Devil's Trill

by Gerald Elias

  “You could tell his height from his handshake?” asked Yumi.

  “Downward angle of his hand when we shook, if you could call it that. Easy to figure—six three or four, but from the smell of his breath—mouthwashed—hitting my forehead I also could tell he was slouched over. Seems to need to show off, prove to himself he’s worth the space he occupies on this earth, but maybe insecure. Deep down insecure. Overly cool and collected. Maybe that’s why, as an agent, he surrounds himself with people more talented than himself—showing off his jewelry.”

  The taxi came to an abrupt stop.

  “Thank God we’re here,” said Jacobus.

  “You heard his emergency brake?” asked Yumi.

  “Trying to think like me, huh?”

  “Four seventy-five,” said the driver.

  Jacobus pulled five bills from his wallet, all singles.

  “And that is so you know how much you are paying the driver,” said Yumi.

  “No shit.”

  As they got out, he handed the bills to the driver. “Thanks for nothing.”

  “Fuck you, buddy.” The cab screeched away.

  Yumi took Jacobus’s arm and entered the new office tower. They took the elevator to the twenty-first floor and entered the overly air-conditioned outer office of Zenith Concert Artists, the address of Anthony Strella’s “nine-to-five” job. The bright white and metallic office space was chic and expensive with large works of ostentatious contemporary art adorning the walls. It was entirely unappealing to Yumi. The receptionist, just one more matching accessory, smiled.

  Before she could say hello, however, the door to Zenith’s inner office opened and out whooshed Cynthia Vander. Looking straight ahead with a pretense of a smile, she ignored Yumi and the others as she swept out of the outer office.

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Vander. Have a nice day,” said the receptionist.

  “Oh, dear!” Yumi said quietly to Jacobus. “Kamryn’s mother!” Jacobus chuckled. He whispered, “Yumi, would you say Mrs. Vander’s hairdo is slightly disheveled, her makeup is smudged, and her dress needs some adjusting?”

  “Yes,” said Yumi. “How do you know?”

  “Because under that scent of cheap perfume and hair spray, I do detect a trace of male cologne, sweat, and, how shall we say, adult relations.”

  “Have a seat, please,” said the receptionist to Jacobus and Yumi. “Mr. Strella will see you . . . momentarily.”

  Momentarily they were buzzed in to Strella’s office.

  “Ah! Mr. Jacobus. So good to see you again.” As he shook Jacobus’s hand, Yumi noticed, as Mr. Jacobus had related, that contact was quickly made and broken. Yumi had no trouble smelling the cologne.

  “And is this your new student, Miss Shinagawa, who Mr. Williams mentioned?”

  As Yumi extended her hand, Jacobus said, “Yeah, this is Miss Shinagawa. Now tell me about these fish, Strella.”

  “Surely you can’t smell them!”

  “No, Strella Fella, I’m not talking about Cynthia Vander. That’s another kinda fisha smella.”

  Strella guffawed. “Then how can you know, if I may ask?”

  In a wall-sized aquarium behind Strella’s desk hundreds of brightly colored tropical fish darted in all directions through fake sunken pirate ships, plastic seaweed, and ceramic rock caves, ignorant of the artificial world in which they were manipulated and displayed.

  “Whirring of the pump. Bubbling of the water. Didn’t think your cappuccino foamer would be running on ‘continuous.’ ”

  “Marvelous, Mr. Jacobus. Marvelous. But I must say the foamer is indispensable.”

  “Don’t insult me, Strella. There’s nothing marvelous about it. Anybody with his eyes closed knows what a fish tank motor sounds like. I’d think even you would be able to figure that one out, Strella . . . from your lofty perch.”

  “Clever, Mr. Jacobus. And how do you like my little aquarium, Miss Shinagawa?”

  She had indeed become mesmerized by the continuous and unpredictable flashes of color.

  “I don’t imagine fish feel happiness, Mr. Strella, but they seem to survive harmoniously.”

  “They do create quite a kaleidoscope, don’t they? But harmony, I’m not so sure. Watch this.”

