Ghost Music

by Graham Masterton

  The young man smiled sympathetically. “Of course, Mr.—”

  “Schifrin. Lalo Schifrin.”

  “Very well, Mr. Schifrin. Anytime you like. Just for your information, the rent is three thousand, two hundred and fifty pounds a week. Council tax on top of that, of course.”

  I wasn’t very good at working out the exchange rates of small amounts of British currency, but I knew that the pound was worth about twice what the dollar was—which meant that the Philipses’ apartment would have cost me nearly twenty-five thousand bucks a month.

  “Sounds very reasonable.” I nodded. “By the way, who owns it?”

  “Funny thing, they’re a New York company. Perhaps you know them. Penumbra.”

  “Oh, Penumbra! Sure, I’ve heard of them. Very upscale. Run by that—what’s-his-name feller.” I paused, and waited for the young man to give me the answer. When he didn’t, I said, “You know. What’s-his-name? Always escapes me. Galway? Solway?”

  The young man shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know, sir. Mr. Watson usually deals with Penumbra.”

  “Oh, well, not to worry. But thanks for your time. I’ll call you just as soon as the wife arrives in town.”

  The young man shook hands, and walked off. I waited outside the house for a while, but the white cat had disappeared and I had no intention of going back to the patio to see if Giles Philips was still there, blinded or not.

  I hailed a taxi. On the way back to my hotel, I sat watching London go past, sunlit and shabby, a city well past its prime. I felt exhausted. I also felt guilty—more guilty than I had ever felt before—because I had turned my back on Tilda, and Giles Philips, too. But now I had a pretty good idea of what Kate had asked me to do, and I was more determined than ever not to let her down.

  Twenty-six

  When I arrived home, New York was in the grip of a bitter spell of weather from Canada. It wasn’t snowing, but those northwest winds made your nose drip whenever you ventured outside, and all the city’s fountains were frozen into lumpy shapes, like ice-trolls.

  I put the heating on full blast, and poured myself a large glass of krupnik, the honey vodka that had been given to me two Christmases ago by my Polish friend Piotr Kús. He could play the drums like a demented marionette, Piotr, but only after two joints and half a bottle of Wodka Wyborowa.

  I had only been home about an hour when there was a knock at my door. I opened it, and it was Kate, wearing a silver fox hat and a long silver fox coat. She was carrying Malkin in her arms.

  “Hello, stranger,” I greeted her. “Come on in.”

  She stepped into my apartment on very high-heeled black boots. I closed the door behind her, and then I took her into my arms and kissed her. Her lips were very cold, but the inside of her mouth was very warm. Her cold eyelashes brushed my cheek.

  I untied her coat, and put my arms around her, and held her very close, and kissed her again. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you,” I told her.

  She took off her hat, and shook her hair. “You could have come back from Venice nonstop.”

  “No, I couldn’t. I had to find out for myself what happened to the Cesarettis and the Westerlunds and the Philipses. You couldn’t tell me, could you? You could only show me. I still don’t completely understand why, to tell you the truth. Something to do with a wife not being able to give evidence in court against her husband? But it doesn’t really matter. All of those apartments are owned by Penumbra International Property and Penumbra International Property is owned by Sunpath Holdings and Sunpath Holdings is owned by Victor. Do I have that right?”

  “Yes,” she said. Her chin was uptilted as if she were challenging me. “So what are you going to do now?”

  “First off? First off I’m going to take off your coat. Then I’m going to take off your dress, and your underwear, if you’re wearing any, and I’m going to carry you into the bedroom and make love to you.”

  “What about my boots?”

  “Your boots? No—you have to leave your boots on.”

  “What about Malkin?”

  “Malkin will have to look the other way.”

  * * *

  So she made love with her boots on—black leather and white skin. She seemed to be even thinner than ever, with prominent ribs and hips, and hollows above her collarbone.

  We both knew that we had something dreadful to share, but we needed each other more, and somehow the impending horror of it made our lovemaking all the more perverse and erotic.

