by Rick Blechta
I rolled again and squinted at the bedside clock: 7:47, and still no word from her, even though I’d left messages as to my whereabouts with everyone I could think of whom Tory might contact. With a heartfelt groan, I crawled out of bed, reflecting that I should have thought of changing the message on our phone machine at home so she’d know where I was.
The face in the bathroom mirror didn’t look any better than I deserved. I had bags under the bags under my eyes, and my hooked nose, droopy mustache and day-old beard made me look like a fugitive Mexican gunslinger with a hangover. I glanced down at the slowly healing scars on my hand. I should’ve been home in Montreal getting the physiotherapy I needed, not sitting in some hotel room halfway across the world waiting for news I wouldn’t want to hear when it finally came.
The previous afternoon, Roderick and I had gone to meet the security guard who’d seen Tory get into the limo. The rendezvous had been arranged at a quiet café near the Musikverein, so it was quite near our hotel. What we’d found out only made things look worse for Tory in light of what we already knew.
The man, maybe in his late fifties, came across in his bearing and manner of speech as an ex-military man, but one who had fallen on hard times—probably due to drink, from the way his hands shook as he sipped his coffee. It wasn’t hard to guess where the money would go after we’d greased his palm pretty generously.
“Tell us what you saw two nights ago,” Roderick said as soon as the waiter was out of earshot and the money had been discreetly exchanged.
The man’s English was serviceable but heavily accented, which made it a bit hard for me to follow. “I was sitting by the door. It really isn’t much of a hard job most of the time. The stage manager had told me to look sharp because Fräulein Morgan often had fans who would come to the door for autographs. I was reading the paper because the playing was still going on, when there was much noise backstage. A number of people were speaking loudly, which was strange because of the rules during performances.
“I stood in case I was needed when Fräulein Morgan walked up to me. She opened the door and looked out for a moment. It was raining quite hard.
“‘Do you have an umbrella?’ she asked, and I indicated that I did. ‘Good. Will you walk me to the car outside?’
“I did what she asked. She got into the auto, and it drove off. That is all I know.”
“Can you tell us anything about the car?” Roderick asked, looking at me to see if it was okay that he continue to speak for us.
“It had a uniformed driver and was a very large car. The person who owns it must be very important.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You can tell these things when you are around these people often enough.” Our informant sniffed. “The driver did not even look at me, much less offer some coins.”
“Anything else you can tell us?”
“No. Except Fräulein Morgan seemed quite upset. Obviously, something had gone wrong with the concert for her to be leaving. She is a most beautiful woman.”
I looked around the smoked-filled café to see if anyone was eavesdropping. We didn’t need to be giving the press any free rides.
“Who is this?” the guard asked, indicating me with a sideways nod of his head.
“I’m Victoria Morgan’s husband,” I answered for myself.
The man stared at me for a long moment. “You are a lucky man and an unlucky man, if you understand what I mean.”
“Only too well,” I answered sourly.
***
After a shower and shave, I felt more human and headed downstairs for a meeting over breakfast with Roderick. When the elevator doors opened at the lobby, not only was Roderick standing there, but so too were an enterprising reporter and photographer from one of the local papers, who practically leaped out from behind a potted palm. Caught! Somehow, the fact that I was in Vienna had been discovered.
Since a terse “No comment” would have only fanned the fires of speculation, I had to do some fast thinking, something I wasn’t in the best shape for—physically or mentally.
“Why am I in Vienna?” I responded into the reporter’s pocket recorder, which he practically stuck up my nose. “My wife and I planned to meet here so we could be together while she finishes her tour.”
I read doubt in the man’s beady eyes. “But hasn’t she canceled it? Surely, you must be concerned.”
“Good question,” I said stalling for time. Damn good question. “You have to understand that my wife has been under an incredible amount of pressure. To be frank, she needs some time off. She’s chosen this time to take it.” I flashed a conspiratorial smile. “You know how these redheads are.”
