“He’s awake. Go get the boss on the phone.”
He wasn’t, though. Not if they were talking about me. He was half-asleep, with the worst hangover ever, and unable to open his eyes to face that light directly above.
Not above, I realized after a while; in front, that’s where it was, and I wasn’t lying down. I was sitting in a chair. There was no danger that I would fall out of it. My wrists were bound to the chair arms, and there was something murderously tight around my knees and ankles. I felt as sick as a dog. I turned my head away from the bright wall lamp and panted hard as waves of nausea ran through me.
“Here.” A big hand held a cup to my mouth. “You’re not as bad as you think. Drink this down an’ you’ll feel a sight different.”
I swallowed as he tilted the cup. My mouth puckered at the bitter taste, and there was a moment when I thought it would come right back up. Then I suddenly was a lot better, improved enough physically to feel a sharp panic when I at last understood what had happened. I was completely helpless, unable to move hand or foot. Apprehension turned my mouth dry and left me unable to swallow.
I opened my eyes and peered up. The man holding the cup was tall, about my height. He was heavily built, in his early twenties at the latest. With his fresh, round face and no sign of lines or wrinkles, he could have passed as a teenager if he had been smaller. His expression as he looked at me was a mixture of wariness and curiosity.
“They’re coming right over,” said another voice from behind me. A second man walked forward into my field of view. “Did he drink it?"’
The newcomer was on the short side, very lightly built and dapperly dressed. His hair was greased and parted in the middle in a style that had gone out fifty years ago. I concentrated hard on their faces, looking for anything that might reassure me as to my own position. They were both unreadable.
“He drank it,” said the first man. He turned the empty cup upside down. “All gone. How long before they get here?”
“Three-quarters of an hour. Zan’s over in the shop, and he has to go and pick her up.” He turned to look at me directly for the first time. “He’d better stay as he is — no point in taking chances.”
Now that I was fully awake, I could feel the ropes around my legs cutting hard into the flesh. Already my hands were puffed and swollen, and my ankles felt numb. The idea of being tied up for another hour like this filled me with horror.
“You’re bastards, both of you,” I said. “Untie me. These ropes are killing me, look at my hands.”
The shorter man came forward and looked calmly down at my bonds. “Now then, mind your manners, or I’ll have to ask Pudd’n here to teach you a bit more respect.”
“Bugger Pudd’n, and bugger you too,” I said. I was terrified, but somewhere underneath I was also furious. “You have to do something about these ropes.”
The big youth came forward and bent to look at my hands. “He’s right, Dixie ,” he said, “You’ve done ’em too tight, they’re cutting off his circulation.”
“So who cares?” Dixie looked down at me with vicious satisfaction. “He’s earned it. You saw what he did to Jack an’ Des. Let him hurt a bit.”
“Well, yeah.” Pudd’n stood there, his round face furrowed in thought. “But I think we’d better make ’em a bit looser anyway. You know the boss. You know what he’ll say if there’s damage before ’e gets here.”
“Sod the boss. I’m not worried about him, bloody little Arab,” said Dixie . But he moved forward quickly and began to loosen the knots with deft, well-kept hands. I realized that he was much older than the first impression had suggested, probably in his early sixties. It hurt when he loosened the knots, but in another thirty seconds it hurt a good deal worse. I grunted and swore as the blood began to flow back into my hands and feet.
“You’re still bastards,” I said shakily, when the pain was at its peak. “I’ve done nothing to you. What do you want?”
“You’ll find out,” said Dixie . They must have taken my jacket before they tied me, and now he was going through the pockets in a systematic and leisurely way. “If you’ve done nothing to us, then you’ve nothing to worry about, do you? Here, Pudd’n, take a look at this. Innocent until proved guilty, eh? Bloody likely. I reckon this proves who he is.”
He had found the pillbox Sir Westcott gave me in the hospital. Now he rolled two of the blue capsules onto the palm of his hand and held them out towards Pudd’n. The big man whistled when he saw them.
“Nymphs?” he said.
“Looks like it to me,” replied Dixie . He turned back to where I was sitting. “You dirty old man, you.”
The pain in my hands was lessening, and I was doing my best to speed up the returning circulation by clenching and unclenching my fists.
“That’s medicine,” I said. “I have to have it — I only just got out of the hospital.”
