Shell Game

by Carol O’Connell

  She set down the wineglass and pushed it away.

  Malakhai bent down to a crate and pulled out a burlap mannikin. He slung it over his shoulder and walked up the platform stairs. Other than the stitched-up wounds and patches, it was an exact copy of Oliver Tree’s demonstration dummy.

  Malakhai used twine instead of handcuffs to bind the cloth hands to the iron post rings, then turned on the lamp in the overhead crossbeam. „The dummy isn’t part of the act. I need it to line up the shot.“ He descended the stairs and loaded an arrow into the magazine. When the weapon was armed and cocked, he glanced her way with a charming smile. „Tense moment?“

  Not at all.

  Under the cover of her blazer, Mallory felt the comfortable weight of a revolver, and she would bet the moon that a bullet could beat an arrow.

  „Now, in the original trick,“ he said, „there was no magazine. It was a single-fire weapon with a wooden bow. And it was handheld – no pedestals. But since you’re the audience, it would be rude if I asked you to shoot me.“ He flipped a switch on the pedestal. „So we’ll improvise with automation.“

  The clockwork gears ticked as the teeth of the wheels meshed together.

  He stood behind the pedestal and looked through the crossbow sight. „Max’s inspiration came from the magic bullet trick. He’d never seen it performed, but he had a rough idea of the effect. In the original version, the weapon was a gun.“

  Malakhai walked toward her with an armload of crockery. „The shot broke a plate in the magician’s hands, and he caught the bullet in his teeth.“ He bent low to set the small plates in a circle around the cafe table. „But during the occupation, the Germans frowned on civilians with guns.“ The pedestal continued to tick off its countdown. „And catching an arrow in the teeth would’ve been too dicey.“

  The ticking stopped. The bowstring twanged and the arrow fired too fast for Mallory to follow its flight from the pedestal to the heart of the mannikin, where sawdust was streaming from a hole in its burlap chest.

  „Perfect,“ said Malakhai. „Now let’s hope the string holds for one more shot.“ He placed an unlit cigarette in each of the plates on the floor around the table. „Atmosphere is half the effect.“

  She had been wrong about Louisa’s lipstick stains being made in advance. All these filters were clean.

  Malakhai tied a red scarf to the end of an arrow and loaded it into the magazine. When he had taken down the burlap dummy, he made a circuit of the platform, switching off the globe lamps and the standing lamps, diminishing her comfort level with the encroaching darkness. Only the platform bulb was left glowing between the posts at the top of the platform, and behind the stage was a wall of shadow.

  Halfway up the stairs, he paused at the edge of the yellow pool of light and waved one hand, saying, „Ambiance.“

  On command, all the cigarettes in the saucers lit themselves, one by one, and she was surrounded by smoke on all sides, white wraiths swirling into the surrounding darkness.

  She heard the tick of gears and turned toward the platform. Malakhai stood on the stage. The single lightbulb had a small circle of influence, thieving decades from his face. He was holding the violin and its bow. The ticking seemed louder in the dark.

  „You’re in Faustine’s Magic Theater. It’s 1942. If you look up, you can see small private balconies. And straight up – the ceiling is a mural of characters and scenes from famous plays. Oh, and the chandelier – a huge brilliant ball of crystal and light. Much too big for the space. Faustine’s tastes were a bit gaudy. But it’s wartime now. The old lady is dead, and we can’t afford the lightbulbs. So the chandelier is dark, and the room is lit with candles. It’s full of people, Parisians and refugees in street clothes. The soldiers are wearing gray uniforms. Guns are strapped to their thighs. All the waiters are young boys in top hats and tuxedos. Try to imagine that the wine is not so good.“

  The room was dead still, but for the tick of the gears and the movement of smoke. „You’re not a cop anymore, Mallory. Not tonight. You live in occupied Paris. Everything that was familiar and comfortable – that’s all gone now. You don’t know how you’ll feed yourself tomorrow. You don’t even know how the night will end. Anything can happen.“

  The ticking – was it louder now?