  Strella turned his back to her and sprinkled a small handful of food into the tank. As the flakes touched the water, a blur of color simultaneously swarmed to one spot, gorging on whatever food each fish could rip away from its competitors.

  Seconds later they began to disperse. Strella turned to face Yumi and Jacobus, wearing a bright white smile. This was the first time Yumi had met Anthony Strella, though like every classical musician she had heard stories of his domination of the industry. He was indeed tall, as Jacobus had guessed—not guessed, determined—and once was thin as well, but success had begun to go to his stomach. His coiffed hair—glossy, silvery-tinted around the ears, combed straight back—combined with facial features congregating right in the middle of his face to give him a rodentlike appearance that was incongruous for someone so tall.

  To Yumi, he looked like someone who had mastered the appearance of power. She wondered, though, whether all the trappings were a manifestation of strength, or were they just camouflage? The opposite of Mr. Jacobus, whose appearance was inconspicuous at best, but whose power seemed limitless.

  “As sorry as I am to have kept you waiting, it’s worse if I keep them waiting,” Strella said, nodding to the tank. “If I’m a minute late for feeding time, they start eating each other.” He chuckled.

  “But enough about fish,” said Strella, sitting in his CEO swivel chair behind his teak desk. “Tell me more about Miss Shinagawa, Jacobus. She’s cute. Very cute. Plays well?”

  “She plays very well, Mr. Strella.”

  “Anthony, please. We’re all friends here.”

  “Yes, Anthony. In fact, she plays quite a bit better than some of the elementary school children you manage that MAP calls ‘artists.’ ”

  Strella put both hands up in surrender. “No argument there. No argument there, Mr. Jacobus. May I call you Daniel?”

  “Mr. Jacobus is fine for now, thank you.”

  “Well, Mr. Jacobus, I’m sure Miss Shinagawa here is every bit the musician you say she is, but these days youth is in. Not my decision. Really it isn’t.”

  Yumi felt like a commodity up for barter. Gazing at the aquarium, she recalled the tuna auction she had witnessed as a little girl at the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. She now felt like a chunk of frozen tuna being carted around on a motorized dolly. Choice sushi grade! Two thousand yen a kilo! I’ll bid three!

  “You mean to tell me—Anthony—that nineteen is no longer youth?”

  “I’m afraid that’s the long and short of it—or the young and old of it. These days the public wants cute, especially girls, as long as they can play, of course. I get calls from the symphony orchestra managers every day, every day, asking for the youngest artists on my roster. They tell me those kids are the biggest draw, and they’re right. They’re the only ones who’ll pack the houses, except for Perlman or Yo-Yo. And since the younger ones have smaller fees, let’s say five or six thousand for a pair of weekend performances, the orchestras net out a lot better. Bigger house, smaller fee, orchestra stays in business. Simple equation. I’m just trying to do my share. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  “No, no. Nothing wrong with that. Anthony. Except that, number one, finer artists who might be a little older get shut out of careers. Number two, audiences are deprived of truly great performances. Number three, those poor kids are burned out physically and emotionally by the time they’re twenty. Number four, orchestras are using a false premise to justify their existence. Number five—”

  “Okay, okay, Mr. Jacobus. I’ll concede there are two sides to this coin. But let me assure you that MAP’s intentions are only the best.”

  “What’s your percentage, then?”

  “I take no fee for my work with MAP. MAP, as you may know, is a nonp
rofit and the work my colleagues and I do for it is strictly voluntary.”

  “So MAP’s books are a matter of public record?” asked Jacobus.

  A bottom-feeding catfishlike creature attached its suction-cupped mouth to the tank and vacuumed its whiskered way along a random route up the glass. Another fish with bulging eyes and a big mouth poked its head out of a sunken blue pirate ship.

  “That’s for the accountants to determine,” Strella replied. “My job is to use my estimable talents as an agent to enable MAP’s artists to be able to compete in a very tough market.”

