by Debra Snow
The orchestra played quietly as Max stepped back and moved one of the platforms to a specific location on the stage. It slid easily on wheels. With a touch to a foot pedal, it locked in place. As a flute played a solo with a wistful tune, he rolled the other to its proper place.
“For centuries magicians have been able to disappear with the use of mirrors, black curtains, trapdoors, and the like,” Max spoke over the music. The beige microphone that hung off his ear amplified his voice. “We will have none of that here!”
With a gesture, as the music grew in speed and volume, the back curtain rose, revealing the plain brick of the theater’s back wall, which was a good distance from Max.
“You could fit a plane on that stage,” Chu whispered.
“Max did, five years ago,” Lovell corrected. “But watch.”
On the video, Max moved to the center of the stage where he could plainly be seen. The light grew brighter, making the lit figure of Max the most prominent feature.
The spotlight on Max was cut, as there was enough stage light so that he could easily be seen.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for sharing your evening with me and my humble illusions. For my finalé—an effect I call Prism.”
He waved at one of the upstanding crystals, and it began to spin faster. He gestured at the other dramatically and it did the same.
“Watch closely,” Max cautioned. “Don’t look away!”
He held the walking stick aloft, made a circle in front of himself with it…
And was gone.
There was no explosion or pyrotechnics, no cloth to hide behind.
Max merely disappeared.
The orchestra hit a crescendo and ceased playing. The empty stage and silence of the huge audience was astounding. Then the entire stage went to black.
As the audience applauded and cheered, the lights came on again, and Max stood with the entire company of the singers, dancers, and assistants as they all took a bow.
Lovell hit the space bar and the image froze. “What did I tell you, eh?”
“That’s not possible,” Chu insisted. “It had to be a camera trick. He’s not really there. It’s a projection or something.”
Lovell shook his head. “Nice guess, detective. I like the way your mind works. But no, it’s what you just saw. No trapdoor, no smoke, no mirrors, nothing. ‘E’s there and then ‘e’s gone.”
“I can see why magicians would want this,” Pro marveled.
“Yeah, and I ‘eard ‘e did it at a lecture in Vegas on a freakin’ platform. So, it don’t even need a large stage.”
“Back to the work at hand,” Chu broke in. “Do you know where Max is or how to get in touch with him?”
“Not really,” Lovell considered. “But ‘e stopped by again this morning and left something with me. Said ‘e’d pick it up or his daughter Prophecy would be by and I could give it to ‘er.”
He again stepped out of the room and came back with a small box, about the right size to hold stationary. He offered it to Pro.
Pro pulled the box open. In it were a smartphone and several credit and debit cards. They rested on top of the papers Max had purloined from his daughter’s attaché case the previous evening.
“When did he give this to you?” Pro questioned.
“This morning. I opened at 10:00, and ‘e was on me doorstep. ‘E said this was important.”
“While we are here, Mister Lovell, can you tell us your whereabouts on Friday morning at 10:00 AM?”
“I was in a meetin’.”
“Anyone to corroborate this?”
“I should say so. Ten people, in fact. It was at the Rutger’s Church. I was attending an AA meeting.”
“Alcoholics Anonymous?” Chu pressed.
Lovell nodded. “I’ll give you the name of me sponsor, if you like.”
“Please,” said Chu as he took a pen to his notebook. Lovell rattled it off, along with a telephone number.
“Thank you, Mister Lovell,” Chu said.
Pro chimed in. “Unless you have anything else you want to tell us. I mean, I’d like to know how you knew Ms. Gray and Mister Mystique were looking into Prism.”
Lovell shrugged. “I keep me ear to the ground. It’s a tight community, and when things ‘appen, we all know. That’s ‘ow I knew about poor Al.”
“I take it you don’t think Max killed him?”
“Max? Kill Al? Neveh!”
Pro and Chu exchanged a look.
