Charles Butler wondered if it was just the dubious perk of a very large nose, for he was the only one who seemed to be put off by the faint odor, that stale souvenir of yesterday’s dead man emanating from the platform room. Riker was unaffected. The detective chewed on his pastrami sandwich as he stood by the open door.
Charles forced a smile, knowing full well that every happy expression made him look like a circus clown on medication. He hoped it might assuage the cold anger in Mallory’s face. „Locked yourself in?“
Oh, wait. That was the wrong thing to say. It implied an error on her part.
„No, I didn’t!“ She turned away, dismissing him as she spoke to Riker. „Someone locked me in and cut the electricity.“
Riker stopped chewing, his eyes clearly saying, What?
Charles looked up at the rack of burning spotlights overhead. And beyond the opening of the back curtain, he could see the glow of footlights and the brilliant chandelier, all clear indications of uninterrupted energy. But he was not inclined to point this out to Mallory. „Well, you know the wiring is new. There might be a problem with – “
„It wasn’t faulty wiring,“ she said. „The timing was too damn perfect.“
There was only one way to take the tone in her voice. She was obviously counting him among her enemies. The enemy team was everyone who was not in complete agreement with her.
Charles braved the odor as he entered the platform room and reached up to the lamp suspended from the ceiling. He unscrewed the lightbulb and shook it. „You’re right, it wasn’t the wiring.“ He emerged from the room, shaking it again so she could hear the sound of the metal filament against the glass. This was the time-honored test of a burnt-out bulb. Now that should reassure her.
Too late, he saw his second error of the afternoon. He looked down at the dead bulb in his hand and shrugged his apology for this indisputable evidence against her own theory.
Riker made a game effort to distract her from Charles, saying, „If Nick Prado hadn’t mentioned that you were – “
„Where is Prado now?“ She was not in a pleasant mood.
„Here I am.“
Charles looked toward the end of the stage behind the backdrop curtain and beyond the reach of the overhead lights. In this shadowy silhouette that didn’t show his paunch, Nick Prado might pass for his own delusion of never-ending youth.
„Someone locked me inside the platform.“ Mallory was glaring at Nick, not exactly aiming for ambiguity in that accusation.
Feeling a draft at the back of his neck, Charles turned to the square hole in the wall where the window glass had not yet been installed. A sheet of plastic had come loose at one corner, allowing a steady breeze in his direction. So the wind had blown the door shut. He hesitated to mention this. First, there was the rudeness of pointing out the obvious. And then, she so disliked being corrected, particularly when she was wrong.
Riker, wise man, jammed his hands in his pockets and kept silent.
„Only the wind,“ said Nick Prado. „You get a lot of things wrong, don’t you, Mallory?“ He was aging badly with every step toward the lights. „Take Louisa’s death. It looked accidental to me. I was there, and you weren’t.“
Mallory was cooler now. Her words had only the barest trace of malice. „It might’ve been staged as an accident, but she wasn’t mortally wounded.“
Nick seemed to be considering this as he walked beyond the backdrop curtain to look over the new bags from the deli. „She could’ve died from shock. That happens.“
„In fifteen minutes? Not enough time,“ said Mallory, walking away to inspect the plastic over the window.
Charles noticed that Nick was slightly irritated, disliking her insult of the turned back.
„Right, I keep forgetting. You know everything.“ Nick looked down at the fun-house mirror that served as a tabletop. It was littered with paper bags and a half-empty bottle of champagne. He lifted the bottle and held it out to Riker in an obvious invitation.
In a rare exception to habit, Riker shook his head, declining to drink with the man, and Charles had to wonder about that. A half hour ago, the detective had no problem lifting a glass with this man. And who could eat a pastrami sandwich without something to wash it down?
Nick poured wine for himself. „You know, it could’ve been shock. During the war, textbook rules for death were broken all the time.“
Mallory was busy collecting tenpenny nails from the floor beneath the plastic window covering. „The medical examiner said – “
„Do you ever listen}“ Prado raised his voice. „To anyone?“
Charles was staring into his wineglass, as if it might offer him sanctuary, and Riker was looking at his scuffed shoes. But Mallory did no bloodletting. She only dropped her collection of nails into a zippered compartment of her knapsack.
