The Eighty-eighth Key Ch. 18

"Wait...you have a store in The City?"

"Yes, of course! You mean, you didn't know?"

"I had no idea. There are two stores, if I'm not mistaken?"

"Yes, just as in Copenhagen; one for sheet music, and the piano dealership - which has been more than useful over the years."

"Oh?"

"Yes, the Soviet consul's house, among others, simply had to have the best pianos for their various receptions, and we were more than happy to supply them - suitably equipped, of course."

Harry nodded. "So, you were related to Saul Rosenthal?"

Avi hesitated, not quite realizing the lack of depth in Harry's familial literacy - and unsure how to proceed: "He was my older brother, and he became the sole proprietor of the business after the war. I took no interest in such things after I moved to Israel."

"So, Saul knew my mother?"

Again Avi blinked rapidly, then crossed his hands in his lap. "I feel most sure that he did."

"Man, that's weird..."

"Weird? How so?"

"Mom would never go up to the store. She always sent me and Dad."

"She hates automobiles so. Perhaps that explains why." Avi looked out the window and squinted into the evening gloom, looking for a way out of this thorny line of questioning. "Ah, the alps already! We are getting close, so time to buckle up! We will resume our little talk later..."

But if anything, by now Harry Callahan was a skilled inquisitor in his own right, and watching Avi's body shift and squirm, let alone the way his eyes darted down and to the left, told him more than Avi's hastily constructed evasions ever could. And now, and for the first time, he began to look at Avi Rosenthal not as a friend but rather an inquisitor in his own way. And perhaps one who held the keys to a vast prison.

© 2020 adrian leverkühn | abw | as always, thanks for dropping by...

[note: I typically don't post all a story's acknowledgments until I've finished, if only because I'm not sure how many I'll need until the work is finalized. Yet with the current circumstances that might not be the best way to proceed, and I'd hate to have this story stop 'unexpectedly' without some mention of these sources. Of course, the source material in this case - so far, at least - derives from two Hollywood films: Dirty Harry and Bullitt. The first Harry film was penned by Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, Dean Riesner, John Milius, Terrence Malick, and Jo Heims. Bullitt came primarily from the author of The Thomas Crown Affair, Alan R Trustman, with help from Harry Kleiner, as well Robert L Fish, whose short story Mute Witness formed the basis of Trustman's brilliant screenplay. John Milius (Red Dawn) penned Magnum Force, and the 'Briggs' storyline derives from characters originally found in that screenplay. The Threlkis crime family storyline was first introduced in Sudden Impact, screenplay by Joseph Stinson. Most of the other figures in this story derive from characters developed within the works cited above, but as always this story is otherwise a work of fiction woven into a pre-existing historical fabric, using the established characters referenced above, as well as new characters I've come up with here and there.]