  „You can smell spilt wine rising up from the floor, cheap perfume on the women – and smoke.“ He raised the violin and positioned it between his cheek and one shoulder. „Now this is even more of a stretch. Instead of me, you see a lovely creature with fire-red hair. She’s only eighteen years old. And you must imagine that her violin is in tune.“

  Mallory could hear the machinery’s light grinding despite the recent oil. The pedestal gears were turning, ticking. The trigger peg was on the rise. Malakhai stood between the two posts. The violin’s bow was suspended above the strings.

  „While Louisa is playing, Max Candle enters stage left. There’s a crossbow pistol in his hand. You see him take an arrow from his quiver. A long red scarf is tied to the shaft. He loads it into the crossbow. Louisa doesn’t see him. She’s so involved in her music.“ He closed his eyes. „Her body turns in slow revolutions, as if she doesn’t realize that anyone is watching her. I can’t play the concerto for you. This is a simple practice piece she taught me one rainy afternoon.“

  The music was sweet, light tripping notes. The gears of the pedestal were ticking in the rhythm of a metronome – or a bomb. Malakhai was turning round. One arm was in motion as he stroked the rosined bow across the strings. His other hand fingered the neck of the instrument to form the chords and pluck riffs of light running notes. She watched his back and the action of the bow arm working across the strings of the violin.

  The weapon fired. She tracked the arrow by the flight of the red scarf streaming out behind it. Malakhai’s foot kicked out. The trajectory stopped at his body, as if the arrow had pierced him. He recovered his balance, still turning round, still playing, completing his revolution until he faced his audience of one. And though the music had never ended, the violin’s bow was gone, and he was drawing the deadly arrow across the strings for the final note. The red scarf hung from the shaft.

  The overhead lamp went out. The whole world went black.

  Without conscious guidance, Mallory’s right hand was reaching for her gun. She heard his shoes on the steps, and listened to her target so she could shoot him in the dark.

  A standing lamp switched on at the base of the platform. „Well?“ Malakhai bent down to touch the globe lamp on the floor, and it pulsated with light. „Did you like it?“ He walked around the base of the platform, turning on all the lamps.

  And now she saw the more chilling illusion, a lithe shadow moving across the face of a distant packing crate. The slender silhouette was on the run, as if it had been left behind and was hurrying to catch up to the darkness at the back of the cellar. But between lamplight and shadow, there was no solid form.

  Too much wine. She pushed the glass to the edge of the table. Cigarettes that lit themselves, and now this. „How did you do that? The shadow.“

  „Oh, that? I thought you’d be more interested in the trick that wounded Louisa.“

  „That was it?“

  „Disappointed again?“ He smiled. „But you liked the shadow, so it’s not a total loss.“

  „I know you didn’t snatch that arrow out of the air, not at two hundred and thirty-five feet a second. It can’t be done. The arrow missed you, right? You hid the bow under the violin after you switched it for a second arrow.“

  „Wrong. There was only one arrow.“

  „You didn’t catch that arrow.“ She walked over to the pedestal and looked into the empty magazine. „I saw you load it.“

  „But you didn’t see me unload it. You were coughing, remember?“

  „I saw it fly.“

  „You saw the scarf fly. It was tied to wire that fed from the crossbow to my hand. The arrow – the only arrow – was always under the violin.“

  �
�But you didn’t pull on any wire. I would’ve seen that.“ It would have been a very long pull.

  „The wire led through my fingers to wrap around a block of wood on the floor. When I kicked the block off the back of the platform, I sent it far enough for the wire to pull the scarf into my hand.“

  Now she tried to remember what had come first – the off-balance kick or the flight of the red scarf. All she knew for certain was that he had suckered her into behaving like a civilian witness, seeing things that were not there. „So that’s all there is to it?“

  „I knew you’d be irritated. It’s all so simple – after someone tells you how it’s done.“

  „Getting shot with a scarf isn’t dangerous. You said – “

  „Max was only a boy when he came up with this illusion. The dying finale came later in his career, a rather ingenious way of securing his tricks. No magician ever stole from him. He was the only one willing to take a genuine risk.“

  „A death wish?“

  „Nothing that trite.“ Malakhai sat down on the bottom step of the platform. „I think the war ended too soon for Max. He saw it through the eyes of a Yank – a generational trial by fire. His life was so much larger then. The postwar world was an anticlimax. Nothing had color anymore. No taste, no texture.“

  „And he was married to a woman he didn’t love,“ said Mallory.