Nick continued, expanding his voice in a stage projection, as if he had a larger audience. „One morning toward the end of the war, a plane went down near my field camp. It was in flames seconds after it smashed into the ground.“
He paused for dramatic effect, and Mallory squashed the moment, saying, „I don’t have time for war stories.“
„Shut up!“ said Prado, in a rare display of anger – in fact, the only show of temper Charles had ever witnessed.
Oddly enough, Mallory did shut up, ignoring the man as she opened a notebook to a page of numbers, which she seemed to find more interesting.
Nick went on in a louder voice. „One wing was sheared off in the crash, and the nose section was crushed. A dozen of us ran across the field toward the fire. And then – ten yards from the wreck, I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.“
He turned to Mallory – a mistake. She did not care what he was looking at, past or present. Only slightly daunted, Nick played to Riker now. „The plane’s three crewmen were walking away from the crash – unharmed. Well, this was impossible. Everyone aboard should’ve died. But the crew walked away – all of them. They sat down in the shade of a farmhouse, and there they died. It was over in minutes. Minutes. Not a mark on them, not one injury in the lot.“
„Shock?“ said Riker, in an effort to be a polite audience.
Mallory, clearly unimpressed, ran her pencil down a column of numbers. „Shock doesn’t work for me.“
„Me either,“ said Nick. „I had a different idea. All three men had seen the ground coming up to kill them. People believe their senses, and this was an indisputable fact – there was no way they could’ve survived that crash. I think those three boys bowed to the logic of their situation. It was absurd to be alive, and so they closed their eyes and died.“
Charles thought the man might take a bow, but he only retired to sit on the steps of the platform and sip from his wineglass.
Mallory’s attitude changed to mere annoyance on the level reserved for flies. „For the last time, Louisa was not mortally wounded. She had no idea she was going to die until that bastard put a pillow over her face.“
„Mallory, you don’t know that,“ said Charles. „What went on at the poker game – it was all speculation. You can’t expect Edward to do an autopsy secondhand and half a century late.“
„Thank you, Charles,“ she said, not at all thankful, and making the strong suggestion that he should close his mouth – now. She folded up her notebook of numbers. „Oliver’s death was no accident, either.“
„Poor Oliver,“ said Nick. „The Quixotic aura of the hapless failure. But in reality, it was a rather pedestrian death. He screwed up the trick. Life can be so simple, Mallory, if you will only let it.“
Nick was entirely too smug. Apparently, Mallory was about to adjust his expression. All the signals were there. She was rising off the balls of her feet, all but levitating in anticipation of a strike. If she had a tail, it would be switching. Charles adored her feline grace – but some of the things cats did just turned his stomach.
In the spirit of throwing himself in the path of raking claws aimed at the older man, he said, „Nick’s right, Mallory. Oliver did mess up the trick. He obviously didn’t know the effect – “
„You’ve been talking to Malakhai.“ Her implication was clear. Charles stood accused of consorting with her enemy, his lifelong friend.
„Just a series of accidents?“ Her eyebrows arched. „All right.“ Her hands moved to her hips. There would not be another warning sign. „I’ve seen the error of my ways.“ She said this too gently. „But what about that nasty little corpse I found inside the platform? Oliver’s nephew? Remember him?“
Nick slugged back the rest of his champagne. „The boy died of a drug overdose. Everyone knew Richard was an addict. There was a spot of blood on his shirtsleeve. That came from the needle, right? But no blood from the arrow. The dead don’t bleed – so there was no murder.“ He waved his hand. „Lessons of war.“
And now Charles could tell that Riker was listening between the words. The detective exchanged glances with his partner. In silent understanding, Mallory retreated to the side of the platform as he drifted closer to Nick.
