by Gerald Elias
“But what did you mean when you said ‘partly,’ when you asked if I was going to practice my left hand? That was kind of curious.”
Haskell replied, looking BTower steadily in the eye, “Only, young man, that I wanted to learn how to do it before it’s too late.” Then his face loosened into a smile. “After all, I’m over sixty. Who knows how much longer I got.”
Returning Haskell’s gaze, BTower took a moment before replying, then said, “You know, I’ve never taught before because I’ve never thought about stuff before and I never wanted to waste time when I had my own life. So what the hell, you wanna be my first student?”
“As you say, what the hell?”
“So first thing to know is,” said BTower, “what each hand is responsible for. The right hand is responsible for the sound, see, and what the left hand does is play the note in tune—what’s called intonation—and create vibrato. That’s all.”
“Seems simple enough.”
“You think so? What does ‘playing in tune’ actually mean?”
“Can’t you just tell, just using your ear? Like that Supreme Court dude who knew obscenity when he saw it. You really need a definition?”
“Well, let me tell you what it really means, ‘to play in tune,’ and then you can tell me if it’s important.
“A note on a violin’s like any sound; it’s a set of frequencies—a certain number of vibrations per second. The quality of the sound, see, depends on what’s making it—a violin, an alarm clock . . . a lovely lady screamin’ for more,” he said with a smile, which Haskell returned. “You following me so far?”
Haskell nodded. “So far.”
“The A that an orchestra tunes to is 440 vibrations per second, more or less, and it’s the same note as the A-string of the violin, which has its own quality. The decision to call 440 vibrations per second A is a totally man-made definition.
“Now a good thing, see, about the first chord to Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata is that it’s an A-major chord, using the A an octave below the open string, and also the A an octave above, with the notes E and C-sharp in the middle, filling out the chord.”
“You’re way ahead of me, boss. What’s an octave?”
“I’ll tell you what, Haskell. Let me give you the lecture, and you pick up what you can. Otherwise, when they come get me, I’ll still be on Lesson One.”
“Go ahead, then.”
BTower defined an octave, and explained what it meant to play it in tune with the instrument, and went on to do the same with the other notes of the chord. He talked about fifths and thirds as well and how to practice them. BTower demonstrated microscopic adjustments, insisting they would totally change the intonation, even though to Haskell it appeared that his finger stood stock-still.
Most of what he said went right over Haskell’s head, but Haskell was more interested in BTower’s recent transformation.
“So are we done playing that chord in tune?” asked Haskell.
“Not quite,” said BTower. “Like I said, in this sonata the opening chord is A Major—all the music in the minor mode comes later in the movement—so you have to consider how much English you want to put on that C-sharp.”
“So that’s it, then?” asked Haskell.
“Only one other thing before playing this chord with both hands, and that’s vibrato.”
“I’ve heard of that,” said Haskell. “You give your hand a shake, right?”
BTower laughed and explained the intricacies of the mechanics and aesthetics of vibrato, demonstrating some of the exercises he had been practicing to get his hand moving again.
“If vibrato’s so tricky, why bother with it, then?” asked Haskell, whose efforts at imitating BTower’s vibrato were a fiasco.
“By itself, vibrato doesn’t do anything for or against the music, see? It’s like a car idling in neutral; it can purr all it want, but it ain’t about to go nowhere. To make it musical, I got to make decisions about the music first. I can make vibrato faster or slower, narrower or wider. I can use my finger, my wrist, my elbow, my arm to change the color. Vibrato that’s all the same is no better than no vibrato.”
“Where’d you learn all this stuff?” asked Haskell.
“Some of it I came up with myself. But a lot of it—most of it—came from the older guys. Jacobus . . . Allard.”
Haskell looked intently at BTower and noticed the skin on his face had a gloss of sweat.
“You really didn’t kill him, did you?” he asked, though it was more of a statement.
“It doesn’t really matter now, does it?” replied BTower. “I can live with it. And I can die with it.”
