by Gerald Elias
Her voice, as always, was bell-like and seductive. Jacobus let go of her hand, as soft and alluring as the Parisian perfume she wore, that clung to his just long enough to be suggestive. Jacobus had no way of knowing whether Hennie’s physical beauty had declined, but her voice was still that of a twenty-year-old. If Swallow, at that precise moment, hadn’t intervened in a poorly considered attempt to protect her client who needed no protection, he might have dropped his case there and then. Idiot lawyer, he thought, you just blew it.
“My client will make a statement,” said Swallow, “and you will then understand how you have completely misconstrued what you claim as evidence of fraud.” They sat down around a conference table, Jacobus on one side, the two women on the other. “After that it will of course be your option what to do. If you make the unwise choice to pursue your harassment of my client, it will then of course be our option to file slander charges against you. Is that clear?”
“I just have one question.”
“Oh?”
“Do you have any mouthwash?”
“Why?”
“Because what comes out of your mouth is offensive.”
He heard Hennie stifle a chuckle.
“It’s okay, Phoebe,” Hennie said. “Let me tell you the whole story, Jake.”
“No legal gobbledygook?”
“No, Jake,” she said, a smile in her voice, “no gobbledygook. Then I hope you will understand. It’s not so evil as you think.”
Hennie explained that the violinists in René’s heyday were glamorous matinee idols, and not just figuratively. They actually starred in movies to complement their concertizing.
“But, you see, instead of sneaker manufacturers paying them millions and millions of dollars to wear their shoes, like Michael Jordan, instrument makers would clamor to have their instruments played by people like René, or Heifetz, or Fritz Kreisler. It would be a great shot in the arm for their reputations and for their careers. But the dilemma arose for us when the luthiers wanted to actually give their violins to René for free. Yes, of course they would lose a little money for the moment—after all, a violin takes only three or four weeks to make—but in the long run it was a profitable marketing tool for them. You know, ‘If it’s good enough for René Allard, it’s good enough for anybody.’ But René, who was such an idealist, he didn’t want anyone to think he was playing favorites or was being bribed, so he insisted, absolutely insisted, on paying the luthiers the cost of making the violin, plus he would throw in a little gift to the courier to make the long trip worthwhile.
“So, you see, Jake,” Hennie professed fervently, “René had only the best intentions for his actions. It was all totally innocent. One hundred percent.”
“Well, that’s the buying part,” said Jacobus, thinking about the mysterious foreigner with the limp, “but what about the selling?”
“The ground rules,” interrupted Swallow, “are that we are not entertaining questions.”
“Don’t worry,” said Jacobus, “you’re not entertaining in any way.”
“It’s all right, Phoebe,” said Hennie. “I have no problem to answer Mr. Jacobus’s question.
“You can imagine, Jake, the cost of buying all those instruments, and René, he had no intention of performing with them. They were good, but they were not Stradivari or Guarneri, and the cost all adds up just the same. And where would we keep them? In our closets? After all, New York apartments are not so spacious. And then there would have been the insurance on all those violins. And, René, you knew how busy René was on the concert tour. How could he have time to dispose of violins? Just selling one could take months. So he would ask his friends—”
“Like Ziggy,” Jacobus said. Why not Dedubian? he asked himself.
“Yes, like Ziggy, who knew lots of people, to find buyers. And of course, René did not want to impose upon their friendship, so it was only natural that he would give his friends a small monetary gift for their trouble. So you see, Jake, there is nothing so nefarious here as you thought. Do you see?”
“How many violins, Hennie? Total.”
“Ms. Henrique does not—”
“I would like to say about two hundred, maybe a few more, Jake,” said Hennie. “That may sound like a lot, I know that. But remember it was over many, many years. I never knew who the buyers were or else I would of course tell you.”
“Was one of the fences Rose Grimes?”
“We object,” said Swallow, “to the use of the term ‘fence’ to represent my client’s acquaintances.”
“Was one of the acquaintances Rose Grimes?” asked Jacobus.
