Nightzone (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-eight

Opus 7 was a nice surprise, and the applause for it was tumultuous. As the applause died, the stage remained empty for a long moment. Several pieces remained for the ambitious program. The pair finally returned to the spotlight, starting a new set of short pieces with a composition I actually recognized. Wolf Mozart never knew that his Concerto No. 21 in C Major had been borrowed a couple hundred years later as the theme for the Swedish movie
Elvira Madigan,
the story of a couple of doomed lovers. Mateo's flute work, with a gentle piano staying deep in the background, was heart-wrenching…he played the whole thing with his eyes tightly shut, and I wondered if he had a fair damsel somewhere who was making
his
heart ache.

He let Francisco have his own share of meditation with Schumann's Opus 15, number 7, the
Träumerei
. I don't think I had ever heard anything so unrelentingly delicate, with the enormous bass notes reined in tightly.

Mateo Atencio was too young to have served in the Middle East conflicts, but his unaccompanied rendition of Gold's
From a Distance
certainly reached out and touched some of the audience. Across the aisle to my left, a middle-aged man dabbed his eyes now and then. As applause for that died, Francisco joined his compadre on stage, and they woke us up with a driving rendition of a Spanish piece by de Falla. And then, fresh out of program, the two boys left the stage. The performance certainly was exhausting for the kiddos, but the audience refused to let them go.

They returned together for a series of bows, and then Francisco returned solo, to thrash the big Steinway with Rachmaninoff's string-breaker in C-sharp minor, a piece that told me the Russian certainly had been upset about something. Somehow the kid was able to throttle back at the end, with the final chord almost inaudible. The audience wasn't, though—a reaction that prompted an enormous grin from Francisco.

He left the stage and almost immediately returned with Mateo in tow, but this time, the two were talking about something as they approached the piano. To the audience's astonishment, the two boys stopped behind the end of the piano, and had a somewhat longer conference, Francisco standing with his back to the audience, one hand possessively on the piano's flank, doing most of the talking. He made a series of me-you gestures toward Mateo, and the older boy finally shrugged in exasperated capitulation. Just about the time my stomach did a nervous flip, sure enough, the two artists figuratively dumped the cards out of their sleeves.

Raising his eyes heavenward, Mateo handed the flute to Francisco, who accepted it solemnly. The younger boy walked in front of the piano and made an exaggerated bow to Mateo, offering the piano bench. Mateo's facial expression said, “Oh, sure,” but he walked around thoughtfully and sat in front of the keyboard.

Still, no music had appeared. Taking the same position his partner had occupied, Francisco raised the flute, but even I could see something was terribly wrong.

“No!” Mateo mimed loudly, certainly for the audience's benefit. Feigning long-suffering weariness, he rose from the bench and took the flute from Francisco's hands, swapping ends so that it faced the correct, traditional direction before handing it back. As he returned to the piano bench, he looked heavenward for the audience, who now had to realize they were part of this elaborate joke.

Mateo raised his hands toward the keys, and then paused. Turning to the audience, and the gymnasium was as quiet as if there were no audience, he said, “Francisco says the flute is easy to play because there are no pedals to get in the way.” He bent over and looked down at his own shoes, poised near the three brass pedals. “Fortunately, the pedals didn't exist when Bach wrote his B-minor suite.”

The words drew a rustle from some of the audience, obviously more musically sophisticated than I. If I had ever heard the B-minor, I wouldn't have been able to report when or where. I didn't know what to anticipate.

The first movement combined elements of a dignified march with just about every note ever invented, and Mateo played beautifully. For his part, Francisco's flute was crisp and pure, rolling up and down and sideways as if he'd been playing all his young life. He played the major theme with back rigid and shoulders square, as if standing at attention for military inspection. I think my jaw hung slack with astonishment. But this was just the warm up. With hardly a breath between, the two launched into the second movement, an insanely fast thing that bounced down the octaves and back up again, a pure romp of joy. I had always thought of J.S. Bach as a staid old buzzard who intoned dismal things on the organ. Not this time. Not with these two immensely talented kids. They slowed only on the last six notes, and then held it, the sound rising and then becoming lost somewhere in the ceiling above us.

