Devil's Trill

by Gerald Elias

  “Nerves of steel, man. What do cops call it? The psychological profile. She got it.”

  “She said her teacher ‘warned’ her about me. I don’t know much Japanese, but I do know her teacher and I’d bet a thousand yen that ‘warn’ is not the translation of what he said.”

  “So you want to know what’s Japanese for ‘Freudian slip.’ ”

  “Hey, Salvador, you shouldn’t be a bellhop. You should be a psychiatrist.”

  “Tell that to my girlfriend. So, is that it?”

  “No, there’s some more, Herr Doctor Salvador. Her curious response when I first mentioned the theft. ‘Oh?’ she said. Now, you might think ‘Oh?’ is just a useless little tidbit. But think about this. Every violinist in the world knows the legend of the Piccolino Strad. Every violinist knows what it represents and what it would mean to play on it. Let me ask you this, what would you think of someone who said ‘Oh?’ when asked if he had heard that JFK was shot?

  “Then there was that ‘total trust in teacher’ BS she handed me and then that little game of fool the blind man I told you about. Her lack of enthusiasm to go to New York and then the phony excitement at the chance to play in Carnegie Hall, the scene of the crime. Her silence when Nathaniel asked me why I was bringing her with me and again when we were discussing a possible motive.”

  “So you think this chick’s tied to the runner-up—the planner. You have to find the planner, man. If you’re right about the motive and if she’s involved, she’ll be loyal to the planner and’ll never agree to return this violin, even if you nail her. That’s more than a hunch, man.”

  “Pour me a drink, Salvador. And pour yourself another.”

  “Think she could have planned it herself?” asked Salvador, handing Jacobus his whiskey.

  “Doubtful,” said Jacobus.

  “Could someone at that agency have planned it? The chick might steal a violin for one of them. Maybe she’s doin’ one of those guys on the side. The boss, he sounds like a real ladies’ man. Hold on a second. I think the AC is ready to go.” Within seconds Jacobus heard a gentle whirring and a cool breeze wafting in his direction.

  “You’ve been a real problem solver, Sir Salvador,” said Jacobus. “But I still put my money on Mr. Second Place. Maybe we’ll be lucky and there’ll be a Japanese runner-up somewhere in the checkered annals of the Grimsley Competition.” Jacobus drained his glass. “Salvador,” he said, “I think I’ve gone as far as I’m going to get tonight. You’ve been a true help. My wallet’s on the night table. Take whatever you want.”

  “It’s all right, man,” said Salvador, going out the door. “As you say, I was off duty. I’ll just turn these lights out for you. It has been my pleasure being your temporary . . . amanuensis.”

  “Amanuensis, eh?” said Jacobus. “Sporty vocabulary for a bellhop.”

  “Well, I was going to say ‘factotum,’ but I think amanuensis is a little closer.”

  “What do you do during the day? Go to NYU?”

  “Columbia, sir. Working my way through college, you know. Psychology major. Good night, sir. And may I say, sir . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “You can trust me to keep this confidential. But I have to tell you, I think the reason you asked me here tonight was only in part to organize your thoughts. You didn’t really need me to organize your thoughts. I think the main reason is that you feel alone and need people more than you admit to yourself.”

  “Thank you for telling me nothing. I’m sure you’ll do well on your Psych 101 exam.”

  Jesus, thought Jacobus as he heard the door close, can’t even take a bellhop at face value.

  Alone again, Jacobus turned to new questions. How was he going to find Mr. Second Place? And where? Japan? Would Yumi return to Japan? Why would she? She just got here. Steal a Strad, study with sensei, get a career. Bing-bang-boom. No one finds out. Why go back? Need to give you a reason. What reason?

  Jacobus heard the wail of someone’s alarm clock. Time to rest.

  TWELVE

  Just a few hours after Jacobus dozed off, the second emergency meeting of the Musical Arts Project began. It was Tuesday, July 12, and the meeting convened at 7:30 A.M. in order for the attendees to be at their regular desks by 9. On one side of the mahogany table was Victoria Jablonski, with Lilburn and Trevor Grimsley serving as her bookends. Facing them were Anthony Strella and Boris Dedubian serving the same function, with Rachel Lewison, chewing on a pencil, as the book.

