At the back of Charles Butler’s building, the private office was sheltered from the noise and the tourist hustle of SoHo streets. It overlooked a city garden of monster weeds, trash cans and their attendant rats, but high-pitched squeals and the scrabbles of tiny nails did not penetrate the closed windows of the second floor. The room was furnished with cold metal and decorated with extreme order and death. Mallory never saw this as metaphor, but seriously believed that these environs gave no clue to her personality.
Three computer monitors were perfectly aligned on their separate workstations, soldiers in formation, and each machine had one glowing blue eye. They reported in silent scrolls of text rolling down their screens. One wall of shelves held peripheral electronics, boxes of disks, tools and manuals. The adjacent wall was clear of obstruction from the floorboards to the ceiling molding. Tonight it served as a giant video screen for the taped homicide in Central Park, and Oliver Tree was performing his final act. Mallory set the projection to loop endlessly, to murder the old man, then resurrect him and kill him again and again.
Charles Butler had offered her the warmth of wooden antiques to replace her steel file cabinets, desk and chairs. He had suggested drapes to kill the coldness of the institutional window blinds. And he thought a painting or two might break the monotony of the wall where Oliver Tree was bleeding from four sharp arrows, hanging dead in his chains.
But she preferred her own simple furnishings. They could be reassembled within any set of stark white walls, and she would feel instantly at home in familiar, albeit sterile, surroundings. The surface of the metal workstation was cold to the touch. In deference to her machines, she kept the room temperature several degrees below the range of human comfort.
In the next loop of the projected magic show, Oliver was alive again on the wall, screaming for help and only bleeding from the wound to his neck.
Her chair rolled back from a monitor. After a few quiet hours of research, some of it legal, she had found no trace of Louisa Malakhai. One after another, archivists had lamented that there were no portraits, no certificates of birth or death, no tangible proof that the young composer had ever existed – except for the music, opus number one and only, Louisa’s Concerto.
Mallory reached into the pocket of her blazer and pulled out Louisa Malakhai’s passport. She stared at the mutilated black-and-white photograph inside the cover. Around the scratched-out face were long waving tresses. The light shade must have been the color of bright fire, for Emile St. John had alluded to a red-haired woman.
The passport was Czechoslovakian, but the Interpol connection had turned up no record of Czech citizenship. She flipped through the pages to the last customs stamp. It dated Louisa’s arrival in France to August of 1942. Mallory turned back to the previous stamps and examined them more closely.
Fake? Yes.
Only the final mark was reliable. So Louisa must have used this passport to enter the country. But the letters and numbers of previous stamps were made by the pen of an artist, and not a civil servant with an ink pad. Clever. A new passport might have borne closer scrutiny in wartime Europe. Inside the cover, a circular embossing overlapped the photograph. This raised seal had very few imperfections.
She returned the passport to the pocket of her blazer, where it kept company with Louisa’s French identity card, which had expired late in 1942.
On to Paris?
She looked at the clock on the wall. Just past midnight – too early to go traveling on the Internet. Her European connection would not be at his desk for hours.
Originally, she had cultivated the Interpol man te steal from him, to raid data from his foreign network. But now, she looked forward to his conversations printing across her screen. Because English was not his first language, he was precise in his phrasing, no idiomatic speech or slang. His text was economical, clean and cold. Like the coupling of machines, their intercourse never deviated from software and hardware.
The foreign policeman was her only friend – or the only one not passed down by her foster father, not inherited along with the old man’s pocket watch.
One red fingernail touched the power switch, and the screen went dark. Mallory swiveled her chair toward the wall where Oliver Tree was taking another arrow into his flesh. She watched with detachment, her mind elsewhere, as the next arrow pierced the old man’s heart, and blood streamed over the white breast of his shirt. She switched him off, giving Oliver a respite from his screaming agony, his repetitive dying.
Notebook and pen in hand, Mallory jotted down the data she would need from the platform that took up so much space in the basement. She planned to shrink it to numbers and graphics the size of a monitor screen.
Locking the office door behind her, Mallory treaded quietly past Charles’s residence and on down the hall. Even before she cracked the stairwell door, she could hear the strains of music and a woman in deep pain. She recognized the voice at once – Billie Holiday.
Some blues fan was playing the old record albums on the turntable stored in the cellar.
Mallory leaned over the railing and looked down through the winding wrought-iron staircase. Harsh naked bulbs cast shadows of twisting metal all along two flights of the curved wall. Descending the spiraling stairs, she listened to the song recorded in the early years of a brief career.
Thanks to her foster father, Mallory’s musical education was peerless. At twelve years of age, she could name every record cut by Billie Holiday. Markowitz had called her Lady Day. This song was from the thirties, the high time of the lady’s short life, cutting loose, taking no prisoners, full-out song of songs.
