Shell Game

by Carol O’Connell

  „You’re earning a turkey dinner at Charles’s place.“ Detective Mallory lowered her dark glasses to glare at him properly, to make it clear that she was not up for a rebellion this morning. A deal was a deal.

  In the long slants of her sunlit eyes, there was a perverse green fire with no warmth. Riker found this standout feature slightly less unnerving in her adult face. As a little girl, she had frightened people.

  Ah, but she still frightened people, didn’t she?

  Well, to be fair, Kathy Mallory was taller now, five ten, and she carried a gun. Fifteen years ago, the street kid had cleaned up well after only one bath, revealing luminous white skin in sharp contrast to a red pouting mouth. And even then, the delicate bones of her child’s face were sculpted for the high drama of light and shadow.

  This morning, she wore a long trench coat. The black leather was too light to offer much protection from the weather, but she seemed not to feel the bitter chill in the air. And this fit well with Riker’s idea that she was from some other planet, dark and cold, farthest from the sun.

  „Mallory, this is a waste of time. Even Charles thinks it was an accidental death. Ask him. I did.“ He knew she would never ask. Mallory didn’t like to be contradicted. However, the other eight million New Yorkers believed Oliver Tree had died because of a magic trick gone wrong.

  He turned around to look at the giant playing cards set into the enormous hatband of bright metal. Between an ace and a deuce, the center card was a portrait of the great Max Candle, who had died thirty years ago. Twelve feet above the top hat’s brim, the late magician’s younger cousin was standing on the crown with two other men in red satin capes and black tuxedos. Six feet four without his shoes on, Charles Butler created his own scale of gianthood on the high circular stage.

  Though Charles was not a real magician, it was easy to see why he had been invited to appear on the float. The resemblance to his famous cousin was very strong. At forty, Charles was near the age of the man in the photograph. His eyes were the same shade of blue, and his hair was also light brown, even curling below the line of his collar in the same length and style. Both men had the same sensuous mouth. But thereafter, the similarity was distorted. The late Max Candle had been a handsome man. Charles’s face was close to caricature, his nose elongating to a hook shape with bird-perching proportions. The heavy-lidded eyes bulged like a frog’s, and his small irises were lost in a sea of white. Max Candle had had a dazzling smile. His younger cousin smiled like a loon, but such a charming loon that people tended to smile back.

  Charles Butler was Max Candle trapped in a fun-house mirror.

  And now Riker caught his own reflection in the wide hatband of polished metal. He stared at his unshaven face and veined eyes. Graying strands of hair whipped out beneath the brim of his old felt hat. He was wearing a birthday present from Mallory, the finest tweed overcoat he had ever owned, tailored for a millionaire – which explained why he looked a homeless bum in stolen clothes.

  He turned to his partner, intending to thank her again for these wonderful threads, to say something sentimental and foolish.

  Naw.

  „You’re really off the mark this time, kid.“ Sentiment would have cost him too many points with her.

  „You don’t know it wasn’t murder,“ said Mallory.

  Yes, he did. „I trust the West Side dick’s report. He said the machinery checked out. The crossbows did what they were supposed to do. The old guy just screwed up the act.“

  She turned away from him, for this was heresy, and she was not listening to any more of it.

  Riker craned his neck to look up at the circular stage. Charles Butler was juggling five red balls. The other magicians were making birds and bouquets of flowers disappear and reappear to the applause of sidewalk spectators. Charles was clearly enjoying himself, an amateur mingling with some of the most famous magicians in memory, albeit an old memory of another time, for his companions were of the World War II generation.

  Riker turned back to Mallory. She was focused on the crowd, watching for the first taxpayer to do something criminal.

  „Well, kid, maybe Oliver Tree wanted to die.“

  „You never know,“ said Mallory. „But most suicides prefer the painless route over four sharp arrows.“

  The members of a high school marching band were warming up their instruments on the sidewalk. The trombone nearly decapitated a pedestrian as the musician turned sharply, unmindful of the press of people all around him. The French horns and the tuba were at war with the clarinet, and the drummer was in a world of his own, bored and bent on annoying everyone within earshot.

