by Joan Smith
Sean had done all the grooming I intended to do. He was freshly showered, shaved and dowsed in Old Spice. He had changed into a white sports shirt, open at the neck, with a light summer jacket over it. I could see the question in his eyes as he surveyed my frazzled state.
“What the hell's been going on here?” he demanded. His voice was sharp with worry, and his eyes darted over me as if he expected to see blood or bruises.
“What hasn't?” I asked, dazed. “Come on in and I'll tell you about it if I can remember it all. The phone hasn't stopped ringing since I came in except when I was answering the door. Everybody's been in touch. Oh, Sean, I haven't had a minute to order—to make dinner,” I whined and suddenly burst into tears of frustration and worry.
Some girls sniffle beautifully, the less fortunate sniffle like me. My eyes turn red, my nose runs, and I make rough, hiccupping sounds. All these unattractive manifestations were in full view now, so when Sean pulled me into his arms, I went readily, averting my wet eyes from his nice jacket. I felt his strong fingers, one hand cuddling my head against his shoulder, the other around my back, patting gently, as if he were burping a baby. It only made the hiccupping sobs worse.
“And I haven't even called Mom!” I said suddenly. Why had I thought of her? It was the gentle cradling that did it. I felt safe as a child in its mother's arms and as dependent.
“You'll call her tonight as soon as you settle down. It's all right, it's all right now,” he soothed. “You just have a good nervous breakdown—you've earned it—then we'll pull you back together."
As the sniffles subsided, he stuffed a white handkerchief into my fingers. Even that struck me as significant. He'd changed from his red polka dot one to impress me. I blotted my eyes and nose and ran to the bathroom for larger repairs. I splashed cold water on my face, brushed my hair and cleaned my teeth. Clean teeth make you feel so much better about yourself. My eyes were still blotched with pink when I went back to the living room. Sean was looking at the coffee table with the two empty glasses on it.
“Ronald and I had a drink,” I said.
“Is he a teetotaler? I know you're not."
“What have you been doing, sniffing the glasses?"
“Cases are made up of details."
“Then you'll be keenly interested to know I had the soda water. Canada Dry. Make of it what you will. Sean, Victor sold his car,” I announced, and watched as his face fell in shock.
“I noticed it was gone from the garage. I figured the cops had hauled it away."
“They did. They were here too.” In bits and pieces I outlined the harrowing couple of hours I had put in since he left. He was stunned, unable to grasp all the various calls and callers that had plagued me.
“I thought you had an unlisted phone number!"
“Friends and business associates have it."
“I see why I've been gypped out of my dinner,” he mumbled.
“Would you like a beer? I'll make something as soon as I recuperate."
“I'll get it. You've had enough to do."
He went to the kitchen and came back with two bottles, already opened. Before he even sat down, the phone rang again.
“Let it ring. I'm on strike,” I said, and lifted the cold bottle to my lips. The welcome bitter sting of beer tasted like ambrosia on my throat, all one hundred and fifty calories of it.
“I'll get it. It might be important,” he said and answered it.
“What's that? For sale, you say?” Sean's eyes grew an inch, and his forehead corrugated in surprise. With his hand covering the mouthpiece he said, “Victor's got his cottage for sale. This guy says it's advertised in the Star."
A giggle of uncontrolled hysteria erupted from my mouth. It could as easily have been sobs, but it was giggles that came out. Sean handled the call. I heard him say off-putting things, that he'd get in touch with the man tomorrow and listened as if from a vast distance. Victor was selling his life away. He'd probably sold his violin, too. That's why we couldn't find it. Maybe he and Betty Friske were planning to run away to Tahiti together since she was selling her jewelry. I hoped Victor hadn't sold the condo, or I'd be sitting on the street corner.
When Sean hung up, he made a beeline for the newspapers and rifled through them till he found Victor's ad. Sure enough, the property described was the cottage, and sure enough, the number to call was our unlisted number. Another treat to look forward to—an inundation of callers interested in buying the cottage. I could take no more.
“I resign from being Victor Mazzini's niece,” I declared. “I'm going to move into the YWCA and become an orphan. Oh, Lord, I didn't phone Mom! I don't want her to hear about Victor on the TV."
“You're in no condition to phone right now,” Sean said as he ripped the ad out of the newspaper. “What you need is some food."
“There's some chick. salad in the fridge. It will, stave off starvation. Unfortunately, I ate all the choc. cake."
“What?” His look displayed some fear that I'd become unhinged.
He went into the kitchen, and I heard the homey sounds of the fridge door opening, water turned on, pans and dishes rattling. I should be there doing it, or at least helping, but I had bottomed out. When the phone rang again, I roused myself to answer it—another man interested in buying the cottage. I took his name and number and said the owner would be in touch; he had to go out of town for a few days.
My beer got itself drunk up quickly, and just as quickly I went to the kitchen and opened another hundred and fifty calories. “I'm not sure that chicken is still edible. It was leftovers yesterday,” I warned.
“It tastes okay,” he said, rustling in the bread box for buns and adding them to the table. Some tomatoes were nearly ripe on the windowsill, and he washed them before putting them on a dish with lettuce. I got the mayo from the fridge door and set the places. I'd abstain from the mayo to atone for the second beer.
