Fiddlers Read online

  Fiddlers

  Ed Mcbain

  Ed McBain

  Fiddlers

  1.

  THE MANAGER OF NINOTCHKR was a wiseguy named Dominick La Paglia. Not a made man, but mob-connected, with a string of arrests dating back to when he was seventeen. Served time on two separate occasions, once for assault with intent, the other for dealing drugs. He insisted the club was clean, you couldn’t even buy an inhaler in the place.

  ‘We get an older crowd here,’ La Paglia said. ‘Ninotchka is all about candlelight and soft music. A balalaika band, three violinists wandering from table to table during intermission, the old folks holding hands when they’re not on the floor dancing. Never any trouble here, go ask your buddies up Narcotics.’

  ‘Tell us about Max Sobolov,’ Carella said.

  This was now eleven P.M. on Wednesday night, the sixteenth day of June. The three men were standing in the alleyway where the violinist had been shot twice in the face.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ La Paglia asked.

  ‘How long was he working here?’

  ‘Long time. Two years?’

  ‘You hired a blind violinist, right?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘To wander from table to table, right?’

  ‘Place is dark, anyway, what difference would it make to a blind man?’ La Paglia said. ‘He played violin good. Got blinded in the Vietnam War, you know. Man’s a war hero, somebody aces him in an alleyway.’

  ‘How about the other musicians working here? Any friction between Sobolov and them?’ Meyer asked.

  ‘No, he was blind,’ La Paglia said. ‘Everybody’s very nice to blind people.’

  Except when they shoot them twice in the face, Carella thought.

  ‘Or anybody else in the club? Any of the bartenders, waitresses, whoever?’

  ‘Cloakroom girl?’

  ‘Bouncer? Whoever?’

  ‘No, he got along with everybody.’

  ‘So tell us what happened here tonight,’ Carella said.

  ‘Were you here when he got shot?’

  ‘I was here.’

  ‘Give us the sequence,’ Meyer said, and took out his notebook.

  The way La Paglia tells it, the club closes at two in the morning every night of the week. The band plays its last set at one thirty, the violinists take their final stroll, angling for tips, at a quarter to. Bartenders have already served their last-call drinks, waitresses are already handing out the checks…

  ‘You know the Cole Porter line?’ La Paglia asked. ‘“Before the fiddlers have fled”? One of the greatest lyrics ever written. That’s what closing time is like. But this must’ve been around ten, ten thirty when Max went out for a smoke. We don’t allow smoking in the club, half the geezers have emphysema, anyway. I was at the bar, talking to an old couple who are regulars, they never take a table, they always sit at the bar. It was a slow night, Wednesdays are always slow, they were talking about moving down to Florida. They were telling me all about Sarasota when I heard the shots.’

  ‘You recognized them as shots?’

  La Paglia raised his eyebrows.

  Come on, his look said. You think I don’t know shots when I hear them?

  ‘No,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I thought they were backfires, right?’

  ‘What’d you do?’

  ‘I ran out in the alley. He was already dead. Laying on his back, blood all over his face. White cane on the ground near his right hand.’

  ‘See anybody?’

  ‘Sure, the killer hung around to be identified.’

  Meyer was thinking sarcasm didn’t play too well on a mobster.

  * * * *

  The Sobolov family was sitting shiva.

  Meyer had been here, done this, but today was the first time Carella had ever been to a Jewish wake. He simply followed suit. When he saw Meyer taking off his shoes outside the open door to the apartment, he took off his shoes as well.

  ‘The doors are left open so visitors can come in without distracting the mourners,’ Meyer told him. ‘No knocking or ringing of bells.’

  He was washing his hands in a small basin of water resting on a chair to the right of the door. Carella followed suit.

  ‘I’m not a religious person,’ Meyer said. ‘I don’t know why we wash our hands before going in.’

  This was all so very new to Carella. There were perhaps two dozen people in the Sobolov living room. Five of them were sitting on low benches. Meyer later explained that these were supplied by the funeral home.

  All of the mirrors in the house were covered with cloth, and a large candle was burning in one corner of the room.