  Kate rode me dreamily up and down, clasping my thighs between her boots. She arched her back, and I could see myself sliding in and out of her, like a Chinese conjuring trick. Now you see it, now you don’t. Then she leaned forward and kissed me, and bit me, and began to ride me harder. I panted, she panted. She rode faster and faster. Then I could feel my climax rising and then I could feel her shuddering and then she screamed.

  I knew that she had screamed because my closet mirror cracked from one corner to the other, with a sharp snap!—even though her actual scream was so high that I couldn’t hear it. She shook, and she shook, and then eventually she toppled sideways onto the bed.

  “You did it,” she whispered, holding me very close, and repeatedly kissing my cheek, and my chin, and my forehead, and my eyes. I was still trying to catch my breath. “You’ve seen, at last, what I’ve been showing you.”

  “Well, I do see it, yes. And then again I don’t. Like—I understand that Jack Friendly abducted and tortured all of these family’s kids, and that he probably did it on Victor’s instigation. But why? For their apartments? For their money? For their possessions?”

  “For all of those, yes. But it was more than that.”

  “Then what? Because they didn’t just kill the kids, did they? They wiped out the whole goddamned family. Mother, father, brothers and sisters—everybody. And they got rid of their bodies, without any trace at all. None. Even their relatives don’t know where they’ve disappeared to.”

  “They don’t want anybody to find out what they’ve done. No living witnesses, that’s what Victor said.”

  “But you know what they’ve done, don’t you? I don’t know how you can go on living with Victor, when you know that he’s responsible for torturing and murdering all of those innocent people. How can you even bear to be in the same room as him, let alone allow him to touch you? Jesus Christ, Kate, why haven’t you gone to the police?”

  “There’s no proof, Gideon. There are no living witnesses.”

  “Surely the police can find some evidence, once you tell them what Victor’s done.”

  Kate didn’t answer that. I sat up and looked at her, expecting her to tell me more, but she simply turned away, so that she could see her broken reflection in the cracked closet mirror.

  “So what is his motive?” I asked her, at last. “You don’t massacre entire families, not like that, no matter how much wealth it’s going to bring you.”

  “You don’t know Victor. You don’t know the people who work for him. They don’t have any conscience whatsoever.”

  “I’m glad I don’t know them. But tell me something else. Why did he pick on the Westerlunds and the Philipses and the Cesarettis? All of them were very wealthy, for sure. They all had money, and multimillion-dollar properties. But there are just as many rich families in New York, aren’t there? Why not kidnap their kids? Why take the trouble to go all the way to Stockholm and Venice and London, for Christ’s sake?”

  “That’s the answer,” she told me.

  “What? I thought that was the question.”

  “Once you know the answer to that, Gideon, then you’ll know the answer to everything.”

  “Jesus, Kate. Let’s forget about the riddles. You have to go to the police. I’ll come with you. I’ll tell you what he’s been doing, him and that Jack Friendly bastard.”

  She turned back to me. “Do you think for one moment they’ll believe you? You saw two girls running down a corridor when they were fast asleep i
n bed, and they weren’t even fast asleep in bed either. They were missing, without a trace. You saw a girl drowned in Stockholm harbor when she was still at school, but then again, maybe she wasn’t at school at all. You saw a woman burning in a London garden, although she wasn’t really there.”

  “Okay—but you actually live with Victor. You must be able to find some kind of proof. Credit card receipts, or bank statements. There must be some incriminating evidence in his cell phone, or his laptop.”

  “I can’t, Gideon.”

  I thought about it, and then I said, “No, I guess not. Too risky. If Victor finds out you’ve been going through his things—”

  “You can find proof,” Kate encouraged me. “Victor’s been very clever, when it comes to setting up his holding companies. But he’s complacent, too. It never occurred to him that anybody would ever find out what he’s been doing. And he certainly never imagined that anybody would come after him.”

  I kissed her forehead. Her skin was very cool and smooth.

