The Bullet Trick

by Louise Welsh

  'Thank you for the dance, William.' She smiled. 'But I’m worried Kolja may be unwell.'

  'Nonsense,' I said, my feet still moving, hoping he’d been crushed under a giant prop, kidnapped by the Albanian mafia or maybe just disappeared up his own arsehole. 'He’s the fittest man I’ve ever seen.'

  I cast an invisible fishing line and started to wind its reel towards me.

  Ulla refused to be hooked.

  'Sometimes he does too much.' I wondered if Kolja was on steroids, but I stopped moving and stepped to one side, allowing Ulla to leave the dance floor. She squeezed my hand as she moved away. 'German girls are not always unfriendly, William, not if they’re single. Nixie was looking for you earlier.'

  I nodded, 'Yeah, thanks Ulla.' I turned away to hide my disappointment. I’d lost track of Sylvie, but that was hardly surprising. The floor was hoatching now. She’d probably found an attractive man to spend some time with. A sudden thought struck me and I moved quickly, ignoring the gasps and retaliating shoves of the party makers I forced aside in my panic to catch up with Ulla. At last I saw her brown ponytail bobbing in front of me and put my hand on her arm, halting her.

  'I think I left my wallet in the office. If Kolja’s in there I’ll send him out to you.'

  Ulla looked impatient. Her voice was firm.

  'Nein… danke.'

  She turned her back on me and walked on ahead. I hurried after, trying to think of something that might delay her, hoping I was wrong. We reached the office almost at the same time and I placed my hand across the door.

  'I’ll save you the trouble.'

  Ulla pushed me away, walked into the room and turned on the light.

  Kolja looked like an illustration from a Soviet poster expounding the health of communist ideology. A young pioneer, or a red-kerchiefed Stakhanovite. He stood straight and silent in the centre of the room, his broad chest flung out, muscular arms by his side.

  But the men in the posters had animated faces, full of joy at their role in the construction of the socialist nirvana. Kolja’s face was serene, staring into the small mirror that was tucked amongst the framed pictures on Ray’s wall. He turned his glazed eyes on us, a slight smile touched his lips then he shoved the source of his serenity from her knees and onto the ground.

  Sylvie looked up at us from her position on the floor. Her eyes were glassy. She smiled unsteadily. Kolja started to button himself away; his mouth took on a grim set.

  'Hey, William, Ulla… Happy birthday …’ Sylvie wiped a gloss from her lips. 'You come to join the fun?'

  There was a hiss as Ulla leapt at my assistant, wrestling her to the floor. Sylvie let out a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a groan. Kolja stepped neatly to one side and I bent into the fray. When I managed to pull the girls apart I could feel the scratch of a fingernail down the side of my face and Ulla had a bunch of Sylvie’s sleek hair clutched in her fist. I shoved the struggling girl at her boyfriend and he put his hands on her shoulders, still smiling. I glanced at Kolja, unsure of whether he was stoned or merely enjoying the sight of the two women fighting over him, then looked at Ulla’s stricken face, and felt sorry for her humiliation. I managed to make my voice gentle.

  'Can you not see she’s out of her head?'

  Ulla turned on me.

  'You knew this was happening. You tried to cover for her. Your whore.' Her face screwed into a mask of grief; there was a keening in her shrill voice. 'You wanted me, so you sent her to make trouble.'

  'No… I swear… I didn’t know…'

  My voice faltered against the accusation.

  Sylvie was still on the floor.

  'William?'

  Her voice was thin and confused.

  Ulla spat on Sylvie.

  'She’d open her legs to a dog if it sniffed her.'

  I looked at Ulla, and wondered what I’d seen in her.

  'She’s so drunk she can hardly see.' Sylvie looked at the spit glistening white against her lovely black dress as if wondering how it got there and I realised the truth of what I was saying. 'Into a bit of necrophilia is he, your athlete boyfriend? Look at her, she can hardly move.'

  Ulla said, 'You disgust me.'

  'Not as much as he disgusts me, your fucking boyfriend’s no better than a fucking rapist.'

