Hark! by Ed McBain Read Free Book Online Page A

rearrange those?” he asked.
    â€œSure,” she said, and took the marker from his hand, and wrote:
    PUSSY
    â€œNeat,” he said.
    â€œ But ,” she said, and wrote:
    MORE’S NIFTY
    â€œI’ll bet it is,” he said.
    â€œOh, you bet your ass it is,” she said. “But it’s your game, Adam.”
    â€œWhich game do you mean?” he asked.
    His hand was between her legs, but her thighs were closed tight on it, refusing entrance.
    â€œThis one,” she said, and wrote on the pad:
    SNAG A RAM
    â€œAnagrams, do you mean?”
    â€œBingo,” she said.
    â€œYou want an anagram for ‘more’s nifty.’ Is that it?”
    â€œTry it,” she said, and handed him the marker.
    He thought for merely an instant, and then wrote:
    MONEY FIRST
    â€œHow clever of you,” she said, and spread her legs wide, and held her hand out to him, palm upwards.
    â€œI think not,” he said, and slapped her so hard he almost knocked her off the couch.
    Â 
    L ATER, WHILE M ELISSA was still tied to the bed, he asked if she knew that “Adam Fen” was an anagram for “Deaf Man.”
    Aching everywhere, she said she guessed she did.
    He wrote both words on the pad for her, one under the other:
    ADAM FEN
DEAF MAN
    â€œGee, yeah,” she said.
    Along about then, a courier was delivering the final note in what the Deaf Man thought of as the first movement of his ongoing little symphony.
    Â 
    T HE NOTE IN THE inside envelope read:
    We wondred that thou went’st so soon
    From the world’s stage, to the grave’s tiring room.
    We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth,
    Tells thy spectators that thou went’st but forth
    To enter with applause.
    An Actor’s Art,
    Can die, and live, to act a second part.
    I’M A FATHEAD, MEN!
    There was also a line drawing in the envelope:

    â€œWho the hell is that supposed to be?” Parker asked.
    â€œLooks like a rag picker,” Byrnes said. “You have rag pickers in your neighborhood?”
    â€œWe called him the Rags Man,” Brown said, nodding.
    â€œWhy would he be sending us a picture of a rag picker?” Meyer asked.
    â€œNo, Artie’s got it,” Carella said. “It’s a rags man. Oh, Jesus, it’s a rags man!”
    They all looked at him.
    He seemed about to have a heart attack.
    â€œIt’s an anagram!” he said.
    â€œHuh?” Genero said.
    â€œAn anagram, an anagram, a rags man! That’s an anagram for anagrams !”
    â€œHuh?” Genero said again.
    All at once the letters under the note’s poetry seemed to spring from the page, I’M A FATHEAD, MEN, leaping into the air before Carella’s very eyes, rolling and tumbling in random order, I A F M H A T D E A N M E, until at last they fell into place in precisely the order Adam Fen had intended.
    I AM THE DEAF MAN!
    â€œShit,” Carella said, “he’s back.”
    Â 
    A ND NOW , of course, all of it made sense.
    All of the notes, when read as anagrams, clearly told them what the Deaf Man had done and possibly why he had done it.
    WHO’S IT, ETC?
A DARN SOFT GIRL?
O, THERE’S A HOT HINT!
    Rearranged in their proper order, the letters became:
    SHOT TWICE?
GLORIA STANFRD?
SHOT IN THE HEART!
    Move that dangling “O” from the third line to the first line and you had her full last name: STANFORD.
    Similarly:
    A WET CORPUS?
CORN, ETC?
    â€¦became:
    COW PASTURE?
CONCERT?
    â€¦the scene of the Deaf Man’s last chaotic diversion in Grover Park.
    And once they rearranged:
    BRASS HUNT?
CELLAR?
    â€¦they got:
    STASH BURN?
RECALL?
    â€¦which merely asked them to remember his true target the last time out, the incinerator on the River Harb Drive, where thirty million dollars worth of confiscated narcotics was scheduled to be burned by the police.
    And lastly:
    PORN DIET?
HELL, A TIT ON MOM!
    Put in their intended order, the letters