Hark! Read Online Free Page A

heading out in half an hour or so.
    â€œI can’t wait,” she whispered into the phone.
    â€œTo scrape your jumper off the sidewalk?” Hawes asked.
    â€œYes, that, too. But, actually…”
    She lowered her voice even further.
    â€œâ€¦I can’t wait to jump on you !”
    â€œCareful,” he warned, and glanced around to where the other detectives all seemed preoccupied with their own phone conversations.
    â€œTell me what you can’t wait to do,” she whispered.
    â€œI’d get arrested,” he whispered.
    â€œYou’re a cop, tell me, anyway.”
    â€œDo you know that little restaurant we went to the other night?”
    â€œY-e-ess?”
    â€œThat very crowded place where everyone turned to look at you when we walked in…?”
    â€œFlatterer.”
    â€œIt’s true. Because you’re so beautiful.”
    â€œDon’t stop, sweet talker.”
    â€œI want you…”
    â€œI want you, too.”
    â€œI’m not finished,” he said.
    â€œTell me.”
    â€œI want you to go to the ladies room…”
    â€œRight now?”
    â€œNo, in that restaurant.”
    â€œY-e-ess?”
    â€œAnd take off your panties…”
    â€œOooo.”
    â€œAnd bring them back to the table and stuff them in the breast pocket of my jacket.”
    â€œThen what?”
    â€œThen you’ll be sitting there in that crowded room with everyone knowing you’re Honey Blair from Channel Four News…”
    â€œHoney Blair, Girl Reporter.”
    â€œYes, but I’ll be the only one who knows you’re not wearing panties.”
    â€œEven though they’re sticking out of your jacket pocket like a handkerchief?”
    â€œEven though,” he said.
    â€œAnd then what?”
    â€œThen we’ll see.”
    â€œOh, I’ll just bet we will,” Honey whispered.
    Hot and heavy.
    Like that.
    Not a worry in sight.
    Little did they know.
    Â 
    T HE BICYCLE COURIER was a Korean immigrant who not five minutes earlier had almost caused a serious accident when he ran a red light on Culver Avenue and almost smacked into a taxi driven by a Pakistani immigrant whose Dominican immigrant passenger began cursing in Spanish at the sudden brake-squealing stop that hurled her forward into the thick plastic partition separating her from the driver.
    Now, safe and sound, and smiling at the desk sergeant, the courier asked in his singsong tongue if there was a Detective Stephen Carella here. Murchison took the slender cardboard envelope, signed for it, and sent it upstairs.
    The packet was indeed addressed to Carella, the words DETECTIVE STEPHEN LOUIS CARELLA scrawled across the little insert slip, and below that the address of the precinct house on Grover Avenue. He pulled on a pair of latex gloves, ripped open the tab along the top end of the stiff envelope, and found inside a white business-size envelope with his name handwritten across it again, DETECTIVE STEPHEN LOUIS CARELLA . He opened this smaller envelope, and pulled from it a plain white sheet of paper upon which were the typewritten words:
    WHO’S IT, ETC?
A DARN SOFT GIRL?
O, THERE’S A HOT HINT!
    â€œWho’s it from?” Meyer asked, walking over.
    â€œDunno,” Carella said, and turned the packet over in his hands. The return name on the delivery insert, in the same handwriting as Carella’s scribbled name, was ADAM FEN . The return address was for a post office box at the Abernathy Station downtown.
    â€œAnybody you know?” Meyer asked.
    â€œNope,” Carella said, and looked at the note again.
    WHO’S IT, ETC?
A DARN SOFT GIRL?
O, THERE’S A HOT HINT!
    â€œHe spelled oh wrong,” Genero said. “Didn’t he?” he asked, not certain anymore. He had walked into the squadroom as part of the relieving night-shift team, and was now at Carella’s desk, peering at the two envelopes and the note.