Ghost Music (23 page)

I glimpsed her between the trees, about eighty yards in front of me. She was walking quite quickly, and I could see now that she was pushing a stroller with a baby in it. I started to run. It was growing dark in the park and I knew that it would be closing soon.

I lost sight of her for a moment, but then I saw her again, and somehow she had managed to walk as far as the southwest corner of the handball court, over a hundred yards away.

“Kate!”
I shouted. “Kate—wait up, will you!”

She kept on walking, and disappeared behind the fence. I ran after her again, but when I reached the handball court, she had gone.

I walked slowly along the path toward Seventh Avenue. It was so gloomy that she could easily have hidden behind the fence someplace or behind a tree or the low concrete wall that surrounded the boccie ball court.

I stopped. Six or seven scraggy-looking pigeons waddled around me, expecting me to feed them.

“Kate!” I called out. “I don't know whether you can hear me or not, but I really miss you! I don't care what I have to do, I want you back!”

My voice echoed flatly around the handball court. An old woman in a plaid coat stood watching me, only twenty yards
away, with her toothless mouth turned down like a caricature of a witch.

“Kate! I need you, and I'll do anything to make you happy! I'm beginning to see what you're trying to show me! Whatever you want me to do, I'll do it, I'll help you, and I won't ask any more questions! Did you listen to my song? I meant every word of it! I love you! I miss you, and I love you with all of my heart!”

I waited for a while, but even if she had heard me, Kate didn't answer. The pigeons warbled crossly all around me, and the traffic rumbled, and after a few minutes the old woman in the plaid coat sniffed and coughed and wandered off. I don't know what kind of public drama she had been expecting, but she was obviously disappointed.

I walked slowly back to St. Luke's Place, turning around every few yards to see if Kate might be following me, but the park was too shadowy now. When I climbed the front steps and opened the door, the first thing I heard was Tony Bennett singing “The Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

I trudged up to the second-floor landing. I wasn't angry anymore. I was tired, and dispirited, and just as confused by Kate's behavior as ever. She must have heard me, when I first called out to her. Why hadn't she stopped? She had nothing to be afraid of, and if she really didn't want to see me ever again, all she had to do was say so. I was a thirty-one-year-old man, after all. I couldn't pretend that it wouldn't hurt me, but I would just have to learn to get over it.

As I reached the landing, however, I saw that I had an unexpected visitor. Malkin was sitting in front of my door, her paws neatly tucked in front of her.

I hunkered down and stroked her head, so that she flattened her ears. “Well now,” I said, “why are
you
here, puss? Brought me a message, did you? Or did you only come up here because you were hungry?”

Malkin stretched herself up and clawed at my door. I let myself
in and she followed me inside. Without hesitation, she trotted across to the window and jumped up onto the sill. I went up to her and said, “What?”

Across the street, I saw Kate, with her stroller, although now the stroller was empty. She was looking west, toward Hudson Street, although I couldn't make out what she was looking at. All the same, I suddenly understood what she was doing; and she must have sensed how close I was to understanding it, or else she wouldn't have sent Malkin up here.

The visions that I had seen in Stockholm and London were flashbacks of traumatic events that had happened in the recent past, and these visions of Kate were flashbacks, too. Once I had fitted them altogether, I would know exactly why she needed my help. She wasn't yet showing me the finished jigsaw, but she was giving me some of the most important pieces. It was not only the Westerlunds and the Philipses who had suffered, it was Kate, too.

The baby in the stroller and in her arms—the baby she called Michael—he wasn't a friend's baby that she was looking after, he was
hers
. He was the baby that Victor had fathered—the baby whose loss had made Victor so angry that he never wanted them to try for another.

I walked around my apartment, switching on the table lamps, but I didn't draw the drapes. I didn't know if she was still out there, in the street, but I guess I was trying to give Kate a sign that I had seen the light.