“I meant to have a really nice dinner, Sean. I owe you one, but before we eat, I'm going to phone Mom. My conscience is nagging me so I won't be able to enjoy this if I don't."
Mom was happy to hear from me, and hadn't heard the story of Victor's disappearance yet. “He's off on a binge again,” she said with grim Italian resignation.
I thought it best to let her nurse this idea as the alternative was even worse. “I'm sure he'll turn up in a day or so,” I said calmly and withheld all the other puzzling occurrences.
“He must be unhappy. Is it a woman?” she asked knowingly.
“He's seeing a woman, a very nice lady, but there's no trouble between them."
“She must be a saint or a fool. Let me know when he turns up. I'll give him a piece of my mind. He doesn't know when he's well off—he'll run himself right out of the business. Nobody will hire a sodden violinist, and it will ruin his technique. All those years of lessons! We all suffered to pay for that"
I knew the story by heart, and interrupted her. “I'll let you know as soon as I learn anything. And don't worry."
“Am I allowed to worry about you? You should be safe in Toronto. Nothing bad will happen to you there. Lots of nice Italian boys in Toronto, a whole community of them. Do you go to Little Italy? Maria's cousin is going to look you up— Alfredo his name is. Alfredo Danzo. A medical student. Have you got good warm clothing?"
She never could be convinced we had a summer up here. “Yes, I'm fine." We talked a little about my life and job before I hung up, feeling lonesome, and oddly protective about Mom, who had protected me from life's vagaries for so long.
“Soup's on!” Sean called when he heard me hang up.
I was glad he was there, just a room away, waiting for me. It was strange I felt so at home with him, and so out of place at Ronald's house. I already felt as if I had known Sean for years, maybe all my life. I knew he'd be standing, waiting to pull out my chair for me. I had a pretty good idea he'd strained his ears to overhear my phone conversation, and that he wouldn't let on he'd heard a single word when I went to the ki
tchen. He'd have a politely disinterested look, maybe ask if I got through to Mom.
“Did you get through to your mom all right?” he asked, hand poised disinterestedly to pull out my chair.
“Yes, I talked to her."
He misread my smile as pleasure at having done my duty, and I was so satisfied with him and my omniscience that I let him.
CHAPTER 9
It was only a so-so dinner, but in our advanced state of starvation, it tasted great. Neither the phone nor the doorbell rang once. It was late enough by then that I hoped the interruptions were over until morning. We talked more about all the happenings of the day while the coffee dripped.
“Sean, do you know what we didn't do!” I exclaimed suddenly.
“I forgot the cream,” he said and started to get up for it.
“No, we forgot to check Victor's bankbook. Remember, we started up here this afternoon to do it, then we found that key in the mail and went dashing off to the station. I started to look at it half a dozen times but never got around to it."
“I bet the police took it,” Sean said with a tsk of annoyance.
“No, they didn't. It's in my purse. I'll get it."
I brought it to the kitchen table, but it held no great surprises. One hundred and fifty thousand hadn't been deposited, of course. We knew he'd taken that in cash. There was a good advance for the concert—it went in and out the same day. It would have to be repaid now. The thousand-dollar down-payment on the Corvette was in and out, too. I had both his passbook and his personal book of matching entries, but there was nothing else startling.
Sean worried his lip as his eyes darted along the page. “If he was trying to accumulate a pool of cash, you'd never know it from this. Five hundred bucks for clothes! And look at this Visa payment! Something that required all that cash must have come up very suddenly to make him sell his car and cottage."
“You don't usually buy expensive things for cash,” I said doubtfully. “Cash suggests something illegal. You don't think he was being blackmailed?” I asked, hardly conceiving it possible.
Sean examined me over the rim of his coffee cup. “For what? He can't be an illegal immigrant—his life's too public."
“No, it couldn't be that—he's had his citizenship for years. His little weaknesses are wine and women."
“And song,” Sean added, probably because the three words are always linked in our minds.
“Music isn't illegal. Not even playing the violin. I mean unless you steal somebody else's composition and claim it for your own. And none of the stuff Victor claims as his own is good enough to bother stealing. He'd root around in old books and find something first class if he meant to pull off plagiarism."
“Maybe he wanted to buy something illegal,” Sean suggested quietly. We were both racking our brains for an answer and coming up with some pretty farfetched ideas.
“He's not one of those crazy connoisseurs who'd buy stolen objets d'art for his own sole covetous enjoyment. If my uncle couldn't display his purchase to the world, he wouldn't buy it."
Sean still wore that quiet air, but there was a sharp look in his eyes that puzzled me. “Are you sure that applies across the board?"
“You're talking about women? That he does in private. Do you think he's being blackmailed over some woman?” I didn't feel in my bones this was the answer. Victor wouldn't mind a little scandal. He liked pretty women, and if the woman's husband didn't like it, it was the woman who'd be in a pickle, not Victor. “He'd never pay the kind of money we're talking about to a woman. He's interested in them, not insane."
“Actually it was music we were talking about,” Sean reminded me.
“I don't get it."
