Shell Game

by Carol O’Connell

  Mallory curled into a ball within the dimensions of Malakhai’s prison cell. There were no sounds or images anymore, no life of the sleeping mind, for the dead do not dream.

  When she opened her eyes again, morning light was splashed across the ceiling beyond the masking tape bars, and every muscle ached. She felt the stiffness in her neck and limbs. The concerto was still looping on the CD player, flooding her brain with music that meant nothing to her. So much for the myth that Louisa inhabited her composition.

  She had never considered musical metaphors before. Her foster father’s swing music and his rock ‘n’ roll had moved her body without conscious effort or thought. Louisa’s music was too difficult.

  Mallory forced a meaning on the composition. Between the strings of violins, the cornets were firing high notes. Perhaps they stood for guns. And now all the pieces of the orchestra loomed up in a great wall of sound. It exploded into shards of clarinets and flutes – bombs bursting in air, bright shrapnel falling like stars. And then music cascaded into liquid valleys of rich low octaves. When the lull came round again, that hollow place in the music, Mallory nodded unconsciously. She had a long-standing acquaintance with emptiness.

  How much had Malakhai figured out during his year in the box?

  The killer was marked by Louisa’s blood. The others might be dabbed with it, but the assassin would be splashed with it. Malakhai had always known who the man was. Not one small detail of that night had been lost to him. And yet he had waited all this time for revenge.

  She picked up the CD player to turn off the music. The cord was no longer taut, but loose. She pulled on it, and the black wire slipped easily through the crack between the boxes until the plug jammed in the narrow cardboard crevice. The machine was not connected to the wall anymore. It had come loose while she slept. The battery bay was empty – she knew that. She had thrown away the old batteries long ago. Yet she could still hear the music inside her head.

  No! That was not possible!

  She kicked out at the enclosing cartons, then screamed in sudden pain. The tendons in her legs were on fire. A shoulder muscle spasmed. Panic was rising in a swirl of music, spiraling up and up. It was a fight to be still, to lie back and let the muscles uncramp. The music gathered speed. Beads of sweat slicked over her face. Her heart was beating faster, harder, hammering to the music. She pushed the cartons out of the way to make an opening, and pain stabbed her arms.

  The music was welling up again, about to crash down on her in a crescendo. Her hands went up in a defensive posture. And then the music softened, like a living entity deciding not to bludgeon her with a heavy falling wall of sound. Mallory slowly rolled her body, and on her hands and knees, she crawled out of Malakhai’s box, dragging the CD player by the wires of her headset. And the music crept after her.

  This isn’t real!

  The score was climbing again, rising. In a rage, Mallory smashed her fist down on the music machine. A small rectangle of plastic broke away to expose the battery bay. Not an empty compartment.

  She had believed that the old cadmium batteries had been thrown away, but there they lay, side by side – alive, recharged in the night.

  Idiot.

  Mallory touched the power switch. The music ended. She breathed deeply. So nothing was what it seemed. Even insanity was only a cheap trick.

  Lieutenant Coffey opened the window blinds spanning the upper half of the wall. In the squad room beyond the glass, all his detectives were gathered around a small television set, and cash was being laid down. He guessed it was still an even-money bet, for no one but the mayor’s publicist knew how the TV script would play out this morning. He turned back to the larger television screen in the corner of his office.

  Detective Sergeant Riker slouched in a chair, showing no enthusiasm for the coming event – perhaps because he had no money riding on it. He had been hustled through the office door before he could even make conversation with the gamblers in the next room.

  Jack Coffey ran one hand through his hair, stopping short of the bald spot, which he attributed to stress and blamed on Mallory. In silence, he and Riker watched the weather segment of the morning talk show. Jack Coffey resented the smug weatherman, a happy idiot with luxurious, unmerited hair and a huge paycheck for presiding over a gang of cartoons. Smiling suns and frowning raindrops decorated the map in the background. A single large snowflake was menacing the entire state of Connecticut.

  The lieutenant leaned forward and browsed through a fresh stack of paperwork on his desk.

  What the hell?