* * *

I didn't go to bed that night until well after 2:30
AM
. I was hoping that Kate might come knocking at my door, looking for Malkin. But Malkin wolfed down a supper of liver pâté and prosciutto, which was all I had in the fridge, apart from some holey Swiss cheese, and then she curled herself up and went to sleep in one of my armchairs, as if she wasn't expecting to be disturbed.

But the next morning, around 8:30
AM
, I heard something drop through my apartment door. I rolled out of bed and found that Malkin had beaten me to it, and was sniffing at a large brown envelope. I opened the door at once, but there was nobody there. I stepped out on the landing, and called “Hello?” but nobody answered. As I did so, Malkin ran between my legs and fled downstairs.

I waited for a moment, and then I went back inside. The envelope contained two weighty objects, nearly six inches long, and even before I tore it open I knew what they were. Two new brass keys—obviously modern copies of antique keys, with plain bows but very complicated blades.

There was also a business-class air ticket for the following morning—Alitalia 7617 from JFK to Marco Polo airport, Venice—costing $7,618. And a sheet of notepaper with a handwritten address on it:
Professore Enrico Cesaretti, Apt #1, Palazzetto Di Nerezza, Campo San Polo, San Polo, Venezia.

That was all. No note, no explanation. No invitation. Not even,
“Dear Gideon, I'm sorry for everything I said . . . I really do love you after all.”
But she didn't really need to. If she had listened to the song that I had recorded for her, and heard me shouting out to her in the park, she would know that I forgave her everything.

I went into the kitchen and switched on my Nespresso coffee machine. While it was spitting and gurgling, I weighed up the two brass door keys in the palm of my hand. I couldn't believe how much of a rush I felt. I had always wanted to visit Venice, and now I was not only going to visit Venice, but get back with Kate again, too.

I sat down at my keyboard and played
The One-Handed Clock
, deliberately out of key. Whatever happened in Venice, I had no illusions that it was going to be easy; and there was every possibility that whoever the Cesarettis were, I was going to experience some very disturbing visions of them. But up until now, none of my visions had done me any physical harm, had they, no matter how
terrifying they might have been? And maybe I would finally find out what had happened to all of Kate's friends, and where Victor and Kate's lost baby fit into the picture.

I called Margot. There was a whole lot of clanking and banging going on in the background. “Brad's here and I'm making pancakes,” she said. “You can come on over and help us to eat them if you like. There's far too many for two.”

“Hey, I don't want to be the ghost at the breakfast. Besides, I have to pack. Believe it or not, Kate's been back in touch. I haven't spoken to her yet, but she's invited me to Venice.”

“So you two are back together again? That's good news, I hope. I just hope this trip doesn't turn out as Scooby-Doo as the last one.”

“I don't know. I think it might. But she needs me, Margot, and she's made it pretty clear that I'm the only person who can help her.”

“If she needs you, she has a funny way of showing it, walking out on you like that.”

“She was worried that she was expecting too much of me, that's all. This has something to do with the baby she lost, although I don't exactly know what.”

“Really? What does she want you to do—father another one?”

“Hey, come on, Margot. I don't think it's anything like that. Whatever it is, though, I'm not going to push her into telling me, not until she's ready. She needs my help, and my support, and I love her, and that's why she's going to get them.”

“Well, it's all
très
bizarre, if you ask me. But if you love her, and she loves you, that's all that matters, isn't it?”

“Thanks, Margot.”

“What are you thanking me for?”

“I don't know. I can't think of anybody else who would have put up with all of my moping and all of my miserable music, the way that you did.”

“That's what friends are for, Lalo.
Brad
—stop stuffing so much
into your mouth at once, will you? You look like a goddamned chipmunk.”

* * *

I was on my way out of the house to do some shopping at Sushila's when a taxi stopped at the curb, and Victor and the red-haired woman climbed out. The red-haired woman was laughing loudly, and Victor had a self-satisfied grin on his face.

“God, you're such a scream!” said the red-haired woman. “‘Which part did
you
get?' I'm telling you!”

“Hey, Gideon,” said Victor. “How's our in-house musical genius?”

“Good, thanks.”

