The Lost Chord: Installment 34

...continued from the previous installment of "The Lost Chord," (my musical parody of Dan Brown's “The Lost Symbol") when our heroes called Dhabbodhú, but get a security agent at his house instead, telling them a man with an ear missing has been asking about them – just as they are about to leave the laundry room, they're intercepted by Leahy-Hu and her officers.

(If you are new to “The Lost Chord,” begin your adventure, here.)

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Now it seemed all we had to do was sit around the laundry room, waiting for D'Arcy's phone to ring. LauraLynn and I had given up begging to be let go so we could get to Robertson before the security agents left Dhabbodhú's place – what would they do with him, just leave him there? take him away to a hospital? Did anyone contact the NYPD to send officers there to apprehend Dhabbodhú when he returned, assuming he would ever return, now? And where was he, anyway?

For my part, I was trying not to dwell on D'Arcy's apparent treachery and he, for his part, avoided looking in my direction, just staring at his phone lying on the folding table. Detective Ho was copying down the statue's different tattoos onto a piece of note paper. No one else spoke a word.

The silence, such as it could be in a New York City basement room with windows opening out onto a view of the sidewalk above, was broken by the blustering of an old man's familiar but irritated voice being led out of the elevator.

“I don't know what this has to do with me – I'm, you know... an old man, I need my rest. You don't have to push me to...”

And then, when he entered the room, escorted by the janitor and a couple of ICA agents, Howard Zendler saw us and smiled meekly, sitting down without further complaint in a chair near the door.

I told him that we'd found out Robertson is safe if not exactly “okay” and looked questioningly over at Leahy-Hu, wondering why they had brought Mr. Zendler all the way down here. Before she could answer, D'Arcy's phone began to ring.

Odd he would have chosen the one line from Schoenberg's Moses und Aron that Moses, whose part is otherwise written in sprechstimme, that odd more-spokend-than-sung declamation, actually sings. “Reinige dein Denken,” he warns Aaron, “Purify your thinking, free it from worthless things.” Indeed.

At the core of the opera's philosophical debate, religion aside, is the argument between the idea which is inexpressible and the need to find some way to express it to the masses, Schoenberg's “Folk,” the massive chorus that is such a prominent force in the opera. Moses may be better at thinking than speaking, which is why he's engaged his silver-tongued brother Aaron as his spokesman. But as is typical of many spokesmen, he doesn't really comprehend the idea and ends up creating an image – the Golden Calf, in this case – which will only succeed in perverting Moses' thought. It is easy to believe, accurately or not, that this was Schoenberg's own dilemma, trying to balance the dichotomy of the creative process and his “Theory of Composing with Twelve Tones” with something that could be made accessible to listeners so they could understand what he was trying to do.

At that point, Mr. Zendler saw the Beethoven statue on the table and pointed at it with a shaky finger. I put a finger to my lips and gestured for him to wait a moment.

LauraLynn looked at me expectantly, probably not because she understood the deeper significance of his ringtone. She knew it must be Dhabbodhú on the line. You could feel the sudden tension in the room as everyone leaned forward.

“Well, Mr. D'Arcy?” Leahy-Hu walked over and stood beside him. “Show time! Break a leg – figuratively speaking... or perhaps literally.” She punctuated this with a snapping gesture using both hands.

D'Arcy took a deep breath and picked up the phone.

“It's now Wednesday morning, Mr. D'Arcy.” We could hear the chillingly familiar voice as D'Arcy held the phone out at a slight angle. “You know, another few minutes and Robertson would have resolved himself to the Great Big Deceptive Cadence in the Sky, I'm afraid. So good of you to call.”

“Uhm, yes, well... I...”

The voice cut him off with studied disinterest. “So this Beethoven statue you photographed, what exactly is that?”

“It was inside the Mozart gizmo. There are additional clues engraved on it.”

“Such as...?”

“If you meet me at Verdi Square, I'll give you the transcript I've made of the clues on the statue. They're fairly self-explanatory.”

I tried not to laugh.

