enjoying his aunt's ribald sense of humor, either. His sister's intended sat holding her hand and smiling tolerantly as the joke unfolded endlessly, something about the Pope, sure to be a winner among the Fonteros, the Pope being stopped by a prostitute outside the Vatican (Careful, Aunt Dotty!) and then running back inside to ask the Mother Superior 'What's a blowjob?' (Watch it!) and the Mother Superior telling him . . .
Carella suddenly wondered if his mother and Luigi . . .
No, he didn't want to go there.
All at once, everyone was laughing.
Even the Fonteros, who, Carella now realized, understood more English than he'd earlier supposed.
The laughter swelled everywhere around him.
He wondered why he couldn't find it in himself to share it.
13.
THE ELEVENTH DAY of June dawned all too soon.
At six-thirty A.M. on what looked like the start of a sunny Friday morning, Melissa and the Deaf Man were sitting in the breakfast nook of his seventeenth-floor apartment, overlooking River Place South, Gleason Park, and the River Harb beyond.
'Your job tomorrow,' he was telling her, 'will be a very simple one.'
She was thinking that her job today wouldn't be a simple one at all. If she didn't get out of here soon to start lining up her junkies . . .
'The luxury sedan from Regal will be arriving here at half past noon tomorrow,' he said. 'All you have to do is deliver the driver to the Knowlton.'
So what else is new? she thought.
And what will you be doing?' she asked.
Far as she could see, all he'd done so far was sit on his brilliant ass while she ran all over the city doing his errands. And he still hadn't told her what her cut of the big seven-figure payoff would be, if there ever was a big payoff, which she was honestly beginning to doubt, now that he was into palindromes and all. If he was so intent on screwing up the 87th Precinct, why was he bothering with word games? Why didn't he just lob a hand grenade through the front door? Good question, eh, Adam? What is this thing you have with them, anyway?
'What is this thing you have with them, anyway?' she asked, venturing the question out loud, what the hell.
'By this thing . . . ?'
'This messing around with their heads.'
'Let's just say our ongoing relationship has been a frustrating one,' he said.
'Okay, but why . . . ?'
'I wouldn't trouble my pretty little head over it,' he said, a line she had heard in many a bad movie, a line she had in fact heard from the late unlamented Ambrose Carter while he was still training her, so to speak, his exact words being, 'I wouldn't trouble my pretty little head over it, swee'heart, just suck the man's cock.'
'Yes, but I do trouble my pretty little head over it,' she said now, somewhat defiantly. 'Because it seems to me you're spending a lot of time and money telling these jerks exactly what you're about to do . . .'
'Exactly what I'm not about to do is more like it,' he said.
'Whatever,' she said. 'Why are you bothering, that's the question? Why not just do the gig and get out of town?'
'That's precisely what I plan to do. Tortola, remember?'
'Who's Detective Stephen Louis Carella?' she asked, straight out.
'A dumb flatfoot.'
'Then why are you addressing these letters to him? If he's so dumb
'It's personal. I shot him once.'
'Why?'
'He was getting on my nerves.'
'Did he send you away, is that it?'
'I've never done time in my life.'
'Did he bust you? Did you beat the rap?'
'Never. Neither Carella nor the Eight-Seven has ever laid a hand on me.'
'Then ... I don't get it. Why bother with them?'
'Diversion, my dear, it's all diversion.'
'I don't know what that means, diversion.'
'It means smoke and mirr . . .'
'I know what it means, I just don't see how it applies here.'
'Try to look at it this way, my dear,' he said patiently. She did not like it when he got so tip-toey patient with her. It was more like condescension when he got so patient. 'In these perilous times of High Alert, with a terrorist lurking under every bush - please pardon the pun - one can't be too careful, can one? So, even with the assistance of policemen from other precincts, they'll still be too late.'
'Who'll be too late?'
'The stalwarts of the Eight-Seven.'
'Too late for whatV
'The foul deed that smells above the earth - to paraphrase Mr. Shakespeare in his brilliant Julius Caesar - shall already have been done. Too late, my love. Altogether too late.'
'I still don't get it,' she said.
'Well,' he said, and sighed heavily, 'I wouldn't trouble my pretty little head over it.'
Which pissed her off all over again.
THE DRIVER WHO'D been behind the wheel of the limo last Friday was named Kevin Connelly, and he did not appreciate being awakened at seven in the morning. Associating Hawes at once with the bullets that had come crashing into the car last week, he immediately looked into the hallway past him, as if expecting another fusillade. Satisfied that Hawes was alone, he stepped aside and let him into the apartment.
He was still in his pajamas. He threw on a robe, led Hawes into the kitchen, and immediately set a pot of coffee to brew on the stove. Like two old buddies about to embark on a hunting trip, they sat drinking coffee at a small table adjacent to a small window.
'I want to know about the Honey Blair call last Friday,' Hawes said. 'What'd the dispatcher give you?'
'Pickup and delivery for Miss Blair,' Connelly said. 'Same as always.'
'So how come you picked me up on the way?'
'Miss Blair told me to stop by for you.'
'Gave you 711 Grover?'
'No, she didn't know the address of the precinct. I had to look it up in my book. This little book I have.'
'How about 574 Jefferson? Did she tell you we'd be dropping me off there?'
'Yes.'
'How long did you figure it'd take from her building to the precinct?'
'About ten minutes.'
'And from there to Jeff Av?'
'Another twenty.'
'Plenty of time for someone to get there ahead of us.'
'Well, sure. As it turned out.'
'But you and Miss Blair were the only ones who knew where we were going.'
'Until' I called it in to Base.'
'Base?'
'The Transportation office. At Channel Four. I called in to give them the new itin.'
'Who'd you speak to there?'
'One of the guys.'
'Which one?' Hawes asked. *
And after me, I know, the rout is coming. Such a mad marriage never was before: Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.
