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

by Noel Hynd

  Diana moved next to Rolf for a moment and looked him in the eye.

  “I want him removed from this block,” she said. “I don’t feel safe while he’s around. I don’t want to see him in here again or anywhere else.” She paused. “Will you call the police or should I?” he asked.

  “I’ll call,” he said. “I’m not convinced it will do any good. But I’ll call.”

  Twenty-three

  The next morning NYPD Detective Janet Solderstrom pulled her unmarked car to the curb before 112 East Seventy-Third Street. She stepped out of her vehicle and drew a breath. She was a large woman, broad-shouldered and sturdy, standing almost six feet. She had frequently been mistaken for a man back when she walked a beat and wore a uniform.

  She walked to the front door of the town house and knocked. She waited.

  Solderstrom looked at the neighbors’ houses and scanned across the street. She felt a low rumbling of displeasure within her. The money these people spent. They threw around millions of dollars to live on a block like this. In some cases they hadn’t even made their own fortunes. They’d inherited. Or, she felt, ripped it off in some sleazy real estate or stock transaction. Where was justice? Janet Solderstrom ached for the opportunity to bring down one of these hotshots.

  She knocked louder the second time. Several seconds after her follow-up knock, the door opened. A young man in his late twenties with a handsome but haggard, tired face loomed into view and answered.

  Solderstrom pulled her gold shield from the breast pocket of her worn jacket. “Police Department,” she said. “I’m Detective Janet Solderstrom.”

  She was such a large woman that she filled the doorway. Dressed in a plain brown suit which could have been a man’s, she had pulled-back hair and a hard, pinkish face. She gave Geiger a tight smile.

  “Of course, of course,” Geiger said. “Come in.”

  “Thank you,” the detective replied.

  Geiger led Solderstrom into his home. She was ready to dislike him immediately, living in a place like this. But as she followed him, she felt her own attitude ease slightly. This young man, didn’t seem as condescending as so many of the rest. Maybe he’d be okay.

  What she couldn’t figure out was why he looked familiar. There was something about him. When he led her into his library and she saw the piano, and all the awards and accolades that were scattered around, she put two and two together to get four.

  Geiger was capable of being impeccably polite. After a few seconds, he turned and offered a hand.

  “I’m Rolf Geiger,” he said. “Sorry if I seem upset. But I am upset. That’s why we called the police.”

  Diana came into view and introduced herself. “I have no idea how many police would be involved,” Geiger said. “Are there more coming?”

  “Only if I call for them,” Solderstrom answered. Her hands went on automatic pilot, pulling a ballpoint pen and a small notebook out of a jacket pocket.

  “So you had an intruder last night? A burglar? What’s the story?” Solderstrom asked. “Right here is fine,” Rolf Geiger said.

  He motioned toward a new sofa. They sat, and he went through the events of the previous day. They had come home from a museum exhibition and been home for a while when their house had been intruded upon by a quirky older man. A watcher. A stalker. An aging fan who looked harmless but who was growing aggressive.

  “He may be harmless, but he’s starting to scare us,” Geiger said. “And I don’t know how he got in here.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “I only know he follows a lot of classical music,” Geiger said.

  “If he’s located, do you want to issue a trespassing complaint?” Solderstrom asked.

  “No,” Geiger said. “I was hoping you could just talk to him. Get him off our block.”

  The detective shrugged.

  “No official complaint?” she asked.

  “We want to be left alone,” Rolf said. “That’s all.” The detective thought about it.

  “I can talk to him. Where can I find him?”

  They led her out of the library and into the front hall. They showed her where the man had been and how he had somehow gotten past the front door. Rolf walked Detective Solderstrom to a window and pointed to the steps across the street, the watcher’s usual location.

  “He sits there. Sometimes for day at a time,” Geiger said.

  The detective steadily eyed the empty location. She searched the empty shadowy areas on the sidewalk across Seventy-Third Street.