„You said everyone knew the kid was a junkie.“ Riker fished through his pockets. „But how? The kid went to a lot of trouble to hide his habit – needle tracks in the soles of his feet, behind his knees.“ He pulled out a worn notebook and sat down on the steps with Nick. „Oliver Tree knew about his nephew’s habit. He paid for the kid’s treatment. But it’s not something the uncle would’ve bragged about, is it?“
The detective flipped through the pages, scanning the penciled lines. „Oh, here we go.“ He had found the page he was looking for. „You and your friends, St. John and Futura, you all got into town the day Oliver Tree died. That was your statement to the police. None of you spent any time with the old guy since the war.“
„That’s true,“ said Nick. „We got to know Oliver’s nephew after the accident. The boy was always hitting us up for money, just a few dollars here and there, but it was obvious he needed cash. That’s why I gave him the crossbow job in the parade.“
Riker’s pen was working across the page. His tone was dry. „And the kid told you he needed money for drugs?“ Unspoken were the words Fat chance.
„It was a simple observation.“
Riker nodded. „From a spot of blood on his shirtsleeve. Not bad. More lessons of war?“
„You could say that,“ said Nick. „I spent some time in an army hospital. I had my own flirtation with morphine.“
Charles avoided looking directly at Mallory. „So it was a drug overdose. Well, let’s say Richard crawled into his uncle’s platform for privacy. Workmen were coming and going all the time. He didn’t want anyone to see him shoot up, did he? Say he got locked in the platform, the same way – “
In peripheral vision, Charles detected a sudden rigidity in Mallory’s body language, and he altered his thought in mid-sentence. „Maybe Richard couldn’t find the light chain. He might have panicked in the dark. Now if the crossbows had been stored in there – “
„Right,“ said Mallory, nearly congenial. „He tripped in the dark and fell on the arrow – after he’d been dead for a few days. Oh, Nick didn’t tell you that part.“ She turned to the magician and inclined her head, all but taking a bow. „Lessons of war, Prado.“
Her war, of course.
„And Forensics didn’t find a syringe inside the platform room,“ said Riker.
Mallory nodded. „A tidy dead man. I like that. And talented too. I know the corpse was still moving around after death. The marks on his back matched up with the pattern of the floor grate in his apartment. That’s where he died. But we won’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.“
She turned to the door of the platform. „So the dead man picks himself up off the floor of his apartment, and – still dead, he takes the subway. I’m guessing the corpse traveled cheap. You see, after he died, he left his wallet back in the apartment. No cash for a cab, but he did have a transit card in his pocket. So then the dead man walks into the theater and locks himself inside the platform – accidentally. See? I’m a good sport. I’m looking for the flaws in my logic. And sticking the arrow into his own dead body – days after death? Well, that was a trick and a half.“
Charles could see where she was going with this monologue. Nick Prado’s condescending smile was telegraphing the news that he had caught her in an error or a lie.
Arms folded, she stood over Nick, looking down at him and smiling, „So, tell me what part I didn’t get right.“
And the trap snapped shut.
Nick’s eyes widened only a little – just enough to indicate that he might know the details better than she did. Or, he might only be surprised by the implied accusation.
Charles stepped between them, smiling, as if that would save his own hide. „But Richard wasn’t actually murdered if the arrow – “
„But Oliver was.“ She shot Charles a look to ask why he would step on her best line. Was he trying to deflect damage away from Nick?
Well, yes, of course. And it was going to cost him.
She walked away from him, pausing by the curtain. There was reproach in that turned back and in her voice. „You knew that old man, Charles.“
„Actually, I hadn’t seen him in a long – “
„You knew him, and you liked him.“ Mallory turned around to show him how shocked she was, though her expression was somewhat contrived. „Oliver died all alone on that platform, scared out of his mind while he was being murdered.“
Now Charles was in the odd position of being lectured on his lack of sensitivity, but – by Mallory} How to explain that unlikely event? Perhaps she did possess genuine human compassion.
No, that’s not it.
