Hark! by Ed McBain Read Free Book Online

Meyer said. “In my opinion, anyway.”
    â€œLet’s have a look,” Byrnes said.
    PORN DIET?
HELL, A TIT ON MOM!
    â€œMaybe he’s referring to the girl again,” Genero said.
    â€œDid he shoot her in the breast?”
    â€œNot according to the ME’s report. She was shot twice. Both slugs took her in the heart. Just below the left breast.”
    â€œWas she sexually assaulted?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen what’s this ‘porn diet’ shit?” Parker asked.
    â€œWhat’s any of it?” Genero asked.
    â€œWho’s this Adam Fen?” Byrnes asked.
    â€œI checked the phone books yesterday,” Willis said. “Fen is a Chinese name…”
    â€œTold you,” Genero said.
    â€œâ€¦but I didn’t get an Adam anyplace in the city.”
    â€œWas there an Eve ?” Parker asked. “Adam and Eve ? Porn diet?”
    Byrnes glared at him.
    â€œJust a thought,” Parker said, and picked up another donut.
    â€œWhat about this P.O. box number?” Byrnes asked.
    â€œNonexistent,” Willis said.
    â€œWhy’d he pick 4884?”
    â€œWhy’d he pick us ?” Genero asked.
    â€œHe’s crazy is why,” Meyer said.
    â€œLike a fox,” Carella said.
    â€œLet’s go over it again,” Byrnes said.
    Â 
    I N A PENTHOUSE APARTMENT not a mile from where the detectives mulled over the various missives he’d sent them, the Deaf Man was trying to explain the meaning of the word anagram to the girl who sat beside him on his living room couch.
    The girl was blond, and perhaps twenty-three years old, certainly no older than that. He had helped her to remove her white blouse not three minutes ago, so she was at the moment wearing only a black miniskirt, black panties and bra, and black, high-heeled, strapped sandals. Altogether a dangerous look.
    â€œThink of it this way,” he said. “Suppose I told you your breasts are as ripe as berries.”
    â€œWell, you don’t know that yet, do you?” the girl said.
    â€œI can speculate,” the Deaf Man said.
    â€œI suppose we can all speculate,” she said.
    â€œAs ripe as berries,” he repeated, and lifted a clean white pad from the coffee table, and with a marking pen wrote on it:
    AS BERRIES
    â€œIs that for emphasis?” the girl asked.
    Her name was Melissa, Lissie for short. She’d told him this at the bar in the cocktail lounge of the Olympia Hotel, where he’d picked her up. He knew she was a hooker. A hooker was what he needed. But he had never in his life paid anyone for sex, and he did not intend to pay for it now.
    â€œNow if we rearrange those letters,” he said, “placing them in a different order, we get the word…”
    And here he wrote on the pad again:
    BRASSIERE
    â€¦and reached behind her back to unclasp it, freeing her breasts.
    â€œAs ripe as berries,” he said, and tried to kiss her nipples, but she crossed her arms over her breasts, and crossed her legs, too, and began jiggling one black-sandaled foot.
    â€œAnd what’d you call that?” she asked. “Rearranging the letters that way?”
    â€œAn anagram,” he said.
    â€œThat’s a neat trick,” she said. “Can you do an anagram for Melissa?”
    â€œAimless,” he said at once. “But how about this one?” he asked, and on the pad he wrote:
    A PET SIN
    â€¦and reached under her skirt to lower them over her thighs, before writing on the pad:
    PANTIES
    â€œNeat,” she said, and uncrossed her legs and her arms, and lifted herself slightly so he could lower the panties to her ankles. She kicked them free. They sailed halfway across the room, hitting the sliding glass doors that opened onto the seventeenth-floor terrace and a spectacular view of the city.
    â€œLet’s hope no one can spy us,” he said, and wrote the last two words on the pad:
    SPY US
    â€œCan you