“Well, I got to go now,” said Haskell. “Got to do my rounds before they start bangin’ on the doors, and I already learned more than I can remember anyway. Thanks for the lesson, son.”
As he was leaving BTower’s cell, he asked, “You got anything you want to say to anybody? Family? Any kind of a message? I’ll let ’em know.”
BTower thought for a moment. “You can tell my mama I was still practicing.”
“She’d appreciate that, I’m sure.”
“You can tell her, if she wants to think I had God-given talent, see, that’s her right, I guess.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Jacobus choked down an allergy pill, then knocked on the door with his left hand. In his right he held a bouquet of flowers. That touch had been Nathaniel’s idea, and Jacobus had balked at it so grievously that it almost nixed the plan the two had formulated after Novak’s call. At first Jacobus thought Nathaniel was only joking and dismissed it out of hand, but Nathaniel was uncharacteristically insistent.
“Even though Ziggy isn’t alive,” he argued, “BTower is. Maybe we don’t have what you could call a trail of information, but we do have a messy pile of it, and how would you feel if we give up now and BTower dies, and then find out we could have prevented it? At least we should try to understand the reasons for Ziggy’s death, and I don’t see how holding a bunch of flowers is gonna kill you if it’ll do the trick.”
Nathaniel had hauled him bodily into the car, bouquet and all, and prodded Jacobus all the way back to the city.
Jacobus almost hoped she’d be out, but then he heard the lock bolt being released and the door open.
“Mabel!” he said. He held out the flowers and affected a smile. “Surprise!”
“How sweet!” said Mabel. Her hand grabbed his, and Jacobus allowed himself to be led back to the familiar couch, where Mabel deposited him while she put the flowers in a vase, cooing all the way.
“Now, where were we?” she said. She regained Jacobus’s hand and close to his ear crooned a quiet rendition of “Getting to Know You.” Mimi the Siamese cat promptly joined in with a wail that did not sound too dissimilar.
Jacobus cleared his throat and made his best effort to sound sincere and unrehearsed expressing his awe at how much Mabel recalled of Bonderman Building’s history. It was just so enlightening talking to her, he said. She had known so many famous people over the years! “Tell me some of the famous people, especially musicians, you’ve known,” he asked. “After all, living next to René Allard . . .”
After a half hour of saying wow, hmm, and ooh, Jacobus still hadn’t learned anything new. At one point he interjected, “You must have seen some pretty interesting shenanigans, I’ll wager.”
Mabel then launched into another half hour of the parties she attended with the privileged class. “And then that last night, the farewell party. That was going to be something special!”
It had been almost two years and Jacobus hadn’t thought much about the soirée that never happened.
“Were you invited, Mabel?”
“Oh, yeah! Of course I was invited! You see, I’m in Apartment 4C—”
“Was there a big crowd?”
“Nah! Only a few people that he and Hennie really thought good of. You should’ve seen the food and wine they ordered! I was getting ready to go over, just before René was
found dead in the hallway, when I looked out into the corridor and saw that pianist, Virgil Lavender.”
“You mean BTower.”
“No, he was later.”
“Who was Lavender with?”
“He was all by himself. He never did make it to the party, which was of course canceled on account of René being murdered.”
“How do you know he never made it there?”
“Hennie told me. She couldn’t figure out why. After all, next to Hennie there was no one closer to René.”
“Did you tell this to the police?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“They didn’t ask. Those police are creepy.”
Jacobus now had yet another world to overturn, and there was so little time. Could BTower have arrived on the scene after Lavender had killed Allard? And why in the world would Lavender do such a thing? It made no sense.
“So many mysteries,” he said.
Mabel said, oh, yeah, there was a lot of that, but expressed the notion that they had done enough talking and it was time to move on to the next stage. Jacobus felt Mabel’s hand on his knee. Cringing, he promptly removed it.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing! Nothing at all! But maybe first you can tell me something mysterious. That always gets the ole engine runnin’, Mabel. You know, me being a violinist, ever see any strange people bringing violins here, for example? Ever? Tell me a mystery, Mabel.”
