by Gerald Elias
“And you were lucky yet again, weren’t you? You hadn’t expected to see BTower in the lobby, and you certainly didn’t plan on him being spotted next to the body, the result of which deflected any possible suspicion from you. This was a real windfall, but you decided to wait until BTower’s conviction before putting the ex Hawkins on the market, first to make sure BTower would take the fall, and second to maximize your profit. So the day after the conviction, when you were safe, you yourself permanently disabled your prized elevator in order to provide a cover to leave your cherished old dream job. At the same time your darling sister, Seglinde, under the name of Oehlschlager, made a call to Boris Dedubian to begin the transaction to sell the ex Hawkins. And here’s a funny thought! It’s also almost to the very day that dear Mr. Oehlschlager met his timely demise from symptoms suspiciously similar to long-term cyanide ingestion. Quite a set of coincidences, don’t you think?”
Jacobus heard Ziggy’s applause. “Well done, Mr. Jacobus. Well done,” he said. “But as we know, the only witness to the murder was dear Mrs. Bidwell, who saw with her own eyes BTower with blood on his hands. I feel terrible about the young man, a fine violinist and I liked him so, I truly did, but in the end all wars have their casualties.”
“Except that there is a witness, Krinkelmeier,” said Jacobus. “René Allard himself.”
Ziggy laughed for a long time, but Jacobus heard a hint of alarm in it.
“Oh, Mr. Jacobus! How you retain your sense of humor even at such an anxious time! I suppose Maestro spoke to you from the grave.”
“Exactly.”
“Please explain your joke to me. They say we Germans have no sense of humor. Maybe they are right.”
“Allard’s strange pose when he was found,” said Jacobus. “They said he couldn’t have survived more than a minute after his neck was broken. Only his instinctive motor skills might still have functioned, like the proverbial headless chicken. But with a musician, especially one like Allard from the ‘old school,’ instinct and trained muscle memory are essentially one and the same. Just imagine, repeating the same physical gestures an infinite number of times from the age of three or four! Hour after hour, year after year, until you can do it in your sleep. It becomes almost as automatic as breathing.
“When a dead person is thrown to the ground, he doesn’t end up resting on his elbow. He ends up flat on his face, if he still has one. Allard, in his last moment, raised his left arm, even if his own brain didn’t truly compute what it was doing. And the alignment of his fingers. Malachi thought it was rigor mortis. I first thought maybe, just maybe, it could’ve been Allard giving the finger to his killer. But that wouldn’t be Allard’s style, would it?”
“I suppose not, but where are we going with all this, Mr. Jacobus? As you know, I am not a musician.”
“Neither is Malachi.” At that moment, gathering inspiration as the last three triumphant chords of Beethoven’s final work rang out, Jacobus decided what he would do. “But I am. And after I got all the measurements from Malachi of Allard’s arm and finger position, I knew that it was you who killed him.”
“Now this is interesting, Mr. Jacobus. Very interesting. Please continue.”
Jacobus hurled his tea in the general direction of Gottfried’s voice. He knew the tea was no longer hot, but Gottfried didn’t. It was just a decoy.
Jacobus had no intention of trying to escape. He had concluded he was a dead man long before. Instead, he sprang for the Victrola, tackling it with all his waning strength. As it toppled under his weight he heard and felt the ancient acoustic horn shatter into pieces.
If he was going to die, Jacobus told himself, it wouldn’t be by groveling in front of an insane extortionist, rapist, killer. He would not allow music to soothe that savage breast. He would not.
Just as he ripped the tone arm off its mooring, Gottfried’s foot slammed into his ribs, rendering him immobile and unable to breathe. A second vicious kick caught him in the mouth. He heard the click of Gottfried’s Luger next to his temple. He had done what he had to do and was exhilarated even through his pain. At least his hip didn’t hurt anymore, he said to himself. He waited calmly for his fate. He was victorious.
“I don’t understand you, Mr. Jacobus,” said Gottfried. “I don’t know why you did that. As you can imagine, it doesn’t help your situation.”
Jacobus still could not talk.
