Carol O’Connell - Shell Game

When she was done with the exterior, she touched the pressure latch on the wall near the center panel, and the door swung open. She stared at the dim interior. In her younger days, she would never have entered this room, for there was only one exit, and Kathy the street-smart child had always avoided every enclosure with the makings of a trap. Even now, she was not comfortable with the idea of going inside.

What made her look back she could not say. Emile St. John had made no noise stealing up behind her. He was holding out her pocket watch – again.

„Sorry, force of habit.“ He returned it to her, then walked back through the opening in the curtain, heading for the makeshift table. He picked up the full wineglass she had left on the mirror. „There’s something we should discuss. Perhaps over a drink.“

Mallory accepted the plastic goblet from his outstretched hand. „You want me to stop scaring Franny Futura.“

„Well, that would be nice.“ He smiled as he poured more wine for himself. „Franny was always a timid soul. But I’m sure you guessed that within a minute of meeting him.“

She nodded. „So how did he wind up in the Resistance? It doesn’t square with – “

„Molotov cocktails and tommy guns?“ He laughed as if this were a great joke. „In Paris, Franny’s day job was clerking in the post office. Never tossed a bomb in his life, never held a gun. His Resistance work was intercepting denouncement letters. Do you – “

„Letters from snitches.“ Personally, she was in favor of snitches. The police department could not run without them.

„Yes, it was a nasty wartime habit, people turning on one another.“ He walked back behind the curtain and sat down on the bottom step of the platform. „But the real offenses were rarely mentioned. Is your neighbor’s dog peeing on your azaleas? Is the postman diddling your wife? Well then, denounce him as a subversive. Do it in a secret letter. No need to sign your name.“

St. John leaned one arm on the step behind him and regarded her glass with suspicion.

Because she was not drinking with him?

She tipped back the wineglass – a sip to keep him talking.

„It still goes on,“ he said. „Reporters and their secret sources – cockroaches who won’t come out in the light. We haven’t learned a damn thing from the war.“

When he paused, she took another sip. Riker had always maintained that he did not trust anyone who refused to lift a glass with him. She had never gone drinking with Riker, and that might explain a lot.

„Franny saved a lot of lives with his interceptions,“ said St. John. „But he existed in a permanent state of fear – waiting for the knock on the door, the arrest in the middle of the night. Do you have any idea what monstrous things were done to people like him? A bullet in the head would’ve been a kindness. And here you are, Mallory, young and strong, carrying a gun and knocking on Franny’s door.“

She considered this new role he had cast her in – the monster. „Can I ask you something – cop to cop?“

He only smiled at this. Perhaps Malakhai had told him about dropping that bit of information into the dinner conversation.

She sat down beside him on the step. „You quit magic in the fifties. So I have to wonder about your assets, large assets. You didn’t amass that capital on the salary of an Interpol bureau chief.“

That got no rise out of him either. And that was odd. The long tour of duty with Interpol was not information from Malakhai, but gleaned from her computer connection at the foreign bureau. Had St. John been expecting this? Yes, that was in his smile, which said, At last.

So her Internet pen pal in Europe had ratted her out.

That weasel, that miserable little -

„You’re right.“ St. John sipped his wine, savoring it, taking his own time. „My stage career was a short one compared to all the years at Interpol. But I did inherit sizeable investments from my family. I wasn’t in the black market, if that’s what you – “

„Let’s back up. In 1942, you were a rookie policeman in Paris. I know Louisa’s death certificate was faked. You were on the crime scene the night she died. What did – “

„Now you’re only guessing.“ St. John put up one hand, in the manner of a traffic cop, to stop Mallory’s lie of protest before it was fully formed in her mind. He produced a cigar from a platinum case, then gestured to her wineglass. „You drink, I’ll talk.“

She watched him go through the stalling machinations of taking a small clipper from his breast pocket, then cutting the tip off the end of his cigar. He pocketed the clipper and slowly searched his suit for the lighter. Mallory liked his style; she was taking mental notes on torture-by-delay as she tapped her foot – waiting for him to get on with this.

„Mallory, I know you made inquiries about me. I spoke to the Interpol agent – your Internet playmate.“ He feigned sadness with a slow shake of the head. „You really should pick your friends better. Philippe Breton was not discreet. I’ve been retired for fifteen years, so he must have gone through a great deal of trouble to track me down at my New York hotel. He called to ask if I had actually met you. Wanted to know what his mysterious American cop looked like.“

St. John flicked his gold lighter and puffed on the cigar, exhaling a cloud of smoke. „He’s a shallow young man. You’re much too good for him. So I told Philippe that you had thick glasses and thicker ankles. Forgive me, Mallory, but I also gave you a rather bad skin condition. I hope you don’t mind my taking an avuncular interest.“

They spent a quiet moment of companionable silence, watching the smoke escape to the catwalk high above them. She sipped her champagne, and he continued.

„Of course, Philippe won’t be chatting with you anymore. He’s doing fieldwork now – no more computers. You see, I gave his superiors quite a different description. I told them about your golden hair, your lovely green eyes – your insatiable quest for knowledge. They thought it best to remove the young man from temptation. You wouldn’t expect that attitude from the French, now would you?“

„Nice work.“ And she meant that. She was not angry that he had killed off her Interpol connection. Emile St. John had been a good cop in his day. If it turned out that he had murdered Oliver, she would not hesitate to put him in line for the death penalty, but there would be some regret. „You know I’m going to interrogate Futura. So you’re planning to get him a lawyer, right?“

„Absolutely.“ He exhaled a smoke ring and watched it rise in a halo until it disappeared. „My lawyers are quite good. I’m afraid they won’t allow you to terrorize poor Franny on some fishing expedition for evidence. But it’s these unofficial interviews that bother me. That will have to stop. I don’t want to bludgeon you with money and influence – so crude. But I will if you force me.“

This threat was more than she had hoped for. He would not go to this trouble if Futura were not a gold mine of information. But she was suspicious of everything that came to her too easily. There might be another motive: Perhaps St. John was simply a decent man who would not stand by while she tortured his pet rabbit.

„What did you do for the Resistance?“ And per their established ritual, she sipped her wine to lead him on.

„Some men like to talk about the war. I don’t.“ St. John studied her face for a moment. Whatever he saw in her eyes, it disturbed him. „And now I must go.“ He lifted the bottle from the floor and set it on the stair beside her. „I’ll trust you to finish this. It would be a crime to waste vintage champagne.“