Playing with Fire

by Gerald Elias

  ‘But then he decided he wouldn’t let it get to him. One way or the other, his job would go off without a hitch. It was a piece of cake. Chump change. He said he wouldn’t have taken it at all unless he really wanted that extra cash. Wouldn’t be sitting there in the freaking cold. But he’d promised Nadine and the kids to celebrate the holidays in style as soon as he finished taking care of business. He said with his paycheck he’d give them a Christmas present they’d remember for a long time. Lying on the hot sand with Nadine turning red as a lobster next to him – hey, don’t tell Frankie I said this, but I bet she still looks great in a bikini – and the kids doing chicken fights in the clear blue sea, warm as bathwater. He’s one lucky prick. He said maybe he and Nadine would make another baby.’

  ‘Could you get back to the night in question, please?’ Benson quietly asked from Jacobus’s right.

  ‘Who the fuck—?’ Rocchinelli said, his voice exploding.

  ‘Calm down, Sammy,’ Brooks said. Jacobus could imagine him patting Rocchinelli’s arm the way he had patted his leg. ‘You take your time. No more interruptions.’ Brooks’s message to Benson was clear.

  ‘Another grappa,’ Rocchinelli demanded, and Brooks ordered it. ‘You were saying.’

  ‘I don’t remember what I was saying.’

  ‘You were saying how Frankie and Nadine might make another baby. Once he took care of business.’

  ‘All right. So Frankie congratulated himself for comin’ up with using a delivery truck. No one would think twice about a delivery truck during Christmas. He said it hardly mattered. Except for the runty house there weren’t any buildings around, and the snow covered everything like white sand dunes. Like it looked like a beach, but it sure as hell wasn’t the Caribbean. Like it was like a beach on fucking Mars. No people, no noise, no nothing. No city lights to cheer him up. Not even any fuckin’ Christmas lights.

  ‘He said he tried to keep positive. That all of that nothing out there in the sticks would make taking care of business with this guy that much easier. And what was a little cold? Soon enough he and Nadine would be laughing at how he froze his ass off on Christmas Eve, right?’

  ‘That is pretty funny,’ Brooks said, whose deep belly laugh seemed genuine even to keen-eared Jacobus. ‘And Frankie’s such a skinny guy. I’m just picturing him sitting in that truck with his teeth chattering like a baby rattle. “What the fuck am I doing here?”’ Brooks wailed, and laughed so hard even Jacobus started snickering.

  ‘Oh, my! Oh, my!’ Brooks said, and blew his nose.

  ‘Frankie said it was so fucking cold his balls were turning blue!’ Rocchinelli could hardly choke the words out, he was laughing so hard. Jacobus wasn’t sure any longer what Rocchinelli was making up or had actually remembered. ‘He said it took a week on the beach to thaw them out!’ The floor actually shook. Jacobus could picture Sammy Rock wiping tears off his rock hard cheek.

  ‘So he did finish his assignment, then,’ Brooks said, traces of laughter still audible.

  ‘What’s that old G.E. jingle?’ Rocchinelli asked. ‘You know, for their clock radios? “When the sun goes down, the dial lights up.” Well, the dial lit up, baby! Frankie said he never had such a natural torch.’

  ‘What did he mean by that?’

  ‘It means the place already had stuff in it. Burn, baby, burn! Frankie said even Mother Nature helped him. He’d planned to disconnect the power before going in, since he figured there was some kind of security alarm. But the gods were with him and the storm knocked out the power and the phone lines. He said it was meant to be!’

  Jacobus thought quickly but kept his mouth shut. What was the likelihood that more than one house burned down on Christmas Eve where the power was down?

  ‘I suppose so,’ Brooks said. ‘I suppose so. Funny, though. We didn’t get any reports about arson on Christmas Eve. You sure Frankie wasn’t pulling a fast one on you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Rocchinelli answered.

  ‘Either you got the date wrong or he was just trying to make himself look big. Making up stories. You sure it was Christmas Eve and not Thanksgiving or Labor Day?’

  ‘Fuck you!’ Rocchinelli said. ‘Look who’s trying to pull a fast one! You’re trying to jew me out of paying me, you black prick!’

  Jacobus heard a stool scratch angrily.