  Two contentious subjects of discussion had arisen overnight. One was Jacobus’s frontal assault on MAP and Lilburn’s counteroffensive. The second was the article Lilburn had written in that morning’s Times, attempting to defame Jacobus by innuendo. The atmosphere in the room was filled with nervous tension. As usual, Victoria tried to draw first blood. Rising from her chair, she jabbed her New York Times in Lilburn’s face.

  “Are you crazy, Martin? How could you have written this?”

  Lilburn, who had opened his notepad to take notes, said without looking up, “WordPerfect.”

  “I actually think it was a stroke of genius, Jablonski,” said Strella.

  “Then you’re crazy too.” Jablonski pointed the paper at Strella.

  Grimsley, who never read the paper until after his late morning breakfast, had no idea what the current fuss was about.

  “I’ll be happy to read it to you,” said Jablonski with venom.

  “Ah, the belligerent fervor of the righteous,” Lilburn wrote on his pad. He took a sidelong glance at her. She was still standing, and he could not avoid a sidelong glance at her breasts. “Heaving bosom,” he penciled. “How ‘ Victorian.’ ”

  “ ‘Mr. Daniel Jacobus,’ ” Jablonski read, “ ‘onetime concert violinist, has been assisting Mr. Nathaniel Williams, an agent hired by Intercontinental Insurance Associates, in its search to retrieve the Stradivarius violin that has been missing and presumed stolen from Carnegie Hall on July 8. Though Mr. Jacobus has not stated his motives for his efforts, it is fairly common practice for insurance companies to pay a sizable reward for the recovery of stolen property that it insures.

  “ ‘In a discussion of the violin with this reporter on July 11, Mr. Jacobus was reluctant to discuss details of his investigation but was more than forthcoming in his opinion of the Musical Arts Project Group, which sponsors the young violin prodigy Kamryn Vander, and the Grimsley Violin Competition, of which she was the recent winner.’ ”

  Jablonski raised her voice for effect. “ ‘His reference to the Competition as “musical child porn for weak-of-heart yuppies—” ’ ”

  “What?” shrieked Grimsley. “Martin, how—”

  “Calm down, calm down,” said Strella. “As I said, I think it was a stroke of genius. Let me read you another little excerpt. “ ‘Mr. Anthony Strella, president of Zenith Concert Artists and spokesman for MAP, by which name the Musical Arts Project Group is often called, commented upon Mr. Jacobus’s observations. Mr. Strella said, “While I admire the contribution Mr. Jacobus once made to classical music, I am also proud of MAP’s achievements over the years, providing young artists with the opportunity and the means to bring great music to an appreciative public.” ’”

  “You see,” Strella pointed out, “what Martin has done is to paint Jacobus as a fanatic, fortune-hunting has-been, and MAP as the voice of reason. If, as we expect, Mr. Jacobus is out to scandalize MAP, it appears that Martin has effectively turned the tables using Jacobus’s own words. Bravo, Martin.”

  Lilburn looked down at his hands folded on the table.

  “You don’t know Jake like I do,” persisted Jablonski.

  “How could I?” countered Strella with a nasty smirk.

  “I’ll ignore that. For now. Jake is dangerous. Once he starts something, he doesn’t let go. He’s a pit bull. He’s—”

  “Is that why you sicced your lackey on him last night, Victoria?”

  The entire group suddenly wrenched to attention.

  “What are you talking
about?” asked Grimsley.

  Strella continued calmly, ignoring Jablonski’s withering stare.

  “Victoria decided, unilaterally, I might add, to persuade her most testosterone-enhanced student to try to bully Jacobus into submission.”

  “Without consulting us?” asked Dedubian. “What if he was to figure out you were behind that stunt? That kind of thing could make us, all of us, and not Jacobus, look like we had something to do with stealing the violin and him look like the hero who was getting too close.”

  “Right now,” retorted Jablonski, “you, all of you, look like you don’t know your ass from your elbow. And just how did you know, Anthony, that I had anything to do with Jacobus getting a taste of what he deserves?”

