Shark and Octopus Page 27

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  July 4

  6:19 am

  Roberto de Ruiz was as shocked by Alexandra Webb’s arrival as Griffin, but he recovered nicely.

  “Alexandra, the pleasure is all mine.” De Ruiz gave her a courtly nod. “Thank you for your concern, but I am quite capable of handling this transaction alone.”

  “I don’t think so, Roberto.” She stepped out of the car. Someone remained in the passenger seat. “I have worked too long to let you keep this all to yourself.”

  Roberto de Ruiz maintained his composure, though Griffin could tell the man was scrambling.

  “Fine,” he agreed. “As always, you are most persuasive. You have convinced me. Shall we say the standard arrangement? Twenty percent?”

  “The standard arrangement won’t do it.”

  “Fine. Can we augment your compensation to, let us say, ten million?”

  “Roberto, my friend, you’re just not getting it. I won’t settle for ten million. I’ve already had two offers exceeding sixty million for the del Gesu. I’ll let the two compete against each other. The high bid will be multiples of what you’re offering me.

  “A man in your line of work will hardly be in any position to go into court to recover the violin, Roberto. Whoever Mr. Wales really is, makes no difference. My ticket out of the country is already purchased. Once the bidding on the del Gesu is done, I am beyond everyone’s reach.”

  Roberto de Ruiz bounced back smoothly. “Fine. Fine. You will allow me to counter offer?”

  As he spoke de Ruiz was drifting almost imperceptively to his right. Limping, he moved slowly. Griffin saw what de Ruiz was attempting – he was moving out of the blinding stab of the car’s headlights. Griffin noticed de Ruiz was keeping the hand with the Makarov behind his back.

  “Fine,” he repeated. “Shall we say-”

  By this point de Ruiz was outside the headlights’ glare. The morning was light enough Griffin, Roberto de Ruiz and Alexandra Webb could all see each other clearly. Two of them now noticed de Ruiz was holding the Makarov, pointed in Alexandra’s direction.

  “Alexandra,” he said in a cold, clear voice, “you will have your associate in the car hand me the car keys and you both will walk away. Otherwise, I shall place a bullet between your lovely eyes.”

  “No, you will not, Robert de Ruiz.” She said the “de” with disdain. “Your pistol is no threat without a working firing pin, a detail Cleve here took care of earlier today. While the two of you were busy preparing for this morning’s events, at my orders he has disabled your weapon.”

  Ruiz pointed the Makarov at one of the car’s headlights. He pulled the trigger, but only a dry click resulted.

  “Cleve doesn’t much care for you, Roberto. He was more than happy when I paid him to tell me your arrangements, including the location of the Hummer. He has been in my solo employ for some time.”

  From the front seat a voice with a strong Baltimore accent said to Ruiz, “I don’t like you correcting my sentences. I don’t need all your crappola about culture and showers.”

  Alexandra Webb reached into her purse and pulled out a gun of her own. No doubt de Ruiz could identify the make; Griffin had no idea, only that the barrel seemed enormous.

  “I may lack your skill with a weapon, dear Roberto, but from this distance I can certainly place a bullet or two in your chest. And that of the man standing to your side. You would be well advised to remain precisely where you are.” Turning toward Griffin, she said, “You as well, whoever you are.”

  Griffin did not have to be told a second time. He would have done his best to stop breathing, if ordered.

  “Cleve,” Alexandra ordered to the car’s passenger, “would you retrieve the shopping cart you left by the back of the Hummer?”

  Cleveland Dumont exited the car, bringing with him a waft of whiskey and Aqua Velva.

  He walked to the back of the Hummer and returned with a shopping cart. He shoved the cart across the lot to Griffin.

  “You,” Alexandra Webb ordered Griffin. “Take the box from Mr. de Ruiz.” De with disdain again. “Put the box in the cart.”

  Griffin did as told.

  “Now, push the cart over to me.”

  Griffin was about to do exactly that, when, from just outside the parking lot, came the sound of singing.

  “Oh, I wish I was in Dixie!”

