The Bullet Catch

by John Gaspard

  “Right on the edge of what?”

  We had reached the parking ramp and the elevator doors were just opening as we approached. We stepped in and Deirdre punched the floor button with far more effort than was necessary.

  “Dylan Lasalle was a really shady character, Eli,” she said as she turned to me. “We were never able to pin anything on him, but he traveled in nasty circles with some really bad people. And then, about two weeks ago, he started making overtures.”

  “He was a composer?” I knew the joke was a bad one, but it was out of my mouth before I could stop. Surprisingly, Deirdre didn’t let it faze her.

  “His attorney started asking us questions, about making a deal, getting immunity, turning state’s evidence. He wouldn’t get specific, but said he was just testing the waters. He said his client was looking for a way out and wanted to know if we’d provide it.”

  “A way out of what?”

  She shook her head. “We don’t know. We were supposed to meet with him this week.” The elevator door slid open and she stepped out. I turned and followed her, and then I realized, with a suddenness that took my breath away, that we were on the roof. I stood there, frozen.

  “This is me,” she said. “Sorry, I should have asked what floor you were on.”

  I could see straight across the flat roof to the short retaining wall that surrounded the ramp roof. The stumpy wall was on my left and on my right and my knees began to buckle. I turned to go back into the elevator, but the doors had already shut. I closed my eyes tightly.

  “Eli, are you okay?”

  I took a deep breath, thinking about the breathing exercises I had gone through with Dr. Bakke. That seemed like a long, long time ago.

  “Eli?” There was a distinct and foreign note of concern in her voice.

  The breathing exercises didn’t seem to be working and I felt like I was gasping for air. “Deirdre, I need to ask a favor,” I was able to finally sputter out.

  “Sure, what do you need?”

  “Can you take my hand?” My eyes were clamped shut, but I extended my right arm in the general direction of her voice. My hand hung in space for a moment, and then I felt her hand clasp mine. The relief was palpable.

  “I’m having something of a panic attack,” I explained, turning to her so she could see my eyes were closed. “The first thing I need you to do is walk me to my car.”

  “Eli, if you’re having a panic attack, I don’t think you should be driving.”

  “I agree. Which brings us to the second thing I need you to do. I need you to drive me, and my car, down to the bottom of the ramp. Once I get off the roof, I think I’ll be okay.”

  Amazingly, Deirdre didn’t question any of this. With a gentleness I hadn’t felt from her in years, she took my keys and guided me toward the car.

  Even with my eyes closed, I could sense how close I was to the retaining wall and the edge. “Open the door, please. Now would be good. Or sooner than now, if you can manage it.”

  “Just about there,” she said softly. I heard the snick of the passenger door unlocking, felt the edge of the door as she opened it, and then I ducked down to climb—really, climb, like a monkey—into the car. Once inside, I heard the reassuring sound of the passenger door closing.

  I settled into my seat and found and fastened my seat belt. Through it all, I kept my eyes shut tightly, but in my mind’s eye I could see through the windshield, could see the useless retaining wall, and could sense the distance between my body and the ground ten floors below.

  Not a moment too soon, Deirdre was in the driver’s seat, the car was started, and I felt the vehicle back away from the wall, and then turn toward the exit.

  After we had circled down and down for several moments, I peeked one eyelid open. We were probably at about the fifth floor, but the tight space of the downward spiral was already helping me to relax. I looked over at Deirdre and could see she was alternating between looking where she was going and looking at me.

  “Well,” she said, “this is new.”

  “I’m just trying it out to see if I like it. Renting with an option to die.”

  “Seriously, Eli, are you seeing someone about this?” Her tone was sharp and demanding, which in anyone else would have been off-putting. But for Deirdre, it was the closest thing she had toward warmth.

  “Yes, I’m seeing a therapist.”

  “How often?”

  “Frequently. Actually, in about an hour.”

  We had made it down to ground level. Deirdre pulled the car into an empty handicap spot. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” she said as she shifted the car into park.

  “Now that I’m on the ground, I’m good to go,” I said. “Still pale around the gills, but really, I’ll be fine.”

  She gave me a long hard look. “Okay, but send me a text when you get to the therapist.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll be fine. Do you want me to give you a ride back up to your car?”

  She shook her head and then paused. “You take care of yourself,” she said, swinging the car door open and sliding out.

  I was taken aback. It wasn’t exactly warmth, but it wasn’t the coolness she usually projected.

  “Thanks,” I said, my voice coming out as more of a whisper than intended. “That really helped.”

  But she was already out of the car and heading toward the elevator.

  Chapter 13

  “Eli, let’s think of your subconscious as a balloon.”

  “Is this a magician metaphor? Are these balloons in the shape of animals?”

  Dr. Bakke ignored the comment and plowed ahead. “And think of stress as just one of the gases that fills that balloon. If the balloon gets too full of stress, something has got to give somewhere. Hence, your attacks.”

  “So, these ‘hey, let’s throw ourselves off a high building’ thoughts are just like holes in a balloon?”

  “Essentially.”

