The Bullet Catch

by John Gaspard

  “Jake, who was on the phone? What’s the matter?”

  “I’m a dead man, that’s what’s the matter.”

  “What?”

  “I’m a dead man,” he repeated, nearly shouting. “A dead man.” He turned and pointed a shaking finger across the room at Uncle Harry. “And he’s the man who killed me!”

  For just a moment the bar got very quiet. And then all hell broke loose.

  Chapter 11

  Having breakfast with Harry has become a tradition ever since I moved back in after my divorce. Generally I’d wander downstairs to his apartment once I heard the familiar sounds of his early morning rituals coming from the rooms below mine. We’d share some coffee and the morning paper, although more and more I read it off my iPad while he’s still a holdout for a traditional newspaper made out of actual paper. There generally wasn’t much conversation, just the occasional comment about a newsworthy item or the short discussion of a plan for the day that lay before us.

  On this particular morning, things were quieter than usual as we sipped our coffee and took bites from our respective toast slices. After the dust-up in the bar the night before, I thought it prudent to let Harry talk when he was ready to talk, and not to push the issue unnecessarily.

  It had taken a while for me to understand what Jake was so upset about, as he was one of those people who becomes increasingly incoherent the angrier he gets, repeating the same key words over and over. In his case, the words were “dead man,” “Harry’s fault,” and “dead man.” While the words were certainly emphatic, they were not particularly insightful or helpful.

  He finally calmed down, at least to a degree, and I got the story out of him. Apparently his PR person had called, saying his name had just popped up in a Google Alert from an online article about Terry Alexander. The article purported to prove that Terry’s death had not been murder, but was in fact accidental. And, not only accidental, but that it was caused by the magician’s own incompetence. There was no murder plot, no suspects, just a poor, pathetic performer who screwed up and died because of it.

  The article, the PR person had told him, was written by one Clive Albans. And his primary source for the piece? A magician named Harry Marks.

  Later, after things had calmed down a bit and Jake had headed back to his hotel, I went up to my apartment and searched online for the article. Jake’s PR person had not been kidding. Clive’s story spelled out in specific detail how The Bullet Catch was supposed to be performed. Then Clive showed where the mistakes had been made and why, with accompanying still frames from the video of Terry Alexander performing the trick for the last time.

  While Clive made it sound like he was the one who had recognized the mistakes Terry had made, it was pretty clear all of his information on The Bullet Catch—and Terry’s missteps—had come from Harry. And only Harry. No other magician was quoted in the article.

  Two videos were embedded in the piece. The first was the shaky footage of Terry performing The Bullet Catch for the last time, with the new addition of voice-over commentary from Clive, along with freeze frames focusing on the key mistakes Terry had made.

  Using his standard hyperbolic phraseology, Clive whispered his way through the narration, pointing out “Terry’s first serious error” here and “his final miscalculation” there. A dramatic musical underscore had been added to the video, as had a new gun shot sound effect, replacing the faint “pop” from the original video.

  The second embedded video was one I had not seen before. It appeared to be from an interview with Terry on a low-end cable access talk show, clearly recorded sometime after he had been exposed as The Cloaked Conjurer but before his self-imposed exile in Ecuador. The footage was grainy and the sound quality poor, but the video was mesmerizing. Although they cut to the inept host occasionally, most of the interview consisted of a too-tight close-up of Terry, looking drawn and tired. The video began mid-interview and it appeared Terry had been asked if he regretted his work as The Cloaked Conjurer.

  “Every day,” he said in a soft voice, just above a whisper. “I regret it every day. I made a mistake, I understand that. But does that one mistake need to erase the twenty-year career that came before it? I know I can put this behind me. But at what point will the rest of the world—the rest of the magicians of the world—put it behind them? How long do I have to pay penitence? At what point does the brotherhood opens their arms and say, ‘All is forgiven? You are once again one of us.’”

  He sniffled a bit and it was clear from the way his voice cracked there was genuine emotion behind his words. The video cut to the host, who seemed surprised at the level of pain apparent in Terry’s words.

  “So, where do you go from here?” the host finally stammered.

  “Where can I go?” Terry said, as much to himself as to the host. “There is no place for me. I am adrift.”

  There was a long pause, an awkward cut back to the host, another shot of Terry staring into space, and then the video ended, frozen on the image of Terry Alexander, looking lost and alone.

  “So, Buster, are you going to ask me about the damned article or are we just going to sit here all morning pretending nothing happened? Because if that’s your plan, I’d rather go back to bed.”

  Harry’s voice, surprising me from across the table, snapped me back to reality and breakfast. I set down the iPad I hadn’t really been looking at.

  “I figured you’d talk about it when you wanted to talk about it,” I said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No, but I’d rather do that than sit here in silence.”

  “We usually don’t talk during breakfast. How is today any different?”

  “Today’s silence is more…intentional. And annoying,” he said, setting down the paper and picking up his coffee cup. “You want more coffee?” he asked as he crossed the small kitchen to the coffee maker.

