Shell Game

by Carol O’Connell

  Yes, she could see a tiny fault line in the wall of magicians. Emile St. John would have to wonder about that betrayal, and wondering was all he would ever do. She knew he would never ask Prado any questions. He would simply live with the doubts – the damage. That was the man’s style.

  There was a deep sadness about him; it went to the bone in the way of damp weather – and chilled him, though the shudder was very slight. „You’re better than I ever was. You were born to the job.“

  This was not entirely a compliment – Mallory understood that. Emile St. John had already explained it to her: She was the cop of all cops, the monster knocking at the door of Franny Futura’s nightmares.

  Mallory stood at the opening in the back curtain and watched him walk away from her. When he had traveled up the center aisle and the door swung shut behind him, she set her glass down on the carnival mirror. Her eye caught the movement of her reflection in the glass, a face distorted in a smeary elongation. The image grew more grotesque as she moved, contracting her features in an aspect of cruelty. She bobbed her head, looking for another way to see herself, but there was no normal woman in this mirror.

  A light rush of cold air moved through her hair, as if someone had passed behind her. She turned to look at the backstage window. Its frames of glass were missing, and a sheet of plastic covered the opening. Thin streams of wind whistled around the edges between tenpenny nails.

  Mallory reached inside the platform to pull the chain for a lightbulb dangling from the low ceiling. Like Max Candle’s version, a round tin shade made a bright pool of light on the floor and left the ceiling in shadow. Along the walls, the platforms did not differ in the design of grooves and pegs – She looked up at the trapdoors, barely able to distinguish the shadowed edges. The levers and latches were all on the top of the stage – just like Max Candle’s original. She finished collecting statistics on the room, needing no drawings, only numbers she could feed to her computer.

  At her back, she felt the inrushing air of the closing door. She turned too late.

  No!

  It was shut tight. Also like Max’s platform, this one had no interior doorknob. She pushed on the wood, but the center panel would not give. Her fists beat on the door to the rhythm of Stupid, stupid mistake!

  Even as a child, she had known better than to turn her back on a door. By the age of eight, she had learned to avoid any room without a second exit to escape the baby-flesh pimps and the lunatics on the street. The child had suffered beatings to earn this hard lesson, and then she had crawled off to lick wounds and review what she had learned from experience and pain – trust no one – never turn your back.

  Never! Never! She pounded on the wood again.

  How could this have happened to her? She should have propped the door open.

  Stupid mistake.

  Now she beat on the wood with one fist, just hard enough to hurt her, but not to break her hand. Pain was good. It cleared her mind. Mallory pulled a cell phone from her blazer pocket, but there was no dial tone. She was standing in a dead zone.

  St. John had said that Charles and Riker would return soon. But would they stay if they thought the theater was empty, if the party was obviously over? This room had a tight enough seal to prevent the stink of Richard Tree’s body from escaping. Was it airtight? Was it soundproof too?

  Mallory heard the spit of electricity above her head. The lightbulb died, the room went black, and she had to remember to breathe.

  Though she knew every inch of this room, she could not conquer the idea that one misstep would plunge her into an abyss. There was no up or down in absolute darkness, no marker for the solid world. Her arms hung useless at her sides. And her lungs were also failing her, taking air in shallower sips. A sensation of fluttering insect wings brushed the walls inside her chest.

  But she would not call it panic; she called it remembrance.

  This was every vacant building where she had made herself into a tight ball of a child, holding her breath and waiting for dangerous feet to pass her by in the dark. Then came a little girl’s life-and-death decisions about staying too long or leaving too soon. The magic men were right – timing was everything.

  Was the platform airtight? If she stayed too long – One hand rose by force of will, and not her own. Kathy the street child was taking over, forming one tiny hand into the hammer of a fist and pounding on the wall. Mallory stood off to one side of her mind and listened to the outraged little girl. Young Kathy was screaming, „Let me out, you bastards! Let me out!“

  The platform was not soundproof. Mallory could hear noise on the other side of the wood. Running feet were coming toward her. The child was hollering at the top of her tiny lungs, a torrent of anger and obscenity; but the woman, absent all emotion, coolly pulled out her revolver and aimed it at the place where the door would open.

