by Jim Fusilli
The New York City police are not going to listen to a fourteen-year-old girl who thinks she is a detective.
“We’ll see,” Marley said confidently. “Right is right, after all. In any language.”
Mr. and Mrs. Poveda looked at each other with surprise. Marisol managed a small, sorrowful smile.
The apartment’s living room had been converted to a bedroom /rehearsal space for Marisol. Her violin was on the bed— Marley assumed the police had examined it—and her beloved cell phone, a gift from her parents, was in its charger. As Marisol quickly tidied her room, Marley slipped the DVD into the player. Mr. Poveda leaned against the door frame, the red and orange beads draping along the back of his steel-blue work shirt.
Mrs. Poveda shooed away the boys as she sat on the bed.
“Let’s see if we can find the part with Marisol first,” Marley said.
According to the player, the DVD was five hours long. Though she jumped ahead, it still took Marley almost five minutes to find the right part of the security video.
As Mr. and Mrs. Poveda stared at the small screen, Marisol seemed to shuffle in place on the orange throw rug.
“Okay . . . ,” Marley said.
Sitting cross-legged, her back against the bed, she narrated the action as she had in her own kitchen, and didn’t have to do much to prove her first point: When Marisol appeared on the screen, Mr. and Mrs. Poveda exchanged a curious glance that seemed to say that girl wasn’t their daughter, but a blank-faced robot that looked and dressed like her.
“Okay, so that’s not the Marisol we know,” Marley said, tapping the pause button on the remote. Turning to her friend, she added, “Now pick up your violin.”
Marisol eased her palm under the instrument’s lacquered back before slipping her left hand under its neck. Teddy was right: Marisol cradled the violin as if it were a baby.
“Can you carry it out into the corridor?”
To Marley’s surprise, Marisol tucked the violin under her arm. But she saw she had nestled its back gently against her ribs, far from her belt, her hand cupped around its waist.
Looking at Mrs. Poveda and her husband, she said, “Now watch.”
The DVD resumed, and a moment later, Marisol’s mother said, “It’s not the same. No, she’s very rough to it.”
She repeated her words to her husband in Spanish.
Mr. Poveda drew his daughter near.
“But now,” Marley said, “we have to find out what really happened.”
And for the next two hours, Marley and Marisol watched a very dull movie: one with lots of characters who milled about and studied a violin, or walked by as if it wasn’t there.
Mrs. Poveda fed them patacones, the Ecuadorian version of fried plantains. Boli and Cristian went off to bed. Mr. Poveda turned on the Spanish-language broadcast of the Mets game on the kitchen radio, but his endless pacing suggested he was too worried to listen.
“You know, Marley,” Marisol whispered. “I think I would remember if I ever had such a special instrument in my hands.”
“That’s gives me an idea,” Marley replied. “Instead of us both watching this, why don’t you find out what you can about the violin. Check Juilliard’s website, and the Times’. They probably have a bunch of stories about it.”
As Marisol sat at her PC, copying-and-pasting information into a Word document, Marley studied black-and-white TV. By now, she was fighting boredom and speeding up things with the fast-forward button.
“You’d think one of us would recognize somebody walking through Juilliard,” she said, stifling a yawn as she stretched across Marisol’s bed. “I’ll bet we’ve seen three hundred people—Wait! ”
“What?” Marisol jumped from her chair.
Shifting her thumb on the remote, Marley stopped the action and quickly hit the reverse button. Then she hit stop again.
And there, staring at the $500,000 violin, was, of all people, their algebra teacher, Mr. Noonan.
“I can’t believe this,” Marisol said.
Now she and Marley were standing side by side in front of the TV monitor.
They let the security video play at normal speed.
Mr. Noonan stared at the violin for nearly five minutes.
He made notes on index cards.
He took out a small digital camera and snapped photos.
He nodded politely at the security personnel.
“Mr. Noonan,” Marisol uttered.
“Boring Mr. Noonan,” Marley said, shaking her head in wonder.