  Kolja spoke for the first time. His voice was hesitant and it sounded like he had summoned up the total of his English vocabulary.

  'It was nothing. It meant nothing, like a drink or a cigarette.'

  Ulla saw what was going to happen and moved to stop me, but she was too slow and too slight. I pushed her aside with my left hand, balled my right fist and hit Kolja square in the centre of his handsome weak face. The big athlete was caught by surprise. He lost his balance and fell against Ray’s desk, which spewed a blizzard of files and documents onto the floor. Sylvie batted at the spray of papers as they drifted around her. Her voice was soft with awe.

  'William, you just hit Kolja.'

  I grinned at her.

  'Aye, I did and you know what? I’m going to fucking hit him again.'

  Ulla shouted something in German. I leaned in to pull Kolja upright, all the better to get a shot at him, and she leapt on me, clawing at my back. Kolja was beginning to rise from the desk of his own volition and suddenly I realised that if the athlete made it to his feet I was finished. I grabbed Ray’s computer keyboard and slammed it into Kolja’s face. The keyboard was too heavy to make a good weapon, but I stuck with it, amazed at how quickly the white keys became spotted with red, wondering if Ulla’s screams really were in time to the offbeat rhythm of my assault.

  It was a relief to hear the strong German voices of the men who pulled me off. I gasped for breath, not bothering to struggle against their hold, hoping I hadn’t killed him. Then Kolja’s fist crashed into my face. The sound went out of my ears and my eyes filled with red.

  I reeled against the person holding me, and would have fallen if they’d not braced against me. The pain was blinding. I waited for Kolja to take another shot, but it never came. A man I didn’t know shouted something I didn’t understand and didn’t bother to answer.

  I spat blood and said, 'Fuck off the lot of yous, and take that fucking rapist scum with you or I’ll fucking do him for good.'

  It came out as a spray of spit and gore and I doubt anyone understood me but the room emptied anyway and Sylvie and I were left alone.

  There was a silence and I found myself gazing at the photograph of Ray’s granddad with his head inside the polar bear’s mouth. A moment of triumph followed by decapitation, that’s entertainment.

  Sylvie looked up at me from the floor. The fringes of her dress were rucked around her waist; her red lipstick smeared across her mouth. She still wore the plaster and glass tiara, but it was sideways on now, a stupid gewgaw, not even a slipped halo. My assistant’s eyes were wide, her voice small and distant as if she were talking to me from a long way off.

  She said, 'What’s so terrible about being called a whore?'

  Glasgow

  THERE ISN’T MUCH between the magic you perform for adults and the type that you do for children. Once again, the difference is in the delivery, the patter, the flimflam, whatever it is that you want to call the chat and flourishes that distract the eye and make the audience want to indulge the conjurer’s art.

  I’d always looked down on children’s entertainers as a suspicious mix of arrested-development failures, half-arsed amateurs and prospective paedophiles. Now I was grateful that Johnny’s gig was for a family audience. It would be as far from my disasters in Berlin as it was possible to get and still be conjuring.

  I said goodbye to Eilidh, set down the receiver and stood for a second in the shelter of the phone booth wondering what to do next. There were a dozen pubs and a similar number of bookies within yards of where I was standing. I’d withdrawn the last of the money stashed in the wardrobe before I’d left my room. Over the previous months I’d frittered it on drink, resolved never to touch it
, then frittered it again. I pushed the thought of a pint and a flutter out of my head and walked along the Trongate, past the born-again preachers, the animal rights activists, the Big Issue vendors, buskers, flower sellers and fake perfume boys until I found a cut-price opticians I’d noticed before. I went in and sorted out a supply of disposable contact lenses, then found a barbershop and had a haircut. I stepped freshly shorn into Princes Square and bought myself a flashy purple shirt that set me back a whack and a pay-asyou-go mobile phone that didn’t. Finally, I broke away from the weekend shopping chaos and set off towards the Magician’s Den.

  Conjuring manuals are like recipe books, OK if all you want is a passable trick or an acceptable cake, but if you want to create something superlative then you must seek out people you can persuade to share their secrets with you. To do that you have to find the place where the masters hang out and maybe after a while they’ll deign to notice you, and maybe a while after that, if you make yourself useful enough, they’ll let a few tips drop your way.

