Carol O’Connell - Shell Game

„Sounds like a threat,“ said Mallory. „And in front of witnesses, too.“

„Oh, run along, Detective – before you become a laughingstock again. Go shoot another balloon.“ The lawyer turned to the crowd for their support, but he met with disapproval on every face. Apparently, they liked Mallory best, perhaps in the false assumption that she was the underdog in this exchange.

„There’s a faster way to check out the guns.“ She picked up a revolver from one table and reached for a deck of cards from another display.

Riker stood behind Atkins’s back, shaking his head and mouthing the word no. She turned away from him. He moved quickly around the attorney and reached out to her.

Too late.

She threw the deck high in the air and fired the gun into the falling shower of playing cards. The shot banged out in an explosion.

The attorney’s face was pale. His abstract world of lawbooks and contracts was far removed from the extreme violence of gunshots.

Mallory leaned down and picked up a card from the floor. She turned to the lawyer and looked at him through the round hole in its center. „Real bullets.“

And at this vulnerable moment, when the lawyer was still slack-jawed with shock – no, call it horror – she barked the order. „Get me the damn paperwork on this gun! I want to see your license! I want – “

Her voice was drowned out by loud applause and whistles from the gallery of bidders. They cheered her as the clear winner. But Riker noticed the lawyer was rallying and staring at Mallory with solid hatred.

„Maybe we can forgive paperwork on both sides?“ The attorney smiled somewhat insincerely. „Feel free to look around inside the platform. Just get it over with.“ He walked back through the crowd of onlookers. „Gentlemen, ladies, if you’ll just take your seats and wait a few more minutes.“

Most of the gathering retreated to the theater seats in the front row. Charles Butler remained on the stage close to Mallory, and his voice had an unfamiliar icy quality. „May I see that gun for a moment?“ Not waiting for her to surrender the weapon, Charles took it away from her – winning new respect from Riker.

She was about to protest when Riker pulled her off to one side of the stage, and he did not handle her gently. „Mallory, are you nuts?“ He held her by one arm, gripping it tight enough to leave bruises; he was that angry. „How could you fire a gun in a place like this? That bullet could’ve ricocheted off a – “

„Are you going to rat me out to Lieutenant Coffey?“

„What? Listen to me! You can’t – “

„I can’t be trusted with guns?“ She shook his hand off with a jerk of her arm. „Go on – report back to Coffey. Tell him all about my little card trick – and then he’ll fire me. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You figure it’s better I lose my job than get killed for a psycho cop.“ She poked a long red fingernail into his chest and put some force behind it. „Right?“

He turned his face upward and stared at the workman on the catwalk high above them. Oh, sweet Jesus. The man in coveralls had been directly in the path of her bullet. Riker came all undone as Mallory looked up at the man and smiled. This innocent bystander had not been planned on, but she clearly regarded him as an unexpected bonus.

Riker raked one hand through his graying hair. He wanted a drink so badly. „If it was only the balloon. But first you pulled that stupid stunt with the rat, and now – “

„I never waste a bullet, Riker.“

„Don’t lie – not to me. Four cops saw you shoot that rat off the candy machine.“

„Riker, if I’m such a sick puppy, how come it’s so easy for me to read all you nice, normal people? You think I’m a gun-happy nutcase? Fine. Go to Coffey. Go now. Run!“ She stood back and regarded him as if he were a stranger, and not a man who had watched her grow up. „Don’t you get it, Riker? You’re the one I can’t trust. How do you like that feeling? I’m your partner, and I can’t trust you.“

„I don’t deserve that.“

„You’re not working this case with me. You’re only around to watch me. And I know why. Good housekeeping? Isn’t that what you call it when a nutcase cop goes down? I’ll just have to hope I’m never in a bad spot where I need you for backup.“

She stalked away from him, heading for the platform, but Charles Butler blocked her path. He was holding out his hand. Finally, reluctantly, she crossed his palm with the mutilated playing card.

Charles held up the gun he had taken from Mallory. „It really is a prop, Riker. Lots of noise, but no bullets.“

„She put a hole in the – “

„Not a bullet hole.“ Charles looked down at the mutilated playing card in his hand. „This one was made by a shaft of metal. Stainless steel, to be precise. Let’s narrow it down further, shall we?“ He held the card closer to his eyes as if divining more information from it, saying dryly, „Obviously a barbecue skewer from the kitchen drawer of Rabbi Kaplan.“ He flipped the card over. „And this pattern on the back? It doesn’t match the cards on the floor.“

Charles turned on Mallory and pointed an accusing finger at the cashmere showing through her open trench coat. „You were wearing that blazer the night of the poker game. That’s how you just happened to have a card in your pocket – a card with a bole in it. You palmed it during the game.“

Mallory was not the least bit contrite. „Well, the spook was cheating, wasn’t she? Just open the platform and check it out, okay, Charles?“

„But to palm a card? Mallory, I’m shocked.“

And so was Riker. He stood with both hands jammed into his pockets so his partner would not see them balling into fists.

Charles lightly touched the wood at the center of the platform wall, and the compartment door opened. He looked inside and quickly pulled back from the stench.

A human arm extended slowly and hit the floor of the stage with a soft thud of dead white flesh on wood. A sleeve was rolled to the elbow. And now the upper torso unfolded and tumbled out the door. There was an arrow in the ruffled breast of a formal dress shirt, but no blood at the wound site. This might have been a staged illusion – if not for the very real hole in the chest. Riker had never seen the crossbow shooter without his top hat. The carrot-red hair was wild with a boy’s cowlicks. The white face was contorted and conflicted between pain and the astonishment of dying.

The gallery of bidders was stealing back to the stage, all but tiptoeing toward the platform.

„That’s Richard – Oliver’s nephew,“ said Nick Prado. His face was composed, and his voice was calm.

Riker decided that Prado must be familiar with the smell of dead bodies, standing his ground while the rest of the civilians were visibly shaken and driven backward by nausea. The corpse had emptied its bowels in the postmortem relaxation of muscles. The containment of the odor spoke well for the seal on the platform door.

Franny Futura had retreated to the edge of the stage. His formerly ruddy cheeks had lost all their color. Emile St. John showed no emotion whatever, and Riker wondered what it would take to unhinge that man.

Mallory knelt down beside the corpse and touched it. The limp body moved easily under her probing hand. The rigidity of rigor mortis had run its course and passed off.

„Couple of days dead.“ She wore a faint smile when she looked up at Riker. „And now I’ve got a real live game.“

Tack Coffey looked down at the paperwork on his desk, a police report on the death of Crossbow Man, a.k.a. Richard Tree. „So when do we get the medical examiner’s report?“