The Violin Conspiracy(56)

“Leave now,” he said, and he didn’t recognize his own voice, as if it came from a deep part of his diaphragm, lower than he’d ever heard himself before. “If you leave right now, I won’t press charges.” He willed them outside.

To his immense surprise, Andrea wobbled out, and her brother behind her. Ray pressed his back against the wall to avoid touching them.

On the doorstep, Dante turned. “Think about it, Rayquan. You can’t afford this. You won’t win. Do the right thing and give us back the violin.” He held out the check again, between two fingers, as if its edges could cut him.

Ray closed the door, gently but firmly, and locked it.

It took all his effort to just keep standing, leaning his forehead against the cool wall. Could this be legitimate? Could they really sue him for his violin? Had Grandma Nora been totally honest about the violin? Was it really stolen?

He fumbled open his phone.

“Hello, Aunt Rochelle? I need your help. Everything is just going nuts.”

“Whoa, slow down. What’s—”

“They just came in talking crazy! They said he stole it!”

“Who said that? What are you talking about?”

“This brother and sister—the Markses—said the violin is theirs. She read some crazy letter from her great-great-great-great-grandpa or something saying that PopPop stole his violin and—”

“What? PopPop stole his fiddle? Slow down.”

He tried taking a breath, then repeated what had happened. “They came to actually take the violin! Just walk in and take it! Now they’re threatening to sue me. I don’t know what to do. I think I need to find a lawyer. Which is why I called you.”

“You need to talk to somebody about this,” Rochelle said. “My firm doesn’t do a lot of these kinds of personal property cases—we’re mostly personal injury. But let me get you a number. Someone who’ll make this all go away for you.”

“How can I afford a lawyer? I don’t need this.”

“It’s over for now. Don’t worry about it. We’ll find you a good attorney and we can get this sorted out. Give me a couple hours and I’ll call you right back.”

After they hung up, Ray tried to play, but ended up just sitting there, as afternoon folded into night. Just cradling the violin and trying to imagine life without it.





Chapter 17


    Birdland


8 Months Ago

The offices of Mendel, Panofsky & Levine sprawled over the entire forty-seventh floor of a solid-glass skyscraper just below Central Park. One of the top art-and-entertainment law firms in the country, there was no art hung on the walls: just blank expanses of white, and glass windows with killer views of downtown Manhattan. The receptionist—pale blond hair, wearing a white sheath and white pumps—ushered him into the conference room. Five minutes later, Kim Wach was shaking his hand. She was short, barely over five feet tall, her silver hair cut short in a bob, wearing a beautifully tailored dark blue suit, dark pumps, and a crisp white shirt. She came at him smiling, hand extended. He had the impression that she should be wearing glasses. Her teeth were very square and white.

It was two weeks after the Markses’ visit, and he was back in New York, booked to play a recital of Biber’s Rosary Sonatas at Hunter College. Aunt Rochelle had found him several attorneys to advise him on the Marks situation, and one of them was in New York, so he made an appointment for a consultation.

Now he repeated how Andrea Marks had written him several letters and then how she and her brother, Dante, had appeared on his doorstep. As he spoke he felt almost physically ill. Andrea Marks’s chicken wattles swayed gently in front of him, and the slightly distasteful way Dante held out the $200,000 check refused to leave his mind.

“So let me get this straight,” Kim said when he’d finished. “These two people show up unannounced, read you some letter off their phone, and tell you they’re taking a ten-million-dollar Stradivarius? And you’re worried about this?”

He shrugged. “I’m just telling you what happened. Do you think there’s a case?”

“On the face of it, not much,” Kim said. “Stolen property cases are pretty clear. The Markses will have a lot to prove.” She thought a moment, then ticked off on her fingers, “First, they’re going to have to prove that the violin was actually theirs. It’s easy enough to say that they had a violin, and you have a violin—but they need to prove that their family’s violin is actually yours.”

Ray nodded. “Okay, I can see that.”

“Assuming they can prove that the violin is the same one, they’re going to have to show that it was actually stolen. Did they supply any kind of proof that your ancestor actually stole it?”

Ray shook his head. “My grandma always said that PopPop was given the violin. That the slave owner—who might actually have been PopPop’s father—gave it to him.”

“The claim seems very far-fetched, honestly. I bet that’s why they went to you directly instead of hiring a lawyer. They hoped they could intimidate you.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t worry?”

“If it were me, I wouldn’t stay awake worrying about it. They might try filing a claim against you, just so you’ll settle with them instead of going to court, but I don’t think you’re there yet.”