“It could happen. He’s excited, he’s an old man—”
The violinist held up his long, slender hand.
“Let me continue this, Mr. LeVine, and then we can talk.”
“Fine with me.” I picked a pack of Luckies up off my desk.
“And I would appreciate it if you did not smoke. My lungs are not the best.”
“Then you better get to the point. I won’t last much longer without a butt.”
Stern smiled. “That is unfortunate. I will reach my point quite soon.”
I regretfully put the Luckies down and the fiddler continued his story.
“The Maestro, as you say, is an old man. Eighty-three, in point of fact. But his memory is absolutely unbelievable. He does not merely know by heart every note of every piece we play. There are other conductors quite capable of that. But he knows every note of works he has not conducted for a half century; he knows every note of pieces he has never conducted and in fact detests! It is a memory that cannot be fathomed by ordinary human beings. By which I include myself as well as you.”
“Speak for yourself,” I told Stern. “Ask me who’s leading the American League in runs scored. Go ahead.”
But Stern was on a roll now. There was no time to accommodate my lowbrow banter. “Thus I find Maestro’s forgetting the program not comprehensible,” he continued, “unless one realizes something. And that realization, Mr. LeVine, is one which has caused many weeks of sleepless nights not only for me, but for other members of the orchestra who feel as I do.” Stern’s eyes were bright.
“Who feel what?”
“Mr. LeVine, I believe that the man in the room with President Truman was not Toscanini. I believe that Maestro has been missing since sometime in May.” Stern sat back in the chair. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow.
I took my feet off my desk and sat up. “And you say that other members of the orchestra feel as you do?”
“That is correct.”
“That’s over three months ago.”
“Yes. Last week we are to begin rehearsals again and they are canceled. We hear that Maestro is ailing. Some of us just look at each other.”
I ran my hand over my cool clean scalp.
“But you obviously don’t feel that he’s missing just on the basis of this clipping.”
“Obviously, Mr. LeVine. I feel it because the relationship between orchestral players and a conductor, though formal, is quite intimate. We know each other’s quirks and mannerisms so very, very well. About halfway through the tour, I began to feel that Maestro was not himself. It was hard to explain. His step was lively, like always, he looked the same … but he did not conduct the same way. Something was different. Rehearsals became shorter and shorter; Maestro hardly spoke a word. I assumed at first that because the programs were pretty much the same from city to city, Maestro did not feel the need to rehearse. That is not unusual. On a tour of this length, in fact, it is common. We gather in the morning, test the sound of the hall, then leave. Live a tourist’s life, one could say. But something began to bother me, something told me this was not Toscanini. Something in the beat, in the way he moved, in the way he turned his head….” He threw up his hands. “This was not Toscanini. I have no doubt.”
“Physically …”
“Physically, no difference. Not on the surface—the white hair, the beautiful skin. But other things. I will give for you an example: The Maestro’s eyes are very weak. Terrible.”
“He doesn’t wear glasses, does he?”
“Never in public, because he has great vanity. But one day this … this other Toscanini, he makes a joke about the first clarinet’s necktie. We all thought this was strange because Maestro normally could not even see the clarinetist, much less his tie.” He shook his head. “It sounds like ravings, I am sure, but believe me, Mr. LeVine, I am not one who imagines things.
“I’m sure you’re not.”
“One other thing, perhaps a pedantic one, but it is not minor. On the tour we played the Beethoven Seventh. You know it?”
“Hum me a few bars.”
“There is a second movement, very famous, but always played very slow. Da da-da, da-da …”
“I’ll be goddamned. I do know it.”
“For years that movement was played so slowly, as would befit a funeral movement, like in the Beethoven Third. But is not a funeral movement. Maestro looked at the score and saw that it was marked allegretto.”
“Which ain’t slow.”
“Which isn’t slow at all. Maestro conducted the movement as Beethoven had intended, in a kind of, let’s say, ‘flowing’ manner.”