  ‘Easy, Sammy,’ Brooks said. ‘Down, boy. No one’s trying to cheat anyone. Now sit down so we can sort this out, OK? It’s just that without more information, we can’t really use what we’ve got here. What we need is a location.’

  ‘All he said was it was out in the boondocks.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fuckin’ sure.’

  ‘Did Frankie mention anything about anyone being killed? Any names at all?’

  ‘No. He’s too smart for that.’

  Jacobus finally opened his mouth for something other than cannoli and espresso.

  ‘Hey, junior,’ he said. ‘You mentioned that your pal, Frankie, worked for someone. Who might that have been?’

  Rochinelli took time to respond.

  ‘Stu,’ Rocchinelli said seriously. ‘He worked for Stu.’

  ‘Stu who?’ Jacobus asked.

  ‘Stu Gotz,’ Rocchinelli said and burst out laughing. Jacobus understood enough street Italian to know that stugots was slang for prick.

  ‘Is that all you have for us, Sammy?’ Brooks asked. ‘Can you tell us where Frankie went for his fun in the sun?’

  ‘Hello! Read my lips! I. Don’t. Know.’

  ‘Sammy, I really could use something else. What can you give me?’

  ‘You gonna pay me or not?’ Rochinelli whispered.

  ‘Have I ever not come through?’

  ‘OK. There’s gonna be a second part to Frankie’s assignment. After he gets back. Big payday. Double the first one.’

  ‘For what?’ Brooks asked.

  ‘Don’t know. Except he said it would be a win-win.’

  ‘All right,’ Brooks said. ‘For now. Wait! Sammy, if I need you to, what would it be worth to you to take another look at Frankie’s Hall of Fame?’

  The question apparently took Rocchinelli by surprise. He remained silent. Brooks let him take his time.

  ‘Ten Super Fucking Bowl tickets,’ he said at length.

  ‘That’s not just a drop in the bucket,’ Brooks said. ‘Why not just take the cash?’

  ‘Because I can scalp those tickets for twenty times what they’re worth. I don’t guess you cops got that much in the piggy bank. Am I right?’

  ‘As always, Sammy, as always.’

  Brooks paid the bill to the barista. Jacobus and Benson followed him out the Café Paradiso. Sammy ‘Rock’ Rocchinelli stayed behind.

  As soon as they were outside, Benson apologized to Brooks for having interrupted his questioning of Rocchinelli, which Brooks accepted with a wave of his hand.

  Benson asked, ‘How credible do you think Rocchinelli’s testimony would be in court?’

  ‘If it didn’t get thrown out by the judge,’ Brooks responded, ‘Falcone’s defense attorneys would tear him to shreds in a minute. Hearsay, unreliable witness. They’d have a field day.’

  ‘Then what good does he do you?’ Jacobus asked.

  ‘I basically believe him, though at times it’s clear he’s playing to the audience. We just have to find some corroborative evidence in order to make his testimony credible. Don’t worry. We’ll get there.’

  Brooks then surprised Jacobus.

  ‘I might not have Super Bowl tickets, but I’ve got a couple for the Boston Symphony tonight. Would you and Officer Benson like to join me?’

  ‘What are they playing?’ Jacobus asked.

  ‘Stravinsky “Firebird”.’

  ‘How about it, Sigurd?’ Jacobus asked. ‘You a music lover?’

  ‘Sorry. “Sweeny Todd” is about as longhair as I get. And I need to be back home tonight.’

  ‘Rain check, then?’ Brooks offered.

  ‘R
ain check,’ Jacobus said.

  ‘Here’s my direct line.’ Jacobus felt a business card pressed into his hand.

  ‘Call me anytime,’ Brooks said.

  ‘We getting anywhere?’ Jacobus asked. ‘Are you sure you shouldn’t just go after Falcone?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Brooks replied. ‘We push too hard, he either disappears, or …’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or worse. I’m not even sure we haven’t already gone over some invisible line.’

  ‘When do you pay off Rocchinelli?’ Benson asked.

  ‘Done and done,’ Brooks said.

  ‘I didn’t see you give him any money,’ Benson said.

  ‘You’re damn right. If anyone saw that, Rocchinelli would be dead before tomorrow.’

