“Yeah, we got those here,” the guy said, “the long-sleeve shirts, the pants, the jackets and hats, whatever you need, the T-shirts. We even got sweatshirts here, you want to get some of those. Those might be nice to bowl in.”
“Where are you?” Carter asked.
“Public Affairs Office. There’s like a little shop here. Room 831. Just come on down, you’ll find whatever you need. 335 Gold. You know where Gold Street is? Down on the Lower Platform? We’re next to where the old outdoor market used to be. Room 831. Just come up, we’ll take care of you. The shirts are eleven dollars, the long-sleeve shirts, and the pants are fifteen. If you want the sweatshirt…”
“Do you have any patches there?”
“Patches?”
“Sleeve patches, you know?”
“No, I don’t. But they can get those through their supervisors.”
“You can’t get any for me, huh? So I can sew them on, make it like a real surprise?”
“Let me see what I can do, okay? How many you need?”
“Just four.”
“When are you coming in?”
“I thought tomorrow.”
“I’m off tomorrow.”
“Can you leave them for me?”
“The shirts? They’re right here. All you have to…”
“The patches.”
“Oh. Sure, if I can get ’em for you. What’s your name?”
“Ray Gardner.”
“Okay, Ray, let me see what I can do.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“Hey, come on.”
As easy as that.
The garbage truck would be a bit more difficult.
Sanson wanted him to steal the truck on the day of the job, take it at noon, drive straight over to the river with it. Carter had argued against this. First, it would mean a daylight heist, which increased the risk. And next, the trucks were in use during the day, they weren’t just sitting around in empty lots all over the city the way they were at night. Cyclone fences around the lots, razor wire on top of the fences, be hard enough getting in at night , never mind the daytime. Sanson had listened hard—he always listened hard, the deaf fuck—and then he’d said Okay, but it has to be as late as possible the night before, I don’t want some sanitation slob to discover the missing truck and alert the entire department. It was agreed that Carter would steal a truck from the Blatty Street garage in Riverhead sometime during the empty hours of the night before the concert.
For now, he had to get that laminate.
He could see movement in the car, Fat Boy was never going to sleep. One thing Carter hated was conscientious public servants. He looked over toward the trailer, wondering whether the area near the door was dark enough for him to risk it even with the guard awake. He decided it wasn’t. All he needed was half a minute to pick that lock, couldn’t the guy sneak forty winks for him? He waited another ten minutes, decided Fat Boy would be awake all night, and went into the woods bordering the lake. Hoping he wouldn’t step on any lovers’ asses in there, he circled around toward the access road, picked up a rock the size of a cantaloupe, came up behind the car, and hurled the rock at the rear window. He was back in the woods again even before Fat Boy came out of the car yelling. Took Carter three minutes to run back to the trailer. Another minute to pick the lock and open the door. Over to the left, he could hear Fat Boy chasing shadows on the access road. Still out of breath, he pulled the door shut behind him and locked the door from the inside.
Taking a Mag-Lite from his pocket, he shielded it before he snapped it on, allowing only a pinpoint of illumination to escape his cupped hands as he began searching the trailer. Nothing was locked in here, nothing to steal but the laminates, and there was a guard outside making sure that wouldn’t happen. He found boxes and boxes of them inside a metal cabinet at the far end of the trailer. All of the laminates were marked in the left-hand corner with the slightly-ajar-window logo of Windows Entertainment. They were color-coded in four different colors: yellow, pink, pastel blue, and orange. There were laminates with the names of the various groups on them, and laminates with big numbers on them1, 2, 3, 4 and then he found the box he needed, the ones with the laminates markedALL ACCESS. He didn’t know which of the colors were for which days, so he took one in each color, and grabbed a handful of lanyards from the shelf. He doused the light and was about to step out of the trailer again when he heard the guard’s footsteps outside.
He waited in the dark.
Fat Boy shook the knob.
Standard procedure.
Shake it, see if it’s locked.
Which was why Carter had locked it from the inside.
He kept waiting.
Heard footsteps moving off.
Heard the car door opening and then closing again. Fat Boy on the horn to the home office, Hey, somebody smashed my fuckin window !
Carter stayed inside the trailer for another ten minutes. Then he eased open the door a few inches, looked toward the car, opened the door wider, stepped down onto the grass, and slipped silently into the night.
THE DEAF MAN’S next letter was delivered to the squadroom early that Thursday morning, the second day of April. As usual, there was a short note attached to a larger sheet of paper. The note read:
The paragraph photocopied from Rivera’s book read:
S iSHONA’S BLOND HAIRglistened in the light of the four moons. Everywhere around them, the naked bodies twisted and the voices roared to the night. “The multitude will destroy itself,” she told Tikona. “It will turn upon itself and see in itself the olden enemy. Its fury will blind its eyes. It will know only the enmities of the Ancients.”
“The river runs fast after the Rites of Spring,” Tikona said.
“But the fury rises before,” Sishona answered.
“I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about,” Carella said.
“Rivera or the Deaf Man?” Brown asked.
“The Deaf Man,” Carella said. “What’s the goddamn jackass trying to tell us?”
“A jackass he’s not,” Meyer said. “In fact, maybe he’s a genius.”
“That’s what he’d like us to believe, anyway.”
“Let’s go over it from the start, okay?” Meyer said. “First he tells us there’s this multitude that’s going to explode.”
“Let me see that damn thing again,” Carella said. He was beginning to get irritated. The Deaf Man always irritated him. More so because he was deaf. Or pretending to be deaf. The person Carella loved most in his life was a woman who was really deaf.This son of a bitch…
“Here,” Hawes said.
Yesterday, the dentist had removed the stain from his teeth. He looked normal again. Or almost normal. The dentist had used a fine abrasive stone to clean off the sealant and stain, and then had polished the teeth with fine sandpaper. He told Hawes that the enamel would never come back—something they hadn’t told him before he’d given his all for the job—but that the calcium in the teeth would remineralize them, whatever the hell that meant. Hawes was annoyed. As much by the Deaf Man as by the dentist.
They all looked at the first message yet another time:
I fEAR ANexplosion,” Tikona said. “I fear the jostling of the feet will awaken the earth too soon. I fear the voices of the multitude will anger the sleeping rain god and cause him to unleash his watery fury before the fear has been vanquished. I fear the fury of the multitude may not be contained.”