“Me and Monica, we haven't been disturbing you, have we? I haven't formally introduced you to Monica yet, have I? Monica—Gideon—Gideon—Monica.”

“So nice to meet you, Gideon,” said Monica, holding out her hand as if she expected me to kiss it. She had false chisel-shaped nails, painted dark crimson. “I've heard you playing a few times, late at night. You play so romantic.”

“I hope I haven't disturbed you.”

“There's worse ways of being disturbed, believe you me.” With that, she gave Victor a dig in the ribs with her elbow, and laughed out loud. “Just kidding, lover.”

I was thinking of asking Victor where Kate was, just to see what his reaction would be. I would have liked to talk to her about this Venice trip before I actually flew there. I would also have liked to talk to her about her lost baby. But I wasn't at all sure that it was a good idea for me to show any interest in Kate. Victor might already be suspicious that she was seeing another man, and I didn't want to confirm his suspicions—especially since I had been warned how bad-tempered he could be. I was also beginning to think that if the baby was somehow involved
in what had happened to the Westerlunds and the Philipses, then maybe Victor was, too.

“You take care, Gideon,” said Victor, squeezing my arm. “We're having a party next weekend, and you're invited. Bring a friend, why don't you? Maybe you can tinkle out some tunes for us.”

“Sure. There's nothing I like better than tinkling out tunes.”

They went into their apartment and closed the door. I heard Monica screaming with laughter, and I couldn't help wondering whether she was laughing at me.

* * *

It was sunny when I walked out of Marco Polo airport, but the temperature wasn't much higher than fifty degrees, and there was a fresh, chilly wind blowing from the Alps.

I could have reached the city by bus, but Hazel McCall, my agent, had urged me to take the water taxi, even though it was expensive. She was right. I sat in the back of the little motor launch as it made its way southwestward across the lagoon, and gradually the spires and domes of Venice rose from the horizon, like a drowned city in a fairy tale.

We puttered slowly along the Grand Canal. I felt like I was traveling through some medieval painting, with balconied palaces and colorful houses on either side, reds and yellows and greens. The waterway was teeming with gondolas and
vaporetti
crowded with tourists. We passed under the Rialto bridge, and after a few minutes we turned into a narrow canal between tall, russet-painted buildings.

We moored up against a sheer green-stained wall. The water taxi was dipping up and down, and I almost stumbled, but the driver held my elbow and helped me to balance my way onto a steep stone staircase.

“
Grazie
, signore,” he said, grinning at me with tobacco-stained teeth, and I realized that a twenty-euro tip was probably far too
much.
“Faccia attenzione. A Venezia potete non fidarsi mai di qualcuno.”

“Sure, you too,” I told him. I climbed up to the top of the steps and found myself in a small paved garden, with a dried-up marble fountain and decorative urns that must have been filled with geraniums during the summer, but contained nothing now but trailing brown weeds.

I looked up. The
palazzetto
was four stories high, painted a pale tangerine, with elegantly pillared windows, although all the windows facing the canal had their shutters closed. I crossed the garden to an arched doorway, with a black-painted door. There were four bell pushes, but none of them had name cards next to them, only Roman numerals, I, II, III and IV.

The water taxi driver was still turning his launch around, and for a moment I was tempted to call out to him, and ask him to take me back to the airport. There was something I seriously didn't like about the Palazzetto Di Nerezza, something secretive and very forbidding. But I hesitated too long, and the water taxi burbled back toward the Grand Canal, and I was left with the black-painted door and the key to open it.

The levers in the lock opened with a series of arthritic clicks, and when I pushed open the door itself, it let out a great shuddering groan.

I stepped into a grand hallway with a marble floor, a chandelier and an elaborate gilded mirror with candle holders on either side of it. On the right, there was a curving staircase with stone banisters and a polished marble handrail.

On my left stood a life-size marble statue of a nude woman, holding up a headless dove. The poor bird had probably had its head knocked off centuries ago. Beyond her, there was another wide door, in natural oak. I guessed this was the Cesaretti apartment.