He wasn’t buying. “Time off? Fraülein Morgan walked out in the middle of a concert and disappeared!”
I’d had enough and turned back to the elevators. “Who says she’s disappeared?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Then you know where she is?”
“I’m her husband, aren’t I?” The elevator doors began to close as Roderick and I jumped back in.
The reported screeched in desperation, “If you know where she is, I’ll pay you for an interview!”
As we began to ascend, I sagged against the back wall of the car. “That’s not what I needed.”
“No,” Roderick agreed.
After we got back to my room and ordered breakfast from room service, I placed a call to Montreal, punched in the special code, and the message machine back in our condo spewed out a whole whack of messages. Several of them were from an increasingly hysterical sounding Marty, who was losing his managerial mind over Tory’s disappearance. His final one accused the two of us of plotting to go to a rival manager. The rest of the messages were from reporters all over the world asking for exclusives.
But right in the middle of all the chaff was a single grain of wheat: the one voice I’d been longing to hear.
“Rock? It’s me. I know you’re probably incredibly pissed off, but there’s a good explanation. I’m in the south of Austria. That’s Austria as in yodeling. What I wanted to tell you is I’m fine. I tried calling earlier to tell you where I was, but you’d forgotten to turn on the damn answering machine again. Anyway, I was contacted by someone here and offered the musical find of the century. I’m not kidding when I say that.” She covered the receiver with her hand, and I could hear muffled voices, then she came back on. “Sorry, Rock, but we have to discuss ways and means a bit more before I can tell you anything else, but when I call back, my news is going to knock your socks off! Bye. Caru ti’n fawr.”
Roderick had been listening in, and when I finally put the phone down, he looked at me. “That’s one country heard from. What was that last bit?”
“Welsh.”
“I know that!” Roderick said exasperatedly. “What does it mean?”
“‘Love you lots’, more or less. How did she sound to you?”
“Absolutely wired. I certainly haven’t heard her that excited in a long, long time—certainly not on this tour.”
“Why did she have to leave Vienna to see this music? Surely the person could have brought the music to her. She was in the middle of a tour, for Christ’s sake!”
“She also didn’t sound like someone calling to give you the news that she’s run off with someone else.”
I walked over to the window and looked down at some sort of big park. “Maybe. She must believe that this concerto she’s been offered is the real deal. But this guy who offered it to her... I wonder what his game is?”
TORY
The Baron opened the champagne with all the aplomb of a seasoned wine steward. We clinked glasses, toasting my performance. I started to put my glass down when he said it would be a shame to let most of a bottle of good champagne go to waste. “I’ll make it worth your while if you help me finish it,” Rudy said, smiling warmly. “I have the most lovely little indoor garden. I only share it with my most favoured guests. Come with me! You will enjoy it.”
Still wire
d from playing, I said, “Sure!” and off we went.
On the way, we stuck our noses into Rudolph’s private library, so he could show me where he had hung that humongous blow-up photo of me practising in the buff. I was completely taken aback. Seen billboard size like this, it was rather blatant.
With a low whistle, I said, “You’d better hope my husband doesn’t ever see this. He’d blow a fuse!”
The baron’s “lovely little indoor garden”, built on a slope at the opposite end of the castle from the ballroom, must have enclosed a good half-acre and was filled with tropical plants, trees, pools, and an impressive series of waterfalls. You name it, Rudy had it under that dome. At the bottom of the slope on the far end, the glass must have been three stories above our heads, and this is where full-size palm and banana trees had been planted. Coloured lights glowed artfully among the greenery, soft music played from hidden speakers and little gravel paths meandered everywhere. The effect was charming, but I shuddered to think what the installation had cost.
