Prodigy

by Charles Atkins

  A uniformed patrolwoman came up beside Barrett. “So what’s the deal?” she asked.

  Barrett quickly sketched the details, while Hector produced a set of keys. The officer gripped the fox-head doorknocker and rapped harshly. “Police, we’d like you to open the door.”

  An older couple out walking their Welsh corgi stopped and watched. The silver-haired man shook his head, said something to his wife, and then they disappeared around the corner.

  “I’d better do that,” the officer told Hector, taking the keys from him. “Stay down and away at the bottom of the stairs.” Her partner stood behind her, and unsnapped his holster.

  The female officer turned the bottom lock, and was placing the key into the top one when the door opened.

  The patrolman tensed, one hand on his firearm.

  Jimmy, with his blond hair crumpled and dressed in a velour bathrobe and no slippers looked out over the assemblage on his front stoop. “What’s going on?” he asked, looking directly at Barrett.

  She walked up the stairs, her eye catching on the flash of red on his ankle bracelet. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  “I didn’t hear it,” he replied. “The medications make me so tired. I didn’t hear a thing.”

  The patrolwoman turned to Barrett. “Everything okay?” she asked.

  Barrett knew that it was anything but okay, but couldn’t argue with Jimmy being right where he was supposed to be.

  “Your doc was worried,” Hector interjected, coming up the stairs.

  “I can see that,” Jimmy said. “Her concern is … admirable. But as you see I’m just fine.” He looked across the park and spied the elderly couple who were again watching, only now from behind the iron fence. “Quite the show for the neighbors,” he commented, waving in the direction of the couple and their dog.

  As he did, his sleeve slid back, revealing the soiled cuff of a white shirt.

  “You sleep in your clothes?” Barrett asked.

  “Is that a crime?” he replied.

  “No, just curious.”

  “Do you need us for anything else?” the female officer asked.

  “No,” Barrett said, racking her brain for anything that could give them probable cause to enter the house.

  Jimmy said nothing as the uniformed officers got back into their squad car and drove away.

  “I should have brought your meds,” Hector commented. “So I guess I’ll see you in a little while,” and he and his partner walked off, leaving Barrett alone with Jimmy.

  “So, Dr. Conyors, what brought you ringing my doorbell at such an early hour? And this isn’t our day, is it?”

  “I think you know.”

  “Do I? And where’s your lovely brooch? And for that matter, what happened to Detective Hobbs?”

  Barrett seethed; she felt him toying with her, trying to get her to break down, but even more than her anger was a paralyzing fear that kept her rooted to the ground, as she stared into the glittering blue of his eyes.

  “Black suits you,” he continued. “Could I offer you some coffee? I find that I can’t get started without some.”

  “I know you’ve been going out, Jimmy.”

  “Prove it. Or is that what you were trying to do? And here I am, just where I’m supposed to be. You must be disappointed. But I don’t want to stand out here; I’ve given the neighbors enough for the week. You sure I can’t offer you anything? Oh, but that’s right, you don’t like to meet with me alone, and I don’t see Officer—I mean Detective—Hobbs and his sidekick,” he stepped back into his doorway, shadows curtained his face.

  Barrett knew that Anton would skewer her with the morning’s events, but that’s not what drove her up the last step and across the threshold. All she could think about was Justine, and the awful possibility that Jimmy knew what had happened to her.

  “Coffee would be nice,” she said, breathing Jimmy’s acrid sweaty scent, and realizing that he’d been exerting himself.

  “I’m glad,” he shut the door behind her and turned the locks, “there’s so much we have to discuss.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “Do you smoke?” Barrett asked, tensing as Jimmy bolted the door.

  “No, why? Would you like to?” he straightened to his full height, his body not three feet from hers.

  Barrett thought about her mother, waiting up for a teenage Barrett to come home from a party. “Have you been drinking?” she’d ask. “Have you been drinking, Jimmy?”