“But before you meet your untimely end, I am curious to learn how it is you think you know how I killed Maestro.”
Jacobus lay inert for several minutes. Slowly his ability to breathe returned. He tried to stand but was able to get only as far as his elbows and knees. Funny, he thought, my position isn’t all that different from how they found Allard. Concussed, Jacobus slowly probed his swollen mouth with his tongue, seeking broken teeth. His speech was slurred.
“Remember, Krinkelmeier, how famous Allard was for his improvisations on people’s names?”
“Remember! Who could forget? It was like a miracle how he could do that so easy. And please, Mr. Jacobus, I am getting tired of you calling me that name.”
“I suppose you don’t go for Oehlschlager either, Ziggy. How about Sigmund? Yes, I think Sigmund will do just fine. Now suppose Allard’s pose was indeed to hold a violin, Sigmund. With the measurements Malachi took, Allard’s left hand would have been in first position on an imaginary D-string.” Jacobus, still on his knees, demonstrated through his pain. “Allard’s soon to be cold and dead first and third fingers would have been playing the notes E-flat and G.”
“And I’m sure they were very beautiful,” said Gottfried. “But do we know anyone whose initials are E–G? I am sure I do not.”
“Not E-natural,” said Jacobus, “E-flat! In Europe, the note E-flat is called S. S–G, Sigmund! Sigmund Gottfried. So you see, Sigmund, Allard’s final deathbed instinct was to identify you as his murderer. And just to be sure you wouldn’t steal another violin from him, he instinctively cradled his violin case underneath his body with his right hand to protect it. Violinists do not like to part with their dearest possession. It’s amazing what a trained musician can do instinctively. Don’t you think?”
“Well, I must say that is quite an accomplishment you have made, Mr. Jacobus,” said Gottfried. “Bravo, bravo, bravo. It is almost as miraculous as Maestro’s playing itself. I knew so well that if he had left for France the next day I might have had to wait, who knows, another ten or twenty years before I could make the money that should have been mine decades ago. And by then I would have been too old to enjoy it. It was unfortunate that Maestro didn’t die in the hospital when it was meant to be. So it was a case of either his time would run out or my time would run out. You see, in a way I really had no choice.
“But now, Mr. Jacobus, your time has run out, and you have a problem that I don’t. There are only you and me here, and soon it will be only me.”
Jacobus again heard the soft click of the Luger being readied.
“In our conversation here you have understood so much that I feel I have been preaching to the choir. But unfortunately for you, you are only a choir of one. I am sorry to say, Mr. Jacobus,” said Gottfried, “Es muss sein!”
THIRTY-ONE
The blast of a gunshot rang out. Perplexed, Jacobus found that he was not dead, or even wounded. The gun, it occurred to him, had been fired from farther away than Gottfried. Then Jacobus heard the last voice in the world he expected to hear. “Mister, this choir’s got another singer!” The clear voice of Rose Grimes resounded through the gloom. “And I shall raise my voice unto the Lord.”
“Hallelujah!” called Jacobus. Had she shot Gottfried?
“And you better believe this singer’s packin’ heat!” she said. A second, closer round went off that sounded like a cannon in the confinement of the basement. “So, Ziggy, you gonna put down your gun now, or else you’re next.”
Still alive, Jacobus cursed to himself. But probably as shocked as he was.
“Rose,” Jac
obus shouted through his swollen lips. “Go! Now! He’s after both of us.”
“Don’t listen to him, Rose. I’m so glad you’re here,” Gottfried said. “It has been such a long time. Here is the man you want. This Jacobus. The man who led your son to the gas chamber. You can put your gun down. We have him!”
In a way, Jacobus admired Gottfried’s resourcefulness even as he cursed him again.
“What are you talking about? You’re the man I want,” she said.
“How can you say that, dear Rose? I gave you the Garimberti. I gave your son the chance to play the violin, and I’m very happy—no, I am honored—that I was able to be a small part of his success. There is no need to thank me for the Garimberti. Yes, that was me who gave it to you. As a gift. Now you know. You can ask Mr. Jacobus here if I am telling you the truth. Hearing BTower play was all the thanks I needed.
