luxuriant bubble bath.
He wondered if he should go in there and offer to scrub her back.
CARELLA'S MIND WAS on the Deaf Man.
Watching his wife's moving fingers, translating for his mother and sister, his mind was nonetheless on where the Deaf Man might be, and what he might be planning on this Sunday, the sixth day of June.
Carella had checked with the desk sergeant at the Eight-Seven early this morning, as soon as he'd got up, but as of eight-thirty A.M, no message from Mr. Adam Fen had been delivered. He had checked again at twelve- thirty, just about when his mother, and Angela, and Angela's two daughters were arriving for lunch, but again, there had been nothing from the man who'd bar-raged them with missives the week before.
Now, reading and translating, Carella's mind wandered.
While Teddy explained that they had thought a Northern Italian menu might be appropriate, in honor of Luigi and his children and the dozen or more friends who were coming over from Milan for the wedding, Carella was thinking. Two days of anagrams, starting with WHO'S IT, ETC? on Tuesday afternoon and ending the next day with I'M A FATHEAD, MEN! All five notes designed to remind them of his previous mischief and to tell them he was the one who'd killed Gloria Stanford.
And, as Teddy's fingers signaled savory but difficult to sign pass-around starters like bruschetta and crostata di funghi and tartine di baccala, Carella simultaneously spoke the words aloud in his halting Italian while silently pondering the fusillade of Shakespearean quotes that had started on Thursday with three shakes and a spear . . .
Rough winds do SHAKE ... SHAKE off slumber ... SHAKE me up ...
And finally . . .
... footing of a SPEAR.
Announcing without question that whatever might come next, it would most certainly come from Shakespeare. And indeed it had. On Friday morning . . .
'Steve? Are you listening to her?'
His sister's voice. Yanking him forward some five centuries in time.
'Sorry,' he said.
Teddy was starting on the main course.
There'll be two choices, she signed.
'There'll be two choices,' Carella said, reading her
hands. 'Either the roast lamb loin encrusted with mixed Italian herbs . . .'
'Yummy,' Angela said.
'Or the Tuscan-style veal tenderloin.'
'I think I prefer the veal,' his mother said.
'Well, there'll be a choice, Mom.'
'I know, honey. I'm just saying I love veal.'
I thought no fish, Teddy signed. Fish can be tricky.
Which was even trickier to sign.
She went on to explain the entrees would be accompanied by fresh sweet peas and pearl onions . . .
'And new potatoes,' Carella said, reading.
And a spinach salad . . .
'With goat cheese, walnuts, and a warm pancetta dressing,' Carella said.
And, of course, there'll be a choice of desserts, Teddy signed.
'It sounds delicious,' Angela said.
'Steve?' his mother said. 'Don't you think so?'
'Can't wait,' he said, nodding, but his mind had begun to wander again.
So while the women lingered over coffee and cannoli, and the children ran around the house giggling and playing whatever game they'd invented this week, he went to the computer in Mark's room, and again called up the sources of the three 'spear' notes they'd received on Friday.
Tickle our noses with spear-grass — from Henry IV.
Where is your boar-spear, man? — from Richard III.
And the last note that day — Slander's venom'd spear — from Richard II.
Was there any significance to the choice of plays, or the order in which the notes were delivered?
If so, what about yesterday's notes?
No more spears this time around. Now the Deaf Man was into arrows:
Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows Swears he will shoot no more but play with sparrows
Act Four of The Tempest.
The slings and arrows ...
Act Three of Hamlet. And lastly:
As stand in narrow lanes
Act Five of King Richard II.
One historical drama this time around. Plus a straight play and a tragedy. Carella could see nothing significant in their choice.
Or in the sequence of their delivery, either.
He was left with solely spears and arrows, some of them buried, and he still didn't know what the hell was about to happen.
HAWES MENTIONED DURING the intermission that he was getting sort of a brush-off from the upper-crust dicks at the Eight-Six and the overworked ones in Mid South. Honey seemed surprised.
'Even after the show I did Friday night?' she asked.
'Oh, they're aware of you, all right. But they don't seem interested in finding a link to whoever took those potshots at me. Outside your building, I mean.'
'You think the two shootings are linked?'
'Well . . . don't you?'
'Honestly? I don't know.'
'You don't? Honey, it seems obvious that I'm the one they're after.'
'You? Why on earth would anyone ... ?'
'Maybe because I've put away one or two bad guys in my time. And some of those guys are out on the street again. And maybe they still don't like the idea of.. .'
'Excuse me, Miss Blair?'
Hawes turned. A tall thin man with a silly grin on his face was virtually leaning in over Hawes's aisle seat to extend his program to Honey in the seat next to his.
'Could you sign it 'To Ben,' please?' he asked, and handed her the program and a marking pen.
Hawes shifted his weight, giving Honey the arm rest and more room to write. Feigning indifference, he busied himself with his own program.
It appeared that next week's 'Three at Three' series would kick off on Saturday afternoon with Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, his only full concerto for violin. Konstantinos Sallas, the guest violinist, would . . .
'There you go, Ben,' Honey said, and handed the program and the pen across Hawes to the man, who was standing expectantly in the aisle, still grinning like a schoolboy.
'Thank you, Miss Blair,' he said.
Honey smiled, and then squeezed Hawes's hand.
The house lights were beginning to dim.
AT A LITTLE past four that afternoon, just as Eileen was searching through her refrigerator and discovering there was nothing but yogurt to eat for dinner tonight, her telephone rang. For some reason, she looked at her watch,
and then went into the living room to pick up the receiver.
'Burke,' she said.
'Eileen, hi. It's Hal.'
'Hey, hi,' she said.
