The Bullet Catch

by John Gaspard

  “Yes, you there. Thank you. Let’s give the young fellow a round of applause,” Max boomed from the stage.

  Jake looked around, and his face registered what he’d gotten himself into. He turned left, then right, perhaps scoping out the exits, but it was clear he was trapped. He shuffled down the aisle, his head down and took the steps to the stage like a condemned man climbing the scaffold.

  Max welcomed Jake to the stage, clearly not recognizing him as a semi-famous TV actor. He ushered him to one of the two chairs in the performance area and took the other seat, with just a small wooden table between them. He began to shuffle the cards and launched into the patter for one of his signature effects.

  “Dead Man’s Hand,” he boomed, cascading the cards from one hand to the other. “That’s what they called the cards that lay on the table after Wild Bill Hickok had been shot in the back. Eights and Aces, all black. The dead man’s hand.”

  He handed the cards to Jake. “Give these a good shuffle, will you?” Jake obliged, while Max stood and addressed the audience, filling them in on the legend of the Dead Man’s Hand. I had probably heard this routine a hundred times, but I never tired of his recitation as he outlined the final minutes of Will Bill Hickok at the poker table at Nuttal & Mann’s saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota. How Bill always sat with his back to the wall, but on this fateful day Charlie Rich refused to change places with him—twice!—forcing Bill to sit with his back to the door. How the cards were dealt and how Bill was stone cold dead before he was able to place his first bet.

  It was a great story and Max really knew how to tell it. Everyone in the room was hanging on his every word, with the exception of Jake, who was shuffling and re-shuffling the cards with a fierce intensity.

  Max sat and watched Jake for a moment, clearly amused at the level of determination Jake was putting into his task. Jake finally looked up, realizing the room had gone quiet.

  “Would you say the cards are sufficiently shuffled?” Max asked with wry understatement.

  Jake nodded and held the pack out to him. Max shook his head and gestured he should place them on the table. “Mind if I cut the cards?” he asked quietly.

  Jake looked from the cards to Max and back to the cards. He shook his head.

  Max lifted the top half of the deck, placed it next to the first pile, and then completed the cut. “To keep this fair,” he said to Jake and to the audience, “why don’t you go ahead and deal. A simple poker hand. Four players. Five cards each.”

  Jake did as instructed, quickly dealing the cards and then setting the pack down on the table.

  “In life,” Max said as much to the audience as to Jake, “we must play the hand that is dealt us. That’s true today just as it was the day Wild Bill Hickok was dealt his legendary hand. He had turned over four cards when the fateful shot was fired. Eights and aces, all black.” He looked at Jake. “Tonight, one of us will be Wild Bill. And one of us will suffer his fate, with a gunshot wound to the back of the head.”

  Even from my seat in the rear of the theater I could see Jake gulp from Max’s words. He sat up straighter in his chair.

  “Let’s see who will be our victim tonight.” Max flipped over the cards in his hand. “A full house, nines and kings. Not a bad hand.” He turned to the hand Jake had dealt to the right and flipped those cards over. “Nothing much, two pair. So far I have the winning hand.” He smiled at Jake, who glanced from his hand, still face down on the table, to the other unexposed hand. Max flipped those cards over.

  “Not much to speak of, some hearts, maybe the beginning of an inside straight. This player would probably be wise to fold.” He set those cards aside and took a long look at Jake. “And now we come to you, my young friend. Would you be so kind as to turn your cards over, one at a time, and announce them as you do?

  Jake’s hand hovered over the cards for a moment, and then he flipped the first one over. “Eight of Clubs,” he said, with a distinct crack in his voice.

  “Eight of Clubs,” Max repeated. Jake turned over the next card.

  “Eight of Spades,” he said, clearly trying to put some power back into his voice and falling short.

  “Eight of Spades,” Max said in a loud, stage whisper.

  Jake took a breath and turned over the next card. “Ace of Spades,” he said in a flat voice.

