Authors: Janice Weber
“Now for that little surprise you see on your program,” Fausto announced from the keyboard. “In appreciation of Bendix Kaar,
who is highly responsible for having brought us together tonight, we would like to perform a sonata he wrote over thirty years
ago. The slow movement is an elegy. We’d like to dedicate it to Vice President Bailey, who is in all our thoughts tonight.”
Bendix’s mouth dropped open. Aurilla frowned: surprises in this town were generally fatal. Marvel was all smiles. “I didn’t
know you composed, Ben,” he called over the applause.
Having been led to believe they would be hearing something melodious, the audience was unprepared for grating tone clusters.
Their wrinkled noses and sidelong glances reminded me of children smelling boiled turnips. No one dared walk out, of course.
Fausto and I continued to perform expertly. But the piece didn’t fly. Never would. It was first cousin to fingernails scraping
blackboard.
Bobby and Aurilla never relinquished their utterly delighted smiles. Bendix looked ready to burst into flames, but this sonata
was his proud, perfect child, blossom of his blood: each note clawed at his soul. He was overwhelmed to hear it again but
furious that Fausto had reduced him to postprandial bonbon. Ah, poor composer, forever misprized! Which was the greater torment,
oblivion or botched resurrection?
By the time Fausto and I got to the elegy, the audience, with the exception of the front row, had slipped back into its torpor.
Even Fausto got bored for a few measures. Then several rows back, down by the shoes, I thought I saw a ball of black dart
across the aisle. Long tail. Rat? Too round. Monkey? Unbelievable, not here. Then I remembered the lump in Gretchen’s lap.
I kept playing, bracing for a shriek that never came. Perhaps the animal had curled up harmlessly in someone’s pocketbook.
Once, at a summer festival, a skunk had wandered in, traversed the open-air theater, and left; Gretchen’s pet could do the
same. Then I noticed a ripple across the fifth row. Furball on the move. I concentrated on a nasty set of trills. When I finished,
Aurilla’s eyebrows had risen a good inch. A split second later, I heard why.
The monkey had jumped into the piano, burying Bendix’s elegy in an avalanche of twangs. “Bloody hell!” Fausto snapped, looking
inside the lid. The ensuing scream would have knocked King Kong off the Empire State Building. A Secret Service agent, leaping
from a side chair, threw Bobby to the carpet. Another slammed the lid of the piano. Vicky Chickering fainted.
A second shriek, piercing as a train whistle, froze the room. “Herman! He killed Herman!” The wails gradually receded as Gretchen
was carted upstairs.
From the sound of things, Herman was not only alive but multiplying. I stepped over Marvel to get to Fausto. Flushed, wheezing:
last thing we needed here was a reprise of his performance in the bedroom. “Are you all right?”
“What was that filthy beast?”
“Gretchen’s pet monkey.”
“Oh God! That’s too funny!”
Bendix didn’t think so. He flung up the piano lid, grabbed the terrified animal by the neck, and stormed out. Aurilla kneeled
over Bobby as her dismayed audience whispered nervously, wondering how to react. Chickering, regaining consciousness, slid
like a giant amoeba back into her seat in the first row. Finally the president was helped to his feet, having suffered only
a minor rug burn on the tip of his nose.
“Now that’s what I call a rip-roaring performance,” he announced with a twenty-tooth smile. Everyone laughed and clapped.
“Thank you both!” I got a hug and sloppy kiss. Fausto was embraced like a brother. “And thank you, Aurilla, for a thrilling
evening! Never a dull moment, eh!”
Her smile returned about three seconds into her standing ovation. When that finally died down, the gracious hostess thanked
her musicians, as if our concert had come to a natural end, then her chef, then Bobby Marvel, her eloquence thickening as
she ascended the social ladder. Guests surrounded her for a farewell blessing as the butlers returned with more coffee, brandy,
and chocolates.
Chickering shuffled to the piano bench, leaning heavily on Rhoby Hall. “You’re a man of many talents, Fausto.”
He remained seated. “I was inspired. Feeling better now?”
“Much. Did Bendix really write that sonata? I had no idea he had a musical background.”
“Ask him about it sometime. Did you like the piece?”
Chickering took cover in the mother of all insults. “It’s interesting.”
Rhoby pumped my hand. “You gave me the shivers!”
“Let’s play together sometime,” I said.