“You mean the cleaning girl?” Hennie laughed. “Now you’re being silly, Jake. What could someone in her station do for us?”
“What is it she stole from René?”
“Oo-la-la! So you know about that! It was his most precious possession, Jake. It was his music to ‘Danse Macabre,’ signed by Saint-Saëns himself when René performed it for him as a boy. You’re a musician. Only musicians can know how much those things mean.”
“Was another of the acquaintances Virgil Lavender?” he asked.
“Jake, I am astonished at you!”
“I’m flattered, but what about Lavender? No way René could’ve paid him what he would have otherwise gotten in soloist fees.”
“Perhaps, Jake.”
“Just count the hours, Hennie. The recitals, the rehearsals, the travel, the students he accompanied at lessons. Did René pay by the hour, or what?”
“It was ‘or what.’ He gave Virgil a salary—a retainer, you might call it.”
“And who actually paid him, Hennie, you or René?”
“What do you mean?”
“You were the business end of Allard Enterprises. Weren’t you? Did René ever see the inside of a checkbook?”
“So I made the checks. Yes, it is true that Virgil maybe did not become wealthy by us. But we paid him fairly. He never complained and he loved René.”
“Did Lavender go to the soirée the night René died?”
“Of course! Wait, no, he never did arrive. I can’t remember. The party had just begun, people were still coming, and then . . . And then everyone had to leave. But that has nothing to do with the violins, and believe me, Virgil had nothing to do with the violins.”
“Did the sale of the ex Hawkins have anything to do with the violins?” he asked.
“The ex Hawkins? That is a totally different story,” said Hennie. Her voice, to Jacobus’s trained ear, subtly but suddenly lost its luster. “I’m not going to talk about that.”
“Mr. Jacobus,” said Phoebe Swallow, “my client knows neither to whom the violin was sold, nor why, and I have another meeting. However, before you leave, Ms. Henrique has a gift for you in consideration of your long friendship.”
Swallow pushed something from her side of the table over to Jacobus. He felt it. It was some sort of thick document, over a foot long, almost equally wide, enclosed in a plastic sheath.
“What’s this, Hennie? A 1960 Playboy with you on the cover?”
Hennie didn’t respond.
“Something even more valuable than that, Mr. Jacobus,” said Swallow. “We understand Beethoven is one of your favorite composers, Mr. Jacobus, and Ms. Henrique thought you’d appreciate this more than anyone. It’s a first edition of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, signed by René, signed previously by the great nineteenth-century virtuoso Joseph Joachim, signed by the violinist Franz Clement on December 23, 1806, the date he premiered the concerto, and signed by Beethoven himself.”
Jacobus allowed his hands to linger on the music. It would probably be the closest he would ever come to immortality. If he was mercenary, he could sell it for tens of thousands of dollars. Jacobus departed, leaving the treasure on the table, wondering whether Hennie was capable of murder and thinking that she was wearing more perfume than she used to.
TWENTY-SIX
An hour later Jacobus was seated at the bar at Boynton’s Steak
s and Chops, nursing a Johnny Walker Black, double, to settle his nerves. He had chosen the location for several reasons. First, it was close to the Columbus Circle station, which he would next be visiting. Second, it was not the kind of watering hole musicians would frequent. Dingy, smoky, and generally uninviting, it was the appropriate place for him to deliver an unwanted message. He knew a fight was in the offing and he didn’t want it to spill over into the public domain. He would have preferred a better solution, but time had just about run out.
After leaving Swallow’s office, he had called Nathaniel and asked him to call Sheila Rathman at InHouseArtists, then call him back. In the meantime, Jacobus himself called Martin Lilburn, the music critic who, at the urging of his readers, had been reinstated at the New York Times, having previously resigned from his long-held position, part of the fallout from the Piccolino Strad fiasco. Then Nathaniel had called him back.
“I impersonated a concert series presenter,” he explained.
“Shameful,” said Jacobus.
“Yeah, I suppose. But I got what you want.”
