Chapter One

The building on Holton Street looked like someone didn't clean after an arborist's convention. Scattered about the front yard were three petrified tree trunks that seemed like they had kept the place company since the Congress of Vienna. But we were a long ways from the Ballhausplatz. And if Metternich was part of the welcoming committee I didn't see him. Maybe he had taken a fast train out of town.

It didn't take an advanced degree in scenic design to figure out that the local residents didn’t want any visitors. I sympathized with that as much as the invading Huns cared about the residents of Antioch. I also knew that this was where Ferrabosco did business.  I went in there.

The place wasn't big on fancy. A few racks of disreputable mags took no trouble to hide themselves.  Now I knew where you could pick up a back issue of The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Musical Studies in this town. I also knew how to keep it quiet from the vice boys. The receptionist didn't bother to look up from her copy of a back issue of Linqua Franca.  It was a good week for back issues.  She was about as friendly as a viola player forced to sight-read treble clef.

"Tell your boss that Hume is here to see him"

I decided to play it coy to see what would happen. Plus I had forgotten the reason for my visit.  Getting sapped every other weekend (with time off for Rosh Hashana)  does that to you.  Go out for  a 12 pack of "Old Milwaukee" and end up in a dive on Holton Street that sells used cello mutes.

But it all came back when I saw the sheet music section.  Front and center, as subtle as a sax player horning in on a string quartet, was a pirated edition of the complete works of Alfonso Ferrabosco.   I could tell that the synapses in my top story were beginning to spark.  Something about the name Ferrabosco reminded me of the name Ferrabosco.  The last tough guy who sapped me must not have been as tough as he thought.  My detection chops where coming back to me faster than the Concertgebouw can play the Overture to Ruslan and Ludmiila.

"In the old days they used to put that stuff in the back room".  

I thought this was a good opening line for the girl-friday who fronted the office; she looked as excited to see me  as a medievalist scanning the prospectus of a podiatry convention in Rochester.  It must have been Thursday

After a pause that lasted longer than the Adagietto from Mahler’s 5^th Symphony, she decided to crack wise:

“These aren’t the old days but you're  kinda cute anyway..."   

She  said it with the  sincerity of a Dale Carnegie district office manager.   It takes more than that to offend Hume.  I took in her personal details like a bibliophile checking out the pre-auction book for sale at Skinners.  After approximately two hours of cursory appraisal I guessed that she was  the second-state of a third edition.   I also noticed the alto clef ear-rings.  They made me want to propose marriage, but I managed to stay on topic.

“Tell your boss that I'm here  to discuss some questions about musical ficta.  It was a lie…but I had nothing to lose. 

She spoke soto voce into the phone. Either she was talking to herself or someone in the backroom wasn't dead.

“There's a rube here to see you about musical ficta”  

There was a pause.  Ferrabosco must have been checking my academic credentials or looking up the definition of Ficta in his Oxford English Dictionary.  A few epoch went by before the boss decided that I passed inspection.  Sometimes the ficta ruse takes patience but it always works. Even with crooks like Ferrabosco.  

“Go back there ” she said. “Be careful.  He  doesn’t like it when peepers like you

drop in on him wanting to talk." That scared me as much as the prospect of an upcoming out-of-tune viola solo. I was going to go in there when it occurred to me I knew as much about musical ficta as a none-too-bright boy scout.  But I figured that Alphonso didn't know much about it either.  Two rubes making stuff up about ficta.  

It was all coming together, and with any luck Alphonso would warm up to my presence and give me a lesson in basic  an accordion technique.  One never know what might happen in this town....