The Memorist

Chapter 90

Thursday, May 1^st-7:51 p.m.

At the door to the concert hall the Global Inc. security officers had stopped Meer and the two city inspectors accompanying her and for the last ten minutes two men in one set of uniforms argued with two men in another set. Every minute that went by brought them closer to the end of the second movement. Meer knew there was an oboe solo coming up in the third movement. She’d remembered him telling her that the nurses at Steinhof always played his concerts for Nicolas. That had to be his plan. To play the flute during his solo so Nicolas would hear it in his room.

“What’s taking so long?” she asked Fiske, urgently.

“They won’t let us in without top-level confirmation of who we are.” He was furious. “The security for this event is so tight, not even police are allowed in.”

“We can’t get in?” There was panic in her voice. “Does that mean there are no police inside?”

“No. There are police inside. And more outside.” He gestured to the vestibule and the mantrap. “It’s us getting inside that’s an issue. Or convincing anyone here that there is a reason to interrupt the concert in order to prevent a member of the Philharmonic from playing a flute. Their position is that they will detain him after the concert. It’s hard to argue with them, Fräulein Logan.”

“We need to stop him from playing,” Meer insisted. What had Malachai told her once? The past lives you remember first are those that ended in the most violence or tragedy. If Sebastian played the music for all the people in the hall it could be horrific. She explained this as quickly as she could to Fiske, but he only nodded, unconvinced, she knew.

“No one can go in without special numbered holographic tickets and your name appearing on the master list,” he told her.

“But my name should be there. Sebastian invited me. My father and I stopped by late Monday afternoon to be verified. Tell them that.”

Before he could, the security guard responded to Meer with a proper British accent. “Miss Logan, I do have your name here and I have a copy of your United States passport-all I need now is your ticket.”

Pulling out her wallet, Meer searched but it wasn’t there. Had Sebastian also taken this while she was in the shower? She looked up to explain and was momentarily distracted by the scene on the closed-circuit television to the right of the mantrap showing the full orchestra in a close shot. Meer had no trouble picking out Sebastian. He played with an expression of intensity she remembered from her years at Juilliard. He was one with his instrument, no boundaries between him and the oboe. There was no past and no future now, no memory except for memory of the notes. His heart wasn’t beating to its own rhythm anymore but to the beat of the symphony.

“I don’t have my ticket,” Meer told Fiske. “I forgot…my father had both of them. Do you have his wallet?”

“No.”

“The medic took it out of his pocket in the tunnel-didn’t she give it to you?”

“No, but let me see what I can do.”

Fiske hurried over to Krantz, who listened and headed outside. Less than two minutes later he was back. First he gave Meer Jeremy’s watch, which she slipped on and felt the cold stainless steel embrace her wrist. Then he handed her a brown leather wallet, its edges worn to unraveling, its compartments bursting with cards and slips of paper and split at the seam. Why would he have such an old…and then she realized she’d given him this wallet for his birthday the year she was twelve, the last year he’d lived at home. Her mother had taken her shopping at T. Anthony on Park Avenue and waited patiently while Meer inspected all the different styles before choosing this one. That night at dinner, Jeremy unwrapped his gift, thanked her with a kiss and promised her it would go around the world with him. That he’d always have her with him because he’d have her gift with him. Always with him. Until today.

Glancing up at the closed-circuit television again Meer concentrated to find where in the score they were. It would be time for the oboe solo in eight or nine minutes. Opening the wallet, she searched through the bills, the credit cards, then started on the bits of paper, startled by a photograph of a little girl sitting at a grand piano, a beatific smile on her face. The edges of the photograph, like the wallet itself, were worn away. Shoving it in her jeans pocket she kept looking, until she finally found the small pristine white envelope with the name of the concert hall printed in the corner.

“Here.” She thrust one of the holographic tickets at the guard.

“Your name?”

“I already gave you my name. Please, this is urgent.”

“There’s protocol that-”

“Meer Logan,” she said.

Glancing at her father’s watch, seeing the seconds pass, listening to the symphony, she figured there was now less than five minutes before the oboe solo. Before Sebastian was going to take the irrevocable step of putting the ancient flute up to his lips, play a simple string of notes and possibly send God knows how many people into a maelstrom of fear and grief and tortured memory without any preparation or warning.

“Please hurry!” Meer begged the guard and then heard a sound ominous only to her: the last section before the solo. At this rate she wasn’t going to make it in time to stop Sebastian.