“But then this man here, he had to testify against BTower at the trial. He said terrible things about your son, Rose. I did the best I could. I said only nice things about your son, Rose. I said I couldn’t believe he would do something like kill any man, let alone René Allard. But they wouldn’t believe me and it made me cry, because you see I’m not an expert witness like Mr. Jacobus. They convicted your son because of this villain, Mr. Jacobus.
“But now we have him, don’t we, Rose? ‘And ye shall know the truth,’ Rose, ‘and the truth shall make you free.’ So now you can put your gun down and we can take care of this evil man.”
Jacobus had been on his hands and knees all this time. He now felt Gottfried’s grip on his arm and waited for another beating, but Gottfried only helped him, almost gently, back into his seat.
“Did you also cry when you got me fired?” Rose rebuked, but there was growing indecision and panic in her voice. “I’ve been listening. I just heard everything you did. You know what you did to me. And you set up my son when you murdered Allard just like when you put Mr. Allard’s music in my purse, knowing that all the suspicion would be on my only son. You blackmailed and murdered René Allard and used my son’s life to save your own skin. You used both of us and now you’re using me again to get away with another crime.”
“Rose,” said Gottfried, gently, “there is one thing I know about you because we are so much alike, you and I. You are a religious woman. We both know our Bible, don’t we, Rose? Unlike this atheist here. This wild man who just tonight accused you of killing Allard. We both know the sixth commandment. Don’t forget the sixth commandment, Rose. Don’t forget ‘Thou shall not murder.’ You would not be able to shoot me, Rose, even if I were the terrible monster you think I am. So put down your gun now. That’s what the Lord would want. Of this, there is no doubt.”
There was a long, terrible moment of silence. Then Jacobus heard the gun clatter on the floor.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Jacobus,” Rose said. “I just can’t.”
“I know, Rose. It’s all right,” he said. “You did the right thing.”
“So we are all in agreement,” said Gottfried. “Now I must ask you both to please proceed to the incinerator. You have done me a favor, Rose, saving me the trouble of looking for you. But you needn’t doubt yourself, I would have found you. Now I will open the door for both of you to enter, but please do not try to go anywhere else or I will shoot you. It is unfortunate for you that it no longer is being used because now your deaths will be that much slower. I am afraid no one will hear you. Please get in now.”
“You’re making a big mistake, Ziggy,” said Jacobus. “You have your money. There’s no reason to kill again. Hatred isn’t profitable, you know.”
“Hatred?” asked Ziggy. “What hatred? You are wrong yet again, Mr. Jacobus. I didn’t hate Allard and I don’t hate you or your race either. Allard was a wonderful man, a wonderful violinist. Famous people usually don’t live up to their reputations, but if anything, Allard was even greater. I loved Maestro Allard.”
“Even though Allard hated you? Even though he and Hennie called you Krinkelmeier and laughed at you? Humiliated you? You know why he gave you that recording? He was mocking you! And you know why he played ‘Danse Macabre,’ don’t you? It was so he wouldn’t forget what people like your father did. What you’re doing now. It was his way of making sure he wouldn’t forget.”
“Ah, Mr. Jacobus. And was René Allard such an angel? Both you and I, and Rose, know what he really was. In the end, Mr. Jacobus, he was just like you and me.
“And now it is time for us to disappear,” Gottfried continued. “You, permanently, I’m sorry to say. Me, for a little while. For me, it is not so difficult. I have always been invisible. Yes, people see me and even talk to me, but I am like wallpaper. I am there and I am not there. So when I reappear soon as someone else with dear Seglinde, no one will know the difference and no one will care. Good-bye, Mr. Jacobus. Good-bye, Rose.”
Jacobus heard the creaking cast-iron door of the incinerator being opened. Suddenly there was a shove at his back, and he toppled into the sooty filth, with Rose tumbling on top of him. They were entwined with each other half sitting, half lying, like laundry in a washer, but the space was so cramped that it was impossible for them to disentangle.