“I know,” said Dixie . He guffawed. “Medicine, eh? That’s a good ’un. You tell that to the judge, an’ he’ll have you back in hospital sharpish. There’s only one thing that Nymphs do, an’ I don’t think you’re a candidate for it.” He had become a lot more sure of himself.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. But I couldn’t help wondering if there was more to the drug than Sir Westcott had bothered to tell me.
“Very good,” said Dixie . His tone was sarcastic. “You’ve no idea, eh? So you can tell that to Zan and the boss when they get here. See if they believe it.” He glanced at his watch, then at Pudd’n. “They’ll be another half hour yet, you know Zan’s always late. How about one more session before they get here?”
Pudd’n shrugged. “If you want to. But what about ’im? We ’ave to watch ’im.”
“That’s no problem. We can take him through with us.”
“All right.” Pudd’n came forward to stand in front of me. “Grab the back end of the chair.”
I couldn’t help or hinder. A bag of groceries had as much freedom of choice. The room we were in was maybe twenty feet long by fourteen across, with the windows hidden by floor-length green drapes and with a polished hardwood floor. The furniture — as much as I could see of it — was expensive and carefully matched to the wallpaper and the drapes. Pudd’n opened a pair of double doors, then I was carried, chair and all, backwards into a bigger room. This one had an open Steinway over by one wall and an old Broadwood box piano — in excellent condition, to judge from its exterior — along the wall opposite. Between the two was twenty-five feet of polished floor.
I was placed by the Steinway. Dixie remained standing in the middle of the room, and Pudd’n sat down on the piano stool.
“Ready?” he said.
Dixie nodded. “Any time.”
Pudd’n began to play a Scott Joplin piece that I occasionally used as a pop encore — “Magnetic Rag.” His hands were very big — I estimated that he could span at least a twelfth — and he let his fingers do the work without much wrist movement. The tempo was a nice, medium one, just a little faster than I liked it.
“Right,” said Dixie . And while I gaped, he began to dance. His face was blank with concentration as he warmed up from a delicate soft-shoe to a more complicated pattern of double-time steps. He took no more notice of me than he did of the rest of the room’s furniture.
I looked back at Pudd’n. He played easily and accurately, not looking at his hands. He even seemed bored, and the second time through he added a whole series of grace notes to the right-hand melody, an acciaccatura to every second beat. At the end he closed with a strange anharmonic cadence that I liked rather better than the Joplin original.
“One more time,” said Dixie . He was panting a little. “Take it faster.”
“You start, an’ I’ll pick it up,” said Pudd’n. He had become aware that I was watching him closely as he played. This time he showed off for my benefit, taking passages in octaves, sixths, and thirds, and adding to the chords in the bass. Like most amateurs, his right hand was better than his left, but he was pretty good. Even in my situation, I couldn’t help listening critically. There were no wrong notes or fluffed chords, and the scales were nicely balanced. I didn’t like his pedal timing, but he wasn’t using it to cover anything, and he played with a sense of leisure, with speed to spare.
He had been gradually increasing the tempo. When he finished, with a rapid octave run upwards, Dixie went over to one of the high-backed chairs and sat down on the edge of it. His lined face was beaded with sweat.
“That’ll do,” he said. “Gawd, I’m done in — you pushed it at the end there. Let’s have a fag.”
Pudd’n unexpectedly winked at me. “Nah, yer slowin’ down, Dixie . Getting old. Ain’t that right, Mister Foss?”
“You’re bloody fools, both of you,” I said. “Get it into your heads. I’m not Leo Foss.”
“You’ll have to argue that one out with the boss. Want a cigarette?”
He didn’t seem nearly as unfriendly as Dixie . I shook my head, and he lit a cigarette for himself and turned back to the piano. “Like music, do you?”
“Well enough.” I realized he had no idea who I was. “So do you, and you’re good. You’ve had good training.”
He nodded, sucking in deep lungsful of smoke. “Too bleedin’ true. Twelve bleedin’ years of ’em, before I could get out an’ do my own thing.”
“You ran away from home?”
He shook his head. “Orphanage. Lessons every bleedin’ day except Christmas, then I had to play carols for everybody else.” His voice changed to falsetto. ” ‘Now, Thomas, the Good Lord God has given you a talent. It would be shameful and wrong for you to neglect it.’ They stuffed that into me with me breakfast every bleedin’ day since I was four, ’til I was sixteen an’ I could bugger off out of there.”