“You don’t think . . . ?”
"I won’t think,” she said. "Not before I talk to someone I know can help us.”
chapter 4
When Marley left the Povedas’ apartment, she found Teddy leaning against a parking meter outside the redbrick building. Coincidentally, he was reading his algebra textbook, fending off the night’s darkness to study by using the glow from the bay window of a pizza parlor. The scent of tart tomato sauce drifted over the avenue.
“How long?—”
Teddy stepped away from the meter. “The dishes are done,” he replied as he hitched up his sagging jeans. “How’s Marisol?”
“Upset,” Marley replied. “But I think now she believes there’s a chance we can—”
“Keep her from going to prison?”
“—help clear her name.” If there was a police officer watching the Povedas’ building, Marley couldn’t see him.
They started south, passing crowded outdoor cafés. Diners’ conversation and laughter filled the surprisingly cool September air.
“Where are we going?” Teddy had to trot to keep up with Marley’s rapid pace.
“Antonio’s,” she replied.
“You think Miss Otto is there?”
Marley’s dreadlocks jiggled as she walked. “If she’s not at the restaurant, her father will call her for us.”
“I guess. . . .”
In the distance were the lights of Lincoln Center.
They continued in silence and, after going a half-mile or so, arrived at a quiet stretch of the avenue where the shops and boutiques had already closed. Soon, the bustle was well behind them.
As they crossed 81st Street, they approached the long, narrow park behind the American Museum of Natural History. Big leafy trees seemed to quiver in the streetlamps’ violet light.
With its menacing towers and turrets, and all the peculiar angles caused by different sorts of buildings being thrown together over the years, the museum complex could seem eerie during the day. At night, it was even scarier, as if the ghosts of its stuffed animals were prowling and slinking around its empty corridors, ready to burst into the street.
At least it seemed that way to Teddy, who refused to glance into the shadows.
Clutching his textbook, he scurried to catch up to Marley, his old Adidas high-tops scraping on cobblestone. Wait, he wanted to shout, the Otto family’s restaurant wasn’t going anywhere.
Marley turned and held her finger to her lips.
Teddy stopped.
Dark, foreboding music from a violin filled the avenue with sound that seemed to match the threat posed by the scary museum.
Staring toward gray trees, the two friends stood motionless as the music continued, rocketing high as if escaping a monster’s grip. Then it swooped down, stopping just short of smashing into the cobblestone.
Then, suddenly, there was silence. A man spun from behind a gnarled tree trunk.
Startled, Teddy bellowed, “Marley!”
The tall, disheveled man marched toward them, holding out his bow as if it were a lance.
The little white envelope Ben Rosenberg had given her fell from Marley’s grasp.
“You must pay!” the man shouted. “You listen, you must pay!”
It was Tabakovic, the violinist who they’d seen a few weeks ago on Fifth Avenue outside the Met.
“Run, Marley!” Teddy screamed.
Tabakovic arched his back, shook his head furiously, and roared li
ke an angry bear.
Teddy grabbed Marley’s hand. “Let’s go!”
“Wait,” Marley insisted, yanking her friend back. She groped the cobblestones to retrieve the fallen envelope that held the DVD of the security tape.
Then she dashed off with Teddy, even as Tabakovic continued to howl for payment.
When they’d run about fifty feet up the block, Marley released Teddy’s hand.
Turning, she shouted, “Hey Tabakovic! Is that a new violin?”
Gasping, Teddy warned, “Marley . . .”
She barked, “Maybe you don’t need your old one anymore.”
But now, Tabakovic had stopped growling. He dropped his arms to his sides, his bow and instrument hanging low.
Then, as he began to walk back to his dark perch, he raised his hands again and began to play a tender melody, one that seemed to speak of a deep, lasting sadness.
Listening, Marley and Teddy watched until Tabakovic, and the anguished music, disappeared.