  “Does Penumbra have an office in New York?” I asked her.

  “As far as I know they have a postal address—200 Madison Avenue—but it’s probably nothing more than a mailbox.”

  “There must be some way of connecting Victor to Penumbra. But we also have to connect Jack Friendly to Penumbra, and prove that he was working for Penumbra when he tortured and killed all of those people. And that Victor instigated it. It’s not going to be easy.”

  “You can do it. You have to do it.”

  “I can try. But I write jingles, remember? I’m not Mike Hammer.”

  She kissed me again, and trailed her fingers slowly down my stomach, and squeezed me, but not in the way that Jack Friendly had, in the men’s room at Marco Polo airport.

  “You need to know something,” she said. “We only have three days left.”

  “What do you mean? Why only three days?”

  “I can’t tell you. Not yet. Not till this is over.”

  I sat up. “Kate—I have gone along with you every step of the way. I’ve trusted you, I’ve supported you, I’ve never asked you to explain yourself—even when children have drowned and women have burst into flames and husbands and wives have been hanging from the ceiling. But now I’m asking you straight. Why do we have only three days?”

  She kissed me again. “Can’t you wait? It won’t be very long, and then you’ll know everything.”

  “Kate—”

  “I can’t tell you, Gideon. That’s all.”

  What was I going to do? Storm out in a temper? I had gone along with her so far, hadn’t I? And I sensed even more strongly that if this all worked out, and we managed to get Victor and Jack Friendly put away, then she and I could be together.

  “Okay,” I said. “I don’t know why, but I give in. But I’ll ask you again in three days’ time.”

  I climbed astride her, and pinned her down to the bed, and kissed her, but then Malkin mewed, from the living room.

  “She’s hungry,” said Kate.

  “Jesus Christ. Can’t she wait?”

  “She’ll go on mewing like that until we feed her. And, besides, I could really use a drink.”

  * * *

  Just after nine o’clock that evening, we heard Victor letting himself into the house. He was talking loudly, as if he were using his cell. He slammed his front door but we could still hear him talking.

  “I’d better leave,” said Kate, buttoning up the front of her dress.

  “Why? You don’t have to. He’s a murderer, Kate. He’s a total sadist. Maybe he didn’t personally torture and kill all of those people, but he might just as well.”

  “Gideon, I’m not frightened of him. I’m not frightened of Jack Friendly either, but I don’t want to make them more suspicious than we have already. I’d better go, anyhow. You need your rest.”

  I showed her to the door. “Tomorrow I’m going to start looking for evidence,” I told her. “The sooner we can get Victor and Jack in the slammer, the better.”

  She picked up Malkin, and held her close. She kissed my left ear, and murmured, “Take care of yourself, won’t you?”

  “When will I see you again?” I asked her.

  She looked at me with those rainy gray eyes and gave me an oddly enigmatic smile. The Mona Lisa wasn’t in it. Then she disappeared down the stairs, leaving me standing on the landing.

  “Kate?” I called her, but she didn’t answer.

  I listened for her to open her apartment door, but Victor suddenly switched on his stereo player, at top volume, so all I heard was a howl of feedback and then a booming surge of Tony Bennett singing “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.” Go on, I thought, rub it in. You just wait until you’re sitting in a tenby-eight cell upstate, you sadistic murdering bastard, and Kate is coming home to me.

  * * *

  I had over thirty voicemail messages to deal with, most of them from Hazel McCall, my agent, wanting to know if I had finished scoring the next Billy Wagner Show. “Where the hell are you, Gideon? Freddie Sansom is going apeshit.”

  After I had called Hazel and reassured her that I was almost done, and dealt with most of my other messages, I got down to playing detective. I spent the next four and a half hours calling realtors and lawyers all across Manhattan, trying to find anybody who had done business with Penumbra International Property.