  Damn kids.

  A cadre of sequined baton-twirlers walked by the magicians’ float. Two pretty girls waved at Riker, giving him a better opinion of teenagers as a species. In their wake, another giant was joining the parade. Riker grinned at the chubby airborne effigy of a fireman. This was a balloon he remembered from atop his father’s shoulders when he was five years old. Fifty years later, many new characters had replaced his retired favorites. Ah, but now another old familiar fellow was queuing up along the cross street.

  Through a spiderweb of bare tree branches, he could see the gargantuan Woody Woodpecker balloon lying facedown and floating just above the pavement. The great arms and legs were outstretched, and one white-gloved hand was covering an automobile. All of the balloon’s personal handlers were dressed in woodpecker costumes, but they had the scale of scurrying blue ants with red hair and yellow shoes as they pulled back nets and removed restraining sandbags from the bird’s arms and legs.

  „Hey, Mallory, there’s Woody, your favorite. Remember?“

  She looked bored now, but when she was a child, this same giant balloon had made her eyes pop with wonder.

  „I never liked that one,“ she said.

  „Oh, you liar.“ Riker had the proof, clear memories of that parade, fifteen years before, when he was still allowed to call her Kathy. The ten-year-old girl had stood by his side on a cold day in another November. She had resembled an upright blond turtle, for Helen Markowitz had cocooned her foster child in layers of sweaters, woolen scarves and a thick down coat. That was the day when they had to peel little Kathy Mallory’s eyes off the gigantic woodpecker, resplendent in his fine mop of red rubber hair and that magnificent yellow beak.

  Riker raised his eyes to see the handlers letting out the ropes, and the horizontal balloon was on the rise. At last, the mighty bird was standing sixty feet tall, looming above the crowd and blocking out a good portion of brilliant blue sky. If Woody chose to, he could look into the upper windows of the museum and even examine its roof.

  „You loved that balloon,“ said Riker, insistent.

  Mallory ignored him.

  He looked down at his scuffed shoes, lowering the brim of his hat against the strong light of morning sun. He was feeling the slow onset of pain. Nostalgia always brought on a fresh spate of grief during the holidays. He missed his old friends. Sweet Helen had died too soon, too young. And following another untimely funeral, Inspector Louis Markowitz had been buried beside his wife.

  Privately, Riker believed that Lou Markowitz had not gone to his eternal rest, but was probably having a very tense death. Sometimes he could almost sense the old man’s spirit hovering near Mallory, trembling in wait for his foster child to revert into the feral creature found running loose on the city streets.

  As if she had changed all that much.

  Woody Woodpecker grandly sailed down Central Park West, dwarfing every tree and tall building along the boulevard, and Riker was reliving Kathy Mallory’s first parade. That day, he had gamely volunteered for midget duty – police code for keeping an eye on the brat – so that Helen and Lou could say hello to old friends in the crowd. Her first year in foster care, Kathy could not be introduced to innocent civilians, lest they lose a hand while patting her on the head. It was fortunate that Helen had bundled the child so well, for this had restricted Kathy’s movements and slo
wed down her tiny hands. That day, it had been easy for Riker to catch the baby thief boosting a wallet from a woman’s purse. Forgetting whom he was dealing with, he had bent down low to scold her in a tone reserved for small children – real children. „Now, Kathy, why would you do a bad thing like that?“

  The little girl had looked up at him with such incredulity, her wide eyes clearly stating, Because stealing is what I do, you moron. And this had set the tone for their relationship through the years.

  He shook his head slowly. Lou Markowitz must have had a heart attack when his foster daughter quit Barnard College to join up with the police. Now Riker looked down at the magnificent coat she had given him to replace the old threadbare rag that more closely fit his salary – and hers.

