The Chopin Manuscript: A Serial Thriller

Chapter Fourteen P.J. Parrish

Kaminski stood at the window staring down at the inner harbor. A fog had rolled in and the lights of the buildings blinked back at her like eyes in the dark.

Her head was pounding — from bone-deep fatigue and the lingering effects of Faust’s Champagne. But also from fear.

She had never really felt fear like this before. Not when her parents disappeared and she was left on her own. Not when she had felt the press of the violin string against her neck when the man tried to kill her in Rome. Not even after she found out Uncle Henryk had been murdered.

But an hour ago, seeing the tattooed man bound in the closet, his bald head pouring blood, the cold, hammering fear began. It built as she heard him whimper as Faust whispered in his ear, as she saw his terrified tears, smelled the stench of his urine.

Shivering, she now moved away from the window, rubbing her hands over her arms. She scanned the suite’s living room, its oriental carpets and colonial furnishings. A mahogany bar dominated one corner, a gleaming baby grand piano the other. Off to the left, through open French doors, she could see one of the two bedrooms. Faust’s Vuitton duffle sat on the four-poster bed.

After the trip to the apartment, Faust had dropped her back at the hotel, and without another word, locked the door behind him and left. The man he called Nacho had been left to watch her. When he finally dozed off in the chair by the door, gun in hand, Kaminski had thought of running.

But where would she go? Faust had taken her passport, the one with the Joanna Phelps name on it, and her money. She knew no one in this country.

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 small: 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.

Middleton had to give Faust credit. Not a single person in the restaurant or outside was focused anywhere but on the police action. They’d discover soon enough it was a false alarm, but the distraction would serve its purpose.

Middleton slipped the Chopin manuscript back into his briefcase and rose to his feet. Faust gestured to the kitchen.

“Through the back. Hurry. Time is short.”

This was where Felicia Kaminski was, M.T. Connolly thought, and it was where Middleton and Faust would continue their rendezvous.

Connolly now knew what Middleton had that so many people had deemed valuable enough to kill for: a seemingly priceless manuscript created for pleasure but now corrupted with the possibility of mass murder.

Even sitting alone, outside this hotel, in the dark privacy of her own thoughts, she was a little ashamed to admit she was ignorant of the strange history of this Chopin score, and of the human value of such a find. More so, until tonight, she had been as unaware as most Americans about the tragedies at St. Sophia.

But she did understand a monster’s need for glory, no matter how twisted and unimaginable it might be to a sane person. And it was an interesting side note to the events of the last few days. Her colleagues in law enforcement were looking for Middleton because they believed he killed two cops. But, thanks to Josef, her angel in Poland, she knew better. Middleton had in his hands a formula for mass destruction, and though he had formed an alliance with Kalmbach and Chambers, she believed he needed her help to keep it away from Vukasin. Kalmbach and Chambers she did not trust. In the core of her being, she believed the only way to stop a chemical attack within the borders of the United States was to keep Harold Middleton alive.

She took a quick look along the street and checked her watch. There was no sense in going inside the hotel until Middleton and Faust arrived — because it was only then that Vukasin would appear. She had left her previous post inside the restaurant only seconds before Middleton and Faust, sure they would come here to confer with Kaminski, who could help them solve their puzzle.

Now the street was asleep and silent, few lights reflecting life, except in the windows of the Harbor Court Hotel. A white BMW sat under a flickering streetlamp, parked where it could easily be seen. About 100 feet to the south, tucked into the shade of an old oak, was a charcoal sedan, its hood glittering with raindrops, its side windows fogged: Connolly’s.

Vukasin was hidden in the generous gray shadows of a nearby building, watching her. He would not move until she did.

Nine minutes later, he was rewarded for his patience. An almost undetectable shift of the undercarriage told him she had readjusted to a more comfortable position. He was certain she had been in the sedan’s quiet and security for too long.

Though he rather it had been Middleton or Faust behind the wheel, or even Kaminski, it mattered little who was in the car. It could be an innocent soul waiting for a lover, or a fool sleeping off the last taste of cheap whiskey. A minor distraction, at best. But one that had to be dealt with. He could not afford to be seen.

Vukasin slipped from his invisibility and made his way toward the sedan. He added a stagger to his walk and a slump to his shoulders to simulate the last journey of a drunk’s long night.

The sedan jostled again as Vukasin neared it, the occupant coming to life. He could not see inside as he passed, but he heard the faint creak of wet glass moving as the occupant cracked the window a sliver to see who was passing.

He decided to play.

He ambled back to the sedan, arms spread. “Good evening, kind sir, could you spare a few dollars and direct me to the nearest bus line?”

“Go away,” Connolly said, her thoughts on Middleton and the manuscript.

Vukasin moved closer. “I am harmless, I assure you,” he said.

“Get the fuck out of here. Go.”

The window slipped lower, exposing a pale feminine face, her hair brassy and close-cropped. “I’m a cop,” she said. “Now get moving.”

“So maybe you’d like a drink?” he asked, as he reached into his pocket. “I have a bottle of Russkaya—”

He saw something begin to crystallize in her eyes as he started to withdraw the automatic.

She knows, he thought, with a smile. She knows I’m not American and not a drunk just passing by.

Her eyes widened in complete understanding.

She knew who he was.

And when she saw metallic glint of the Glock leveled at her head, she knew was about to die.

He fired, the silenced shot sounding like no more like a small but powerful puff of hot air on the empty street.