  Griffin knew immediately it was Bobby, singing as he walked closer.

  “Away! Away!

  ”In Dixie Land, I’ll make my stand.”

  Bobby entered the parking lot, singing as he went. Behind Bobby, Griffin could see Annie and Saif approaching.

  Bobby had a fine voice, tinged just enough with a Southern accent.

  “To live and die in Dixie.”

  He tipped an imaginary hat to Alexandra. “Mornin’, ma’am.”

  She waved the pistol in Bobby’s direction. Graciousness disappearing, she screeched at him, “Get the hell over there with those two, Dr. Briggs.”

  Bobby bowed.

  “Ah, Dr. Briggs. One of my finest roles, if I do say so myself.

  “Griffin, the tracking beepers in the band aids on your hands worked fine,” Bobby went on, speaking as if he couldn’t be bothered with Alexandra’s boorish interruption. “We knew where you were at all times. It’s just that all the craziness with the cars exploding in Rodgers Forge slowed us down following you. Cops and fire trucks are everyplace.”

  Alexandra Webb’s graciousness had vanished entirely. “Shut up,” she yelled at Bobby. To Griffin, she said, “Push the cart to me.”

  Griffin did, but deliberately pushed the cart too lightly, leaving it half way between her and the three men.

  “Too late for you, my dear,” Bobby said, glancing to the parking lot entrance.

  All eyes watched as Kit behind the wheel of the Malibu turned into the lot. He banged around a very tight turn at thirty plus, accelerating as he approached. He headed directly at Alexandra Webb. Griffin saw the look on Kit’s face and it was gleeful and positively demonic.

  She might have gotten away, but Alexandra’s greed exceeded her sense of self-preservation. Rather than turn and run from the parking lot, she stepped forward to the grocery cart. She got her hands on the box.

  As she did, Kit crashed into the shopping cart with enough force the cart acted like a missile impaling Alexandra’s midsection. She was sent flying backwards and when she landed she did not move or make any sound.

  The contents of the box, which turned out to be pieces of paper, went flying, confetti-like around the parking lot. Griffin saw the pages were Top Ten lists Kit had compiled over the years. Griffin snagged one mid-air. It was a list of the ten greatest movie trailers of all time.

  He turned to look at Roberto de Ruiz, but all that was left was the white Panama hat.

  THIRTY-NINE

  July 4

  8:38 am

  “Sorry we’re late, Miss P,” Griffin said, as he, Annie, Kit, Saif and Bobby converged on their old music teacher. She was waiting in the parking lot of the Kenilworth Mall. “Some things came up.”

  Miss Paulette looked at each of them, arranged in a rough semi-circle. Her gaze stayed with Saif until she recognized him, one of hundreds of her students through the years. “You’re Venkatesan. Saif.” He nodded. “What in the world are you doing with these people?”

  Saif smiled brightly. “Going off road.”

  Griffin said to her, “Stay right where you are, Miss P. Be back in a sec.”

  Griffin walked to the trunk of the Malibu. He returned with the six pictures of the music notes penciled onto Hans Baeder’s wall. He also carried a red highlighter.

  “I remember these pictures,” Miss Paulette said. “You showed me the pictures when we met by the fountain in the mall. Some of the notes are Mozart’s. Most are not.”

  “That’s exactly what I want to ask you about. This will probably work best if we spread the pictures on the hood of Annie’s car. I have arranged the pic
tures as they appeared on the bedroom wall of a gifted violinist named Hans Baeder. He studied in Germany, as you concluded.

  “Hans Baeder did this while he was dying. A man who survived the horrors of the Second World War made the effort to write these notes on his wall while he was dying. You can see how shaky his hand got as he was finishing. I do not believe this was nothing more than a time-killing activity for Hans. These notes are on that wall to tell us something. Miss P? What are they trying to tell us?”

  Griffin handed Miss Paulette the red highlighter.

  “Miss P, as I recall, you told us that a lot of these notes are Mozart. Some entire lines are Mozart, some parts of lines.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Can you cross out those notes which you know to be Mozart?”