  “For a couple of weeks, huh? Did he threaten either of you?” Solderstrom asked.

  “No,” Geiger said.

  “Anything missing?”

  “No. In fact, he returned something.” Geiger explained about the missing pendant.

  “Of course, who knows how he got it to start with?” Diana added.

  They walked away from the window and stood at the precise location in the entrance hall where the watcher had stood when Diana and Rolf had confronted him.

  The detective looked back and forth, from one to the other.

  “There’s not much I can do unless you file a complaint,” she said. She thought about it further. “I suppose I can have someone keep an eye on the block,” she offered. “If they see anyone camped out across the street, fitting the description you have, we’ll have a chat with him. How’s that?”

  Diana and Rolf looked at each other.

  “That might help quite a bit,” Geiger said. “That might work just fine.”

  Detective Solderstrom again said she would see what she could do. Moments later, she was gone. Thirty minutes later, Diana and Rolf were upstairs, frightened out of their own home, which they no longer considered safe, packing a pair of small suitcases.

  They moved temporarily a few blocks away to the Westbury Hotel, registering under the name of Mr. And Mrs. Raoul Pugno. The press did not discover them, and the front desk staff were discreet. Rolf gave Mrs. Jamison the next few days off with pay, and in the meantime, Geiger hired a security expert to install a new alarm system on his home. Nothing living or breathing, he vowed, would penetrate his space again.

  Then in the tense days that followed, Rolf came and went from his townhouse during the afternoons. He hired a short term personal bodyguard who sat in the entrance foyer as Geiger practiced at the Steinway. He did not feel entirely safe in his own home. He was certain that the angry ghost of Rabinowitz was lurking there somewhere. But the ghost—if there was one—seemed to be in control when he made his own appearances.

  And for the time being, as Rolf played afternoon recitals to a solitary armed guard, the ghost had vanished.

  Twenty-four

  Rolf Geiger and Diana moved back to Seventy-Third Street after a week in the Westbury.

  On the first day home, the ringing of the telephone shattered an afternoon practice at the Steinway. Geiger stopped playing and stared at the phone. It wouldn’t stop. It rang sixteen times before Rolf went to answer it.

  “Yes?” Geiger answered.

  The benevolent voice of Brian Greenstone came over the line.

  “Rolf?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Sorry. Are you all right? I keep calling this number and no one answers.”

  “Sorry. I’ve been out a lot,” Geiger answered flatly.

  “I get worried unless you do something to annoy me every day?”

  “Okay. I understand.” Geiger said. “I’ll call in every few hours. How’s that?”

  “Not what I had in mind, either, lad, but listen. I have joyous tidings. The Academy of Music called back. You’re set up for June 11 in Philadelphia, as we discussed.”

  The date fell upon nearly deaf ears.

  “Does that still sound good for you, Rolf?”

  “I think so,” Geiger answered.

  “You ‘think’? You don’t know? I could call them back and see how long they can hold the date open if you’re unsure.”

  Geiger thought about it
.

  “No. On the contrary. I’m sure,” He said, warming quickly to the certainty of the time and venue. “Now I need to play all the more.”

  “I’ll still hold off on the contract for a day or two. Okay?”

  “Okay, but not necessary.”

  Greenstone rang off. Rolf now had an important professional date toward which he needed to point himself. The problem was, every time he sat down to play in his home, or to plan his program for Philadelphia, he felt as if the old man were somewhere close by, shaking his head in disapproval, listening with the most critical ear in the universe.

  “It’s all crap, Rolf Geiger. Everything you play sounds garbage!”

  The old man had once concluded a lesson by telling him that. Years later, Rabinowitz had come to a recital and said the same thing aloud from the audience at intermission.

  And today, over his shoulder, beneath his consciousness, he would hear that obnoxious mitteleuropa voice saying the same thing or working variations upon it.

