Shell Game

by Carol O’Connell

  Mallory suppressed a smile. She knew what he was looking for in the folds and pockets, while he played the part of his dead wife’s Dictaphone.

  His head tilted to one side, listening to the smoke again. He pointed to the fabrics at the end of the rack. „And these silks? They’ll force you to take them to a party. They’ll make you stay up all night long, dancing and drinking good wine. Louisa wants you to listen to these clothes. They know what’s best for you.“

  „What’s Louisa wearing now?“

  „The dress she died in.“ He looked over his shoulder and focused on the smoke rising from the ashtray. „It’s sky blue, almost as light as her eyes.“

  Mallory walked over to the trunk and stood close to him. He was wearing an expensive cologne, so discreet she hadn’t noticed it during the poker game. And there was another scent on the air, a flower mingling with the dust of the cellar – a gardenia. She looked down at the open lingerie drawer.

  A sachet was tucked in with the garments. „All of your wife’s clothes are here?“

  „Well, those dancing shoes belonged to Faustine, but the rest are Louisa’s. There was no armoire in our room. This was her closet. Yes, the clothes are all here, except for the dress. She was buried in that.“

  „Buried in a bloodstained dress?“

  „It was a hasty funeral.“

  „Her only dress.“ Mallory ran her hand across the rack of hangers. „These clothes – suits, shirts, trousers – all made for a man and cut down to size.

  But she wore a dress the night she died. Why?“

  „Women.“ He shrugged, as if this were an answer of sorts. Then he walked back to the crates from Faustine’s and pulled another one from a stack. It was large, but he handled it as if it weighed only a few pounds and set it down on the floor. „Where is that wine? So much to drink, so little time.“

  Mallory drifted toward the ashtray where Louisa’s cigarette was smoldering. Her eyes focused on the smoke. „Her hair – it’s cut very short, isn’t it?“

  Apparently he didn’t like it when she played his game with the invisible woman. He turned his back on her and bent over the crate. Now he paused, hands braced on his knees. His head turned slightly, only showing her the line of his cheek. „How did you know that?“

  So she had guessed right. The long hair from the passport photo had been cut off in Paris.

  He looked back over his shoulder. „The boys told you?“

  Boys? He must mean the old magicians. She nodded toward the wardrobe trunk. „Short hair goes with the man-tailored clothes.“

  His head bowed as he put his weight into the crowbar. „She wore ties with the suits, just like the magicians. Louisa fascinated everyone who came to the theater. Halfway across the room, she could alter her sex with the change of her gait.“ He turned to consult the smoke from the ashtray, a last withering plume from a cigarette that had gone dark. „Her eyes are such a pale blue. There are moments when they seem solid white – eerie. She never needed makeup.“

  „But tonight she’s wearing lipstick.“ Mallory circled the crate so she could see his face. „She wore makeup the night she was killed, right? And a dress, her only dress – all tricked out to die like a woman.“

  „Yes.“ His dark blue eyes were somber now and fixed on the crowbar as he worked it under the wooden lid. „She was very much a woman that night.“

  Mallory’s hand pressed down on top of the crate to work against him. „Were you hiding her from the Germans or the French police?“

  The crowbar fell from his hand and crashed to the cement. Mallory took her hand off the crate lid and stepped back. „I know a lot about Louisa.“

  He shook his head to say she was lying. „No, I don’t think so. But you know a lot about death, I’ll grant you that. Your lecture at the poker game was very instructive. I never imagined anything that brutal.“

  „No? Where were you when she was dying?“

  „Elsewhere.“

  Mallory was distracted by the plume of a fresh cigarette. When did he light that one? „I’ve met your old friends from Faustine’s.“

  „And they couldn’t even tell you where Louisa was born.“ His hands were mauling the packing material. „I’ve never told anyone my wife’s history.“

  „Right, the recording contract has a penalty clause.“

  He abandoned this crate and looked for a more likely one among the stacks. „Have you ever heard my wife’s concerto? Louisa started writing it when she was only fourteen. She finished it in Paris.“