  I pushed open the door of the Den and heard the familiar bell ding news of my arrival into the backroom. Bruce had told me once that he considered his shop as dramatic as any stage.

  'I give the customers a moment to soak up the ambience, the strangeness, and then I make my entrance.'

  Nothing seemed to have changed much. The long counter still stretched the length of the small sales area, displaying jokes and novelties beneath its glass top. The more expensive paraphernalia was at the furthest end, nearest to Bruce’s cubbyhole, where he could keep an eye on it. High above the shelves were the rubberised masks, crones and old men, Boris Karloff creations, animals and politicians, including a set of American presidents stretching back all the way to Richard Nixon. Behind the masks hung framed replicas of ancient theatrical posters advertising Harry Houdini and his ilk, dressed in lion-skin togas or long combinations, battling with wild beasts, wrestling free of chains, tightroping across impossible gorges. The velvet curtain, whose figured pattern concealed a small spy hole, drew to one side and out stepped Bruce McFarlane dressed in his brown shop coat.

  'William, long time no see.'

  It was three years since I’d last been in the shop, but Bruce didn’t seem surprised. He was forty-five when I met him twenty-odd years ago, and a very old man to my ten-year-old eyes. He was nigh on seventy now, but I’d say he looked a little younger than he did then. I nodded up at the presidents past.

  'Jimmy Carter, Bruce?'

  'Ach, you never know, William, there’s a lot of seventies parties on the go. Someone might want to go as the auld Peanut King.' He opened a flap in the counter. 'Didnae know when we were well off, eh?' He stuck his hand out and shook mine, holding my elbow with one hand while he grasped my palm with the other, the closest to a manly hug his generation ever got. He gave me a smile and I knew he was pleased to see me. 'Come away through and I’ll stick the kettle on.'

  The backroom was as unchanged as the main shop. This was where the real business was done, the trading and exchanges, the gossiping and boasting. I’d thought I’d find a few of the other conjurers in here having a Saturday morning gab, but I was pleased to see that apart from us and dizzying piles of stock the place was empty.

  'All on your own?'

  'Like the Marie Celeste in here today, William. There’s a magic convention over Paisley way, I was going to go myself but my wee Saturday laddie’s got exams coming up and his mother phoned to say he wasn’t allowed out the house.' He shook his head. 'No like you, eh, William?'

  I smiled.

  'No, Mr McFarlane.'

  'Aye, best wee Saturday laddie I ever had. Always on time and spent all your wages in the shop.' The kettle boiled and Bruce put a teabag, two sugars and milk into two mugs before adding water. 'But you’re not here to reminisce are you?'

  'It’s always good to catch up…'

  'But you’ve got a favour you’d like to ask.'

  He passed me a mug and I took a sip; it was too sweet.

  'Just a wee one.' I reached into my inside pocket and took out a small card I’d written while I was getting my haircut. 'I’m doing a charity gig…'

  Bruce raised his eyebrows.

  'Not like you, William.'

  I ignored the gibe.

  'See if I give you the details will you send folk my way? It’s for a good cause.'

  'Course I will.' He took a sip of his own tea, frowned and added another teaspoonful of sugar. 'Now, tell me what you’re really after.' The bell pinged and Bruce cocked his head like a bright-eyed parrot that’s just heard the lid of the cracker jar being unscrewed. He waited three beats then said, 'Excuse me a sec…'

  I peeked through the hole in the curtain as he strolled down the counter to serve two ten-year-olds, treating them like maharajas. When he returned ten minutes later he was grinning.

  'Fake dog poo.'

  'Still your fastest seller?'

  'From eight to eighty.' He laughed. 'It’s a classic gag.'

  'Aye, a fucking hoot.'

  Bruce raised his eyebrows.

  'You’ll have to ditch that language if you’re going into kiddie conjuring.'

  'Sorry, I’ll go and wash my mouth out with some of your special soap.'

  Bruce laughed.

  'Not as popular as it used to be, but still funny.'