  The light was a wide painful crack in the wood.

  Riker’s startled eyes were fixed on the muzzle of her gun. „Well, it can’t be something I said. I just got here.“

  Chapter 14

  Charles Butler wondered if it was just the dubious perk of a very large nose, for he was the only one who seemed to be put off by the faint odor, that stale souvenir of yesterday’s dead man emanating from the platform room. Riker was unaffected. The detective chewed on his pastrami sandwich as he stood by the open door.

  Charles forced a smile, knowing full well that every happy expression made him look like a circus clown on medication. He hoped it might assuage the cold anger in Mallory’s face. „Locked yourself in?“

  Oh, wait. That was the wrong thing to say. It implied an error on her part.

  „No, I didn’t!“ She turned away, dismissing him as she spoke to Riker. „Someone locked me in and cut the electricity.“

  Riker stopped chewing, his eyes clearly saying, What?

  Charles looked up at the rack of burning spotlights overhead. And beyond the opening of the back curtain, he could see the glow of footlights and the brilliant chandelier, all clear indications of uninterrupted energy. But he was not inclined to point this out to Mallory. „Well, you know the wiring is new. There might be a problem with – “

  „It wasn’t faulty wiring,“ she said. „The timing was too damn perfect.“

  There was only one way to take the tone in her voice. She was obviously counting him among her enemies. The enemy team was everyone who was not in complete agreement with her.

  Charles braved the odor as he entered the platform room and reached up to the lamp suspended from the ceiling. He unscrewed the lightbulb and shook it. „You’re right, it wasn’t the wiring.“ He emerged from the room, shaking it again so she could hear the sound of the metal filament against the glass. This was the time-honored test of a burnt-out bulb. Now that should reassure her.

  Too late, he saw his second error of the afternoon. He looked down at the dead bulb in his hand and shrugged his apology for this indisputable evidence against her own theory.

  Riker made a game effort to distract her from Charles, saying, „If Nick Prado hadn’t mentioned that you were – “

  „Where is Prado now?“ She was not in a pleasant mood.

  „Here I am.“

  Charles looked toward the end of the stage behind the backdrop curtain and beyond the reach of the overhead lights. In this shadowy silhouette that didn’t show his paunch, Nick Prado might pass for his own delusion of never-ending youth.

  „Someone locked me inside the platform.“ Mallory was glaring at Nick, not exactly aiming for ambiguity in that accusation.

  Feeling a draft at the back of his neck, Charles turned to the square hole in the wall where the window glass had not yet been installed. A sheet of plastic had come loose at one corner, allowing a steady breeze in his direction. So the wind had blown the door shut. He hesitated to mention this. First, there was the rudeness of pointing out the obvious. And then, she so disliked being corrected, particularly when she was wrong.

  Riker, wise man, jammed his
hands in his pockets and kept silent.

  „Only the wind,“ said Nick Prado. „You get a lot of things wrong, don’t you, Mallory?“ He was aging badly with every step toward the lights. „Take Louisa’s death. It looked accidental to me. I was there, and you weren’t.“

  Mallory was cooler now. Her words had only the barest trace of malice. „It might’ve been staged as an accident, but she wasn’t mortally wounded.“

  Nick seemed to be considering this as he walked beyond the backdrop curtain to look over the new bags from the deli. „She could’ve died from shock. That happens.“

  „In fifteen minutes? Not enough time,“ said Mallory, walking away to inspect the plastic over the window.

  Charles noticed that Nick was slightly irritated, disliking her insult of the turned back.

  „Right, I keep forgetting. You know everything.“ Nick looked down at the fun-house mirror that served as a tabletop. It was littered with paper bags and a half-empty bottle of champagne. He lifted the bottle and held it out to Riker in an obvious invitation.