  “Well, that’s very interesting. Because in this year’s Musical America Directory, I read—yes, I read, it comes in Braille—MAP’s artist roster. It seems MAP has a corner on the market for cuddly instrumentalists under fifteen, who you say are being lusted after by all these orchestras. If this were a business other than music—”

  “Mr. Jacobus, you’re not the first one who’s ever tried to insult my integrity, but—”

  “I’m just pointing out what I’ve observed. Anthony. We’re still friends, right? I can still call you Anthony, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “So, Anthony, you dress the little kids up in cute red dresses, put their smiling face and a teddy bear on a CD, push ’em out onto a stage and make the audience think they’re part of some ‘historic’ event. Use them until they’re over the hill at twenty, then dump them in favor of the next litter of puppies from the puppy farm, already spayed, complete with shots, ready for the Christmas tree.”

  “Mr. Jacobus,” said Strella. “Mr. Jacobus, it just so happens that we—yes, we, that means you too—are in a cutthroat business. If you think you can rattle me, you are quite mistaken. Let me tell you some facts. Not opinion. Facts.”

  The phone rang.

  “Do you mind?” he asked Jacobus.

  “Go right ahead. Anthony.”

  “Strella,” he said into the phone.

  Except for the whirring and bubbling from the aquarium, and an occasional car honking from far, far below, there were several minutes of silence in the office while the person at the other end of the line talked. Yumi felt trapped, like a fish in the tank. Her presence here seemed purposeless.

  Finally Strella said into the phone, “No, he’s not over the hill. He may not be at his peak, but he’s still a major artist, and yes, he can still play the Brahms D Minor. He’s played it more times than you’ve jerked off, believe it or not.”

  More silence, but not as long. Strella said, “I don’t care what Maestro thinks. Zenith’s contract is with the Symphony, not with Maestro. You want your pick from the A-list for your orchestra’s pension fund concert, you take Kristof now, and you tell Maestro what to do with his baton. Understood?” He hung up.

  “You see, Mr. Jacobus, it’s not just puppies I protect. Sometimes it’s the toothless old mongrels as well.”

  “You were going to tell me some ‘facts.’ ”

  “Thank you for reminding me. Fact number one, Mr. Jacobus: Classical record sales were down last year twenty percent. Twenty percent. Nevertheless, recordings of artists under age twenty doubled their market share of those recordings in that period.

  “Fact number two: Symphony orchestras, which are in the red year after year, would go out of business if they couldn’t book less expensive, ticket-selling, hall-filling, good-looking young artists.

  “Fact number three: Without those recordings and those concerts, you older orchestra musician types would be out of a job. As it is, you guys make a fraction of what MAP can get for its teenage clients, so who’s fooling who, Mr. Jacobus? And a lot of recording engineers would be out of work too and, for that matter, so would a lot of you high-powered teachers.”

  “And a concert agent or two, perhaps,” added Jacobus.

  “I’m simply stating facts, Mr. Jacobus. Fact number four is, I’m not forcing these youngsters to take the money. Their parents want them to have the opportunity. Most of the young artists on my roster are quite happy with the chance of being paid over a hundred grand a year to perform with major orchestras, which is something, I understand, you never had the opportunity to do.”

  Yumi tried to concentrate on a pair of yellow-and-black-striped fish whose large heads didn’t seem to have any bodies. They were sucking something off a ceramic deep-sea diver that had bubbles coming out of it. She yearned for their oblivion.

  “Now, what exactly was it you came here to talk to me about?” asked Strella. “The police have already interrogated me and, as you can hear, my phone rings quite often.”

  “You were in the Green Room after Kamryn Vander’s recital.”

  “I was. I’ve never denied it.”

  “Thank you, Anthony. You are certainly an honest man. Did the police ask if you noticed anyone go from the reception into the room with the Piccolino Strad during the course of the evening?”

  “Of course they did.”

  “And did you?”

  “I did not,” Strella said. “It was extremely crowded. People were coming and going. I’m not a gatekeeper.”

  “Was there any point during the reception,” asked Jacobus, “when your back might have been turned from the door leading to the adjoining room, making it possible for someone to have gone into that room without you noticing?”

  “Of course it’s possible. In fact it’s highly likely that’s exactly what happened. What are you driving at?”

  “Well, Anthony,” Jacobus said, folding his hands, “to be successful in your line of business you’ve got to be a serious student of human nature, right? And whether we agree on things or not—and you have brought up some interesting points—there’s no doubt that you’re considered tops in your field, right?”