  “Of course not,” he answered. “I’m not allowed. But let’s have that coffee.” He disappeared through a doorway to the right; Barrett followed. She felt like a frightened Alice following the rabbit down the hole, only instead of opium-smoking caterpillars, she had a murderous cellist.

  He led her through a serving room off the banquet-sized dining room and from there into the kitchen. She took in her surroundings, realizing that his kitchen was larger than her entire co-op. “You have a beautiful house,” she commented, struggling to keep her fear in check and trying to find some topic for conversation that wouldn’t set him off.

  “Thanks, not that I had anything to do with it.”

  An odd thought occurred to her, “How do you keep it clean? I never see any servants.”

  “I do it myself … I don’t like having strangers in my house, and besides, I’ve got plenty of time.”

  “You must get lonely.”

  “Strangely enough, I don’t. I think that’s the only thing that holds me together; I don’t have to be around people … present company excluded, of course. And there is Fred.”

  “Where is he?” she asked, wondering what had happened to the small Siamese.

  He looked down at the floor. “That’s odd … he’s probably in the library. I hope …”

  “What?”

  Jimmy walked back the way he came, calling to his cat, “Fred … Fred …”

  Barrett listened as his voice reverberated through the walls. She heard his feet pounding up the stairs as he searched for his kitten. Then she heard something else, a faint mewling sound coming from the other side of the kitchen door.

  Barrett got up from the table and looked out through a window onto the courtyard filled with full-grown trees, tangled beds of weeds and a dense thicket in the distance. If she hadn’t known about the carriage house on 19th Street she’d have missed the tiny glimpses of weathered brownstone. Fred meowed loudly from the middle of a bluestone path that ended in an elaborate, but non-functioning, fountain. She opened the door and stepped out into the cool morning. Her head spun as she drank in the clean air and approached the cat.

  “You found him,” Jimmy said coming up behind her.

  She swallowed, trying to find some saliva in her mouth. She could hear Sifu Li’s advise, “Fear is the enemy. Conquer fear and you cannot be defeated.”

  The cat sniffed at her extended hand and then butted his head against it. She picked him up, glad for the warmth and softness of his tiny body.

  “He likes you,” Jimmy said.

  “I’m surprised you let him out,” she commented.

  “He doesn’t go far,” Jimmy said “ … like me.”

  “But this is nice,” she replied, looking up at the flowering trees. “At least you can get some fresh air.”

  “It’s not fresh,” he replied.

  “Because of New York?”

  “No … what do you see in this courtyard?”

  “Old trees—I think that one’s a London plane tree,” she commented noting the multi-colored bark. “And that looks like a ginkgo.”

  “Very good, have you been reading the signs on the park trees?”

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “Don’t feel bad, I used to do it all the time when I was a kid. I can tell you what each and every tree is in English and Latin, both around the park and inside it. The same goes for Stuyvesant Park. But what else do you see?”

  “It used to be a formal garden.”

  “Yes, it was Mother’s. She ha
d roses, and she had a gardener … actually a string of them, mostly El Salvadorians.” He looked apprehensively toward the thicket and the carriage house beyond.

  She followed his gaze, wondering what it was that frightened him, yet somehow too scared to ask.

  “I’m cold. I want to go back inside,” he finally said, turning around.

  “They were her lovers,” Barrett commented, as she followed him back into the kitchen, still clutching the kitten to her chest.

  “She had sex with them,” he pulled the half-filled carafe out of the coffeemaker and poured the steaming liquid into mugs. “I wouldn’t call them lovers.” He shook his head. “Now how did we get on to this? Morning coffee … what do you take?”

  “Just black.”

  “That is best, isn’t it?” He handed her the mug, his hands perfectly steady. For a moment longer than necessary, they both held the cup. “Careful,” he said, looking her straight in the eye, “it’s hot.”