  Malakhai nodded as he reached for a bottle, then held it up to the light. „We’re out of wine. I’ll be right back.“ He walked around the dragon screen and set the bottle down beside the wardrobe trunk. Mallory came up behind him, but not quietly enough. Her eyes caught his hand quickly withdrawing from another pocket in Louisa’s clothes.

  He stroked the material of a green pantsuit. „Faustine’s gold dancing shoes would go well with this. I wonder what they’re doing in this trunk. I never saw Louisa wear them.“

  „Maybe she went dancing with someone else. I asked you if Louisa had lovers. You never – “ When the shadow moved across the trunk, she pulled her gun and whirled around. There was nothing there but smoke rising from an ashtray on the floor.

  „It’s only Louisa,“ said Malakhai. „She won’t hurt you, Mallory. She likes you.“

  „How did you do that?“

  „No one has ever figured that out. But you’re welcome to try.“ His hands moved on to a pair of plain cloth trousers.

  „Maybe this is what you’re looking for?“ She handed him the passport. It was opened to the inside page and its mutilated photograph. „I thought Edith Candle might have done that.“

  He held up the ruined likeness of his wife. „This was the only picture of Louisa. Yes, Edith probably did it. Poor woman – jealous of a ghost.“

  „At first, I thought you married Louisa to give her a new identity for a legal passport. But I underestimated you, Malakhai. It’s a professional forgery. I almost took it for the genuine article.“

  He shook his head. „I can’t take the credit. This passport was Nick Prado’s work. He had a small business forging papers for refugees.“

  „He was in the Resistance?“

  „Sorry, nothing that glamorous. Forgery was his day job. A local printer provided the clientele. Nick had a room at the back of the shop.“

  „So magic didn’t pay very well?“

  „Faustine’s apprentices weren’t on salary. We all had to earn a living on the outside. The old lady was only generous with her costume allowance. It didn’t matter if we starved, as long as we made a good appearance.“

  „And after she died?“

  „The profits were pretty meager. They wouldn’t support all of us.“ He was still fixated on the ruined face in the passport. „I wish Edith hadn’t done this.“

  Mallory took the passport from his hand. „Maybe you’re the one who cut up Louisa’s photograph. Did you go a little crazy?“ She tapped the portrait. „Did you slash this face?“

  He kept his silence.

  She leaned closer. „You were angry, out of control.“ And now the gamble, the guess, the closing shot. „You knew your wife was cheating on you. Louisa was sleeping with Max Candle.“

  „Yes, I knew. But I forgave them.“

  Chapter 7

  The armchair’s skin was soft, and the deep cushion cupped around his backside in an intimacy he had never enjoyed with a woman. Yet Detective Sergeant Riker could not be entirely comfortable here, and it was nothing to do with the new tension between himself and his partner.

  Mallory’s living room had the cold look of a vacant apartment, though it was fully furnished in the high contrast of black leather and white carpet, sharp angles of costly woods, glass and chrome – appointments well beyond the means of a cop. The most striking feature was the panoramic window overlooking Central Park. Such views did not come cheap.

  Riker didn’t want to know where all her excess money came from. But he had dark suspicions that she might be up to something perfectly legal. She was too open about living higher and dressing better than cops who were known to be on the take. He coupled this with her catlike patience for the long setup to a vicious pratfall. So he never asked any blunt questions about money, lest he wind up falling on his face, the next victim of Mallory’s unique tripping style.

  Her back was turned to him as she stood before the open closet, holding his new coat in one hand and a hanger in the other. Her body stiffened sightly, and he knew she had found the stain on one sleeve, a small spot of spaghetti sauce.