  He turned to face Mallory with another idea for needling her. „The papers said the old guy wasn’t even a real magician. Just a nobody, a carpenter from Brooklyn. Maybe Oliver Tree didn’t know how – “

  „Charles says the old man performed with Max Candle. So I figure he knew what he was doing.“ She turned away from him, a pointed gesture to say that her mind was made up; this conversation was over.

  So, of course, Riker went on with it. „The man was in his seventies. Did you consider that his timing might be a little off?“

  „No, I didn’t.“ Her voice was rising, getting testy. Good. „Like you’re the expert on magic?“

  „Magic is a cheat,“ she said. „There’s no risk. He shouldn’t have died.“ Was she pouting? Yes, she was. Better and better.

  „No risk, huh? Never? Charles didn’t tell you that.“ The younger cousin of Max Candle owned more magic illusions than a store. „You never even asked him, did you, Mallory?“

  No, of course you didn’t. He leaned in close for another shot at her. „What about senility? Suppose the old guy was – “

  „There’s no medical history of senility.“ She turned her back on him, as if this might prevent him from having the last word. It would not.

  Riker would bet his pension that she had never seen a medical history on the dead man. He knew for a fact that she had not even read the accident report. Mallory liked her instincts, and she ran with them.

  And now he understood his own place in her schemes. She had only wanted him along today as a show of force. She was planning to turn Charles’s holiday dinner party into an interrogation of elderly magicians – all witnesses to a damn accident.

  „I still say it ain’t right, kid. You can’t go drumming up new business. Not when NYPD has a backlog of dead bodies.“

  Mallory had tuned him out like an off chord in the nearby marching band, which was playing loudly but not together. She was intent on the faces along the barricades.

  Riker threw up his hands. „Okay, let’s say it was a real homicide. How do you make the stretch to an assassination during the parade?“ She could not, and he knew that. She was making up this story as she went along.

  „My perp loves spectacle.“ Mallory faced him now, suddenly warming to the conversation. „He killed a man on local television. This parade is televised all over the country. If he’s gonna do another one, today’s the day.“

  Her perp? So she was already racing ahead to the moment when she claimed the case file and the evidence. „Mallory, before we assume the killing is an ongoing thing with a pattern, most of us wait till we got at least two homicides in the bag.“

  „Suppose the next homicide is Charles?“

  A good point, though stretching credibility beyond all reason. She had been wise to con him into doing this baby-sitting detail on his own time. Lieutenant Coffey would never have bought into this fairy story nor given her one dime from the Special Crimes budget. And she would never have forgiven the lieutenant for laughing. Mallory could not deal with ridicule in any form.

  But this is such a crackpot idea. And, for a gifted liar, it was pretty lame. But he decided she was only having an off day.

  Yet Mallory’s instincts were usually good. It might not be a total crock. He had to wonder why Oliver Tree had taken such chances. The daredevil stunt was a young man’s trade. Maybe Mallory was right. The apparatus could have been foiled. Though the trick was very old, only one long-dead magician had known how it was supposed to work. According to Charles Butler, that was why they called it Max Candle’s Lost Illusion.

  A balloon in the shape of a giant ice cream cone smashed into a sharp tree branch and deflated to the cheers of jaded New York children.

  And now Riker realized why Mallory hadn’t asked for the case file on the fatal accident. She did not plan to challenge the work of another detective until she had something solid. So she was finally learning to play nicely with the troops. Well, this was progress, a breakthrough, and it deserved encouragement. He vowed not to bait her anymore.

  „I still say it was an accident,“ he said, baiting her only a little.

  Oh, shit.

  Mallory had targeted a civilian. Her eyes were tracking him in the manner of a cat that had not been fed in days and days.

  But why?

  This youngster on the pavement was dressed like the men on the top hat stage. The lone magician seemed less out of place, not half as suspicious as the stilt-walkers and the strolling people in banana suits.

  Mallory had locked eyes with her suspect and stopped him cold. Could the boy tell from this distance that every muscle in her body was tensing to jump him? The young magician melded back into the mob of pedestrians; Riker remembered to exhale; and Mallory stood up, the better to keep track of her new pet mouse in the crowd.

