Page 65 of The Best Trick

“Yeah, I played the oboe, and he would do cello and we’d pull in a flute now and then. Classical standards. We’ve been in a lot of different groups. Sometimes it just depends on who’s available.”

“You’re an industrial designer?” Zeus asked, more intel courtesy of Agent Alfred. There was no end of the useless information Alfred was willing to give us.

“Yes, freelance,” Ferdinand said. “Mostly kitchen products. Pays a bit better than music.”

“When did you first hear that Wilson was involved in this appraisal racket?” Odin asked.

“A mutual friend called and told me when it came out,” he said. “It ripped through the gigging community grapevine like wildfire. It’s not a large community.”

“Were you surprised?” Odin asked.

“I was shocked,” Ferdinand said. “Wilson liked nice things. I knew that about him. He liked to travel in style. He always used to say, ‘it doesn’t take much more to go first class.’ So I guess in hindsight, with the sort of money he threw around, maybe I should have put it together, but I assumed the store was doing great. Being mixed up with the mob and all that…” Ferdinand shook his head with a baffled look.

“He’s in witness protection now, as you probably know,” Zeus said. “Likely never to be seen again. How do people feel about that?”

“People are mostly bummed,” Ferdinand said. “Wilson was a good citizen in the gigging scene—lots of talent, always up for playing—but people are mad, too. I mean, this whole scam he was running—the whole stain of criminality on the world of fine instruments, it’s just sad.”

“What about his wife?” I asked. “You think she’s sad?”

“I didn’t feel like they were close. She never came to hear us play. She wasn’t interested in his music. When he went on his nice buying trips, he would never bring her along. He brought other people—even me, once. He said it wouldn't be fun if she came along. There were other shopkeepers that he'd go with.”

“He was friendly with other shopkeepers?” Odin asked, sounding interested. “Any in particular?”

“There were a few he’d mention that he’d travel with.”

“Is it possible to get the names of shopkeepers he traveled with? Especially more recently?”

“I could look through my texts. He always texted pictures from his trips.”

“Could you look?” Odin asked. “That would be helpful.”

Ferdinand pulled out his phone and started scrolling. “This could take a while—we text a lot around the quartet.”

“Let me put my number into your phone,” Odin said holding out his hand. “Then you can round up the names and just text me or call me.”

You could tell that Ferdinand didn't want to hand over his phone, but he did, and Odin used it to place a call to himself and then he handed it back. “If you could get it to us ASAP, we’d be really grateful.”

“Did he ever go overseas with his brother?” Thor asked.

“No way,” Ferdinand said.

“Why no way?”

“They weren’t close. Harold was five or six years older than us.” Ferdinand looked up from his phone. “So when we were hanging out in high school, Harold was already at conservatory. I mostly saw him at social gatherings and now and then he'd sit in our main quartet—if we were desperate. You have to be desperate to invite Harold to play.”

I felt my guys perk up. “Why was that?” Thor asked. “Not as good a player?”

“He could play the music, but he's a jerk and a spotlight hog. A quartet is musical voices weaving together, but when Harold would sit in, he wanted to be the star. Totally obnoxious.”

What? Harold was the spotlight hog? Harold had said that exact same thing about Wilson. This whole thing was getting weird.

“A spotlight hog,” Odin said.

“Completely,” Ferdinand said. “Nobody liked playing with Harold, including Wilson. The man’s a blowhard, but Wilson was kind to Harold, even when Harold was being a jerk during a gig or acting like an asshole at Wilson’s shop.”

“So Harold would stop by Wilson’s shop and be an asshole?” Odin asked casually.

“Now and then. There was this one time—it was a couple of months ago, and we were going to be playing a cocktail party at the Getty, and Harold came by ’cause we were all going to ride out there together. And Harold is poking around, and he goes behind the counter, which really isn’t cool, and started getting in Wilson's face about a Stradivarius he’d appraised. I stayed out of it. I was just sitting there noodling, but Harold was definitely calling the instrument a piece of shit, making jokes about it, and I didn’t feel like it was the first time it had happened. I didn't think anything of it at the time—I figured Harold was being an asshole—but I definitely remembered it when I heard about Wilson’s arrest.”

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