Mallory pulled out her revolver.
The music ended abruptly when she reached the next landing, one flight away from the basement, as the next song began. The intruder had changed the record and the era. Now it was 1946, and the lady’s voice had coarsened.
Mallory paused on the stairs. The high volume of the record player did not bode well for a covert burglary. She knew it wasn’t Charles down there. He only cared for classical music. But he might have left the partition unlocked.
She slid her revolver back into the holster.
So which one of Charles’s tenants might be in the cellar? The third-floor psychiatrist only played rock ‘n’ roll. And the top-floor minimalist artist didn’t listen to anything but the white static between the stations on his radio.
She touched down on the bottom step. The old song ended in the middle of a lyric, and a more recent one began. It was 1955 and Billie Holiday was near the end of her career, three years away from her death at a jazz festival.
Mallory pushed open the stairwell door. Beyond the long field of black shadows, a tall crack of light split the accordion wall. She decided not to use the flashlight on top of the fuse box. If this turned out to be a learning-disabled burglar, she didn’t want to be an obvious target in the dark.
The record had hardly begun when the cut changed again. Lady Day was singing in the fog of London Town as Mallory drew near the partition. She looked down at the large, old-fashioned padlock. It was closed, and the chain was still laced through holes in the joining sections of wood. There was room enough for a hand to fit through the divide, but why would the intruder close the lock behind him?
And what recording was he searching for? Another tune began in 1958, when Billie Holiday was close to death.
Mallory reached into the pocket of her jeans. Her fingers closed on the rod of keys she had pocketed this morning. She held it up to the long crack of light in the partition, unscrewed the metal ball at the top of the shaft and selected the key post that Charles had called a Boer War master. The old padlock fell open, and she silently guided the chain out of the wooden holes.
She used both hands to push against the slats of the folding wall, wincing at the unwelcome noise of unoiled hinges and the wheels of sliding panels moving across the metal tracks in the floor.
And now she was looking at the tall intruder’s back as he bent over the record player and moved the needle to the next cut on the album, a Duke Ellington classic. Lady Day sang, „If you hear a song in blue – “
Apparently, this was the recording he had been searching for. He moved away from the old turntable and walked toward the open wardrobe trunk. His hands were busy at the drawers when she came up behind him.
Malakhai must realize that he was not alone anymore. Her presence had been announced by loud creaking wood and grinding metal, yet he seemed unconcerned, not even bothering to turn around.
This was insulting.
The magician shifted his attention to the garments hanging on the other side of the wardrobe trunk. The white suit was where she had left it this morning, spread across the other clothes on the rack. The satin gleamed as it flowed over his hand.
„I think this will fit you, Mallory.“ He slowly turned his head to show her his smiling profile. „A woman of your word. I look over my shoulder – and there you are.“ His hand brushed a lapel of the white suit. „You’re Louisa’s size. Do you want it?“
„It’s not your property to give away.“
„Oh, but it is. Ask Charles.“ The wave of his arm included all the surrounding stacks of cartons stamped with Faustine’s name. „Max left me all the props, the wardrobe, everything from the theater in Paris. I just never bothered to collect it.“
Malakhai opened a drawer and pulled out a black silk disk. With a quick turn of his wrist and a snap, the full crown of a top hat sprang from its center. He set it on his head. „Faustine bought this for me. I was her apprentice.“
Mallory nodded to the trunk. „Did Faustine buy those clothes for Louisa?“
„No, she never met my wife. The Germans came to town one morning in 1940, and the old woman died that afternoon. Mere coincidence, of course. Faustine never met the German Army either.“
Mallory looked up at the air-shaft window in the rear wall. The glass and the bars were intact. „How did you get in here? Did Charles let you in?“
One hand rose in a dismissive gesture. „Oh please. I was passing through locked doors before he was born.“
Mallory folded her arms in the posture that said, Yeah, right. She was not impressed with his criminal potential. „So you turn on all the lights and crank up the music way too loud. Then you lock the door behind you – so no one will know you’re here? Am I missing something?“
„I’ve confused you. Sorry.“
Not confusing at all. He had probably relocked the door so he would not be interrupted while rifling the trunk. She held up the rod of master keys. „I guess you have one of these. Makes it a lot easier, doesn’t it?“
The music ended. Billie Holiday was gone.
Good. She had had enough of dead women for one night.
Malakhai lit a cigarette and exhaled a stream of smoke as he sat down on a packing crate. A crowbar lay amid splinters of wood on the cement floor. A second plume of smoke rose from an ashtray atop a short stack of cardboard boxes. The filter bore the ruby imprint of a mouth.