Myrna, eyes red and rough as bricks, hugged Fausto. “At least someone in this rat hole thinks of Jojo. What a gorgeous piece.
I was beside myself! Until that dreadful animal got loose.”
“Really, Myrna,” Chickering scoffed. “We should send it a dozen roses.”
Rhoby was mortified. “You don’t know a thing about modern music, Victoria. All you can play is Mozart. Stop wolfing down those
chocolates, would you? Geez!”
Fausto squeezed my hand: time to blow this joint. “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll get our things.” Leaving him with the ladies,
I worked my way down the clogged aisles. A few people interrupted their impromptu policy meetings to nod at me. Tougaw, brandy
in hand, stood at the door.
“You are so fine,” he said. “But how ’bout naughty Herman. He goes back to Belize.”
I went upstairs to the guest room, where a faint odor of vomit still mingled with potpourri. Sight of the rumpled bed stopped
me cold: last time I had seen such distressed sheets, Barnard’s body had sprawled thereupon. Sorry, friend: I was no closer
to finding her murderer than I had been that first night in Washington. I had even let her corpse get away from me. Suddenly
I felt a rush of guilt for being here, dressed in satin and sapphires, making music while Barnard rotted in a secret grave.
The heavy door clicked shut. Bendix: for a moment I thought he’d strangle me. “I hope you two amused yourselves.”
“Not really. Your piece was harder than hell.” I picked up Fausto’s music bag. “I get about ten manuscripts a week from composers
all over the world. In a year maybe three of them make the cut. I accepted yours sight unseen.”
“Why tonight? Why here?”
“Why not? You wrote the piece. You don’t own it.”
“That bastard did it to humiliate me.”
“I would have thought he paid you the ultimate compliment.”
“That’s not the way Fausto works.” Bendix boiled quietly, dangerously, like a cauldron of lead. “He’ll pay for this.”
“Oh stop it. If you hadn’t noticed, this was his first recital in thirty years. You can’t blame him for going with pieces
he’s done before.”
“He hasn’t done this piece before. You just played the world premiere.”
What was I missing here? “But his mother’s writing is all over the score.”
“She died before the first performance. Fausto didn’t tell you? I suppose you don’t know each other as well as I thought.”
The composer’s fury intensified as he looked at the disheveled bed. “All that noise and no communication. How do you two screw,
by the way? Sideways?”
I tucked my violin case under an arm. “Thank that monkey for me, would you?”
“Get out.” Bendix dropped to the bed, lost his face in the pillow. “Just get out.”
Guilt rolled over me: I had just stomped on a failed artist. That was on a par with mugging grandmothers and tearing the wings
off butterflies. “I liked the trills in the elegy,” I said from the door.
Bendix didn’t acknowledge the compliment. I carted my things downstairs, afraid that he might trample me from behind, like
a gored bull. Fortunately Fausto had maneuvered himself to the crowded foyer, where he was rubbing date books with Rhoby Hall
between slugs of champagne. He looked not only sharp, but energetic: incredible, after what his body had just been through.
“Up for Brahms trios tomorrow night?” he called over the din.
Hadn’t he wrecked enough evenings with music? “Should you be drinking that?”
He had also cadged a large sandwich from the butler. “Hard work up there, darling. Have a bite.”
Pileup at the front door: Marvel leaving. As he was shaking Aurilla’s hand for their hundredth good-bye, he glanced over and
up, found me on the staircase. For just a second, his jaw stilled, eyes flared: I felt like a dinghy caught in a lighthouse
beam. Bobby had flashed me the same look at Ford’s Theatre last week. This time Aurilla caught it. Across the room, I saw
her face change: she had learned something. The information would be tucked away, retrieved when most useful. Bobby didn’t
know it yet, but he had just lost a pawn.
Chickering wrapped an acquisitive arm around her lover. “Time to go, Rhoby. You’ve got to get to work.”
“Forget it! I’m calling in sick! Tonight I’m practicing Brahms!”
“You go to work at this hour?” I asked innocently.
“Graveyard shift at the FBI,” she replied. “You can call me there after midnight.”
As Fausto burst into laughter, Chickering realized too late that she should have left Rhoby home. “What is so funny?” she
demanded.
“Nothing that concerns you!” Fausto chomped his sandwich. “Please tell Mrs. Marvel we missed her tonight. You were so kind
to come in her stead. And to bring along your delightful partner.”