  In accordance with Jewish custom, Sobolov had been buried at once, and the family had begun sitting shiva as soon as they got home from the funeral. This was now Friday morning, the eighteenth day of June. The men in the family had not shaved. The women wore no makeup. There was a deep sense of loss in this house. Carella had been to Irish wakes, where the women keened, but where there was also laughter and much drinking. He had been to Italian wakes, where the women shrieked and tore at their clothing. The prevailing mood here was silent grief.

  The apartment belonged to Max’s younger brother and his wife. The brother’s name was Sidney. The wife was Susan. Both of Max’s parents were dead, but there was an elderly uncle present, and also several cousins.

  The uncle spoke with a heavy accent, Russian or Middle European, it was difficult to tell which. He told the detectives stories about when Max was still a little boy. How his parents had purchased for him a toy violin that Max took to at once…

  ‘You should have seen him, a regular Yehudi Menuhin!’

  The brother Sidney told them that his parents had immediately started Max taking lessons…

  ‘On a real violin, never mind a toy,’ the uncle said.

  … and within months he was playing complicated violin pieces…

  ‘His teacher was astonished!’

  ‘He had such an aptitude,’ one of the cousins said.

  ‘A natural,’ Sidney agreed. ‘He was so sensitive, so feeling.’

  ‘The kindest person.’

  ‘Such a sweet little boy.’

  ‘When he played, your heart could melt.’

  ‘All his goodness came out in his playing.’

  ‘What a player!’ the uncle said.

  Sidney told them that no one was surprised when his brother was accepted at the Kleber School, or when Kusmin put him in his private class. ‘Alexei Kusmin,’ he explained. ‘The head of violin studies there.’

  ‘Max had a wonderful career ahead of him.’

  ‘But then, of course…’ one of the cousins said.

  ‘He got drafted.’

  ‘The war,’ his uncle said, and clucked his tongue.

  ‘Vietnam.’

  ‘Twenty-fifth Infantry Division.’

  ‘Second Brigade.’

  ‘D Company.’

  ‘B Company, it was.’

  ‘No, Sidney, it was D.’

  ‘I used to write to him, it was B.’

  ‘All right, already. Whatever it was, he came back blind.’

  ‘Dreadful,’ Susan said, and shook her head.

  ‘It began at the hospital,’ his uncle said. ‘The drug use.’

  ‘Before then,’ his brother said. ‘It started over there. In Vietnam.’

  ‘But mostly, it was the hospital.’

  ‘Medicinal,’ his brother said, nodding.

  ‘The VA hospital.’

  This was the first the detectives were hearing about drug use.

  They listened.

  ‘And also, you know, musicians,’ one of the cousins said. ‘It’s prevalent.”

  ‘But mostly the pain,’ the uncle said.

  ‘Unde
rstandable,’ another cousin said.

  ‘Besides, everybody smokes a little grass every now and then,’ a third cousin said.

  ‘It should only be just a little grass,’ the uncle said, and wagged his head sympathetically.

  ‘And yet,’ his brother said, ‘right to the day he died, he was the sweetest, most loving person on earth.’

  ‘A wonderful human being.’

  ‘A mensch,’ the uncle agreed.

  * * * *

  Only one of the girls was really beautiful, but the other one was cute, too. He hadn’t expected either of them to be prizes. You call an escort service, they’re not about to send you a couple of movie stars.

  The woman on the phone yesterday had said, ‘You know what this is gonna cost you, man?’

  She sounded black.

  ‘Price is no object,’ he’d said.

  ‘Just so you know, it’s a thousand for each girl for the night. Comes to two K, plus a tip is customary.’

  ‘No problem,’ he’d said.

  ‘Usually twenty percent.’

  He thought this was high, but he said nothing.

  ‘Which’ll come to twenty-four hundred total. You could make it an even twenty-five, you were feeling generous.’

  ‘Credit card okay?’ he’d asked.

  ‘American Express, Visa, or MasterCard,’ she’d said. ‘What time did you want them?’

  ‘Seven sharp,’ he’d said. ‘Can you make it a blonde and a redhead?’