  “We have no secrets here, Victoria. You should know that by now.”

  “You know,” Lilburn the mediator said tentatively, looking up from his hands. “On one hand, it’s quite plausible that Jacobus was indeed involved with the theft.”

  “Of course he was,” chimed Grimsley. “Didn’t the police say he might’ve crushed the violin? That is, if it had still been there?”

  “Why would he have crushed it if he had already stolen it?” asked Dedubian.

  Grimsley fell silent, but Strella conjectured, “Perhaps as a pretense of innocence. He took the violin, hid it, and returned in the guise of the troubled but clumsily unsuccessful amateur.”

  “Possible,” Lilburn agreed. “But at this point all we know definitely is that he was there and, as I pointed out to him, he had as compelling a motive as can be imagined. If it’s proved that he did it, then he certainly should be tried, convicted, and locked up, with due consideration given to his motive, of course.

  “That being said, not everything Jacobus had to say about MAP was so over the edge. Perhaps some of our efforts have been too mercenary. I’m just being devil’s advocate, you see.”

  “Why, of course,” cajoled Strella. “But there’s really nothing to worry about.”

  He maintained that all they had to do was just keep their cards close to their vests. Dedubian and Grimsley admitted that if they were living too high off the hog feeding from their MAP trough, it might not be such a bad idea to cut back, at least for the interim. After all, their own professions were certainly lucrative.

  Rachel urged cancellation of all the interviews that had been scheduled by Nathaniel for Jacobus. She already had a backlog of appointments for all the members, and this was getting them even more behind schedule.

  “I’ve got a fund-raising luncheon for Trevor with B’nai B’rith that’s already been postponed twice. Boris is supposed to do a violin-making workshop at Juilliard. Anthony’s supposed to meet with the American Symphony Orchestra League to talk about ‘saving the Symphony.’ Victoria’s got her master class at Carnegie coming up, and then she and I’ll be going to Oregon for a one-week residency at the U of O. So why are we bothering with Jacobus? Why should we play his game when it didn’t even look like he was interested in finding the violin?”

  Jablonski noted that no one even knew yet if her or Lilburn’s attempts to frighten Jacobus had succeeded. Maybe Jacobus wouldn’t show up for the interviews at all.

  Ultimately two things were decided. One, that if Jacobus did show up, Lilburn would be notified and he would immediately send the photograph of the 1931 Grimsley Competition to the police—who were in desperate need of a suspect—along with his dossier on Jacobus. Two, that since Jacobus was working for Williams, who was working for Intercontinental Insurance Associates, MAP would cooperate in the interviews—they didn’t want to risk losing their potential eight-million-dollar insurance claim—but only so far as proclaiming their innocence.

  Jablonski didn’t care for the plan. “Why don’t we just kill him?” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Aha! Yes, let’s kill him,” said Lilburn. “A fine idea. I can see my headline now. ‘Blind Violinist Meets Unsightly End.’ ‘Once-famous musician Daniel Jacobus, disconsolate over a career that went down a blind alley, apparently has committed suicide by flinging himself down a flight of stairs and landing on his own violin bow.’ ”

  “Hoist on his own Peccatte?” said Dedubian with a humorless chortle, making a pun on the name of a famous Parisian bow maker.

  “Blinded by fame!” piped up Grimsley.

  “Daniel in the lion’s den,” mumbled Rachel, eyes fixed upon her overflowing appointment calendar.

  “What was that you said, Rachel?” asked Lilburn.

  “Nothing important, I’m sure,” said Rachel.

  “All right, let’s get serious for a moment,” said Strella, wiping an imaginary tear of laughter from his eye.

  Dedubian spoke up. “Excuse me. Joking aside, Jake could never have stolen that violin—it’s just not possible.”

  “And why not?” asked Strella.

  “Yes, why not?” Lilburn echoed. “After all, there seems to be a growing consensus among the assemblage here that all leads are starting to roam toward him.”

  Dedubian, sitting next to Jablonski, offered his response without looking her in the eye.

  “One thing I must say in Jake’s defense is he’s honest, maybe to a fault,” said Dedubian. “Can you believe that in all the years I’ve known him he’s the only teacher who has not once accepted a commission for instruments I’ve sold his students!”