  “Ace of Spades,” Max repeated quietly.

  Jake touched one of the two remaining cards, then moved to the other, and then back to the first. He turned it over, a look of resignation appearing across his face. “Ace of Clubs,” he said finally.

  “Ace of Clubs. Eights and Aces, all black. The Dead Man’s Hand.” Max took a dramatic pause, and then continued. “Poor Wild Bill Hickok never did know what the next card was, for as he turned it over…” He gestured to Jake to turn the card.

  Jake picked up the card. Just as he did, a gunshot rang out. And then someone screamed.

  “I nearly wet myself from fear.”

  “What a coincidence. I nearly wet myself from laughing.”

  “You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?” Jake glared at me. “You knew that routine ended with a gunshot.”

  “Well, yes. However, to be fair, I didn’t know that’s the routine he was going to do when he dragged you onstage,” I said, taking a sip of my beer. “And in the interest of full disclosure, it wasn’t really a gunshot. Just a cap gun he had wired to your chair.”

  “I must have jumped four feet.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “At least. And you screamed. Like a girl. It was magnificent.”

  Like the rest of the Minneapolis Mystics and many members of the audience, we had retired to Adrian’s bar for a post-show drink and bull session. At another table, Harry and the rest of the Mystics were trading barbs with each other and receiving compliments from other patrons. At the moment, Uncle Harry was receiving lavish praise for his routine with a spool of thread, a variation on the classic Gypsy Thread routine he had made completely his own. The woman spewing the praise was tipsy and kept leaning into Harry in a fashion that he didn’t seem to mind.

  “The Gypsy Thread can be traced all the way back to Professor Hoffman,” he was saying to the very drunk lady. “I learned it from Al Baker, but I have made modifications to suit my performance style.”

  “You’re cute,” she said.

  “Yes, well, that’s a matter of public record,” Harry replied with a smile.

  “I have a vague idea of how he pulled off the dealing for the Dead Man’s hand,” Jake continued, “but that first trick with the two guys and the cards in their pockets. How in the hell did he do that?”

  “Here’s the thing you need to know about Max Monarch,” I said. “He is literally one of the greatest card men. Ever. Harry told me that years ago, he and the other guys in the Mystics used to pull the same prank on Max every two or three weeks and every time it blew up in their faces.”

  “What did they do?” Jake asked with nervous curiosity.

  “Oh, one of them would casually mention some card trick they had seen while out on the road. Some real knuckle buster that seemed completely impossible. They would describe the effect from the audience’s point of view, confessing they had no idea how it had been done but that it was a killer effect. Max would nod along as they told the story, without making a comment. He wouldn’t say a word, just sit there and nod. And then about two weeks later, he’d show up and perform the trick for them, flawlessly.”

  Jake shrugged. “What’s the big deal? He reverse-engineered the trick. So what?”

  I shook my head. “You don’t get it. The trick never existed. Every time. They made it up out of whole cloth. They would conspire together to make up the most impossible effects they could think of—just mind-blowing stuff. Completely impossible. But they’d present it to Max like an existing effect, so he didn’t know it was impossible. And the
n he’d go off and figure out how to do it. Every single time.”

  Jake gave a low whistle and stole a glance across the room. Max was holding court with Gene Westlake and some audience members. I couldn’t hear clearly, but it sounded like he was complaining about how much of his day he spent sitting at red lights. The others were nodding in sympathy.

  “So his opening trick,” Jake said, look at me plaintively. “Not even a hint?”

  “You want a hint?” I could tell it was killing him to nearly beg for a scrap of information.

  “Yes, please.”

  I thought about it for a long moment. Finally, I said, “Two words.”

  He leaned forward.

  I smiled at him. “Deck switch.”

  “He switched the deck?”

  I shook my head. “Not one deck.”

  “Then what do you mean by deck switch?”

  “Jake, in that trick, he switches the deck four times. Four separate decks are in play throughout the trick.”

