Death and Transfiguration

by Gerald Elias

  “You were right, Jake. The razor blade is suspicious. We found Miss O’Brien’s razors—those pink plastic throwaway Lady Schick jobs—in her cosmetics bag. The one found next to her was an old-fashioned Wilkinson Sword double-edged blade, and it matches her wounds. None of the local stores carry them anymore. We tried Rite Aid, CVS, Kmart, you name it. We’ll keep trying, but it’s possible the owner had it for a long time.”

  “Did anyone at the motel notice a pair of elderly ghouls, one tall and lumbering, the other short, bald, and scarred, who both talk with an East European accent?”

  “None of the above. Sorry, Jake. We interviewed all the guests and hotel staff we could find, but no one mentioned anyone like either of them.”

  “What’s next?”

  “Go over the evidence and crime scene yet again. See if there’s anything we’ve missed.”

  “How are you feeling about finding Mr. Slasher?”

  “I’ve gotta tell you, Jake, I’m not feeling too optimistic right now.”

  * * *

  More waiting. When Nathaniel called, Jacobus could tell from his voice, usually so upbeat, that he was tired. It was around midnight in Prague. Nathaniel explained he had just walked back to his bed-and-breakfast from the Charles Bridge and was in need of sleep. So Jacobus refrained from expressing the disappointment he felt when Nathaniel told him that although he believed Vaclav Herza had killed Klaus Jürgens, he had no proof and couldn’t think of any way of getting it. Throughout the story, Jacobus simply responded with soft murmurs of acknowledgment, and when it was over he thanked Nathaniel for all his efforts.

  “Maybe we’ll have another chess game when you get back,” Jacobus offered.

  “Do you want me to let you win the next one?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Fuck you,” Jacobus said, and they both tried to laugh.

  * * *

  As Jacobus had not expected further calls, he was tempted to just let the next one ring. With the slim chance there might be some better news at the other end of the line, he finally answered.

  “Mr. Jacobus, it’s Tiny Parsley.”

  Jacobus held the receiver away from his ear. Talking to Kate, to Nathaniel, Yumi, and Roy, that was one thing. Parsley, though, was too close to Harmonium. Too close to O’Brien. He felt himself sinking below the surface again. If he opened his mouth, he would drown.

  “Mr. Jacobus, are you okay?” Parsley sounded alarmed. “If this is a bad time…”

  “It’s always a bad time,” he forced himself to say. “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to let you in on something. You know those files—Sherry’s files—you asked me about?”

  “What about them?”

  “Well, they had been stolen. That’s one reason I couldn’t have shown them to you, even if it wasn’t against policy. I think Lubomir took them.”

  “Why?”

  “Sherry had been seeing a psychiatrist for some time, having to do with her childhood. I really can’t go into any more detail than that. I found Lubomir lurking around the file cabinet. He gave me a look.”

  “Did you see him with the file?”

  “No.”

  “But you searched for the file and it was missing?”

  “No. What I did is, I went through all the files. They were all there, including hers, but hers wasn’t between Nyquist and Okeda like it should’ve been. I never would’ve done that. I may look like a mess, but I’m as anal as the IRS on April sixteenth when it comes to my files. I think Lubomir took it to show Herza and was putting it back when he heard me come into the office, so he hurried up and just shoved it in. I wish I could prove it, but I can’t.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “I’ve been fired. They can’t tell me what to do anymore.”

  “So where does Herza stand on your TAC now?”

  “He’s off the chart, man.”

  * * *

  The reception on Jacobus’s radio was lousy. His house was down in a valley and the woods around it were tall, blocking the frequencies. That was the conventional wisdom, anyway. Nevertheless, he tuned in to WAMC from Albany, which had a decent signal. Not that he was interested in listening to anything. He just wanted to know what time it was and didn’t have the energy to analyze the universe. He listened while Alan Chartock peddled a CD by Pete Seeger for their fund drive until All Things Considered came on the air and told him the time. After a few minutes of listening through the static of whether Monica Lewinsky or Saddam Hussein was causing more trouble for Bill Clinton, Jacobus turned off the radio.