“Wow,” I managed, but the audience made sure I was the only one to hear my exclamation. We clapped until our hands hurt, and that drew the two performers out onto the stage twice more, but no more encores were forthcoming. I turned to say something to Estelle Reyes-Guzman and saw her folding a tissue into a small, wet wad. It was the first time I'd ever seen evidence of tears in the thirty years that I'd known her.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Carlos wanted to remain at the gymnasium to help disassemble the venue, but when I told him that his famous presence was expected at the reception, he readily agreed, the little showman. There was an added incentive. Dr. Francis needed to make a visit to the hospital and his patient with the exploded appendix, and Estelle needed a few moments to confer with the sheriff before indulging herself with an evening in the role of proud mom. I offered to let Carlos accompany me over to the house where we'd be among the first on hand to welcome the Leister crew.

A chance to ride any old time in Padrino's SUV was an incomprehensible treat for the youngster, and he and I escaped out through one of the gym's side doors, the one nearest the temporary stage curtains, the one protected by the two signs, Emergency Exit Only and Alarm will Sound when Door is Opened. What a bad influence on the youth of America I was…but I knew that the door alarm
wouldn't
sound, since kids popped in and out the E-doors all the time when the gym was a gym. The door opened onto a small concrete patio that surrounded part of the gym's electrical substation, with a narrow sidewalk leading out toward the athletic field parking lot.

Carlos skipped ahead of me, still riding his
Opus 7
high. At one point I caught his eye and held up the keys, then tossed them to him in an easy, high arc. “Over by the ticket booth,” I called. “Right in front of the bus.” He caught them and charged off toward where my SUV was parked, thumbing the key to flash the courtesy lights half a dozen times.

I was having such a good time watching the kid's antics that my radar was turned off. He stood by the passenger door, waiting as I approached. The silly grin had vanished but his dark, deeply set eyes were hidden by the night shadows.

“Mount up,” I said, but Carlos didn't move. That's when the hair stood up on the back of my neck.

“Just get in the car,” a soft voice commanded. The bulk of the SUV hid the man from view, but through the wash of the courtesy lights, I could see that his hand rested on the boy's right shoulder, essentially locking Carlos between himself and the Durango's open door. Worse, he held what in the dome light's glow appeared to be a small pistol, the barrel nestled under the boy's right ear. I stopped short. What I could do if accosted on a level playing field, with both my assailant and myself armed, was one thing. Now, here I had a treasured youngster in peril. I couldn't reach either him or our assailant. And the weight on my hip? I kept both hands in the open.

“Get in the car,” the dark shadow said again. “Nothing stupid, Sheriff.” I heard the shake in his voice, the sharp inhalations.

“I'm not the sheriff,” I said, for want of anything better. The voice wasn't familiar, and I needed time more than anything else. “And who are you?” His “nothing stupid” remark was unnecessary. What could I do, leap in a single bound over the top of the tall SUV? Somehow dive through the interior? I could feign a heart attack, and writhe on the ground. Maybe in the process, Carlos would ram a sharp little elbow into the man's
cajones
, then slam his head into the door. Sure enough.

“Get in the car.”

I could hear other voices, happy concert-goers heading home, oblivious. Unfortunately, a gaggle of them was
not
approaching us…in typical fashion, I had parked off to the side, close to one of the five rugged old elms that graced the parking lot. Behind me, the driver had parked the mammoth Leister bus. He'd be coming for it in a few minutes, but right now, it provided a most effective screen.

“Put the gun away first before someone gets hurt,” I ordered.

“You didn't worry about that before,” he said. “Just shut up and do like I say.” He might have held the gun, but he wasn't a pro at this. And that told me who he was.

“You want to talk to me, talk, Mr. Baum. We don't have to drive anywhere. And none of this is going to bring your father back. All you're guaranteeing is that your daughter will be able to visit you in prison.”