  His jaw dropped comically, in a broad cartoon-like manner.

  “I had no idea.”

  “That’s what makes it a trick.” I drained the last of my beer. “And here’s a piece of advice Harry taught me. When you can’t think of any possible way the trick could have been done…”

  Jake was hanging on my every word. “Yes?”

  “It probably involves a deck switch.”

  I got up to get another drink, gesturing to Jake to see if he was ready for a refill. He shook his head, lost in thought. I heard him mumble, “Deck switch, son of a bitch,” as I headed up to the bar.

  “Hi, Eli. Sorry I missed the show.”

  I looked up from my spot at the bar, surprised to see Trish standing next to me. Had I not being somewhat expecting to see her, I’m not sure I would have recognized her, at least not right away. She seemed much smaller than she had at the reunion, with no makeup and dark circles under her eyes.

  “Oh, great, you made it,” I said, just as the bartender handed me my beer. I looked to Trish. “Um, can I get you something?”

  She sighed and considered this for a moment. “A glass of white wine, I guess,” she finally said. I nodded at the bartender, who pulled up the nearest wine bottle, only to find it nearly empty. He held up his hand in a “wait a sec” gesture and headed down the bar.

  “So,” I said as we stood awkwardly at the bar. “How are you doing?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not really sure,” she said. “Still sort of numb, I guess.”

  “That would make sense.”

  An awkward pause. We looked at each other, and then looked away. The quiet, awkward moment got longer and finally we were saved by the return of the bartender, bearing a full glass of white wine. I added more money to the stack I had put down for the beer and handed Trish her glass.

  “We’re over here,” I said, pointing toward a booth in the back.

  “We?” she asked.

  “Oh, just Jake. He was with me tonight at the show. He was supposed to go on, but got cold feet at the last second.”

  We made out way through the crowd toward the back of the room, but Jake was crawling out of the booth just as we arrived. He held his cell phone to his ear. “What does it say?” he barked into the phone. “Read it to me.” He gave Trish a quick wave and then headed toward a quieter area of the bar, an intense look on his face and a hand over his ear as he strained to hear the voice on the other end of the phone.

  Trish looked to me for some sort of explanation, but I just shrugged.

  “Actors,” I said, as I sat and gestured for her to take Jake’s spot across from me. “They never miss a chance for a little drama.”

  She slid into the booth, took a sip of her wine and set the glass down. “So,” she said. “You heard about Dylan?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I was shocked. Or surprised. Whatever the right word is. My ex-wife’s husband, um, a friend on the police force stopped by and told me about it the next morning. The morning after the reunion. After it happened.”

  Trish nodded as if my ramblings were making actual sense.

  “He just went out for a run,” she said. “Sometimes he liked to do that, after we’d been out. There’s a running path near our building. It runs alongside the train tracks. So he went out and I went to bed...and the next thing I know, the phone is ringing and it’s the police. I had to go downtown. Identify the body...”

  Her voice broke off. I reached across the table and patted her hand, not quite sure why that was considered a reassuring gesture but doing it nonetheless. She took a paper napkin from the dispenser and dabbed at her eyes. I got the sense she had been doing that a lot lately.

  “That must have been difficult,” I offered.

  “Oh, Eli, you can’t imagine. It was just so hard.” She started crying for real now, her head down and shoulders shaking.

  I was completely at a loss for what to do and was about to say something brilliant, along the lines of “there, there,” when a voice to my left suddenly cut in.

  “Hi, Eli, I thought that was you over here.”

  I looked up to see Megan standing by the table. She had come around the corner quickly and the expression on her face told me she hadn’t noticed that I was sitting with someone. Particularly that I was sitting with a woman who was just this side of weeping uncontrollably.

  “Oops, sorry to interrupt,” she continued, starting to back away.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” I said, quickly taking my hand from atop Trish’s. “We were just, I don’t know, talking.”

  Trish wiped her eyes again and composed herself, sitting up straight.