  “Today, your playing was not so much crap. It was merely garbage,” the ghost seemed to say to him as he practiced later that afternoon.

  “Gee. Thanks,” Rolf answered.

  “You are welcome. Someday you should learn to play music more than noise.”

  “Well, as for you, too, old man,” Geiger whispered aloud in his library one afternoon later in the week, “I hope you’re roasting in hell.”

  Moments later, as if in response, the A-sharp key above middle C refused to work. The key wouldn’t move! It was as if something were within the body of the piano, freezing the action.

  Rolf got up from the bench, highly agitated, and paced. When he sat down again, the key worked.

  “Okay, so you’re here,” Rolf whispered aloud to Rabinowitz. “Well, fine. I’m going to ignore you.”

  Sometimes, in the time that followed, entire days were the colors of the old man’s dark spirit. On some days, while dressing on the second floor, Rolf was certain that he heard piano music coming from the library, just loud enough to transcend the extensive soundproofing.

  Geiger would run downstairs and look. But the library would always be empty. Or appear empty. He broke into a sweat frequently. He did not sleep well. He kept feeling for the icy touch of a pair of hands on his throat.

  Every little creak in a floorboard—day or night—unleashed an armada of terrors. For the first time ever, Rolf found himself turning on the radio or television to spoken words instead of music while home alone. He even found himself leaving extra lights on to ward off the darkness.

  One night, while sleeping comfortably, he was jounced by the feeling of motion in his bedroom. His eyes came open like window shades snapping upward. He realized what had roused him. Someone had been moving on his mattress and now was moving in the room.

  His heart quivered and raced. His eyes settled upon a filmy figure across the room. He threw out his right arm to find Diana, but simultaneously he realized that it was she whom he was watching.

  She was naked and had her back to him. Her skin looked white in the darkness. Her body was illuminated slightly by the light from the streetlamps. The glow slipped past the bedroom shades.

  Now she looked like a ghost, he found himself thinking. He was horrified anew by the thought of her death, because she was as alive as he was. The thought scared him, the ease with which it could hop into his mind.

  He watched her. His eyes adjusted to the minimal light. She—and this whole incident—were much like a dream. Several minutes went by. Diana stayed by the bedroom window looking downward and outside to the street.

  She must have sensed his eyes on her body for she looked his way and smiled slightly. She knew his eyes were open and gazing at her.

  “Tiger?” she said.

  “What’s wrong, honey? Is he out there again? Our ‘watcher’?”

  “No. He’s not there.”

  He waited to hear what else was bothering her. Specifically he waited for her to tell him that she had seen a ghost. In the house. Outside the house. But it wasn’t quite like that. Not this night.

  “I had a bad dream,” she said softly.

  “Come over here and tell me about it,” he said, sitting up. He moved a hand to the bedside lamp. “Do you want light?” Rolf asked.

  “No,” Diana said.

  She walked back toward him. He couldn’t help but admire the lovely sexuality of her body as she approached him. Naked, she so often reminded him of an exquisite nude from a French master.

  She arrived at the bed and he gently guided her back to him. Her body felt warm and safe beside his.

  “So, tell me,” he said comfortingly. “Tell me about your dream.”

  “No,” she said again. “It’s too horrible.”

  He embraced her with one arm.

  “It must have been,” he said. She was so upset she couldn’t speak immediately.

  Finally…

  “It was, Tiger,” she said, her voice laden with emotion.

  “Will you tell me tomorrow?” he asked. “In daylight?” After a moment’s consideration, she answered.

  “No. Probably not. I’m hoping it will go away. All right? I don’t ever want to tell you about this one.”

  “It can’t be any worse than some of the ones I’ve had recently.”

  “I don’t know,” she breathed.

  “Did something bad happen to one of us in the dream?” He felt her hesitate and then nod. He was afraid to ask who died. Him or her. He was afraid to put the thought any more concisely in the air.