  She studied the pictures one at a time.

  In the first picture she crossed out almost all the notes. In the second and third pictures most of the notes were crossed out. In the next two pictures about a third of the notes had a red line through them. In the last picture every note had a red line through it. Griffin estimated about 45% of the notes were Mozart’s.

  Miss Paulette needed about five minutes. Griffin picked up the sixth picture, with all the music notes red lined, leaving five pictures on the hood of the car. Miss Paulette looked up, a smile tugging at the corners of her heavily lipsticked mouth. The Mozart was a pleasure for her.

  “Now, Miss P. Didn’t you also say some of the notes were, in your phrase, ‘a little off.’?”

  “I don’t recall the precise phrase, but yes, there are notes here which don’t quite make sense. Here, for example, there’s a half note where you’d expect a quarter note.”

  “I’ll take your word on that. When we talked before, you were convinced this was not by accident or by incompetence.”

  “I don’t know what caused it, but neither of the causes you give explains this.”

  “Could you put a red line through those notes? The ones which are a little off.”

  This was a far slower process. After ten minutes Miss Paulette had crossed out every note in the first picture. Griffin took the picture off the car hood. In another ten minutes the fifth picture was in Griffin’s hands as well. Each of the remaining three pictures had more notes crossed out than untouched.

  “Finally, you said some of the notes were like a stutter. The same note repeated. A record skipping was the phrase you used.”

  “Cross out the repeating notes?”

  “Please.”

  This she did rapidly. Two more pictures were now in Griffin’s hands. A single picture remained on the hood of the car.

  “Miss P? How many notes are left in that one picture? These are the notes which are Hans Baeder’s, not Mozart’s. And these are the notes that flow best with the original composition, not a little off and not notes like stutters or repetitions.”

  “Fourteen,” she answered quickly.

  “Is the number fourteen special to Mozart in any way? Or particularly relevant to violins? European music? Anything along those lines?”

  She considered the questions for more than a minute.

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Now, Miss P, remembering that I am not musically talented-”

  “I’ll pass up the chance to make an easy joke.”

  “Much appreciated. Doesn’t each line in these scores have a corresponding letter? Wasn’t it EGBDF – Every Good Boy Deserves Favor?”

  “That must have been from one my few classes you didn’t cut. Yes, that’s how lines in a score are identified.”

  “If you assign one of the EGBDF letters to each of the 14 notes that aren’t crossed out? Do the remaining notes spell anything? Words? Music terms? Abbreviations you recognize?”

  This got a quick, “No.”

  “How about if you turn the picture upside down? Reverse the EGBDF. Spell anything now?”

  A quicker, “No.”

  “Does it spell anything in German?” This was Saif.

  “I can’t read German but I cannot imagine it would. There aren’t enough vowels.”

  The six of them stared at the one picture on the hood for some time. Then Griffin winced. “Oh. Oh, I see it. I see it now.

  “This isn’t a code. Nothing is being spelled out, not in any language. Which was a smart decision by Hans, since he couldn’t know if the person trying to decipher his notes could read music or read English or German.”

  “What is it, Griffin?” Kit asked.

  “It’s the outline of a picture. An upside down, L-shaped connect the dots picture.”

  He took the red highlighter and connected the dots.

  “I still don’t see it,” said Annie.

  “How about if I add some stars and stripes to the rectangle at the top. Can you see it now? It’s a flag blowing in the breeze. How about now?”

  Now everyone saw it too.

  *

  Once Miss P’s car was out of sight he turned to Kit.

  “Can you find Hans Baeder’s house again? 5722 Gist Avenue?” Kit said he could. “Bobby, I know you said you have a gig later today. And, Saif, you have to prepare for your doctoral defense tomorrow – though the outcome’s a forgone conclusion for sure. But, can everybody meet at Hans Baeder’s house? Everyone drive separately. Follow Kit. I’ve got to stop home to pick up something. We’ll meet in Hans’ front yard.”

