Read Online Hark! by Ed McBain - Free Book Online Page B

Shine?”
    â€œNo,” she said. “I don’t much like rap.”
    â€œWell, it’s come a long way from ‘Let’s All Kill the Police,’ if that’s what you’re thinking.”
    â€œI don’t know what ‘Let’s All Kill the Police’ is.”
    â€œI’m categorizing a form of gangsta rap,” Hudson said. “Spit Shine went beyond that. Spit Shine addressed the ills of black society itself. Didn’t try to lay it all on Whitey. Asked us what we ourselves were doing to denigrate…”
    â€œI don’t like the expression ‘Whitey,’ ” Sharyn said.
    â€œSorry. Didn’t mean it in a derogatory way. In any case, Spit Shine no longer exists. Guy who wrote their stuff got killed in the Grover Park riot a few years back. Remember the riot there?”
    â€œYes.”
    She remembered. The day after the riot, a white detective named Bert Kling had called her from a phone booth in the rain to ask if she’d like to go to dinner and a movie with him.
    â€œTwenty-three years old when a stray bullet killed him,” Hudson said. “His name was Sylvester Cummings, his rapper’s handle was ‘Silver.’ Wrote wonderful lyrics. Wonderful.” And again without preamble, he began beating out a rhythm on the table top, and began singing in a low, somehow urgent voice.
    â€œYou dig vanilla?
    â€œNow ain’t that a killer!
    â€œYou say you hate chocolate?
    â€œI say you juss thoughtless.
    â€œCause chocolate is the color
    â€œOf the Lord’s first children
    â€œJuss go ask the diggers
    â€œThe men who find the bones
    â€œGo ask them ’bout chocolate…
    â€œGo ask them ’bout niggers…”
    â€œI don’t like that word, either,” Sharyn said.
    â€œMan was trying to make a point,” Hudson said.
    Their food arrived.
    He seemed about to say something more. Instead, he just shook his head, and began eating.
    Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up.
    â€œAdam,” Meyer said.
    â€œAdam Fen,” Carella said.
    â€œThe Chinese guy again,” Genero said.
    â€œThe Deaf Man,” Kling said.
    â€œIf he’s deaf, then how can he hear ?” Parker asked. “ ‘Thou shalt hear. ’ ” “And what’s with all this Quaker talk all at once?” Willis asked. “ ‘ Thou shalt hear?’ What’s that supposed to be?”
    â€œ ‘Thy hat and thy glove,’ ” Eileen said. “That was a good movie.”
    This was now ten minutes past three. She’d been back in the squadroom since a quarter to. As she’d suspected, the FirstBank safe-deposit box was empty. She was wondering now if it was worth sending Mobile over there to dust it for prints. Had “Gloria Stanford” put on gloves before opening it?
    â€œ Friendly Persuasion ,” Kling said, remembering.
    They had seen it together on television, Eileen lying in his arms on the couch in his studio apartment near the Calm’s Point Bridge. That was when they were still living together. That was a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.
    â€œ ‘Thee I love,’ ” Eileen said, remembering.
    â€œHe’s telling us he plans to shake us up,” Parker said.
    He hated this fucking Deaf Man. Made him feel stupid. Which maybe he was. But he didn’t even like to consider that possibility.
    â€œShake us up how ?” Brown asked.
    â€œYou think he’s gonna tell us all at once?”
    â€œOh no, not him.”
    â€œPiece by piece.”
    â€œBit by bit.”
    â€œListen.”
    â€œGo apart and listen.”
    â€œHark!” Willis said.
    And this time, no one questioned his use of the word.
    Â 
    T HE CALL FROM M ILAN came at three-thirty, which Carella figured was either nine-thirty or ten-thirty over there in Italy. The call was from Luigi Fontero, the man who was about to marry