  In a rare exception to habit, Riker shook his head, declining to drink with the man, and Charles had to wonder about that. A half hour ago, the detective had no problem lifting a glass with this man. And who could eat a pastrami sandwich without something to wash it down?

  Nick poured wine for himself. „You know, it could’ve been shock. During the war, textbook rules for death were broken all the time.“

  Mallory was busy collecting tenpenny nails from the floor beneath the plastic window covering. „The medical examiner said – “

  „Do you ever listen}“ Prado raised his voice. „To anyone?“

  Charles was staring into his wineglass, as if it might offer him sanctuary, and Riker was looking at his scuffed shoes. But Mallory did no bloodletting. She only dropped her collection of nails into a zippered compartment of her knapsack.

  Nick continued, expanding his voice in a stage projection, as if he had a larger audience. „One morning toward the end of the war, a plane went down near my field camp. It was in flames seconds after it smashed into the ground.“

  He paused for dramatic effect, and Mallory squashed the moment, saying, „I don’t have time for war stories.“

  „Shut up!“ said Prado, in a rare display of anger – in fact, the only show of temper Charles had ever witnessed.

  Oddly enough, Mallory did shut up, ignoring the man as she opened a notebook to a page of numbers, which she seemed to find more interesting.

  Nick went on in a louder voice. „One wing was sheared off in the crash, and the nose section was crushed. A dozen of us ran across the field toward the fire. And then – ten yards from the wreck, I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.“

  He turned to Mallory – a mistake. She did not care what he was looking at, past or present. Only slightly daunted, Nick played to Riker now. „The plane’s three crewmen were walking away from the crash – unharmed. Well, this was impossible. Everyone aboard should’ve died. But the crew walked away – all of them. They sat down in the shade of a farmhouse, and there they died. It was over in minutes. Minutes. Not a mark on them, not one injury in the lot.“

  „Shock?“ said Riker, in an effort to be a polite audience.

  Mallory, clearly unimpressed, ran her pencil down a column of numbers. „Shock doesn’t work for me.“

  „Me either,“ said Nick. „I had a different idea. All three men had seen the ground coming up to kill them. People believe their senses, and this was an indisputable fact – there was no way they could’ve survived that crash. I think those three boys bowed to the logic of their situation. It was absurd to be alive, and so they closed their eyes and died.“

  Charles thought the man might take a bow, but he only retired to sit on the steps of the platform and sip from his wineglass.

  Mallory’s attitude changed to mere annoyance on the level reserved for flies. „For the last time, Louisa was not mortally wounded. She had no idea she was going to die until that bastard put a pillow over her face.“

  „Mallory, you don’t know that,“ said Charles. „What went on at the poker game – it was all speculation. You can’t expect Edward to do an autopsy secondhand and half a century late.“

  „Thank you, Charles,“ she said, not at all thankful, and making the strong suggestion that he should close his mouth – now. She folded up her notebook of numbers. „Oliver’s death was no accident, either.“

  „Poor Oliver,“ said Nick. „The Quixotic aura of the hapless failure. But in reality, it was a rather pedestrian death. He screwed up the trick. Life can be so simple, Mallory, if you will only let it.“

  Nick was entirely too smug. Apparently, Mallory was about to adjust his expression. All the signals were there. She was rising off the balls of her feet, all but levitating in anticipation of a strike. If she had a tail, it would be switching. Charles adored her feline grace – but some of the things cats did just turned his stomach.

  In the spirit of throwing himself in the path of raking claws aimed at the older man, he said, „Nick’s right, Mallory. Oliver did mess up the trick. He obviously didn’t know the effect – “

  „You’ve been talking to Malakhai.“ Her implication was clear. Charles stood accused of consorting with her enemy, his lifelong friend.