  “Diana, it was only a dream,” he reminded her. “We’ve both been under some awful stress. When you’re stressed in your waking hours, you’re going to be stressed in your sleeping hours too. Okay?” Another long pause and she said,

  “Okay.”

  “That’s what’s going on.”

  “I don’t want to die, Tiger,” she whispered. “And I don’t want you to die, either. And I’ve never been so scared of it in my life.”

  Downstairs, something creaked in the house. It creaked loud! Heat? The furnace wasn’t on.

  Another intruder? The same intruder? The ghost again? Or just one of those old house creaks. Inexplicable, day or night?

  Rolf broke into a small sweat and reminded himself that he had just paid top dollar for a state-of-the-art alarm system. Whatever it was down there, he wondered, could it fly beneath the system’s radar?

  “Yes, I can,” came a silky answer in the dark. Only Rolf could hear it.

  Almost trembling, he held Diana for several minutes, hardly knowing what to say, not wanting to admit that he was every bit as frightened as she, maybe even more.

  He tried to hum the Moonlight Sonata to her. For a while it worked. It calmed her. So he allowed several more minutes to pass.

  “Do you remember that black dog on the beach in Nantucket?” she finally asked. He was surprised by the question.

  “Sure. Why?” he asked.

  “Did you notice anything strange about it?” she asked. He considered the question for a moment.

  “Everything was strange,” he finally said. “It’s behavior. It’s awful smell. The way it was so different form one day to the next. Why?”

  “It smelled like death,” she said. “Didn’t it?”

  “It smelled like it had been rolling in horse manure,” he said. “And there are a couple of horse farms right nearby.”

  “That was the smell of death, Rolf,” she said. “I know it was. That was the smell of rotting flesh. That wasn’t an ordinary dog.”

  “Diana…The old man who broke in here had a similar stench,” he said. “And he wasn’t dead.”

  “No?” she asked. “Maybe he is.”

  There was something ominous in her voice, hideous in her suggestion. Worst of all, her dark thoughts were dangerously close to his own, underscoring every fear that gripped him.

  “You’re still in your bad dream,” he said. “You’re making a lot of nonsense at a scary ho
ur of the night.”

  “Okay,” she whispered. “Then I’ll be quiet.” But in truth, neither of them wanted to continue this line of “reasoning” to its next logical plateau.

  There was another creak from downstairs. It seemed farther away. Outside on an otherwise-empty Seventy-Third Street, a drunk was going by, singing Good Night, Irene in a magnificently resonant tenor voice to each passing doorway. As the drunk reached Park Avenue, he began a rendition of The Mighty Quinn.

  “I don’t want to die, Tiger,” Diana said again. “And I don’t want you to, either. Not for a long, long time.”

  Her words trailed away. The last syllables were very low.

  He was about to phrase a reply, but realized that she was working up the courage to say something more. So he waited.

  “Here it is,” she said. “I dreamed that you decided that I was interfering with your career. So you murdered me.” He felt as if his ability to speak had been taken away from him. He had never had a sensation like it before. “And I don’t ever wish to discuss this again,” she said. “Not a single word.”

  Twenty-five

  Four nights later, toward midnight, Rolf went to his library and sat down in his reading chair. He spent several minutes sitting perfectly still and thinking. Diana was upstairs sleeping.

  Again, he didn’t know which was the most terrifying:

  The fact that the watcher had entered his home, with no sign of forced entry.

  The notion that the ghost of Isador Rabinowitz haunted him.

  Or a combination of the two.

  And what about the dream or vision that had so frightened Diana?

  He had to know what sort of demons or ghost or spirits or quirks in the universe he was confronting. He thought back to that foul-smelling ill-mannered animal and how it seemed to have snapped at his hands. Right now, it was standing in the way of his performing.

  Just when you think you have reality figured out, he pondered, a window opens to another dimension. And you don’t know if you dare to step through. Who knows what you would find on the other side.