Malakhai was staring at her, as he removed his tweed jacket and rolled back the blue silk shirtsleeves. His brows were rising, eyes widening in expectation, all but commanding Mallory to speak. But she saw this form of manipulation as her own job, not his, and she turned away from him to survey the surrounding crates. Half of the lids had been pried open.
He picked up the crowbar and set to work on another one.
„What are you looking for?“
„A case of wine.“ He put his weight on the crowbar, and the top of the crate lifted with the crack of breaking wood and tiny squeals of rusted nails. He looked down at the exposed contents, shaking his head. „Not here either.“
Malakhai dropped the crowbar on the floor and sauntered back to the wardrobe trunk. He pulled out a suit of black sequins. It glittered with a million reflections of the lamplight, so dazzling, almost distracting her from Malakhai’s covert search of the pockets.
„Now you must take this one. Louisa insists.“ He held it out to Mallory. „My wife says blondes look wonderful in black.“
She let the garment shimmer in the air between them, dangling from the hanger in his outstretched hand.
Malakhai nodded his understanding. „As you like.“ He returned the suit to the rack. „But later, you’ll come back for it.“ He glanced toward the space above the ashtray and its smoking cigarette, then smiled at Mallory.
„Louisa says you won’t be able to resist her clothes.“ He watched the plume of smoke for a moment, then nodded, as if in agreement. „The sequins will call out your name. They won’t let you sleep until you give in.“
Mallory suppressed a smile. She knew what he was looking for in the folds and pockets, while he played the part of his dead wife’s Dictaphone.
His head tilted to one side, listening to the smoke again. He pointed to the fabrics at the end of the rack. „And these silks? They’ll force you to take them to a party. They’ll make you stay up all night long, dancing and drinking good wine. Louisa wants you to listen to these clothes. They know what’s best for you.“
„What’s Louisa wearing now?“
„The dress she died in.“ He looked over his shoulder and focused on the smoke rising from the ashtray. „It’s sky blue, almost as light as her eyes.“
Mallory walked over to the trunk and stood close to him. He was wearing an expensive cologne, so discreet she hadn’t noticed it during the poker game. And there was another scent on the air, a flower mingling with the dust of the cellar – a gardenia. She looked down at the open lingerie drawer.
A sachet was tucked in with the garments. „All of your wife’s clothes are here?“
„Well, those dancing shoes belonged to Faustine, but the rest are Louisa’s. There was no armoire in our room. This was her closet. Yes, the clothes are all here, except for the dress. She was buried in that.“
„Buried in a bloodstained dress?“
„It was a hasty funeral.“
„Her only dress.“ Mallory ran her hand across the rack of hangers. „These clothes – suits, shirts, trousers – all made for a man and cut down to size.
But she wore a dress the night she died. Why?“
„Women.“ He shrugged, as if this were an answer of sorts. Then he walked back to the crates from Faustine’s and pulled another one from a stack. It was large, but he handled it as if it weighed only a few pounds and set it down on the floor. „Where is that wine? So much to drink, so little time.“
Mallory drifted toward the ashtray where Louisa’s cigarette was smoldering. Her eyes focused on the smoke. „Her hair – it’s cut very short, isn’t it?“
Apparently he didn’t like it when she played his game with the invisible woman. He turned his back on her and bent over the crate. Now he paused, hands braced on his knees. His head turned slightly, only showing her the line of his cheek. „How did you know that?“
So she had guessed right. The long hair from the passport photo had been cut off in Paris.
