"All I can tell is what I told the musical director. This is no longer a missing person's case, it's now a homicide. The detectives will be here later to take statements."
Castiglione turned to leave.
"How, and where?"
"We found him in his apartment. He had been shot. I'm sorry, I can't tell you any more than that."
I nodded and thanked him for his help. I turned around to walk back up to the stage. I knew it. I knew this case was going to go south on me as soon as I'd arrived this morning and there'd still been no sign of Klee. Up ahead, on stage, a few of the women were crying. Rosanna and Lauren amongst them. Frank was trying to console them. He had his hand on Rosanna's shoulder.
If I didn't know any better, I would have thought Patrick was wearing the slightest hint of a smirk. I walked up to Frank.
"What did he say?" I asked.
Frank turned from Rosanna towards me. He looked even older and sadder than before.
"It appears you were right. Paul's been killed. They said he was shot, found in his apartment."
"I thought you sent somebody around to visit him?"
"I did, yesterday, but he didn't answer the door."
"Did the cop say how long he'd been dead?"
Frank shook his head.
"No, he didn't say much at all. He said the detectives would be around later this afternoon to take statements and to fill in some of the blanks for us."
"I know the timing isn't good, Frank, but I'd like to continue my investigations if you don't mind."
Frank nodded.
"Of course," he said. "We're not going anywhere, the police officer asked that we all remain here for the detectives, so please carry on. I don't think this changes our need for you."
I smiled and nodded.
"Thanks," I said. "I'd like to speak with Gary Johnson."
Frank called him over and I walked him off stage and back to the orchestra seating that had become my makeshift office.
SEVEN
Chapter 7
GARY Johnson was a tall, wiry guy. Wiry might have been generous. He was thin. He reminded me of Patrick's older and taller cousin, as I imagined an older cousin for Patrick. He was thin and looked old. His teeth were crooked and yellow. He had the same messy, mousy brown hair as Patrick, though his wasn't salted with dandruff. He wore gray pants, with a blue shirt and loose blue tie. He was the principal trombonist. His right index and middle finger were stained yellow. He was obviously a heavy smoker. Heavier than me.
He shook my hand politely and sat a seat away from me, leaving an empty one between us.
"I imagine you know why I'm here?"
Gary nodded, and smiled.
"You're here to find Paul. Unfortunately it now seems you might be here to find out who killed him."
I nodded.
"I understand that Paul wasn't well liked by everyone, though you and he were quite tight from what I've heard."
"We were friends, yes."
"I hear you were more than that. You were, in fact, his dealer."
Gary looked at me hard for a moment. His brown eyes like hard dried turds.
"I don't think I should be saying anything more without my lawyer," he said.
I laughed out loud. Gary looked at me with a furrowed brow deep enough to plant a hill of beans.
"You've mistaken me for a cop. You only need a lawyer if you're under arrest. And I'm not here to arrest you for drugs, Gary, I'm here to figure out what happened to your pal Paul. And if he was indeed your pal, you might want to help me out."
Gary thought about my proposal for a moment.
"Okay, I helped him get a few things he needed."
"Like what?"
Gary paused for a moment and looked around, and up towards the stage. I figured he wanted to make sure nobody could overhear us.
"You won't be taking this back to the cops will you?"
He looked at me steadily. I shook my head.
"Not unless I find out you killed him," I said.
"I didn't."
"Then we're golden."
"Paul was a coke head. In fact, it was getting out of hand."
"That's what I heard."
"Well, it was worse than anyone thought. I'd cut him off about a month ago. He was getting paranoid and I figured the coke wasn't helping him. He got pretty pissed at me for it. He threatened me, he begged me for more coke, but I wouldn't give him anything. That's a bit of a lie. I gave him one line, but he wasn't grateful. I tried to tell him that he needed to get off the stuff, that it was affecting him badly. He wouldn't listen to me, said he was being followed and he needed it to keep his edge up."
"Who did he say was following him?"
"I don't know. Two big men, that's all he said. Thing is, coke can make you paranoid if you start taking too much, and he was taking too much."
"So you cut him off. Did he start going through withdrawal?"
"No, because he didn't stop. He threatened to go directly to my guy."
"Your guy?"
"Yeah, the guy I get my drugs from that I used to sell to Paul. He said he was going to start going straight to him."
"And did he?"
Gary looked around the room again, and nodded.
"Yes, he did. I know this because Jamal told me. He said that Paul had come round looking for coke and said that I'd vouch for him. Only thing is, I hadn't vouched for him. I told Jamal that. I told him that Paul was unreliable with his payments at best."
"What did Jamal say?"
"You didn't hear this from me, but Jamal was pissed. He said he'd sold Paul a kilo of the stuff with only a twenty percent down payment."
"How much was that?"
"Ten grand."
"What did Paul want with all that coke?" I asked.
Gary shrugged.
"I don't know. I only found out about this a couple of weeks ago when I went to Jamal to get supplies. I think that Paul was probably looking to sell some on the side. He knew more high end clients than I did. Before all of this went sideways with him, he was always asking me for a gram here and a gram there to share with some of the higher class benefactors at events he attended. Not all of us get to attend all the charity and fundraising events."