“Max might’ve been angry, maybe said a few thing ‘e didn’t mean, but Max wouldn’t ‘urt Al. Not ever!”
13. Fire Wallet
Fifteen minutes later, Chu and Pro were headed up the steps of a brownstone on 70th Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenue.
“Anything on the phone that can help?” Chu asked.
“No, it’s pass-coded, so I can’t open it. However, the last missed call was from my mother. I recognize the number.”
“At least she tried to get in touch with him,” Chu pointed out.
“I asked her to convince him to surrender,” Pro said. “Any reports about Max? Has he been spotted at all?”
“It appears Max Marvell is quite good at covering his tracks. And with his phone tucked away at Lovell’s store, we couldn’t even track him down with that if we’d gotten the chance.”
At the top of the short flight of stairs and built into the brick wall was a metal plate with several white buttons. Chu pushed the one with a label marked “Novack” as Pro put the box with the cell phone in her attaché.
There was a loud buzz, and the detectives opened the door and entered the building.
“The buzzer said 1-D,” Chu stated.
“At least we’re not doing stairs,” Pro said as they reached the door with a brass “1-D” screwed to the front.
Chu knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” came the reply.
“NYPD, ma’am. We need to talk to you about Albert Floss.”
The door opened abruptly, and an average-height woman with a wild mass of blonde hair stood in the doorway. She was at least fifty, though her body was curvaceous from workouts and possible surgical augmentation. She was wearing a leopard-spotted cat suit, and Pro couldn’t help but wonder how she got out of it when she needed to pee.
She wore the scent of scotch and sweat.
“Come in, detectives. Please show me your badges.”
“Shields, Miss Novack,” Pro countered as she opened her billfold. “Detectives have shields.”
The woman pushed her hair to one side to better see the identification. “You guys want a drink? It’s Sunday, and I’m off, so I’m drinking.”
It appeared to Pro that Miss Novack had started imbibing early in the day and was very far ahead of any visitors who might drop by.
“No, ma’am,” Chu said.
“Do I look like a ‘ma’am’ to you?” Adrian said, and stood up straight so that her impressive chest thrust out at Chu, who stepped back a bit in surprise. Adrian considered it for a moment, then relaxed, turned and walked back toward a sofa. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
She sat down languidly and picked up a nearby cocktail and took a delicate sip, which made the half-melted ice cubes clink. “So how can I help you ossifers—officers?”
She smiled sweetly at them.
“Are you familiar with Al Floss?”
“I should be. He grabbed my ass every time I went into that damn store of his. Ugh, what a lecher! Fortunately, I knew enough not to get stuck in that back room with him.”
Chu took out his pad and a pen. “You’re suggesting that Mister Floss liked the ladies?”
“I’m suggested that ‘ole Flossy’ was a perv who put his hands where they were unwanted. But I don’t think he’d be brought up on charges, considering I was one of maybe three women who ever went into his establishment.”
“So, there aren’t many female magicians?” Pro suggested.
“Damn straight!” Adrian said. “And I don
’t blame them. If you wanna be a female magician, you got to be able to do everything a male magician does, except backwards and in a dress. Tell you, if I could sing, I would’ve never taken it up.”
“Really?” Pro said as a way of encouragement.
“Sure, can’t carry a tune at all. And the other reason there aren’t a lot of women in magic is that guys learn tricks to get laid! Not that the majority of them ever do. But a lady don’t need illusions to get stud service, ya get me, sweetie?” She gave Pro an overtly obvious wink.
Pro gave a wan smile, her coffee and cream complexion turning a tad red. “Sure, sure.”
Chu cleared his throat. “Miss Novack—”
“I’m Gray,” she corrected drunkenly. “Adrianna Gray.”
She gestured at several posters on the wall that showed her in different tight costumes. In one, she was holding a magician’s top hat from which came an endless supply of silks, flowers, and other paraphernalia. She wore a short set of tails with fishnet stockings, high heels, and a black thong.