  “No thanks, I’m good.”

  Harry refilled his cup and then added a generous amount of chocolate milk to the brew, stirring it slowly as he made his way back to the table.

  “The floor is open for questions,” he said as he sat back down. He took a sip of his coffee—which at this point was basically coffee-flavored chocolate milk—then set the cup back in the saucer. He folded his hands and looked at me, the picture of innocence.

  “All right,” I said, leaning back and prioritizing my questions, which were legion. “Obviously my friend Jake is upset.”

  “Your friend Jake made that abundantly clear last night, loudly and at great length. He turned a pleasant evening into the verbal equivalent of a bar brawl.”

  “Well, can you blame him? You revealed the method behind The Bullet Catch in a national publication,” I began.

  Harry cut me off. “I revealed one method,” he said sharply. “Only one method, and certainly not the best or cleverest version of that trick.”

  “This is sounding very much like the defense The Cloaked Conjurer raised about twenty-five years ago. And we know how well that was received.”

  “Be that as it may, I see nothing wrong in revealing the method behind that trick. It’s an insanely risky trick. No one should do The Bullet Catch.”

  “Yes, I can agree with that, but you just told everyone and his brother how to do it.”

  “Yes, and now everyone knows how it’s done, there will be precious little demand to see it performed.”

  I couldn’t quite see my way around his byzantine logic. “Okay, let’s skip over that part. Why did you tell all of this to, of all people, Clive Albans? You hate Clive Albans.”

  “Nonsense. I don’t hate anyone. Hate is a very strong word.”

  “That may well be, but it’s the word you always use in reference to Clive Albans. To quote you, for example: ‘I hate Clive Albans.’ Or, ‘That pest Clive Albans came in the store while you were out. God, how I hate him.’”

 
; Harry scowled. “Those may have been my words, but you’re adding a tone I never used.”

  I sat back and rubbed my eyes. When I opened them, he was still staring at me like a kid forced to appear in front of the principal for a crime he didn’t commit.

  “Is that all?” he asked. “Or can I go down and open the store?”

  “The store doesn’t open for another half hour,” I said, “and we’re unlikely to see any customers for two hours after that.”

  “I have things I can be doing.”

  “Such as?”

  He stared back at me, defiant. “Work-related things,” he finally said. “Things having to do with work.”

  “Okay, let me ask you this.” I leaned forward and tried to take any tone of accusation out of my voice. “Why did you tell Clive Albans how The Bullet Catch was done?”

  “Because he asked.”

  “In the past you wouldn’t tell him how the simplest trick in our shop worked.”

  “Perhaps he phrased his question in a nicer manner than some people I could name.”

  I took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eyes. “When you told him how The Bullet Catch was performed,” I said, “did you know he was asking because he’s doing a story on the movie they’re making about Terry Alexander? The one Jake North is starring in? And did you realize if you exposed the method behind the trick, and the mistakes Terry made in performing it, you would destroy the mystery that is the basis of that film? That the film would no longer be a mystery about who killed Terry Alexander, but instead become a movie about an inept magician who died by doing a trick wrong?”

  Harry stared back at me for a long moment. “Yes, well, I’m sure there’s a market for that film as well.”

  I sat back, shaking my head. As Aunt Alice had said hundreds of times before, some days there was just no talking to him.

  Jake answered his cell phone on the third ring with a whispered “Hello?”

  “Jake, it’s me, Eli.”

  “Oh, hi Eli,” he said, still whispering.

  “I just called to see how you’re doing. After last night.”

  “I can’t really talk. I’m sort of in a meeting. With the producers. The director. A handful of lawyers. A bunch of people.”

  “How’s the mood?”

  “Like Jonestown with bagels.”

  “Have they come up with a plan?”

  “We’re in triage mode.” His voice, already a whisper, got quieter. “Some of the European pre-sale money pulled out, saying they invested in a mystery, not a remake of Dumb and Dumber.”

  “So Harry’s article…”

  “The producers are furious. He took the mystery right out of the mystery. We’ve got nothing. Walter, the director, has this lame idea of turning it into a goth musical, but that’s not going to go anywhere.”

  “So what do you think they’re going to do?” There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. “Jake, are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” he finally said. “To be honest, I think they think there’s only one thing that will keep this movie from becoming a colossal flop.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Something really newsworthy is going to have to happen. Something bigger than Harry’s article.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the star actually dying.”

  I heard a click and then nothing. He had hung up.

  Chapter 12

  I visit my ex-wife about as often as I visit my dentist, and with the same level of enthusiasm. My dentist, who I’ve gone to my entire life, still hands out candy to anyone who has a perfect checkup. As the years have gone by, he’s needed to hand out less and less candy to more and more patients. Not a bad racket, really.

