeZone Shakespeare Search. To the right of a little picture of Shakespeare's face were the words Browse: Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Poetry, Coined words, Most popular lines, Help.
Just below that was the direction Find word or phrase, with a narrow rectangular box to the right of that, and then the boxed word
Search
'All you do is type in the word or phrase you're
looking for,' Mark said. 'Give me an example.' Carella took out his batch of photocopied notes. 'How about 'the darling buds of May'?' he said. Mark typed in darling buds. He hit the search key. On
the computer screen, Carella saw:
Keyword search results:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, Sonnets: XVIII 1 result returned.
'Now we click on Sonnets,' Mark said, and clicked on it. The screen filled with:
XVIII.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date ...
'That's amazing,' Carella said. 'Give me another one,' Mark said.
CARELLA REMEMBERED THE name of the course now. American Romantic Poetry.
And his term paper had been titled 'The Raven' and Roe's Philosophy of Composition.
What had fascinated him most about the poem was Poe's subsequent admission that he'd written it backwards. He could still remember the key passages from the author's explanation:
Here then the poem may be said to have had its beginning — at the end where all works of art should begin — for it was here at this point of my preconsiderations that I first put pen to paper in the composition of the stanza:
'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil!'
I composed this stanza, at this point, first — by establishing the climax . . .
Carella had read the entire poem aloud to the class. Wowed the girls. Got an A on the paper, too. But only a B-plus for his final grade. It still rankled.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered
weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten
lore -
Still knew the entire poem by heart. Could recite it at the drop of a hat. Now, weak and weary after a long day in the salt mines, he pondered on his son's computer many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. And because he'd once been a good student and was now a good cop, he composed a short list he would take to work with him tomorrow morning:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May:
Sonnets XVIII shake off slumber, and beware: The Tempest: Act II.
