The Prodigy: 2014 Edition - The Ghost Stories of Noel Hynd - Number 4

by Noel Hynd

  She laughed.

  “It will take me longer than a month,” she said, playing along.

  “Well, please keep me as a client,” Geiger said to her. “And I don’t think you should shoot Brian after you seize control. Deportation would be more appropriate. He’s here illegally, you know. Came here to work a black market in body parts but became an agent, instead.”

  “For starters, I’m just trying to learn the business,” Claire said. Greenstone fumbled with a pair of reading spectacles for a moment.

  “Yes. Right. These Smith girls are such slow learners,” he said without intonation. He arched his eyebrows with the irony of the remark and pushed his eyeglasses into place.

  “What did you study at Smith?” Geiger asked, turning back to Claire and making small talk as Greenstone read.

  “Psychology,” she said. “Primarily the psychology of early adults and disturbed adolescents. Nasty nutty little brats, in other words.” Geiger nodded.

  “You’re in the right place. With musicians and booking agents, you’ll do very well.”

  She smiled again. She reminded Geiger of a younger version of Diana. Greenstone’s eyes remained on the fax before him, but spoke, anyway.

  “Maybe there should be a Rolf Geiger action figure also. So you could sit on shelves like a Transformer,” Greenstone teased absently. Then he removed his glasses. Greenstone hefted the fax in his hand. “The drumbeats are carried quickly across Manhattan,” Greenstone said. “Look at this.”

  He handed the fax to Geiger. Already the news of a new concert tour had escaped the offices of the few promoters who had been informed just that morning. Geiger read the message. A music video network was already offering him a weekend of guest appearances.

  “Interesting,” said Geiger.

  “Yes. It could be,” Greenstone said. “A touch of missionary work, bringing an awareness of Beethoven and Mozart to the proles.”

  “Mr. Greenstone?” Claire asked. “You wanted me to remind you about the writer who called.” The agent frowned for a second, not remembering. “The one who wanted to speak to Mr. Geiger?” she continued. “You said we’d inquire and call him back.”

  “Oh. Yes. Right.” Greenstone said. Claire stood by and waited. The agent turned back to his client. “An English journalist called yesterday from London. Said he was going to be in New York and wanted to interview you.”

  “Magazine? Newspaper? Internet?” Geiger asked.

  Greenstone glanced to his assistant again.

  “Claire? What was the bugger’s name?”

  “Phillip Langlois. He says he’s writing a biography of Isador Rabinowitz,” she said. “He wanted to interview you for the book.” Geiger turned to Greenstone.

  “Ever heard of him?”

  “Oh, right. Yes, I checked on him. He’s a solid biographer, actually. Not your usual British tabloid sleaze. Done respectable newspaper work in the U.K.”

  “How come I’ve never heard of him?”

  “He hasn’t been published in the U.S. yet,” Greenstone said. “His book has a contract in the U.K., but none here. Your call on whether you wish to be helpful or not.” Geiger blew out a breath.

  “I don’t feel like talking to anyone right now.” Greenstone turned mischievously to Claire.

  “Phone Mr. Langlois collect in London and tell him that Maestro Geiger cordially asked him to blow it out his butt.” Claire blushed slightly. “Actually,” Greenstone amended, “be slightly more polite. Tell him Mr. Geiger is unavailable for interviews right now as he is in the planning stages of a major new series of recitals. But we might be able to arrange some time if Mr. Langlois happens to be in New York.” Greenstone looked to Geiger for approval. Rolf nodded.

  “Who knows?” Greenstone asked. “Langlois writes for the Telegraph in London. It’s a fascist rag, as you may know, but it has readers who buy books, recordings and concert tickets. So you might want to do him a favor down the road.”

  “Okay,” said Geiger.

  “Plus he might nail a good publishing contract here and end up my client someday. So again, who knows?” He looked to Claire. “So we stroke him. Can you follow up on that?”

  Claire nodded and left the room. Greenstone intently watched her go.

  “Lord above,” he said after the door was closed. “Did you see those legs? If I weren’t married and paying for two ex-wives already…and if I were only forty-five again…” His voice trailed off. “Oh, Rolf, my lad,” he concluded. “If I were only you.”