  My ex-wife also offers sweets, in the form of sour, hard candies that sit in a crystal bowl on the edge of her desk. In all the years I’ve visited her office, the number and relative positions of the candies has never changed. I imagine by this point they have all fused together into one tempting piece of sour, hard candy.

  Which is also an apt, if overly harsh, description of my ex-wife.

  Deirdre was not historically a happy recipient of the unannounced drop-in, but I figured catching her unaware might provide the greatest unedited flow of information. Warn her I was coming and she would want to know why and then clam up and make the trip unproductive. Show up without an appointment and she might start talking before she realized what she was doing.

  After Trish had left the bar the night before—amid Jake’s meltdown—I felt so bad about how she was feeling and the situation Dylan’s sudden death had thrown her into. She seemed so helpless and lost, nothing like the vibrant woman who had dazzled me in high school and so brightened the reunion. Plus, after my forced meeting with Mr. Lime, I was more than a little curious about what the police knew, what they thought they knew, and where they might be headed with the investigation.

  Since relations with Uncle Harry were strained from breakfast, I figured this morning was as good a time as any to dive in and start digging.

  “Knock-knock,” I said jovially as I knocked on the wooden doorframe to Deirdre’s office.

  “Busy. Go away,” she replied without looking up from her desk.

  “And thus did history’s first attempt at the knock-knock joke end in abject failure,” I said, ignoring her gruff anti-welcome and taking a seat in one of the two chairs in front of her paper-strewn desk.

  “Seriously, Eli, take a hike. I’ve got a ton of depositions to go through and no time for your nonsense.” She pulled back a wisp of blonde hair that had taken it on the lam from her well-coiffed hairstyle, and gave me a hard, unwelcoming look. It was like coming home.

  “I’m fine, thanks, and how are you?” I asked, knowing I was pushing it but enjoying it too much to stop.

  “What’s it going to take for you to go away and go away right now?”

  “Just one or two quick questions, pure and simple.”

  “Your questions are never pure and rarely simple.”

  “If Oscar Wilde had you as an attorney, he would never have gone to prison.”

  “If Oscar Wilde had you as a husband, he would have welcomed prison.”

  I gave her my biggest, broadest smile. “The magic never dies, does it?”

  “Eli, what do you want?”

  “Okay, all playful banter aside, your husband paid me a visit earlier this week,” I began, but she quickly cut me off.

  “My husband paid a visit to a lot of people this week. What’s it to you?”

  “I’m just wondering who else he talked to. Besides me.”

  She capped her pen and set it on the desk. “Why?”

  “I’m curious.”

  “Yeah, you and a bunch of dead cats.”

  “I’m curious who else he talked to. What he found out.”

  “Why aren’t you talking to him?”

  “He doesn’t like me.”

  “Nonsense. He adores you. In his own way.” She gave me a long look. “Why are you curious?” I didn’t answer and I made the mistake of looking down at my feet, which led to a longer, more intense look from her. “You’re not canoodling with the widow, are you?”

  “Hardly,” I said. “And stay out of Harry’s lexicon.”

  “Aren’t you still going out with that psychic? What was her name?”

  “Megan.”

  “Megan. Seemed like a nice girl. Sort of kooky, but you always had a thing for kooky.”

  “Present company excepted. Anyway, we’re on a bit of a break.”

  “You broke up? I’m sorry to hear that.” She looked genuinely concerned, which threw me.

  “Being on a break is not the same as breaking up,” I said, sounding far more defensive than I had intended. “We’re just taking some time of
f. To reassess. And regroup.”

  “Well, I hope it works out, Eli,” she said. “I really do.”

  “Well, thank you,” I said, feeling any power I might have had in the conversation draining away quickly. I thought a quick subject detour might get me back on track. “Anyway, back when we were married,” I said, “I occasionally helped you out on a case or two. I thought I could do the same here.”

  She looked ready to dispute this, but we both knew she couldn’t. With my magician’s knack for puzzles, I had actually been very helpful a couple of times, which may have had an impact on the speed with which she had risen in the department.

  “Helped out?” she said, clearly trying to downplay my role in her success.

  “Sure,” I said. “Like in The Case of the Poisoned Pimento.”

  “You are the only person in the world who calls it that,” she said flatly.

  “But you have to admit, I did help,” I countered.

  “Yes, Eli, you did help,” she admitted.

  In that local murder case, a victim’s last words had been recalled as “I’ll live, I’ll live,” but I was the one who pointed out that he could have actually been saying “Olive.” When a jar of poisoned green olives with the killer’s fingerprints were found in the victim’s refrigerator, the case was quickly closed.

  “Anyway, I was wondering who else your husband spoke with about Dylan Lasalle’s death.”

  She took the cap off her pen again. “Eli, I can’t give you that information. He talked to some of the victim’s work associates. He talked to your buddy Howard Washburn from the reunion. He did his job.”

  I cocked my head to one side. “He talked to Howard Washburn from the reunion?”

  “Of course, after the scuffle he’d had with Lasalle, it seemed prudent.”