Catching their breath, Marley and Teddy continued south until, once again, they reached the crowded restaurants and cafés on another well-lit strip of Columbus Avenue.
The problem for the Kingston Cowboys was they had no place to practice.
Well, as they’d soon find out, that was one of their problems.
They’d be too loud to practice at anyone’s apartment, and Marley knew her dad liked to work in the evenings after Skeets went to sleep. They couldn’t ask their teachers at Beacon or Collegiate if they could use an empty classroom after hours. Half of the band didn’t attend whichever school they’d choose. And anyway no one would let kids rattle around the buildings at night, lugging in musical instruments and equipment.
With thousands and thousands of professional musicians living in its five boroughs, New York City was filled with rehearsal halls, but they were expensive. Believe it or not, some bands actually practiced in those mini-storage places where people cram in all the things they can’t fit in their apartments, like luggage and old sofas and crummy paintings and footlockers tied with old leather belts. Teddy said he’d heard a senior at Collegiate had rented one down on Spring Street where his band kept their equipment, including the drum kit and amplifiers. They’d squeeze in, turn on the electricity and start rehearsing, though they could hardly move and their heads almost banged the ceiling.
They could chip in their allowance money, Teddy suggested, but Wendell thought he had a better, less costly idea. He proposed it the next afternoon as they sat in a booth at their coffee shop on Broadway.
“There’s room in my uncle’s basement,” he said. “It’s where I store my drums.”
“Your uncle who was the carnival barker?” Marisol asked.
“That was his grandfather,” Teddy said. He turned to Wendell. “Your uncle used to work security at the Lincoln Center jazz hall, right?”
Teddy and Marisol were drinking iced coffee, so Wendell did too. Marley always ordered the avgolemono soup, which was sort of like the Greek version of egg-drop soup. The little bit of lemon in the broth made it incredibly delicious.
“He must’ve heard some cool music,” Marley said.
The Collegiate boys wore jackets, shirts with collars and neck-ties. Marley noticed that whenever she addressed Wendell, who was always so well groomed, he clutched the length of his tie, tugging and squeezing it nervously.
“He’s a doorman,” he said, “and there’s this storage shed . . .”
“What’s the address?” Marley asked, taking a sip of the hot soup. No matter that it was ninety degrees outside. This soup was fantastic!
Stroking his tie, Wendell answered her question.
“I know that one,” Marley said. “That’s a great old place.”
West End Avenue was filled with magnificent limestone and terra-cotta apartment buildings, some of which seemed like monuments in the midday sun. Tall and broad, they had awnings and fancy ornamentation and gold revolving doors and uniformed doormen who knew everybody who lived inside. The doormen kept things moving and did all sorts of chores, from accepting packages to holding babies while new moms struggled with strollers, and helping the handymen as emergency plumbers and carpenters. All that in addition to providing security by watching over the lobby.
Wendell said, “I’ll ask my uncle if we can meet there.”
“Well,” Marley said, “that ought to get us started.”
“It’s sort of under the elevator, though . . . ,” he added as his cheeks began to turn red again. “And in the winter, there’s the furnace.”
“No, it’s good,” Marley said.
Wendell seemed relieved. The move across the river to New York City ripped him from his old friends—which is what his mother and uncle had wanted—and made him more insecure than simply being a gangly teenager ever did.
“When do we start?” Marisol asked.
The answer? Eight days later, on a Friday right after the first week of school ended.
Wendell set up his congas and high-hat cymbal inside the cramped shed, which was bloated with cartons of all different shapes and sizes, and a few rolled-up rugs. Seated just outside the tight space, Marley fed her guitar through a small amplifier, one about the same size Teddy was using for his electric bass. To start, they turned it way down low.
Marisol also stood outside the shed. They weren’t sure if the first-floor tenants would be able to hear them, but they figured if Marisol’s sweet violin reached upstairs, maybe they wouldn’t complain.
Marisol was the only Kingston Cowboy who could really play her instrument.
“Teddy . . . ,” Marley chuckled.