“And on the tour?”
“On the tour, the alleged Toscanini just dragged it out. Da … da … da … dahhh … da. We all just looked at each other.”
“It could be his age.”
Stern shook his head very definitely.
“Impossible. The whole manner of conducting was different. The gestures were totally like Maestro, but the spirit was completely different.”
“So you think it was some guy who rehearsed in front of a mirror?”
“I do not know what he did. All I know is that Maestro is missing and we were conducted by an impostor. I am as sure of that as I am of my wife’s fidelity.”
I didn’t say a word. Stern allowed himself a small smile.
“Maybe surer.”
“And the other men in the orchestra, Mr. Stern? They feel this also?”
Stern looked at the ceiling, at me, at his hat.
“Some do,” he said to the hat.
“How many?”
“Enough. At least a dozen.” Stern looked up. “This is not the sort of thing one discusses so openly, Mr. LeVine. Only to one’s closest associates in the orchestra.”
“You mean only the second fiddles believe this story?”
“No, it is a representative grouping from all sections of the orchestra: brass, woodwinds, strings…. Several have stated, in a very confused and concerned fashion, ‘This can’t be Maestro. This is a fraud.’”
Stern stared at me, waiting for a reply. I didn’t have any.
“You think I am crazy,” he said finally.
I turned and took a peek out my window, across the air shaft to the insurance company on the other side of the building. The agents and their assistants were marching back and forth to their file cabinets, busy as can be. The wall clock in their office said that it was half past eleven. When I turned back to the violinist he was staring at me intently.
“Say it. You think I am mad.”
“I don’t believe anything of the sort,” I said, lying only the tiniest little bit. “What I don’t really get, Mr. Stern, is what you expect me to do.”
Stern nodded curtly. “This is my next point. I would like for you to determine whether Maestro is in fact missing, and if he is, I wish you to find him and return him to the orchestra and to the world.”
He was dead serious.
“Is that all? Why didn’t you say so? When do you want him?” I checked my watch. “How about four-thirty?”
Stern raised his eyebrows.
“You are joking at my expense?”
“At your expense?” I paused for dramatic effect. “Mr. Stern, do you have any idea of what you’re asking me to do? I’m not an agency, for crissakes; I’m just one lonely Yid with a license to follow people around. I don’t have the resources for this kind of thing. I mean, to level with you, I seriously doubt that Toscanini got himself snatched. That’s not a reflection on the sanity of you or the other fiddle players; it’s just real long odds against it. If he seemed different, maybe it’s something medical. People do go into decline past a certain point, even geniuses.”
“Mr. LeVine,” Stern began, “if it was something medical—”
“Let me finish my point. I was going to say that if in fact you are correct and the old man is missing, I think that NBC has more than enough resources to track him down. I suggest you talk to someone
over at Rockefeller Plaza.”
Stern shook his head, saddened and a little embarrassed.
“It is impossible for ordinary musicians to speak with the top people at NBC. Just as a matter of protocol. And then, of course, we think of our jobs. To go in and say that Maestro is missing and the man conducting is a double …” Stern just waved his hand to complete the sentence.
“You think you’d get canned?”
“Very possibly. It’s just not something one would do. And then if Maestro is in fact missing, as I believe, then perhaps NBC knows of this and has supplied the double.”
“While searching for the genuine article?”
Stern shrugged and mopped the back of his neck with his hand-kerchief; he seemed to have aged five years since he had walked in the door.
“Ich weiss nicht. It is all doubts. There are so many things…. Maybe we are all crazy, but I tell you, in my heart, in my guts as they say, I know that Maestro is missing.”
I could feel a familiar stirring of the blood, a sense of engines turning over. Despite all my best efforts to resist, this was beginning to intrigue me.
“So you’d like me to talk to the NBC brass, is that what you’re saying?”
“That is correct,” Stern said. He was now sitting at the very edge of his seat. “Without, of course, mentioning the source of your information.”