A sound of a car door slamming came from outside the window. Dixie grunted and stood up. “They’re here, Pudd’n. So stow it — I don’t know why you waste your time talking to him anyway.”
“Calm down, Dixie .” Pudd’n turned back to me. “Look, Foss, I’m goin’ to give you some good advice. You don’t know the boss, an’ I do. Answer his questions straight, an’ first time, an’ you’ll be glad of it in the long run. Ain’t that right, Dixie ?”
“Let him do what he likes,” said Dixie sullenly. “I don’t give a shit if he gets his head blown off.” I could hear footsteps approaching in the other room. No matter what Sir Westcott wanted, I could feel my pulse beating faster and I wouldn’t like to have taken any bet on my blood pressure. Pudd’n and Dixie both rose to their feet and stood waiting.
The man who entered was short, even shorter than Dixie . He was dark complexioned and swarthy, with black, straight hair and a prominent nose and chin. I placed him as Lebanese, or perhaps Egyptian. The woman who followed him was an inch or two taller, also dark haired and dark skinned, with a clear, olive complexion and fine eyes. She looked to be in her late twenties. Her nose was a classic Greek profile, well balanced by good cheekbones and a fine chin.
As she came into the room she stared at me in a strangely intense way. She did not take her eyes off me, even to look at the others when they spoke to her. In other circumstances I would have found her strongly attractive. But now…
The man came over and looked at me curiously. “Gave us a lot of trouble, you did. Messed up two of the boys real bad — we might have to pay yer back for that.”
His voice was a surprise. It had a strong Liverpool accent — and I recognized it! He had been one of the two men in the helicopter; Scouse, the other one had called him. I took a quick look at their shoes, but — not too surprisingly — none of them wore the black leather, black-buckled footware that I could still see if I closed my eyes and thought about the crash.
I stared up at Scouse. “You’ve got something all wrong. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I’m sure you’re making a mistake.”
“D’yer think so?” He laughed, a deep chuckle of satisfaction. “No, you’re the one making the mistake, Foss.” He turned his head. “Did yer search him, Dixie ?”
“Sure I did.” Dixie scowled at me, then held forward the pillbox to Scouse. “It’s not the thing we were looking for, but it proves he’s Foss all right. Take a look inside — nobody would be carryin’ Nymphs if he was just some ordinary person.”
Scouse shot me a swift, intelligent look. “Naw — an’ nor would Foss, if he had to go through Customs to bring ’em into the country. It’d be too dangerous. Use yer head, Dixie , he’d be mad to be carryin’ Nymphs.” He took the lid off the box and rolled a capsule into his palm. “I dunno. They sure as hell look like ’em, I’ll give you that. But I’m not sure.”
“They’re medicine,” I said. “I’m not Leo Foss, I’m Lionel Salkind, and I’ve just come out of hospital.”
“We’ve heard all that,” said Scouse absently. He opened the capsule with his thumb nail and poured grey-green powder into his open palm. He sniffed at it cautiously. “Here, Zan, what do you think?”
The woman took her eyes from me for a moment to take the capsule. She dipped her head and touched the tip of her tongue to the powder.
“No,” she said after a few moments. Her voice was deep and musical, a fine contralto. “I do not know what this is, but I feel sure we are not dealing with Nymphs.” Her words were heavily accented, and seemed to confirm her Greek appearance. “Maybe they are really medicine?”
“You’d be too old for them, anyway, Zan, if they were Nymphs,” said Dixie nastily. Then he saw her angry look and was silent.
“Mebbe it is,” said Scouse thoughtfully. I noticed that when he spoke the rest became respectfully attentive. “Mebbe it’s medicine. But there’s no sign of what we really want, an’ that’s the important thing.” He leaned forward and slipped the pillbox into my shirt pocket. His eyes stared into mine, dark and unblinking. “You see the problem you’ve given me, do you? You might want to help me solve it. I’m sure you’ll try.”
“I still have no idea what you’re talking about.” Those bright eyes made me more nervous than anything that had happened since I recovered consciousness.