He looked back over his shoulder. „The boys told you?“
Boys? He must mean the old magicians. She nodded toward the wardrobe trunk. „Short hair goes with the man-tailored clothes.“
His head bowed as he put his weight into the crowbar. „She wore ties with the suits, just like the magicians. Louisa fascinated everyone who came to the theater. Halfway across the room, she could alter her sex with the change of her gait.“ He turned to consult the smoke from the ashtray, a last withering plume from a cigarette that had gone dark. „Her eyes are such a pale blue. There are moments when they seem solid white – eerie. She never needed makeup.“
„But tonight she’s wearing lipstick.“ Mallory circled the crate so she could see his face. „She wore makeup the night she was killed, right? And a dress, her only dress – all tricked out to die like a woman.“
„Yes.“ His dark blue eyes were somber now and fixed on the crowbar as he worked it under the wooden lid. „She was very much a woman that night.“
Mallory’s hand pressed down on top of the crate to work against him. „Were you hiding her from the Germans or the French police?“
The crowbar fell from his hand and crashed to the cement. Mallory took her hand off the crate lid and stepped back. „I know a lot about Louisa.“
He shook his head to say she was lying. „No, I don’t think so. But you know a lot about death, I’ll grant you that. Your lecture at the poker game was very instructive. I never imagined anything that brutal.“
„No? Where were you when she was dying?“
„Elsewhere.“
Mallory was distracted by the plume of a fresh cigarette. When did he light that one? „I’ve met your old friends from Faustine’s.“
„And they couldn’t even tell you where Louisa was born.“ His hands were mauling the packing material. „I’ve never told anyone my wife’s history.“
„Right, the recording contract has a penalty clause.“
He abandoned this crate and looked for a more likely one among the stacks. „Have you ever heard my wife’s concerto? Louisa started writing it when she was only fourteen. She finished it in Paris.“
„It’s odd that your old friends wouldn’t know anything about her background, unless you had something to hide before Louisa died. So I was right. She was wanted. Didn’t you trust any of them?“
„You should play her concerto – she’s in there, her entire personality. The music critics say the work is inhabited – haunted, if you like. Ah, but you don’t believe in ghosts.“
„And neither do you.“ She watched him pull up the loosened lid. „It takes a lot of effort to keep a dead woman walking and talking. You’re the one who works the strings.“
The crate’s interior was exposed, and his face paled as he looked down at the contents, a wooden crossbow. The pistol stock was cracked, and the bow was broken in two. He shook his head, as if this might clear his vision. Unlike the other crates, he took the trouble to replace the lid on this one.
„No wine here either.“ His composure was restored when he looked up at Mallory. „You know nothing about my wife.“
„Her hair wasn’t short in 1942.“ She watched his hands tighten around the crowbar. „Not in August – that’s when she crossed the border into France. An eighteen-year-old bride.“
„Only seventeen,“ he corrected her. „Louisa turned eighteen in Paris.“
„You added an extra year. It was part of her disguise.“
„Well, the boys didn’t tell you that. They didn’t know. You’re fascinating, Mallory. I’ll bet you frighten people.“
„Her hair was long, wavy and light red. Then she cut it off.“ Mallory glanced at the wardrobe of trousers, suits and unfeminine shoes – except for the gold dancing slippers. „Louisa was passing for a boy, hiding out in Paris. She was murdered at Faustine’s Magic Theater in the winter of 1942.“
So far all the details were correct; she could see that much in his face. If Louisa’s identity card was also a forgery, at least the late December expiration date was reliable.
„Why was she wearing her only dress the night she died? Were the Germans looking for a woman in men’s clothing? Louisa was planning to leave Paris, wasn’t she?“ Mallory came up behind him and whispered in his ear, „Was she leaving without you?“
The wood creaked. The crate’s lid crashed to the floor.
„I found the wine.“ He pulled out a case of bottles and set it on the floor. „You’re not quite what I expected, Mallory. You’re good at reading people – dead or alive. Charles gave me the impression that you preferred the company of computers.“
She knew her name among the other detectives of NYPD – Mallory the Machine. She sat down on the overturned crate lid. It was the only space not coated with dust, the dreaded enemy of all machines. Malakhai lined up the bottles in front of her, and she read the labels of cabernet sauvignon, burgundy and port wine.
„Good old Max, sentimental bastard.“ He lifted a carved wooden box from the crate and shook it, frowning at the tinkle of broken glass. „What a pity. This was Faustine’s best crystal.“ He opened the box and looked down at the set of twelve wineglasses, each pressed into a green velvet lining. Only half of them were intact. He set three glasses on the floor. More prowling in the crate produced a pearl-handled screw of tarnished silver. He stabbed its point into the cork of a bottle.
„That’s a rare wine,“ said Mallory. „Too expensive to drink.“
„You say that because it’s old.“ He pulled on the screw, and it came out with crumbles of dry cork. „Damn.“ He sank the metal deeper, twisting it into the bottle’s mouth. „I remember when this wine was young. And you’re right, it was a rare good bottle even then.“
The rest of the cork came out in pieces. The odor of vinegar poured from the glass neck, to tell them that the wine had gone over.
„Now that’s criminal.“ He stared at the label, as if reading the obituary of a beloved friend. „This is why hoarding wine is not in my philosophy.“
Mallory perused the other bottles. „Different wines, different vintners. Why are they all from 1941?“
„It was a wonderful year, a painless year. Louisa was still alive. The boys were all together then – Faustine’s apprentices. That was before everything went sour.“ He stuffed the largest bit of the broken cork back into the bottleneck to kill the pungent odor. „You got the dates right, Mallory. By the end of 1942, Louisa was dead, and the boys were scattered.“ He wiped a wineglass with his handkerchief and placed it in her hand. „I’ll find you a good bottle.“
She set the goblet down on the cement and pushed it away.
