Shell Game

by Carol O’Connell

  The arm fell away.

  „You don’t mind posing for a few publicity shots, do you?“ Prado faced the cameras. „It’s so hard to get people to turn out for the older acts, anything low-tech. But sex sells.“

  Flashing strobes were in her eyes. Prado was smiling. Mallory was not. She leaned closer, so the reporters wouldn’t hear her. „Where’s Franny Futura? Is he dead yet?“

  He never stopped smiling, nor did he move his lips when he said, „Have you looked under the bed in his hotel room? That would be my guess.“

  The mob was pressing up against them, shouting questions and aiming microphones like gun barrels. A woman in the back yelled out in pain, and Mallory heard Shorty Ross saying, „Oh, I’m sorry. Was that your foot?“ Other reporters near the front of the crowd had already earned their wheelchair scars, and now they stepped aside, allowing him to roll up to Mallory’s legs. „Detective, what do you know about the disappearance of Franny Futura?“

  „No comment.“ She glanced at Prado – her turn to smile. She could also speak without moving her lips. „Is this another sleazy publicity stunt?“

  „You recognized my style. I’m flattered.“

  „Maybe you frightened him, Prado.“ Her voice was louder now. „Maybe hiding out was Futura’s idea.“

  Shorty had heard that. „The guy’s in hiding?“ And this set off another barrage of shouted questions.

  Mallory leaned toward Prado, keeping her voice below the level of the noise. „Smart move. You knew I’d break him in five minutes.“

  Prado’s smile lapsed for a moment. „You just have to nail somebody for that balloon shooting, don’t you? Well, Franny was on the float, in plain view when the big puppy went down.“

  „But he had a good view of the rocky knoll.“

  The reporters had fallen silent. They were straining their eyes in the art of lipreading.

  „You weren’t there, Prado. No alibi for the time.“ Now she was speaking loud enough for all to hear, and Shorty Ross gave her a thumbs-up gesture of thanks.

  „Richard Tree didn’t fire that arrow at Futura,“ said Mallory – and that much was true. „Maybe it came from another bow.“ In peripheral vision, she could see pens and pencils writing down this lie verbatim. Other reporters held out tape recorders as she said, „And you don’t have an alibi for the rifle shot either.“

  In a bid for Mallory’s attention, Shorty Ross nudged her legs with his chair. Then he wheeled back quickly, knowing that she was not above swatting a legless war veteran. „Detective? Is there a new conspiracy angle here?“

  Prado planted himself in front of the reporter’s wheelchair. „Ladies and gentlemen – a few moments, please?“ He drew Mallory back to the wall, saying, „This is great stuff, but I think you’re making it too complex.“ The wave of his hand took in the whole crowd of reporters. „They need something short – headline material.“

  „Futura knows who killed Louisa, doesn’t he?“

  A woman had crept close to their conversation, and now she was thrusting her microphone in Mallory’s face. „Louisa? Is that what you said? Is that killed as in murdered? You mean the dead woman in Malakhai’s act?“

  Prado bowed to Mallory. „Excellent. Your work is done.“ He walked on down the street, followed by the throng of cameramen and reporters.

  Assuming Futura was still alive, he would stay that way for the rest of the day. The press corps would be on Prado’s back for hours – almost as good as a police tail. If she only had a bigger share of the Special Crimes budget, she would not have to improvise this way.

  „That was rather good,“ said a familiar voice behind her.

  Malakhai was leaning against the frame of an open door. In the daylight, she could see a few strands of light brown, reminders of a time when his hair was the color of lions. His blue shirtsleeves were rolled back, and the khaki pants bore traces of a morning’s work in the dusty knees.

  „You handle the press better than Nick does.“ His dark blue eyes were smiling, drawing her closer. And for a moment, she felt inexplicably lighter, made of less solid stuff. She was casting about for something to say, when he dropped his cigarette and smashed it under his heel. „I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but my show is already sold out. I didn’t need the boost.“ He rubbed the gooseflesh on his arms. „It’s cold. Come inside.“

  She followed him into the building and up the stairs to a storage area, where chairs were racked against one wall. Beside a lighting panel of monitors and switches, two large drawing room doors stood open to an expanse of polished blond wood. A tall metal scaffolding dominated the stage. It had not been here the day she interviewed the stage manager. Cables hung down and trailed across the floorboards to the lighting panel.