Mabel perked up. “That’s what turns you on? Mysteries?” She thought for a moment. “Ooh, I have just the story for you. But first, I’ll get us a drink. Don’t run away!” She returned shortly, handing Jacobus a glass. “Sangria,” she said, as if it were a long-lost aphrodisiac. She clinked her glass against his. “Cin cin!”
Jacobus took one sip of the sickly sweet fruit and wine concoction and almost vomited.
Mabel curled a lock of Jacobus’s unkempt hair around her index finger, which he forced himself to tolerate, and she began a once-upon-a-time tale of how in the 1950s and ’60s a dark European man in a trench coat—“just like Bogey’s”—would come about once every six months late at night with lots of violin cases and leave empty-handed a couple of hours later. Mabel always knew it was him because he walked with a limp. She would look out from the crack in the door after he passed.
“Mmm. That’s just the kind of story I like,” said Jacobus. “But tell me, Mabel, where did this mystery man go with the violin cases?”
“Why, René’s, of course! Next door in 4B. You see, I’m in 4C and—”
“Yes, yes,” said Jacobus, and then reminded himself yet again to be patient. “Yes, you’re in 4C. And this mysterious man with the limp and the trench coat, he always left empty-handed?”
“Uh-huh. Always.”
“But here’s something I don’t understand, Mabel. If he had lots of cases, how could he carry them all? Maybe four cases, max, but that’s not very many.”
“Well, that’s an easy one. Sometimes he made more than one trip up and down the elevator. Sometimes Ziggy would help carry them.”
“Ah. And what was this man with limp’s name?”
“How do I know? I never ever talked to him. Besides, he didn’t speak English.”
Jacobus marveled at Mabel’s logic but didn’t push her.
“And how long did you say this went on, Mabel?”
“This is really turning you on?”
“Can’t you tell? I can barely even think about drinking the sangria.”
“Well, the man kept coming through the sixties, but I remember Ziggy stopped helping him in 1965.”
“This is so fascinating! And how can you be so sure about the year, Mabel?”
“That was the year of René’s heart attack, when everyone thought he was going to die. You can’t forget a date like that!”
“No, but it was strange about Ziggy.”
“Ooh, you want to hear something strange about Ziggy? You’ll like this story, I’ll bet.” Mabel related how, after Allard’s hospitalization and subsequent recovery, Ziggy would come to 4B to assist Hennie more frequently than before with various requests, like moving a piece of furniture or carrying a heavy carton. Not many people were aware of it, but Hennie almost left René after his heart attack. Jacobus was surprised to hear this and inquired if Mabel knew why. She wasn’t sure but thought it might have had to do with him divesting himself of his famous violin without consulting Hennie first. After all, Mabel explained, Hennie had been his business associate as much as his lover over the years. In any event, Ziggy was happy to do favors for her. He was smitten with her, but so was everyone.
“One afternoon, in the summer of 1965—that was the year of the heat wave—I was in Hennie’s apartment. We were just having an aperitif—a Campari, or was it Cinzano?—and chatting, but it was so hot Hennie decided to take a shower. I stayed out on the balcony with my drink. Then the doorbell rang. It was Ziggy, who was delivering some groceries that Hennie had ordered but forgot about. Hennie was wearing only her bathrobe when she answered the door, and it was open almost all the way down to the sash and her hair was all wet. She didn’t care she was half naked. It was hot and she was French. Well, Ziggy couldn’t take his eyes off of Hennie’s cleavage, which was at his eye level. Ziggy’s head started sweating. Hennie knew why and it made her smile. She was so sexy at that time. She’s still sexy now even though she’s sixty. But Ziggy mistook her smile. He thought she was trying to seduce him by having him bring the groceries and with her all exposed and René gone. So he drops the bags and just grabs her and pulls her robe open and starts kissing her breasts as the grapefruits go rolling all over the floor. He didn’t realize I was on the balcony. At first Hennie was so surprised, but then she burst out laughing, saying, ‘Oh, Krinkelmeier, the shiny little head,’ and then, I couldn’t help it, I started laughing too. Ziggy immediately realized he had made a fool of himself and ran out. And that was the last time Ziggy ever went to 4B.”