  “Thank you,” she pulled it back from him, and for a fleeting moment wondered if he might try to drug her. But as though he sensed her hesitation, he raised his cup and took a sip. “So is your mother’s sexual activity under the heading of things you don’t talk about?” she asked, trying to maintain a professional façade.

  “I think I’m beyond that. But if you must know, Ellen and I used to watch,” he told her. “I think that’s one of the many reasons I’m as messed up as I am.”

  “What would you see?” She needed to figure out who he was today, not the frightened child, not the hissing man, but someone almost rational with a kind of detachment, like a reporter reading the news.

  “Different things on different days, but mostly men who’d left family and children behind in South America, who found themselves the object of Mother’s desires. I don’t think they had much choice. Looking back, I think they were all illegals, which made it easier for her to play her games.”

  “You’re being vague.”

  “Mother liked to humiliate and hurt them. Ellen and I would watch through peepholes in her bedroom wall. And the sickest part …”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m pretty certain she knew that we were there.” He blinked and turned. “But I’ve already told you this, haven’t I?”

  “Yes,” she said, “Sometimes, I think you forget things.”

  “That’s not it, not entirely …” He gestured toward the window, “So that was Mother’s rose garden. Ellen cut down all the roses after their accident.”

  “Your parents both died while you were in the hospital,” Barrett commented.

  “Yes, a terrible accident,” his tone sarcastic. “I was allowed out for the funeral.”

  “Were they alive when Gordon Mayfield’s article was published?” she lobbed the question like a grenade into the middle of the room.

  “They saw it,” he said, seemingly unflustered. “Ellen told me that they didn’t think anyone would read it and that she was making too much fuss; they were probably right.”

  “Do you remember Mayfield?”

  “Of course. He tricked me. It was the start of a very bad time for me, and I blame him for a great deal of it.”

  “Because?”

  “Because, Dr. Conyors—and I wish you’d let me call you Barrett—I sometimes struggle with what goes on between my ears. And after my sessions with Dr. Mayfield I found myself losing great big chunks of time, and then waking up with something horrible happening.”

  “You dissociate,” she said.

  “No shit.”

  “So you know?”

  “Of course, I didn’t always, just thought that I had blackouts. I’d be sitting having a conversation with somebody and the next thing you know I’d be getting raped in the laundry room and not remember how I got from point A to point B.”

  “Does that still happen?”

  “The rapes?” he asked with a twisted grin.

  “No, the memory lapses?”

  “Not for a while, we all seem to be sticking together.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, I know … but I don’t know how else to describe it. That’s why everyone thought I was schizophrenic, because I do hear voices. But that doesn’t make me schizophrenic, does it?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s go into the library,” he said, without waiting for her reply.

  Putting the cat down and carrying her mug, she followed him back toward their usual meeting place. As he turned to open the doors, Fred attacked his ankle, pushing up his pant leg. She looked down and noticed something askew with his monitoring bracelet; it wasn’t latched.

  “So you have been out.”

  He froze, and then pushed open the doors. “You’re mistaken,” he commented.

  “You’ve tampered with your bracelet.”

  He sank into a leather club chair and crossed his ankle over his knee. “Oh dear, I’m coming undone,” he smiled and squeezed the sides of his electronic tether until they clicked firmly into place.

  “So, where are you going, Jimmy?” she asked, taking the opposing chair.

  “I think you’ve jumped a couple steps, Dr. Conyors. Perhaps if you’d play a little music with Jimmy, I might come up with some better answers; help connect the dots.” His blue eyes focused on her face, his expression filled with longing, yet his voice carried something dark and threatening. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “I don’t want your money,” she replied.

  “That’s not the offer.” He blinked and his tongue flicked out and ran across the tip of an incisor. “Whom do you love, Barrett?” he asked.

  “Where is she?”

  “Patience … I once knew a woman named Patience … not a pilgrim at all, but a just and righteous woman. Shall we play?” he stood up and extended a hand across the space between them. “It would mean so much to Jimbo.”

