Mask for a Diva (Stan Kraychik Mystery Book 4) by Grant Michaels

Author:Grant Michaels [Michaels, Grant]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Gay Men, Humour, Fiction, Stan Kraychik, Boston (Mass.), Murder Mystery
Publisher: ReQueered Tales
Published: 2020-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

21

AFTER LIEUTENANT BRANCO LEFT I went upstairs. I wanted to see Bruce David myself, and since Daphne was still up there with him, I’d have a chance to talk to her as well. I stopped outside what I thought was Bruce’s room, and knocked on the door. From within I heard a male voice call out, “Avanti!”

I opened the door and immediately realized that I’d mistakenly stopped at Maestro Toscanelli’s room instead. The maestro was sitting near an open window. In the distance outside the window was the Atlantic Ocean, often dark and moody, but at that moment rolling lazily under the early evening sky. In one hand the maestro held a lit cigarette and in the other a small tumbler half full of whiskey. He turned his head to me and said, Ciao, ragazzo.” He gestured with his hand. “Come. Sit. Look at the water, how beautiful it is here in your country.”

I entered and took the armchair opposite him. He offered me a cigarette, and I was about to refuse, but then figured, Why not? It might even be perceived as goodwill to smoke with the old man. I took a cigarette from the package he held out to me. I prepared to light it myself, but seemingly out of nowhere the maestro produced and struck a match for me. Again I wondered what had happened to the solid gold lighter he’d had the other day. He smiled as he held the match in front of my cigarette.

“Finalmente I light it for you.” he said with a chuckle.

I drew cautiously on the shaft to keep from inhaling the smoke and coughing – not exactly a show of manliness.

“Where is your lighter?” I asked.

“Eh?” he replied.

“La fiamma d’oro,” I fumbled in Italian.

He chuckled and corrected me. “L’accendino d’oro.” Then he flushed with sudden embarrassment and muttered, “Er… è perduto.” Then he smiled and said quickly, “Whiskey?”

I agreed, and he poured me some from the nearby liquor cart. The social niceties completed, it was time to improvise some commerce.

“Maestro,” I said. “When you spoke with the police just now, you said that this opera festival would probably be the last time you would ever conduct an opera again. Why is that?”

The old man nodded. “For me soon it will be finito.”

“But you still have so much energy.”

“No, no.” He waved his hand in front of himself. “I am tired now. When I was a young man, I had much fire in my blood. But now, it is only smoke.” He looked at his cigarette and chuckled, as though he had made a joke.

“Why did you decide to make your last appearance with Madama Ostinata?”

He made a slight shrug. “I know Marcella for many, many years. I know there will be trouble – Marcella always makes trouble – but there will be no surprise.”

Except for a couple of bodies, I thought.

I said, “So it was for old times’ sake.”

“Eh?”

“I mean, you chose Marcella because you were old friends.”

The maestro made a vague hmph, but said nothing.

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