„No wine for you?“ He smiled. „Interesting.“ He turned to the space beside him. The ashtray was on the floor now, and Louisa had begun another cigarette. „My wife thinks you’re afraid of losing control. She wants you to take more risks – have many lovers. Drink all the wine you can hold.“
„Did Louisa have many lovers?“
He turned his eyes away from Mallory and began a search from bottle to bottle, looking for one that was not ruined.
The rich bouquet of burgundy was tainted with the smell of machine oil. Mallory calmly watched her murder suspect reassemble a freshly cleaned lethal weapon, fitting the long curved section through a slot near the end of the arrow bed.
They had long since decamped from the wardrobe trunk, carrying unspoiled bottles around the dragon screen to settle near the platform. Mallory’s internal clock had gone awry. Time was passing in increments of alcohol and repetitions of the blues. She was listening to the same record album for the fourth time. Or was it the fifth? Sitting cross-legged on the bare cement floor, she sipped from a crystal goblet, having forgotten her dread of dust and wine.
Billie Holiday sang, „If you hear a song in blue – “
„You’re so young.“ He twisted a screw to realign the crossbow sight. „These lyrics don’t mean anything to you, do they?“
„No,“ Mallory lied, not wanting to give him anything of herself, not her unique connection to Rilke’s caged panther, nor T. S. Eliot’s four-o’clock-in-the-morning thoughts – or a song in blue.
„ – like a flower crying – “
Her glass was only half empty, but Malakhai was filling it again. At some point, the silk top hat had traveled from his head to hers, just when or how she could not say, and now the brim was falling over her eyes, and she pushed it back.
„Max should’ve been an engineer. He designed this bow.“ The veins and muscles of his forearm stood out in bold relief as he bent back the thick curve of metal to string the crossbow pistol. „This has a hundred-and-fifty-pound pull, but a child can work the lever to cock it. The arrow travels two hundred and thirty-five feet a second. Very deadly.“
„ – heart trying to compose – “
„I thought you’d be into classical music like your wife. Why Billie Holiday?“
„Well, we were all jazz babies in Paris, but I came late to the blues. I discovered Billie between World War II and Korea.“
„Emile St. John said you found Louisa in Korea. After she’d been dead for – “
„More like she found me. Let’s stay with the earlier war. I think you’d like that one better, Mallory. Lots of big guns.“
„ – a prelude that never dies – “
„A world at war.“ He picked up a narrow wooden box, a magazine to hold a load of three arrows. „I wish I could make you see the whole thing, the amazing scale of it. The bombs falling.“ He set the box in place over the arrow bed. „Parades and music, crowds cheering, whole cities falling down.“ He tightened the screws that bound it to the crossbow. „Goose-stepping Nazis and Yanks in tanks. It was sublime.“
„ – my prelude to a kiss – “
Malakhai pushed up the curving metal rod extending out from the rear of the pistol section. „Charles was right. They all need new strings. But this should hold for a few shots.“ When he moved the rod down again, the string was pulled back to receive the first arrow.
The brim of the top hat fell over her eyes again. He reached out to her and tipped it back.
„In 1943,1 saw a dogfight in the sky, a battle of fighter planes. The losing aircraft blew to bits, and the pilot was dropping through the clouds – still alive. The parachute never opened – just a white streamer of silk. His feet were pumping up and down like mad. Perhaps he thought, if he hit the ground running, he might get away with falling from an airplane. The ultimate optimist. He must have been an American.“
Malakhai looked through the crossbow sight. She wondered if he realized that he was aiming at the ashtray, where Louisa’s cigarette was burning. „Mallory, promise me you’ll never walk in front of these things when they’re loaded on the pedestals.“
„Max Candle walked in front of four of them.“
„Well, you’re no Max Candle. And neither was Oliver.“ Malakhai walked over to the platform and set the crossbow grip into a pedestal slot. He came back to her and picked up a half-empty wine bottle.
„A very good year.“ He refreshed the third glass by Louisa’s ashtray. „Max ran away from boarding school early in ‘41. He used to be a Butler like Charles. When he followed me to Paris, he took the name Candle to hide from the Pinkerton men his parents hired. If you’re not familiar with – “
„Private detectives, I know. So you met at school?“
„Yes. Max’s father was in the diplomatic corps. His parents were about to take him home to the States when he ran away.“
„What was your real name?“
„Malakhai. Disappointed?“ He returned to the platform and climbed the stairs to the stage.
She watched him pick up the heavy target, easily lifting it from the slots in the flanking posts. „What’s your first name?“
„Perhaps I’ll tell you about that when I know you better.“ He moved the target behind the red drapes.
Mallory was becoming accustomed to this evasion. She never pressed him anymore, but only continued to collect the soft spots marked by unanswered questions.
