Maestro: 4 (The Herbie Kruger Novels)

by John Gardner

On that night, Charlie and Louis gave the more garish of these places a wide berth, eventually stopping outside a small night spot, reached by going down a short flight of narrow stairs from the sidewalk, once used exclusively for tradesmen and deliveries. The door to what had originally been the servants’ quarters was now slicked up with bright paint, and a shabby little awning was fixed above it so that the entrance appeared to be capped by an old-style poke bonnet.

  The door was open, the glow of dim lights from the inside enticing, beckoning the boys like a pretty girl with her skirts. More than this, music filtered up onto the street—a kind of music Louis had never heard before.

  “Ya wanna go in?” Charlie asked.

  By instinct they knew this was really forbidden ground for a couple of youngsters, but the music was so different, and so attractive to Louis, that he was forced to nod agreement.

  They crept down the steps and loitered, uneasily, by the door. Inside, the room was packed; smoke hung in the air and the conversation was at a low level, as though everyone was intent on listening to the music.

  Nobody stopped them as they slipped inside. Most of the people had glasses in their hands, and there seemed to be a large number of gaudily dressed young women in the place. The clientele was mainly black, with a sprinkling of whites.

  On a platform at the far end of the cellarlike room, a man sat at a piano and thumped out a slow, heady rhythm, while a fat black woman sang a sad wail of a song.

  “Come on,” Louis whispered, and they edged through the crowd until they stood just below the platform.

  “I thought I heard Buddy Bolden’ shout,

  Open up that window, let the bad air out,” the black woman sang.

  “Oh, I thought I heard Buddy Bolden shout

  Open up that damned window, let the bad air out,

  Just open the window, let the bad air out.

  I thought I heard him shout.”

  Louis was more interested in the new-sounding chords of the pianist than the words of the song, which seemed to be treated with great respect by the people who listened.

  “I thought I heard Judge Fogarty say,

  Thirty days in the workhouse, take him away …”

  At the end of the song, there was immediate applause and cheers from the crowd. The singer left the platform, but the pianist continued to play. The music was very different from that which he had played while accompanying the singer. In this man’s hands the piano seemed to develop from one instrument into a whole group. First, Louis distinguished a constant and heavily rhythmic beat in the left hand. This was good, he thought. It made you want to tap your foot. Aaron was always quoting the great Mozart at him—“Mozart said that rhythm is the most important aspect of music.” Well, this guy certainly thought the thumping rhythm was all-important, but Louis marveled at what the man’s right hand was doing. There were chords, and mixed melodic lines that would have been very difficult to repeat, or even follow, on any other instrument. It was an entire small band playing there at the fingertips of one man.

  Someone reached up and put a glass of beer on the piano. The pianist stopped to take a short break and drink his beer. As he did so, he caught Louis’ eye and gave him a big smile. Almost at the same moment, both Charlie and Louis felt large hands grasp their collars.

  “What in hell you two kids think you’re doing here, huh? You got no business here.”

  Twisting their necks, they saw the hands belonged to a massive black man who did not look at all happy. “C’mon, you both outta here.” Their captor started to pull at the boys, almost lifting them off their feet.

  “Hey, whacha doin’?” Charlie shouted. “I’m fuckin’ seventeen years old.”

  Loudly, and steadily, Louis lied, “I’m seventeen. We came to listen to the music. I’m a musician. Let me go.”

  Hearing this, the man at the piano gave a huge laugh. “The gentleman’s a musician, Joey. Send him up here. Don’ spoil the fun.”

  Louis felt himself being hoisted up onto the platform, while the man who had been holding them reluctantly released Charlie.

  “So, you a musician, kid?” The man at the piano smiled, showing brilliant white teeth. He smelled of booze and was, Louis thought, not much more than five years older than himself.

  “Yeah, I’m a musician, but I never heard music like you play.”

  “That so?”

  “Is it ragtime?” He had heard Aaron muttering things about ragtime being the music of the devil.

  “Hell, no kid. This ain’t ragtime. This jass.”

  “Play some more.”

  The pianist grinned, and Louis watched carefully, noting rhythms, melodies and chords, as the magic fingers ran over the keys. “Boy, this is jass,” the player repeated.

