“Sounds like you are thinking this is the place,” Solly asked. “Is there more to the story?”
“Yes, quite a bit as a matter of fact,” Jonas said, “don’t you need to get back to work?”
“Thanks for reminding me, I gotta run. I’ll be back tonight around ten.”
“I’ll be here with the rest of what I remember about my time in Chicago.”
Solly left in a hurry and just made it back to his post as the first guests arrived.
Jonas was bushed and went to lie down on his easy chair when Belle came in all excited about a job possibility.
“I have good news,” she said. “I spoke to a law firm from Philadelphia. They are opening a small office in Toms River and are looking for a receptionist/office manager. I would have to take a short course to learn some law terminology but nothing very deep. What do you think?”
“Will you be staying in the area?”
“I hope so. It’s been exciting seeing you and watching as you get into the music you love so much.”
“Thanks, it’s been great having you here. Will you continue to stay here at the chateau?”
“I don’t think it’s allowed, but I will stay close by. I was looking for a place as well. I didn’t find anything, but then I don’t have the job yet so there’s no hurry.”
“Where did you get the connection to the law office job?”
“I mentioned I thought about staying around here but I needed a job to Mudd. He picked up the phone called Mother and within ten minutes there was Mutty Blumberg on the phone and he set up lunch at a restaurant in Toms River.”
“What kind of name is Mutty?” Jonas asked.
“Oh, his full name is Mutle Blumberg,” Belle said. “Mutty is his nickname.”
“Makes sense I think.”
“Don’t you want me to stay?”
“Of course I do,” Jonas declared as he asked, “who is Mutty anyway?”
“Oh, you will meet him soon, he is a music lawyer as well as a commercial properties entrepreneur. He is coming to town soon to get all the publishing and recording contracts finalized.”
“I feel better now; I know he’s family, said Jonas. “Oh, by the way, Solly is coming back at ten to hear about Chicago.”
“So, has there been a decision as to where the case may be located?” Belle inquired.
“Pretty much Chicago but I’m thinking we will probably have two other places to visit if nothing comes of the Windy City.” Jonas concluded. “I think I’ll rest my eyelids.”
“Do you want me to wake you before Solly gets here”
“If I’m still asleep at 9:00, please get me up.”
Jonas slept like a baby, enjoying dreams of the good old days when he was a full-time music man. In his dreams he remembered some of the recording sessions and the musicians who played on them; they were characters. As he followed his career he suddenly pictured the dumpsite and woke himself in a sweat. He checked the time it was a quarter to nine.
An hour later Solly knocked. He had changed from his tuxedo to a relaxing pair of slacks and a bland looking shirt which showed no particular color. Jonas offered him a coffee which he declined and they sat down at the kitchen table with the list in hand. Jonas continued the Chicago story. He told Solly the job at the local bar was routine although being a bartender even in a small bar was a little tense until he was able to learn the martini’s and manhattans – the sweet and sour drinks and a few more some of the ladies preferred. After a few weeks it was all routine. He loved the music on the weekends. He was asked to work Saturday’s, which gave him Sunday and Monday off. A perfect job although there wasn’t much left to save after he paid his expenses.
The landlady was very pleasant. She was around sixty years of age and was finding it difficult to get around. She asked Jonas if he was interested in doing a few chores around the place and get paid by her reducing his rent. He would put out the garbage cans twice a week and keep the grass cut. In the winter he would shovel the walk and at times he helped with minor repairs for the other tenants. She was more then generous with the pay so he practically lived there for nothing.
One day he was looking at the case and as he recalls, decided get rid of it. He offered it to his landlady but she suggested he give it to an old furniture store where they sell what they get and give the money, after cost of operation, to various local support groups. Had he known all the trouble the case would give him he would have dumped it sooner. He didn’t recall when he went to the used furniture place but before he did he fixed up some of the little things wrong with the case. When it was finished it looked good enough to keep; still he believed he brought it to the store as he had no recollection of ever seeing it again.
“Do you think the store is still there after all these years?” Solly asked.
“I don’t know, but it had been there for many years. The landlady thought it had been there since the depression. I was there around 1977-78. Every time I passed by the case was still in the window. Wait a minute one day it was gone. Yes, I passed by and it was not in the window so out of curiosity I went in and asked if the case had been sold. The woman said yes, she had sold it to an inebriated man who bought it for his wife. I felt a chill up and down my spine. I didn’t realize how the case and I had become attached.”
“If the store is still there they may have kept records,” Solly said.
“It amazes me how convoluted all this gets. I hope you get it done soon.”
“It’ll get done real soon. I’ll personally keep you informed. Don’t call the office unless I’m not here and there is an immediate danger.”
“Not very reassuring,” Jonas softly said, “I’m worried about Belle, she could get caught up in this as well.”
TwentyNine — Busy, Busy, Busy!
