Shell Game

by Carol O’Connell

  A black silhouette was looming on the wall. It disappeared when he cut off the heartbeat.

  „Is that what you did to Futura? Did you scare him with shadows? Did you make him hysterical?“

  „Are you sure the shadows are even there, Mallory? Can you believe any of your senses? What is truth?“

  Unbalancing people was her job, not his. „When Louisa told you the truth, it ate you alive.“

  „Yes, you’re right about that. I can never forget the pictures in my brain – my wife in bed with another man.“

  „And then you shot her. An interesting way to solve the fidelity problem.“

  Not rising to the bait, he moved to the center of the small elevated stage and turned to look out over the empty theater. The overhead lights washed away the fine lines of his flesh. They made his eyes a more brilliant blue and turned his mane of hair to gold.

  „Even after her death, I was never sure of Louisa – not while Max was still alive.“ He was speaking to the vacant rows of velvet chairs, darkest red toward the shadow end of the great hall.

  „Whenever I played New York, he came to every single performance. Max always entered the theater late, after the houselights had gone down. He’d take a seat in the back rows, as far from me and the stage as he could get.“ Malakhai stepped to the edge of the scaffold and hovered there in accidental elegance, eyes distant and bright. „It wasn’t me he came to see. Max only wanted to be near Louisa – secretly, covertly. And each time I sent my dead wife into the audience, I always wondered if she met him out there in the dark.“

  The maitre d’ hovered at a discreet distance, subtly suggesting that it was closing time.

  The only patron, Emile St. John, sat in a far corner of the hotel dining room, though wealth should have gotten him a better table. Mallory decided that he didn’t care to be the center of attention, preferring this exile on the sidelines of restaurant traffic and real life.

  She shared the sensibility.

  The white tablecloth was laid with good silver and crystal. A waiter was removing the remnants of a meal for one.

  And dining alone was also a similar trait.

  As Mallory walked toward him, St. John smiled and lifted his wineglass in greeting. He said a few words to the waiter, who left his tray behind to hurry off toward the kitchen.

  St. John rose from the table to hold out her chair. „What a lovely surprise. What can I do for you, Mallory?“

  „Oh, just a few questions.“ She sat down at the table, and a clean glass appeared in front of her. The waiter collected his tray, and when he was out of earshot, she said, „Seems like everyone was in love with Louisa. Max Candle and Malakhai – even Oliver.“

  „Yes, Oliver was devoted to her.“ He poured out a glass of red wine for Mallory. „When music paper was impossible to get, he spent hours ruling lines on wrapping paper and the backs of posters, making all the bars for her notes. She was endlessly rewriting the concerto. You know, if she’d been born in another era, I don’t think she could’ve done it. I don’t mean to take anything away from her genius, but the concerto was such an ambitious piece. And she was so driven to complete her single opus. Sometimes I wonder if Louisa knew she would die so young.“

  Mallory had resisted the urge to cut him short, but enough was enough. „And Futura? Did he have a thing for Malakhai’s wife?“

  St. John shook his head. „Franny had no chance with her. I’m sure he realized that from the day they met. Louisa was a man’s woman, if you understand that term.“

  „She pegged Franny for a wimp.“

  „Succinct. I like it.“

  „And what about you?“

  „I had my work to obsess about. Ah, but I forgot. You have such a dim view of the French Resistance. How did you put it? Toss the bombs and run away before they hit the ground. The whole city was full of paranoia, and – “

  „And spies. I went to school. I know what happened to people when they got caught. What about you and Nick? How did you feel about Louisa?“ And now she fell silent again, resolving not to finish his sentences anymore. She had learned a lot from Rabbi Kaplan. Like the rabbi’s friend, Mr. Halpern, Emile St. John was more open in the role of storyteller.