  “It’s not like the music I play.”

  “You know about music, kid?”

  “Quite a lot, yes.”

  “Okay, this music is known as stride. Stride piano ain’t difficult. Ten-note chords, right? Watch. Ten-note chords; steady heavy rhythm, and give ’em a good mixture. If you can play two notes at once, you give ’em melody and harmony at the same time, got it?”

  Louis nodded and watched. He certainly did get it.

  Suddenly the pianist stopped. “Okay? You got it, kid. Your turn. You a musician. You play.”

  He was trying to have a joke at Louis’ expense, the boy knew that, but, stubbornly, he decided he could beat the man at his own game. “Okay.” He tried to sound diffident, rearranging the piano stool, then concentrating.

  Louis natural gift of musical memory and mimicry surfaced. His head was accurately full of the melodies, harmonies and rhythms he had just heard. Placing his hands on the keyboard, he began.

  After a few stumbling attempts he suddenly discovered that, just like learning to swim, this kind of music came naturally to his fingers and brain, already so used to the mathematical intricacies of Bach.

  In fact, after playing a few bars of the pianist’s own music, settled firmly into his memory, Louis began to put in his own melodies—only they were not his, but originally those of the master, Johann Sebastian Bach. The result, he thought, was not bad for a first attempt. Was this, perhaps, the freedom in music about which Aaron was always talking?—“There is no logic. No real rules. In music you are free.”

  The boy lost all sense of time. He also felt the crowd fall into a feet-tapping silence, punctuated by the occasional call of, “Play, kid, play!” or “Go, man, go! Git on out there!”

  He finished to a roar of applause, and had a feeling he often experienced these days on waking in the morning. Lightheaded, and stiff between the thighs.

  “Hey, kid,” the pianist beamed beside him. “You right. You a real musician, okay. What’s you name?”

  “Louis. Louis Packensteiner.”

  “Well, Louis. Well, I reckon we’ll be hearing more from you. Shake some skin, boy.” He extended a hand. “Just call me Jim. Name’s Johnson. James P. Johnson, and you’re welcome to play here any time you want.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Johnson, but I guess we better be gettin’ home now.”

  “Your ma and pa know you’re out?”

  “Yea, but I reckon we’re kinda late.”

  “Well, you take care goin’ home. See ya, kid.”

  Charlie looked amazed, awed even, as Louis climbed down from the platform. His feet touched the floor and a very pretty, slim black girl smiled at him. “My, my, you’re sure a neat piano player, shugah,” she said, leaning forward and kissing Louis on the mouth.

  This was another new experience. The girl filled his mouth with her tongue, and at the same time cupped a hand to the stiffness between his thighs. “Why,” she giggled. “Well, you sure got something that should be taken care of. That where you do your piano practice?” She kissed him again, her tongue reaching to the back of his throat, and her hand kneading him between his legs so that he exploded, panting, his seed pulsing into his underdrawers.

  When he finally left with Charlie,
Louis was hobbling. He felt that he had been drained and his testicles ached. In the back of his head, he knew that he would soon have to do the real thing. Maybe he could come back here and find the girl again. She would do it with him, he knew she would.

  But even this wonderful, though fast, semi-initiation, went from his mind when he realized it was getting close to eleven o’clock. They managed to get an omnibus, but it only went so far. Their final route, after the bus dropped them off, led through dangerous ground. They discussed it during the ride.

  “Nothing else for it,” Louis said, “we have to walk.”

  They both knew it meant going through a predominantly Jewish area. At this time of night the ardent young Jewish hoodlums would be around—Havemeyer Streeters or one of their off-shoots. “That’s okay for you, Pianist. You’re Jewish. Not the kinda place for a good Italian boy like me.”

  “You seen me through Italian turf, Cholly. I’ll take you through Jewish turf. It’s easy.”

  “Thought you had nothing to do with the gangs around here.” Charlie sounded surly.

  “I don’t, Cholly, but think of it as me returning a favor. I’ll see you’re okay. I promise.”

  Charlie was unhappy, but Louis felt full of confidence after the night’s experience. They took to the streets and walked rapidly, keeping to the more crowded thoroughfares and better-lit areas.

