Nocturne in Black and Gold

Chapter 1: A Mute Violin

Mozzie's Bunker. Saturday, July 2, 2005.

"Do you hear any music?" Mozzie turned to peer hopefully at Neal through his glasses.

Neal tore himself away from studying the canvas and rubbed his eyes. "Her strings are still mute."

He and Mozzie had spent the past few hours scrutinizing the Braque painting yet again. The confined atmosphere of Mozzie's bunker at the Aloha Emporium added to Neal's frustrations over Violin and Candlestick. A month ago, he'd retrieved the painting from the church in Paris where he and Klaus had hidden it. Mozzie smuggled it into New York, and it had been residing in his bunker ever since.

They'd run every test they could think of on the painting. They'd examined it under filters throughout the entire electromagnetic spectrum with nothing to show for their efforts.

Georges Braque had taken the violin and fractured it for his painting. He believed the process made the violin seem more alive. Neal could attest to that. Not just alive, she was a wraith who followed him around wherever he went. Violins were supposed to sing. The only tune he heard was Paul Simon mocking him with "The Sounds of Silence." Was this his karma for having recovered the painting without informing Peter?

Mozzie tapped him on the shoulder. "Your mind is spinning in a rut. It's time to call for the tow truck." He retrieved the Monopoly box from the bookcase. "What we need is a fresh approach."

Neal propped his chin on his hands and watched as his friend took out the pieces.

Mozzie picked up the wheelbarrow token. "We've eliminated a secret message written in invisible ink. No hidden clues under layers of paint. What does that tell us?"

"The painting is only part of the solution. We know Adler is looking for it, so we assume he thinks it contains information about the location of a hoard of Nazi-looted art. But by itself, the painting is not the answer. We need another piece to the puzzle."

"Precisely. What other clues do we have?" Mozzie placed the battleship on the game board. "We have the World War II diary of a German soldier. We have a shipping manifest containing names of paintings that we know were looted by the Nazis and so far haven't been recovered. And we have one other clue—the sheet of equations that was found in the diary. The mysterious fractal formulas."

Neal had discovered the materials in the safe of Karl Huber, a shipping company owner who worked for the criminal organization Ydrus. The team had identified Huber as the son of a Nazi officer who'd served with the Rosenberg task force in charge of confiscated art in Paris. No link had been established between Adler and Huber but it was tempting to speculate that both men were on the trail of a lost shipment of plundered art.

"Have Jones and Travis made any progress with the equations?" asked Neal, hoping they might have a new theory. Last month Mozzie declared a truce with Jones. In the interest of picking Jones's brain about U-boats, a subject Jones was rapidly becoming an expert on, Mozzie decided that a thaw in the cold war between them was warranted. Travis, White Collar's tech expert, and Mozzie had been friends for much longer. Détente for them was achieved last winter through a mutual interest in the hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence.

"Travis believes they could be linked to an antenna," Mozzie said. "But the equations are unlike those currently used in antennas. Still, who knows what a Nazi mad genius may have concocted in his underground laboratory?" He picked up the top hat and placed it on the board. "I leave for France tomorrow. I'll pursue my research there."

"Another job for Gordon Taylor?"

He nodded. "Gordon is a valuable resource, and not merely because of the generous remuneration he provides for my services. Through his network, I've accumulated a list of former French Resistance fighters. Some of them are shadow-dwellers like me. After the war, they assumed new names. They're unknown to French authorities. I suspect one of them may provide the enlightenment we need." He sat back in his chair and frowned. "You need to take a break. Your brain cells are starting to atrophy. Our violin will regain her voice in due course."