Curioddity (5 page)

“I'll have to draw up some paperwork,” Wil said. Inside his desk drawer were two different types of standard form, most of which had been used over the years for paper airplanes and doodling. He tossed a mental coin and fished out an insurance form. “If you'll just provide me with some basic information and an outline of the problem. I want to be sure I can help you, Mr.…?”

“Let's get to a public place first,” said the little man, fixing Wil with a steely gaze.

*   *   *

T
EN MINUTES
later, Wil found himself inside Mug O' Joe's standing in line next to his potential new client, wondering how on Earth he had gotten here and whether or not he should consider getting himself out of whatever it was he was in. He couldn't remember walking with the little man to the coffee shop—more precisely, he could remember walking but he couldn't remember anything that had been said between them. Wil felt cold and wet, to be sure, so it seemed fairly credible that he'd recently been outside. Nevertheless, the entire event seemed to be shrouded in frozen fog. Wil shuddered; he had never had a missing time experience before. This was all beginning to get just a little too strange for comfort.

Wil blinked, startled by the realization he was now at the front of the line and looking into the eyes of an indifferent teenager. He racked his brain, trying to remember if this was the same teenager he'd been arguing with just a short time before. But he was so thrown by the unsettling events of the last half hour or so that he just stood there, effectively creating a kind of Mexican standoff with the teenager, who wasn't about to fire the first shot in this new exchange.

“Regular coffee, please,” said Wil. “Better make it Oversized.” He gulped, realizing that in his manic confusion he had actually succumbed to Mug O' Joe's institutionalized language mangling.

“Absolutely, sir!” replied the teenager in a breezy manner that demonstrated he was only too pleased to receive Wil's order correctly for a change. The server turned to address Wil's elderly companion. “And what can I get for you today?”

The little old man abruptly bent at the waist and covered one eye so that he could better study the chalk-drawn menu upside down. “Something exotic, I think,” he replied. “What do you have on special?”

Unperturbed by this odd behavior, the teenager turned to survey the ridiculous collection of coffee containers on the shelf behind the counter. Wil looked up at the labels on the jars; he had never realized just how many different types of coffee existed in this coffee shop. Had those jars really been up there all the times he'd placed an order inside Mug O' Joe's?

“A lot of people like the Sumatran Dragon's Breath,” enthused the teenager. “Have you ever tried Bengal Tiger Hiccups? I could do that as a frappe.”

“That sounds most excellent,” replied the little old man, matching the teen's enthusiasm. “And could you hold the heavy cream, please?”

“Certainly, sir. Go ahead and take a seat and I'll bring those out to you,” replied the teenager with a broad smile

Of all the things that had happened to Wil on this particular morning, the teenager's sudden transformation from surly to polite was the thing that threw him the most. Unless this was a different teenager. Wil was hardly in the frame of mind to analyze the situation. He needed coffee.

Still in a mild state of shock, Wil found himself moments later at a table by the window, seated across from the little man. He'd never actually sat inside the coffee shop before. Looking around, he saw the ridiculous array of exotic coffees was larger and more comprehensive than he'd previously noted; the containers were stacked precariously in all corners of the shop. Wil looked at the labels, many of which were in languages he couldn't read. One of the containers was labeled with what appeared to be Egyptian hieroglyphics. Just as Wil noticed a particular label on one of the containers that seemed etched with what appeared to be Aramaic writing into what appeared to be blue neon glass, the teenager arrived.

Wil gratefully accepted his Regular Oversized, hoping beyond hope that the effects of the outlandish amount of caffeine might jolt him back to his senses. The teenager smiled at Wil, then passed the little man his Bengal Tiger Hiccups frappe, which bubbled below the surface, suggesting it might be full of frozen carbon dioxide. It possessed a venomous odor that teetered precariously between malted chocolate and malted battery acid. Unsurprisingly, the little man wrinkled his nose at the drink the moment it arrived. Before Wil had a chance to thank his server, the teenager turned tail and breezed back to the counter where he proceeded to attend to other customers and occasionally smile in Wil's general direction.

“Dinsdale.”