Rhoby nearly curtseyed. “Can you check your date book and call me ASAP?” she asked me.
“No problem. I just dial the FBI and ask for you?”
“Right.”
Chickering lugged her away. “What are you up to, Fausto?” I asked.
“Nothing! I thought you liked chamber music!”
“You’re doing this to torment Chickering.”
“And you’re not?” He washed down the sandwich with the rest of his champagne. “Let’s go. I’m beat.”
Senator Pixley dammed traffic at the front door as he babbled with Aurilla about forming a committee to restore the Congressional
Cemetery to its erstwhile grandeur. “Scandalous,” he kept repeating. “Weeds up to your knees!”
“I’ll look into it,” she finally snapped. “Good night.” Her composure returned after she had processed the dozen myrmidons
ahead of us. “Leaving so soon, Fausto?”
“Breakfast at six,” he replied with a loud smooch. “You know how it is. Where’s Bendix? The least he could do is thank us
for playing his piece.”
“He’s inside with his guests, I’m sure.”
Still no apology for the monkey. On the one hand, that burned my ass. On the other hand, we had been spared the brutal fugue
at the end of Bendix’s sonata. “Give our love to Gretchen,” I said, shaking her mother’s hand. “We’re so glad she could make
it.”
Aurilla turned to the next in line.
By the time we reached Fausto’s Corvette, his second wind had blown away. Plopping like wet concrete onto the passenger seat,
he said nothing until we were back on the freeway. “God, what a night.”
I took his hand. “You’re a great pianist.”
“Thanks for indulging me, sweet. I owe you.” He closed his eyes. “Next time I promise we’ll play real music.”
I zipped past a BMW that was going only twenty miles over the limit. “I saw Bendix afterward. He was a little agitated.”
“He’ll calm down. Bet you a thousand bucks he kills the monkey, though.”
“Can you tell me something? Why did you play his piece?”
“Someone occasionally needs to remind Bendix that he has feet of clay. That’s what friends are for, after all.”
“You reminded him all right. He intends to pay you back.”
“He can’t do that, sweet. He doesn’t know what I want.”
More inverse riddles: I had had enough of them tonight. “I don’t understand. Aren’t old friends the only ones you can trust
in this town? Look at the Marvels. They’ve paved the White House with people they went to high school with.”
“Old friends are a double-edged sword. They know all your youthful follies.”
“So you know a few of Bendix’s deep, dark secrets. If you haven’t spilled them already, why would you now? And if they’re
so bad, why hasn’t he shut you up by now?” Dumb questions: secrets were blue-chip stocks. Only a fool would cash them in before
maximum appreciation. “Some friendship you’ve got.”
“Ah, Leslie, let us play our little games. It’s how we keep each other going.”
I ran a red light. “How’d Bendix hook up with Aurilla?”
“They met on some island about ten years ago. She was on vacation and he was on a business trip. After Aurilla’s hubby kicked
the bucket, they got down to serious business. Took a gamble on Bobby and it paid off. They’re right where they want to be
now. It was a matter of luck as much as perseverance.”
“What does Bendix want out of this?”
“The taste of victory, love. He’ll never
get
it writing music.” Fausto rubbed his puffy eyes. “It’s probably my mother’s fault. She filled him with glorious tales of
Washington when she came to visit me at school. No surprise that the White House became Bendix’s alternative Everest.”
“Does he want to be president?”
“No, no. Much better to be an éminence grise like me.”
I left the Beltway. “Aurilla sure knows how to repay you for all those breakfasts. I never sat at such a table of losers.
Myrna’s pathetic. Pixley’s a psycho. All that raving about cemeteries was bizarre.”
“He’s been in the Senate over forty years. What do you expect?”
“Who was that fellow Tougaw?”
“Aurilla’s designated eavesdropper. She had one at every table.”
“Nobody said anything important.”
“No? You weren’t listening very hard, then.”
Silence as Fausto dozed and I tried to figure out what important bits of gossip I had missed. Unenlightened, I crawled the
car down his quiet street, past willows, high gates … phone taps. Killed the engine but he didn’t move. For a terrible moment,
I thought he was dead. Touched his lips, felt his slow breath. Still with me, thank God. Without him I wouldn’t last a day
in this jungle. “Fausto,” I whispered.
He slowly turned his head. “Home?”
“Can you make it inside?”
“I think so.” He took a few deep breaths. “Just walk me to the door, if you would.”