“So I’m telling you, Jack, that you and Charley ought to go on thinking I was in Krakow to authenticate—”
“A manuscript that some other expert will know is phony too. Suddenly, you, who’s catalogued scores by Bach, Handel, Wagner—”
“Mozart,” Middleton added.
“—are fooled by an obvious forgery.”
“Jack, what I’m trying to say—”
“And with Charley ready to pop, you go to Poland. That’s not you, Harry.”
Middleton watched the maple and poplars trees rush by at the roadside. “Are you going to toss that Python?”
Perez had been driving with the .357 pressed against the steering wheel. “Hell no. At least not until you’re straight with me.”
Middleton sighed. “Better you don’t know, Jack.”
“Why?” Perez said, peering into the rearview. “You think it’s about to get worse?”
Though toughened by a native cynicism and the hardscrabble life of a street musician, 19-year-old Felicia Kaminski was too young to understand that a sense of justice and a blush of optimism raised by an unexpected success were illusions, no more reliable than a promise or a kiss. Still energized by caffeine and the vision of Faust as he was hauled off by airport security, she’d headed from Signor Abe’s La Musica shop to an internet café near the Colosseum — another sign of her cleverness: She fled Via delle Botteghe Oscure and hadn’t gone to the Pantheon or north to the Trevi Fountain, areas Faust had scouted; nor did she return to her home in San Giovanni. She’d begun to feel she was living a clandestine life, a purposeful life, in memory of her uncle Henryk.
Within the first minute at the computer, she’d learned Harold Middleton taught “Masterpieces of Music” at the American University in Washington D.C.
Which was 40 miles — 40.23 miles, to be precise — from the address in Baltimore Faust said was to be her new home.
There was a 6.45 flight from Fiumicino through Frankfurt that would arrive in Washington at 12.45. She could exchange her first-class ticket for a coach seat, and still have enough euros — no, dollars — to take a taxi to the college. Even if Professor Middleton was off campus, she could arrange to bring him back — the words “I am Henryk Jedynak’s niece” would be enough to earn his attention.
She spent the night in a cheap flop on the Lido, resolute but feeling naked without her violin.
Remembering to use the Joanna Phelps passport Faust had given her, she swapped the ticket at the Alitalia courtesy desk in terminal B, sharing a conspiratorial smile with the young woman behind the counter when she explained that she didn’t want to fly with the vecchio sporcaccione—dirty old man — who’d bought it in her name. Incredibly, the woman directed her to retrieve her luggage that had been pulled from yesterday’s flight.
Her excuse played with security in baggage claim too, and she returned upstairs to a Lufthansa desk to turn over nearly 1,400 euros for a new ticket. She converted the remaining euros to dollars, paying an exchange rate worthy of a loan shark.
Three hours later, the ample jet was soaring above the Dolomiti on its way to its stopover in Germany. And miracle of miracles, as it departed Frankfurt, the two seats next to her in row 41 remained empty. She slipped off her shoes, grabbed a blanket from an overhead bin and stretched out, her last thoughts a prayer that Middleton would explain everything, and a sense that she was about to discover that her uncle had died in defense of art and culture in the form of an unknown composition by Mozart.
She was in a deep sleep, dreaming of music, of a violin with quicksilver strings, of returning to the States — a glimpse of her father, who hadn’t appeared to her in years, and the broad-shouldered buildings of Chicago’s State Street — when she felt a tug on her toe. She awoke slowly, her mind unable to recall where she was. Opening her eyes, she scrambled to uncoil her body.
“Looking for this?”
Faust held up the oversized envelope that she had seen in Signor Abe’s shop. No doubt it contained the Mozart manuscript.
She rose up on her elbows and, to her surprise, spoke in Italian. “Che cosa avete fatto con l’anziano?”
He nudged into the seat on the aisle, and placed a forefinger on his chin. “Old man Nowakowski is fine,” he replied in English. “He may continue to be fine.”
She stared at him. In a blue-striped business suit, white shirt and a blue tie that matched the sky over the Atlantic, he was utterly composed as he stroked back his long black hair.
“You are very lucky you were not killed last night,” he told her.
“It wasn’t luck.” Her senses had begun to return.
“Well, you were hiding from me, I suppose, which is as good as hiding from them.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
Faust looked around the rear of the jet. Stewardesses were in the back cabin, preparing the beverage service.
“Think, Joanna,” he said. “Your Signor Abe is alive, and so are you. I have the Mozart your uncle wanted to protect. Knowing that, tell me how you can believe I am the enemy.”
“You say nothing,” she said as she sat up, crossing her legs under her. “Niente. Nic. Nothing.”
“With the Mozart in my hand, I will go with you to meet Harold Middleton,” he replied. “The last man to see your uncle alive — except for the killer, that is.”
“You know who killed my uncle?”
Faust stood and held out his hand, beckoning her to leave the narrow row. “Of course,” he said, speaking in Polish. “The traitor Vukasin. The lowest of the lows. It’s a shame your uncle had to die in his presence.”
“Where is he?”
“Vukasin? No doubt he is within a kilometer or so of Colonel Middleton.”
Faust turned at the sound of the beverage cart rattling into the aisle.
“Come, Joanna,” he said, reaching for her. “They serve Champagne in first class. And Bavarian bleu cheese with a pumpkinseed bread — before lunch. I’m sure the effects of the panzanella and cantucci you had last night have long passed.”
Kaminski — no, Phelps — stood and wriggled her feet back into her worn shoes.
The arterial spray from Brocco’s severed throat had already dried on his heartbreakingly meager kitchen table, and rigor had begun to subside. Curiously, only his left hand was tied behind his back; his right hung limply, fingertips just above the blood- and urine-stained floor. Tesla saw the outline of a standard-sized reporter’s notebook on the table. Which meant the killer coerced Brocco to write something before he died. And getting Brocco to write something meant he was tortured before he was killed.
The killer also recorded Brocco’s voice — how else could a dead man call in sick after he died? Clever; a way to buy some time.
But what had he wanted Brocco to write? Tesla had been asked one pertinent question by Schmidt: Where is Harold Middleton? There are four immediate answers Brocco could have given: Middleton’s true location; a false one; a concession that he didn’t know where he was — as Tesla had — or a refusal to say anything. All but the first would lead to escalating pain and, if Brocco hadn’t known where his old boss was, he could have been compelled into speculation.
Tesla looked at her former colleague and, though his head was lolled back and his eyes opened wide and empty, she remembered tenderly his earnestness, his awkwardness around women, his passion for 18th century classical music, his unassailable belief in the power of a free press.
She peered into his mouth and saw that his tongue had been cut out. Which explained the dried blood on his lips and chin, and also whatever he wrote on the notebook’s page.
Tesla went to the sink to retrieve a ratty dishtowel, and brought it to the old, newsprint-smudged yellow wall phone. She dialed 911, gave them Brocco’s address and then let the handset fall, the towel unraveling and landing on the worn linoleum.