“Verdi Square? At 72nd & Broadway? I'm not far from there. I'll be there in ten minutes, maybe less.”

“I'm... uh, a little further away at the moment but I could be there in maybe twenty.”

“And alone, too,” Dhabbodhú added cautiously with a threatening snarl. “Any sign of those special agents or the local gendarmerie and your friend will suddenly find himself smack up against a double bar. I've already cut off one ear, you see: I can just as easily put a bullet through the other one.”

LauraLynn sat back smugly, convinced it was all a gruff façade – she'd talked to the security agent back at his house: Robertson's already been rescued. She stuck her tongue out toward the phone.

“You should meet me at the northeast corner of the square.”

“Mr. D'Arcy, Verdi Square is not that big – I'm sure we'll find each other easily enough at this time of night. But as you wish. I will meet you there in twenty minutes, then: you'd better hurry. I don't intend to wait too long.” And with a bitter laugh, he hung up.

Well, yeah, if you want the clues, you'll wait that long – maybe longer.

It was impossible to make eye contact with D'Arcy as he stuffed the papers Det. Ho handed him into a pocket. They quickly hustled him out of the room without a word.

Zendler came over and sat down to look at the statue, picking it up to look over it front and back. “This is astounding, you know. Who would, I mean... ever think something like this... and yet there it was, inside the other one – the idea versus the image, and all that, as our friend Moses was just telling us.” He winked at me.

LauraLynn and I again pleaded with Leahy-Hu to let us go see Robertson at Dhabbodhú's brownstone: there really was little we could do, at this point.

Reluctantly, she agreed, assigning one of her newer agents, Rhonda Voo, to go with us.

“Keep an eye on these clowns, Agent Voo, and don't let anyone else talk to Robertson Sullivan until I get back from this escapade at Verdi Square. The night isn't over yet and I have a feeling the work isn't near done, either.” With that, she turned and left with the others.

Zendler put the statue back down on the table.

“Buzz,” I asked him, “would you help Mr. Zendler back up to his apartment? Then you can come up to Dhabbodhú's place and meet us there.” LauraLynn scribbled down the address and gave it to him.

“Ah, yes, thank you – you know, I've been a very naughty boy, staying up this late. I'm afraid my Piano Quintet might be very different tomorrow from what I had planned on doing at the end of today's work...”

I offered my hand to Zendler for a farewell handshake and he took it in both of his. And he looked at me intently as he said, “I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of this very soon, now... Please tell Robertson I send my best – and ask him to give my regards to Warnsdorff, will you?”

Warnsdorff? I wondered if perhaps the great man were not a little too tired, after all, but I nodded and said I would be sure to do that, assuming Robertson would understand the reference.

With a quick glance at LauraLynn and our latest keeper, Agent Voo, I scooped up the statue and put it back in the tote-bag.

“Yes,” Zendler said, “yes, I'm glad you've not given that to this fellow you've been talking about, our villain-of-the-night.”

“I'm not sure what exactly's going on, any more, after finding out D'Arcy was apparently planning on turning the information over to him in the first place and now the police are giving him the clues, any way. But it looks like I'm still the keeper of his statue, so I'll just return it to Robertson, safe and sound. I'm glad my role in these exploits is over.”

“Oh, I'm sure you are!”

LauraLynn grabbed my arm impatiently and urged us all to hurry. There was still, if nothing else, little time to spare.

And with that, Agent Voo was soon hurrying us north through the streets of Manhattan, practically flying toward W.69th Street.

*** ***** ******** ***** ***

There is a tiny patch of grass and trees between 72nd & 73rd Streets where Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue intersect that most people could easily overlook as they hurry to and from the subway station there. Even fewer might know it is called Verdi Square and that the statue hidden within its trees is a monument to the great Italian composers of operas like Aida or La Traviata.

