Book
Excerpt
The
Prodigy
Chapter 1
by
Noel Hynd
Synopsis: Rolf Geiger lives a charmed life. He has seen his awesome talents as a virtuoso pianist rewarded with worldwide fame, fabulous wealth, and passionate love from the beautiful woman he adores. But Rolf is about to learn that genius has its price. Poised to embark on a stunning world tour, he is slowly, savagely tormented by the vengeful spirit of his dead mentor, the famous maestro, Rabinowitz.
"When you
perform
Beethoven, you have to transform
yourself and commit yourself. You
have to
believe
that God
exists,
that
there is
a soul,
and that
you can
change
the world."Yo-Yo Ma
ONE
The Air France Seven-Seventy-Seven shuddered as it climbed through the dark gray ocean of clouds above Normandy, ninety miles northwest from Paris. All around the sky there were streaks of lightning and severe wind currents that sometimes defied even the best in-flight computers. Mid-March rain streaked the outer windows of the aircraft like supernatural tears shed for a distant unseen sorrow.
The thrust of the plane's engines changed abruptly.
The young blond man with shaggy hair, huddled into Seat 2-A by a window in the Premiere Classe cabin, looked to the flight crew for re-assurance. He found none.
The nearest stewardess --- a dark French girl with a lovely face and slender body --- was gripping one hand with the other, nervously twisting a paper tissue. She was frightened.
The young man looked away before she caught him watching her. He stared out the window again. The palms of his hands were sweating. No one spoke anywhere nearby. The aircraft was acting as if it were in trouble.
Suddenly the plane lurched severely downward. There were loud gasps from several travelers behind him.
"No!" he thought to himself. "No! Not today! I do not wish to die today!" He drew a breath. "I want more time," he whispered aloud, half in prayer. "There's so much I want to accomplish."
The airplane gained altitude, or seemed to, as it wrestled its way upward into a stubborn sky. The seat belt signs in French and English were insistently lit.
He sighed. He wished he still had religion, but hadn't since he was a boy. His stomach clenched. His insides didn't believe in God, either.
Then --- amidst more gasps, then screams --- there was a loud bang, followed closely with a ripping, tearing, bursting noise. It resembled an explosion. The passengers could barely believe their eyes. A ball of lightning came out of the cabin and rolled lazily down the center aisle of the aircraft, as if in slow motion. It exited from the plane through the wings and left one hundred fifty-two passengers on the brink of terror.
"So that's the way it's going to be," the sandy-blond man said to himself. "This will be Isador Rabinowitz's final revenge. I'm going home to attend his funeral, but I will never reach it. I will die a fiery death en route."
He searched for something to be content about and found only one thing. At least Diana was not on board. The woman he loved was back in New York.
Waiting for him.
She was safe. Presumably.
But the airplane fought back for its position in the sky. Then it gradually steadied. The blackness within the clouds disintegrated and the gray became lighter. A few minutes later, to the unyielding relief of everyone on board, the jet broke from darkness into a clear smooth blue sky. The aircraft tipped its starboard wing toward the morning sun and continued to climb gently. From the flight deck, in French and English, came an announcement that there was no reason for alarm.
The woman in 2-B sighed. She was in her fifties with dark hair pulled back. She wore a smart navy blue Donna Karan suit.
"We were hit by lightning," she said, still shaken. Her accent told him she was American and from her reading matter, he could guess that she was in the fashion industry. "Can you believe it? Hit."
"Yes. I know," the blond man answered. His nerves remained scrambled. His heartbeat had the resonance of a kettle drum.
The woman shook her head. "That's the second time that's happened to me," she explained. She had a trace of a New York accent, mixed with something international. "I fly New York to Paris and back once a month. I suppose I shouldn't be scared. But I am. Every time."
"Understandably," he answered. His English was American, also. Flat. From almost anywhere.
He looked out the window. The view was reassuring. The clouds were far below and so was the electrical storm. He turned quickly and looked back. She was studying him. Intently. She smiled with slight embarrassment, having been caught.