Eleven in the morning, Mother’s been up since six o’clock. A knock on the door.
“Open up in there, I got up early so we could get started with the arrangements.”
Mother opens the door to find a large frankfurter, actually a small dog jumping for joy, it’s Clea, Duke’s dog. Right behind is the real Duke–Dash.
“Are you ready to work on the arrangements?” Duke asks.
“I thought you were coming tomorrow.”
“Yesterday, today, tomorrow, hey, sounds like a song to me.”
“It is Duke, you sang lead on the song a couple of years back.”
“Oh, it’s your song. Oh well it still sounds like a song to me.”
“Lead me to the piano and I’ll get started. Should have something to show you in an hour or so.”
“Good, I should be caught up by then.”
Duke gets comfortable at the piano and Clea lies down by the piano bench. Duke takes out the chart for Helen Oh Helen.
Mother is on his way back to the office. There are three messages but nothing from Noodles. He didn’t want another Gerald fiasco. Solly arrives he had his finger to his mouth as to shush Mother while the other finger pointed to the corner of the room. He said in a calm voice.
“Morning Mother.”
“Hey Solly, what’s up?”
“Not much, when you didn’t show up for breakfast I thought you might have forgotten. Solly said while his arms waved come on let’s go.
Mother understood his signal and said, “I needed a reminder, I completely forgot to eat.” He followed Solly.
Once out in the hall Solly told Mother there is a bug in his office. A small wireless audio pickup in the ceiling. The other agent on the job at the chateau, had made a quick check last evening and found three audio devices in different places and a video camera in the lobby chandelier.
“When Gerald has lunch, I’ll check the studio. Is Duke there now?”
“Yes he is,” answered Mother.
“Good, let’s get you something to eat.”
Solly seats him at his usual table. The café is empty as the lunch crowd still hasn’t started to arrive.
Mother has an order of Swedish pancakes smothered with lingonberries. While he was eating Gerald comes for lunch. Solly seats him and the waiter comes over to take his order. Solly makes a quick exit and heads to the studio. He rings the bell. In a few seconds Duke and Clea open the door. Solly quickly walks around the studio with a bug detector. The place is clean. Solly exits without saying a word. Duke looks at Clea and says, “I’m sure I showered this morning.”
Solly gives Mother the thumbs up sign. As he passes Solly he says he will go to his suite wait for him to call.
His cell phone rings, it’s Solly. “I called your cell should the land line be bugged.”
“What’s going on?”
“We’re close to making a move, we think we know where Jonas left the case. It’s a long story but someone else is trying to get the same information. We have kept a low profile until now but feel the time is right to throw out some false information. We’re leaking it as we speak, hoping to find who that someone is. Jonas, Belle and I are the only ones here at the, Chateau 54, who know, what the list contains.”
“Do you think someone at the chateau is looking for the information?”
“Yes.”
“What if the phone line is bugged?” asked Mother.
“We checked this morning and found it clean. Gerald is the main suspect but from what I could ascertain he hasn’t been here since late yesterday afternoon until he arrived this morning. He didn’t have time to place the bugs. I believe there is someone else here at the chateau we don’t know about.”
“I planned on calling Noodles this afternoon but I think now is a better time.”
Noodles phone rang three times before he answered.
“Mother, you heard my message?”
“No, there’s a bug in the office so I’m in my suite, what did you come up with?”
“As of now only one thing. Margaret Sullivan Burns, is the mother-in-law of Sean Michael Malloy!”
“What? Sean Michael Malloy, he’s the grandson of the guy at the dumpsite.”
“Yeah.”
“Continue, I’m listening.”
“The list you have showing your next perspective guest at Chateau 54 comes from where?”
“We have an independent company which interviews, usually over the phone, the various applicants.
“All right, let’s look at this. Gerald applies for a job and as you know pays big bucks to get the information to his personal accounts changed. Why then couldn’t he get it done again?”
“I’m sure he could, but to what means?” Mother asks. “His job doesn’t pay enough to spend millions.”
“What if Sean Michael Malloy, is using him to further his ambitions, he may have something on him or there could be a connection. I know what you’re thinking but we have to look at all the possibilities.” Noodles concludes.
There is a pause in the conversation as Mother considers all the ideas Noodles has passed by him.
“Hello, are you still there?”
“Yeah Noodles, just going over what you told me. Let me check with the people who do the screening. I wish I had a copy of the list before Margaret Burns name appeared. Let me check my files. I think a little over a year ago, Robert Fellows, was at the top of the list, he is still here and doing well. Let me find the list his name topped and I can check if Burns was the next name. I’ll get back!”
The next 25 minutes was spent looking for the old list. The files from last year were in the back storeroom. Mother found and scanned the file box two times carefully.
No list. This could only mean one thing, it had been removed.
“Can I help you with something?”
It was Gerald, Mother had to come up with something to not give Gerald any idea what he was looking for.