  At last, though, they could not avoid taking a cut through a dark alley which would lead them close to their own home ground. They hesitated, then turned the corner. A gas lamp burned, throwing flickering shadows against the brickwork. Then, both boys pulled up like startled horses. The shadows parted to reveal three youngsters, lounging, as though waiting for them.

  The three boys were a good deal older than both Louis and Charlie, who whispered, “Here we go.”

  “Don’ worry,” Louis said, feeling his stomach turn over.

  “Who we got on our territory, then?” The trio stepped directly in front of them. Louis thought, immediately, of the day Aaron had saved him. But this was different, uglier.

  “Goyim,” one of the boys said, spitting.

  “Shalom,” Louis said loudly. “I’m not a goy. Louis Packensteiner, taking a friend home. No fuss, okay?”

  The largest boy peered into his face. “You look kosher, but who’s your pal?”

  One of the others had gone up to Charlie. “Lousy wop, we got. Lousy fuckin’ wop.” He turned on Louis. “What’s a Jewish boy doin’ with a stinking wop bastard, then?”

  “He’s okay.”

  “Okay my ass. Nor’re you okay, bein’ with him.”

  Charlie spoke for the first time. “Ya want trouble, yid, then ya got it.”

  “Let’s deal with the goyim-lover first, eh?” The leader took another step towards Louis.

  All three of them must have seen the glint of Charlie’s knife. It was the first time Louis even knew his friend carried one, but there it was: a sudden click and gleam in his hand, the long blade pointing outwards, and Charlie’s body assuming a crouch.

  The next few seconds confused Louis. He heard the leader shout something about getting the Jewish traitor first, and he saw the boy’s long coat open up to reveal a heavy, metal shape rising towards his face. A shotgun, the barrel pointing full between his eyes.

  Then Charlie gave him a push to one side, sending him sprawling, shouting, “Run, Lou! Just run! Get outta da way!”

  But Charlie had fallen sideways right into the blast. The explosion filled the alley as the shotgun was fired. Charlie screamed as a whole charge of rock salt hit him. Rock salt was a favorite weapon for street hoodlums. Real shot was difficult to come by, and expensive, so they made their own cartridges from black powder and rock salt. It rarely killed, which was another plus.

  He caught the charge full on the left side of his face: a spray which lacerated his cheek, making long, deep, pockmarked wounds: marks he would bear for the rest of his life.

  “Charlie was lucky not to lose an eye. But he believed in a scar for a scar, Herbie. He was Sicilian, you see. He made the boy pay.”

  Already Kruger began to see a dark shadow over the story, a shadow cast right into the present.

  Charlie was back on his feet, and saw that the leader was the only one properly armed. The others just had blackjacks, or socks packed with nails.

  Again, he shouted at Louis, telling him to run. But Louis stood transfixed. Then Charlie sprang towards the boy who had put a couple of barrels of rock salt into his face. His hand came up, flicking the shotgun away like a piece of matchwood, his wrist performing a swift up and down movement. “It was like some tennis player’s best shot: the wrist and the hand working with the entire strength of his arm behind it, Herb. Never will I forget that.”

  The one with the shotgun gave a scream of agony. Even in the half light Louis saw that the boy’s face had been slit. Blood poured from his cheek and the shotgun fell to the ground with a clatter.

  Charlie whirled around, as another of the boys came at him, flailing a sock full of heavy nails. He was inside the boy’s guard with a duck and a weave. There was a second cry, louder than the first, as Charlie meted out the same treatment—the slit from ear to jaw: and all of this happening before the sound of the shotgun blast had died away. “Herbie, those guys could’ve poked their tongues right through their cheeks. The knife had really opened them up.”

  The third Jewish boy was not taking chances. He turned and ran as his two pals groped around, moaning and clutching their faces with hands dyed in their own blood.

  Louis Passau paused and, during that pause, Big Herbie Kruger saw Charlie today, as clearly as he had seen him only a few nights ago at Lincoln Center.

  A very old man who knew he was a king, desperately trying to straighten his back, bent by years. His silk evening suit magnificently cut, as though the tailor had used a black art to take years off the man, who still retained a full head of dark hair. Gold flashed at his wrists. Somehow anyone would know this man held a key to power, though the left side of his face seemed horribly scarred and pockmarked.