“Ah, but that’s just what you’d say anyway — that’s the whole trouble, isn’t it? You say you’re not Leo Foss, I know that. You’re the twin brother, Lionel, an’ it was Leo died in the crash. I know, we’ve heard all that.”
He shot Dixie a quick look. “An’ the crash was bungled bad, so we didn’t have as much time as we needed there. Well, no matter, we took care of the lad who bungled that one, didn’t we, Dixie ? But we can’t afford another mess-up. Suppose you are Leo, now. Then you know where the Belur Package is. An’ I want to know that. An’ you have to tell me. Would yer like to do it right now, an’ save things getting messy?”
“I’m Lionel. Lionel Salkind.” My throat was dry again. “I don’t know anything about a Belur package.”
“I hear you.” His voice was still soft and thoughtful. ” Dixie , get his shirt off. Don’t untie him. Cut it away if yer have to.”
Dixie took out a sheath knife. The blade was sharpened to a wicked tip, and it gleamed in the light. He cut my shirt and undershirt efficiently from top to bottom, laying the cold flat of the blade lovingly against my skin as he finished. Scouse whistled when he saw the pattern of scars on my chest and stomach.
“Been through the wars, haven’t yer? Mebbe you need them pills after all. I’ve seen road maps with less lines on ’em than your belly. I bet you don’t want more there, do yer? I can understand that. But let’s do one little check before we start — just to make sure.”
He nodded. Dixie took his cigarette out of his mouth and applied it without warning to my shoulder. I yelled at the pain and tried to writhe away from the red-hot ash. I couldn’t move more than a few inches in any direction. Scouse nodded.
“All right. Just checking. Wouldn’t be worth doing anything to yer, would it, if you’d already had a go with the Belur Package? All right, now let’s have a little chat.”
He pulled a chair forward and sat down facing me. I noticed that the woman was standing absolutely motionless. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was biting her lip as though under some great tension.
“Are you going to stand there and let them torture me?” I said desperately. “Can’t you see they have the wrong man?”
Scouse turned to her as I spoke and saw the intense, rigid posture. He swore and stood up again. “Pudd’n, get Zan out of here and into another room. Take her downstairs.”
She went without speaking, but at the door she turned and gave me a long, unfathomable look. I could tell that she didn’t want to go, but she would not argue with Scouse. As soon as she was gone, he took a black case from his pocket. He removed from it a small phial and a hypodermic, and laid them on the top of the piano stool.
“That was crude with the cigarette, eh? I know.” He leaned forward to look again into my eyes. “An’ it left marks, an’ that’s never a good idea. I keep telling Dixie when he wants to have a go with the knife, there’s better ways. Let me tell you what we’ll be doin’ instead.”
He picked up the hypodermic, plunged the needle through the rubber stopper of the phial, and drew about one c.c. of clear liquid into the syringe.
“This won’t leave a mark — only the needle point. What it will do is set up a stimulation to the nerves round about where we make the injection. The pain nerves, mainly. Would yer like to negotiate with me for where we make the first puncture? Yer might not believe me, but I don’t get my kicks out of hurting people, not like some people here — providing I can get what I want some other way.”
He had brought the needle forward to within an inch of my right thumb. I was rigid with fear. It was a scene from a nightmare, to be tortured to give up information that you didn’t have. Blood from a stone. The cigarette burn on my shoulder pulsed with pain, like a promise of worse to come.
“I’m Lionel,” I said desperately. “Lionel, not Leo.”
“I hear you.” Scouse was nodding agreeably. “An’ if you were Lionel, an’ not Leo, why there’d be no point puttin’ a hard squeeze on you, would there? But how am I to know that? All I can do is make you a little proposition. You find a way to prove that you’re Lionel Salkind, an’ not Leo Foss, an’ I’ll stop — for the moment. I’ll go away an’ think things over a bit more.” He turned to Pudd’n, who had come back into the room. “Do we have the report in yet on Valnora Warren?”
“Got it this morning. She didn’t know anything useful.”
“Mm.” Scouse looked at Dixie , “She was probed right?”
“All the way to the end. Nothing.”
“Right.” Scouse turned back to me. “So it’s up to you. If you are Leo, you know where the Belur Package is. An’ I want to know. An’ if you’re Lionel, you’d better prove it — right now.”