"Did Jamal say what he was going to do if he found Paul?"
"No, Jamal's smart that way. He'll smile at you in the face while one of his men put a knife in your back. I tried to tell him that he'd get the money from Paul because Paul earned a lot of money. Jamal said he knew that Paul had a valuable violin that he promised to use a collateral if he didn't get the money to Jamal in a timely fashion."
I shook my head.
"Why would he do something like that for just fifty grand of coke?"
"Because he's an idiot," said Gary. "This was the kind of reckless behavior that Paul was into. He became paranoid about people following him which I didn't believe for a second. And he did crazy things. Addicts will do crazy things. And he was just about to lose his position here as concertmaster if he didn't smarten up."
"How do you know that?"
"Paul told me a few weeks ago, during one of his begging sessions for coke. He told me he'd had a harsh interview with Frank and Sonia. They'd given him a month to smarten up and get help or he was going to be fired."
"Was he going to do that?"
"No," said Gary. "He said he could sweet talk Sonia, just like he had done back in the day, and she'd make it all right for him."
"What did he mean by that?"
"Well, about twenty years ago when Paul first got on with the Phil, he managed it because he was charming and Sonia was a lonely and recent widow. Basically, he slept his way to the top. He had a relationship with her for years, until he started to get put off by her age. He still pretended to show interest in her, but secretly he was revolted by her."
"Charming," I said.
Gary shrugged.
"It's just the way he was. He was like that. Everything was about Paul. He wanted everything hi
s way. I play trombone, I've made Principal Trombonist so I'm not in competition with him and I've got no further aspirations. He was fun to hang around if you weren't in competition with him and you knew what you were into."
"And you did?"
"Yes, I did. But when I cut him off, that was pretty much the end of our friendship. Like I said, he went straight to Jamal. And if he wasn't square with Jamal, then I wouldn't put it past Jamal to have him taken care of."
"Where can I find this Jamal?" I asked.
"I don't think you want to find him. He's not a fun guy especially if you're a cop."
"I'm not a cop."
"You might as well be as far as he's concerned. Listen, he'll sooner cut you up than talk to you about any of this."
"I'll take my chances," I said. "Just give me his address."
Gary gave me Jamal "JJ" Johnson's address which was someplace in Harlem.
"Let the cops deal with this. I can almost guarantee that Frank or Sonia or whoever's hired you is not paying you enough to get into the kind of trouble you'll get into with Jamal."
"I've been into all sorts of trouble. My shadow is like trouble, it just follows me around," I said.
Gary wasn't smiling.
"Well, I've given you fair warning, that's all I've got to say about that."
"And you've been a mensch about it," I said, smiling at him.
Gary frowned at me. I don't think he understood what I meant.
"Can you shed any light on his relationships with women?"
"You mean with Sonia?" Gary asked.
"Sonia, Lauren, Rosanna," I looked at my notes, "and Stephanie, the woman he got pregnant."
Gary looked up at the stage again. Everyone was huddled in small groups, commiserating or applauding, I'm sure there was a bit of both.
"Well, like I told you, I think Paul slept his way up to the top with Sonia. She took a real shine to him when he was at Juilliard. She's the biggest reason he's gotten as far as he has, but lately I think she's had enough. Like I said, they both told him he had to smarten up or he'd be shipped out. Paul's charm only gets him so far, though frankly, I'm surprised by how far he's been able to milk it. Just between you and me, I don't think Paul's the best violinist we have."
"Yeah, who would you say is the best?"
"No question in my mind, it's gotta be Patrick. Maybe on a good day when Paul was younger and he had his shit together he might have been as good as Patrick, but lately his playing has suffered. Patrick has a finesse, a deeper emotional understanding of the music than Paul ever had. But as you probably know by now, Patrick isn't very easy to get along with."
I nodded. He wasn't, but then again, he'd opened up to me easily enough. I wasn't one for beating around the bush, and Patrick was candid and forthright. I kind of liked it.
"Milo is also pretty good. But Milo is a shrinking violet. He's easy going, almost too easy. Anyway, I think Milo is just happy to be here."
"I heard he got the first violin position when Paul made concertmaster," I said.
Gary nodded, and then shook his head.
"Yeah, Patrick was pissed, and he had every right to be. Frank put Milo into that position because he and Patrick had a fight."
"Patrick and Frank?"
"Yeah. It easily should've gone to Patrick, but Frank might seem easy going but he can be a vindictive bastard if you cross him."
I was learning a helluva lot about this dysfunctional family. It seemed worse than mine.
"Was there anything specific?"
Gary shook his head.
"No, not really. The thing is, Patrick just doesn't know when to let things go. I can understand that to an extent, but music is like politics, you only get where you want if you curry favor with the right people. And currying favor was just not in Patrick's M.O."
"So he just kept pissing Frank off with his complaining and whining?"
"Basically," said Gary, "but it's not like Patrick didn't have cause. I mean he did, but he was fighting the wrong battle."
"Alright, so Paul pissed off Patrick most of all, would that be fair to say?"
Gary nodded and looked up at the stage again. Patrick was sitting in a small group. Perhaps the group that wasn't all that torn up about Paul's death.