  „I thought you finished rigging your props.“

  „I’ve made a few changes.“

  Mallory followed him through the doors and onto the stage of white-paneled walls, columns and cornices trimmed in gold. She had never seen the main hall from this side of the footlights. Rows of empty red velvet seats stretched back across vast space. She looked up at the balconies stacked to the height of a seven-story building. Their four tiers were fronted by bold curving lines. And at the top of the hall was a halo of light with an outer ring of satellite stars.

  On Saturday night, three thousand people would fill this hall, and curiously, she felt their absence. The room was lit for the show and awaiting its audience. There was tension in the silent emptiness, like the moment before a dam burst, as if the crowd were only held back by the lobby doors. This void wanted to be filled.

  Malakhai was halfway up the metal ladder at the back of the scaffolding. „You don’t mind if I work while we talk? The lighting takes a lot of preparation.“

  She was looking at the top balcony near the ceiling. „How will they see you from the cheap seats?“

  „They’re going to mount a giant screen on the wall to project the more intricate illusions. That’s why the lighting is critical. One mistake and the whole act is ruined. But I think most of the audience is coming to hear Louisa’s Concerto. I never used the music to accompany the act. It was always the other way around.“

  She followed him up the metal ladder to the top of the scaffolding. „Did you hear the news about Futura?“

  He stood before a board of switches and lights on a metal folding stand. „You found him?“

  „Not yet,“ she said. „He’s hiding or dead.“

  Malakhai smiled at this. „Probably just another one of Nick’s publicity scams.“ He flipped a series of switches, and the overhead light hit the back wall in bright circles of primary colors. „I’m sure he’ll turn up again.“

  „He knows who killed Oliver, and so do you.“

  „So I’m not a suspect in Oliver’s death anymore?“

  „Well, I like to keep all my options open.“ She watched him flip a switch on his extension lightboard. The houselights dimmed. He flipped another switch, and she watched two spotlights chase one another across the floor. „A programmed routine?“ She looked up to see the bank of lights hanging from the top of the stage alcove. „I didn’t know you were so high-tech.“

  „I’m not. Fortunately, I can afford to hire people who are.“

  „You don’t trust the lighting director?“

  „It isn’t a matter of trust.“

  „It’s about control,“ said Mallory. „Like Max Candle and his fully automated platform.“

  „I was about to say that I only use the board for rehearsals. But I suppose I am a bit like Max. We were very close.“

  A shadow slipped along a back wall and disappeared through a side door. She turned on Malakhai. „How do you make the shadow?“

  „I’ll never tell. That’s my gift to you, Mallory. At three o’clock some morning, you’ll be lying awake, and it’ll cross your mind that the shadow might’ve been Louisa.“

  „You don’t believe in her any more than I do.“

  „Oh, but I do. Creating absolu
te faith is a magician’s game – always has been.“ He pulled a black scarf from his pocket and held it up to her. Slowly, he lifted it to expose five floating cards. „And behold a miracle – a royal flush. Oh, I forgot.“ The cards fell to the floor, and he kicked them aside. „You’ve already seen that one, and you didn’t like it.“

  Mallory stared at the rod of lights suspended above her head. He might be doing a projection with spotlights and silhouettes, but she could see no evidence of it. There were other racks of lights, at both ends of the third-tier balcony, but neither of them was lit. She looked down at the extension board. Perhaps the answer was here. A dedicated unbeliever, she hunted for Louisa’s shadow in a bank of lights and switches.