  ‘How about a nice Chinese girl?’

  ‘No, not tonight.’

  ‘Or a luscious sistuh?’

  He wondered if she had herself in mind.

  ‘Just a blonde and a redhead. In their twenties, please.’

  ‘Le’me find you suppin nice,’ she’d said.

  The blonde was the real beauty. She told him her name was Trish. He didn’t think this was her real name. The redhead was the cute one. She said her name was Reggie, short for Regina, which he had to believe because who on earth would chose Regina as a phony name? He guessed Trish was in her mid-twenties. Reggie said she was nineteen. He believed that, too.

  ‘So what are we planning to do here tonight?’ Trish asked.

  She was the bubbly one. Wearing a short little black cocktail dress, high-heeled black sandals. Reggie was wearing green, to match her green eyes. Serious look on her Irish phizz, she should have been wearing glasses. Better legs than Trish, cute little cupcake breasts as opposed to the melons Trish was bouncing around. Neither of them was wearing a bra. They both wandered the hotel suite like it was the Taj Mahal.

  ‘Lookee here, two bedrooms!’ Trish said. ‘We can try both of them!’

  Before morning, they’d used both beds, and the big Jacuzzi tub in the marbled bathroom. It hadn’t worked anywhere.

  ‘Why don’t we try it again tonight?’ Trish suggested now.

  ‘I have other plans,’ he told her.

  ‘Then how about tomorrow night?’ she said.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  ‘Well, think about it,’ she said, and gave his limp cock a playful little tug, and then went off to shower. Reggie was drinking coffee at the dining-room table, wearing just her panties, tufts of wild red hair curling around the leg holes. Freckles on her bare little breasts. Nipples puckered.

  ‘We could do this alone sometime, you know,’ she said.

  He looked at her.

  ‘Just you and me. Sometimes it works better alone.’

  He kept looking at her.

  ‘Sometimes two girls are intimidating. Alone, we could do things we didn’t try last night.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. We’ll experiment.’

  ‘We will, huh?’

  ‘If you want to,’ she said. ‘Give it another try, you know?’ She lifted her coffee cup, drank, put it down on the table again. ‘And you wouldn’t have to go through the service,’ she said.

  Down the hall, he could hear the shower going.

  ‘You could call me direct,’ she said, ‘forget Sophisticates,’ and shoved back her chair and walked to the counter, and began writing on the hotel pad under the wall phone. Leaning over the counter, writing. White panties tight across her firm little ass. Nineteen years old. She tore the top sheet of paper from the pad, turned to him and grinned. Little Bugs Bunny grin. Freckles spattered on her cheeks and nose. Strutted back to the table barefooted. Plunked down the sheet of paper like a warrant.

  ‘Call me,’ she said.

  He picked up her number, looked at it.

  ‘Whenever,’ she said, serious now, the grin gone.

  ‘Well, not tonight,’ he said.

  Tonight he would have to kill Alicia Hendricks.

  * * * *

  He was worried that he wouldn’t have the strength to see him through all this. Not the mental conviction, no, not that - he knew he was doing the right thing, was convinced of that the moment he decided on what had to be done now, if ever, so that he could at last come to terms with what he bitterly labeled his so-called life. But would he have the actual physical strength he would need to carry him through to the end?

  The corrections had to be made, however painful.

  Yes. All the decisions not his own, all the paths traveled against his will, all the journeys to places he had not chosen for himself, these had to be adjusted. Now. They had to learn he was cognizant of the sins committed, they had to be made to realize. Even blind Sobolov, who could not see who was about to fire two shots into his face, had recognized in that last moment that this was redemption, had whispered a name on the sullen night air - ‘Charlie?’ - just before the thunder roared and the blood spurted.

  The problem now was staying strong.

  Not allowing the pain to divert him.

  Then he would get through this.

  * * * *

  Louis Hawkins was asleep when Carella and Meyer knocked on his door at noon that Friday.

