Shell Game

by Carol O’Connell

  She yanked the chain, but he did not get the hint.

  Malakhai looked down at the revolver as she extended it toward his chest. „I gather you dislike criticism.“ Ignoring the gun, he reached down and pulled the arrow from the target. „You remind me of an old proverb. The girl who can’t dance always blames it on the band.“

  And now he was holding a sharp arrow in one hand and standing much too close. Her finger rested lightly on the trigger.

  There were so many fractured parts to her emotions. Malakhai showed no fear of the gun. That was enough to make her angry. And she wanted this to be his fault, not hers. But now he was looking down at the keys lying on the floor. This was more evidence of her own errors, and she hated him for that. She stared at the arrow in his hand. Did he mean to do some damage? Or was this a sick game he was playing?

  Her body went rigid. Every muscle flooded with adrenaline for the fight, as if it would take any force to squeeze a trigger. And darker chemicals were released into her brain as a response to rage, magnifying it to obliterate reason.

  In the last untainted part of her mind, she heard herself speaking calm, icy words, „Let go of the arrow. Let it fall and step back.“

  A drop of sweat rolled down the side of her face. The trembling in her gun hand was nearly imperceptible. It was a muscle spasm of tight control – to prevent her revolver from firing into his chest.

  Mallory pulled down on the manacle until the metal bit into her wrist. Pain was a focus, a trick of her own to clear her mind of violence. But she could still feel the anger massing, building toward a single convulsive act. If she could not stop it, she was going to kill him. She strained at the bracelet, pulling it down harder to bring on more pain, but it was not enough.

  „Drop it!“ she yelled.

  At the moment Malakhai turned away from her to send the arrow flying off the stage, her manacled hand shot straight out with more force than she possessed in a normal state of mind.

  The crack was loud, and for an instant, she believed her gun had gone off.

  Malakhai turned around, surprised to see her metal bracelet freed from the post. Dangling from the other end of her handcuff chain, the iron ring was attached to a splintered piece of wood.

  „Are you bleeding?“

  „No.“ She bowed her head over the red abrasion on her wrist, not wanting him to see that she had also been startled. The breakage was unintentional. She had only wanted the pain. „So you just happened to be passing by? Is that your story?“

  He took her metal bracelet in both his hands. She never saw him work a key. The handcuff simply opened and released her wrist. He held up the manacles and the splintered section of wood. „I can fix this. But don’t break anything else, all right? Perhaps if you kept your hands in your pockets?“

  He knelt down to open the leg irons, and Mallory pushed him away. Then she reluctantly holstered her gun and undid the catches that bound her ankles. The anger was not receding, but it was under control as she stepped to one side of the target.

  „Nasty tear in those jeans, Mallory. Lucky it wasn’t your skin. Maybe next time it’ll be a vital organ – like poor Oliver.“

  „Is that a threat?“

  „That’s a fact. I guess you’ll have to wear something else to dinner. We have reservations for eight o’clock. No time for you to go home and change. Did you like the roses?“

  „How did you know my address?“

  He pointed down toward the wardrobe trunk, just visible over the top of the dragon screen. „I suggest the green silk.“

  Mallory was dressed for a different season in 1942. Walking away from the cab, she felt the wind whistle around her feet. The gold dancing shoes were not made for the month of November. Though they fit well, she felt crippled by the slender straps and delicate heels. Near the front door of the restaurant, they paused by a mirror, and Malakhai drew her attention to the gleaming material of the suit. „Louisa says the silk has faded a bit. Once it was green enough to match your eyes.“

  The Greenwich Village restaurant catered to Europeans. The single long room was filled with accents of other languages. Near a window overlooking West Fourth Street, a small table was laid with three place settings.

  Three people sat down – if one counted Louisa, and Mallory did. As Dr. Slope would say at every poker game, I came to play.

  Malakhai pulled out a package of cigarettes.