  He ripped off the top sheet and waved it at Detective Riker. „How did she get Heller’s crew to go along with this? I signed off on the platform inspection, not the parade float.“

  Riker shrugged, and Coffey decided that his sergeant might be genuinely in the dark. Mallory had probably covered her partner with deniability for this less than legitimate work order.

  Coffey looked back through the glass. Last-minute bets were going down while the weatherman laughed at the cartoon raindrop converging on New York State with incoming storms.

  The screen image changed to a tourist’s home movie of the Thanksgiving Day parade. The camera was focused on Mr. Zimmermann’s wife and children. The little family was gamely smiling as Mrs. Zimmermann’s hair stood straight up in the wind. The children waved as they stood beside the giant snowman float. For no good reason at all, the video camera panned to a clear shot of the rocky knoll overlooking the rear end of the parade route. Mrs. Zimmermann and the children jostled one another as they hurriedly regrouped in front of the camera’s new position. Now they all moved backward toward the park, while every other camera in New York City was pointing at the spectacle of giant balloons flying in the opposite direction.

  The image dissolved and was replaced by the stage set of the mayor’s favorite morning talk show. A man and woman were sitting on a couch. The ma-and-pa duo of broadcast journalism had not changed dramatically since Jack Coffey was a schoolboy. The anchorman had always worn a bad toupee, but the dark color no longer agreed with the facial crags and the triple chin of middle age. His female cohost was spookier. She had not aged at all, and she never stopped smiling. Her perpetual grin was rumored to be an accident of plastic surgery.

  Riker leaned toward the set and turned up the volume as Heller walked out on stage. The head of Forensics appeared to be shaking hands with the TV people against his will. Perhaps Heller was only uncomfortable in the public eye. Or maybe Mallory was holding his family hostage in a remote location.

  The large bear of a man sat down on the couch between his television hosts. Heller had great composure, hardly blinking as they mangled the list of his formidable credentials and previous triumphs in law enforcement. His slow-roving brown eyes turned to the monitor beside the couch. A split screen enlarged the same image for the television audience. It was a frozen shot of the rocky knoll above the head of the tourist’s smiling wife.

  „Now watch the knoll,“ the anchorman instructed his viewing audience.

  The still shot moved into the slow-motion action of Mrs. Zimmermann’s hair waving in the wind. The television host carefully pronounced each word. „See the dark shadow on the rocks? See it? See the puff of white smoke?“

  Riker picked up the television guide and ran his finger down the column for morning programs, perhaps to reassure himself that the mayor’s publicist had not booked NYPD’s forensic expert on some kiddie program.

  „Now that puff of smoke. That’s a gunshot, right?“ The anchorman turned to Heller. „Clear evidence that the policewoman didn’t act alone. Is that right, sir?“

  „Detective Mallory didn’t act at all,“ said Heller. „The smoke is in sync with the sound track on the news films. The movement of shadows was also matched to the tourist shots. The smoke came from a rifle. We recovered the cartridge from two kids who were playing in the park that morning.“

  The grinning woman touched Heller’s sleeve. „But are you sure it was
the rifle shot that hit Goldy? I mean, the balloon was so big.“ She faced the camera as her hands made a wide arc to express big for the learning-disabled audience. „It could’ve been the gun, right? You couldn’t miss a thing like that with any weapon.“

  „The balloon wasn’t the target,“ said Heller. „It was hit on a ricochet. My team examined the evidence on Detective Mallory’s suspicion that the float was the primary target. We found two holes in the material of the giant top hat. There’s an entry hole for the shot and an exit hole for the ricochet. I found corresponding marks on the metal armature underneath the hat material.“

  The anchorman raised one eyebrow and held this pose. „You’re saying it was an assassination attempt on one of the magicians?“

  „No,“ said Heller. „I’m saying a bullet ricocheted off a parade float. Beyond that, you might only have a gun-happy drunk.“

  „Well, at least we’ve accounted for one of the bullets,“ said the grinning woman. „Now the shots – “

  „One shot,“ said Heller, holding up his index finger, making no mistake about whom he was dealing with. They obviously needed this visual aid to count a single bullet. And this lent credence to Riker’s theory that they might indeed be watching a children’s program.