  'Not everything has the longevity of plaster of Paris poo.'

  'No,' Bruce shook his head sadly. 'It’s a pity that.'

  We sat drinking sweet tea and eating ginger biscuits, while Bruce filled me in on what had been happening in the Scottish magic scene. Genie McSweenie’s rabbit had been kidnapped at a rugby club social and held to ransom — it wasn’t funny, William, the poor beast was traumatised; Stevie Star had crashed his van on the way back from Perth; Peter Presto had moved to America to take a shot at the big time; and Manfred the Great had been exposed as a kiddie fiddler.

  'I always thought there was something not right about him.'

  Bruce dunked his gingernut into his tea and nodded then sat up straight. The tea-soaked end of the biscuit lost out to gravity and plopped into his mug.

  'That reminds me …’ he shook his head. '… See, that’s what happens when you get to my age, bloody senility. There was a chap phoned a few weeks ago looking for you.'

  'Yes?'

  'English bloke, said he’d seen you somewhere and mislaid your number. I told him I didn’t have a contact for you, but he sounded keen.'

  Bruce looked worried; concerned I might have missed a gig or even my big break.

  'Pushy even?'

  'A wee bit, typical cocky cockney, you know the kind. I met a lot of them in the forces.

  Nice enough fellas once you get to know them but they think anything north of London’s outer space.'

  'Did he leave a number?'

  Bruce’s face brightened.

  'He did indeed.' His mouth dropped again and he looked around the tiny backroom piled high with mysterious parcels. 'But where did I put it?'

  I selected what I was going to need for Johnny’s show while Bruce rummaged through the drawers and boxes that constituted his filing system, cooing over odds and ends he thought he’d lost, until eventually he found the scrap of paper he’d scribbled my name onto and a mobile number below.

  'Bingo! I knew I had it somewhere.' Bruce looked at the props I’d assembled. 'You want me to wrap that lot up for you?'

  'If you want.'

  He shook his head, lifted a fluffy toy rabbit from the top of my pile and looked at me from between its long ears.

  'Changed days, William, changed days.' Bruce totted up my purchases and started to putting them into bags. He put on his best shopkeeper manner. 'Now, will Sir be requiring anything else?'

  I told him and he shook his head.

  'You always were a bloody pain in the arse, William, even when you were a kid.'

  'A minute ago I was the best Saturday laddie you ever employed.' I grinned at him.

  'Come on Bruce,
it’s in a good cause, wee Down’s Syndrome kids. I’ll get you a mention in the programme. The place’ll be full of weans. Who knows how much fake dog shite you’ll sell on the back of this.'

  'The word is poo, William, we don’t say shite in this shop.' His expression softened.

  'Aye, go on then. But you can arrange the bloody transport yourself.'

  I remembered an Internet café somewhere near George Square; I walked through the Saturday-afternoon shoppers until I found it, waited in the long queue to buy a coffee, keeping my head down, hoping I wouldn’t meet anyone I knew, then rented time on a computer.

  The author of The Friday the Thirteenth Vanishing, the book devoted to Gloria’s disappearance, was a man called Drew Manson. He’d written three other books, all of them following the demise of unfortunate women, all of them out of print. I punched the title and author’s name into a search engine and let out a low Yes when the hits appeared on the screen. I smiled a silent apology at the studious girl on the next computer and clicked on Manson’s website. It had a clumsy homemade feel, but I was its thousand-and-fifth visitor.

  The most recent postings wavered between hurt and outrage. All of them lamented the lack of new editions of Manson’s books, in the same faintly florid style. At the bottom of the page were an email address and an invitation to contact Manson with any new information relating to the crimes in his books. I might be a cynical bachelor who’d forfeited all hope of romance, but I was growing to love the Internet.

  I set up a new email account, VeritableCrimePublishing@hotmail.com, and sent Manson an invitation to meet and discuss the possibility of a new edition of his book in the light of Bill Noon’s tragic death. Then I looked at the links from Manson’s site. There were reviews of his books, some long-past festivals Manson had read at and the address for the website of the National Missing Persons Helpline. I clicked on the link and started to scroll through the images of the disappeared.