Prove I was Lionel. My brain was refusing to function. We had always known the differences, known them exactly. But everybody else said we were the same — even people who knew us well. I’d never persuade Scouse with talk of a half-inch height difference, or a pound or two in weight.
My skin felt chilled, and I had broken out into a fine, all-over sweat. I thought desperately, closing my eyes to concentrate. And I saw, like a ghost image on the inner darkness, the regular lines of green marching beetles, as I had first seen them in the hospital basement. I gasped.
“How much do you know about Leo?” I burst out, straining forward in my chair.
“A fair bit — a lot less than we’d like to, obviously.”
“You know his background?”
“Most of it.” Scouse was frowning.
“Then I can prove to you that I’m Lionel.”
“How?”
I laughed, high-pitched and nervous. “I’m a concert pianist. There’s no way that Leo could fake that. Let me play that piano, and you’ll see.”
Scouse was frowning harder. “Foss never played the piano according to my file on him. But it could be wrong. He may have had lessons.”
“Look, lessons wouldn’t be enough. You have to understand the enormous difference between a good professional and an amateur. It’s huge.” Even as I spoke I worried about my own lack of recent practice. The restricted circulation in my hands for the past hour would make things worse. But I was itching to get at that piano more than I had ever wanted anything.
Scouse was shaking his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think I could tell the difference between a good pianist and an average one.”
“Maybe you can’t. But he can.” I jerked my head towards Pudd’n, who had been standing there scowling.
“Nobody told me you were a concert pianist,” he said accusingly. “You were just ’avin’ me on when you said I was good, wasn’t yer?”
“No, I wasn’t — you are good, and you could be a lot better. You should take it more seriously.”
“Never mind that,” said Scouse. “Could you, Pudd’n? Could you really tell if he’s a professional or an amateur?”
Pudd’n was nodding his head reluctantly, “Yeah. If he’s that good, I’ll know it. There’s things he’ll not be able to fake. Nobody could.”
“But if he tries faking…” said Dixie . He made a little upwards motion with his cigarette.
“He’ll wish he hadn’t,” Scouse said. He nodded to Pudd’n. “All right, untie him. An’ keep an eye on ’im — don’t forget what happened to Des an’ Jack.”
When the ropes were off I lurched to my feet, hardly able to stand. I had pins and needles in my forearms, and cramps in my calves and feet. The piano stool was the right height but I fussed with it anyway, chafing at my hands and trying to relax them to get some feeling into my fingertips. I was too cold, and I put my jacket on over the sweaty, ruined shirt.
“All right, no stallin’,” said Scouse.
“I’m not. My hands don’t feel right yet — I was tied too tight.”
“Tough. Just get on with it.”
I looked at Pudd’n, who was standing impassively beside the piano. Dixie was behind me, his sheath knife out and ready to be used if I made a wrong move.
So what should I play? It wouldn’t do to handle a delicate piece that Pudd’n might play better than I would (I still suspected that all the emotion had gone from my playing). It had to be something where I could pull out all the stops and hit him with pyrotechnics. If the technical difficulties were hair-raising enough, he’d never notice that the playing was cold.
“Get going,” breathed Scouse warningly. “Time’s up.”
I sighed, prayed that my fingers and memory wouldn’t betray me, and got going. I began to play “Badinage,” one of Godowsky’s paraphrases of the Chopin études. All his material is horrendously difficult (the Apostle of the Left Hand, he was called a hundred years ago) and I had never dared to tackle one of his Chopin paraphrases in a public concert. But now I had to go for broke. My main worry was to get to the end without making a total hash of it. I drove along, all my attention in my fingertips.
After the final chords I took a deep breath and looked up at Pudd’n. His face was a picture.
“Well?” said Scouse. I could tell from his voice that he was impressed but not convinced. Pudd’n just stood there shaking his head. “Christ!” he said. “What was that?”
“A combination of two Chopin studies — the two in G Flat. Godowsky. He wrote fifty-three like that.”
“Christ! I never heard anything like it.” He shook his head again and turned to Scouse and Dixie . “There’s no way he could play like that an’ be just anybody. He’s a pianist.”
“Yeah. I thought so too.” Scouse looked annoyed, but not with me. I breathed a little bit easier, even though my fate was anything but clear.