Made of Carrara marble and limestone, the statue by Pasquale Civiletti was erected on Columbus Day in 1906, just five years after Verdi died, whether they were aware it was also a few days off from what could have been his 93rd birthday. It was part of a city-wide celebration of Italian culture that had also established the much grander Columbus Circle just to the south fourteen years earlier as part of the 400th Anniversary Celebration of Columbus' arrival in the New World. Businessman Carlo Barsotti may be forgotten today, but he was instrumental in establishing monuments around the city to honor the likes not only of Verdi and Columbus but also in 1888 to Garibaldi in Washington Square Park and in 1921 to Dante Alighieri in front of what would later become Lincoln Center.

In the 1960s and '70s, the park had fallen on bad times, a frequent haunt of drug traffickers better known locally as “Needle Park.” Imagine what addicts shooting up in the statue's shadow would have thought if they were suddenly to hear strains from Verdi's most popular operas emanating from speakers suspended among the trees: that at least had been one of the plans bandied about to help make the area safer. It wasn't until 2002 that the park found renewed life with the building of a second entrance to the 72nd Street subway station and the park was redesigned and re-landscaped.

On this November night, the air was crisp and the park almost completely empty despite the steady post-midnight traffic nearby. In the hurried drive uptown, D'Arcy had been outfitted with a “wire” while wireless Cobra headsets, SWAT-team mics and receivers, were outfitted for Director Leahy-Hu and several officers from the NYPD's WACKO Division wearing scruffy night-camouflage and ready to take down someone already described as a Human Hulk.

The van parked casually on 72nd just west of Broadway as various agents quietly fanned out across the park's immediate vicinity. Agents Andrea Watt was sent to cover the corner by the old Renaissance fortress on 73rd Street that was now the Apple Bank along with Apache and Tesorro while Agent Elise Eidonneau joined Barb Dwyer who was hanging out with the late night crowd around Gray's Papaya at 72nd & Amsterdam. Agent Tamara Bumdier went over to where Wanda Menveaux and DePuis LeJour were posted in front of the Chase bank just below the Ansonia, one of the more ornate buildings in the neighborhood. Basically, they had the place more or less surrounded: it would be very difficult for someone as large as Dr. Iobba Dhabbodhú was reported to be to slip through their efficiently executed net.

D'Arcy checked over the sheet of paper he'd been handed and took a deep breath before sauntering off toward the northeast entrance. Leahy-Hu was delighted to see such great cooperation between her ICA agents and the NYPD officers, wrapped in some old blankets like a homeless person and seating herself discreetly on a bench by the subway station's entrance with a good view of much of the park before her. Detective Telly Ho stayed back in the van, coordinating things with ICA's dispatcher, Agent Aida Lott.

“Showtime,” Leahy-Hu said into her mic, “everybody's in place. Now – we just wait for the Big Guy.” She lit a cigarette and surveyed the scene with studied indifference.

Meanwhile, Detective Ho was trying to explain to Agent Lott the distribution of the various wireless headsets.

“You mean you can't remember which ones you assigned to which agents?” Lott was trying not to sound superior for all her organizational skills. “Who's on first?”

Ho checked his board. “Yes.”

“I mean the Agent's name.”

“Hu.”

“The one on first.”

“Hu.”

Agent Lott was getting more and more annoyed. “Right, what's the agent's name with the first headset?”

“No, Watt's on second.”

“I'm not asking you who's on second!”

“And I told you, Hu's on first!”

“You tell me – I don't know...”

“Eidonneau's on third.”

“Wait... what?”

“No, I've already told you Watt's on second.”

“Look,” she said, “you got a fourth headset?”

“Certainly.”

“Would you tell me the name of the Agent you've assigned to the fourth headset?”

“Tamara.” He had a soft spot for the beautiful Tamara Bumdier.

“No, I need to know it tonight! Who's on the fourth headset?”

“Hu's on first – How many times have I told you that?”

“I dunno...”

“Eidonneau's still on third: it's too late to switch.” He was getting irritated, now.

“Look, the agent on the first headset should be the one giving the orders. So who's giving the orders tonight?

“Naturally.”

“Who?”

“Naturally!”

Leahy-Hu took a long slow drag from her cigarette, confident that everything was under control. She was still waiting for a call from Haydn Plainview and hopefully Agent Voo would be calling her soon from W.69th Street: they should have gotten there by now.