  „It’s odd that your old friends wouldn’t know anything about her background, unless you had something to hide before Louisa died. So I was right. She was wanted. Didn’t you trust any of them?“

  „You should play her concerto – she’s in there, her entire personality. The music critics say the work is inhabited – haunted, if you like. Ah, but you don’t believe in ghosts.“

  „And neither do you.“ She watched him pull up the loosened lid. „It takes a lot of effort to keep a dead woman walking and talking. You’re the one who works the strings.“

  The crate’s interior was exposed, and his face paled as he looked down at the contents, a wooden crossbow. The pistol stock was cracked, and the bow was broken in two. He shook his head, as if this might clear his vision. Unlike the other crates, he took the trouble to replace the lid on this one.

  „No wine here either.“ His composure was restored when he looked up at Mallory. „You know nothing about my wife.“

  „Her hair wasn’t short in 1942.“ She watched his hands tighten around the crowbar. „Not in August – that’s when she crossed the border into France. An eighteen-year-old bride.“

  „Only seventeen,“ he corrected her. „Louisa turned eighteen in Paris.“

  „You added an extra year. It was part of her disguise.“

  „Well, the boys didn’t tell you that. They didn’t know. You’re fascinating, Mallory. I’ll bet you frighten people.“

  „Her hair was long, wavy and light red. Then she cut it off.“ Mallory glanced at the wardrobe of trousers, suits and unfeminine shoes – except for the gold dancing slippers. „Louisa was passing for a boy, hiding out in Paris. She was murdered at Faustine’s Magic Theater in the winter of 1942.“

  So far all the details were correct; she could see that much in his face. If Louisa’s identity card was also a forgery, at least the late December expiration date was reliable.

  „Why was she wearing her only dress the night she died? Were the Germans looking for a woman in men’s clothing? Louisa was planning to leave Paris, wasn’t she?“ Mallory came up behind him and whispered in his ear, „Was she leaving without you?“

  The wood creaked. The crate’s lid crashed to the floor.

  „I found the wine.“ He pulled out a case of bottles and set it on the floor. „You’re not quite what I expected, Mallory. You’re good at reading people – dead or alive. Charles gave me the impression that you preferred the company of computers.“

  She knew her name among the other detectives of NYPD – Mallory the Machine. She sat down on the overturned crate lid. It was the only space not coated with dust, the dreaded enemy of all machines. Malakhai lined up the bottles in front of her, and she read the labels of cabernet sauvignon, burgundy and port wine.

  „Good old Max, sentimental bastard.“ He lifted a carved wooden box from the crate and shook it, frowning at the tinkle of broken glass. „What a pity. This was Faustine’s best crystal.“ He opened the box and looked down at the set of twelve wineglasses, each pressed into a green velvet lining. Only half of them were intact. He set three glasses on the floor. More prowling in the crate produced a pearl-handled screw of tarnished silver. He stabbed its point into the cork of a bottle.

  „That’s a rare wine,“ said Mallory. „Too expensive to drink.“

  „You say that because it’s old.“ He pulled on the screw, and it came out with crumbles of dry cork. „Damn.“ He sank the metal deeper, twisting it into the b
ottle’s mouth. „I remember when this wine was young. And you’re right, it was a rare good bottle even then.“

  The rest of the cork came out in pieces. The odor of vinegar poured from the glass neck, to tell them that the wine had gone over.

  „Now that’s criminal.“ He stared at the label, as if reading the obituary of a beloved friend. „This is why hoarding wine is not in my philosophy.“

  Mallory perused the other bottles. „Different wines, different vintners. Why are they all from 1941?“

  „It was a wonderful year, a painless year. Louisa was still alive. The boys were all together then – Faustine’s apprentices. That was before everything went sour.“ He stuffed the largest bit of the broken cork back into the bottleneck to kill the pungent odor. „You got the dates right, Mallory. By the end of 1942, Louisa was dead, and the boys were scattered.“ He wiped a wineglass with his handkerchief and placed it in her hand. „I’ll find you a good bottle.“

  She set the goblet down on the cement and pushed it away.

