'I'm still here,' he said.
Outside, he could hear the Sonny Sabatino Orchestra starting another set, saxophones soaring. The words of the Deaf Man's final note echoed in his mind:
To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late
. . . and he realized all at once that the violin had already been stolen, yes, right here in the old Eight- Seven.
Outside, the orchestra was playing a sad sweet song.
For no good reason he could discern, Carella put his head on his folded arms and began sobbing.
THE THING ABOUT a computer was that it not only told you where to find things, it also told you where you'd gone to find those things. So right here in Adam's little office at the rear of the apartment, there was a pretty good record of all the sites he'd visited in the past few weeks, especially those he'd marked as favorites. Which showed he trusted her. She guessed. Leaving them there for her to see. Or maybe he wasn't as smart as she thought he was.
All this stuff about violins made by this guy Stradivari.
Oh my! So that's what Adam was after, the Greek's fiddle. My, my, my. Page after page of computer information about Stradivari and Amati and Guarneri and the 18th century, and the prices all these various violins had fetched at various auctions, and who owned which violin when, or even now, and even what kind of varnish was used on them, my, my, my, Melissa thought.
So that's what he'd meant about a seven-figure payday. My, my. A violin. Who'd've imagined it? A mere violin. And, oh my, lookee here. All the sites he'd visited while composing the little notes she'd delivered for him, and folders he'd made to store files from those sites, folders with titles like SPEARS, and ARROWS, and DARTS, and more folders titled ANAGRAMS, and PALINDROMES, and yet more folders titled NUMBERS, and TIMES, and on and on, oh my oh my.
There was also a folder titled SKED, and when she opened that she found a file titled CALENDAR. She thought at first that this might tell her something about their trip to Tortola, but no, it was just a sort of coded timetable for the past week:
MON 6/7 DARTS
TUE 6/8 BACK TO THE FUTURE
WED 6/9 NUMBERS
THU 6/10 PALS
FRI6/11 WHEN?
SAT 6/12 NOW!
But he'd been serious about taking her to Tortola once this was all over, because sure enough here was a folder titled TRAVEL, and inside that was a file called AIR. And there before Melissa's very eyes, right there on the computer screen, was a flight itinerary:
Date: 13JUNE-SUND AY
Flight: AMERICAN AIRLINES 1635
Departure: SPNDRFT INTL 9:30 AM
Arrival: SAN JUAN PR 2:11 PM
Date: 13JUNE-SUNDAY
Flight: AMERICAN AIRLINES 5374
Departure: SAN JUAN PR 3:00 PM
Arrival: TORTOLA BEEF IS 3:39 PM
Which made her wonder if he'd already booked the flights.
So she kept surfing.
CARELLA WAS SITTING there at the desk with his head on his folded arms, wondering why this wedding today had been so joyless for him, wondering why he hadn't danced with either his mother or his sister today, wondering why both the champagne and the music had seemed so flat today. And he thought, My father should be here today. He thought, My father should still be alive. But of course, his father was dead.
Luigi Fontero stopped in the doorway to the banquet hall's small office, looked in, puzzled, and then went to the desk, and came around it, and put his hand on Carella's shoulder.
'Steve?' he said. 'Ma che cosa? What's the matter?'
Carella looked up into his face.
'Figlio mio,' Luigi said. 'My son. Dica mi. Tell me.'
And Carella said, 'I miss him so much,' and threw himself into Luigi's arms, and began sobbing again.
*
SHE WAS WRITING for him when he got back to the apartment with the violin. He set it down on the hall table, next to the phone there, as casually as if the Strad were worth a nickel instead of more than a million. He put the blue sports bag containing the Uzi on the floor then, just under the table. Turning to her, he said, 'I see you got back all right.'
'Oh, yes,' she said. Took a taxi over from the Knowl-ton. Hardly any traffic at all.' She nodded at the violin case. 'I see you got back all right, too,' she said.
'Indeed.' He came across the room to her, arms outstretched. 'What've you been doing?' he asked.
'Surfing your computer,' she said.
'Oh?'
'Yes.'
He looked at her. Arms still stretched to embrace her, but not so sure now. She couldn't tell whether the look on his face was quizzical or amused or just what. She didn't much care what it was; she knew what she knew.
'Now why'd you do that?' he asked.
Quizzical, she guessed. The look. Or amused. Not at all menacing. Not yet, anyway.
'Oh, just keeping myself busy,' she said. 'A girl can learn lots of things from a computer.'
'And did you learn lots of things?'
'I learned how much the fiddle there is worth.'
'I told you how much it's worth.'
'Seven figures, you said. Isn't that right?'
'Yep.'
'That's what the computer said, too.'
'Why'd you have to go to the computer to learn what I'd already . . . ?'
'You didn't tell me you were stealing a precious violin, Adam.'
'There was no need for you to know that.'
'No, there was only a need for me to socialize with junkies . . .'
'You were free to choose your own messeng
'. . . and fuck a bodyguard, and let a chauffeur think I was about to fuck him.'
'Is something wrong, Lissie?' he asked, trying to look concerned and pleasant and caring.
'Oh yes, something is wrong,' she said, and reached into her handbag, and pulled out an American Airlines ticket folder and flapped it on the air. 'This is wrong,' she said.
'Where'd you get that, Liss?'
'Top drawer of your office desk. Right under the computer.'
'You have been busy.'
'It's a one-way ticket to Tortola,' she said. 'Made out to Adam Fen.'
'There's another ticket in that drawer, Liss.'
'No, there isn't. I turned it upside down and inside out, I looked through that whole damn desk, and your dresser, too, and all the pockets in all the suits and jackets in your closet, and there is no other ticket. There is just this one ticket, Adam. Your ticket. You never planned to take me with you at all, did you?'
'Where'd you get such an idea, Liss? Of course you're coming with me. Let me find the other ticket. Let me show you
'There is no other ticket, Adam.'
'Liss.'