Louisa was a chain-smoker. The ashtray was filled with red-stained cigarette butts, and Mallory had yet to catch the dead woman’s husband in the act of lighting one. She had decided that all the cigarettes from Louisa’s pack must be premarked with lipstick, but they were lighting up when Malakhai was nowhere near them.
A neat trick.
Mallory sipped her wine in the spirit of research. So this was the flavor of 1941, when Malakhai was a teenage boy with a war going on all around him. „How well did you get along with the Germans during the occupation?“
„Oh, the soldiers were our best customers. After Faustine died, we turned the place into a dinner theater. Couldn’t make ends meet with admission for the magic show. So we ripped out all the theater seats and put in chairs and tables – one big dining room.“
„You fed the enemy?“
„And poisoned them – the food was that bad.“ He disappeared around the dragon screen, and his voice carried back to her. „The wine was worse, so we never had any officers in the audience.“
She could hear the splintering of wood as he pried open another crate.
„We were just a pack of children,“ he said. „When you’re young and poor, you think about your stomach, not politics.“
Malakhai returned to the platform, carrying a round cafe table in one hand and a chair in the other. „These are from Faustine’s. Max must have bought up everything but the old lady’s bidet.“ He set them down in front of the staircase.
„Was it a German soldier who killed Louisa?“
„Let’s get off that, shall we?“ His voice had only mild impatience. „Do you want to see this illusion or not?“ He wiped down the chair with a cloth and held it out for her. „Sit down – please.“
She took her seat at the small table as he acted the part of a waiter, setting out her glass and a wine bottle. His hands were steady. Maybe she would change that. „How did Faustine die?“
„In her sleep – no blood. I’m forever disappointing you, aren’t I?“ He had cleaned Louisa’s ashtray, and now he put it on the table beside the wine bottle. „You probably won’t like this trick. It’s a small, unpretentious routine. We used it to open the show every night. Max created it. Louisa wasn’t a magician, so he kept it very simple.“
Malakhai gently lifted a violin from a dusty case and began to work the pegs where the long neck ended in a scroll of wood. „Don’t expect too much.“ He plucked the strings, tightening and loosening them, tuning the instrument by ear. „Think of it as a little bit of poetry, a prelude to magic.“
She was staring at the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray when the tip began to glow with a small flame, and now it smoked.
A chemical agent?
That would explain why she never caught him lighting one. Maybe it was something that would ignite when it was pulled from the pack and exposed to the air. She picked up the cigarette and sniffed at the smoke from the lit end, but there was no trace scent of chemicals. Now she put the filter to her lips and drew in the smoke to taste it.
Her throat burned, and she could not stop coughing. It was a fight to catch her breath.
„So that was your first cigarette.“ Malakhai was at her side, gently slapping her back. „How do I know these things?“
Her lungs were on fire, and her eyes were full of tears from the smoke. „There’s something mixed in the tobacco. It burns – “
„Oh, it’s always like that the first time you inhale. Makes you wonder why there’s ever a second time.“ He handed her the wineglass, and she drank deeply – for medicinal purposes.
„Well, Mallory, now that we’ve sucked poison together, we’re bonded, you and I.“ His hand rested on her shoulder until she stopped coughing. „So, you risked a dangerous cigarette – commendable. And you’re well on your way to being drunk. That’s even better.“
She set down the wineglass and pushed it away.
Malakhai bent down to a crate and pulled out a burlap mannikin. He slung it over his shoulder and walked up the platform stairs. Other than the stitched-up wounds and patches, it was an exact copy of Oliver Tree’s demonstration dummy.
Malakhai used twine instead of handcuffs to bind the cloth hands to the iron post rings, then turned on the lamp in the overhead crossbeam. „The dummy isn’t part of the act. I need it to line up the shot.“ He descended the stairs and loaded an arrow into the magazine. When the weapon was armed and cocked, he glanced her way with a charming smile. „Tense moment?“
Not at all.
Under the cover of her blazer, Mallory felt the comfortable weight of a revolver, and she would bet the moon that a bullet could beat an arrow.
„Now, in the original trick,“ he said, „there was no magazine. It was a single-fire weapon with a wooden bow. And it was handheld – no pedestals. But since you’re the audience, it would be rude if I asked you to shoot me.“ He flipped a switch on the pedestal. „So we’ll improvise with automation.“
The clockwork gears ticked as the teeth of the wheels meshed together.