  Only a few hours until the opening concert of Harmonium Hall. Jacobus had played the chess game and lost, again. Maybe he should have stuck with Tiddlywinks. But to have lost to Herza! That thought sickened him. Not that he had had much hope. Not that it mattered now. The game had been stacked against him from the beginning, and he gave it his best effort, didn’t he? Fought the good fight. Kate had been right, though: He had to learn to let go of the past. Yet he felt so alone here in his protective cocoon surrounded by trees and not people. He sat there, in silence, in darkness, no different from any other piece of broken-down furniture in his broken-down house, and no more alive.

  He heard a car come tentatively down the driveway. People who liked to explore the Berkshires often did that, to his annoyance, thinking his meandering driveway was some quaint country back road. “Honey, maybe there’ll be an antiques store!” Then when they came around the bend and out of the woods and saw his junk shop of a house, they’d speed up and go out the other end.

  This particular car came to a stop in front of his house and continued to shudder even after the engine was turned off. An old car that had been driven harder and farther than it had wanted to go.

  Footsteps came to the front door. There was a knock. Jacobus was disinclined to answer it. Probably someone lost on the way to Tanglewood. Who was even playing tonight? The BSO was still on its tour to God knows where. Maybe it was one of those rock bands he could hear even through his stuck windows. What’s a mere eight miles for Bloody Stool’s amplifiers?

  Another knock. What the hell!

  Jacobus found his cane, slowly got up from his chair, and went to the screen door.

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  “I am Sonja.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Lubomir awakens Herza from his preconcert nap promptly at 6 o’clock with the usual soft tap-tap-tap on the bedroom door. He enters the room, removes a bolster from the closet, then sets it against the bed’s headboard and props the maestro into a comfortable upright position.

  Lubomir hands Herza his scores and then goes to the kitchen to put the finishing touches on the chicken consommé and pour the four-ounce glass of VORS Amontillado sherry, Herza’s unchanging preconcert supper.

  Finishing his preparations, Lubomir assists Herza from his bed, removes the maestro’s silk pajamas, escorts him to the bathroom where he cleanses the maestro’s head and body with a washcloth. He then rubs shaving gel on the maestro’s face and neck and commences the maestro’s preconcert shave.

  “Nervous, Lubomir? Your hands are shaking.”

  “The opening of the new hall, Maestro.”

  “Try not to cut my throat, will you? What is a concert hall, anyway? Only empty space. Until it is filled with music. It is the music—only the music—that counts.”

  “Yes.”

  Having completed Maestro’s ablutions, Lubomir helps him with his underclothes and then into his blue suit with handkerchief, white shirt, and cravat.

  Lubomir retrieves the scores from the bedroom and places them in the briefcase. Herza’s white tie and tails, as always, have been sent directly from the cleaners to the concert hall, where Lubomir will dress the maestro upon their arrival.

  Lubomir helps Herza down the stairs, though on this night it seems that it is Herza who is helping Lubomir.

  Lubomir runs ahead to buzz the elevator but is chagrined to see a sign on it: OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE ST
AIRS. When Herza arrives and sees Lubomir standing there, inadvertently blocking the sign, he says, “What are you waiting for? Get me the elevator.”

  “I’m sorry, Maestro. We’ll have to walk.”

  “What are you talking about? We take the elevator.”

  “It’s not working.”

  “Press the button.”

  “But—”

  “I said, press the button.”

  Lubomir follows his instructions, and after they wait in silence for several minutes, Herza says, “You talk to the manager about this. I want that spic fired.”

  “Yes,” says Lubomir and escorts Herza down three painful flights of stairs to the lobby.

  When they arrive at the front door, Oscar the doorman is nowhere to be found. “Where the hell is he?” Herza rails at Raul, the concierge, at the security desk, who is reading the sports section of the Daily News.

  “Night off,” says Raul.

  “Open the door for me,” demands Herza.

  “Sorry, that’s not in my job description.” Raul returns to the paper. When the coast is clear, he picks up the phone and dials his cousin, the manager of a small fleet of water taxis.

  Lubomir, holding Herza’s briefcase in one hand and Herza’s arm in his other, pushes open the door with his shoulder. When they are halfway through, it closes upon Herza’s left side, pinning him.