  „They won’t let you smoke in here,“ said Mallory. „That’s the law.“

  „Ah, the new draconian regime.“ Malakhai took a cigarette from the pack. „But you can’t possibly believe this restaurant enforces the mayor’s petty little fits?“ He pointed to the name of the cafe emblazoned on the menu. „These people are French, are they not? What were you thinking?“

  Mallory no longer wanted to kill him.

  Other women in the restaurant were looking their way – his way. And the men were also stealing glances at him. Though the table was next to the street window, Malakhai was the gravitational center of this room.

  His eyes were dark attracters. She was alternately leaning toward him and pulling back. „Did you plan to search the basement? Or did you just show up to scare me?“

  „Does anything scare you?“ There was no sarcasm in his voice. „The pedestal mechanism is old. Who knows what else is broken – besides the post.“

  „Your ashtray, sir.“ A young waiter in a red dinner jacket had materialized by the table. It was not an ashtray he set before Malakhai, but a plain saucer. „If anyone should make a scene – “

  „I know, Jean. You’ll be shocked to see me smoking in your establishment – and very loud when you tell me to put out my cigarette. I promise to be contrite.“ After the waiter had left them to consult their menus, Malakhai rolled the unlit cigarette between his fingers. „You see that woman over there? The indignant one in the purple dress?“

  Mallory turned around to look at a party of three patrons near the door. They were pulling on their coats and gesturing to the woman in purple. But she ignored them to blatantly stare at Malakhai and his cigarette, a red flag to a militant antismoker.

  He smiled at this woman as he spoke to Mallory. „She and her friends are ready to leave. And yet, how can she go without exercising this bit of power over a stranger?“ He pulled out a silver cigarette lighter. „Here I am, about to indulge in a simple pleasure, something she can deny me.“

  The woman’s eyebrows shot together. She was waving down their waiter, as if the boy were a passing taxi. Jean cruised on by, pretending not to see her. The three dinner companions were standing by the door and hailing her. The woman in purple joined her friends with obvious reluctance. Out on the sidewalk, she was still not finished with Malakhai. She paused by the window to glare at him, to be sure he was not getting away with anything.

  He made the unlit cigarette disappear into his closed fist. When he uncurled his fingers very close to the window glass, his hand was empty. The three companions applauded the trick as the purple woman stalked off down the sidewalk. Malakhai closed his hand again. This time he opened it with a lit cigarette resting between his fingers.

  Mallory looked down at the saucer, where a second cigarette was smoking. There was lipstick on the filter. He must have put it there while she was distracted by the little magic show at the window. She stared at it for a moment, watching the smoke curl upward. „Where did Louisa come from?“

  „If you knew that, you’d be an instant celebrity in the music world. There’s no record of Louisa anywhere. Some frustrated historian even started the rumor that I made her up.“

  „Any rumors about murder?“

  „Quite a few. Nick Prado started most of them to boost record sales in the early fifties. This was fifteen years before he quit the stage to start his public relations firm. But even then, he had all the instincts of a first-rate publicist.“

  „Prado knows the real story.“

  „Does he? He’s never said so – not to you, Mallory.“

>   „You never believed her death was an accident. You knew Louisa was murdered. You knew it long before the poker game.“

  She had expected him to deny that. But he didn’t. There was nothing in his face to tell her whether she had guessed right or wrong.

  „Why are you so preoccupied with Louisa?“

  „Oliver’s will left everything to charity, so I don’t have a money motive. I think he frightened the man who killed your wife.“

  Their conversation stopped when Jean the waiter returned with a bottle of burgundy. He poured a small amount into a wineglass and hovered by the table, waiting for Malakhai s approval. Then the young man filled all three glasses and left.

