Fiddlers

Not allowing the pain to divert him.

Then he would get through this.

* * * *

Louis Hawkins was asleep when Carella and Meyer knocked on his door at noon that Friday.

He told them at once that he’d worked till two A.M. last night, and didn’t get home till three, and he appreciated his sleep and didn’t much care for the police knocking on his door at the crack of dawn. Carella apologized for both cops, explained the urgency of constructing a timetable before a case got cold, and then politely asked if Hawkins could spare them a few moments of his time. Reluctantly, he let them into the apartment.

All over the walls, there were photographs of a balding, gray-haired man playing a violin.

‘Stephane Grappelli,’ Hawkins explained. ‘You want coffee? What the hell, I’m awake now.’

Barefooted and in his bathrobe, he stood at the kitchen counter, measuring out coffee by the spoonful.

‘Greatest jazz violinist who ever lived,’ he said. ‘Died in Paris seven years ago. Still playing when he was eighty-nine. You know what he said when he was eighty-five? A reporter asked him if he was considering retirement. Grappelli said, “Retirement! There isn’t a word that’s more painful to my ears. Music keeps me going. It has given me everything. It’s my fountain of youth.” I feel the same way. I’m almost fifty, lots of people start considering a condo in Florida at that age. Hell, I could get a job down there easy, same as the one I have here at Ninotchka, playing gypsy music for old farts. But you know something? I moonlight at jazz clubs. Sit in with some of the best musicians in this city. That’s what keeps me going. You ever hear of Django Reinhardt? The great jazz guitarist? You never heard of him?’

‘I heard of him,’ Carella said.

‘Grappelli used to play with him. Can you imagine that sound? They took the world by storm! The stuff they did with the quintet? At the Hot Club in Paris? Nothing like it, man, nothing on earth. He’s my hero. If I could ever play like him…’ Hawkins let the sentence trail. ‘I hope you like it strong,’ he said, and set the coffeepot on the stove to perk. ‘So this is about Max, huh?’

‘It’s about Max,’ Meyer said.

‘I figured. You know what Grappelli once said? He said, “I play best when I’m happy or sad.” I think Max played best when he was sad. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw him happy.’

‘Sad about what?’ Carella asked.

‘His lost sight? His lost youth? All his lost opportunities? When he played gypsy music, he made you want to weep. The codgers tipped him lavishly, believe me.’

‘What lost opportunities?’ Meyer asked.

‘He had a great career ahead of him as a classical musician. Before he got drafted, he was studying with Alexei Kusmin at the Kleber School of Music here. Max was one of the more promising young violinists around. Then… Vietnam.’

‘Any idea why anyone would want him dead?’

‘Senseless,’ Hawkins said, and shook his head. ‘You want some orange juice?’ Without waiting for an answer, he went to the refrigerator, took out a bottle. ‘This is fresh-squeezed,’ he said, pouring. ‘I get it at the organic market, it’s not from concentrate. I mean, who would want to kill a blind man? Why? Grappelli also said he played best when he was young and in love. I don’t think Max was ever in love. In fact, I don’t think he was ever young. The Army grabbed him for Vietnam, and that was the end of his youth, the end of everything. He came back blind. Tell that to all these fuckin macho presidents who send young kids off to fight their stupid fuckin wars.’

‘What makes you say he’d never been in love?’ Carella asked.

‘Do you see a woman in his life? I’m sorry, but I don’t see one. A wife? A girlfriend? Do you see one? I see a guy who was fifty, sixty years old, wandering around in the dark with a violin tucked under his chin, playing music could break your heart. That’s what I see. This is done. How do you take it?’

They sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee.

Hawkins was silent for what seemed a long time.

Then he said, ‘Grappelli once said, “I forget everything when I play. I split into two people and the other plays.” I had the feeling Max did the same thing. I think when he played, he forgot whatever it was that troubled him.’

‘And what was that?’ Meyer asked.

‘Well, we’ll never know, now will we?’

‘Did he ever specifically mention anything that was bothering him?’

‘Never. Not to me. Maybe to some of the other musicians. But I have to tell you, Max kept mostly to himself. It was as if his blindness locked him away in darkness. You ask me, the only time he expressed himself was when he was playing. The rest of the time…” Hawkins shook his head. ‘Silence.’

* * * *

On the way down to the street, Carella said, ‘The rest is silence.’

Meyer looked at him.

‘Hamlet,’ Carella said. ‘I played Claudius in a college production.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Yeah. I could’ve been famous.’

‘I’ll bet.’

They came out into the street, began walking toward where they’d parked the car.

‘How about you?’ Carella asked.

‘I could’ve been Picasso.’

‘Yeah?’

‘When I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist,’ Meyer said, and shrugged.

‘Ever regret becoming a cop?’

‘A cop? No. Hey, no. You?’

‘No,’ Carella said. ‘No.’

They walked toward the car in silence, thinking about paths not taken, dreams unborn.

‘Well, let’s check out this other musician,’ Carella said.

* * * *

‘I play at Ninotchka only when I’m between pit gigs,’ Sy Handelman told them.

They figured a ‘pit gig’ was a job that was the bottom of the barrel. The pits.

‘The orchestra pit,’ Handelman explained. ‘For musicals downtown, on the Stem.’

He was twenty years old or so. Wore his hair long, like an anachronistic hippie. They could imagine him playing violin outside a theater downtown, collecting tips in a plate on the sidewalk. A busker. They could also imagine him in a long-sleeved, white-silk, ruffled shirt, playing violin for the senior citizens at Ninotchka. They had a little more trouble visualizing him in the orchestra pit at a hit musical; on their salaries they rarely got to see hundred-dollar-ticket shows.

‘I like pit work,’ Handelman said. ‘All those good-looking gypsies.’

They got confused again.

Was he now talking about his work at Ninotchka?

‘The chorus girls,’ he explained. ‘We call them gypsies. You sit in the orchestra pit, you can see up their dresses clear to Manderlay.’

‘Must be an interesting line of work,’ Meyer said.

‘Can make you blind, you’re not careful,’ Handelman said, and grinned.

Which led them to why they were here.

‘Max Sobolov?’ Handelman said. ‘A sad old Jew.’

‘He was only fifty-eight,’ Meyer said.

‘There are sad old men who are only forty,’ Handelman observed philosophically.

‘Ever tell you why he was so sad?’ Carella asked.

‘I got the feeling it was guilt. We Jews always feel guilty, anyway, am I right?’ he said to Meyer. ‘But with Max, it was really oppressive. What I’m saying is nobody acts the way Max did unless he did something terrible he