  “You fool!” he shouts. “Incompetent!”

  “I’m sorry, Maestro. I didn’t mean—”

  “Shut up and get me into the car before you kill me.”

  But there is no car to be found. Lubomir is nonplussed.

  “What have you done now, you imbecile?” demands Herza. “Where is the car?”

  “I don’t know,” says Lubomir in a panic. He takes out his cell phone and drums in Paddy Donaghue’s number, getting it right the third time.

  “Donaghue,” says the voice, bringing temporary reassurance to Lubomir.

  “Where are you?” asks Lubomir in as authoritative a voice as he can muster. “Maestro is waiting.”

  “Ah, and I suppose I should have notified you, shouldn’t I have?”

  “What do you mean? Notified me of what?”

  “The new car. I had to take it back to the shop. She seems to have developed a malfunction of sorts. Could be the manifold, or the differential, or the universal joint. Point is, she’s out of commission. Please convey my blessings of the day to the maestro, won’t you?” There is a click and Lubomir is disconnected.

  “What is it, you idiot?” asks Herza.

  “Donaghue’s not coming. Engine trouble.”

  “Well, then, get a cab! What are you waiting for?”

  * * *

  They arrive at the drop-off for Harmonium Hall fifteen minutes behind schedule. Herza tells Lubomir to hire a water taxi to the entrance of the hall rather than the slower passenger ferry.

  “Please hurry,” Lubomir says to the pilot. “We’re late.”

  “Yes, sir,” he says and immediately revs the engine. He also swings the boat into the current, causing a spray of Hudson River water to rain upon Herza, soaking him.

  “Fool!” Herza shouts at Lubomir over the din of the boat’s engine. “Are you trying to sabotage me?”

  Lubomir remains silent.

  The water taxi arrives at the Harmonium Hall docking area.

  “Ten dollars,” says the pilot.

  “What?” bellows Herza. “You give me pneumonia and then you charge me? Do you know who I am?”

  Lubomir pays the ten dollars. The pilot pockets the soggy cash but makes no effort to help Lubomir or Herza out of the boat, so Lubomir, on unsteady legs, crawls onto the wet concrete dock. He then grabs Herza’s extended hands.

  “What are you waiting for?” demands Herza. “Pull!”

  With one mighty yank, Lubomir manages to extract Herza from the shifting boat, but in the process Lubomir’s left foot slips and the two of them go sprawling, Lubomir backward, Herza forward, onto the dock. The pilot calls the security desk at Harmonium Hall on his ship-to-shore and departs. Herza, moaning in anguish, is able to rise to his knees but no farther. Lubomir is first up and assists the maestro to his feet.

  “The scores are safe,” says Lubomir, brandishing the briefcase.

  Herza says nothing.

  They hobble to the artists’ entrance of the grand new concert hall and approach the security desk. Lubomir waves to the guard.

  “ID, please,” says the guard.

  “What are you talking about?” asks Lubomir.

  “Regulations,” says the guard.

  “Don’t you know who this is?” asks Lubomir.

  “I can’t say that I recognize him. All I know is, he’s dressed inappropriately for a concert.”

  “I am Herza!” Herza says, beating his chest. “I am Herza!”

  “May I see some ID, Mr. Herza?” asks the guard. “Regulations.”

  “Show him,” Herza says to Lubomir. “Show him.”

  “But, Maestro,” says Lubomir, “I don’t have your ID.”

  “Driver’s license? Passport? Walmart card?” the guard offers, encouraging.

  “I don’t drive, and I don’t have my passport here,” says Herza. “Is this a foreign country?”

  “Then I’m sorry. I can’t let you in,” says the guard, ignoring Herza’s tirade.

  “This is outrageous!” says Herza. “I built this hall! This is my hall!”

  “Sorry,” says the guard, observing Herza’s mud-covered clothes.

  They are at a loss.

  “Get me in,” Herza hisses at Lubomir.