  Riker set a stack of videotapes on the glass coffee table. „These are more outtakes on the parade. The cameramen kept cutting to the dog balloon and the screaming kids. You won’t see any action with the crossbow.“ When he turned back to the closet, Mallory was gone – probably off to the kitchen in search of spot remover; she had her priorities.

  He took advantage of this private moment to inspect a florist’s bouquet of long-stemmed red roses delivered in a tall crystal vase. He slipped the attached card out of the envelope and read the words: ‘Dinner at eight. I promise not to play the violin anymore.’ It was unsigned. The handwriting was an elegant script with the old-fashioned flourish of a much older man. On the other side of the card was the logo of a midtown hotel. This only told him that Mallory’s admirer was filthy rich, but he had already guessed that by cost-estimating the vase.

  He heard the noise behind him and feigned interest in the view as he worked the card back into its envelope. When he turned around, she put a cold bottle in his hand. Though it was not quite noon, he accepted this goodwill gesture and slugged back a taste of imported beer.

  A peace offering? Or was it a bribe?

  She sat on the couch and sorted through the tapes. „Did you find Oliver’s nephew?“ The subtext of her tone asked if he had even bothered to look.

  „You mean Crossbow Man?“ He flopped down in the armchair and tossed her a folded newspaper. Mallory opened it to read the comic strip name in large block letters across the front page, ‘CROSSBOW MAN MISSING.’

  „Your boy must’ve left town in a hurry,“ said Riker. „Nobody’s seen him since the parade. If he stays lost, the city might squeeze out of a lawsuit. I think the kid skinned his knee when you brought him down.“

  She turned to the story on the inside page. „Suppose the crossbow routine was a diversion for attempted murder? Richard Tree could be a material witness. Maybe he’s not lost. He could be dead.“

  In the spirit of detente, Riker refrained from telling her what he thought of that theory. While she scanned the story, he concentrated on not spilling his beer. God, how he hated this wall-to-wall white carpeting. The scatter rug in his own apartment was more adaptable to stains. Over the years, he had actually altered the pattern with colorful accents of sauces from deli containers.

  He glanced at his watch, then picked up the remote control unit and touched the power button. The automated doors of a black lacquer cabinet swung open to display a television set. It was almost time for Noonday New York. „Mallory? Have you been watching the news?
They’re turning the balloon shooting into a damn miniseries.“

  „No.“ She was still preoccupied with the newspaper article.

  Did she ever watch television? He tried to imagine her doing something purely recreational. And then he decided that she had only purchased the TV set to keep up the illusion that a normal human lived here.

  He settled back with his beer, turned up the volume and fell in love with the image of a tarted-up newscaster sitting behind a long desk. She wore a tight sweater, and garish red lipstick outlined her prominent teeth.

  Riker sighed. He had always been a sucker for hookers with overbites and electric-red hair that could only be described in the context of a bowling alley in Lodi, New Jersey.

  Behind the news desk was a giant screen with a still picture of Mallory standing on the brim of the top-hat float. The electric redhead was saying, „ – uncovered new evidence in the shooting of Goldy – “ The image on the big screen dissolved, changing to a moving picture of the gargantuan deflating balloon. The camera closed in to focus on one elderly parade spectator. Riker remembered taking this woman’s statement and praying that she would not die of old age before they were done. The camera froze this portrait as the newswoman crooned to Riker, „ – witness died suddenly before she could offer testimony in the ongoing investigation of – “

  „What investigation?“ Mallory looked up from her reading. „This is official now?“ Unmistakable was the implication that he had been holding out on her.

  Riker shrugged. „I don’t know where they get this stuff. There’s no open case. The balloon’s a dead issue, and so is Oliver Tree.“

  She continued to stare at him, waiting for him to confess to some crime of omission.

  In his defense, he said, „Mallory, this is the news media.“ He pointed to the paper in her hand. „Did you get to the part where the one gunshot is now three shots?“ He glanced back at the screen portrait of the parade spectator. „And that old lady is a mysteriously dead witness.“