  „Just a series of accidents?“ Her eyebrows arched. „All right.“ Her hands moved to her hips. There would not be another warning sign. „I’ve seen the error of my ways.“ She said this too gently. „But what about that nasty little corpse I found inside the platform? Oliver’s nephew? Remember him?“

  Nick slugged back the rest of his champagne. „The boy died of a drug overdose. Everyone knew Richard was an addict. There was a spot of blood on his shirtsleeve. That came from the needle, right? But no blood from the arrow. The dead don’t bleed – so there was no murder.“ He waved his hand. „Lessons of war.“

  And now Charles could tell that Riker was listening between the words. The detective exchanged glances with his partner. In silent understanding, Mallory retreated to the side of the platform as he drifted closer to Nick.

  „You said everyone knew the kid was a junkie.“ Riker fished through his pockets. „But how? The kid went to a lot of trouble to hide his habit – needle tracks in the soles of his feet, behind his knees.“ He pulled out a worn notebook and sat down on the steps with Nick. „Oliver Tree knew about his nephew’s habit. He paid for the kid’s treatment. But it’s not something the uncle would’ve bragged about, is it?“

  The detective flipped through the pages, scanning the penciled lines. „Oh, here we go.“ He had found the page he was looking for. „You and your friends, St. John and Futura, you all got into town the day Oliver Tree died. That was your statement to the police. None of you spent any time with the old guy since the war.“

  „That’s true,“ said Nick. „We got to know Oliver’s nephew after the accident. The boy was always hitting us up for money, just a few dollars here and there, but it was obvious he needed cash. That’s why I gave him the crossbow job in the parade.“

  Riker’s pen was working across the page. His tone was dry. „And the kid told you he needed money for drugs?“ Unspoken were the words Fat chance.

  „It was a simple observation.“

  Riker nodded. „From a spot of blood on his shirtsleeve. Not bad. More lessons of war?“

  „You could say that,“ said Nick. „I spent some time in an army hospital. I had my own flirtation with morphine.“

  Charles avoided looking directly at Mallory. „So it was a drug overdose. Well, let’s say Richard crawled into his uncle’s platform for privacy. Workmen were coming and going all the time. He didn’t want anyone to see him shoot up, did he? Say he got locked in the platform, the same way – “

  In peripheral vision, Charles detected a sudden rigidity in Mallory’s body language, and he altered his thought in mid-sentence. „Maybe Richard couldn’t find the light chain. He might have panicked in the dark. Now if the c
rossbows had been stored in there – “

  „Right,“ said Mallory, nearly congenial. „He tripped in the dark and fell on the arrow – after he’d been dead for a few days. Oh, Nick didn’t tell you that part.“ She turned to the magician and inclined her head, all but taking a bow. „Lessons of war, Prado.“

  Her war, of course.

  „And Forensics didn’t find a syringe inside the platform room,“ said Riker.

  Mallory nodded. „A tidy dead man. I like that. And talented too. I know the corpse was still moving around after death. The marks on his back matched up with the pattern of the floor grate in his apartment. That’s where he died. But we won’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.“

  She turned to the door of the platform. „So the dead man picks himself up off the floor of his apartment, and – still dead, he takes the subway. I’m guessing the corpse traveled cheap. You see, after he died, he left his wallet back in the apartment. No cash for a cab, but he did have a transit card in his pocket. So then the dead man walks into the theater and locks himself inside the platform – accidentally. See? I’m a good sport. I’m looking for the flaws in my logic. And sticking the arrow into his own dead body – days after death? Well, that was a trick and a half.“

  Charles could see where she was going with this monologue. Nick Prado’s condescending smile was telegraphing the news that he had caught her in an error or a lie.

  Arms folded, she stood over Nick, looking down at him and smiling, „So, tell me what part I didn’t get right.“

  And the trap snapped shut.

  Nick’s eyes widened only a little – just enough to indicate that he might know the details better than she did. Or, he might only be surprised by the implied accusation.

  Charles stepped between them, smiling, as if that would save his own hide. „But Richard wasn’t actually murdered if the arrow – “

  „But Oliver was.“ She shot Charles a look to ask why he would step on her best line. Was he trying to deflect damage away from Nick?