Wil jolted out of his reverie with a start. The peculiar old man was now staring at him, politely smiling.

“Excuse me?”

“Dinsdale, Mr.”

Wil could tell his potential new client was patiently waiting for him to overcome his attack of confusion. This must have been a conversation they were having previously, which Wil had probably lost track of. He furrowed his brow, hoping this would give him the appearance of being fully engaged in the moment.

“Or Mr. Dinsdale, if you prefer,” continued Mr. Dinsdale. “Aren't you going to fill out your form?”

Wil produced his now-crumpled insurance form. “Dinsdale … right. First name?”

“Mr. Dinsdale. Now, about that matter of urgency: I need to know first and foremost that you can keep a secret. What I am about to divulge to you is known to only seven people in the United States and one more in the former Soviet Republic of Kurdmenistan. Can I count on you, Wil?” Mr. Dinsdale looked at Wil, expectantly. Despite the overwhelming sense that this eccentric elderly gentleman was playing everything from shortstop to quarterback in a league of weirdness all his own—and despite the slight suspicion that Kurdmenistan was not an actual country—Wil nodded. “Good man!” said Mr. Dinsdale. And with that he produced from his coat pocket what appeared to be a set of musical notations and placed them on the table. “Now then … we'll have to take things slowly for security reasons. I don't want to throw it at you all at once. Let's try a little test first. Do you have any idea what this is?” he asked.

Not wishing to appear completely thrown off his game, Wil decided to go with the obvious: “I'm going to go with the obvious,” he responded, doing his utmost to appear confident. “Musical notes?”

“But not just any old musical notes,” said Mr. Dinsdale, pleased that Wil was warming to the task. “Look again. See anything out of the ordinary?”

The musical parchment appeared to be old and weathered. Whoever had written the notations had crammed in an awful lot of notes; and though Wil possessed no musical training whatsoever, he could see that this was an unusual piece. At the top of the page was written a faint signature that had faded over the years. Wil gulped and tried not to let his obvious double take throw him off balance and pitch him onto the floor.

“Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,” affirmed Mr. Dinsdale with a grin. “But what makes this particular piece of music special is what it represents.”

“What does it represent?” Wil asked, intrigued.

“Mr. Mozart was no ordinary musical genius, as anyone can tell you,” replied Mr. Dinsdale. “Many people know that he was a Freemason and that he composed his first concerto at the age of five. There was a movie and a rock song about it. But very few people know that Mozart was also a scientist and mathematician, and that he dabbled in musical alchemy. In his later years, he was being driven mad by his own genius—so much so that he traveled to consult a famous doctor in Vienna before he lost the plot entirely.” Mr. Dinsdale picked up the yellowed sheets and looked about the coffee shop in conspiratorial fashion. “The Viennese doctor advised Mozart that he was indeed going crazy as a result of having too many competing thoughts in his head at the same time,” continued the little man in a hushed voice. “He advised Wolfgang that he needed to go home and compose himself. And that's exactly what the great man did. What you are looking at is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in musical form!”

Dinsdale handed the musical notations across the table so that Wil could take a look for himself. Wil blushed and closed his eyes. “Okay, I get it,” he said with a chuckle. While he hadn't spotted any of the TV cameras on the way in, Wil knew that when he opened his eyes the little man would be sitting next to a game show host, and that all of the customers in the coffee shop would be revealed as audience participants. He consoled himself with the thought that if he were very lucky, the morning phone message from his dad might also possibly be someone pulling his leg. He just hoped beyond hope that he hadn't picked his nose, or something, while on camera.

Wil opened his eyes to find Mr. Dinsdale smiling at him, patiently. No one else in the coffee shop seemed to be in on the game. Wil began to imagine he was trapped in the center lane of a three-lane highway, driving a tiny European compact with two enormous eighteen-wheelers keeping pace on either side: it's one thing to go out crushed between something heavy, he thought, but it's another thing altogether if you feel utterly ridiculous when it happens. He glared at the little man across the table. “Is this some kind of joke?” he asked, barely trying to hide his annoyance.