He stood behind the pedestal and looked through the crossbow sight. „Max’s inspiration came from the magic bullet trick. He’d never seen it performed, but he had a rough idea of the effect. In the original version, the weapon was a gun.“
Malakhai walked toward her with an armload of crockery. „The shot broke a plate in the magician’s hands, and he caught the bullet in his teeth.“ He bent low to set the small plates in a circle around the cafe table. „But during the occupation, the Germans frowned on civilians with guns.“ The pedestal continued to tick off its countdown. „And catching an arrow in the teeth would’ve been too dicey.“
The ticking stopped. The bowstring twanged and the arrow fired too fast for Mallory to follow its flight from the pedestal to the heart of the mannikin, where sawdust was streaming from a hole in its burlap chest.
„Perfect,“ said Malakhai. „Now let’s hope the string holds for one more shot.“ He placed an unlit cigarette in each of the plates on the floor around the table. „Atmosphere is half the effect.“
She had been wrong about Louisa’s lipstick stains being made in advance. All these filters were clean.
Malakhai tied a red scarf to the end of an arrow and loaded it into the magazine. When he had taken down the burlap dummy, he made a circuit of the platform, switching off the globe lamps and the standing lamps, diminishing her comfort level with the encroaching darkness. Only the platform bulb was left glowing between the posts at the top of the platform, and behind the stage was a wall of shadow.
Halfway up the stairs, he paused at the edge of the yellow pool of light and waved one hand, saying, „Ambiance.“
On command, all the cigarettes in the saucers lit themselves, one by one, and she was surrounded by smoke on all sides, white wraiths swirling into the surrounding darkness.
She heard the tick of gears and turned toward the platform. Malakhai stood on the stage. The single lightbulb had a small circle of influence, thieving decades from his face. He was holding the violin and its bow. The ticking seemed louder in the dark.
„You’re in Faustine’s Magic Theater. It’s 1942. If you look up, you can see small private balconies. And straight up – the ceiling is a mural of characters and scenes from famous plays. Oh, and the chandelier – a huge brilliant ball of crystal and light. Much too big for the space. Faustine’s tastes were a bit gaudy. But it’s wartime now. The old lady is dead, and we can’t afford the lightbulbs. So the chandelier is dark, and the room is lit with candles. It’s full of people, Parisians and refugees in street clothes. The soldiers are wearing gray uniforms. Guns are strapped to their thighs. All the waiters are young boys in top hats and tuxedos. Try to imagine that the wine is not so good.“
The room was dead still, but for the tick of the gears and the movement of smoke. „You’re not a cop anymore, Mallory. Not tonight. You live in occupied Paris. Everything that was familiar and comfortable – that’s all gone now. You don’t know how you’ll feed yourself tomorrow. You don’t even know how the night will end. Anything can happen.“
The ticking – was it louder now?
„You can smell spilt wine rising up from the floor, cheap perfume on the women – and smoke.“ He raised the violin and positioned it between his cheek and one shoulder. „Now this is even more of a stretch. Instead of me, you see a lovely creature with fire-red hair. She’s only eighteen years old. And you must imagine that her violin is in tune.“
Mallory could hear the machinery’s light grinding despite the recent oil. The pedestal gears were turning, ticking. The trigger peg was on the rise. Malakhai stood between the two posts. The violin’s bow was suspended above the strings.
„While Louisa is playing, Max Candle enters stage left. There’s a crossbow pistol in his hand. You see him take an arrow from his quiver. A long red scarf is tied to the shaft. He loads it into the crossbow. Louisa doesn’t see him. She’s so involved in her music.“ He closed his eyes. „Her body turns in slow revolutions, as if she doesn’t realize that anyone is watching her. I can’t play the concerto for you. This is a simple practice piece she taught me one rainy afternoon.“
The music was sweet, light tripping notes. The gears of the pedestal were ticking in the rhythm of a metronome – or a bomb. Malakhai was turning round. One arm was in motion as he stroked the rosined bow across the strings. His other hand fingered the neck of the instrument to form the chords and pluck riffs of light running notes. She watched his back and the action of the bow arm working across the strings of the violin.
The weapon fired. She tracked the arrow by the flight of the red scarf streaming out behind it. Malakhai’s foot kicked out. The trajectory stopped at his body, as if the arrow had pierced him. He recovered his balance, still turning round, still playing, completing his revolution until he faced his audience of one. And though the music had never ended, the violin’s bow was gone, and he was drawing the deadly arrow across the strings for the final note. The red scarf hung from the shaft.
The overhead lamp went out. The whole world went black.
Without conscious guidance, Mallory’s right hand was reaching for her gun. She heard his shoes on the steps, and listened to her target so she could shoot him in the dark.
A standing lamp switched on at the base of the platform. „Well?“ Malakhai bent down to touch the globe lamp on the floor, and it pulsated with light. „Did you like it?“ He walked around the base of the platform, turning on all the lamps.