  ‘Then how?’

  ‘I gave it to the barista. She’ll give him the money and take her cut.’

  ‘How do you know she won’t talk?’ Benson asked.

  ‘She’s his sister.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Benson turned off the ignition in front of Jacobus’s house and thanked him for taking the day to go to Boston. For Jacobus it was a relief to be back, away from a city congested with grime and crime. As soon as he opened the car door, the fresh scent of burning pine commingled with the enticing, savory aroma of Asian cooking entered his lungs. With Yumi in Italy it must be Nathaniel in the kitchen. The house would be warm and his stomach would soon be full.

  Jacobus thought about inviting Benson in, but didn’t. He thanked him for lunch and closed the car door. Benson drove off, skidding slightly as he tried to maneuver up the icy driveway. But like many people in the Berkshires he knew how to deal with winter weather. He eased up on the gas until the tires gripped and then revved the engine just the right amount and was soon back on Route 41.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Nathaniel asked as Jacobus entered the house. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Buona sera, Jake,’ Yumi said.

  ‘Back so soon?’

  ‘Marcello wanted me to meet his mother. I had to break the news to him that buying his violin was not a marriage contract.’

  ‘Were you heartbroken?’

  ‘Only at seeing a grown man cry.’

  Jacobus sat down at his kitchen table. He knew its dimensions so well that he no longer even needed to extend his arms to the corners to know when he was sitting in the middle.

  ‘Who made the sukiyaki?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s a nice-looking new Japanese place on Main Street in Great Barrington,’ Yumi said. ‘It’s called Get Bento.’

  ‘It was either that or Vietnamese,’ Nathaniel added. ‘And we’ve already been to Friend And Pho.’

  As usual, Nathaniel had bought enough for a small army. They didn’t talk much business – in fact, they didn’t talk much at all – until after they had polished off the last rice noodle of their dinner, which, when they started, they said they’d never be able to finish.

  Afterwards, Jacobus told them about what he had learned about the possible connection between the suspected Boston arsonist, Francis Falcone, and the Borlotti case.

  ‘Well, from what I found out,’ Nathaniel said, ‘it’s hard to imagine why a big shot like this Falcone would want to take such a risk with Borlotti.’

  ‘What have you got?’ Jacobus asked.

  Nathaniel had personally gone to every customer on the Rolodex who was willing to see him. With everyone having heard the news that Borlotti had been killed, no one – whether out of self-interest, a desire to help, a perverse thrill of being in a murder investigation, or fear of potential dust-ups with the police – declined his request for a meeting.

  Compared to their initial reluctance, the customers were now only too happy to divulge their relationship with Borlotti. Some even confessed that their instruments had been at Borlotti’s for repair on the night his house was burned down. The insurance labyrinth had been a nightmare ever since, and they didn’t know when, or if, they would ever be reimbursed for the loss of their instruments. Jacobus again made a mental note that, other than Ubriaco’s school instruments, no trace of any others had been found in the rubble.

  Nathaniel took a three-pronged approach with those customers who did have instruments in their possession. First, he studied any documentation they had pertaining to authenticity, insurance appraisals, and repairs. Then he took a careful look at the instruments themselves. Though he wasn’t an expert like Boris Dedubian, he had developed discerning eyes and ears and was more often than not able to detect an imitation. Third, he asked the owners to play the violins for him. Some of them were rank amateurs, others were good students, and a few even rose to the level of modest professionals. With such a disparity it was difficult to draw any strong conclusions about sound quality.

  ‘But I have to admit, they all sounded good, Jake,’ Nathaniel said while Yumi cleared the table of cardboard containers and packets of unused soy sauce. ‘And looked good.’

  ‘Signs of wear and tear?’ Jacobus asked. ‘Two-hundred-year-old violins have to have scratches or cracks somewhere.’

  ‘They did, and in the places you’d expect. A couple had soundpost cracks that had been repaired.’

  ‘How about the wood? Was it the same wood the Vassaris sent him from Italy?’

  ‘It could have been, but there’s no way for me to really know. The finished product just looks too different from the raw planks we saw. But maybe Boris could help us with that.’

  ‘How were the labels inside the fiddles?’