  „Oliver did botch the trick,“ said Malakhai. „I could tell that much from the television coverage.“

  „What was his mistake?“

  „Oh, I’d be the last one to spoil your fun. I’m sure you’ll work it out.“

  „What about that boy who died when Max Candle did the act? Was that another one of Nick Prado’s stories? A publicist’s pipe dream?“

  „No, that really happened, but the story isn’t widely known. Max was devastated. He was hardly going to use the boy’s death for publicity.“

  „That accident should have made the national news.“

  „Why? Max Candle died on stage and magically came back to life. The boy stayed dead – less magical, only an accident report on a police blotter. Nothing more.“

  „Maybe you were in the audience the night Max did that trick.“

  „In fact, I was.“

  „So you would’ve known how to sabotage Oliver’s trick in Central Park.“

  „Not necessarily. He didn’t do it the same way Max did. So I’d have to know Oliver’s version.“

  Hours later, she was no closer to a solution for the Lost Illusion. Her magical wineglass was never more than half empty, though she had never seen Malakhai refill it. And toward the end of a long evening, she had learned to be more careful in the pronunciation of every word, lest she slur her speech or drop any more syllables.

  All the way home in the cab, Mallory sat up straight, but the rest of the world would not. It leaned, it spun. It was out of control.

  Her Upper West Side apartment building slid into view alongside the passenger window. The rear door opened and Malakhai stepped onto the sidewalk. He extended one hand to assist Mallory out of the car, as if he feared her feet might miss the ground attempting this maneuver on her own. As they crossed the building’s marble threshold, she nodded toward a blur of green uniform, which must have been Frank the doorman.

  In silence, they rode the elevator upward, not straight up but tilting off to one side. When they reached her floor, Malakhai escorted her down the hall, politely and firmly holding her right arm. This was a bygone courtesy she recognized from another era’s black-and-white movies. Canny Mallory made use of his archaic good manners to keep herself from tripping on the unruly roiling carpet.

  They stopped in front of her door, and he waited patiently while she tried three times to work the lock. Twice, she lied and blamed the problem on a new key. Finally, the door opened. Malakhai stood close beside her, yet his voice seemed distant as he said, „Good night.“

  At last, Mallory was inside her apartment, leaning against one stationary wall and willing the rest of the room to stand still. And now she remembered the question she had wanted to ask at the top of the evening.

  She pulled open the door on her second try at turning the knob in the right direction – around. And then she was running down the hall. The elevator was engaged. She pushed through the door to the stairwell and accomplished a remarkable ballet of footwork to keep her balance on the concrete that shifted out from under her in a staircase conspiracy to break her neck.

  She crossed the lobby, running uphill much of the way, and thanks to the quick efforts of Frank the doorman, there was no steel-framed glass impediment between herself and the street. Mallory was out on the sidewalk, breathless, and weaving only a little – or so she imagined.

  Malakhai had just climbed into the back seat of a yellow taxi. He was instructing the driver when she appeared beside the passenger door.

  „Whose side were you on in World War II?“

  The car was rolling away from the curb as he leaned out the window and called back to her, „I was wearing a German uniform the night I shot Louisa.“

  Chapter 9

  There was no harmless way to hold her head. Two degrees of tilt in either direction brought on more painful throbbing. Mallory sat on the sofa, facing away from Charles Butler’s front windows. Her sensitivity to sunlight was another unfamiliar symptom.

  Riker, the wise man of hangovers, looked deep into her reddened eyes, then turned back to Charles. „Naw, she’s not sick. This is fixable.“

  The two men walked off toward the kitchen and left her in merciful silence. She bowed her head over the thick text of legalese in her lap.

  On the street just outside the window, a cat’s sudden scream elongated into a howl of agony, and Mallory’s fragile nerve endings thrummed in a sympathetic vibration – not to be confused with sympathy. She even took some satisfaction in the animal’s obvious pain as she wished it a quick and violent death, then resumed reading Oliver Tree’s last will and testament.

  Riker’s voice carried down the hall from the kitchen. „I need a raw egg, club soda and Tabasco sauce.“

  She barely heard Charles’s response. „You’re sure this won’t kill her?“

  When Riker returned to the living room, he was carrying a glass of suspicious dark slime topped with frothy bubbles. „Charles is making you a cappuccino chaser.“

  „I’m not drinking that,“ said Mallory.