“Gottfried,” Jacobus said, his face pressed against the toxic brick-lined incinerator wall. He lay painfully twisted on a metal grate from under which arose the odor of dank ash from countless tons of burned garbage. “There’s one more thing you need to know.”
“Mr. Jacobus, you are beginning to bore me,” said Gottfried.
“If you kill us, Gottfried, BTower will die as well. Tomorrow.”
“This is unfortunately so.”
Jacobus heard the heavy door begin to close.
“But there’s one thing you don’t realize, Gottfried.”
Gottfried did not respond.
“Tell him, Rose,” said Jacobus.
“I can’t.”
“Tell him. This is your last chance! Tell him why you couldn’t kill him!”
“What is it, Rose?” asked Gottfried. “It won’t change anything.”
“You’re his father,” said Rose.
“Whose father?” Gottfried asked.
“You are the father of BTower. If you kill us, your son will die too,” said Rose.
Jacobus sensed Gottfried’s hesitation in the ensuing silence, but he could do nothing except wait.
“I am proud of my son.” Gottfried finally said. “He was a good boy, and I am sorry to find him only to lose him so quickly. Good-bye.”
Jacobus heard Gottfried clamp the door handle shut with unmistakable finality.
He yelled out, “The onus is on you, Gottfried! The onus is on you! He’s your own flesh and blood! Do you hear me?”
From the other side, as if from a distance, he heard an unnaturally calm voice. “Mr. Jacobus, you simply underestimate the inexhaustible capacity of greed.”
And then, nothing. Jacobus and Rose waited in silence. Waited for what? He had told Nathaniel where he was going but not how to get there. They were in a crypt within a crypt, and Jacobus had no hope.
The tension of Rose and Jacobus’s involuntary embrace began to relax, but what little air there was inside the incinerator was noxious. The rancid redolence of age-old creosote made them gag and wheeze. Rose began to pray in a fervent whisper, “ ‘For the Lord loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.’ ”
Jacobus tried to listen for signs of Gottfried through Rose’s prayer, but he would not interrupt her now.
“ ‘Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the Lord understand all things.’ ”
Through the thick iron walls of the incinerator he heard Gottfried close the door to his apartment, probably taking his little metal box with him. No need for him ever to return now, Jacobus thought. If Gottfried had any second thoughts about killing them, now would be the last opportunity to change his mind. Jacobus called out one final time, “Gottfried!” but as his
footsteps approached, passed, and then receded from their prison, Jacobus realized that Gottfried would be having no doubts.
Jacobus listened as Gottfried pushed open the massive steel door that led to the underground passageway and freedom, and heard it being closed. Then there was no more sound but for Rose’s hushed, zealous praying.
“ ‘The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.’ ”
Nothing more happened. Jacobus asked Rose how she was doing. She told him she’d probably be more claustrophobic if it wasn’t black as Hades. Jacobus chuckled and replied that that hadn’t been an issue for him for a long time. Then he asked how she had managed to find him at Gottfried’s apartment.
She laughed. It was the first time he had heard her laugh. It was rich and honest. She had overheard his furtive conversation with Nathaniel outside her apartment and kept an eye on them at the diner while they thought they were keeping an eye on her.
“Then when you exploded out of that diner like you were trying to escape the clutches of the devil himself, I said uh-huh. So I kissed Shelby on his forehead and told him that something big was up, I wasn’t sure what, but that I had to go. I told him, ‘If I don’t make it back I will see you again soon in heaven, where you’ll be whole again.’
“I followed you in a cab and then on foot into the subway station. You think it’s hard following a blind man down a railroad track when you’re shining a flashlight on his back?”
Jacobus laughed too and asked, hadn’t she been concerned for her own safety down there in the tunnels?
“I’d already abandoned my son twice, Mr. Jacobus. I wasn’t going to do it again. Besides, ain’t no one going to molest an old Negro lady walkin’ down the tracks, especially one carrying a gun.”
They laughed again.
As breathing became more difficult, so did thinking. Before he lost consciousness, Jacobus told Rose that he was proud of her.
“You did the right thing, Rose, not to shoot Gottfried. I gotta tell you, I’ve never known a more moral person than you, not that there are that many. But still.