  „No wine for you?“ He smiled. „Interesting.“ He turned to the space beside him. The ashtray was on the floor now, and Louisa had begun another cigarette. „My wife thinks you’re afraid of losing control. She wants you to take more risks – have many lovers. Drink all the wine you can hold.“

  „Did Louisa have many lovers?“

  He turned his eyes away from Mallory and began a search from bottle to bottle, looking for one that was not ruined.

  The rich bouquet of burgundy was tainted with the smell of machine oil. Mallory calmly watched her murder suspect reassemble a freshly cleaned lethal weapon, fitting the long curved section through a slot near the end of the arrow bed.

  They had long since decamped from the wardrobe trunk, carrying unspoiled bottles around the dragon screen to settle near the platform. Mallory’s internal clock had gone awry. Time was passing in increments of alcohol and repetitions of the blues. She was listening to the same record album for the fourth time. Or was it the fifth? Sitting cross-legged on the bare cement floor, she sipped from a crystal goblet, having forgotten her dread of dust and wine.

  Billie Holiday sang, „If you hear a song in blue – “

  „You’re so young.“ He twisted a screw to realign the crossbow sight. „These lyrics don’t mean anything to you, do they?“

  „No,“ Mallory lied, not wanting to give him anything of herself, not her unique connection to Rilke’s caged panther, nor T. S. Eliot’s four-o’clock-in-the-morning thoughts – or a song in blue.

  „ – like a flower crying – “

  Her glass was only half empty, but Malakhai was filling it again. At some point, the silk top hat had traveled from his head to hers, just when or how she could not say, and now the brim was falling over her eyes, and she pushed it back.

  „Max should’ve been an engineer. He designed this bow.“ The veins and muscles of his forearm stood out in bold relief as he bent back the thick curve of metal to string the crossbow pistol. „This has a hundred-and-fifty-pound pull, but a child can work the lever to cock it. The arrow travels two hundred and thirty-five feet a second. Very deadly.“

  „ – heart trying to compose – “

  „I thought you’d be into classical music like your wife. Why Billie Holiday?“

  „Well, we were all jazz babies in Paris, but I came late to the blues. I discovered Billie between World War II and Korea.“

  „Emile St. John said you found Louisa in Korea. After she’d been dead for – “

  „More like she found me. Let’s stay with the earlier war. I think you’d like that one better, Mallory. Lots of big guns.“

  „ – a prelude that never dies – “

  „A world at war.“ He picked up a narrow wooden box, a magazine to hold a load of three arrows. „I wish I could make you see the whole thing, the amazing scale of it. The bombs falling.“ He set the box in place over the arrow bed. „Parades and music, crowds cheering, whole cities falling down.“ He tightened the screws that bound it to the crossbow. „Goose-stepping Nazis and Yanks in tanks. It was sublime.“

  „ – my prelude to a kiss – “

  Malakhai pushed up the curving metal rod extending out from the rear of the pistol section. „Charles was right. They all need new strings. But this should hold for a few shots.“ When he moved the rod down again, the string was pulled back to receive the first arrow.

  The brim of the top hat fell over her eyes again. He reached out to her and tipped it back.

  „In 1943,1 saw a dogfight in the sky, a battle of fighter planes. The losing aircraft blew to bits, and the pilot was dropping through the clouds – still alive. The parachute never opened – just a white streamer of silk. His feet were pumping up and down like mad. Perhaps he thought, if he hit the ground running, he might get away with falling from an airplane. The ultimate optimist. He must have been an American.“

  Malakhai looked through the crossbow sight. She wondered if he realized that he was aiming at the ashtray, where Louisa’s cigarette was burning. „Mallory, promise me you’ll never walk in front of these things when they’re loaded on the pedestals.“

  „Max Candle walked in front of four of them.“

  „Well, you’re no Max Candle. And neither was Oliver.“ Malakhai walked over to the platform and set the crossbow grip into a pedestal slot. He came back to her and picked up a half-empty wine bottle.