  “I’m fine,” she said to no one in particular.

  Megan stood there awkwardly and I was feeling the same, not sure how to proceed. I thought maybe introductions might be the right way to go.

  “Oh, this is Trish. Megan. Megan. Trish.” My hands fluttered back and forth, gesturing to each person as I named them, looking like I was conducting an orchestra made up of fidgeting jackrabbits. The women nodded at each other and I quickly tried to fill the short silence that, at the moment, felt enormous to me.

  “I went to high school with Trish,” I said by way of explanation. I turned to Trish. “Megan owns the shop on the corner. Actually, the whole block, she owns the whole block. Which, as it turns out, makes her my landlady.” I almost added a short laugh, then stifled it at the last second.

  “I’ll let you guys get back to…whatever,” Megan said, continuing to back away. “I was just here with some girlfriends, celebrating, and I saw you over here and thought I’d stop by and say hi or something.”

  “Thanks,” I stammered. “Thanks for that.” She started to turn away, but I kept talking, so she turned back. “So, what are you celebrating?”

  She looked from me to Trish and back to me. “My divorce,” she said. “My divorce became final today.”

  “Well,” I said. “Good for you. Congratulations. Good for you,” I repeated for no apparent reason.

  “Thanks.” She turned away, then turned back. “Nice to meet you,” she said to Trish. She nodded at me, almost smashed into someone walking by who was loaded down with drinks, sidestepped them and was gone.

  I watched her go, then turned back to Trish. “She’s getting divorced,” I finally said.

  “Yes, she mentioned that.” She pulled another napkin out of the dispenser and dabbed at her eyes. “I hate crying,” she said. I nodded impotently. “Then, when I stop crying, I feel guilty that I’m not crying. Basically, I’m a mess.”

  “I think that’s understandable,” I suggested.

  I suppose you’re right. Anyway, how are you doing?” she asked.

  “Me? Um, fine, I guess. Aren’t I?” I wasn’t sure where her question had come from or where it was heading.

  “After that elevator
ride the other night, I don’t know, you looked pretty pale. I know acrophobia can be pretty intense. My younger brother has claustrophobia.”

  “Yeah, you mentioned that.”

  She seemed surprised to hear this. “I did?”

  “Yes, while we were in the elevator. Before the Christmas Carols commenced.”

  She smiled. “Did that help?”

  “Yes, quite a bit. Thank you.”

  “I’m glad,” she said softly. She dabbed at her eyes again and sighed. “Oh, it’s been such a horrible week,” she said. “The police have talked to me several times. About Dylan. And some of the people he associated with.”

  “So they think it might be more than a mugging?” I asked, remembering how Homicide Detective Fred Hutton had danced around that idea.

  “They’re not sure. Or, they’re not telling me,” she said with a laugh. “Probably trying to protect me. As if I didn’t know Dylan hung around with some bad people. Some bad, bad people.” She shuddered.

  “I know,” I said. “I think I met one of them the other night.”

  She looked up, confused. “What do you mean?”

  “I was summoned to a house on Lake of the Isles, under the pretext of doing some walk-around magic at a party. But there was no party. Just this really creepy old guy.”

  “Who was he?”

  “He called himself Mr. Lime, but I doubt that was his real name.”

  “What did he want? Did he know Dylan?”

  “He said he did. He wanted to know what the police had asked me about Dylan. And he said something about Dylan taking some money from him.”

  She seemed to be taking this all in very slowly. “Dylan owed him money? That wouldn’t surprise me. Oh, I wish I knew what this was all about.” She picked up her napkin and dabbed at her eyes again.

  She looked so sad and alone and helpless and I felt completely powerless, not sure what to say or do. I considered suggesting I could use my contacts in the DA’s office to see if the police knew more than what they were telling her, but at that moment Jake returned to the booth, jamming his phone fiercely into his pocket. I slid over to make room for him, but he wasn’t interested in sitting. His face was bright red and a vein in his neck was pulsating.