  The male host countered with three fingers. „We have witnesses who heard three shots.“

  There were two electronic bleeps to censor words in Heller’s response. Coffey suspected they were uncomplimentary adjectives for civilian testimony. Heller went on to reiterate this in more polite language. „You’ve run those tapes a hundred times. Did you hear three shots? No.“ His index finger was rising again. „One shot. Detective Mallory never fired her gun.“

  Coffey turned to the wide window on the squad room. There were loud cheers and whistles behind the glass. Money was being grabbed up and jammed into pants pockets. A few wadded bills were flying through the air, propelled by unhappy losers.

  Riker leaned over and switched off the set. „Like it or not, boss, the kid’s in the clear. You want me to dust off her desk?“

  Coffey nodded with a rueful smile.

  „Lieutenant, I know what you’re thinking,“ said Riker. „How’s Mallory ever gonna learn the rules if you can’t catch her breaking them?“ He smiled. It was not the wide grin of an ungracious winner. Riker was merely content to be on the opposite side of the loser – his commanding officer.

  In peripheral vision, Coffey was tracking a man in uniform. Sergeant Harry Bell had cleared the stairwell, and now he was crossing the squad room. When the desk sergeant was only a few steps from the office door, Coffey slowly stretched out one arm and turned his palm up. As if on cue, Sergeant Bell came through the door and deposited four ten-dollar bills into the lieutenant’s hand – his winnings.

  Harry Bell’s face was deep in disappointment as he turned on the startled Detective Riker. „You never made a bet on your own partner? Jesus, Riker, even if you thought Mallory was guilty, you could’ve put down something just for show.“

  Mallory knelt down on the cellar floor and shined the flashlight across the cement. The talcum powder was undisturbed. It was a wide field of dusting. There were no marks for a makeshift scaffolding of boards to get him past the powder trap, and he didn’t fly over it. Yet Billie Holiday was singing on the other side of the accordion wall, and she knew he was in there. She could smell the smoke from their cigarettes, Malakhai’s and Louisa’s.

  At one end of the partition, she studied the long row of bolts securely holding the edge of the wood to the basement wall. No common crowbar could pry them loose. Judging by the size of the metal heads, their shanks would sink deep into double rows of brick. Yet she pulled on the end panel, and the bolt-lined strip of metal came away from the wall, sliding easily, silently, to accordion the rest of the panels backward along the track and away from the brick. And by this new door, she entered the storage area.

  She crept along a row of shelves and bent low as she circled stacks of cartons. It was a pleasure to see the surprise on Malakhai’s face when he looked up from the open box at his feet.

  He smiled. „I wondered how long it would take you to work that out. Even Charles thinks the center panels are the only way in. I suppose it helps if you know Max’s sense of humor.“

  „Did you find what you were looking for?“

  He held up the charred leather spine of a book. The carton at his feet was filled with ashes and blackened pieces of book covers. „They used to be Max’s journals. I suppose Edith found them after he died.“ He held a smoking cigarette. Louisa’s had gone out. „Why did you want them?“

  He dropped the book spine into the carton and wiped his hands on a cloth. „My wife was in there. Max told me about his diaries one night when we were out on the town. He was very drunk and feeling guilty.“

  „He kept diaries in Paris?“

  „No, he started them much later – after I came back from Korea with my resurrected Louisa. Putting my late wife in the magic act affected Max more than I realized. His diaries were love letters to a dead woman. That’s why Edith burned them – jealous of a ghost.“ He made a halfhearted kick at the box.

  „Was Max Candle as crazy as you are?“

  Malakhai smiled as he lifted a bottle of wine from the case and examined the label. „I always know where I stand with you, Mallory.“ He poured out a glass of wine and handed it to her. „I know it’s obscene to drink before noon.“

  She accepted the glass.