  Lubomir, showing the guard his own ID, asks if he would let Herza in if he signs some kind of statement taking responsibility for him. The guard says this is highly irregular but generously offers to make an exception and provides Lubomir with paper and pen, then buzzes them through. After Herza and Butkus pass through the security door, the guard glances back over his shoulder. A carefully laundered set of tails that had been delivered moments earlier is hanging wrinkle-free under his protective eye. He then picks up the hall’s interoffice phone and punches in the three-digit extension for Randall Brimley, the orchestra librarian.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Adrianne Vickers continued to peer around the woman on line in front of her. What was taking so long? Just pay for the damn ticket! She heard the box office person say “standing room only.” With so many people behind her, the negotiations for one ticket went on far too long. She would have fired that employee, that is, if she still had her job. At least she was next. She clasped her overladen Louis Vuitton shoulder bag as if it were her child who had been lost at Bloomingdale’s for an hour.

  The woman in front of her finally resigned herself to purchasing the SRO ticket.

  Vickers shouldered her way forward to the ticket window.

  “Front-row balcony,” she said, looking from side to side.

  “We’re sold out,” said the employee.

  “Hey, I know the routine. There are always comps set aside for the bigwigs.”

  “Which balcony did you have in mind?”

  “I don’t give a damn. First, second, third. Left, right, center. Just make sure it’s front row.” She pressed her elbow even more firmly against her shoulder bag.

  “Let me check.”

  “Hurry up.”

  As the employee examined the computer screen, Vickers caught sight of a uniformed security guard patrolling the other side of the lobby and quickly looked the other way.

  “I’ve got something on the second tier right, but it’s third row. The view is perfectly—”

  “I said front row, dammit. Christ, don’t you understand English? Hurry!”

  “Sure. Let me just go ask my supervisor to see if we have what you need.”

  The employee retreated to the office behind the ticket windows. Vickers’s palms began to sweat. When the employee did not emerge after more than a minute, and the people on line behind her started to become irritated with
the delay, Vickers’s fortitude began to falter.

  “Excuse me,” said a male voice. Vickers whirled around, expecting an argument with a patron, only to find the security guard, looking much bigger than he had appeared from a distance.

  “Could you please open your purse, ma’am?” asked the guard.

  “What?”

  “I asked, could you please open your purse?”

  “You have no right,” she said. “It’s my private property.”

  “I have to ask you to open your purse.”

  “No. I won’t.”

  “Then you’ll have to come with me.” The guard placed his hand under her elbow.

  Though she almost collapsed from the trembling of her legs, Vickers was frozen to the spot. Glassy eyed, she stared straight ahead. Three more guards approached.

  “Just come this way, please, ma’am.”

  “No, I won’t,” she hissed, panicked into action. “I’m leaving. I forgot my wallet.” She turned and fled, weaving through the lobby crowd, clinging to her Louis Vuitton bag. The guards pursued, but their size was a disadvantage and she evaded them, vanishing into the throng swirling at crosscurrents toward the box office, the restrooms, the lounges, and the auditorium. One of the guards radioed his colleagues, gave them a description, told them to keep an eye out for a distraught lady with a large handbag, and hoped she had left the building.

  Vickers mingled her way to the gleaming, mirrored ladies’ room. Seeing herself infinitely reflected, she retreated hyperventilating to a stall and forced herself to breathe deeply. She couldn’t wait very long in the ladies’ room; as always, there was a line of women waiting their turns. Should she deposit the gun in the stall and walk away? No, the next patron might see her leaving and put two and two together. She was suddenly torn whether to flush or not flush the toilet. She didn’t like to waste water, but if she emerged from the stall without flushing, the other women might think … Vickers decided flushing was the wiser course. It would seem more natural. Where’s the damn handle, though? The toilet had one of those state-of-the-art motion sensors. What to do? Vickers sat on the toilet—should she pull down her underwear in order to activate the flusher? She counted to thirty before standing up. It flushed. Vickers exited the stall, attempting to look normal. She rinsed her face with cold water. Dammit, where were the paper towels? She went to the electric hand dryer. It wasn’t working! She pounded on it. Tomorrow, heads would roll. She would make sure. She bit her lip and took a calming breath, pulled back her shoulders, and adopted her composed and professional look. Like someone in control.