“Last year we had a company come in to add the wireless network system to the new rooms. I wanted to get hold of them about setting up a Cloud based system for our needs and also give the guests the ability to use the same Cloud Storage for their personal doings.” Mother said.
“I wish I could help, however I didn’t have anything to do with them,” Gerald bluntly stated.
“No problem, I’m sure I’ll find their invoice, here it is.” as Mother pulled out the invoice from Future Computers, “I knew I’d find it.”
“I’ll be moving along, call me if you need anything,” Gerald concluded.
Glad Gerald couldn’t see the sweat rolling down my back…Mother thought as he replaced the invoice and returned to the studio. Close call, he thought, now I have to call Interviews Amalgamated and have them send a copy of the list before the one which had Burns name on the top, he searched his phone for the number and called.
“Hi, this is Mr. Kurkonen at Chateau 54, I need some information from Mr. Wall concerning the interviews your company did.”
“One moment please,” said the unknown voice in a very pleasant tone.
“Hello, this is Mr. Wall may I help you?”
“Yes, this is Rickard Kurkonen from Chateau 54, would you be kind enough to check back to the list before the one you recently sent. It should be from the middle of last year.”
“Sure, I’ll get it up on the computer immediately,” said Mr. Wall. “Is there a problem?”
“No, we have misplaced our copy and would like to get a new one sent out.”
“I can email it to you as soon as I get it up on my screen. Here it is, let me send you a copy. Will there be anything else?”
“Not today but we will be looking at a new resident soon.”
“We’ll be ready to do the interview.”
“Thanks, Mr. Wall.”
“You’re more then welcome.”
In no time the email was there. Margaret Sullivan Burns name did not appear on the list. He would have to talk to someone at, Interviews Amalgamated. Now he needed to call Noodles. He may be on the right track, thought Mother.
“I’m here,” said Noodles. “What did you find at your end?”
“We had no copy in our files. But, Gerald surprised me when I was going through the paperwork, I think I was able to get him to think otherwise.”
“I told you to be careful.”
“Sorry, I thought I was. Anyway, I called the company who screens the names on the list. They emailed a copy. No surprise, Ms. Burns name did not appear on the list. She should have been the second name.”
“This information will help me tremendously. Watch out for Gerald!” Noodles said again, with a stern warning.
Mother would have to wait until tomorrow.
“Muddy, are you in?” Mother asked as he knocked on his door. No answer. Wow, I almost forgot about Duke, better go see how he is getting on.
When he got to the studio he found Duke snoring on the floor of the studio with Clea lying beside him.
“Duke are you there?”
“Where?”
“Here!”
“Oh, yeah, I’m here, are you here or am I dreaming?” Duke muttered.
“Have you completed the arrangements?”
“No, not all, but most. I hadn’t slept well for the last few days, thought I’d take a nap,” Duke said as Clea gave a bark, “wanna hear what I have?”
“You bet!” Mother told him.
The next hour went by quickly as they studied the string arrangements. They were good and ready to record, but the horns were another story.
“The horns for Outta Reach were easy but not so with The Long Road Back,” said Duke with some concern.
“Let’s hear what you have.”
After listening to the arrangement Mother explained.
“I like it so far. If you change the last part to be more like the Memphis horn sound, it should work.”
“But that’s different then the rest of the song. Don’t you think it’ll sound str
ange, I do,” Duke blurted out.
“No, it’s the ending of the song, the outro, and it’ll pick up the song and go out with a bang.
“Whatever you want,” said Duke. “I’ll use the idea on the demo you sent me and go for it.”
“Don’t be afraid to hit it hard. It’ll be perfect if the end makes you stand up and shout.”
“You don’t want much for your money, do you?” Duke laughingly responded.
Thirty – Maggie?
Back in Vegas, Noodles and company were busy with numerous projects. Noodles himself and his son Sky were working on the Margaret Burns file.
“Sky, what have you found concerning the list the chateau uses for checking new residents? Is the company who pre-scans the list of ill repute?”
“No Dad, they are clean as far as I can see but you only need one employee who needs cash to make a change. They do have a good amount of safety features on their computers to keep their docs safe but in-house you or I could get into the computers within a few minutes.”
“Then we need to check the employees. How many do they have?”
“There are eight working the system and an office manager who keeps the place running but they replaced the receptionist three weeks ago.”
“Check her first.”
“Doing it as we speak.”
They worked feverishly to get this done in a quick and defining manner. Noodles wanted to give the chateau something substantial to go on. He still had a feeling of not getting it done concerning Gerald.
As Noodles worked on the Burns case, the real Margaret Burns was at a restaurant meeting with her son-in-law, Sean Malloy.
“I don’t trust Gerald, never have. Ever since I told him the story of the jewels he’s been trying to find a clue which would lead him to them.”
“How much longer do you think I have to stay at the chateau?”