Fiddle Game (20 page)

He went in the back again and returned with an enameled steel box full of tools. I picked a little maglight, shone it in one f-hole, and peeked in the other one. I didn’t need a mirror or a magnifying glass to read the name Yamaha.

“This label is oval-shaped and sort of big,” I said. “Is that what a Yamaha label should look like?”

“Who the hell knows? The logo is right. Sometimes companies change the shape of the rest of it over the years. And they have been making Yamahas for a while, you know. I don’t know them all.”

“Uh huh. Give me the tweezers, will you?”

“Sure.” He handed me something that looked like a surgical tool. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Peel the label off.”

“Excuse me for saying so, Herman, but now you’re talking like the amateur you are. Those things aren’t meant just to be peeled off. They’re stuck on with some damned good glue that has to be steamed or scraped or…”

“It’s coming.”

“It can’t be.”

But it did. First one small arc of an edge, then a bigger and bigger blister, and finally the whole thing. The label paper wasn’t exactly happy about it, but it didn’t pull apart, either, and soon I had it hanging from the jaws of my tool like the skin of a tiny molting reptile. I carefully pulled it out through the f-hole and held it up.

“Looks like stickyback,” said Rosie. “Sort of yellowy-colored, but definitely new.”

But Pete wasn’t looking at the newly peeled label. He was peering intently into the f-hole again, where the faded black script on a crackled paper label could still be clearly seen to say, “Nicolò Amati, A.D. 1643.”

“Holy shit,” he said.

“No, just an old violin,” said Rosie. But she took a look, too.

“Of some kind,” I said. “Have you got anything here that will make a small, directable jet of steam?”

“I got a thingy I use to clean complicated jewelry sometimes. What do you want it for?”

“Now we’re going to see what’s under the Amati label.”

Chapter Nineteen

Fiddle Game

Considering that the mighty Mississippi was once the very highway of commerce for St. Paul, it’s amazing how much of the present-day waterfront is either undeveloped or abandoned. On the flats below limestone bluffs that hold up downtown are some railroad tracks, an empty warehouse that used to hold huge rolls of paper for the
Pioneer Press
, the back door of the jail, and at the bottom of the appropriately named Steep Street, the County Morgue.

Farther upstream, I’m told there used to be an Italian neighborhood called, not too surprisingly, Little Italy. But it couldn’t survive the triple plagues of flood, fire, and the Zoning Board, and by the time I came to St. Paul the area had reverted to a wasteland of weeds, scrubby trees, and surreptitiously dumped junk. There was also a scrapyard and two power plants, one abandoned and one working, but the dominant landscape was urban wilderness. They shot a really awful movie there once, with Keanu Reeves and Cameron Diaz, about small-time crooks. I think the former Little Italy was where they went to bump people off.

Next to the river, there’s a couple miles of paved walkway. Nobody ever uses it because it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s exposed to traffic on the area’s only road, and you can’t park within half a mile of either end. Also, the police don’t patrol it much. And that’s where Gerald Cox, which was not his name, chose to trade me eighteen thousand dollars for my violin, which was not really mine. And I didn’t even consider refusing. Was the spell of the thing getting to me, too?

Wilkie didn’t like the setup, but then, he wouldn’t. When he covers my back, he likes to do it from close range, where his sheer physical presence and strength are big advantages, and his lack of speed doesn’t matter. He also likes to hear what is going on, and in the time we had to get ready, there was no way we could get a hidden radio rigged up. Somehow, I didn’t think the hastily scrounged cell phone in my pocket, even with an open connection, was going to be much help. I had slightly more faith in the nine-millimeter semiauto tucked into the belt clip at the small of my back. Slightly. I didn’t have a whole lot of faith in anything just then. But if we quibbled about the setup, we were liable to get another one just as bad, besides making our man more wary and less likely to go through with the deal at all. I didn’t want that. I wanted some kind of conclusion. It was time to quit being sneaky and clever and make something happen.

The offer was simple enough:

And wasn’t that just too, too fearsomely cloak and daggerish? Some bored bureaucrat, dying for a bit of drama and intrigue? Wilkie bitched and said it was the perfect setup for a hit. Rosie just rolled her eyes and shook her head sadly. I accepted the offer. Then I went off to the Amtrak depot to wait for the train. After all, it wouldn’t do for me to get killed down by the river if I hadn’t yet come back from Seattle.