  Malakhai folded his arms and watched her for a moment. „When Picasso paid a visit, he always warned a man that he came to steal.“

  „Did you know Picasso?“

  „No, and now you’ve ruined a perfectly good story. I’ll have to tell you another one. How about the liberation of Paris?“

  „I’d rather hear about the night Louisa died. You didn’t stick around very long, so what happened to the body?“

  „Emile took care of her. He was anxious to get me out of the city, and quickly. I was half crazy and dangerous to everyone. Louisa was buried in the St. John family plot.“

  Mallory looked up from the board. „So St. John had possession of the body – all the evidence of a murder. After the war, did he tell you how she really died? Or did he cover it up? The day of the parade – was he the man you wanted to shoot?“

  „May I?“ He motioned her to move aside, then resumed his work at the board. „You’re getting ahead of the story. When we got to London, Max and I were split up. We didn’t meet again until the liberation of Paris.“

  „The battalions converged on Paris the same day. I already know that.“

  „Then why don’t you tell the rest of it, Mallory?“ He hit a switch and a silver orb rose from the stage and floated toward her head. She was backing up to the edge of the scaffold when it veered upward and popped against the heat of a spotlight – only a balloon.

  The houselights went dark, but for the tiny lamps that trimmed the balconies, stars in close formation.

  „When the Allies liberated Paris, I left my unit to hunt for Max. I ran through the streets all day. The war was still going on all around me. The Commander of Paris had surrendered, but the occupation forces were still firing on us. And there was an absurd party in the streets. People were screaming for joy, and then dying from shells and bullets. Girls were kissing every man in a uniform. And a small crowd gathered to watch the duel of two tanks on the place de l’Opera. I wish you could’ve seen it – a battle of dinosaurs.“

  The stage turned red. More switches added bursts of yellow light.

  „All around us, the city was wired to explode. While the dynamite was being dismantled, we were all existing inside a giant bomb. People came out on the balconies with their children and waved little flags. Then they ran for cover when the bullets started flying. The whole day was like that – an emotional slingshot.“

  „I looked for Max’s face on every troop truck, every marching column. Finally I went to Faustine’s to wait for him there. If he was still alive, I knew he’d come. The theater was boarded up. I waited by the door until dark.“

  The color of the walls changed to indigo, and tiny stars of silver confetti fell from the bank of dark lights in the false sky.

  „I came back to Faustine’s the next day and the next. I remember crying when I realized that my best friend must be dead.“

  „He forgot you.“

  Malakhai only looked at her to say, Whose story is this? „I went on a – the Germans would call it the Wanderjahre. A time of wandering.“ He worked over his board. And now the walls were bathed in a purple glow. „When I came back to Faustine’s again, the theater was empty. A rich American had bought out the entire stock.“

  „Max Candle.“

  „Yes. When we met in New York, he told me he was waiting at the theater while I was searching for him in the streets. Emile also showed up for that reunion. He found Max banging on the padlocked door, shouting my name over and over. Emile used his police sources to get a list of casualties for my unit, and my name was at the top. I was reported dead quite a few times.“

  Mallory turned to the sound of running footsteps on the stage below. The stage was empty, but the feet ran round and round the platform, faster and faster. A recording? Was the lighting board a sound board too? The amplifiers must be set into the base of the scaffold.

  The footsteps ended.

  „Max had saved Louisa’s music,“ said Malakhai. „He had the presence of mind to hide the manuscript before we left Paris. That’s why he bought up all the stock from the theater. There were so many old trunks, he had to be sure they’d ship the right one. We used his family connections to get the concerto published. That was my stake for a magic act and a new life.“

  „When you went to Korea, was that another tour of mass murder? Or just an interesting form of suicide?“

  „I never killed anyone in that war. I was captured a few weeks after I enlisted.“

  Mallory nodded. This agreed with his war record. She had yet to catch him in a lie. „So you came back from Korea and put your dead wife in the act. You didn’t want to die anymore?“

  At the edge of the stage, gray scarves were whirling, barely detectable against the shadowed theater except where the silk threw back the light. A spotlight came on and the scarves changed to blue in the illusion of a whirling dress.