"You're the concert pianist, aren't you?" she asked.
"Yes, I am," he answered softly.
"I'm completely enamored of your approach to music," she said. "The way you have such fun with it. I've been to several of your recitals. Two in New York, one in Chicago and the one in London at the Royal Albert Hall in 1993."
It was his turn to smile with mild embarrassment. "Thank you," he said. She looked at him without speaking for several seconds. He knew what was coming.
"I wonder..." she said. "No one will believe I flew back to the United States with a celebrity, unless....." She fumbled with her purse. "Do you mind if I ask you to ----?"
"I don't mind at all," he said politely. "I'm always flattered."
"You're very kind."
She produced a Montblanc pen and a fine blank note card.
He signed the card, asking her name and autographing it personally to her. His penmanship was big and assertive, handsome in deep blue ink. He wrote in sweeping vowels and consonants. Ten big bold handsome script letters.
Rolf Geiger On the bottom of the card, for fun, he drew a quick little sketch of a man, himself presumably, playing a grand piano.
She looked on with boundless pleasure and smiled widely when he handed the card back to her. At the same moment, the seat belt signs went off. The once-frightened stewardess was starting to engage the drink cart.
Absurdly, the service of beverages after bouncing perilously around the stormy skies made him think back of the old joke told by night club comedians:
In the unlikely event that we land on water, your seat cushion doubles as a flotation device --- and the drink cart can be used as a shark cage."Yeah, sure," he told himself. Thoughts of the absurd frequently followed him through time and space. Sometimes he thought that his whole life was a journey through absurdities.
"I'm thrilled," the woman beside Geiger said, looking over the autograph and the sketch. "I'll treasure this."
"It's my pleasure," he said.
"I wonder if you could tell me something," she asked.
"I'll try."
"I love your recitals but haven't seen any advertised recently. Have you been abroad for a long time?"
"I've kept an extremely limited schedule of late," he said. "Maybe a date every few months at a small venue. I just played a tiny hall in San Remo, Italy, for example. Fewer than two hundred in the audience."
"Such a shame," she said, shaking her head. "Your talent --- and I know I'm flattering you here, Mr. Geiger, so beware --- is so enormous. So unique. I know you know what's best for you, but we as an audience love to enjoy you in person."
"You're very kind," he answered.
"I loved when you used to do those huge extravaganzas," she said. "Like you did a few years ago. Oh, they were simply wonderful!"
"Thank you. The press and the critics used to kill me for them."
"Does it matter to you?" she asked. "Do you take what they say as important?"
He shrugged. "I shouldn't," he said.
"No, no," the stranger agreed after a moment. "You shouldn't. Audiences love you. People who are enthusiastic about music love you. But the classical establishment?" she opened her hands as if to dismiss the entire universe of serious criticism. "I know they have problems with you."
"They do," he agreed. "Major problems."
Major, indeed.
Following his tour of 1995, the critics all over the world had turned on him with such ferocity that he had stopped playing, other than small quick hit-and-run cache-cache recitals. The ink spilled about him had turned so vicious and even so personal that he could barely endure having anything printed. Reading the notices was far out of the question.
He just didn't take his gifts seriously enough, they all wrote. He just kept fooling around.
She smiled. She leaned to him and spoke beneath the sound of the airplane's engines.
"My feeling is that the music establishment is full of shit!" she said cheerfully and conspiratorially. "So screw 'em all!" she enthused, loud enough to be heard throughout the first class section. "Come back to your audiences. We love you."
"You're very generous," he answered. "I'm taking some time to think things over. There may be some changes soon."
"I hope so," she said. "I hope so."
Rolf Geiger politely looked away from his new best friend. He picked up the headphones that belonged to his seat and donned them before she could continue the chit chat.
He closed his eyes and pumped up the volume on the headset. He was tired and distressed and needed no more conversation.
And actually, he felt relieved. He had been hit by lightning and would live to tell about it. Outside, the brilliant yellow ball that was the sun seemed to be perched harmlessly on the lip of the 777's wing. All in all, he told himself again, he was once again a very lucky man.