  Men and women of the mounted police had joined the parade astride seven trotting horses. The officers made a smart appearance in helmets, black leather jackets and riding boots. They carried poles bearing unfurled banners of police emblems. As they reined their mounts in a line across the boulevard, the banners whipped and cracked in the wind, and the horses snorted white clouds of breath.

  The kamikaze pilot of a golf cart drove toward the center of this lineup, perhaps believing the horses would stand aside for him. They did not. The driver slammed on his brakes two feet from a stallion’s knees. Riker winced as the self-important fool stood up behind the wheel of the cart. Puffing out the breast of his parade-staff jacket, he gestured with one waving arm, ordering the riders to move out of his way.

  The mounted police officers turned their dark glasses down toward the general direction of the civilian and his golf cart. They were not focusing on him, but seemed only mildly distracted. All of them were dead still in the saddle. Formidable wooden truncheons hung from their belts, and heavier weapons rested in holsters. And now the riders turned their faces up to the sky. Cops only took orders from cops. Their unspoken message was clear: If we notice you, we’ll have to shoot you, won’t we?

  The golf cart ran over the curb of the sidewalk in a hasty effort to get around them.

  Tiny Santa’s elves, with pointed ears and long red stocking caps, gathered around the mounted police, and the children’s hands reached up to pet the horses. Nearby, a camera crew was setting up to shoot the top hat float, their lenses competing with roving civilian minicams. The news camera was turned toward the corner of the museum, where another balloon was caught up in a crosswind and dragging its handlers.

  In the apartment building on 81st Street, children were hanging out of windows, screaming and waving to a gigantic floating puppy, having recognized the bright golden character from their best-loved cartoon show. Even the elves had broken off their horse petting to jump up and down, pointing, yelling and waving to the balloon looming over them and casting a shadow as big as a circus tent. And he was magnificent, his great size trivializing all life on earth. Riker guessed the dog’s collar must be thirty feet wide. The tail was easily the length of three limousines wagging in the wind and grazing a tenth-floor window.

  The nearby gang of two-legged Christmas tree ornaments must also be children in disguise, for they were spooking the horses by spinning madly and leaping high in the air
with excitement. The children’s squeals vied with the cacophony of two marching bands, yet Mallory was undistracted from her suspect in the magician’s costume. The boy had retreated behind the blue barricade on the sidewalk near a more familiar figure closer to Riker’s age.

  He waved to the chief medical examiner, who stood with his wife and young daughter. The man returned the wave and left his family to duck under the barricade.

  „Morning, Riker.“ As Dr. Slope walked toward the float, he had the distinguished bearing of a stone-faced general, and he was just as brave. „Kathy,“ he yelled, risking a bullet to call her by her first name in front of all these cops. „The poker game is tomorrow night at Rabbi Kaplan’s house. Can you make it?“

  Mallory turned her face away from the suspect to look down at the medical examiner. „Are you old ladies still playing for chump change?“

  Dr. Slope never missed a beat. „Are you still palming cards?“

  „I never did that,“ said Mallory.

  „We never caught you doing it,“ Dr. Slope corrected her. He turned around and cracked a smile for Riker. „She was thirteen the last time she took a chair in the game.“

  Riker grinned. „I heard about that little red wagon Markowitz bought her – so she could carry all her winnings home.“

  Dr. Slope feigned sudden deafness and turned back to Mallory. „Rabbi Kaplan wants you to come. Eight o’clock sharp. Can I tell him you’ll be there?“

  „I’m not playing any games with cute names or wild cards,“ said Mallory. „Straight poker or nothing.“

  „You got it,“ said Dr. Slope.

  The wind pushed the golden dog balloon, and a platoon of handlers drifted with it, tiny ant-size leash holders trying to restrain the giant animal’s gambol into the parade route. The wind bustled the dog into the lifelike enthusiasm of a real puppy. Legs with outsized paws stretched out in a goofy gallop. His bright red tongue hung low, and his eyes were wide. The huge mouth was fashioned in a joyous rubber-puppy grin.