But he knew she had some agenda beyond correcting his imagined attitude problem, his lack of outraged indignation for an accidental death.
She stalked off toward the steps leading down from the stage. „Oliver was murdered. So don’t talk to me about accidents, Charles. Don’t talk to me at all.“
That sounded final – false, but final.
The lines were drawn, and she had left him standing on the other side with Nick Prado. Riker was following his partner up the center aisle, distancing himself from the enemy camp.
Only four hours had passed since they had parted company on the sidewalk outside the theater. Riker looked around the den of Mallory’s Upper West Side condo and wondered how she had pulled this off. It took most New Yorkers ten days to have a couch transported from a downtown furniture store to an uptown address. She had moved the contents of an entire room more than eighty blocks north of Charles Butler’s SoHo building.
Mallory sat at a computer keyboard, fingers flying, tapping, typing. „Was I wrong about the grate?“
„Yeah, I didn’t find any floor grates in the stiff’s apartment. But the marks on his back match up to a heat register in the theater. I found it after I pulled the crime scene tapes.“
„Heller’s team missed that?“
„They weren’t looking for it, Mallory. They didn’t undress the corpse at the crime scene. There was no – “
„Right, nothing fancy for a dead junkie. Just another damn accident.“
But the platform had been examined in great detail. Heller had come to the crime scene and personally supervised the crew. And this made Riker wonder what kind of dirt Mallory might have on the head of Forensics.
He looked down at his notes. „The heat register was in a little room backstage. That’s probably where Richard was shooting up. There’s a lock on that door.“
„A locked room wouldn’t be a problem for anybody on my short list,“ said Mallory. „Is that where Heller’s techs found the wallet?“
„Yeah, but you were right about the money – no cab fare. He must have spent his wad on the heroin.“ Riker folded his notebook back into his breast pocket.
There had been one bad moment upon walking into Mallory’s den. It went beyond deja vu. But for the view of Central Park, he might have been standing in her private office back at Charles’s place in SoHo. She had even re-created the alignment of the computer terminals at perfect right angles to the windows. The one bare wall was a moving projection of larger than life-size spectators at the Thanksgiving Day parade.
„That’s film from the six o’clock news,“ she said. „Some tourist sold his videotape to the network.“
Why couldn’t Mallory just watch the news on television like a normal person? He stood before the wall, looking up at the projected image. The camera was focused on a rocky knoll in Central Park. The outcrop loomed behind the low wall along the sidewalk. The volume was turned down, but he could still hear the broadcaster’s interview with the amateur cameraman, a sixty-year-old tourist from Rhode Island.
Eyes on the knoll, Riker waited to see what would happen next. And now there was a white puff of smoke among the shadows of trees and rocks.
A gunshot?
Yes, the broadcaster was confirming that the timing of the white smoke was in perfect sync with the sound of a gun. And now the television voice was lamenting that the network’s weapons expert, a writer of technothrillers, could not be reached for comment. The shot from the rocky knoll would kill the novelist’s carefully diagrammed trajectory. Mallory could not have fired the bullet that brought down the balloon.
„So, you’re off the hook for shooting the big puppy.“
„Not yet.“ She depressed a button on the projector’s remote control. The tape ran backward until the white puff of smoke had uncreated itself and sipped back into the shadows of rocks and trees. „They still claim there were three shots. So now I’m part of a conspiracy. I’m also a suspect in the death of Crossbow Man and Oliver Tree.“
„Well, let Slope release the autopsy findings. Why sit on it now? We already gave it away to Prado.“
Mallory reran the tape and froze the image on the wall. She was staring at the still shot of a cloud of smoke. She pointed to the rocky knoll. „Guess who that is.“
Riker walked closer to the wall. „Too grainy. I can’t make out a thing.“ He looked around the room one more time. „When did you have time to move all this stuff out of SoHo?“
„I hired a crew of art handlers. They’re very careful with sensitive equipment.“
And they probably would not recognize its illicit uses and applications. The most delicate electronic lockpicks were in the carton Riker had carried up from the trunk of her car.