  ‘That’s one place it’s easy to tell a fake, but they looked right and had dust on them so I suspect they’re the originals,’ he said. ‘They looked authentic. As did the certificates.’ Nathaniel went down the list:

  ‘Wurlitzer—’

  ‘Rembert?’ Jacobus asked.

  ‘No, Rudolf. Francais—’

  ‘Jacques?’

  ‘No, Emile. Vatelot—’

  ‘Etienne?’

  ‘No, Marcel. Dedubian.’

  ‘Boris?’

  ‘No, Aram.’

  ‘What about repairs, insurance?’

  ‘That’s even more Dedubious,’ Yumi joked.

  ‘That’s even worse than my puns,’ Jacobus said.

  ‘I learned from the worst,’ Yumi said and punched Jacobus in the arm.

  Nathaniel continued.

  ‘There’s some evidence that Borlotti inflated the estimated repair costs when he sent them in to the insurance companies. Two of his customers as much as admitted to that when they told us Borlotti had received overpayments and offered to split it with them. They were delighted because not only had their instruments been repaired well, they also made a little profit.’

  ‘Is that a reason to kill someone?’ Jacobus asked.

  ‘No, by no means,’ Nathaniel answered. ‘But there’s another thing that got me thinking. Some of the minor repairs, no big deal. Everyone expects those. But there were a couple bigger ones, like those soundpost cracks, that also depreciate the value of the instrument. When that happens, the insurance company not only reimburses you for the cost of the repair, you get compensated for the instrument’s diminished value.’

  ‘Everyone knows that,’ Jacobus said. His patience for the minutiae of insurance policies was at the same level as with students who didn’t practice their scales. None.

  ‘Yes, but with these instruments I’m talking about, the insurance companies agreed to a much greater loss of value than normal. Somehow, Borlotti was able to convince them he knew something about the market that no one else does. Or he was skimming.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Well, we can hardly guess because we only saw a couple instruments. The repairs on them cost from five to fifteen hundred, but the loss in value amounted to thousands.’

  ‘Again, enough to kill someone for?’

  ‘Only if you were a really mean bugger.’

  ‘There’d have to be an additional reason to
kill someone,’ Yumi mused. ‘It wouldn’t make sense. Just the risk alone, even if it were tons of money. And it’s not.’

  ‘You notice something interesting about those certificates?’ Jacobus asked.

  ‘By all means!’ Nathaniel said. ‘They were written by the most reputable dealers of the twentieth century. Ironclad. You wouldn’t get much argument about them, even today.’

  ‘How about you, Yumi? Anything strike you?’

  ‘Only what Nathaniel … Oh! I know what you’re thinking! They’re all experts who were the fathers of living experts.’

  ‘Or to put it more bluntly, the writers of those certificates are all dead as a doornail.’

  ‘But their reputations were at least as strong as their sons,’ Nathaniel argued, ‘and their certificates are still considered valid. More than valid. Authoritative. They help establish the provenance of the instrument.’

  ‘But there’s no one in the first person to corroborate the authenticity of the documents themselves. Even if someone were to question what looks like a perfectly valid certificate, they’d have to go to a helluva lot of trouble to prove or disprove it.’

  ‘And who would want to disprove it if it’s for their own instrument?’ Yumi asked. ‘It would only make the value of their instrument go down!’

  Jacobus had an idea.

  ‘Who owns the violin with the Dedubian certificate?’ Jacobus asked.

  ‘Someone in Millerton, New York, I think,’ Nathaniel said.

  ‘An hour from here, give or take,’ Jacobus said. ‘And on the way to the city. Nathaniel, do you think you could persuade the owner to lend us his violin and certificate for a day while we take a little trip to see Dedubian?’

  ‘Boris?’

  ‘Yes, the grandson.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Wednesday, January 4

  Jacobus was too antsy to wait for dawn. He woke Nathaniel and Yumi and hounded them out of bed, insisting they start for the city right away. He was sure that the pattern of old certificates was an important indicator. Of what, he wasn’t sure, but he wanted to find out.

  As they left the house, the phone rang. It was Benson.

  ‘We’re out the door,’ Jacobus said. ‘Research. Determining the relationship between a piece of paper and a bullet in the head.’