“That gives me somethin’ to think about,” went on Scouse. He was frowning. “Damn it.” He turned abruptly and began to walk towards the door. “Look after him tonight,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll be back in the morning. An’ don’t forget to tie him, unless you want to finish up like Jack and Des.”
“What about the Nymphs?” called Dixie .
Scouse turned in the doorway. “They’re not Nymphs, you daft bugger. Are you deaf? They’re some kind of medicine. Let him have ’em if he needs ’em. I’m going to get Zan. We’ve some thinking to do.”
I was still sitting on the piano stool. Dixie laid the tip of his knife on the nape of my neck, pricking it just a little to add to his point. “Come on,” he said.
Pudd’n was standing back warily, out of my reach. I walked meekly back to the chair and sat down.
“Not so tight this time,” I said, as Pudd’n began to tighten the ropes around my forearms and legs. He nodded, but he was too experienced to allow me to create any slack as he worked.
“There,” he said, and stood back. “What are we goin’ to do about food for ’im, Dix? He’ll be ’ere all night.”
“Let him bloody well starve,” said Dixie . He looked disappointed, as though he had been hoping for some attempt at resistance. That knife of his looked well used, and not just on inanimate objects. He would like to have a go at more than my shirt.
“We can’t starve ’im,” said Pudd’n. “He’s not Foss, he’s ’is brother.”
“He still did for Jack and Des, didn’t he?”
“Well, yeah — but they’d have done for ’im if he ’adn’t.” Pudd’n looked at me. I had risen in his eyes since I sat down at the keyboard. “I could do yer eggs an’ bacon. All right?”
I salivated at the thought. I was starving, and I nodded.
“Well, I’m not having anything to do with it,” said Dixie . “Fuck him. He’s all yours.”
He strode out of the room, rapidly and light on his feet. Pudd’n hesitated, and I could see his problem. If he left me to get food, I’d be unguarded, and I had no doubt that Dixie would tell that to Scouse when he came back. I jerked my head down towards my wrists. “I can’t get away, you know. You could leave me here.”
He shook his head. “Not allowed to do that. If Dixie would come back…” He looked at the door for a second, then shrugged. “Well, only one thing for it. Hold tight.”
He moved behind me, and the chair began to skate backwards over the polished floor. We went on past the room where I had awakened, and on to a long landing with deep carpeting. I heard a little grunt of effort, then I was carried, chair and all, on down the stairs. I made a mental note never to argue with Pudd’n. He was even stronger than his height and build suggested.
On the way downstairs and into the kitchen I was still trying to register everything that I saw. It seemed impossible to get away, but I couldn’t afford to give up. Maybe it was Leo’s influence, but my pulse was steady, my head was clear, and I have never felt more alert and sensitive.
There was little enough to see. We were in an old house, with eleven or twelve foot ceilings, thick and solid doors, and deep skirting-boards. I guessed it was late Victorian, and when we came to it the kitchen was enormous, with a great range all along one wall. The range had been converted from coal to gas, and Pudd’n set my chair next to it while he cooked about a pound of bacon and eight eggs.
“Bread an’ tea?” he said. “I’m going to feed both of us. I don’t want you untied.”
He gave me food skillfully and quickly, cutting up everything into the right bite-sized pieces. I shook my head after the third egg and he went on to finish everything and then washed up the pans and dishes. I had some vague hope that I might reach a knife and hold it under my forearm, but I couldn’t stretch my hand that far and anyway Pudd’n was watching every move I made.
“Right,” he said when he was finished. “Now back upstairs. That’ll be the hard bit.”
He didn’t call on Dixie for assistance. I could guess what the answer to that request would have been, and anyway the less I saw of Dixie , the better.
“Why not leave me down here?” I asked.
He considered it for a moment. “Don’t think so,” he said at last. “There’s a lock on the music room, and none on the kitchen ’ere. We’ll get yer back up there in a couple of minutes. Sit still.”
We retraced our steps to the stairs and on up, Pudd’n huffing a bit but not under any apparent strain. We were at the top when Dixie appeared. He was scowling.
“Scouse called while you were feeding your face down there,” he said. “He wants you to go over there tonight.”
“What for? An’ what about ’im?” Pudd’n laid one big hand on the top of my head.
“Don’t worry about that.” Dixie smiled so wide I could see the top of his dentures. “You can leave him to me.”