  Jablonski gave Dedubian a withering stare, but Dedubian ignored it by fussing with his gold cuff link.

  “But that’s not the point, Boris,” said Grimsley. “Whether he did it or not, the point is just to create a distraction. To get the authorities off our backs. Isn’t it?”

  “Exactly,” said Strella. “Our job when we meet with him is to turn the tables. Don’t let him badger you about MAP. After all, we are legitimate. We have done good. We do abide by the rules. And if Jacobus or anyone else thinks otherwise, they would have a harder time proving it than we would proving that he stole the Strad. As I said, we have nothing to worry about.”

  Strella admonished Victoria from resorting to any more violence, instructed Rachel to contact Cynthia Vander about their strategy to deal with Jacobus, and adjourned the meeting.

  THIRTEEN

  The same refreshing early morning sea breeze that was repelled by the sealed windows of MAP’s conference room managed to curl its way through the open window of Yumi’s bedroom in Nathaniel’s apartment a couple miles uptown. Distant sounds gently pressed against the dark envelope of sleep’s comforting silence—a bus engine far below, water flowing through a pipe in a wall, an elevator humming. City sounds.

  Yumi’s eyes opened, closed, opened again, not yet entirely willing to surrender her darkness. Through half-opened lids she saw the countryside, green fields in the distance; above, a pale blue summer sky with thin fair-weather clouds. Warmth. She closed her eyes, intent upon returning to her soothing cocoon. Sometime thereafter, the small part of her awareness that had not been asleep acknowledged the discrepancy between what she had heard and what she had seen.

  Yumi sat bolt upright in a panic of disorientation. Where was she? Then a flood of recognition rushed in, accompanied by all the anxieties of the past few days.

  Yumi looked around the unfamiliar room. What she had taken to be distant fields were an impression created by green texture-painted walls, the upper half lighter than the lower. The ceiling was a mural of a summer sky—convincing but unmoving.

  On the opposite wall from her bed was a rustic old pine dresser, nicked with age. Leaning against it was her violin case. Beside her bed was a simple wooden night table with spindle legs on which stood a framed photo, her purse, and a wind-up alarm clock. An oak rocking chair in the corner, sitting on a braided rug, shone in the morning sun. It was still early. She picked up the photo to examine it.

  The vintage frame was of unfinished wood, with dust on top and in the corners where it met the glass. The glass, with a little crack in the lower right-hand corner, protected a photo of an African-American couple. Nathani
el’s parents? The photo appeared brittle and cracking—one of those that were not quite color and not quite black and white, the kind she had seen in antique shops and on old people’s dressers.

  The couple in this picture was photographed from midtorso up and at a slight angle. The woman was wearing a dress with broad and square shoulders; the man had on a suit jacket with very wide lapels. Their hair was wavy and stylish. They were both smiling. The man’s lips were slightly parted as if he were about to say something in the midst of being photographed.

  Yumi was drawn to the photo. Why, she couldn’t say. She wanted to say something back but didn’t know what.

  Yumi replaced the photo where it had stood. Next to it was a half-melted thick candle sitting in a chipped ceramic candle holder. Under the candle holder was a piece of paper. The paper had words scrawled in pencil. Yumi picked it up.

  Dear Yumi,

  Welcome to my guest room. I call it my old Kentucky home, which is where I grew up. I hope you slept comfortably, because if I know Jake, you have a busy day ahead.

  I’m out doing some research but I’ll pick you up at about 9:30 and will drop you off at the Vanders’. Jake still insists you’ll be his best helper.

  In the meantime enjoy yourself in the apartment. Use any room you want and help yourself to the fridge. (Most of your pastrami sandwich is in there.)

  Yours,

  Nathaniel

  Yumi reached for her purse, removing the booklet she had begun reading in the car. Nathaniel’s guest room was so peaceful. All she knew about the Piccolino Strad was in relation to its tie to the Grimsley Competition. She had never even seen it. Now she had an opportunity to learn more about Matteo Chrerubino, Il Piccolino himself, the first owner of the Stradivarius. She moved to the rocker and started the book a second time.