And now she saw the more chilling illusion, a lithe shadow moving across the face of a distant packing crate. The slender silhouette was on the run, as if it had been left behind and was hurrying to catch up to the darkness at the back of the cellar. But between lamplight and shadow, there was no solid form.
Too much wine. She pushed the glass to the edge of the table. Cigarettes that lit themselves, and now this. „How did you do that? The shadow.“
„Oh, that? I thought you’d be more interested in the trick that wounded Louisa.“
„That was it?“
„Disappointed again?“ He smiled. „But you liked the shadow, so it’s not a total loss.“
„I know you didn’t snatch that arrow out of the air, not at two hundred and thirty-five feet a second. It can’t be done. The arrow missed you, right? You hid the bow under the violin after you switched it for a second arrow.“
„Wrong. There was only one arrow.“
„You didn’t catch that arrow.“ She walked over to the pedestal and looked into the empty magazine. „I saw you load it.“
„But you didn’t see me unload it. You were coughing, remember?“
„I saw it fly.“
„You saw the scarf fly. It was tied to wire that fed from the crossbow to my hand. The arrow – the only arrow – was always under the violin.“
„But you didn’t pull on any wire. I would’ve seen that.“ It would have been a very long pull.
„The wire led through my fingers to wrap around a block of wood on the floor. When I kicked the block off the back of the platform, I sent it far enough for the wire to pull the scarf into my hand.“
Now she tried to remember what had come first – the off-balance kick or the flight of the red scarf. All she knew for certain was that he had suckered her into behaving like a civilian witness, seeing things that were not there. „So that’s all there is to it?“
„I knew you’d be irritated. It’s all so simple – after someone tells you how it’s done.“
„Getting shot with a scarf isn’t dangerous. You said – “
„Max was only a boy when he came up with this illusion. The dying finale came later in his career, a rather ingenious way of securing his tricks. No magician ever stole from him. He was the only one willing to take a genuine risk.“
„A death wish?“
„Nothing that trite.“ Malakhai sat down on the bottom step of the platform. „I think the war ended too soon for Max. He saw it through the eyes of a Yank – a generational trial by fire. His life was so much larger then. The postwar world was an anticlimax. Nothing had color anymore. No taste, no texture.“
„And he was married to a woman he didn’t love,“ said Mallory.
Malakhai nodded as he reached for a bottle, then held it up to the light. „We’re out of wine. I’ll be right back.“ He walked around the dragon screen and set the bottle down beside the wardrobe trunk. Mallory came up behind him, but not quietly enough. Her eyes caught his hand quickly withdrawing from another pocket in Louisa’s clothes.
He stroked the material of a green pantsuit. „Faustine’s gold dancing shoes would go well with this. I wonder what they’re doing in this trunk. I never saw Louisa wear them.“
„Maybe she went dancing with someone else. I asked you if Louisa had lovers. You never – “ When the shadow moved across the trunk, she pulled her gun and whirled around. There was nothing there but smoke rising from an ashtray on the floor.
„It’s only Louisa,“ said Malakhai. „She won’t hurt you, Mallory. She likes you.“
„How did you do that?“
„No one has ever figured that out. But you’re welcome to try.“ His hands moved on to a pair of plain cloth trousers.
„Maybe this is what you’re looking for?“ She handed him the passport. It was opened to the inside page and its mutilated photograph. „I thought Edith Candle might have done that.“
He held up the ruined likeness of his wife. „This was the only picture of Louisa. Yes, Edith probably did it. Poor woman – jealous of a ghost.“
„At first, I thought you married Louisa to give her a new identity for a legal passport. But I underestimated you, Malakhai. It’s a professional forgery. I almost took it for the genuine article.“
He shook his head. „I can’t take the credit. This passport was Nick Prado’s work. He had a small business forging papers for refugees.“
„He was in the Resistance?“
„Sorry, nothing that glamorous. Forgery was his day job. A local printer provided the clientele. Nick had a room at the back of the shop.“
„So magic didn’t pay very well?“
„Faustine’s apprentices weren’t on salary. We all had to earn a living on the outside. The old lady was only generous with her costume allowance. It didn’t matter if we starved, as long as we made a good appearance.“
„And after she died?“
„The profits were pretty meager. They wouldn’t support all of us.“ He was still fixated on the ruined face in the passport. „I wish Edith hadn’t done this.“
Mallory took the passport from his hand. „Maybe you’re the one who cut up Louisa’s photograph. Did you go a little crazy?“ She tapped the portrait. „Did you slash this face?“
He kept his silence.
She leaned closer. „You were angry, out of control.“ And now the gamble, the guess, the closing shot. „You knew your wife was cheating on you. Louisa was sleeping with Max Candle.“
„Yes, I knew. But I forgave them.“