Pudd’n shrugged. “All right. I’ll leave in an hour, an’ I’ll hand over to you when I go.”
He dragged me back along the landing and on through into the music room. All the way there I looked for a sign of anything that might be useful later. There was nothing.
“It’s a big house,” I said to Pudd’n, after he had moved me over near the piano and seated himself on the stool. He grunted noncommittally.
“How many bedrooms?” I went on.
He swiveled round to face me. “Look here, mate, I’m younger than you but I wasn’t born yesterday. Don’t try an’ pump me, all right? If you’re relyin’ on me to tell you, you already know all about this house that you’re goin’ to know. Talk about something else.”
I shrugged and leaned back in the chair. “All right. I was just interested, that’s all. I’m surprised that you don’t take piano playing more seriously. I could tell that you didn’t have any trouble playing for Dixie — it didn’t stretch you at all.”
“Ah, he just wants easy stuff — dance tunes, mostly.” He sniffed. “Fancies himself as Fred Astaire, silly old fart. He’s past it. I play anythin’ he asks me to, but it’s not real music.”
“So why not play real music? How are you in sight-reading and improvising?”
“I’m good — ’specially improvising.” His expression was interested, and he was getting into the conversation more. I didn’t see how it could lead anywhere useful, but I had nothing better to do.
“I’d like to hear you,” I said.
“Pick a tune.” He looked positively eager. So was I. It was one thing to meet a musical thug, but natural talent is hard to find anywhere and it’s intriguing when you meet it.
“How about a contemporary work?” I said. “How many late twentieth century piano pieces do you know?”
“Damn few — an’ that includes early twentieth century as well.” He struck a few sparse and dissonant chords that sounded like an extract from Webern, but not one I could place. “Hear that?” he said. “That’s not music.”
“So what is music?”
He thought for a moment. “This is.” He began to play a beautifully balanced piano transcription of the first movement of the Schubert String Quintet, nodding his head with the rhythm.
After about a minute he stopped.
“Go on,” I said. I was ready to hear more. “Who did the piano arrangement?”
He looked sheepish. “I did it myself, from listening to records an’ all that.”
“I’d like to see a copy.”
“Aw, I don’t bother to write much stuff down.” He sniffed. “If it’s any good you remember it anyway.”
“Could you improvise on part of that?”
He shrugged noncommittally, and began again. This time he took only the first subject and began to carry it through a series of variations and modulations. He was soon so far away from C Major that I wondered how he was proposing ever to get back. Finally he set up a mock fugato, in which successive voices began to move him elegantly through the different keys. When he finally landed back in the tonic he grinned at me in triumph, ran through a flashing display of double octaves, and added a jaunty little coda. I noticed that his left hand, in spite of its less smooth movement, was perfectly agile and made the wildest jumps accurately.
“You’re damned good,” I said when he paused. For a few minutes I had forgotten that I was tied to an uncomfortable chair, a prisoner in a strange house with an unknown tomorrow. No denying it: Pudd’n was a better improviser than I ever was or ever would be.
He was flushed with pleasure. “Bit of all right, that, eh? It had me really goin’ for a while with that fugue, but it came out not bad.”
“Better than not bad. Look, if you want to try and earn an honest living, come and see me.” (As I said that, it occurred to me that I wasn’t going any place. See me where?) “You need some advanced training on use of the pedals, and that left hand could use some special exercises. But if you want to work at it, you could be doing this professionally in six months.”
“Nah.” He closed the piano lid. “I’m better off this way. Twelve years of do-re-mi practice was enough. I’m goin’ to try an’ learn to play that thing you did, though — just to prove I can.”
He stood up. “I’ll have to be off. Dixie will be up here in a minute. Take my advice, try an’ act polite to ’im, even if he does come in ’ere an’ start dancin’ about like a bleedin’ pet monkey. He gets nasty if you rub him up the wrong way — too fond of that bleedin’ knife, it’s goin’ to finish him off one of these days.”
He scratched his head. “Well, see you tomorrer. Don’t get into no trouble.”
I was left tied solidly in the chair, contemplating the pleasures of the evening ahead with Dancing Dixie as my companion. It was hard to work up any enthusiasm, even if I followed Pudd’n’s advice and didn’t get into no trouble. And I was getting awfully itchy to leave that chair.