Jacobus heard the door to the bar squeak open, felt an onrush of hot, smelly air from the city pavement, and heard steps moving toward him faster than someone merely just craving a brewskie. He took a last swig of his scotch.
“Here you are, Jacobus,” said Virgil Lavender.
“Hello, Virgil. Drink?”
“I’ll pass. What’s all this cloak-and-dagger stuff? What’s with this dive? I’m freaked enough having to get ready for this recital without having to take time off from practicing.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone you were in the hallway moments before Allard was murdered?”
Jacobus waited for a response. And waited. Would it be the answer he sought? He heard the ceiling fan spinning, easy listening FM on the radio, tables being set in the restaurant, the bus pulling away from the curb. But not a sound from Lavender. Would he just turn around and walk out?
“I had nothing to do with it,” Lavender said.
“You better tell me about it.”
“I went to the party. At least, I tried to go to the party. Jacobus, try to imagine what it felt like. It was like waking up from a thirty-year dream. I had played with the greatest violinist of the century and he was leaving the next day. But I was staying. For what? It was like purgatory. I knew I had to say good-bye, so I forced myself to go to the party. My legs could hardly move. I got to the door of his apartment. I didn’t know he hadn’t arrived yet. I thought he was there. I thought once I got through the door everything would be okay. It would be another René and Hennie show, all laughs, all bubbly. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t knock. I just stood there like an idiot. And then I left. I guess you could call me a coward. But you can’t call me a murderer. I wouldn’t have harmed a hair on René’s head. I loved that man.”
“No resentment? No grudge?”
“Grudge? For what?”
“I understand your career’s on the skids. That your concert calendar is almost totally open for the foreseeable future. That you’re paying the expenses for your Carnegie recital out of your own pocket. That, as a result of all your years with Allard, your own playing is considered to have no individuality. No personality.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“They call you Mr. Osfa—‘one size fits all’—behind your back. Though I’m told you’ve heard that yourself.”
“Jealousy, that’s all.”
“Or the review that said when the two of you played together, Allard was the sun and you were moon, your light merely a reflection of his. Or the one that said you fit Allard like a glove, but since he died you’re a glove without a hand. I’m sure you’ve read those reviews. No grudge?”
“After thirty years, who reads reviews? I’m telling you. No grudge.”
“How about an alibi? Do you have one of those?”
“For your information, I don’t. I left the Bonderman. Alone. I went home. Alone. And I cried. Alone. And I think you’ve played detective more than enough. BTower killed René. It’s been proved and that’s the end of it. Good-bye, Jacobus. I wish you well.”
Jacobus heard the footsteps recede and the door open, felt the hot, smelly air rush in, and heard the door close with finality. He felt even worse than he had expected.
“Give me another double.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
“Hold, Mortal, lest thou will surely perish!” said the voice.
“You can knock it off, Drumstick Man,” said Jacobus. “I’ve heard the spiel, and I’m in a hurry.”
“Ah! ’Tis Gloucester from the terranean sphere. ‘O brave new world, that has such people in ’t!’ ”
“I come on a quest,” Jacobus improvised. “A noble quest, for which I need my Sancho Panza.”
“Sancho who?”
“Never mind. I need your help.”
After Jacobus got the kiss-off from Lavender he called Nathaniel again, who was on his way to meet with the VA administrator in person because that was the only way they’d provide the information he needed about the catatonic in Grimes’s apartment.
“Who’re you going to impersonate this time?” Jacobus asked Nathaniel. “Freud?”
“I don’t believe he was African American,” said Nathaniel, “and I haven’t worked on the accent for a while. I was thinking more of an adjuster investigating outstanding health insurance claims.”
Jacobus hung up laughing. He envied Nathaniel’s affable indefatigability and wished he had been blessed with the quality of patience.