  “Well, given that it happened again today and in front of my ex-wife no less, I think we need to patch that balloon. And pronto.”

  “Well, if you want to continue with the metaphor, a patch is just that—a patch. I think it would be better to find a way to keep from overfilling the balloon.”

  I spread my hands in front of me in a posture of supplication. “I’m all yours.”

  “I believe what’s happening to you is that your subconscious has taken an existing fear and, in a sense, super-sized it.”

  “Like a Coke at a movie theater?”

  “Sort of. Before these major panic attacks began, can you think of experiences in your recent past where you experienced acrophobia?”

  “Well, let me see,” I said, thinking back over the last few months. “I was at a party last year where the porch had a glass or acrylic floor, it was see-through. I was only up a couple of stories, but I didn’t care for that.”

  Dr. Bakke dutifully made a note. “Any other instances?”

  “Well, last fall when Megan and I almost died, I took a heck of a tumble down a steep incline. It was a big hill, maybe three or four stories high.”

  “That could be significant,” he said.

  “Well, sure, but that took five seconds. I’d spent the previous hour trapped in a cave in pitch darkness. Why don’t I have super-sized claustrophobia?”

  “Because you didn’t have claustrophobia to begin with. You had a minor fear of heights, which has now blossomed into a major fear of heights. And it’s starting to get in the way of your day-to-day life.”

  “You could say that,” I deadpanned. “So, what do we do? Dig back into my childhood?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not a big fan of that.”

  “Sure, that’s because for you it was only five minutes ago.”

  “I think our best course of action,” he said, keenly ignoring my remark, �
�would be to continue with the immersion therapy, just not to the extreme that you took it at your high school reunion.”

  “Understood,” I said. “I’m for any plan that gets me back to my previous level of acrophobia, or that can get rid of it altogether.”

  “That’s fine, but you may get even more than that,” he said. “Remember, sometimes our greatest fear is actually our greatest strength.”

  “Again with the fortune cookies,” I joked, but I’d later find that the good doctor’s little piece of wisdom was closer to the truth than I might have imagined.

  I left the building where Dr. Bakke had his office in a bit of a daze. The events of the day had taken their toll, and then an hour of sharing my feelings on top of that had contributed to a definite feeling of lightheadedness. Given all that, I think I can be excused for not noticing more quickly I was being followed. But I should have really caught on faster, because my stalker was not being subtle by any means.

  A black sedan followed me through the parking lot. It moved silently and slowly behind me as I made my way to my car. And I mean right behind me, about two feet behind, matching my speed with precise deliberation.

  I finally recognized there was a car on my heels and stepped aside, moving closer to the other parked cars, but the sedan continued matching my pace. I slowed down even more, and so did the sedan. I stopped and the car mimicked my action. I glanced over at the car but couldn’t see any occupant in the front or the back, due to windows that looked to be tinted well above the legal limit. I sped up, trying to get to my own car that much sooner, but the car increased its speed as well.

  I clicked the remote lock for my car and pulled the driver’s door open with a bit more sense of panic than I had hoped to exhibit. I slid into the driver’s seat, shut and locked the door and turned on the ignition in what resembled one continuous action. As I was about to put the car into reverse, I glanced at the rearview mirror and saw the black sedan was still there, directly behind me, blocking my exit. I turned to look at the side view mirror for other options and found myself face to face with Harpo.

  Sadly it was not Harpo Marx, who would have been a delightful and welcome surprise. Instead, it was Mr. Lime’s henchman, the soundless fireplug, whose bulldog face was nearly pressing against my window. In keeping with his namesake, he silently jerked his head toward the sedan.

  I sat there for a long moment, considering my options, realizing I had precious few. I shut off the ignition, opened the door and stepped out of my car, wishing—as it would turn out, not for the first time—I had skipped this year’s reunion altogether.

  I was directed into the back of the sedan by Harpo, who held the door open for me with a steely persistence. I peered into the dim light and finally recognized the bony Mr. Lime in the murky space.

  “Come in and chat with me for a moment,” he said.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Free will? Yes. A choice? No. Get in.”

  I hesitated and he smiled up at me. “Mandrake, if our plan was to hurt you, it would have happened much, much earlier and right now you’d either be recuperating in the hospital or in the morgue experiencing late stage rigor mortis.”

  With that comforting statement, I settled in the back seat. Harpo shut the door and returned to his post behind the wheel.

  “How was your therapy session?”

  Mr. Lime asked the question with a tone that almost suggested genuine interest and concern. However, his broad smile, with his translucent skin and lips pulled back tight across his face, cancelled any sense of warmth immediately. “So, your therapist, he’s a good one?”

  “Have you been following me?”

  He smiled again. “I think the answer to that question is fairly obvious,” he said, shaking his head. “But, to put your mind at rest, we’re not making a career of it.”

  I stuttered for a moment, but could only come up with, “Why?”

  He shrugged. “You talk to people. People talk to you. We’d just like to be part of the conversation.”

  “Then why don’t you talk to the people who are talking to me?”

  “Well, I enjoy your perceptions. And, in the case of our friend, Signor Ferrari, talking is on the list of things he will never be doing again.”