In the middle of the garden, lower than the surrounding area and shielded by large rocks, was a grotto. Sparkling at its centre, a pool with fish and water lilies, some of which were in fragrant bloom, glowed in the light rising from the bottom. Around the pool, some weird-looking stone benches shaped like Ys had been placed. We sat on one of them for a while listening to the tinkle of falling water, and something Baroque which I didn’t recognize coming from speakers hidden in the bushes.
Baron Rudy took a deep, satisfied breath. “It is lovely, is it not?” he said, indicating the garden with a sweep of his arm. “It is my Xanadu.”
“Surely you don’t think you’re Kubla Khan?”
“Touché! All this talent and you can quote Coleridge, too!” he laughed. “Like Kubla Khan, this is where I escape from the cares of our world. It is enchanting in the daytime, but at night it is even more special.”
“It is,” I agreed, “but you don’t strike me as the type of person who needs to escape from anything.” I looked around for a moment, then added, “Rudolph, we really must nail down our little agreement, you know.”
Instead of answering, the baron leaned over and began kissing my neck. Stunned, I didn’t pull away until he actually nipped my earlobe. That got me to my feet in a hurry. “Rudolph, please...” I spluttered.
He looked up and smiled. “You are the most enchanting creature I have ever met. Can you blame me? Come, let us be honest; we are both experienced in the ways of the world. I could not resist you any longer.”
I shook my head, regretting all that useless chatter around the dinner table. What other stupid things had I said along the way? “Well, you thought wrong! I’m sorry if I’ve given you a false impression.”
The baron stood up and moved towards me, but I backed away. The large bulge in his slacks was rather noticeable. “Let me come right to the point. You are a woman who has had her share of—I think you used the term earlier this evening—peccadilloes?”
“So you’re saying that if I let you fuck me, as a reward I’ll get the Beethoven.”
“You put it so crudely.”
“Well, it is pretty crude!” I said with rising anger, then checked it when I thought of the Beethoven, how the music had already wrapped itself around my soul, how much I wanted to play it over and over, to plumb its depths, to have it be mine alone—at least for a little while. “Look, Rudolph, why do we have to argue?”
“My sentiments exactly!” he said delightedly, holding out the bottle to fill my glass again.
I hesitated, ignoring his outstretched arm. A vision of this whole deal going straight down the drain faced me, but I also saw Rocky, who meant as much to me as anything in the world and who had suffered so much at my hands. I wouldn’t do this to him yet again, no matter what the reason. And I never would have done it under the present circumstances.
It had to be said. “Look, I cannot get involved with you sexually over a piece of music,” I said firmly, but with a smile to soften the blow to Rudy’s baronial ego. “Could I offer you a few million dollars instead of little old me?”
Rudy turned his back and walked away a few steps. I waited quietly, heart beating rapidly while I waited to see if the situation could be salvaged.
Finally, he turned to face me with a brilliant smile on his face. “You are right, of course, my dear! I have behaved like a common boor.” He shook his head. “What can I have been thinking? Can you forgive me?”
I took a breath and let it out in a huge sigh, relief flowing through me. “Yes, of course!” Rudy walked back with the bottle outstretched. “And I’m truly sorry if I gave you the wrong impression,” I added as he poured more champagne for me.
He acknowledged my comment with a quick bob of his head, we clinked again and I downed the bubbly in two long swallows in an attempt to further calm my nerves.
Glass and bottle in hand, Rudolph stood looking at me curiously. “You really are the most extraordinary woman.”
“Why, thank you,” I answered, hoping I wasn’t throwing yet more gas on the fire.
Rudy put the bottle and his glass down on one of the benches, joining me as I silently stared into the luminescent depths of the pool. Several fish swam lazily in and out of the undulating plants. I realized I felt very tired. It had been a long day—and I hadn’t needed what had just happened.
“I think we would be very good together,” my host said softly after a few minutes.
My heart sank. “Rudolph...please...I thought we were past this.”
He reached out and grabbed my hair, twisting it tightly as he turned me towards him. My head was swimming. I reached up to knock his arm away and missed, clumsily swatting air instead.