  He told them at once that he’d worked till two A.M. last night, and didn’t get home till three, and he appreciated his sleep and didn’t much care for the police knocking on his door at the crack of dawn. Carella apologized for both cops, explained the urgency of constructing a timetable before a case got cold, and then politely asked if Hawkins could spare them a few moments of his time. Reluctantly, he let them into the apartment.

  All over the walls, there were photographs of a balding, gray-haired man playing a violin.

  ‘Stephane Grappelli,’ Hawkins explained. ‘You want coffee? What the hell, I’m awake now.’

  Barefooted and in his bathrobe, he stood at the kitchen counter, measuring out coffee by the spoonful.

  ‘Greatest jazz violinist who ever lived,’ he said. ‘Died in Paris seven years ago. Still playing when he was eighty-nine. You know what he said when he was eighty-five? A reporter asked him if he was considering retirement. Grappelli said, “Retirement! There isn’t a word that’s more painful to my ears. Music keeps me going. It has given me everything. It’s my fountain of youth.” I feel the same way. I’m almost fifty, lots of people start considering a condo in Florida at that age. Hell, I could get a job down there easy, same as the one I have here at Ninotchka, playing gypsy music for old farts. But you know something? I moonlight at jazz clubs. Sit in with some of the best musicians in this city. That’s what keeps me going. You ever hear of Django Reinhardt? The great jazz guitarist? You never heard of him?’

  ‘I heard of him,’ Carella said.

  ‘Grappelli used to play with him. Can you imagine that sound? They took the world by storm! The stuff they did with the quintet? At the Hot Club in Paris? Nothing like it, man, nothing on earth. He’s my hero. If I could ever play like him…’ Hawkins let the sentence trail. ‘I hope you like it strong,’ he said, and set the coffeepot on the stove to perk. ‘So this is about Max, huh?’

  ‘It’s about Max,’ Meyer said.

  ‘I figured. You know what Grappelli once said? He said, “I play best when I’m ha
ppy or sad.” I think Max played best when he was sad. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw him happy.’

  ‘Sad about what?’ Carella asked.

  ‘His lost sight? His lost youth? All his lost opportunities? When he played gypsy music, he made you want to weep. The codgers tipped him lavishly, believe me.’

  ‘What lost opportunities?’ Meyer asked.

  ‘He had a great career ahead of him as a classical musician. Before he got drafted, he was studying with Alexei Kusmin at the Kleber School of Music here. Max was one of the more promising young violinists around. Then… Vietnam.’

  ‘Any idea why anyone would want him dead?’

  ‘Senseless,’ Hawkins said, and shook his head. ‘You want some orange juice?’ Without waiting for an answer, he went to the refrigerator, took out a bottle. ‘This is fresh-squeezed,’ he said, pouring. ‘I get it at the organic market, it’s not from concentrate. I mean, who would want to kill a blind man? Why? Grappelli also said he played best when he was young and in love. I don’t think Max was ever in love. In fact, I don’t think he was ever young. The Army grabbed him for Vietnam, and that was the end of his youth, the end of everything. He came back blind. Tell that to all these fuckin macho presidents who send young kids off to fight their stupid fuckin wars.’

  ‘What makes you say he’d never been in love?’ Carella asked.

  ‘Do you see a woman in his life? I’m sorry, but I don’t see one. A wife? A girlfriend? Do you see one? I see a guy who was fifty, sixty years old, wandering around in the dark with a violin tucked under his chin, playing music could break your heart. That’s what I see. This is done. How do you take it?’

  They sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee.

  Hawkins was silent for what seemed a long time.

  Then he said, ‘Grappelli once said, “I forget everything when I play. I split into two people and the other plays.” I had the feeling Max did the same thing. I think when he played, he forgot whatever it was that troubled him.’

  ‘And what was that?’ Meyer asked.

  ‘Well, we’ll never know, now will we?’

  ‘Did he ever specifically mention anything that was bothering him?’

  ‘Never. Not to me. Maybe to some of the other musicians. But I have to tell you, Max kept mostly to himself. It was as if his blindness locked him away in darkness. You ask me, the only time he expressed himself was when he was playing. The rest of the time…” Hawkins shook his head. ‘Silence.’