He settled into a cold metal chair. „How did Charles take it when you told him you were moving all your stuff out?“
„There’s only one way to take it. The partnership is over. He’s too careless with the locks.“
Or perhaps Charles had not been careful enough in picking his friends. One of these crimes had been the deciding factor. „So you didn’t tell Charles you were leaving.“
No, of course not. She had left the poor bastard to walk innocently into an empty room and figure it out for himself. „I guess you don’t need Max Candle’s platform anymore?“
Mallory pointed to the small screen of a computer. It scrolled columns of numbers and symbols glowing white on a field of blue. „It’s all in there – the whole apparatus.“
He picked up the green velvet bag from the edge of her steel desk and slipped out the rod of dangling key plugs. „I can see why the old guys kept these things.“
„Now do you believe the keys were switched?“
„Yeah, but I still got a few problems with your theory. What about that line you handed me at the parade? ‘My perp loves spectacle.’ That’s what you said.“
„And you figured I was just spinning a story? No, I only lied to Coffey.“ It was clear that she considered that an honorable lie, only doing what was expected of her. „I know what you’re thinking. It’s a matter of style. Oliver died screaming, lots of noise and flash. But the gunshot at the parade was real straightforward, wasn’t it? Quick and to the point. The shooter only wanted to get it over with. The victim would never know what happened to him.“ Mallory turned to the image on the wall, the puff of smoke. „That’s Malakhai up there on the rocks.“ She switched it off.
„And the Central Park murder?“
„I like Nick Prado for that one. A public relations man makes spectacles for a living. But I’m keeping my options open.“ Now she revolved on her chair, turning to study his face. „Someone locked me in that platform. Do you believe me?“
Riker knew that she was really asking if he was on her side. „Yeah. If it was just the locked door or the bulb by itself – but I’m not a big believer in coincidence. I figure one of those things had to be deliberate.“
„The door was deliberate.“ She pulled a clear bag from her knapsack and tossed it on the desk. Inside were five shiny nails. „Those came from the plastic sheet over that backstage window. They didn’t fall out by themselves. He wanted to make it look accidental, like the wind blew the door shut. And the dead bulb was deliberate, too.“
„Mallory, Charles showed you the bulb. You heard – “
„Charles knows as much about electricity as you do.“ She turned on her desk lamp. „Keep your eye on that lightbulb.“ She bent down toward the socket.
Riker was watching the lamp when he saw the spark and heard the noise, and then the bulb went dead. Mallory removed it from the socket. When she shook it, he could hear the filament against the glass.
„I shorted it out with this.“ She held up a metal nail file. „The cable for the platform lamps was on an independent fuse. That’s why only one light went out. If Faustine’s Magic Theater had been an exact replica, I could’ve shown you a burnt-out fuse, but Oliver upgraded to switches.“
Riker sat down on the edge of her desk and folded his arms. „So you like Nick Prado for that setup?“
„Maybe. I’m guessing Futura was in the men’s room throwing up when you and Charles got back to the theater. But that could’ve been an act.“
„I didn’t see him around. But I don’t think Futura could do anything that – “
„Because he’s a rabbit? He’s more interesting than you know. He was in the Resistance during the war. That doesn’t fit either, does it? He stays on the list. So where were the other two when you walked in?“
„Prado and St. John were in the lobby. We kibitzed for a few minutes before me and Charles went inside the theater.“
„Could’ve been any one of them. Somebody wanted to restore my faith in accidents. Or maybe he just wanted to make me look hysterical. That worked on Charles, didn’t it? He bought the whole thing.“
Poor Charles. But she had a good point. In the early days as a beat cop handling domestic disputes, Riker had noticed that men relied heavily on the hysterical-woman defense: Who could take the word of a bloodied woman who could not stop crying?
So someone had come up with a novel variation on a bad old game, and Charles had fallen for it. Riker could think of a few more reasons for the breakup of Mallory’s business relationship – Charles Butler’s big brain, his giveaway face and proximity to all the suspects. She had been wise to distance herself, but she should have done it the right way.
