He pushed open the auditorium door (the whisper of old pine echoed in the silence as, up onstage, silver glistened) and stood with his hands on the cushioned metal seat at the end of Aisle Z. Someone had carpeted the great room and added false wooden arches. The hall's perfect acoustics (a single, startled grunt resounded in the stillness) had been sacrificed to an ignorant remodeler's whim.

Martin stepped over the seat and then sat down. The other rows were well spaced and curved down toward the stage. From this spot he would be able to see everything clearly. Not that he wanted to. Being in the Dixon left him with a vague feeling of unease. He could see Terry standing next to the piano, his hair combed back in a greasy ducktail that Elvis Presley would have been proud of. Terry haunted the Dixon for Martin, and so did a knife, a long, slender knife streaked with blood.

Martin ran his hand along the soft woven gray and pink seat cover. The hall was quiet. He would have thought that people would be working frantically, finishing last-minute projects before the performer arrived. But Martin hadn't seen anyone since he let himself in the back door. He still found it amazing that, with all the recent concerns about murders at the Dixon, Wellman hadn't bothered to have the locks changed. That would have been the first thing--that had been the first thing--Martin had done.

He sighed and closed his eyes. If he strained hard enough, he could almost hear the feathers of former performances still floating in the air: Rubinstein caressing the Moonlight like a lover, Andre attacking the Trumpet Voluntary with a brightness Clarke never imagined, and Rampal teasing the puckishness out of Mozart. Tonight, though, tonight would be the best. Tonight was Stern.

Isaac Stern, perhaps the world's greatest violinist. But he was more than a great musician. With his gnomelike body and dancing eyebrows, Stern embodied passion, passion that he poured back into the auditorium through his violin. Martin had seen only one other performer give so much emotion to the music. Arthur Rubinstein, thirty years ago to the very day.