  My first break came from Mimi Liebowitz, a high-end rental agent in Murray Hill. Her secretary told me that she had seen a display advertisement for Penumbra properties in last month’s issue of Prestige Homes magazine. I promised to buy her lunch and so she faxed it to me. One apartment was in Geneva; another was in Rome. But here, too, was the Palazzetto Di Nerezza in Venice.

  I called Prestige Homes and their advertising executive was snooty and camp but very cooperative. He told me that the advertisement had been placed and paid for by an intermediary agency called Nussbaum Media, but when I called Nussbaum Media, they could only tell me that they had been instructed by a woman calling herself Edie Johnson and that she had paid them on a personal checking account.

  Finally, I called the number on the Penumbra advertisement. A young woman’s voice answered me almost immediately.

  “Penumbra International Properties, how can I assist you?”

  “Oh—I saw your advertisement in Prestige Homes. I’m planning on moving to Venice, Italy, and I was wondering if that Palazzetto Di Nerezza was still available.”

  “May I take your name, sir?”

  “Coleman—Franklin Coleman,” I lied, using my mother’s maiden names. “Maybe you’ve heard of Coleman’s Fine Art Auctioneers? An apartment like that Palazzetto Di Nerezza would suit me down to the ground. Or—hey—down to the water, being Venice.”

  The young woman was unamused. “If you can give me a moment, sir, I’ll check the status of that particular rental.”

  I waited for a few seconds, listening to some glutinous string music. Then the girl came back and said, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Coleman. The Palazzetto was taken only about a week ago. But we do have an equally fine rental property coming onto our books within the next few days, the Palazzetto Grimani. I can send you the particulars as soon as we receive them from our agents in Venice.”

  “Well, I have to tell you that I’m very disappointed,” I said. “I saw those pictures and I said to my wife, ‘that is exactly the kind of apartment I’ve set my heart on. It has class. It has substance.’ Is there any way I can persuade the new tenants to find themselves someplace else? Maybe you could interest them in this Palazzetto Grimani.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Coleman, that wouldn’t be possible.”

  “Can I talk to your boss?”

  “I’m really sorry, Mr. Coleman, that wouldn’t make any difference. The new tenants are already in occupancy.”

  “All the same, I’d like to talk to your boss. Victor Solway, isn’t it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Victor Solway. I’d like to talk to Victor Solway.”
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br />   It sounded like the girl had stopped breathing for a moment. Then she said, “Can you bear with me for a moment, sir?”

  I had to listen to more glutinous strings, and then the girl came back and said, “Hello, sir? I’m afraid that nobody of that name is in any way associated with Penumbra International Property. The manager is Mr. Lowenstein, but Mr. Lowenstein is away from his desk right now.”

  “Oh, come on. Victor Solway is not only associated with Penumbra International Property, he owns Penumbra International Property.”

  “Nobody of that name is any way associated with Penumbra International Property, sir. But if you let me have your contact number, I can have Mr. Lowenstein call you back.”

  “I don’t want Mr. Lowenstein to call me back. I want to talk to the engineer, not the oily rag. Put me on to Victor Solway. Tell him I know all about his international property business, and how he runs it. And tell him that if he doesn’t talk to me, he’s going to regret it, big-time.”

  The young woman immediately hung up, without saying anything more. That was the surest sign that she could have given me that Victor Solway did own Penumbra. If she had genuinely never heard of him before, why would she have cut the connection? I would have bet money that Victor was standing right next to her, drawing his finger across his throat.

  * * *

  It was nearly midnight. I was hunched over my keyboard, finishing off my score for the next Billy Wagner Show. I wanted to add a “hurry,” which is that excitable burst of music they play when a music-hall entertainer comes running out onto the stage.

  Twelve o’clock was just beginning to strike when I heard a devastating crash from downstairs, as if a bookcase full of books had fallen over. This was immediately followed by shouting and banging and hysterical screaming.

  The voices were muffled by the floorboards, but I could recognize Victor. He must have been right below me, because I could hear him roaring, “—you whore! You goddamned whore! Did you think that I wouldn’t find out? Do you think I’m goddamned stupid or something?”