*** ***** ******** ***** ***

Yikes! I knew we were in a hurry to see Robertson but getting stopped by the police for speeding or wrapping ourselves around a tree somewhere along Central Park West was not the kind of unexpected delay I cared to see in our immediate future. As we careened in and out of slow moving traffic up 8th Avenue and then around Columbus Circle, I hugged the tote bag with its bulky contents even more tightly to my chest as LauraLynn and I bounced around in the back seat of Agent Voo's car, knocking into each other like we were on an old amusement park ride. What were the chances we'd get there in time – and alive?

Il tutto sará trovato nell'ordine.

Perhaps my life wasn't that well organized to find anything in it, orderly or not. And certainly, thinking about the limerick on Beethoven's back, how would Dante lead me past the Fourth Circle to find an immobile spider?

“LauraLynn, perhaps you remember,” I asked her as our ride reminded me of a bumpy ride straight to Hell, “what is the significance of the Fourth Circle in Dante's Inferno?”

“I was trying to remember that. I think it's the one before the Styx, the last station stop in Upper Hell.”

“Wasn't the Styx the river that you had to cross over to get into Hell?” Mentally, I was comparing what that must have been like compared to the wild ride we were experiencing at the moment.

“Don't you remember your Dante? Tsk tsk... No, the Acheron is the first river in Dante's Hell, and that's where Charon was the boatman in Canto III. The Styx is more like a stagnant swamp in Cantos VII and VIII. But isn't the Fourth Ring the canto that begins with Pluto's cry, 'Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe!'?”

“Oh right, I remember that now, whatever it means. This is the circle where the misers battle it out with the wasters, isn't it? those who hoard their wealth and those who squander it?”

“That's the one. A good commentary for our modern materialistic age. Pluto is usually thought of as the Ruler of the Underworld but he was also the god of Material Wealth so he makes a good guardian for them, here. But what do you think the limerick means, then: how does Dante's Fourth Circle fit in with our clues?”

“Well,” I pondered, “there's always the warring factions between those who create their art for the sake of art, maintaining their integrity as opposed to those who pander to popular taste in order to make a buck, perhaps. Isn't this one of the Cantos where Virgil talks about Fortune, and how quickly things change from fame to obscurity? That may be more the point...”

“And climbing past the Fourth Circle – shouldn't we be descending, though? The Fifth Circle is the one with the Wrathful and the Sullen who live submerged in the fetid swamp of the Styx.”

I interrupted her. “Oh, do you think this portal we're looking for is in swampland or something? Or where a swamp might have been before? A place where wrathful and sullen types hang out? Like what – critics?”

“This is it,” Voo announced, the first words she spoke since before we got in the car in what seemed like only minutes before. It was definitely a short ride in a fast machine.

“That's Dhabbodhú's brownstone, right there” she said, pointing to one of many impressive facades along the quiet, tree-lined street. The one she indicated, though, was actually dark gray rather than brown, so I guess you could call it more of a flintstone.

Voo was able to park the car just a few doors beyond the address LauraLynn had given her, but she and I had trouble keeping up with her as LauraLynn sprinted up the steps.

Something struck me as being odd, though. There were no police cars out front, no sign of any vehicle from Doolittle and DeLay, but the front door stood wide open. Were we too late? had everybody left? Or...

LauraLynn barged through the vestibule into the hallway, past the living room toward the middle room where she saw a uniformed security agent sitting, her back to the entrance.

“I'm LauraLynn Sullivan – where's my brother?”

But just as she said that, I saw her disappear right through the floor. There was a flash of deep orangey-red light, a loud burst of music and just as suddenly it too was gone. What the hell...? Who'd have a hell-trap in their dining room? Wouldn't that come in handy with some annoying dinner guests...


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to be continued...
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The Lost Chord, a Music Appreciation Thriller, is a serial novel written by Dick Strawser and is a musical parody of Dan Brown'sThe Lost Symbol. It is being serialized on this blog: watch for the next segment on Tuesday, October 19th.
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