  „Good,“ he said. „I hope you never become too well behaved.“ He looked down at the carton. „The wives always know, don’t they? A dead rival must’ve sent her right over the edge. Poor Edith – poor Max.“

  He took a drag on his cigarette and tilted his head back to watch the plume of blue smoke rising to the high ceiling. „I can tell you my life story by the cigarettes. Like the night we ran from Paris, Max and I. He saved my life, dragged me through the streets and pushed me onto trains. We made the crossing at the Spanish frontier.“

  „You told me the border was shut down tight. You said you couldn’t get Louisa out of Paris – not that way.“

  „It was closed. Oh, sometimes it would open for an hour or a day, but that night the border was closed down tight as a coffin lid. What did I care? I was in a bad way. Max had a better chance to make the crossing alone, but he wouldn’t leave me. There was really no way out, you see. However, Max always listened to an inner voice that said, Jump or die. Even then, he took such absurd chances.“

  He closed the box of ashes.

  „We got off the train at Cerbere. The frontier police were lining up all the passengers and checking their travel documents. We had some of Nick’s forgeries in our pockets, exit visas to leave France, letters of transit to get us out of Lisbon. They were useless of course. No one could get a legitimate exit visa that month, so all the papers were suspect. We had no baggage – that was suspicious, too. And Max was still wearing his tuxedo. The frontier police were Frenchmen, a fashion-conscious race, but still they must’ve found that odd, particularly the silk top hat.“

  „Max went off to chat with a policeman guarding the station door. When he came back to me, all his money was gone, but he had directions for circumventing French checkpoints. The guard told him all the papers were being cross-checked by telephone and cables, so we couldn’t get back on the train. We left the station with the passengers who were stopping in Cerbere. Then we climbed a steep hill. I remember passing low stone walls and olive trees. There were a million stars in the sky. We stopped at a Spanish sentry house.“

  „Max spoke to the border guards. I sat in that hut and cried through the whole interview. They asked him why his friend was so upset. He told them my wife had died that night. Then they asked Max why he was crying. Tears were streaming down his face when he told them he was the lover of his friend’s wife. Then he really startled the guards. Told them he only had a few francs in his pocket and half a pack of cigarettes. He had not come prepared for a bribe. O
h, and the paperwork was forged. He mentioned that too. Well, now the guards were on the floor laughing. I didn’t get the joke, so my weeping went on. They let us through, I don’t know why. It was a fluke that we weren’t arrested that night. German soldiers were waiting all along the border, like cats at a mousehole.“

  „There was another joke waiting for us when we finally arrived in Lisbon. The letter of transit was proved a forgery. Of course, I knew it would be, but I didn’t much care what happened next. We were sitting on a bench in the anteroom of an official. This fool in a fine suit stood over us, waving the evidence in his hand. The man was so angry. Max stood up in his dusty tuxedo and bowed. He was so charming. Said he hoped the official hadn’t been offended by a bad forgery, because it was never our intention to insult him.“

  „Oh, no, said the official. The papers were really first-rate. He was consoling Max. Then the two of them disappeared into the man’s office. From time to time, I could hear laughter through the door. An hour later, we were on a plane out of Lisbon. I don’t know why. It was absurd. The whole war was like that.“ He tapped the end of his cigarette in the ashtray. Louisa’s lay dead and dark.

  „I remember having a cigarette on the plane. There was smoke all over the world that night. Boy soldiers puffing in foxholes, generals having cigars with their whiskey – hookers lighting up on street corners, glowing in the dark. Between the gunfire and the cigarettes, I wondered that any of us could see with all that smoke. Later it turned out that none of us could.“

  He looked at the slender white shaft between his fingers. „It’s medicinal, you know. My wife was dead. I took a few small puffs of nicotine and consolation. I believed I had killed Louisa with my arrow. More pain set in. Another cigarette, more consolation.“ He tilted his head to one side.

  „And after she died,“ said Mallory, „when you used her in the act, how do you know Max was still – “

  „Still crazy about Louisa? When I brought her ghost back from Korea, I took her to dinner at Max’s house. He fell in love with her all over again. Never mind that she was dead. He was an American. All things were possible to Max.“