The next poster showed her in a formal evening dress with a man floating horizontally in the air with only a broom supporting him under his one arm. He was the one wearing very little in this poster—just shorts and a bike messenger shirt.
The final poster had her in a bikini holding a rabbit high in the air and bore the caption, “NOTHING UP MY SLEEVES.” It must have been from years earlier, because in the cat suit you could see where she had filled out a little more than in the advertisement.
“Miss…uh…Gray,” Chu said. “I need to know where you were on Friday between 10:00 and 11:00 AM.”
“Driving!” she moaned. “I was just getting back into town after a week of gigs in fuckin’ Pennsylvania.”
“Really?” Pro said.
“That old bastard, Max Marvell, is working Vegas, every night the same theater, easy-peasy. I gotta rent vans and schlep all my crap to fuckin’ Pennsylvania. I’m tellin’ you this business sucks.”
“Were you aware of Mister Floss’s death?”
“Yeah, he probably grabbed the wrong broad’s ass,” she cackled at her own remark and sat down again.
“We understand,” Pro said, “that you were attempting to buy a set of plans from Mister Floss.”
“I wanted to. I wanted to show Max that I was his equal in every way. Do you know the last time I was in Vegas I offered him a blow job if he’d tell me the secret to Prism? The old bastard turned me down!” she huffed. “His loss!”
She took another sip from the cocktail.
Pro looked down at the floor and kept her anger in check. “Miss Gray, we need to know if you had any luck in attempting to purchase those plans.”
“Nah! Got too rich for my blood. I don’t have an extra fifty K for just one trick. Hell, I built my whole show for less than that—not much less, I’ll tell you.”
Chu tried to keep her on track. “Have you seen or spoken to anyone about the trick or the plans since Mister Floss’s death on Friday?”
She shook her head in a loose, inebriated way. “No, sir, directive…uh…I mean, detective.”
Pro leaned close. “Have you been in touch with Max Marvell in the last forty-eight hours?”
“Max?” she said and tried to focus. “Why would Max try to contact me?” She considered it for a moment, then began to laugh. “Maybe he wants to collect on that blow job.”
She fell into a fit of giggles, delighted in her drunken wit.
Pro shook her head in disgust and murmured to her partner, “This is a waste of time.”
With a nod, Chu spoke loudly, “Miss Gray, thank you for your hospitality. I am leaving my card.” He took a card from his wallet and placed it on the table. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call.”
She rose unsteadily and headed for the door. “Okay, thanks for comin’ by.” She opened it wide, and the detectives stepped out. “I’m gonna take a little nap.”
“That might be a good idea,” Chu said as the door closed.
“What a freakin’ waste of time,” Pro said. “Man, the mouth on her.”
“She’ll pay for it tomorrow I’ll bet,” Chu said as they walked out to the street.
Back in the apartment, Adrian listened at the intercom as the detectives went down the stairs, then released the button and stood on her feet easily.
She pushed her hair out of her face and walked over to the large bookcase and knocked on it twice. There was the sound of a release mechanism, and the bookcase opened up to reveal the small hidden room.
Max Marvell stepped out.
“They’re gone,” she told him, stone-cold sober. “And I gotta wash the stink of the scotch off me.”
“Thank you, Adrianna,” Max said and took her hands. “You were brilliant, an epic performance. I believed you were blotto myself.”
“You taught me that it’s all in the misdirection,” she said, and reached up to unclip the unruly hairpiece from her well-coifed hair. “Give them one thing to focus on and they won’t look for another.”
“I must say, I’ve never seen it done better.”
“Thank you, sir. I hope you didn’t mind the jabs aimed at you.”
“Perfect choice. When you mentioned offering oral sex to me, I almost expected Prophecy’s head to explode.”
“She’s a looker, your kid,” Adrian said, as she poured out her soda with no alcohol and began to tidy up the room, designed to reinforce her drunken performance. “I’m always amazed that you had time to have a kid. I never was able to get that together.”