„I almost forgot.“ He pulled a CD from the pocket of his suitcoat and set it on the corner of her desk. „A present. Louisa’s Concerto. Emile St. John wanted you to have it.“
She opened the case and slipped the disk into a computer slot. A full orchestra poured out of amplifiers in every wall. He was surrounded by musical instruments, a wall of sound. It was classical, not his taste, and he listened with the confusion of trying to sort out an alien language.
„Pretty, I guess. But you know what your old man would say? What good is it if you can’t dance to it?“
That had been his old friend’s criterion for all the music in an extensive collection of blues, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll. Even the slow, sad tunes did something to the human body. But now the dead woman’s music was touching him in other ways. Suddenly, it had his complete attention, as if the strings and horns were speaking to him in a more familiar language. This passage had a sad, lonely feeling.
The phone rang. Riker’s hand hovered over the receiver while he read the printed line on the caller-ID machine. „It’s Charles.“
„Don’t answer it.“
„You’re gonna let him sit around staring at the walls in your empty office till he figures out where things went wrong? Is that the plan?“
„Yeah, so?“
„He’s a friend of yours, remember? And your old man liked him, too.“
Louisa’s Concerto was plaintive now, lending melancholy to the ring of the telephone, backing it up with the low octaves of a sad, sorry horn. And now Riker was surprised. While the concerto affected Mallory not at all, the telephone made her inexplicably sad. Her head moved slowly from side to side, as if she could shake off the blues this way.
Riker’s solution was to turn up the volume of the music and avert his eyes from the phone. „So if Charles isn’t on your side all the way down the line – “
„Riker, save it, okay?“
When the phone ceased to ring, he looked at it, as if a conversation had ended abruptly, with no satisfying resolution.
Mallory switched on the answering machine so the ringing would not disturb her again.
„Did you leave the guy a note?“
„No!“ Mallory’s eyes were fixed on the computer screen. Her face was masklike as she merged with her machine.
Realizing that he did not exist anymore, not for her, Riker quietly let himself out.
An hour had passed before Mallory looked up from the computer screen. Where she had been all that time, she did not know. Her internal clock had failed her again. This was happening more often. Perhaps it was only an effect of Emile St. John’s wine.
She had finished cannibalizing files from a computer game of sudden death by joystick. It contained all the lines of programming to fire the onscreen crossbows.
The phone rang twice, and then she listened to Charles’s voice on the answering machine. „Mallory? Are you there?“
Not really. She was intent on the screen where her creation came alive, numbers and symbols translating into an image that revolved in space like a three-dimensional object, showing her all its sides, then upending itself to expose the base. She switched on the projector at the other end of a flat feed cable. Now the image was cast on the wall. The platform continued to turn in slow revolutions.
„Mallory, please pick up if you’re there,“ said the disembodied voice on the phone.
She tapped the keys to make the staircase wall transparent, disclosing the interior mechanisms of the lazy tongs and the levers.
„I’ll change all the locks,“ said Charles.
She diddled the keys again and again. One trapdoor dropped down into the platform. The lazy tongs slowly emerged, opening the metal arms, spreading them wide to support the cape.
„Will you call me back?“ There was not much hope in Charles’s request. „You are planning to explain this, right?“
Wrong. Mallory fired off four animated crossbows. One by one, they hit the target. And now she extended the time between the shots.
„We should talk.“ Charles was showing some wear in his voice. „This is – well, it’s cold.“
You think I’m a monster.
„No, I didn’t mean it that way,“ said Charles, as if he could hear her thoughts. „When I walked into that empty office – I was so surprised.“
She set off another round of graphic arrows.
„Goodbye, Mallory.“
The high-tech toy was boring her. Charles had been right about one thing. A simple escape routine was too simplistic for a Max Candle illusion. Where was the magic? The collapsing cape was only a taste, a teaser.