“And you’ll pay? You can afford me?”
“It is not just me, Mr. LeVine.” Stern smiled modestly. “Approximately ten of us have agreed to pay, up to a point. May I ask the nature of your fee?”
“The nature is twenty-five a day plus expenses. I charge everyone the same, with certain exceptions, but you’re no exception.” I pulled out a Lucky. “And if I don’t have a smoke right now, I’ll start shaking uncontrollably, which is not a sight you’re going to enjoy.”
“Go ahead, Mr. LeVine. I’ll be leaving soon.”
I lit up. “One more question: Why me?”
Stern put his handkerchief away and looked at the floor. When he looked back up, his expression was somewhat sheepish. “I used the phone book, I have to say. You were close to Radio City and you had a Jewish name. Most of the detectives had goyische names.”
“You think the names are goyische, you should see the faces.”
Stern laughed like a man not used to laughing.
“I supposed it’s ridiculous, Mr. LeVine, but I still have a refugee mentality. I look first for a Jew.” He sighed. “Was not the nicest experience.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t.”
And with that he arose, swiftly, like a man with errands to run.
“Should I leave some money now? I brought some just in case.” He smiled again. “In the movies …”
“It’s just like the movies, Mr. Stern. You can leave me fifty bucks.”
Stern took out an aging brown wallet and started counting out fifty dollars. He counted the bills very carefully.
“Who should I see at NBC?”
“Thirty-five, forty …” He looked up from the money. “I think you should attempt to see Mr. Sidney Aaron, who is the vice-president for what they call ‘special programming.’”
“Which includes the concerts?”
He nodded and finished his counting, then handed me the bills. I pocketed them without a glance; this guy would no sooner short change me than go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
“He is not a nice man, Mr. LeVine,” Stern said solemnly. “Nor do I think he is a truthful one.”
“That’s par for the course in my line of work, Mr. Stern. Let me worry about that.”
Stern bowed politely and walked to the door.
“I hope I am wrong, Mr. LeVine. I hope none of this is true.”
“I hope it is true. Just for the hell of it.”
Stern began to say something, then thought better of it and left the office, shutting the door behind him about as quietly as it can be shut. I stared at the door and ran my hand across my brow. My brow was wet, which meant I’d been concentrating. That happens to me a couple of times a year. The phone started to ring, but I ignored it. Instead, I arose, grabbed my hat, and left the office for the three-block walk over to NBC.
TWO
Sidney Aaron’s office was located on the twenty-eighth floor of the NBC Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, more popularly known as Radio City. Thirty Rock was a building that had figured prominently in my storied professional history: In 1944 I had enjoyed the privilege of racing down its halls with a Philadelphia banker named Eli Savage, a pack of Democratic Party thugs in fevered pursuit of us. That’s when I was big news. Today I sauntered unimpeded into the building, past the wide-eyed tourists in their bright suits and pastel dresses, past the sweating messengers, past all the men and women who entered Thirty Rock with something to sell over NBC’s licensed airwaves—good health, fresh breath, clean teeth.
But Sidney Aaron on the twenty-eighth floor was beyond any such mercantile concerns. I knew that because he had an English secretary working his desk. When someone named Sidney hires a girl from London to answer his phones and keep people waiting, it tells you something. It certainly tells me something: It tells me I’m about to meet someone I’m not going to like.
“You have an appointment with Mr. Aaron?” she asked. Her name was Elizabeth Hamilton and she looked every bit of it: the faint blush in the cheeks, the lustrous straw-colored hair, the touch of lantern in the jaw.
“I’m afraid I don’t,” I told her with as much fawning respect as possible. “But it’s quite important and I really only need about five minutes of his time. Maybe less, if I talk fast.”
She smiled politely. “Well, Mr. Aaron is actually in a meeting right now, and then he has a luncheon engagement. Might I tell him what this is in reference to?”