  „We were all close friends,“ he said. „We’d gone hungry together, stolen food together. Louisa and Nick used to bicycle into the countryside to raid the crop fields.“

  „But you weren’t in love with her? Either of you?“

  He smiled and waved one hand, as if to ask how he should put this. „My mother would’ve said that Nick and I were musical.“

  „You’re both gay?“ This did not square with Prado’s credit report listing alimony payments to four ex-wives.

  „Well, I should only speak for myself. I’m a homosexual. Nick was merely a slut. And he’d tell you that himself. He’s quite proud of it. In those days, he’d go home with anybody. Girls, boys – he didn’t care. During the occupation, he never had a relationship that lasted more than a night. Nick couldn’t even commit to one gender. Oh, you should’ve seen him when he was young – a beautiful boy.“

  „And he still sees himself that way.“

  „You must take him for a fool, a second-rate flirt, who can’t see how ridiculous he is to a girl your age.“

  She nodded.

  „But when he was young, Nick was an uncommon seducer, the best there ever was. He had a Spanish accent in those days, and his hair was coal black. Even his eyes were darker then, and he used them to strip women naked in public. They loved it. I know Faustine did. Nick was her favorite boy. He learned a lot of tricks in that old woman’s bed. He could seduce anyone, even men who weren’t bent that way. If you talked to him for six minutes, or if he only lit your cigarette, you’d be left with the impression that you’d just had sex with him.“

  „Did he ever take a German soldier to bed?“

  „He might have. He got a thrill from risks like that. But what if he did? Nick had no politics, and decadence was his only ideal. He spent every night in a different bed. Sometimes it was simple practicality to save him the cost of breakfast. And his room in back of the print shop didn’t have a bathtub – there was that to consider.“

  „I’ve seen Nick’s forgery – nice work. Suppose the Germans found out about that little sideline of his – assisting political refugees over the border?“

  „You think prison worried him? Promiscuity would’ve gotten him into a worse fix. Even the Germans who waffled between genders were exterminated. Remember, we drank with soldiers every night. We heard the stories about the traveling gas vans. But Nick was fearless – just an enterprising, apolitical teenager with a phenomenal libido.“

  „You don’t think much of his character.“

  „Nick is what he is – the greatest, most versatile whore that ever lived. A gigolo king and the queen of queens. He was born to run a public relations firm. There’s nothing he won’t do for publicity.“

  „You don’t like him much, do you?“

  This startled him, and suddenly Mallory realized that she had misunderstood everything.

  „I love Nick. He’s unscrupulous, but I’m his friend until he dies.“ St. John turned away to flag down the waiter for a check, and he missed the surprised look on her face. But then, it was the same expression she used for peeling onions and loading her gun.

  He signed the bill with his room number, and the waiter left them again. „I’m afraid Nick’s character will never improve. He still flirts with everything that moves. Male, female, it doesn’t matter. Breathing is Nick’s only known criterion.“

  „Did you ever sleep with a German soldier? You claim you were in the Resistance. But lots of people said that – after the Germans left town. Maybe you were a collaborator?“ He would never see her next line coming.

  „No, Mallory, on both counts. Never slept with Nick either, though I was tempted. During the occupation, I was something of a monk. I still am.“

  „I know you were an executioner on a Maquis fir
ing squad.“ She had surprised him that time. Smoke drifted from his open mouth. He had forgotten to exhale.

  „That doesn’t fit well with monk’s robes.“ She set her wineglass to one side. The socializing was done, the underbelly was laid open for her, and now – down to business. „My college history professor lived in France during the occupation. He said it was a bloodbath right after the liberation. So tell me – how many people did you kill for the Maquis?“

  She had touched on something old, but painful still.