  „Yeah, you will.“ He handed her the glass. „Drink it down in one gulp. It’ll put you out of your misery. Then we won’t have to shoot you.“

  She tipped back the glass and all but inhaled the contents to get this over with quickly. The taste and the mucous texture were equally vile. This was gross betrayal. She glared at Riker, her poisoner.

  „Okay, kid.“ He sloughed off his coat and tossed it on a chair near the door. „The next time you tie one on, take an aspirin before you go to bed. Drink lots of water too. Half the pain is dehydration.“

  Her wounded eyes were riveted to the brown spot on the lapel of his coat – fresh aggravation. How long had that coffee stain been setting in?

  She held up the pages of the will. „How did you get this away from the lawyer?“

  „I thought that might cheer you up.“ Riker sat down beside her and rummaged through his suit pockets. „I dropped by the executor’s office. Man, that place even smells like money. So I asked the secretary for the name of her boss’s cruise ship. I was gonna cable some questions on the will.“

  He pulled out a mess of cards and crumpled sheets of paper. „Then the secretary, what’s her name – “ He held out a business card at arm’s length, rather than put on his reading glasses. „Gina. She tells me she’s on a waiting list for the police academy. Nice kid – loves cops. Well, Gina asks me what I think of her chances for acceptance. So I say the odds get better if I write her a recommendation. Then she tells me her boss was never on a cruise ship.“

  „He’s been hiding from the police?“

  „More like he’s hiding the platform and the crossbows. After the archery stunt at the parade, he thought we might take another look at Oliver’s death – maybe impound the props before the auction.“ He pointed to the paperwork in her lap. „Cut to page thirty-two.“

  Mallory flipped through the sheets until she found the list of items to be auctioned for charity. All the magic props were listed by category. She ran one finger down the first column of the inventory.

  „Let me save you some time,“ said Riker. „The platform isn’t on that list. But Gina says it’s the big-ticket item for the auction. The bidding starts at one o’clock this afternoon. The lawyer wants to unload all the magic props before the media hype
dies down.“

  He handed her the business card, and she read the address line penciled on the back. It was more than thirty blocks from her next appointment in Times Square. „What’s the going rate for a magic trick that bombed?“

  „Quite a bundle,“ said Riker. „And the lawyer gets a cut of the action. The heavyweight bidder is a Hollywood producer. He wants to make a movie out of Oliver Tree’s fatal flop.“

  „Who else was invited?“

  „A lot of magicians in town for the festival. That’s why nobody gets to look inside the platform till they lay down the cash. The lawyer’s afraid they’ll rip him off.“

  Mallory checked her pocket watch. It was close to the time of her meeting with Mr. Halpern. She wondered how long it would take to work through Rabbi Kaplan’s instructions for dealing with an elderly Holocaust survivor. Since she didn’t intend to miss the auction, she also computed the penalties for hurrying the old man’s interview along.

  What was the worst thing the rabbi could do to her?

  „Riker, did the secretary say anything about Oliver’s nephew? He’s not on the list of bequests.“ And neither was the platform mentioned in this section.

  „Yeah, she did.“ He looked down at an open notebook. „Richard Tree is a grandnephew, the grandson of Oliver’s half brother. He’s the old man’s only living relative.“

  „But the chief beneficiary is a local hospital.“

  „Yeah, Gina says Oliver spent all his Sundays there. He did magic shows for sick kids. So the nephew doesn’t inherit squat, but he has a huge trust fund.“

  „So he does benefit.“

  „By the death? Not a dime. His trust was activated years ago. The kid has to take a drug test to get his allotment checks. Hasn’t passed one yet. That’s why he took the crossbow job for a hundred bucks. There’s a pile of money in the trust, but he can’t stay clean long enough to collect.“

  „With the old man dead, it’s easier to break the trust.“