  Strella put his elbows on the teak desk and leaned forward.

  “So,” continued Jacobus, “if there was anyone in the Green Room astute enough to have an inkling of who might have been involved in stealing that violin, it’s you.

  “Tell me, Anthony, of all the people—let’s just say people you know well—in the Green Room, what one person might have been capable of doing it? Not necessarily the one who actually removed the violin, but the one who may be the mastermind behind it.”

  Yumi looked carefully at Jacobus, recalling his initial belief that nobody from MAP was involved with the theft. She said, “But Mr. Jacobus, weren’t you saying—”

  “Please don’t interrupt, Yumi.”

  Strella sat back in his chair.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Jacobus,” he said in a bored and dismissive tone, “but as far as I’m concerned it’s highly unlikely that anyone, anyone I know, had anything whatsoever to do with the theft.”

  “Well put, Anthony. Well put. Highly unlikely. Highly unlikely perhaps, but not impossible! After all, how many convicted murderers do you read about in the papers where the neighbors say they just couldn’t believe good old Billy Bob could do such a thing?”

  “True. True.”

  “So let’s say, pure conjecture, for a moment that someone you know did the dastardly deed. If you had to choose one person, which one would it have been? Surely at some point someone must have seemed suspicious to you. Dedubian, perhaps? Jablonski? Rachel Lewison?”

  Strella drummed his fingers on the desk. Suddenly he smacked it with both palms, startling the fish, which silently exploded from their monotonous, conditioned paths.

  “You!”

  “Me?” asked Jacobus.

  “Yeah, you! Lilburn saw you there. Victoria saw you there. I saw you there! Robison even escorted you into the room with the Strad. Are you telling me that was your twin brother?”

  “No, Anthony,” said Jacobus. “I have to confess. It wasn’t my twin brother.”

  “Aha! So it was you!”

  “No. It was my twin sister. I’ll be sure to notify the authorities to slap the cuffs on her—by the way, is she under contract with Zenith also?”

  “Touché, Mr. Jacobus!”
/>   “Now where were we in our hypothetical discussion?” pursued Jacobus.

  “Are we still playing that game? Okay, Vander, I suppose,” said Strella, calmly inspecting his manicured fingernails.

  “Really? Kamryn Vander?” asked Jacobus. “My, my. She is precocious for a nine-year-old, but—”

  “Not Kamryn, Jacobus. The mother, Cynthia. Jesus, what a bitch,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Ah, yes! Cynthia Vander!” said Jacobus. “But didn’t she just flop out of your fish tank a few minutes ago?”

  “So what? I have a lot of clients’ mothers come for . . . consultations.”

  “You know,” Jacobus exclaimed, “I hadn’t even considered her as a possibility. So you think Mrs. Vander had something to do with the theft. Hmm. And why is that?”

  “Don’t put words into my mouth, Mr. Jacobus. You want to play a little game and you ask who could have, could have. All hypothetical, but you should see her around that kid. She treats me like I’m the enemy, some sort of child molester. But she’s the one who treats the kid like shit. All I want to do is make some money for them. Okay, okay. For me too. And I have made money for them. Lots of it. You think she would let me make a suggestion once in a while, since I like to believe I know this business pretty well—like what dress she should wear when she performs. Stop laughing, those things are important. This is the entertainment industry, Mr. Jacobus. Music is nice, but it’s secondary. Success is what’s important and MAP has made that kid into a success, but you’d never know it by the way I’m treated. Vander the Viper. Only listens to what that other serpent has to say.”

  “Other serpent?” asked Jacobus.

  “Jablonski. Miss J. I tell you, between the two of them it’s a snake pit.”

  Strella chuckled at his own little joke.

  “You should’ve heard Miss J’s language when the violin was stolen! Would’ve made a longshoreman blush.”

  Yumi was astonished that Strella would talk about these people with such loathing in front of her, a stranger.

  Strella continued. “Mr. Jacobus, you want a scenario? Try this on for size. The two of them are in on it together. Yeah, now wouldn’t that be something?” He had become animated, snapping his fingers.