“You might, yes. It’s about the orchestra. Something’s up in the string section.”
She delicately bit her bottom lip. “Are you a union rep?”
“Technically, no. Let’s say I’m a bearer of information your boss should know about.”
“I see,” she said, but her eyes told me that all she saw was a problem.
“It’s important, trust me. If I take more than five minutes, you can throw me the hell out.” I chuckled, a swell guy.
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Mr….
“LeVine. Capital V.”
“Mr. LeVine. Let me just ask Mr. Aaron if there’s a chance he could squeeze you in.… Excuse me.”
Elizabeth Hamilton arose from her chair and headed for Aaron’s inner sanctum. Beneath her tailored suit, it was evident that she had the goods—that firm, white, wind-buffeted English flesh in ample and elegant proportion. We were quite suddenly naked before a fire in a Welsh cottage, on a fierce winter night, cups of steaming tea on the floor, the wind howling outside the window. “Oh, Jack,” she whispered, beads of sweat around her mouth. “Oh, Jack LeVine, you marvelous Hebrew.”
“Mr. LeVine?”
Fully dressed again, she slipped out of Sidney Aaron’s office and closed the door.
“Mr. LeVine, I’m afraid that today will just be totally out of the question and the rest of the week looks quite horrid as well.” She returned to her desk and started scanning her appointment book in an unconvincing but oddly touching fashion.
“That’s a real pity, Miss Hamilton.” I removed my hat; people sometimes take pity on a bald guy.
“Meetings all next week as well … My God, how does this happen?” She lifted her head from the book. “Is it something that perhaps Mr. Peterman could help you on?”
“Peterman?” I said.
“David Peterman is Mr. Aaron’s executive assistant.”
“I’m afraid not.” I walked to the door. “I’ll call you the middle of next week; maybe we can work something out.”
Elizabeth Hamilton gently chewed the tip of her pencil. I had wicked thoughts.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she said.
“No problem.” I smiled and left the
office, then crossed the hall and waited. It was twelve-fifteen. If Aaron was indeed going out for lunch, he’d be departing his office within the hour. I’m a patient guy, so I waited.
At twelve-forty, the door to Aaron’s office opened and a tall man of about fifty stepped into the corridor. He had curly salt-and-pepper hair, a Hank Greenberg nose, and eyebrows like graying caterpillars. His charcoal-gray suit was made to measure, as were his shoes and shirt and probably his socks and underwear. He looked like a man who had made it on his own, leaving numerous casualties along the way. If this wasn’t Sidney Aaron, then I was Hopalong Cassidy.
The graying man called back into his office.
“Elizabeth, I’ll be back at two-thirty. Push the Ben Grauer meeting to four.” He closed the door behind him, inspected his shoes for high gloss, then made the right turn out into the corridor.
“Mr. Aaron?”
The man turned around. I stepped forward, a friendly hand extended.
“Jack LeVine, Mr. Aaron. Thank God I had a chance to catch up with you.”
Aaron warily shook my hand. He had brown eyes, but not nice brown eyes.
“Do I know you?”
“You don’t,” I said oh-so-agreeably. “But I’ll overlook that for now.”
“I have a lunch date, Mr. LeVine,” he said, and began to walk away, “and I’m late already.”
I followed him down the hall.
“Busy day, huh?”
“They’re all busy.”
“I’ll bet they are.”
He hurried to the elevators. It wasn’t that Aaron was anxious to shake me; as far as he was concerned, I wasn’t even there.
“You handle the cultural end here at NBC?” I asked, curious as an Eagle Scout. Aaron pushed the elevator button. “Kind of the conscience of the company, you’d say?”
“This company doesn’t need a conscience,” he said to the elevator door.
“Maybe not. I need you for maybe three minutes tops, Mr. Aaron. Your secretary, Mrs. Miniver, told me you were booked up.”
Tender Is LeVine: A Jack LeVine Mystery Page 2