  „Did Charles tell you that? Yes, it had to be him. Odd that he would remember that old conversation. He was only six or seven years old. I could’ve sworn he was asleep. Max and I had taken him to a magic show and a late supper. Charles was curled up on the rug by the fire, completely exhausted. Max indulged the child when his parents were out of town. No vegetables and no fixed bedtime. The boy just fell asleep wherever he dropped, and then Max would put him to bed.“

  No side trips, St. John. Back to the war. „So you told Max about the firing squad.“

  „I had to talk to someone. I was going through a difficult time – a period of adjustment after the war. It lasted for many years. I was still struggling with it that night. I knew Max would understand. He’d killed in the war. But the people I – “ He toyed with his glass for a moment. „Those people were helpless when I shot them, tied up to posts and blinded with pieces of cloth. The squad didn’t observe the tradition of one gun with blanks. All the bullets from every man’s rifle went into human flesh. There was no chance for self-deception, for the possibility of clean hands.“

  „Thousands were arrested – a few hundred survived to stand trial.“

  „Yes, it was like that in the first few months. My compliments to your teacher. The mobs killed a great many people for real and imagined crimes. But this Maquisard unit was executing convicted war criminals – French citizens so eager to please their masters, they went the Germans one better. Their crimes had such zeal and cruelty. Two of them had gouged out the eyes of a living woman and filled the sockets with cockroaches. Getting caught by the Germans wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to you in occupied France.“

  „The trials were drum-barrel justice.“

  „A military term. That’s from the American Civil War, isn’t it? A drum overturned on the battleground, an instant court and a swift execution. Yes, right again. I think an abattoir, a bloody assembly line would be a better analogy for the early trials. After the liberation, it seemed that every man and woman in France was part of the Resistance movement. Or so they all claimed – the accused and their accusers. I always suspected the ones who wanted the most blood, the loudest witnesses in court. I have no idea how many innocents were shot by the firing squads.“ He pushed his chair back from the table. „Since then, I’ve led a celibate existence, doing penance.“

  „A monk and an executioner.“ She raised her open hands, as if she were weighing these words, one against the other.

  „You don’t think I took any pleasure in those executions?“

  She nodded slowly. That was exactly what she thought. „You had to volunteer for a job like that.“

  „I did volunteer.“ He puffed on his cigar, comfortable in the knowledge that the waiter would not bother him with regulations about smoking in public – the privilege of money and lavish tips. He exhaled and watched the gray plume twining upward. His eyes searched the smoke. „All around me there were men with too much relish for that kind of work. I believed killing should always be done with deep regret. And so, regretfully, I picked up my rifle and shot helpless humans with their hands tied behind their backs.“

  He bowed his head to examine the dregs of his wine, a small pool of red at the bottom of the glass. When he spoke again, his voice was too calm. There was no rise and fall of inflection, no emotion at all.

  „The best method is a pistol, close to the head. But we were very young gunmen. So inexperienced at efficient killing. We used rifles, and we stood some distance away from – the targets. In an error of compassion, we avoided the head shots that would have given them a quick death. The bullets we fired into their breasts ruptured their hearts and lungs. Done wrong, it’s a death of internal hemorrhaging – not an instant kill, as you might suppose. I’ve made a great study of this over the years.“

  He looked up from his glass, and she wished that he had not. Later, she would remember his eyes as somehow broken, full of sorrow and so at odds with this dry recital of facts.

  „Each round creates a cavity a hundred times larger than the bullet. You see, the heat of impact boils away the blood and the fat of the tissue.“ His hands clenched tightly, knuckles whitening. „So every bullet acts like a fist reaching into the body, rupturing skin, shattering bones. I was close enough to see the people trembling as they were tied up to the posts. With the first round, they dropped quickly, sliding down the poles, dragging the ropes of their bound hands. But they were still alive. I kept punching bullets into their bodies until they stopped screaming to God, so crazy with fear and pain. Until they finally stopped moving, and the insanity – stopped.“

  Chapter 18

  Judging only by the wildlife of cockroaches in the sink and pink-flamingo statuary cavorting on dead grass outside his window, Franny Futura had never imagined that squalor could be quite this tacky. He wept for the chipped furniture and the noise the plumbing made when residents on either side of his motel room used the toilet. Years ago, the cracked and dirty walls must have been painted a brighter hue; now they were the color of an aged salmon dying of natural causes.

