'God, does he know about the wedding?' Carella asked out loud.
'How could he?' Meyer asked.
'He could,' Genero said knowingly. 'He's evil.'
Carella was thinking, It is a mad marriage. Two mad marriages! Like never was or were before. He was already at the computer, searching for the source of the quote. It was eight-thirty in the morning. The other detectives all clustered around the first note that day as if it were a ticking time bomb. Which perhaps it was.
'There's bark,' Willis said. 'I told you it meant listen, didn't I?'
'Hark, hark!'' Kling quoted. 'He's harking us to death.'
'Hokking our chainiks,' Meyer said.
'Which means?' Parker demanded, sounding insulted.
'Which means 'breaking our balls,' excuse me, Eileen.'
'It's from The Taming of the Shrew,' Carella said. 'Act Three, Scene Two.'
'Think the Minstrels might be a rock group?' Brown asked.
'Here, check it out,' Willis said.
The June 11-18 issue of Here & Now magazine had appeared on the newsstands early this morning. Published every Friday, it covered the city's cultural scene for the following week, alerting its readers to what was happening all around town. Handily divided into sections titled Art, Books, Clubs, Comedy, Dance, Film, Gay & Lesbian, Kids, Music, Sports, and Theater, the magazine offered a neat little guide to all that was going on that week.
The Music section this week . . .
The Deaf Man's note this morning seemed to confirm that his target was a concert someplace . . .
. . . was divided into subsections titled 'Rock, Pop & Soul,' 'Reggae, World & Latin,' 'Jazz & Experimental,' 'Blues, Folk & Country,' and 'Cabaret.' A separate section listed 'Classical & Opera' events. The variety of offerings was overwhelming. For this weekend alone, there were 112 listings in the 'Rock, Pop & Soul' section; this was not Painted Shrubs, Arizona, kiddies.
The magazine's DON'T MISS! column highlighted the 'dashing singer-guitarist' John Pizzarelli and his trio, appearing nightly at 8:30 P.M. in the Skyline Room of the Hanover Hotel; 'soul legend' Isaac Hayes, performing at 8:00 and 10:30 this Friday and Saturday nights at Lou's Place downtown; Kathleen Landis. lovely pianist and song stylist,' nightly at 9:00 P.M. in the lounge of the Picadilly; Konstantinos Sallas, 'renowned violin virtuoso, guest- starring with the Philharmonic' at Clarendon Hall this Saturday and Sunday at 3:00 P.M.; and William Christie leading the Paris National Opera and his 'stellar early-music ensemble' in Les Boreades at the Calm's Point Academy of Music, this Friday at 7:15 P.M. and this Sunday at 2:00 P.M.
There were groups named the Hangdogs, and Cigar Store Indians, and the Abyssinians, and Earth Wind & Fire, and the White Stripes, and Drive-By Truckers, but nobody named the Minstrels was performing anywhere in the city anytime during the coming week.
'Think there's a group called 'A Mad Marriage'?' Kling asked.
'I wouldn't be surprised,' Meyer said.
'Here, you check it out,' Brown said, and tossed him the magazine. 'There's only ten thousand of them listed.'
'How about 'Never Was Before'?'
'Or 'A Rout Is Coming'?'
'Good start,' Willis said. 'Know any lead guitarists?'
'Anybody got a garage?' Eileen said.
'What's a rout?' Genero asked.
'A disorderly retreat,' Kling said.
'I thought it was some kind of rodent.'
'He's telling us he's got us on the run,' Parker said.
'Maybe he has,' Carella said.
IT BOTHERED HIM that somehow, in some damn mysterious way, the Deaf Man may have learned about tomorrow's impending wedding, weddings, and was planning some mischief for them. Carella hated mysteries. In police work, there were no mysteries. There were only crimes and the people who committed them. But the Deaf Man insisted on creating his own little mysteries, taunting them with clues, making a humorous guessing game of crime.
On Carella's block, there was nothing humorous about crime. Crime was serious business, and the people who committed crimes were nothing but criminals, period. He didn't care if they came from broken homes, he didn't care if they'd been abused as children, he didn't care if they had what they believed were very good reasons for beating the system. The way Carella looked at it, there were no very good reasons for beating the system. Maybe President Clinton should have kept his zipper zipped, but he was right when he suggested that everyone should work hard and play by the rules.
Carella worked hard and played by the rules.
The Deaf Man didn't.
That was the difference between them.
Well, maybe the Deaf Man was working hard at concocting these riddles of his, but he sure as hell wasn't playing by the rules.
Carella had to admit that there was nothing he'd have liked better than for someone — anyone — to pop out of his seat and raise his hand when the priest asked the gathered witnesses to speak now or forever hold their peace. But he did not want that someone to be the Deaf Man. He did not want any surprises at tomorrow's ceremony, ceremonies.
He wanted all of this over and done with.
The weddings and whatever the Deaf Man was planning.
All of it.
Toward that end, the Deaf Man's next note was no help at all.
So glad of this as they I cannot be, Who are surprised withal; but my rejoicing At nothing can be more. I'll to my book, For yet ere supper-time must I perform Much business appertaining.
'No, wait,' Willis said. 'I think he's trying to tell us something, after all.'
'Yeah, what? There's nothing at all about a concert this time,' Parker said.
'But he's back to something printed again. 'Thy printed worth,' remember? Now he's specifically mentioning a book. 'I'll to my book.' There it is, right there, in black and white. A book.'
'I looked at all Shakespeare's plays in the library the other night,' Genero said.
'Good, Richard, you get a gold star.'
'Well, maybe he's telling us to go to the library. To find that missing quote, or whatever.'
'Of course he is,' Parker said, encouraging him. 'Maybe in the very same book you looked at the other night.'
'Maybe so.'
'Maybe you can even borrow the book, Richard. Ponder it at your leisure.'
'Well, wait a minute,' Eileen said. 'He did say 'borrow or rob,' didn't he? In one of his notes? And that's where you borrow a book, isn't it? A library?'
'First book I ever owned,' Parker said, 'I stole from the lib'ery.'
'Where's that Here & Now? Eileen asked. 'Is there anything about a library in it?'
In a section of the magazine titled . . .
AROUND TOWN
. . . they found a subsection titled:
LAST CHANCE DEPARTMENT.
Headlined there was an article titled . . .
Bye Bye, Bard
It read:
To mark the departure of the 6.2-million-dollar First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays, on loan from the Folger Collection in Washington, D.C., Patrick Stewart - renowned Shakespearean actor
and subsequent captain of the starship Enterprise -will read from selected plays in a farewell tribute.