  I had a pretty good idea he meant Howard Washburn, but once again he stumped me with the movie-related pet name he had assigned.

  “You mean Howard Washburn, right?”

  Mr. Lime just smiled at me as I struggled with the name.

  “Ferrari. Ferrari. It rings a bell.”

  “And swats a fly,” Lime added wryly.

  The image flickered through my mind and I struggled to grasp it. Finally it came to me. “Sidney Greenstreet. Casablanca.”

  Lime nodded. “Signor Ferrari. A charming but corrupt businessman, not above playing both sides of the street, as long as he benefits in the end.”

  “But Howard didn’t benefit in the end.”

  “Not so much, no.” He nodded at me, which I assumed meant I should continue my recitation.

  “Well, you know, I didn’t really talk to Howard. Only on the phone. By the time I got to his office he was...” My voice trailed off.

  “You gleaned no insight from the brief telephone encounter?”

  “Not really. As I told the police...”

  “Yes, you talked to the police. We’ll get to that. Let’s stay focused on what Signor Ferrari may have imparted.” He extended a hand, gesturing for me to continue.

  “All I really got from him was he’d had some business dealings with Dylan Lasalle and he wasn’t comfortable discussing them over the phone.”

  “Prudent choice.” He rubbed his hands together and seemed unhappy with the results. “Harpo,” he said. “My hand cream.”

  The words were barely out of his mouth and the servant had already picked up a small white tube from the front seat and passed it back to the old man. Mr. Lime squirted a small amount of lotion on his hands, capped the tube and handed it back up front. He looked up at me as he spread the cream evenly across both of his pale, bony hands, with particular emphasis on the tips of his skeletal fingers.

  “One of the many, many downsides of aging,” he said by way of explanation. “Dry hands. Persistently dry.”

  “Perhaps you should wear gloves,” I suggested.

  He looked up at me sharply, then his face settled into a more benign countenance. “I do. Many days I do,” he said.

  “Well,” I stammered, “You’re not alone. It’s also a problem for magicians. Of all ages,” I added. “Dry hands can make it hard to work with cards.”

  He looked up, his eyes alert. “Do you have a product you could recommend? I find most over-the-counter remedies to be too greasy.”

  The sudden change in topic nearly made my head spin. “Um, yes. I can’t think of the name of it now, but there is a good one out there.” I shook my head. “Just can’t think of the name right now.”

  “I would love to hear of it,” he said, taking a handkerchief from his breast pocket and giving each of his bony hands a quick once over. “When you think of it, please pass it along.”

  I recognized I had no direct method of contacting him, but decided not to mention that particular issue.

  “So,” he continued, handing the slightly soiled handkerchief up to Harpo, “You said you spoke to the police. Did they offer any insight?”

  “On Howard Washburn? Or Lasalle?”

  “Ferrari. Francis. I’d like to hear whatever transpired.”

  I was unclear as to the proper path to take, so I admit I took a quick jog down the one of least resistance. “The police seem to think Dylan was trying to work out a deal with them before his death. They didn’t give me details. In fact it sounded as if they didn’t actually have many details,” I added quickly.

  “Francis, Francis, Franc
is,” Lime said quietly. “And what of his wife, the lovely Phyllis Dietrichson?”

  “You mean Trish?”

  “A word of warning, my young friend,” he said, his raspy voice sounding almost warm. “In this life, we all have a little Walter Neff in us. The less we let him out, the better off we are likely to be. But enough of this intrigue,” he said, playfully clapping his hands with such force I feared for a moment they might shatter like fine crystal. “It’s time for another card trick.”

  “Oh, Mr. Lime,” I said quickly, patting my pockets more for show than might have been necessary. “I’m afraid I didn’t bring any cards with me today.”

  “Not even your invisible deck?” he asked, the hint of a twinkle looking quite out of place in his eyes.

  “Not even that one,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Not to worry,” he said excitedly. “We brought our own. Harpo, the cards if you please.”

  Once again, the servant had anticipated the request and already had the cards in hand. He handed back a card box that looked to be as old as Mr. Lime, if not older. The corners of the box were crushed and worn, providing an ample preview of the distressed cards I found within. I removed the sorry cards from the box and gave the deck a quick Hindu shuffle, feeling immediately how soft and pliable the vintage cards actually were.

  The poor condition of the deck instantly eliminated a large number of possible illusions. I tried a one-hand shuffle, which felt like I was shuffling a deck of soggy saltines. The deck felt light, which was either from how worn and ragged the cards were, or it might indicate we were shy a few cards. Mr. Lime cleared his throat quietly and I begin to improvise like mad.

  “Well, let me see,” I began. “This is a variation on a very popular trick in magic circles. It’s called ‘Dr. Daley’s Last Card Trick.’ Actually, this is closer to Eddie Fector’s version, which he called ‘Be Honest, What Is It?’” I continued, getting caught up in a mental spiral of accreditation. “Which in itself is very similar to David Williamson’s ‘The Memory Test,’ although I’ve made some adjustments of my own,” I added, my words trailing off.