  “What have you done with her? Where is she?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answered, “but music has a way of jogging the memory. One duet, Dr. Conyors, what could it hurt?”

  Barrett stood, her thoughts swam. She’d been right, and that knowledge did little to comfort her. She should have pushed sooner, tried harder, found something to get Jimmy sent back, but now … .“I’m leaving,” she said, knowing that she had to get out of there, to find Hobbs.

  “Do you think that’s wise?” he asked. “Life is so fragile, so delicate, so fleeting. We have to be careful with the ones we love; there aren’t all that many, are there?”

  “If you do anything …”

  He put a finger to his lips, “Sshhh, this is not a time for hollow threats and paper tigers. All we ask is for a little music. Is that so much?”

  She glared back at him.

  “Well?” he glanced back at the Bösendorfer. “It’s your move.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He exhaled. “I thought we could play Brahms.” His voice light and excited as he led her to the piano, where the score for the E Minor Sonata lay open on the lyre.

  “That’s a different cello,” she remarked, noting the flame-varnished instrument that had replaced the darker one.

  “I had an accident. This was my first cello,” he answered, picking it up and settling down in his chair. He took his bow from the stand and tightened the nut, bringing the pale horsehair taut. He picked up a cake of well-used black resin and ran it across the bow. “It’s still quite good, eighteenth-century French.”

  Barrett said nothing as she pulled back the intricately inlaid rosewood piano bench and settled behind the keyboard. She knew that this had been orchestrated, that since her first visit he’d been waiting for this moment. She stared up at the black notes covering the page.

  “You start,” he commented.

  She nodded and, taking a quick look at the key signature, she raised her hands, letting her long fingers fall onto the ivory. The first chords filled the room with a lush sound. Barrett couldn’t help but admire the piano’s r
esponsive action, making her own beloved Mason and Hamlin seem like a vapid imitation of what a piano could do.

  And then Jimmy began. A haunting run of notes rose up from his cello, they hung in the air and mingled with the steady advances of her accompaniment.

  The music wasn’t difficult for Barrett, and she found herself wanting to match Jimmy’s virtuosity, and finding moments of exquisite beauty as they progressed through the movements written in a minor key. Time vanished and she struggled to not think about the powerful sadness and longing that infused his playing. And always in her thoughts was Justine, that she was doing this for her. That she’d play this music, and so what if she enjoyed it, or felt like she was rediscovering a limb that had been removed. The music soared, filling the cavernous space, filling her, filling him.

  Tears streamed down her face as she turned the last page—a part of her didn’t want the music to end, but it did. The final chords resonated through the room. Neither she nor Jimmy spoke as they stayed perfectly still, letting the last harmonics melt into the dark wood and priceless carpets.

  She looked at him.

  He gazed back at her and nodded his head slowly, “Do you know how amazing you are?” he finally asked.

  “You play beautifully,” she replied, sincere in her response.

  “Why did you stop playing?” He seemed on the verge of tears. “You could have gone and done anything.”

  “Maybe another time, we can talk about that. I kept my end of the bargain, Jimmy. You need to tell me whatever you know about my sister.”

  His eyes shut tightly, and then he opened them. He glared at her and abruptly stood, holding the cello roughly by its neck, almost as if he were strangling it.

  “Why do you spoil things?” he walked across to the cello stand and clumsily replaced the instrument in its padded cradle. “Wasn’t it beautiful enough for you?”

  “It was,” she replied, as the traces of the music coursing through her fingers and through her body were replaced by the sickening tingle of fear. “But we made a deal.”

  “Yes, it’s time to play, Let’s Make a Deal. Okay, so the lovely Dr. Conyors has played the lovely Brahms and now she’d like a bit of information about the lovely Justine. I can see by your outfit that you’ve come without your wire today. So, perhaps we can chat and do a little tit for tat … and what lovely tits she has.”