Max paused and looked at the floor, dejected. “I was a terrible father…”
“Oh, you’re just saying that—”
“No, I mean it. I wasn’t there for her, and I should have been. But I guess I can only move forward from where I am.”
“I’ll get you a coffee and you can head out. Best to make sure they aren’t scouring the neighborhood before you go.”
Max stood in the living room alone, then turned and closed the open bookcase.
∞∞∞
Michael Mystique’s address was down on 51st Street, not a long drive from 73rd Street.
“So, apparently, this guy legally changed his name to Mystique,” Chu offered in an attempt to get Pro to stop brooding.
“That horrible woman,” Pro muttered, and then changed her voice to imitate her. “‘I offered him a blow job, but he turned me down.’”
“Pretty good impression.”
“Nice to know I have drunken slut in my voice skill set. Never know where that’s going to come in handy.”
“She really didn’t seem to care for Max.”
“And he didn’t take her up on her offer, I’m surprised. Between his multiple wives and numerous assistants, I figured he took any sexual favor ever offered him. Christ, my mom slept with that horny old bastard.”
“Getting angry will not help our investigation.”
“Sorry,” Pro fretted. “No one knows where he is or what he’s doing? We got three leads today, and two of them didn’t know anything.”
“But at least we saw the video of the trick,” Chu said, and then stole a glance to his partner. “Okay, tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“How does he do it?”
This made Pro grin. “I have absolutely no idea.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I don’t know how magic tricks work because of my DNA. It looked impossible to me, too.”
“Yes, and on an empty stage? It’s gotta be a trapdoor.”
“You heard what Shaut told us. He said he looked for one in the second show—no luck.”
“Maybe Michael Mystique can shed some light on it?”
“Whatever,” Pro said as Chu pulled the car into an empty space.
They got out and headed to a large apartment complex that was painted white and went up many stories. They headed into the lobby, which was also white, even the couches and pots for plants. A large white desk was watch
ed by two men in security guard uniforms—those, at least, were blue. Pro and Chu flipped open their billfolds, and the two men behind the counter stood.
“How can we help, detectives?” the man on the left asked. He was a tall African-American man with a shaved head and the body of a linebacker.
Chu told them, “I need to see Mister Mystique in 12-C. Have you seen him today?”
“Not today,” the skinny man on the right told them. He was a Hispanic man with a slight tinge to his skin, but absolutely no accent.
The bald man held out two visitor badges to Chu and Pro. “These will let you up the elevators. You can press Mister Mystique’s buzzer when you reach his door.”
“That will be the left elevator bank,” the skinny man said and pointed in the correct direction.
Chu started off and Pro turned to say, “Thank you, gentlemen.”
“And, detective,” the bald black man said, which caught Pro’s attention. “If you need anything, anything at all, just let me know. Here is the direct line to this desk.”
He handed her a card, and Pro smiled as she caught the look in his eyes. “Thank you.”
She headed to the elevator and felt a bit giddy. Had it been so long since a man had watched her with a combination of admiration and lust that it gave her butterflies? Or was it the fact that he was definitely her type. Muscles, a handsome face, and a regard for law enforcement that was lacking in many places nowadays. He had treated her with total respect, but his eyes told her how much he wanted her. For some reason, that combination of esteem and desire was a total aphrodisiac for Pro.
She took a deep breath and got into the elevator with her partner, focused on the job at hand. But maybe on the way out she could give the handsome guard her card, instead of Chu leaving his.
On the other hand, did she need another complication in her life? Relationships were a pain, and between her mother and her estranged father, did she have time or energy to give to another person?
The door slid open and they walked out to the hall and over to the apartment marked 12-C.
It had an intercom with a button right next to the door, with a nameplate that read “M. MYSTIQUE.”
Chu pressed the button and waited. Then he pounded on the door.