Carol O’Connell - Shell Game

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.“