So far.
The thought helped him relax. And with relaxation came a calming satisfying sleep.
~ Rolf Geiger came out of his sleep to the steady droning rhythm of the airplane's engines, the headphones having slipped away from his ears somewhere over the North Atlantic. Tired beyond reason, Geiger had been in Europe for only five days this March, just long enough to play as a last minute surprise guest at the annual music festival in San Remo.
This had been such a quick trip that Diana had chosen not to accompany him. Not like the previous summer when she had come with him and they had joyously explored Europe on those days when he was not required to play. There had even been four days when they had slipped away from everyone and bicycled through Provence. Best of all, no one had recognized him.
Rolf had missed Diana on this junket to San Remo. But he knew she was waiting for him in New York. That thought, too, re-assured him. In his hand luggage, he had an exquisite pair of gold and ruby earrings that he had purchased for her, plus a handful of French perfumes unavailable in the United States, and --- almost as a joke because it was so inexpensive --- a thin silver neck chain with a piano pendant. It had cost him a crisp American five dollar bill from a street vendor on the Via Contessa Ferrara.
Much as he had missed Diana, however, he might have preferred to have missed her phone call that morning, the call that had compelled him to return home to New York forty-eight hours earlier than planned. The call that had put him on this aircraft.
Isador Rabinowitz, the great, great concert pianist was dead at age eighty-two. The funeral was to be held at once. And there was no way, considering the manner in which the lives of the old Rabinowitz and the young Geiger had already intertwined, that Geiger could not be present at the funeral. He prayed that the normal hassle at U.S. Customs at Kennedy International would be minimal. Thinking further ahead, he hoped that his car and driver would be waiting at the airport.
The descent into New York was as bumpy as the ride over Normandy. But at least there was no lightning. And after a six hour flight he was safely on the ground again. He passed through customs easily, paying duty on what he had bought.
His car and driver were waiting. So was Diana, who had come to the airport to meet him. The sight of her --- a tall slim beautiful woman with shoulder-length dark hair ---sent his spirits soaring. The couple broke into wide smiles upon spotting each other and fell into a long embrace.
"Missed you," she said.
"Missed you horribly," he said to her in return.
The chauffeur stood by awkwardly.
He finally relaxed in the car as it transported him into Manhattan and his current home. A touch of melancholia was upon him. He assumed the feeling stemmed from the death of Rabinowitz. Fortunately, Diana, sensing his mood, rode right next to him in the back seat, her hand upon his, accompanying him in his thoughts.
At one point in the ride, he turned and found her looking right at him. So she leaned to his ear and whispered. "I know you're upset," she said, gently teasing. "But I'm incredibly horny today."
He smiled. "I'm glad," he whispered back. "Me, too."
He kissed her again. When his eyes found the driver's rear view mirror, he saw the driver's gaze quickly shift back to the Long Island Expressway.
And when their limousine hit heavy in-bound traffic on the Triborough Bridge, Geiger had some extra time to examine his feelings toward Rabinowitz.
Time that he did not want. Or need.
Their housekeeper had prepared dinner for them and then gone home. Rolf and Diana enjoyed the light supper. She helped him unpack. They had from time to time discussed marriage in the past, but were both content with the present set-up. There was no pressure to it. Only affection. Both had been in brief unsuccessful marriages while much younger. Now, if the time ever came that one of them wanted to leave, departure would be as easy as packing a few bags.
But tonight, there was only love.
They showered together and tumbled into bed. They attacked each other as if they had been apart for months, not days. The sex, as it always was between them, was deeply physical and deeply passionate. She fell asleep beside him, wearing only the gifts that he had bought her. The earrings. The neck chain with the piano pendant. And a dab of one of the perfumes.
He lay awake for several minutes, feeling how lucky he was to love such a woman and have such a woman in love with him.
But equally he was troubled. Anxious. He also knew that the next day brought with it an occasion when he could finally escape from the stark ominous shadow of the old man.