  Twelve

  Geiger left Greenstone’s office shortly after three. He went on his way, taking a detour down Fifth Avenue to browse through some of the stores and buy a pair of new CD’s and a new biography of Picasso. On impulse, he stopped in Tiffany and Company and fancied a small golden penguin on a gold chain. The penguin had a slight smile and a diamond for an eye. It was just under two thousand dollars.

  The saleswoman recognized him after a few moments and addressed him as “Mr. Geiger,” though she made no small talk about music or concerts. Instead, she explained that part of the proceeds from these particular items went toward a world wildlife preservation fund.

  Geiger liked the pendant and also liked buying presents for Diana. He bought it, took it home, and placed it on the pillow on her side of the bed. Fun surprises made him happy.

  He spent the final part of the afternoon browsing through some music at his piano. There was also a fresh stack of fan mail waiting in his downstairs library and half a dozen new CD’s sent over by courier from the offices of his recording label.

  Diana arrived home after seven and immediately found the small blue box with a white ribbon on her pillow. She opened her gift immediately and loved it, putting it on right away.

  Mrs. Jamison stayed late enough to prepare dinner. Toward eight, Mrs. Jamison went home and Diana and Rolf spent a quiet evening undisturbed.

  A few hours after midnight, after falling fitfully to sleep, Rolf Geiger tumbled in a dream to one of the most unsettling points in his life. His father, Frank Geiger had died not long after his wife, Dorothy. Rolf had been in New York at the time. One of Frank’s brothers phoned collect.

  “Your pa’s been shot dead, Rolf,” the uncle said. “I think a colored guy done it, but nobody knows.” The venue was a bar in Wheeling. The event surprised no one.

  Silence from Rolf. He had long since stopped searching for love or acceptance from a father who had none to impart.

  “Ain’t you got nothing to say, Rolf?” the uncle asked.

  “No. I don’t have anything to say.”

  “Your pa gets whacked in a bar by a nigger? Ain’t you at least sorry?”

  There was a horrible silence from Rolf. Then a much deeper sorrow followed when he realized there was such a void within him. He turned in his bed. He had no love for a man who had never had any love for him, and it would forever haunt him.

  “There’s a funeral service we got scheduled,” the uncle began slowly. “This next Saturday.”

  “I have a performance in Boston.”

  “See, the thing is, Rolf. Your dad’s gonna be buried in a potter’s field if somebody don’t do something. The libtards in Washington closed down the mines and your pa died with eight dollars in his pocket.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Now, listen. Your pa’s at a dago funeral home in Wheeling, but they won’t release no corpse until…”

  “Give me the phone number,” Rolf said. “I hear you. I’ll take care of it.” Rolf paid for the funeral, but didn’t attend. He never heard from any family member again. Except in dreams. In dreams he attended the funeral over and over. And his father would emerge from blackness to berate him.

  Tonight, it was a double funeral—a deathly double feature!—because Rolf stood again at the edge of Rabinowitz’s grave.

  Or was it Frank Geiger’s grave? Or were they in the same grave?

  Images merged and meshed. He shook himself in his sleep, but the dream images were so real
. He gazed down. The bitter wind off Morningside Heights tore into him again, colder and icier than ever before. Icy as his childhood bedroom with the flapping, useless, depressing plastic on the window. The cold cut through his flesh and knifed into his soul.

  It wasn’t day or night, but all around him was a cold gray, gray as the icy West Virginia mornings that he hated as a boy.

  West Virginia on Morningside Heights.

  He could hear the music in the background. He could hear Rabinowitz playing. Grand, sweeping music. Beethoven. A melody standing out in bold relief. A wonderful unique sonority.

  In the background, his father was shouting in a drunken profane rage.

  As Geiger stared at the marker above Rabinowitz’s tomb the marker seemed to quiver. Then it broke away. The pine coffin rose to the surface of the earth, broke open with a sickening, threatening creak. Frank Geiger shut up and Isador Rabinowitz stepped angrily from his tomb.

  Rolf cried out. He trembled.

  “Why are you back?” Rolf asked.