  „And now?“ Mallory looked at him, refusing to be distracted anymore. „How do you feel about dying now?“

  The spotlight died, and the scarves fell to the floor in a heap of crushed silk as he turned his face to hers. „You think I’m baiting one of them to kill me? An elaborate suicide?“

  „Why not? I know what’s waiting for you. You’re losing your brains a bit at a time. But sticking a gun in your mouth never was your style. You went into two wars looking for a more interesting way out.“

  „You’d make a terrible magician. Your logic is too complex. The solution is always going to be something simple.“

  „Revenge is pretty simple,“ said Mallory. „You always knew which one of them killed Louisa. It was the man covered with her blood. You were fifty years late, but that’s the simple solution you were going for when you fired on the parade float. Or were you aiming at someone nearby? Nick Prado?“

  „Do you still think I put that body in Oliver’s platform? The red hair you pocketed at the restaurant – “

  „It came from a wig – very good quality, but not human.“ She looked around at the mass of props on the stage. „Charles says you don’t use a wig in the act. So what do you do with it – besides fooling waiters? Do you leave hairs around the hotel room for the maids to find?“

  He seemed to understand the look in her eyes. She was asking, How crazy are you?

  „Well, at least I’m off the hook for Oliver’s nephew. That’s promising.“

  „No,“ said Mallory. „You might have planted the body if you wanted to rattle someone. Futura’s an easy target for something like that.“

  „Hysteria is my best trick. You just can’t admit that Oliver bungled the illusion, that everything has a logical explanation.“

  „You stayed friends with Max Candle until he died. Where’s the logic in that? The bastard was going to run off with your wife. And you still carry that dead woman around with you. After what she did – “

  The scarves were rising off the floor, and moving toward her in a swirling storm of silk.

  „Louisa didn’t have to confess the affair.“ The scarves stopped their forward movement and hung limp in the dead air. „In a normal world, she would’ve kept the secret. You don’t understand, do you? She had to tell me. Louisa couldn’t allow me to risk my life that night – not after what they’d – “

  „That must have killed you. Max
was your best friend.“

  „I owed everything to Max. He saved my life. And he saved Louisa’s music.“ Malakhai looked past her to the houselights rising all over the theater. „The stage lighting is always difficult.“

  „Hard to hide the wires?“

  „More to it than that. I have to make the audience believe in Louisa. I spare them the details of death, except for the blood on her dress. The concerto does all the real work.“ He looked down at his electronic board. „This machine also plays music. I only use it for staging. Tomorrow I rehearse with a live orchestra.“

  He touched a key at the top of the panel and the concerto poured out of speakers on both sides of the stage. „I told you my wife was in the concerto. Hear the beat in the bass notes? It’s very subtle. It takes an oboe, a soft drum stroke and a cello to make a believable human heartbeat.“ His hands moved over the switches, masking every other instrument until all that remained was the rhythm of a beating heart, a mighty muscle contracting and pumping blood.

  „There she is – Louisa.“ And now he turned a knob to amplify the sound.

  „There’s a strange lull in the concerto, and the audience finds it disquieting. They want to fill the emptiness with something. It drags out to an exquisite pain of anticipation, and all you can hear is the heartbeat.“ He turned down the volume. „So low, it’s almost subliminal.“

  He waved an arm, and a thin stream of pale blue feathers poured from his hand and moved into the audience, dispersing in a cloud that gently settled to the velvet chairs. „And then I send her out into the crowd. Now, Mallory. Do you feel the air moving in Louisa’s wake? Can you smell the gardenias?“

  Mallory nodded, listening to a woman’s beating heart. The breeze was almost imperceptible; she felt it in the rise of downy hairs on the back of her neck. The scent of a flower was faint and sweet.

  Malakhai leaned close to her face. „But I never use perfume in the act.“

  The odor instantly changed its character to the spice scent of his aftershave lotion – another cheap trick.

  His eyes were laughing at her. „And that slight movement of air as she passed you? All in your mind, Mallory. No wires. The sensation is strongest in a full theater. It’s like orchestrating mass hysteria. As I said, I’m good at that.“