He took a shuddering breath as if what he really wanted to do was cry. That was good, since he wasn't paying attention to the Leister bus. I wasn't either. But I did see the enormous dark shadow that appeared behind him, a shadow that must have used the bus as easy cover. Perhaps our assailant heard a faint noise, or felt a shift in the air. That was all the warning he had. His right arm snapped up, the pistol arching toward the star-studded sky. Then it was wrenched from his hand, to go skittering across the hood of my SUV.

He let out a strangled cry and then
he
was wrenched backward, spinning in a blur to crash against the elm's gnarly old trunk. I dove around the back of the SUV, grabbed the stunned Carlos and shoved him in the vehicle, slamming the door behind him. In those few seconds, my assailant found himself with his face buried in the elm bark, both arms twisted behind him, with the grim
snick
of handcuffs around his wrists.

“Just stand still, sir,” Sheriff Robert Torrez said. And then, with one hand on his radio and the other pinning the man to the elm by the neck, he lowered his voice. “Mears, ten twenty.”

For a dozen seconds, my heartbeat and the frantic breathing of the man pegged to the tree were the loudest things I could hear.

“I'm still in the gym.”

“Out back by the bus. I need some assistance. And on your way, find Real. ASAP.”

“Ten four.”

“What do you think you're doing?” the man gasped, finding it difficult to enunciate with his face buried in the bark.

“Just relax, Mr. Baum,” Torrez muttered. “You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.” And as the sheriff went through the rest of the Miranda rigamarole, I let out a long breath of relief, which the sheriff apparently misinterpreted.

He finished the Miranda and turned slightly toward me. “You all right, sir?”

“Just fine.”

“I want a photo of the gun before it gets moved,” he said. “Make sure nobody steps on it.”

Circling the SUV, I opened the driver's door and peered inside. Carlos Guzman's eyes were huge as he looked across at me.

“You doing okay?” I asked. He managed a nod. “Sorry I got a little rough with you. We'll be out of here in just a minute or two.”

I could see the youngster trying to relax against the seat, his spine doing a fair imitation of steel rebar. He turned to stare out the window toward the tree, then back at me.

“Did you see that?” His natural excitement about life's big adventure was returning.

“I did indeed.”

“The sheriff just
levitated
him.” I laughed and that felt good. A rumble of gruff exhaust announced the arrival of the undersheriff's unit, and half a second later, Tom Mears' marked county car. Before Estelle had the chance to clear her unit, the sheriff had walked George Baum over to catch his ride to perpetual care. That's when I realized that I had seen the man before.

Transferring his grip on the cuffs to Mears, Torrez nodded at Estelle. “I want photos of the gun before anyone touches it. It's on the ground in front of the vehicle,” he said. Estelle's eyes weren't searching for a now-impotent gun, and if Torrez wasn't in the mood to dispense huggies, she felt the need. Without a doubt, she had been with her eldest son when the radio call came, and it must have been a wrench to leave him, only to find Carlos somehow in jeopardy.

But now, Estelle could see that Carlos was fine, the boy jittering with excitement. She scooped him out of the car, his feet airborne.

“Bobby thumped him into the tree, Mamá.” He squirmed loose and dashed to the tree, patting its rough bark. I could imagine some Baum relative adding police brutality charges to the looming lawsuit mania, using the boy's description as damning testimony.

A red Honda materialized out of the darkness carrying Linda Real and her plethora of photographic gear.

“He was waiting for you?” the undersheriff asked. With one hand clamped on her son's shoulder, she reached out with the other to me.

“Sure enough.” I frowned. “The son-of-a-bitch was inside the gym. I saw him during intermission. Nice guy. He even found time to help a little old lady.” Baum and I, with his photo in my pocket, had been within touching distance in that crowded gymnasium. The round, bowling ball head and stumpy body were unmistakable. Had I been paying attention…and that was a sobering thought.

A camera's flash interrupted my ruminations. “The gun is right over here,” I said. Estelle ushered Carlos back into the SUV, a sign that my padrino status was still worth something.

The undersheriff's flashlight beam circled the gun, and I didn't feel any better. From a distance, even a hefty automatic can look small. But its magazine held a handful of rounds, and more important, the hammer was fully cocked, poised. It didn't help my blood pressure any to realize that George Baum's shaky trigger finger had been just a few ounces from compounding his father's tragedy.