You know what I think?'
'Say.'
'We have nothing to worry about. The Eight-Four is sending its people over, and so is Mid South.'
'Right. So we're okay.'
'I think so.'
'Me, too.'
'Don't you think?'
'I guess.'
'What?'
'I don't know. It's just . . . with this guy . . .'
'I know.'
'He may be planning to blow up the Calm's Point Bridge, who the hell knows? All the rest of it may be bullshit, just like Parker says.'
Yeah, well, Parker,' Meyer said, lowering his voice.
Carella looked at the clock again.
'I gotta get out of here,' he said.
'Good luck,' Meyer said.
NOSTRADAMUS!
It was writ large. And the slanted exclamation point lent urgency to the word, demanding attention.
'Another anagram, right?' Genero said.
'Wrong,' Parker said. 'Nostra Damus is a college in the Midwest.'
Meyer was thinking about the anagram they'd received first thing this morning:
GO TO A PRECINT'S SHIT!
Which they'd rearranged as:
PROGNOSTICATE THIS!
He'd been taught by his grandfather that Nostradamus was a sixteenth-century French physician who'd become famous during his lifetime and afterward because of his talent for prophesying the future. Prophecies. Prognostications. Prognosticate this, amigo! And now Nostradamus, who had fascinated Meyer's grandfather only because he'd been born of Jewish parents.
'Nostradamus was . . .' Meyer started to explain, but Genero said, 'There's 'SUM' again.'
'Where?' Parker asked.
'Backwards,' Genero said. 'Don't you remember?'
'Remember what?' Parker asked impatiently.
'All those notes we got. Where are those copies, Meyer?'
Meyer found the copied notes, spread them on his desktop.
'Here you go,' Genero said. 'Here's the one I mean.'
But she would spell him backward
'So?' Parker said.
And this one,' Genero said.
MUST SELL AT TALLEST SUM
'So?' Parker insisted.
'So here's 'SUM' again,' he said. 'Backwards,'' he said, and tapped the most recent note:
NOSTRADAMUS!
'Start at the end of the word,' he said.
'It's not a word, it's a name,' Meyer said. 'Nostradamus. He was
'Whatever,' Genero said. 'M-U-S is S-U-M backwards. The last four letters of the word . . .'
'The name.'
'. . . are an anagram for 'A SUM.''
Parker was nodding. He had to admit the little jackass was right. A sum,' he said. 'The ransom he'll be asking.'
'In fact,' Genero said, if you keep going backwards . . . look at this, willya? . . . you get 'DARTS.' Isn't that what he was telling us a long time ago? Arrows to slings to darts? Here . . . where is it?' he said, and began rummaging through the notes on Meyer's desk. 'Here. Here you go.'
Filling the air with swords advanced and darts, We prove this very hour.
'Three o'clock is the hour he gave us,' Meyer said, and looked up at the clock; this very hour was now a quarter to twelve.
'The point is,' Genero said, beginning to enjoy his role as visiting lecturer, 'we've got anagrams for both 'A SUM' and 'DARTS' ... so what else might there be in this single word?'
'It's a name,' Meyer told him again.
'The name of a college,' Parker agreed.
They all looked at the note again:
NOSTRADAMUS!
'As a matter of fact,' Parker said, 'it's 'NO DARTS.''
'We're back to him using a gun again,' Meyer said.
'A rod, right.'
At a concert.'
'Maybe.'
'Let's see what that looks like,' Parker said, beginning to have a little fun here himself. ' 'NO DARTS' and 'A SUM,'' he said, and lettered the words on a sheet of blank paper:
NO DARTS A SUM!
'Try it backwards,' Meyer said. 'He keeps telling us to go backwards.'
A SUM NO DARTS!
Add a comma to it,' Meyer suggested. 'Where?' After 'SUM.'' Parker pencilled it in:
A SUM, NO DARTS!
'Pay a sum,' Genero said, 'a ransom, and I won't shoot you with poisoned darts.'
'That's ridiculous,' Parker said.
'He says so right in this other note here,' Genero said, and found it, and, using his forefinger, tapped it with great certainty:
For piercing steel and darts envenomed Shall be as welcome to the ears
'Poisoned darts,' he said, nodding in agreement with his own deduction. 'If you don't pay the ransom, I'll shoot you in your ears with poisoned dartsV
'No, he's talking music there,' Meyer said.
'Where?' Parker asked.
'Here.'
Shall be as welcome to the ears
'He's referring to music. 'Welcome to the ears.' The violinist again.'
'Sallas.'
'Clarendon Hall.'
'Three o'clock,' Meyer said, and again looked up at the clock.
The time was now 11:56 A.M.
HERE COME THE brides, Carella thought, all dressed in white, one on each arm, mother and daughter looking somewhat alike in their nuptial threads and short coiffed hairdos, neither wearing a veil, each radiant in anticipation.
And there at the altar, looking up the center aisle of the church as Carella approached with their imminent wives . . .
There at the altar were the two grooms, Luigi Fontero and Henry Lowell, each looking serious albeit nervous, the priest standing behind them and between them and looking happier than either of them.
The organ music stopped.
They were at the altar now.
