No, that wasn’t true. She knew of one person: Harold Middleton, who taught at the American University in Washington D.C., and whose name was on the package containing the Mozart manuscript Uncle Henryk had sent to Signor Abe days before he was murdered.
Kaminski shut her eyes, Abe Nowakowski’s offer of help echoing in her head. She had tried to call him again in Rome, but the operator told her there was a block on her phone. No calls in or out. And so she was Faust’s prisoner, and she didn’t know why.
Nacho stirred, but went back to his snoring.
Kaminski paced slowly across the living room.
Her eyes found the piano in the corner and she went to it.
She ran a hand over the sleek black surface then slowly lifted the keyboard’s lid. The keys glowed in the soft light.
Suddenly, the image of her father was in her head. She could almost see his long fingers moving over the keys of the old piano in their home. Her little hands had tried so hard at her lessons to please him.
He had been so disappointed when she chose the violin, her mother’s instrument. Almost as if she had chosen her mother over him. But it had never been like that. She had loved her father so much, missed him so much.
And when he died, Uncle Henryk had been there for her to take his place.
Now the tears came. Kaminski did not stop them.
She sat down at the piano.
She played one chord. Then a quick section from a half-forgotten song. The Yamaha had an overly bright sound and a too-light action. But it didn’t matter. Just hearing the notes was soothing.
She played a Satie Gymnopedie then started Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, a piece Uncle Henryk had so loved.
She stopped suddenly.
Mozart.
She wiped a hand over her face. The Mozart manuscript Signor Abe had given her: Was this the reason Faust had brought her here?
She glanced over at Nacho, who watched her with tired eyes.
She went quickly to Faust’s bedroom. He had said the manuscript was “safe,” locked in a closet. She threw open its louvered doors. The closet was empty. She turned and spotted his slender black briefcase sitting on the bed near the duffle.
There was nothing in it but an automatic gun, with an empty clip nearby, and a copy of Il Denaro. She stared at the date: four days ago. She picked it up and unfolded the paper.
Several yellowed manuscript papers fluttered to the bed. Where better for a man like Faust to hide a priceless Mozart manuscript than in plain sight, bundled in the financial news?
She carefully gathered the pages. Back at La Musica, when she had first seen the manuscript, she hadn’t had time to really look at it. But now everything registered. The black scratchings were unmistakable. The fine strokes of faded ink. The distinctive signature. And finally, in the left corner very smalclass="underline" no. 28.
Her heart began to beat fast. She knew there were only twenty-seven catalogued Mozart piano concertos. Many of the originals that had resurfaced after the war were now housed in the Jagiellonska Library in Krakow.
Where had this one come from?
And was it the reason her uncle was dead?
She took the manuscript back to the piano. She sat down, carefully setting the fragile papers before her. She began to play.
The first movement opened with throbbing D minor chords. She had to go slowly, the technical demands way beyond her skills. Her heart was pounding with excitement as she grasped that she might be the first in centuries to play this.
She was sweating by the time she reached the end of the first movement. She stopped suddenly.
My God. A cadenza.
She stared at the notes. Her father had taught her that Mozart himself often injected cadenzas — improvised virtuoso solos — into his music. But he never wrote them down. Modern performers usually filled the gaps with their own improvisations that tried to mimic the master’s intent.
She began to play the cadenza. But her ears began to pick up strange discordant sounds. Odd little dissonances and patterns. She could suddenly hear her father’s voice speaking to her from behind as she practiced.
With Mozart, my dear, with music so pure, the slightest error stands out as an unmistakable blemish.
Kaminski stopped, her fingers poised over the keys.
There was something very strange about this cadenza.
The restaurant was almost empty. Two waiters stood at discreet attention just beyond a red curtain. Middleton could see from their faces they wanted to go home.
Yet Faust seemed in no hurry to go anywhere.
“So you never suspected anything about the Chopin?” Faust asked.
Middleton wasn’t sure how much to tell him. He still didn’t trust the man.
He thought suddenly about his interrupted ride to Baltimore with the two dopers Traci and Marcus. How he had made them listen to a Schoenberg recitatif, and Marcus’s crack that it sounded like nothing but wrong notes.
All the easier to hid a message in, he had told Marcus.
How hard could it be then to encrypt a code within the mathematical beauty of Chopin?
“As soon as I saw it, I felt something was wrong with it,” Middleton said. “But I just chalked it up to a bad forgery.”
“Jedynak didn’t say anything?” Faust asked.
Middleton shook his head. “When we were going over all the manuscripts, he seemed very interested in the Chopin in particular. He insisted I take it back to the States for authentication. Even though I told him I was sure it was a fake.”
“Maybe he was trying to get it safely out of the country. Maybe he was trying to keep it out of the wrong hands.”
“Jedynak knew the VX formula was encrypted in it?”
Faust shrugged.
Middleton sat back in his chair. “So I was supposed to be some fuckin’ mule?”
Faust said nothing. Which angered Middleton even more.
“Can I see it?” Faust asked.
When Middleton didn’t move, Faust gave him a sad smile. “I told you. I am desperate. I need your help.”
Middleton reached down to the briefcase at his feet and pulled out the manuscript. He handed it to Faust across the table.
Faust looked at it for a moment then his dark eyes came back up to Middleton.
“I know chemistry. You know music.” He pushed it across the table. “Tell me what you see.”
Middleton hesitated then turned the manuscript so he could read it. The paper and ink alone were enough for him to offer Jedynak his initial opinion that it was probably a forgery. A good one, yes, but still a forgery.
But now, he concentrated on the notes themselves. He took his time. The quiet bustle of the waiters clearing the cutlery and linen fell away. He was lost in the music.
He looked up suddenly.
“There’s something missing,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Faust asked.
Middleton shook his head. “It’s probably nothing. This is after all, just a forgery. But the end of the first movement — a piece of it is missing.”
“But you’re not sure,” Faust asked.
“I wish I had…”
“You wish you had another expert eye?”
“Yes,” Middleton said.
“I have one for you,” Faust said. “Come. Let’s go…But we go alone. Not with any visitors.”
“Who else would go with us?”
Faust smiled and glanced toward the front of the restaurant, where Tesla and Lespasse awaited. “Alone…That is one of the immutable terms of the deal.”
“I’ll follow your lead.”
Faust reached forward and tugged on Middleton’s tiny wire microphone/earbud unit. He dropped it on the floor and crushed it. He then paid the bill. “Wait here.” He made a phone call from the pay phone near the men’s room then returned to the table. No more than five minutes later sirens sounded in the distance, growing closer. The attention of everyone in the restaurant turned immediately to the front windows. Then, in a flurry of lights and horns, police cars and emergency trucks skidded to a stop across the quaint street from the restaurant, in front of a bar. The bomb squad was the centerpiece of the operation.