Twisted: The Collected Short Stories of Jeffery Deaver

Pitkin, still immaculate except for a slight tear in his monkey-suit slacks, stood with his arms crossed, anger etched into his face. He seemed to be having trouble breathing but he'd waved off the medics as if spooking irritating flies. He said to Weber, 'This is unacceptable. Completely.'

Weber, gray-haired and resembling a military rather than police sergeant, was trying to explain. 'Mr. Pitkin, I'm sorry for your loss —'

'Loss? You make it sound like my MasterCard was stolen.'

'— but there wasn't anything more Officer Vincenzo could do.'

'That kid was going to kill me, and he' — Pitkin nodded toward Tony — 'let him get away. With my violin. There is no other instrument like that in the world.'

Not exactly true, thought Tony, a man raised by a father who loved to dish out musical trivia at the dinner table while his mother dished out tortellini. He remembered the man solemnly telling his wife and children there were about six hundred Antonio Stradivari violins in existence — about half the number the Italian craftsman had made. Tony decided not to share this tidbit with the violinist at the moment.

'Everything went by the book,' Weber continued, not much interested in the uniqueness of the stolen merch.

'Well, the book ought to be changed,' Pitkin snapped.

'I didn't have a clear target,' Tony said, angry that he felt he had to defend himself to a civilian. 'You can't go shooting suspects in the back.'

'He was a criminal,' Pitkin said. 'And, my God, it wasn't as if… I mean, he was black.'

Weber's face grew still. He glanced at the lead detective, a round man in his forties, who rolled his eyes.

'I'm sorry,' Pitkin said quickly. 'It's just that it's terrifying, having someone push a gun in your ribs.'

'Hey,' a reporter shouted from the crowd. 'How 'bout a statement?'

Tony was about to say something but the detective said, 'No statements at this time. The chiefs going to give a press conference in a half hour.'

Another detective walked up to Pitkin. 'What can you tell us about the assailant?'

Pitkin thought for a moment. 'I guess he was about six feet —'

'Six-two,' Tony corrected. 'He was taller than you.' At five-seven, Tony Vincenzo was a good observer of height.

Pitkin continued, 'He was heavyset.' A glance at Weber. 'He was African American. He wore a black ski mask and black sweat clothes.'

'And red-and-black Nike Air pumps,' Tony said.

'And an expensive watch. A Rolex. Wonder who he killed to get that?' Now Tony got a glance. 'Wonder who he's going to kill next? Now that he got away.'

'Anything else?' the detective asked matter-of-factly.

'Wait. I do remember something. He had powder on his hands. White powder.'

The detectives looked at each other. One said, 'Drugs. Coke. Heroin maybe. Probably needed a fix and you happened to be at the wrong time and the wrong place. Okay, sir, that's helpful. It'll give us something to start with. We'll get on it.'

They hurried off to their black Ford and sped away.

A young woman in a red dress walked up to Weber, Tony and the violinist. 'Mr. Pitkin, I'm from the mayor's office,' she announced. 'His Honor's asked me to convey his deepest apologies on behalf of the people of New York. We're not going to stop until we get that violin back and put your attacker behind bars.'

But Pitkin hadn't calmed one bit. He spat out, 'This is what I get for coming to places like this…' He nodded toward the concert hall, though he might have meant the whole city. 'From now on I'm only doing studio work. What good is it to perform anyway? The audience sits there like logs, they cough and sneeze, they don't dress up anymore. Do you know what it's like playing Brahms for people wearing blue jeans and T-shirts?… And then to have this happen!'

'We'll do everything we can, sir,' she said. 'I promise you.'

The violinist hadn't heard her. 'That violin. It cost more than my town house.'

'Well —' she began.

'It was made in 1722. Paganini played it. Vivaldi owned it for five years. It was in the pit at the first performance of La Boheme. It accompanied Caruso and Maria Callas, and when Domingo asked me to play with him at the Albert Hall, that was the instrument I played…' His eyes swung to Weber and he asked with genuine curiosity, 'Do you understand what I'm saying?'

'Not really, sir,' the sergeant said cheerfully. Then he turned to Tony. 'Come over here, I wanna talk to you.'

* * *

'You know music. Who the hell is this guy?' Weber asked him, as they stood together under the fire escape. There was still no rain though the mist had coalesced into dense, cold fog.

'Pitkin? He's a conductor and composer. You know. Like Bernstein.'

'Who?'

'Leonard Bernstein. West Side Story.'

'Oh. You mean he's famous.'

'Think of him as the Mick Jagger of the classical circuit.'

'Fuck. Eyes of the world on us, huh?'

'I guess.'

'Tell me true. No way you could've capped the perp?'

'Nope,' Tony said. 'When he was facing me I didn't have a clear target and the backdrop wasn't clean. Slug could've gone anywhere. After that all I had was his back.'

Weber sighed and his face grew even more disgruntled than it usually was. 'Well, we'll just have to take the heat.' He looked at his watch. It was nearly midnight. 'Your tour's over. Write up the report and get home.'

Tony held up a hand. 'I gotta favor.'

'What?'

'My eleven-eighteen.'

The application form for Detective Division. Presently sitting with about three thousand other applications. Or, more likely, under three thousand other applications.

The wily old sergeant caught on. He grinned. One thing that could get your app shuffled to the top of the deck was collaring a showcase perp — a serial killer or a shooter who'd killed a cop or a nun, say.

Or the guy who'd stolen a half million bucks' worth of fiddle and embarrassed the mayor.

'You want a piece of the case,' Weber said.

'No,' Tony answered, not smiling, 'I want the whole thing.'

'You can't have the whole thing. What you can have is four hours. Half tour. But no overtime. And you work with the detectives.' The sergeant looked into the young cop's eyes. 'You're not going to work with the detectives, are you?'

'No.'

Weber debated. 'Okay. But listen — for this to work, Vincenzo, we need the perp. Not just the damn violin.' He nodded toward the woman from the mayor's office. 'They need somebody to crucify.'

'Understood.'

'Get going. The clock's running.'

Tony started east, toward the precinct house. But he stopped and returned to Pitkin and the mayor's aide. He looked up at the musician. 'Gotta question. You mentioned Paganini?'

A blink. 'I did, yes. What about it?'

'Well, I got a Paganini story. See, one time his friends decided to rag him a little… And what they did was they wrote a piece of violin music that was so complicated it couldn't be played. Like, human hands just wouldn't work that way. They left it on a music stand and invited him over. Paganini walks into the room and glances at the music then goes into the corner and picks up this violin and tunes it. Then, get this, he looks at his friends and he smiles. And he plays the whole thing perfectly. From memory. Blew them away. Is that a great story, or