***

There weren’t a lot of streetlights along Shepard Road to begin with, and several had lamps that needed replacing. The ones that worked made a ragged line from the black parking lot of the abandoned power plant to the illuminated arches of the Robert Street Bridge, some three or more miles distant. The walkway itself wasn’t lit at all. It was not as dark as the cellar in Skokie had been, but it damn sure wasn’t the Great White Way, either. On my right was a line of concrete freeway barriers about three feet high, which are used to hold sandbags during floods. I touched the tops now and then to keep my spatial orientation. Beyond them, the river rushed and gurgled, occasionally showing a glint of reflected light on its dark, undulating surface. It looked fast, powerful, and very close, and it occurred to me that I would not care to find myself trying to swim in it. No wonder Wilkie hadn’t liked the setup. But I had agreed to be there, I reminded myself, and it was too late to back out now. The streetlights beckoned and I went.

Off to my left, the expanse of scrubby brush got wider as I went east, downstream, finally flaring out to a full quarter of a mile. Rosie was out there somewhere, shadowing me as well as she could without being too obvious about it. Our thinking was that if she got spotted, our mystery man, assuming he was local, was not so likely to associate her with me, though the new all-black catburglar outfit she insisted on wearing probably made her more, rather than less, conspicuous. Wilkie, on the other hand, would stand out like Wilkie, no matter what he wore. I didn’t know where he was. He had told me I didn’t want to know and I had believed him. But wherever my people were, I definitely felt alone. Alone and vulnerable.

I started down the walk exactly at midnight, using one of the flashlights I had bought in Skokie for occasional guidance and moral support, carrying the violin case in my left hand. I walked steadily but not in any hurry, and I stopped from time to time to listen to the river. There was nothing else to listen to. No footsteps, no cocking of guns, no banshees or werewolves.

A thousand yards down the walkway, as I was about to pass under High Bridge, I came upon a leather briefcase sitting on top of one of the flood barriers. It had a tiny flashlight on it which was turned on, presumably so I wouldn’t miss the case in the dark. I stopped and played my own flashlight beam over it, and I saw something glint on the side, under the handle. When I went closer, I could see it was a shiny brass plate. Closer still, and I saw my name engraved on it.
Nice touch. A personalized booby trap
. But I didn’t think so. I put the violin down on the sidewalk.

From inside my jacket pocket, I could hear a small, tinny version of Wilkie’s voice. I think he was trying to whisper and scream at the same time.

“Don’t open that thing, Herman! Don’t even touch it!”

I popped the latches.

“Goddamn it, Herman, I know you can hear me!”

I opened the lid.

“Get away from that thing, now!”

I looked. Inside the case were several stacks of bundled bills and a note. The bills were all used twenties, and I didn’t try to count them, but it seemed like about the right amount of bulk for eighteen grand. The note was not as elegant as the brass plate. Done in magic marker on a plain sheet of typing paper, it simply said:

Simple enough. I saw no reason to argue with any of those instructions, other than the fact that I had really come there to meet their author. I snapped the case shut, picked it up, placed the violin in the same spot, and stepped back. But I didn’t leave right away. I had no urge to kiss the fiddle, or even shake hands with it, but it didn’t seem right simply to turn away and never look at it again. Maybe I thought it owed me an apology.

In my pocket, the mechanized Wilkie shouted, “Will you please get the hell out of there?” His voice had less conviction than before, but I knew he was right. As I was about to oblige him, I heard the crack of doom from the jungle to my left. It was loud and high-pitched, and it had that kind of lingering reverberation that comes only from very high-powered, heavy caliber rifles. A deer rifle, I thought. Definitely not one of Rosie’s handguns. Not a seven-millimeter, either. I hit the dirt, or rather the sidewalk, and put the briefcase over my head.

The first shot hit the concrete bumper, close to the center, making a distressingly large crater and showering me with shards and powder.
One shot to find the range. The next one will be for real
. The second one hit the violin. It hit it squarely and explosively, smashing both case and instrument into splinters and dust and sending all the pieces spinning off into space. Or rather, into the black river, which swept them away forever. I tipped the briefcase up on edge, making an inadequate wall out of it, and I braced myself for the heavy slug that I was sure would find me next. After a second, I also drew my knees up in front of my torso, thinking it was better to have a shattered leg than a bullet in the gut. Then I drew the nine millimeter from under my jacket, and I waited. And waited. Where the hell were my partners?

There was no third shot.

After what seemed like forever, Rosie came running at me from the bushes, her big revolver at high port, eyes scanning all directions.

“Herman? Herman, if you’re dead, I am going to be so damn pissed at you, I’ll never let you forget it.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Flattered?
What about shot?”

“No.” I rose to a more dignified position and started to stand all the way up.