  “I’m not dead,” Rabinowitz insisted.

  “You are dead!”

  “Not for you! Never for you!”

  Rolf turned away. He closed his eyes so tightly that they hurt. He could hear his own voice cry out. And he could hear music in the background. Beautiful melodies turning hellish.

  The piano. The master’s hands upon the keyboard. He would recognize that legato, that cantabile anywhere.

  Geiger opened his eyes again.

  Blackness. He was in the blackness of his bedroom.

  He closed his eyes, trying to settle comfortably, but he returned to the same dream, unable to escape it.

  Rolf was in a strange, uncharted territory. It was between 3 and 4 A.M., and he tossed incessantly midway between wakefulness and sleep. The dream pursued him like a demon.

  He saw Rabinowitz standing before him.

  Rabinowitz laughing.

  Rabinowitz suddenly behind him with his hands on the young man’s shoulders, powerful hands moving toward Rolf’s neck.

  The hands of an artist. The hands of a strangler.

  Which was it?

  Something in Geiger’s head flashed. An ominous bright whiteness. Then it dissolved and Rabinowitz appeared before him in a new vision. This time, the old master was sitting placidly in the conservatory at Julliard, sipping tea from a green-and-white porcelain cup, the emerald ring glistening.

  “Which am I?” Rabinowitz asked rhetorically. “Artist or strangler?”

  He sipped more tea. The strong Russian jasmine tea. Geiger remembered the powerful aroma from many afternoon lessons. Tea so pungent you could run a car on it.

  “Why both of course,” Rabinowitz answered. “I’m a musician and a murderer.”

  “No,” Geiger called out in his sleep.

  “Yes,” Rabinowitz answered. “And you will be too.”

  Fitfully, Geiger rolled over in his bed. He tossed. The Manhattan night outside his home was quiet. The last thing Rolf Geiger had seen when he had looked out the window was stars, plus a yellow-white moon hanging in surrealistic splendor in the sky above New York.

  A big, fat wafer in the sky. Communion for eight million. This is the Body, this is the blood. This is your curse, Rolf.

  Brother Matthew was standing in front of him again, blood running out of his nose, mystification and incredulity upon his face. “Why did you do that?” Matthew demanded.

  “Do what? Hit you?”

  “No. Become a musician?”

  Geiger bolted upright in his bed, coming awake with a tremor in the present day. His brow was wet. All around him, the darkness of the familiar room was as comfort. The wonderful thick blackness, the consoling nothingness of the night.

  So why couldn’t he sleep? He was safe in his home, wasn’t he? Diana was near him. But a lover and a home were physical protections within the tangible world. It occurred to him now that what was approaching him was emanating from another plane of reality. The one inside his head. Or an unfathomable one that could travel through walls, doors, or even flesh.

  It was a thought. A notion. A feeling. A vision.

  A horrible one was coming together in his subconscious mind, and he didn’t like it.

  Nightmare stuff. The vision of Rabinowitz as an old man much as he’d looked in the final days of his life. But in the vision, Rabinowitz was as spry as a fifteen-year-old. And he was dancing on his own grave.

  Dancing!

  Lord! Rolf thought to himself. He was awake but the nightmare in his head would not cut off. He turned again, lay back and forced the pillow against his face. He could almost hear himself thinking. “Oh, God…help me…………Someone. Help me!”

  Geiger experienced the sensation of rapidly tumbling and he knew he was drifting off into the scarier regions of sleep. There was a musical leitmotif. There were strains of Wagner. Götterdämmerung. Acid-spirited old Rabinowitz’s valentine to a world that he hated.

  Then Geiger’s eyes flashed open. It was unmistakable! Music. Someone was downstairs in his library, playing his piano! Playing brilliantly.

  “What the…?”

  He looked around the dark room and realized that he was not dreaming! Not anymore.

  He was no longer in the bizarre nightmare that had placed him at the enchanted graveside of Rabinowitz. He was in his home. And he did—or thought he did—hear music.