“No, it's a concerto, I think,” replied Dinsdale, stuffing the parchment back into his pocket. “I needed to show you an authentic exhibit in case you doubted my sincerity. For as you have no doubt guessed, I am indeed the curator of the Curioddity Museum!”

Mr. Dinsdale sat back in his chair and waited for Wil to slap his forehead with his palm and say, “Of course!” But the old man was going to be in for a long wait. At this very moment, Wil was deciding whether or not to lean forward and slap Dinsdale on the forehead, thus pushing him off his chair. The little man's face began to fall as he realized Wil may or may not have understood the significance of his previous statement. “The Curioddity Museum,” he repeated, aghast that Wil seemed to be struggling to understand. “Don't tell me you've worked in the city for all this time and haven't found your way to the Museum of Curioddity?”

“That would have been difficult,” said Wil, sharply, “since I've never even heard of it. Who put you up to this?”

Mr. Dinsdale (Wil was beginning to suspect this was not even his real name) was now beginning to look most perturbed indeed. He pulled the musical notations from his pocket once again. “Excuse me,” he said, “but I fancy you may have misunderstood my intentions. If you'd like to examine the documents once again you can attest to their authenticity—”

Wil took the documents, as if to examine them. And promptly dropped them on the ground. The papers seemed to make a faint tinkling sound that resembled the famous overture of the Marriage of Figaro, which he ignored. He wasn't too fond of tricks, and this particularly elaborate one only served to tick him off even further. The little man looked at the fallen notations, aghast, and hurriedly reached down to scoop them up.

“Look, Mr. Dinsdale—or whatever your name is—this has been a particularly rough morning for me,” said Wil. “I'm not sure why you've decided that today would be a good day to test your new comedy routine on a perfect stranger but I have bills to pay and debt collectors to make excuses to. If you have an actual point, I'd be most grateful if you'd get to it. And if you are in fact trying out new material for your routine, I'd appreciate a royalty check for my trouble.”

Wil glared at Dinsdale, feeling slightly foolish for having been suckered into whatever scam the old man had going. It seemed mildly idiotic to think this strange-looking person stood a remote chance of being an actual client. Mr. Dinsdale, for his part, stared at the papers, taking just a little extra time to sort them while he apparently considered what he might do next. He furrowed his brow and scratched his chin in a contemplative manner. Then, he furrowed his chin and scratched his brow, which Wil was grudgingly forced to admit seemed a neat trick. Finally, Mr. Dinsdale nodded his head, having arrived at the business end of some kind of conclusion or other.

“You know, I think I understand your skepticism, Mr. Morgan,” said Mr. Dinsdale. “How silly of me. Of course, you'd have to actually hear the music first before you could accept it as the genuine article.”

“What? Wait—”

“Yes, I realize my mistake now. You're not the sort to just take something this magnificent at face value. You're going to need proof of its authenticity. That's what makes you a renowned detective. I should have expected no less, considering your reputation.”

Wil flushed, feeling slightly embarrassed to have been so gruff with an eccentric old man who—on the face of it—had been nothing but pleasant company. He was unaware that at any time during his career as a private investigator he had garnered any kind of renown or reputation beyond that of someone who habitually paid his bills late, or not at all.

“Look … Mr. Dinsdale, you seem like a nice enough guy: weirder than a bobcat on a skateboard but harmless enough. If this is just something you do to fill up your mornings, that's fine. But unless you're willing to give me an actual job or tell me what you really want, I'm going to have to get back to work.”

Mr. Dinsdale suddenly sprang to his feet in an animated fashion, startling a couple of the patrons nearby who were sharing something that looked suspiciously like a gravel milkshake. “That's the Wil Morgan I expected!” the little man shouted, enthusiastically. “Then it's settled. Let's get to work at once! Come on!”

And with that, Mr. Dinsdale abruptly turned and headed for the front door of the coffee shop, leaving his bubbling Tiger concoction to pump out a heavy gas that cascaded off the edge of the table like a waterfall. “Wait!” cried Wil. But it was no use: the old man was already at the door and heading out into the street at an alarming rate for one so old. Wil scooped up his Regular Oversized and gave chase.