The baron shook his head, his lips tight. “It really is too bad, my dear Victoria. We could have done this so much more easily.”
***
Next thing I knew, I was lying on a bed, naked, the darkness surrounding me complete.
I simply didn’t know what had happened. I had no memories in between, just a big, empty void. One minute I was in the garden and the next on a bed. I knew time had passed. I could sense that, but I couldn’t have told anyone how much if they’d held a gun to my throbbing head.
That’s not completely accurate. Disconnected shreds of memory remained: my champagne glass slipping out of my hand, falling and tumbling in slow motion, shattering into a million pieces on a stone. I could almost count the shards and drops of golden liquid as they flew outward from the impact. I also remember Baron Rudolph hitting me across the face with the back of his hand. The coldness in his eyes came back so vividly I had to fight the urge to put my arm up to protect myself.
Two other things. I remember looking up at that photo of me the baron had. My head was twisted uncomfortably to the side and something being done to me hurt like hell.
Even these small tatters of memory remained frustratingly insubstantial and disconnected. It was as if I were standing in impenetrable blackness and every so often a spotlight shone forth, illuminating a piece of the puzzle for a brief moment before I was engulfed by darkness once again.
Regaining consciousness felt like fighting my way up through a deep well stuffed with cotton. When I finally realized my eyes would open if I simply told them to, not much registered through the darkness. Rubbing my hands over my face, I tried to swallow down a bone-dry throat. My head throbbed like it never had before.
Various other aches and pains slowly began filtering through to my sluggish brain, and I concluded that I was indeed alive, but not sure I wanted to be. I had no clear idea how I’d gotten where I was. Hell! At that point I wasn’t even sure where there was. Was I indeed in Austria, or had the whole thing been one horrible, convoluted nightmare? Turning my head, I looked over at the bedside table. The glow of the numbers on the small clock/radio was where I remembered them—if I were in von Heislinger’s castle.
Right about that time, my bladder decided to take centre stage, and I began to contemplate actua
lly trying to stand. When I extended my hands to lever myself up, the left one slipped and I fell against something. That’s when I realized I was not alone in the bed. I rolled over the other way and clicked on the bedside light.
Big mistake.
The overwhelming impression that met my eyes was of red, rivers of screaming crimson, the hot colour of life, now congealing on the pristine white of the bed linens. Baron Rudolph, naked, with blank eyes staring upward into nothingness, lay brutally slaughtered mere inches away from me. Thinking only of putting distance between me and the obscenity I had been lying next to, I rolled off the bed, landing hard on the floor. My bladder gave way, and urine now stained the carpet, adding to the gut-churning stench of death that filled the room.
Staggering to the bathroom, I was violently ill into the toilet. The heaving only served to underscore how bad my entire body felt: the muscles in my shoulders ached as if they’d been forced into positions God hadn’t intended, my back began spasming as if I’d been sat on by a sumo wrestler, but most ominous of all was the electric pain arcing through my genitals and rectum each time I retched. What in the name of God had happened to me?
Eventually, the heaving stopped, and I managed to struggle to my feet. Leaning heavily on the sink for support, I peered into the mirror above it. My stomach rolled again when I saw the blood smeared all over one side of my face where it had been lying against the mattress. My hair was caked with it. This time I retched dryly into the sink. With nothing left to come up, the pain was worse.
My heart rate rose a few more notches after I gathered the courage to peek out of the bathroom doorway. My eyes confirmed that I hadn’t been dreaming, as I so desperately hoped. The baron’s body, pale and waxy-looking in the weak light of the bedside lamp, lay propped up on some pillows with the head tilted back, revealing a deep, gaping wound across his throat like some obscene second mouth. Blood had gushed from it, soaking the sheets and comforter and dripping to the floor before the flow had been ended by a final plunging of the knife into the centre of his chest. Its handle still showed blackly against the scarlet stains covering his chest.