Jacobus thought, uncharitably, that Ziggy had literally been in over his head. Poor guy, he only wanted a life and made the mistake of trying too hard.
“How did you like that one?” Mabel said, whispering in Jacobus’s ear. “How’d you like a shiny little head?” She put her bony hand between his legs and squeezed.
Jacobus jumped up and pretended to wheeze. “Cat! Can’t breathe!” he choked. “Can’t breathe! Need air. Damn! Wish I could stay.” And, miraculously overcoming his arthritis, ran out.
TWENTY-FIVE
Jacobus sat in the waiting room of the law office of Phoebe Swallow, trying to ignore the insipid Muzak. “Waiting” room was the appropriate term—Swallow kept him sitting there for a half hour. No matter, Jacobus thought. At least it’ll allow me to work on the mental jigsaw puzzle.
He could not dismiss the conclusion that René Allard and Hennie had engaged in a smuggling racket dealing in good, but not great, violins with the specific intention of flying under the radar. According to Novak, the instruments were made by reputable contemporary Italian luthiers. They would of course be in mint condition and sound fine, and there would be no question of authenticity. In a nutshell, they were eminently marketable and quickly disposed of. The result would be a steady stream of income, more so, Jacobus reasoned, if it was quietly made known to the buyer that the instrument had been in the possession of the inimitable René Allard. Quite enough extra stash, on top of Allard’s performance fees, to massage his ultra-extravagant lifestyle. Ziggy had been a middleman—maybe just one of a cadre of middlemen—and pocketed enough of a cut to have kept his mouth shut, year after year. Perhaps there were others as well, Jacobus thought. Others he already knew. Maybe Fuente, maybe the guy Zipolito, may be rest in peace. Jacobus determined to check that out also, if there was time, but that could all wait. It was important only if it somehow connected with Allard’s murder.
He was increasingly confident the pictures Ziggy had hidden from Malachi were instrument photos, a common accompa
niment to certificates, and that Oehlschlager’s name on Novak’s certificates served as a cover to keep Allard’s and Ziggy’s names out of the picture. Jacobus wondered yet again what, if anything, he had said to Ziggy in Salt Lake City that had triggered a tragic chain of events, or whether the attempt on his own life was somehow related to the end of Ziggy’s.
And Rose Grimes? At some point she became involved. Until Jacobus had pieced together the tidbits he had unearthed from Novak and Mabel, he could not have assumed this, but now it appeared that she either was aware of the smuggling or somehow took advantage of that knowledge and stole the Garimberti from either Allard or Ziggy. Maybe Grimes even tried blackmail, threatening to reveal them. In any event, when Ziggy and perhaps Allard found out what Rose knew, they planted the music in her purse to trump up a reason to get her fired, because they of course couldn’t go to the authorities. Formally accusing Grimes of stealing or extortion would risk their own exposure, potentially putting a quick and painful damper on their activities. Did the smuggling, if it actually took place, have anything to do with Allard’s murder?
And now there was the Lavender factor! Was he somehow involved in all this? Was his presence in the fourth-floor corridor just before Allard’s murder purely a coincidence? Pianists have amazingly strong hands. Even the diminutive Alicia de Larrocha had a handshake like steel. Could Lavender have twisted Allard’s neck into a string of taffy and vanished before BTower arrived on the scene?
How this all led to the murder of Allard and BTower’s involvement or noninvolvement, Ziggy’s suicide, and the attempt on his own life was still murky. At least Jacobus now had a trail that was sufficiently strong to coerce Phoebe Swallow, Hennie’s attorney, to agree to a meeting at her office. There might be a statute of limitations on some crimes, Jacobus warned Swallow, but the IRS would not take kindly to twenty years of tax evasion.
“Allo, Jake,” said Hennie, placing her hand in his. “It has been a long time, no?”