Instead, what would come with the next dawn was the beginning of an unspeakable terror. Perhaps this notion was at the edge of Rolf Geiger's consciousness. Perhaps, because something deep within his soul already dreaded the next day.
Somehow, deep down, he knew.........
Noel Hynd was born in New York City and grew up in New York and Connecticut. He began writing professionally before graduation from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in International Relations.
Mr. Hynd's most recent novel, The Prodigy, was published in hardcover in January of l998. A mass market paperback edition followed in January of 1999, published by Pinnacle Books. Mr. Hynd's next novel, The Lost Child, will appear in hardcover in October of 1999. Previous supernatural thrillers, Ghosts , Rage of Spirits, Cemetery of Angels and A Room For The Dead, remain very popular and in print from the same publisher.
Earlier works include several novels in the espionage field. Among them are Zigzag (1992) a political thriller set around the 1996 U.S. Presidential election, and Truman's Spy (1991), an espionage thriller set at the outset of the McCarthy era in 1950. His first novel, Revenge, was published in 1976. Movie rights were sold to Frank Yablans at Twentieth Century Fox. Other suspense and/or espionage novels which followed were The Sandler Inquiry (1977), False Flags (1979), Flowers From Berlin (1985), and The Khrushchev Objective, (1987). In the latter book, Mr. Hynd worked with former British intelligence office 'Christopher Creighton' to tell the inside story of Britain's Crabb Affair, one of the most notorious British diplomatic and intelligence scandals of the 1950's. His novels have been published around the world, with foreign editions appearing in the U.K., as well as in translation in French, Spanish, German, Swedish, Dutch, Turkish, Finnish and Japanese. Some of Mr. Hynd's novels have been on regional best seller lists in the U.S. and abroad. Worldwide sales have totaled in excess of three million copies. All are currently in print from Kensington Publishing (Zebra Books), New York.
Mr. Hynd has also written three non-fiction books.
The first was The Cop and The Kid (1982) during which Mr. Hynd followed the New York City Police Department's Emergency Services Unit for more than a year.
The second was The Giants of the Polo Grounds (1988), an anecdotal informal history of baseball's New York Giants, from 1873 through 1957. The latter book was a nominee for best baseball book of the year by SPITBALL Magazine, the literary baseball publication based in Cincinnati. It was also cited in "Editor's Choice" by the New York Times' Sunday Review of Books as one of the year's best books. The Giants of the Polo Grounds was also published as a quality trade paperback in the spring of 1996 by Taylor Publishing of Dallas, Taxes.
The most recent non-fiction book, titled Marquard and Seeley, was published in June of 1996. Marquard and Seeley is the true story of Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Rube Marquard, who attempted to quit baseball and join his wife, Blossom Seeley, as a musical hall star in the years before World War One.
Mr. Hynd is also the author of the screenplay Agency which was produced in 1981 by RSL Films (now Alliance) in Montreal. Agency starred Robert Mitchum, Lee Majors and Valerie Perrine. A second screenplay, Nairobi Affair , was produced for television by Viacom International in 1984 and starred John Savage and Charlton Heston. A third script, Illegal in Blue was filmed in 1994 by Stu Segall Productions in San Diego for Orion Home Video and has appeared on Showtime and Cinemax. Other recent scripts are under option.
In 1995, the Actor's Guild of Lexington, Kentucky, commissioned Mr. Hynd to adapt one of his novels, A Room For The Dead, as a stage play. The new piece was given a staged reading at the Guild's theater in Lexington in February, l996.
Mr. Hynd has also been a frequent contributor to various magazines, including Harper's, Sports Illustrated, World Traveler, The Reader's Digest, and The Pennsylvania Gazette, the alumni magazine of the University of Pennsylvania, for whom he is the monthly sports columnist. His specialties in magazine work are true crime and professional sports. He lives in Beverly Hills, California and occasionally teaches courses in novel writing at U.C.L.A.
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Hardcover - 329 pages (January 1998)
Kensington Pub Corp (Trd); ISBN: 157566240X ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.20 x 9.32 x 6.39
Other Editions: Paperback\
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