  “Don Carlo Giarre,” Herbie said in a whisper.

  “Of course, Carlo Giarre,” Passau laughed. “Sometimes, for fun, I’d call him Cholly.” The old man imitated the accent he must have used in those far-off years. “When it happened, Carlo again told me to run. We both ran and, some years later, he taught me the trick with the knife. It’s a very old form of Sicilian punishment. In America during those years it became a trademark. Sometimes other gangs would copy it, to shift the blame.”

  As they ran, Louis shouted, asking if Carlo was okay. “Does it hurt bad, Cholly?” He could see that the cheek looked like a steak ready for the broiler.

  “Stings like fuck. It’s gone in deep, and I’ll be marked, but not such a mark as those kike bastards’ll carry to their graves. No offense, Louis.”

  “How could I have taken offense, Herb? I knew that Carlo had saved my life that night. I was forever in his debt. I owed the man a life.”

  “And did you ever pay him, Lou?”

  “Pay him? No, I foolishly increased the debt, to the point where Carlo’s honor had to be satisfied. He’s waited a long time, as you’ll see. We were friends for many, many years, and did much together. But now …” He raised his hands, in a plaintive gesture.

  Herbie thought he looked like one of the saints you saw in a stained glass window, depicting the Holy Ghost’s arrival on the heads of the Apostles.

  (13)

  “BY THE TIME I was seventeen, Herbie, you know what I could do?”

  “Surprise me, Lou.”

  They had lunched on Herbie’s Lancashire Hotpot, which the old Maestro had pronounced, “Wonderful! Excellent! The best I ever tasted. What was it?” Now, Passau continued his narrative.

  “I could play most of the repertoire’s concertos without music; also things like the Goldberg Variations without music—though not on a harpsichord because we didn’t have a harpsichord. I could sight-read any s
core: hear the whole orchestra in my head. Also, Aaron, after a lot of hints from me, arranged for me to have a few hours instruction with a famous conductor—at least he was famous, you will never have heard of him. …”

  Herbie bristled, “Who? What was his name?”

  Passau gave him a superior smirk. “Believe me, Herbie, this was a great coup. Aaron Hamovitch had the most incredible contacts. He got me three hours with Karl Muck. There, you ever hear of Karl Muck? I doubt it.”

  “We’re talking about the Karl Muck who would be with the Boston Symphony Orchestra about that time?” Herbie gave a self-satisfied, semiautomatic smile. He could feel the invisible bullets catching Louis Passau right in the hauteur.

  “So?” He was trying to sound enigmatic. “Not many people know of Karl Muck these days.”

  “If it’s the Karl Muck who was an absolute bastard with other musicians; the Karl Muck who carried dueling scars from Heidelberg with pride, and dressed in Edwardian fashion until his death, I think sometime in the thirties; the one there was all the trouble about when it was said he refused to play “The Star-Spangled Banner,’ and whose last concert was for Hitler? If it was that Karl Muck, then I know him.”

  “It was all lies about him refusing to play “The Star-Spangled Banner. People made that up, and said he was anti-American. But, if you know of him, Herb, then you’ll realize it was a tremendous coup for Aaron Hamovitch. You know something about music, Herb?”

  “Why you think I was put on this in the first place, Louis? Because I knew about the cubists? Muck was an autocrat. Did not like some musicians. Was very rigid. Would never tinker with scores like some conductors.”

  “Your blessed Mahler for one, Herbie. You know, in Vienna, Gustav Mahler would never change a note. When he came to New York he would cut great chunks from scores. He thought Americans knew nothing about music: thought they were Indians and cowboys. Once he even reduced Mozart—Don Giovanni—from three and a half hours, which is about right, to two and three quarters hours. Your precious Mahler was a genius with his music, but not a very agreeable man. You know that?”

  “I know all there is to know about Gustav Mahler, and a good bit about all the others. Yes, as you say, quite a coup for your friend Hamovitch. Karl Muck, I recall, once refused to bother with a new composer because they told him, ‘this is a self-made man.’ He said …”