“Well, maybe you ought to be. I mean, walking into a setup like that, with…”

“Herman? You okay, my man? You catch one?” Wilkie, this time, breaking out of the bushes like a small herd of mammoths. He had some kind of an assault rifle with a night scope, but having no target for it, he didn’t quite seem to know what to do with the thing.

“I already had this conversation, Wide. I mean, if you can’t come in at the beginning, you could at least…”

“You sure you’re not shot?”

“I’m sure. I’d have noticed, you know? Are you sure you didn’t catch anybody?”

“Um,” said Rosie.

“Well, see…” said Wilkie

I put the nine back in its holster and dusted off my clothes. It definitely wasn’t the way I had expected the scene to play out, but I was fairly certain it was over. At least as far as our mysterious Mr. Cox was concerned, it was. He had given us money, bullets, and excitement, but no interview, thank you.

“Anybody see anything?”

“Muzzle flashes off that way,” said Wilkie, pointing to a wall of vegetation that looked like the rain forest on the banks of the Amazon, black and impenetrable.

“Let’s have a look.” I picked up the flashlight from where I had dropped it and headed that way.

“Are you nuts?” said Wilkie.

“He could still be there,” said Rosie.

“I don’t think so. If he wanted me dead, I’d already be that way. I think he’s gone.”

“So what did he want?” said Rosie.

“Obviously, he wanted to destroy the violin. And he likes rivers better than bonfires, I guess.”

“That’s crazy,” she said.

“No, but I think it may be tragic, in the classic sense.”

“Same thing,” said Wilkie. He went ahead for a bit, to beat a trail into the brush. We could smell the cordite now, as sweet as lingering lilacs on the cool night air.

“What’s in the case?” he said. “The one that you picked up in spite of all my good advice.”

“Money.”

“Real money?”

“It sure looks real, anyway. And I’d be willing to bet it’s exactly the right amount.”

“I don’t get it,” said Wilkie.

“Me either,” said Rosie.

“I think I do. I think in his own way, our Mr. Cox is an honorable man. That’s why he offered me eighteen thousand, the exact value of my bond. He was buying the violin back and giving me a chance to get clear of it. Not to get rich or even to make a profit, mind you, just to get clear. And if I took the money, that would show him I was honorable, too, and he would settle for that.”

“But why…?”

“It was the final con, the one that got him clear, too. He not only had to destroy the violin, he had to be sure I saw it destroyed. That was the whole point.”

“But it’s not…”

“Here,” said Wilkie, shining his own flashlight on a small clearing in the bushes. The brush was trampled down a bit there, and on the ground lay a very old, heavy rifle. It fit. In fact, everything finally fit.

“Mauser?” I said.

“The man knows his guns.”

“No I don’t, but I know my history. Sometimes I even know my modern myth. The gun is a throwback to another age, and so is our shooter. Also a romantic. I think he left it here to show us that the affair is over, that he’s done with it.”

I picked up the rifle and looked at the oiled metal and polished wood, lovingly cared for by professional hands. Hands I had seen. Big, strong hands that could push a carving chisel through a block of hard maple, without using a mallet. Hands that could also break somebody’s neck.

“I can’t believe how long it took me to figure it out,” I said. “I know this man.”

“It’s the German?” said Wilkie.

“Yes.” I nodded. “The German from the Ardennes Forest. Only, now he makes fine violins and even better coffee. He also tells great stories. His name is G. B. Feinstein.”

***

“I don’t sell…” he began, not looking up from his work.

“Out of the shop,” I finished for him. “I knew that already.”

I held up a package of rolls and a bottle. “Actually, I came here hoping for some coffee.”

He put down the chisel, stood up, and laughed, the only time I ever saw him do so.

“Ah, coffee,” he said. “Well, that would be a different matter altogether. Come in,
mein herr
.”

The cinnamon rolls weren’t quite as fresh this time, but they weren’t bad. I figured the delivery man from the bakery wouldn’t buy my phony cop routine a second time, so I followed his truck to an all-night convenience store and bought the rolls, legit. I also stopped at Lefty’s bar and got the bottle, not quite so legit. Lefty’s license technically doesn’t allow him to sell liquor for consumption off the premises, but he indulged me, for future times’ sake. He does enough things outside the law that, while he might not always accommodate a cop or even a wise guy, he won’t risk offending his bondsman. Every profession has its perks, they say.

Feinstein brewed the coffee in the same freestyle way as he had when we first met, and as the aroma began to fill his shop and we smeared butter on the warm rolls, it was tempting to think that nothing had happened since that first time. But of course, it had, and we both knew this was as much a farewell as a reunion.

“I didn’t expect to see you again,
Herr
Herman.”