Through a thickening haze of blended scotch, Jacobus had come up with a scheme of his own that now brought him back to Drumstick Man. Though he recognized it had little likelihood of success, he reasoned that if he could get Ziggy’s photos of the violins—the ones with the pinholes—he could use that as evidence to contradict Hennie’s explanation of innocent under-the-counter buying and selling, because having the photos demonstrated intent to profit. He shuddered to think that charming Hennie might have had something to do with Ziggy’s disappearance or with the attempt on his own life. With Ziggy dead and with access to his apartment sealed off, Jacobus had decided that a look from below would be his last hope to get the photos, if they were there. Almost literally, it was a shot in the dark.
As Drumstick Man tapped happily with his sticks, Jacobus explained where the Bonderman Building was located in the “terranean world.” Aboveground, where it was hot, sunny, and bustling, the building was only a few blocks away, but Drumstick Man no longer had a concept of a grid. The shadowy, serpentine tracks of abandoned New York were his only guide. Here, in the chill, damp, dim underground, Jacobus could only suggest it was about a ten-minute radius by foot from where they were and that recently there had been major construction to reinforce the basement with steel girders, tons of cement. Maybe the noise of the construction—
Jacobus felt his hand grasped by Drumstick Man’s. It was like a steel vise. “I know this place of which you speak. Let us tarry not,” he said. “ ‘Screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail. Into the breach we go!’ ”
Using Drumstick Man’s ceaseless tattoo as a guide, Jacobus was soon enveloped by the catacombs of New York City. He limped along as they traversed abandoned track beds, station platforms, and creaking catwalks, escorted always by the conspiratorial skittering of rats. They climbed flights of crumbling cement stairs whose railings had rusted off.
“Keep your hand to the wall lest ye plummet!”
The sound in the three-dimensional labyrinth had an eerie dreamlike quality. Jacobus could not pinpoint the location of the distant rumble of trains, an occasional teasing honk from the world above, the incessant dripping. It was almost like being underwater. There was also the rancid pungency of rotting garbage, and always of mold and decay.
“Step high here, man.”
“Third rail?” asked Jacobus.
“Dead cat.”
At one point the sound of what could have been d
istant voices barely infringed on his consciousness. Was it a human sound? Whispering? Or just tepid air being sucked out of the tunnel by the movement of a distant train? He stopped to listen more carefully.
“You hear it too?” asked Drumstick Man.
“What is it?” asked Jacobus.
“The Denizens of the Darkness. The Gatherers. No other. We best be moving apace.”
They rounded a bend.
“Off with the shoes now, mate,” said Drumstick Man.
“You must be kidding,” said Jacobus.
“To ford the River Styx, mate. Don’t want shit in no shoes, do we now?”
They waded shin deep in their bare feet through the mucky effluence of the underworld rivulet. Regaining the far shore of the accidental canal, Jacobus was retying his shoelaces when his guide proclaimed, “How now? A rat?” and he recoiled in response to an ungodly screech followed by a plop in the mucky water.
“ ‘Dead for a ducat, dead!’ ” announced Drumstick Man triumphantly. “No need for alarm. Just need to wipe off me little spear.”
They arrived at a massive steel door embedded in a seemingly endless wall.
“Eureka!” Drumstick Man exclaimed.
“Pray thee, how the hell can you be so sure? Perchance we’re at the Garden of the Square of Madison.”
The door had no handle and opened out. Jacobus, feeling along its surface for a fingerhold, was baffled how they would open it.
“Fear not, doubter. Trust in the magic stick.”
Jacobus heard Drumstick Man probe with his stick. He had assumed it was a wooden stick, but now he clearly heard the rasp of metal on metal as Drumstick Man sought the door’s Achilles’ heel. Finally finding the spot, he used the stick as a lever.
“Put your shoulder to it, man!” he said to Jacobus. They both pushed against the stick with all their weight. Within moments the door surrendered, its heavy weight scraping along the rough cement floor, giving way just enough to snake through.
There was no question they were in a basement. Jacobus recalled the general layout of Basement Two from his visit there almost two years earlier, and began to reconnoiter by feel. Girders springing from every direction, like a monstrous monkey bar apparatus, blocked his way.