„Of course, I didn’t mean goodbye in any permanent sense,“ said the persistent voice on her machine.
Where was the magic?
„I only meant goodbye for now.“ Charles paused. „So – “
There must be more to it. She killed the platform animation and cued up the tape of Oliver’s murder. The old man was back on the wall, dying again.
„So, you’ll call?“
Yeah, sure.
Max Candle always died. He was not supposed to escape all the arrows.
„Goodbye,“ said Charles.
But all the crossbows had fired, and there was not a fake arrow in the pack.
„For now,“ Charles amended himself.
She stared at the wall where Oliver was being shot to death. If the trick was incomplete, how could Malakhai know it was botched?
Another hour had been lost inside the machine, perfecting her own illusion. The door buzzer called her out of a trance of codes and numbers.
Charles? It had to be. Frank the doorman liked him. On her last birthday, he had allowed Charles into the building unannounced, so she could be surprised with flowers. And of course there had been a generous tip. Had she punished the doorman for that? No, it must have slipped her mind.
Five minutes later, the incessant buzz was getting on her nerves, and she really wanted to hurt Frank for failing to announce a visitor. She left the den and walked down the hallway, irate and laying plans to verbally gut the doorman so this would never happen again. But right this minute, she was going to cut Charles dead with a few terse remarks so she could get back to work.
When Mallory opened the door, Rabbi Kaplan was standing in the corridor. Oh, fine. Now what would she do with all this excess adrenaline?
„It’s late,“ said the rabbi. „I won’t come in. This shouldn’t take very long.“
His face was not committed to any particular expression, and she had no idea how much trouble she might be in.
„It’s about what happened yesterday,“ he said. „Mr. Halpern tells me you took time out of your busy day to yell at his only son.“
The rabbi’s hand went up to silence her before she could interrupt. „I understand you accused the poor man of parental abuse. When the son came home that night, Mr. Halpern spent hours reassuring him, telling him he was not really a – what did you call him? A heartless little bastard.“
„I didn’t – “
„Excuse me, Kathy. Was I finished talking? I don’t think so.“
He smiled, and now Mallory was on guard.
„Well, the son fired his own father.“ Rabbi Kaplan undid the latches on his briefcase. „Mr. Halpern wanted you to know that he had finally retired. That’s all, Kathy.“
No way.
The rabbi was only lulling her into a false idea of escape. He would follow up with a killer punch line. Once, he had been wickedly good at this game. Now he was becoming predictable.
„I’m not buying it, Rabbi. You could’ve phoned in that lecture.“
„But not this.“ He extracted a small, flat package from his briefcase and looked down at it for a moment. „It seems that no one ever apologized to Mr. Halpern for the inconvenience of being put in a concentration camp – for the murders of his parents, his entire family. He was charmed by your apology for the paint gun man.“ Rabbi Kaplan held out the package. „This is a gift for you. He worked on it all day.“
She unwrapped the package and held up a framed portrait in colored pencil. A schoolgirl’s face floated in loose waves of long red hair. Faraway blue eyes were deep in thought, as if the girl were working on a great problem – how to survive in hell.
Mallory looked up at the rabbi. „Louisa Malakhai?“
Rabbi Kaplan nodded. „Good, isn’t it?“ He strolled back to the elevator, and she walked alongside him. „That was copied from old journal sketches he made when he was young – when he had plans to be an artist. Mr. Halpern is a talented man, and a very happy one. Now he has all the time in the world to draw his pictures. So you got him fired.“ The rabbi shrugged. „By his own son.“ He pressed the button to call the elevator. „So? All in all, you did well.“
His smile was entirely too sweet, and she braced herself for the coming shot.
„If it matters to you, Kathy, I still agree with Helen.“ The elevator opened, and he stepped inside the humming box. „I find you quite perfect – twisted as you are.“ The metal doors closed on his great pleasure in her annoyance.
The rabbi’s timing was flawless, as always. Once again, he had gotten the last word. She had yet to beat him at this game. But he was getting older, slowing down – his day would come.