  Franny walked to the only window and looked through a hole in the curtains. He counted the flamingos. One pink plaster bird might have been considered kitsch, an interesting statement. But this flock of four was a deliberate and frightening attempt at decor.

  So this was New Jersey.

  Nick had told him not to leave the room, but the telephone by the bed had no dial tone. He stared at the public booth on the other side of the parking lot, an upended glass coffin exposed to the traffic of a busy highway – a million pairs of eyes a minute.

  It was dangerous to leave the room, or so Nick had said. Franny believed it, for he was always willing to be frightened at the least provocation. He had read somewhere that fear was a genetic thing, that some people were wired from birth to be less brave than others – not his fault.

  But he was not a complete coward. In recent years, all civility had ended, and he had been heckled, hissed and booed by the crowds. There had been times when he feared they would rush the stage and pull him down. Yet he had always remained to finish his act, hands trembling and tears passing for flopsweat. And now he had traveled for thousands of miles, for years and years – for what?

  If he could only get through to Emile St. John, everything would be all right. Emile would come to fetch him in a stretch limousine, and they would travel back to New York City, drinking good scotch from the limo bar and smoking Cuban cigars. Rehearsals could resume this afternoon.

  He put one hand on the doorknob, then drew back, as if the metal had been hot to the touch. What was the worst thing that could happen to him? What was worse than the terror of anticipation? Well, Nick would be angry. And there was all that highway traffic – all those eyes on him.

  Franny stood in front of the door, hands at his sides. Once, long ago, he had done a brave thing. Surely he could walk that stretch of parking lot to the phone booth.

  He heard a metallic creak, footsteps stopping outside his door. A knock on the wood and then another. A key was working in the lock. The knob was turning. Franny was backing away, slow-stepping, falling, crawling to the wall.

  When the door opened, a large woman in a uniform walked in, her arms full of fresh linens and towels. She gaped at Franny, perhaps surprised to see him huddled on the floor, hands covering his face – crying softly.

  The building was surrounded by all the traffic noises of the busy midtown theater district, but not even the siren o
f a fire engine could permeate these walls. Soundproofing had been an important consideration in his selection of performance space. The gallows illusion would be ruined if the audience was distracted from the ticking of gears, the creaks of wood and the cries of the hanged man.

  Emile St. John checked the apparatus one last time. Every rehearsal had gone smoothly. Oliver had gotten this one right.

  He glanced at his wristwatch as he slipped on the handcuffs. His assistant was due back in a few minutes. He had hired the young man for the trait of compulsive punctuality.

  Timing was everything.

  Thirteen steps above him, the stage of the gallows was very small, only room enough to hang a man. The narrow platform had a ramshackle look about it, crooked lines and rough board that concealed an iron framework. Its appearance was tenuous, as though a child had slapped it together with a handful of rusty nails. Visually, the structure threatened to fall apart at the first breeze created by applause.

  He walked up the steps, just as Max Candle had done so many times. His foot was heavier on the last step, so it would crack and break at the hinge. And now he stretched his leg to step up on the tiny elevated stage. Emile shifted his weight, and the entire structure wobbled with precisely six inches of tilt in the superbly engineered framework. Standing beneath the noose, he watched as the line began to lower, programmed by clockwork gears to cast its deadly falling shadow on the curtain behind him. When it was level with his head, the line moved back. So far the mechanism was working smoothly. Oliver had done a wonderful job calibrating the noose by Emile’s own height and mass. The metal arm of the hydraulic lift locked on the metal vest beneath his suit.

  He slipped the cuff key in the lock. The rope began to pull and tighten; the noose was constricting under his chin, pulling, straining.

  And now he heard the sound of splitting wood beneath his feet. His hands were still locked in the manacles. When the structure fell out beneath him, he did not float. He did not follow the well-rehearsed routine of removing the noose and descending by invisible steps to the stage below.