The electric bass seemed to cover Teddy’s entire chest and stomach, blocking the view of his old Boston Bruins hockey jersey. He could hardly get his arms in place or his plump fingers around the bass’s long, long neck.
“I’ve been practicing,” he replied.
Me too, Marley thought. Maybe if I live to be a hundred, I might know what I’m doing.
“Want to try something?” Wendell asked. He was deep in the shed, surrounded by crates on the old wooden shelves. A bare lightbulb hung over his head.
“Like what?” Marley asked.
Perplexed, they looked at each other.
Then they started to laugh.
“Is there any song we all know how to play?” Marisol asked. As she spoke, she continued to practice scales, her tiny fingers gliding effortlessly along the violin’s neck and strings.
Wendell spoke up. “Well, reggae has its roots in American pop, and American pop has a lot of country music in it. We should be able to find something.”
Marley was impressed.
Wendell began playing a simple reggae beat, tapping the side of the conga on the first and third beats, and the drum skin and high-hat on the two and four. He used his fingertips, keeping the rhythmic sound soft.
Teddy stared at his fingers as they waited above the bass’s thick strings. He knew it was his turn to enter.
“Try a single note on the one and three,” Wendell suggested.
“The key of G,” Marisol added.
Biting his bottom lip, Teddy began.
Now Marley faced a problem. So much reggae music was in minor keys, and most country was in majors. She didn’t know whether to play G minor or G major.
She thought, Well, Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” is in a minor key. . . .
She played a chopping minor chord, accenting the second and fourth beats.
Soon, Marisol played a beautiful melody that drifted over the rhythm.
A glance passed among the four friends. They seemed to realize they weren’t half-bad, at least for the moment.
"Let’s shift to C minor,” Marisol said, as she continued to play.
Wendell counted, “Two, three . . .”
Marley and Teddy immediately lost their place and the music stopped.
“That,” Marley said, “was not good.”
“Sorry . . . ,” Teddy added.
They returned to the basement a week later, having spent several meetings at the coffee shop discussing and selecting a single song to learn.
They finally chose Stevie Wonder’s “Send One Your Love.” After downloading it and sharing the file, they concluded that, though maybe it was a bit too old school, it was clear Wonder wrote a pretty great song. Marisol said his compositions were so well constructed that they could easily be stripped down to a country-reggae style.
She arranged the song and wrote the chords on music-notation paper.
When he took his sheet, covered with musical staves and Marisol’s neat printing, Teddy realized he felt like a real musician. It drove him to practice extra hard during the week.
His confidence growing, he invited Bassekou to the rehearsal.
The two Collegiate students made an odd couple as they arrived on West End Avenue to meet the three Kingston Cowboys under the awning of Wendell’s uncle’s building. Teddy wore a Green Bay Packers jersey with the number 08, baggy red nylon shorts and his floppy old Adidas sneakers, the laces flapping. Bassekou, who towered over his new American friend, was in a perfect navy-blue suit, white shirt and blue silk tie.
“Ready?” Wendell said, as he settled behind his drums.
Marisol reached to her belt to shift her cell phone to vibrate.
In a black short-sleeved top, wrinkled parachute pants, and black flip-flops, Marley strapped on her instrument and plucked at the strings with a plastic pick. Holding back her hair, she looked down at the music sheet she had placed at her feet.
“Let’s give it our best,” Marisol said with cheer.
Wendell snapped his fingers. “One, two, three . . .”
Seconds later, they stopped.
“Sorry,” Teddy said. His confidence fled as soon as Wendell began his countdown, and he made his entrance on a very sour note.
Marley smiled at him. “We’ll get it, Ted. Not to worry.”
They started the song again, and then stopped.
Bassekou shifted uncomfortably. He was eager to learn all he could about Western music and Teddy’s enthusiasm had him expecting a level of excellence.
“That’s on me,” Marley said. The opening chord—a Gbmaj7— was a difficult one for a beginner guitarist.