  *

  Griffin arrived at 5722 Gist Avenue last, carrying a shovel. Annie, Kit, Saif, and Bobby were standing in the front yard, grass thigh-high in places. Kit was ending a phone call as Griffin stepped into the yard.

  “That was Grace,” Kit announced. “Giving us the scorecard.

  “Alexandra Webb is still in intensive care but her injuries are not life threatening. She is not licensed to carry that gun she pointed at you, de Ruiz, and Bobby in the parking lot.

  “Cleveland Dumont is also in the hospital. After he fled on foot into Ruxton he apparently decided he needed transportation back to Essex. Tried to steal a car. Cleve really isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Turned out the car the he went after is owned by a police captain, who didn’t exactly appreciate the attempt. Like Alexandra, after release from the hospital he’ll be arrested.”

  “Roberto de Ruiz?” Griffin inquired.

  “Whereabouts still unknown.”

  “No surprise,” Griffin said. “Even with that limp he is very good at moving quickly.”

  He walked to the center of the yard, eyes searching the grass as he spoke.

  “On the subject of Roberto de Ruiz. Interpol has a long standing reward offered for anyone assisting in the capture of Roberto de Ruiz. Grace agreed if de Ruiz is brought in, that reward will be split four ways, equal shares for the four of you.”

  “Split five ways,” Annie corrected him. Grace called me and we agreed the money will be split five ways.”

  Griffin looked up, at each of the others. “Thanks, but truthfully? I doubt we’re going to see any of that money. I think de Ruiz is long gone.

  “On the upside? He gave me the Duke’s key. Our arrangement with Duke Ferlingheti is half of the fee upfront. We’ve been paid that. And half of the fee on delivery of the key. He wants that key. He’ll pay us. I’m certain we all agree that amount should be split five ways, to include Saif. So, we’ve got some payment for our efforts. Though, I have to say again: it was never about the money.”

  Annie asked, “So why the shovel, Griffin?”

  He answered her question with another question. “Kit, remember the other time we were here? You tripped over something in the grass.”

  “It’s right here, what I tripped over,” Kit answered, kicking at something. “The metal stump of a flagpole.”

  “Griffin, you think Hans buried something under the flagpole?”

  “I do, Annie.”

  Griffin walked over to where Kit was standing. He slammed the shovel into the ground next to the circular metal flagpole base.

  He winced in
the effort and dropped the shovel.

  “My blisters from scraping,” he explained.

  “Here, amigo,” Bobby said. “I’ll dig. I have experience at this, you know.” He took the shovel from the unresisting Griffin. “I played the gravedigger scene in Hamlet. My role was First Clown.” Bobby talked as he dug. The morning was hot and he quickly worked up a fair sweat. “In our Hamlet? The director was obsessed with realism. In the gravedigger scene I really dug real dirt with a real shovel. Piled the real dirt on stage. Realistic it was; good theater it wasn’t. We closed over the weekend.”

  In a few minutes Bobby had dug deeply enough that with the shovel he could leverage the metal flagpole base and the cement underneath it out of the ground. Saif and Kit dragged the metal and cement to the side. Bobby kept digging.

  While Bobby continued his digging, Griffin said to Kit: “Remember when CJ the real estate agent showed us this house? CJ said Hans used to spend hours sitting on his porch in the glider that’s still there. What better place to keep an eye on whatever’s buried beneath the flagpole. That was the point of the notes on his bedroom wall: to direct someone to the flagpole that was here all those years. CJ said the flagpole only came down a couple years ago and by then Hans was too ill to replace it.”

  Bobby dumped another shovelful of dirt into the grass and said, “In the gravedigger scene in Hamlet I kept digging until I hit a skull. There’s no chance of that happening here, is there, Griffin?”

  “I don’t think-”

  Bobby’s shovel struck something that was very un-dirtish and un-rockish and certainly not skullish sounding.

  “You sure that’s not a skull?”

  “Bobby, be careful, please,” Griffin implored.

  Bobby gave little jabs with the shovel.

  “A wood box, I think,” Bobby said. Some more soft jabs of the shovel. “Four feet or so long, not that wide.”