“His violin is missing."
“So? Misplacing a violin isn't a crime. I wonder if he sold it, too—but surely not just before a concert.”
“A violinist wouldn't do that unless he was planning to replace it with a better one. What would a really good violin cost—say one of those Stradivariuses you hear about."
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling in wonderment. “A fortune, if you could find one.
“Maybe that's what he bought then,” he decided in his naiveté.
I shook my head. “I don't think so, Sean. They don't grow on trees, you know. If a Stradivarius had been for sale, the world would have heard about it. It would have been sold through Sotheby's or one of the international auction houses. When you consider that Stradivari has been dead for over two hundred years, and his output wasn't that high—well, you get the idea. They're like the works of the old masters painters— rare."
“How many would he have produced?” he persisted.
“I've heard Victor rant on about him occasionally. He said about eleven hundred or so instruments altogether, I think. He made violas and cellos as well, but fewer of them. And, of course, it was so long ago that about half of the instruments have been destroyed."
“Or lost. It's possible one of the five hundred and fifty odd ones gone missing has survived."
“Yes, but they can't just have ‘survived’ in some old shed. The wood would rot, and anyway they have to be played regularly or they lose their voice and die eventually."
“Violins don't die."
“Well, they fade away."
“You hear from time to time about a Stradivarius cropping up."
“It usually turns out to be something else—just an old violin that somebody has pasted a label in to con a gullible buyer. Victor wouldn't be fooled by that."
“Maybe he got hold of a genuine one,” he insisted with a mulishness that was becoming tiresome.
“As I said, a genuine Stradivarius would be handled publicly through Sotheby's. And it would cost anywhere from a million up."
“If he planned to sell his apartment as well, he'd have a good down payment. Besides, Victor's an expert; he'd know the real McCoy, whereas the guy trying to sell it to him wouldn't. It's possible he spotted one in some antique shop or..."
“Be real, Sean. If the store owner was holding Victor up for that kind of money, he'd have a pretty sharp idea he had a genuine Stradivarius on his hands, so why not get it authenticated and make his million? You know how high prices on rare paintings and things go when they're sold at public auction. The bidders get some kind of mass hysteria or something. A statue of a horse was sold for over ten million a while ago, and artists that are hardly known go for millions. No, it doesn't make any sense,” I said and dismissed it.
His next idea was even worse. “Maybe it was stolen,” he said, and shot me an apologetic glance. “That'd require some discretion—and a lot less than a million."
“What would be the point of buying a stolen violin? He couldn't play it in public. What you don't understand is that the existing Stradivarius violins are known. They have names and distinguishing characteristics, like people. The Library of Congress has one—it's called the Betts. There's another called the Swan, and one called the Cessol. The Musical Institute at Florence has the Tuscan—all well known, famous instruments. Stradivarius started out as a wood carver; he ornamented some of his violins. They weren't just churned out by a machine. They have people and animals and leaves and flowers and things on them. They're individual, very recognizable to people who are interested in such things."
He shrugged his big shoulders. “I saw a picture of one in the National Geographic. It didn't look any different from any other violin—no carvings. They can't all be as fancy as you're saying. A new Rembrandt turns up from time to time. I don't see why a Stradivarius couldn't, since he made over a thousand of them."
“It's not impossible,” I relented, “but then it's within the realm of possibility that Victor was carried off by spacemen too. I think we'd be farther ahead to stick to the probable."
Sean's face turned pink, and when he spoke, his voice was slightly out of control. “I'm just trying to fit this grab-bag of unlikely facts together. There's a saying that when the impossible has been eliminated, what you're left with
is the truth, however improbable."
“Then let's start by eliminating the impossible idea that Victor either knowingly bought a stolen violin or was dumb enough to buy one without knowing it was stolen."
“We've got a set of facts here that aren't going to go away just because you don't like them. Let's massage them a little and see what we come up with. One, Victor had a surprise, which he never got to reveal at the concert."
“That was my capriccio."
“You weren't so sure the night of the concert. Two, he was scraping together big bucks. Three, his own violin's disappeared."
“And four, Victor's disappeared. How does that fit into your scenario?"
“God, I hate that word ‘scenario'. Okay, let's think about it. I don't know your uncle, but let's say he came across a Stradivarius and wanted to own it. He wouldn't tell anybody, especially the owner. Maybe the seller got such a good price out of him by pretending the thing was some other good make, like the one Victor owns—the Guan thing."
“Guarneri."
“There must be others as well."
“There's Amati—Stradivari studied under him. An Amati might be worth about the price Victor was accumulating,” I admitted.
“So he buys it, not knowing it's a stolen Stradivarius."
“But he would know—I explained all that."
Sean exploded in a way that surprised me. I took him for a more gentle sort of a man, but his face turned reddish and he clenched his jaws and still couldn't stop himself from barking. “Christ, if there are five hundred and fifty of them in the world, he wouldn't know them all intimately."
I gave him a quelling stare. “Continue with your scenario."
“So he buys it, thinking he's made a great coup, then finds out it's hot."
“How does he suddenly find out?"
“He takes it to an expert."
“I guess that's what he'd do, all right."