Carol O’Connell - Shell Game

„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.“