  It was coming from downstairs, from his Steinway. Rabinowitz, the dead Rabinowitz, was playing. Rolf sat upright in his bed. He placed a hand on Diana next to him. She was an anchor of love in a harsh reality. She was there, breathing evenly. But the tinkling of the piano was still emanating from downstairs. He held his eyes shut, trying to escape.

  It was Chopin. Other than Rubinstein, no one ever played Chopin like Rabinowitz. The touch on the keys was as distinctive as a fingerprint.

  “What am I hearing?” Geiger whispered to himself. “It can’t be? No, it can’t be?”

  He thought he heard a voice whisper from nearby.

  “Yes, it is!”

  Rolf’s eyes popped fully open again, a jarring full reentry into the real world, the dream still in his mind, that insane graveside image dancing through his head.

  “Isador Rabinowitz,” Rolf said aloud. The words formed on Geiger’s lips and escaped in a soft whisper, a password at the hour of the wolf.

  “Yes, it is…!”

  In the darkness, someone had twice whispered to him.

  “He had even recognized the voice.” As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, no one was there. Or, no one he could see.

  Yet that voice had come to him so clearly. Those words had summoned him so boldly from the realm of bad dreams, that he could have sworn the voice had been real. In all its insanity, he was certain that someone had spoken something.

  “Diana?” he whispered.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Anyone?” he asked, coming up on his elbows in bed. “Who’s here?”

  Abruptly, the music downstairs ceased in mid-phrase. Like hands frozen at a keyboard. Or lifted suddenly in distraction.

  Or dropped lifelessly to the player’s side.

  Distantly, almost subliminally, Geiger thought he heard laughter.

  But Diana was silent, other than an even heavy breathing. She was soundly asleep.

  “Anyone?” he asked a second time.

  Another whisper. Inside his head or within the bedroom?

  “I’m here, Rolf! I’m back!”

  He broke into a violent sweat. But he was too frightened even to reach for the bedside lamp. For several seconds he waited, scanning the darkness of his own bedroom.

  Waiting. Waiting. For what?

  Geiger glanced again at his clock radio. It was 3:36 A.M. The city was still. And through this quirk in the night, oozing through some window left a quarter inch ajar, the distant unseen melodies of a lonely, insomniac musician were seeping into his home.

  That, and some attendant conversation, perhap
s from people on the street, perhaps just passing by, and most likely unrelated to the solitary distant music.

  Rolf Geiger’s fear dissolved. Then it surged back, for the music downstairs started again. This time, it was clear that the piano music emanated from his own home, his own library.

  What was it? A radio that he had left on? A tape? A CD? There had to be an explanation.

  As he picked up the unmistakable cadences of the music thoughts flew at him in milliseconds. On, no! Impossible, he said to himself. He recognized the finger work.

  “What is this?” he demanded.

  Again Chopin. Played by Rabinowitz. Chopin’s master. Rolf heard it clearly.

  He rose from bed. He walked to the doorway of his bedroom. The hall beyond was dim. The only illumination was from the night-light from a hallway bathroom.

  “Rabinowitz?” he asked softly. No answer. But downstairs the unseen hands continued to play the Steinway. He stepped into the hallway.

  “Rabinowitz!” he asked aloud. Again, no answer.

  Geiger moved to the top of the steps. He placed his hand on the banister and summoned his courage. He walked slowly downstairs. His eyes, as he looked ahead, reconnoitered his intended path to the closed door of his library. He was shocked and increasingly fearful when he saw light from underneath the doorframe.

  “Had a friend entered his home to play music? As a prank? At this insane hour? Who?”

  Still no rational explanation presented itself.

  He reached the bottom of the stairs. He went quietly to the door to the library. The playing continued. Softer now. Almost as if it were receding as he approached.

  He stood at the door. His heart continued to kick within him. The touch on the keyboard was undeniably, unmistakably, unarguably that of Rabinowitz. That, or the greatest imposter Geiger had ever heard.

  Unless, of course, someone had teed up a recording. But who would do that?

  He slowly began to turn the doorknob. For a moment, it resisted, almost as if there were a grip on the other side.

  Chopin continued. Then, with a loud click, the latch gave. The door opened to the library.

  Instantaneously the music stopped. As if an invisible conductor had arrested his baton.