"Do you think he could have killed him?"
Gary looked at me and then back at Patrick on stage. He shrugged and shook his head.
"Geez, I don't know. I wouldn't have thought so. I mean not before today. Now it seems anything is possible."
"Okay, let's get back on topic. You're saying Paul used Sonia to sleep his way to the top. But what about these other women?"
"Same deal."
"Can't be the same deal," I said, "because neither Lauren nor Rosanna have any power that Paul might have wanted access to."
Gary nodded his head up and down a few times.
"No, you're right. I didn't mean it like that. What I'm saying is that Paul just used them, the same way he did Sonia. But in their case he just wanted to sleep with them. It's that simple. Paul was incredibly spoiled. Probably ever since he was a child. Anything he wanted he figured he could get. And he was quite the lothario. He's probably tried to screw every woman in the orchestra, but he's only had success with the two of them."
"You're painting an ugly portrait of the man," I said.
One of the things I hated was gossip, and unkind gossip at that. Especially of the dead. But in my line of work that's pretty much the only kind I get.
"I'm not trying to, I'm just telling you what kind of a guy he was, that's all. Don't get me wrong, Lauren and Rosanna seemed happy to have his attention. He was very charismatic, very fun to be around, but if he tired of you then that was that. He was still charming about it though, and one kind thing I can say about him was that he didn't hold grudges."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, with the women he wasn't successful in bedding, he was still friendly with them."
"So if I take a poll of the orchestra, most of the musicians aren't going to be happy that Paul's kicked it?"
"That's right. Even Patrick. I bet if you had a heart to heart with him, you'd find that he's not really thrilled by Paul's death either. Even though they were enemies, like I said, Paul didn't hold grudges, he was still on friendly terms with Patrick, at least from his side. Not so much on Patrick's."
"Rosanna told me that Paul was going to settle down with her and marry her. She said the wedding was next summer."
Gary smiled at me. It looked like he couldn't help it.
"Is that funny?" I asked.
He nodded his head.
"Yeah, it is. I don't buy it for a second. Paul wasn't the settling down type. What he was thinking of doing though, was to cut off all ties with Lauren and Rosanna. One of the last conversations we had he told me that very thing."
"That he was going to call it quits?"
Gary nodded.
"Why?" I asked.
"He had been pretty shook up by his encounters with the women's husbands. Especially Kieran. He told me it was Kieran that had beat him up a few weeks ago. I don't think he told that to anyone else. Maybe Rosanna but he didn't want it to become a scene. He was scared of what they might be capable of. That and with those two men he thinks were following him, he figured he needed a fresh start."
"Why do you figure then, that Rosanna thinks they were going to get together?"
"Maybe because he didn't have the courage to tell her. I know he had indulged her that way before. He really seemed to like her. But like I said, he told me he was going to call it off. He'd had enough with the husbands."
"What about this other woman, Stephanie?" I asked.
"That was sad," said Gary, looking down and reminiscing.
"Tell me about it," I said, feeling like a psychotherapist.
"Plain and simple, he used her. She was the musical director's assistant, before Christina. He had a brief relationship with her and got her pregnant. When he did, she became very hopeful that
this was going to lead to marriage and the white picket fence and all the rest. I don't want to sound mean, but she was really naïve. I think she was from the Midwest. Anyway, she became unbearable as far as Paul was concerned and he had her sacked, thanks to his pull with Sonia."
"That would have made her quite upset I'm sure."
"You have no idea. I heard that she went to pieces. After the abortion she tried to commit suicide. I believe she was hospitalized for a while after that."
I nodded. Seemed to me like Paul was a tornado, cutting a path of destruction and broken hearts in his wake.
"That's a lot of broken hearts he left behind," I said.
"That's just the way he was. Like I said, I happened to like him. He was fun to hang around, but it had to be on my terms. You had to know what you were getting into. Some people took him at his word and if you did that you'd get hurt."
"More than that, there's a lot of people out there who might have liked to see Paul get some of that hurt back on him."
Gary nodded and looked down thoughtfully.
"I suppose so."
I couldn't think of anything else to ask Gary. He'd filled in some gaps but also made it a lot more difficult to figure out where things were headed.
"Where do you think his violin is?" I asked.
"Probably wherever Paul is," he said. "He'd kept his violin with him lately. Everybody knew that. I think because he didn't want Jamal to get access to it too quickly."
I thanked Gary and asked him to bring Milo down to talk with me. I wasn't sure if there was anything new that anyone could offer me, but I needed to do my due diligence. You never knew what ripe fruit would fall from shaking the right tree.
EIGHT
Chapter 8
MILO walked down slowly towards me. Everything about him was average. He could be easily overlooked in just about any situation. I figured it would make him a great bank robber or assassin. He was forgettable and at the same time hard to describe.
He wore khakis that were a little too short. You could see his striped socks above his brown loafers. He wore a pale blue golf shirt with a little alligator over the left chest. He was soft. He looked like a marshmallow, a man who had an easy life, and who ate cookies and crumpets all day.
Anthony Carrick Hardboiled Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3) Page 35