  „A very good year.“ He refreshed the third glass by Louisa’s ashtray. „Max ran away from boarding school early in ‘41. He used to be a Butler like Charles. When he followed me to Paris, he took the name Candle to hide from the Pinkerton men his parents hired. If you’re not familiar with – “

  „Private detectives, I know. So you met at school?“

  „Yes. Max’s father was in the diplomatic corps. His parents were about to take him home to the States when he ran away.“

  „What was your real name?“

  „Malakhai. Disappointed?“ He returned to the platform and climbed the stairs to the stage.

  She watched him pick up the heavy target, easily lifting it from the slots in the flanking posts. „What’s your first name?“

  „Perhaps I’ll tell you about that when I know you better.“ He moved the target behind the red drapes.

  Mallory was becoming accustomed to this evasion. She never pressed him anymore, but only continued to collect the soft spots marked by unanswered questions.

  Louisa was a chain-smoker. The ashtray was filled with red-stained cigarette butts, and Mallory had yet to catch the dead woman’s husband in the act of lighting one. She had decided that all the cigarettes from Louisa’s pack must be premarked with lipstick, but they were lighting up when Malakhai was nowhere near them.

  A neat trick.

  Mallory sipped her wine in the spirit of research. So this was the flavor of 1941, when Malakhai was a teenage boy with a war going on all around him. „How well did you get along with the Germans during the occupation?“

  „Oh, the soldiers were our best customers. After Faustine died, we turned the place into a dinner theater. Couldn’t make ends meet with admission for the magic show. So we ripped out all the theater seats and put in chairs and tables – one big dining room.“

  „You fed the enemy?“

  „And poisoned them – the food was that bad.“ He disappeared around the dragon screen, and his voice carried back to her. „The wine was worse, so we never had any officers in the audience.“

  She could hear the splintering of wood as he pried open another crate.

  „We were just a pack of children,“ he said. „When you’re young and poor, you think about your stomach, not politics.“

  Malakhai returned to the platform, carrying a round cafe table in one hand and a chair in the other. „These are from Faustine’s. Max must have bought up everything but the old lady’s bidet.“ He set them down in front of the staircase.

  „Was it a German soldier who killed Louisa?“

  �
��Let’s get off that, shall we?“ His voice had only mild impatience. „Do you want to see this illusion or not?“ He wiped down the chair with a cloth and held it out for her. „Sit down – please.“

  She took her seat at the small table as he acted the part of a waiter, setting out her glass and a wine bottle. His hands were steady. Maybe she would change that. „How did Faustine die?“

  „In her sleep – no blood. I’m forever disappointing you, aren’t I?“ He had cleaned Louisa’s ashtray, and now he put it on the table beside the wine bottle. „You probably won’t like this trick. It’s a small, unpretentious routine. We used it to open the show every night. Max created it. Louisa wasn’t a magician, so he kept it very simple.“

  Malakhai gently lifted a violin from a dusty case and began to work the pegs where the long neck ended in a scroll of wood. „Don’t expect too much.“ He plucked the strings, tightening and loosening them, tuning the instrument by ear. „Think of it as a little bit of poetry, a prelude to magic.“

  She was staring at the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray when the tip began to glow with a small flame, and now it smoked.

  A chemical agent?

  That would explain why she never caught him lighting one. Maybe it was something that would ignite when it was pulled from the pack and exposed to the air. She picked up the cigarette and sniffed at the smoke from the lit end, but there was no trace scent of chemicals. Now she put the filter to her lips and drew in the smoke to taste it.

  Her throat burned, and she could not stop coughing. It was a fight to catch her breath.

  „So that was your first cigarette.“ Malakhai was at her side, gently slapping her back. „How do I know these things?“

  Her lungs were on fire, and her eyes were full of tears from the smoke. „There’s something mixed in the tobacco. It burns – “

  „Oh, it’s always like that the first time you inhale. Makes you wonder why there’s ever a second time.“ He handed her the wineglass, and she drank deeply – for medicinal purposes.

  „Well, Mallory, now that we’ve sucked poison together, we’re bonded, you and I.“ His hand rested on her shoulder until she stopped coughing. „So, you risked a dangerous cigarette – commendable. And you’re well on your way to being drunk. That’s even better.“