Carol O’Connell - Shell Game

Louisa is dying. Is that what you wanted, Malakhai?

The next time Louisa was wounded, Mallory lay down upon the stage with her and bled from the same arrow, from many arrows, betrayed time after time, left ripped and bloody, listening to the sound of Malakhai’s pounding boots hitting the wood, running away, leaving her behind to bleed and die.

Now Louisa was deep in shock. Someone lifted her from the floor and carried her to a room backstage. Strong arms laid her body down. Mallory could hear the door closing on the noise of the crowd, the sliding chairs and tables, the clink of glasses and babbling voices.

A pillow was covering her mouth.

No air. Panic was rising. The primal instinct to breathe was overriding all her senses. Her hands pushed the pillow away. Mallory fought with more strength than she had, adrenaline gorging every muscle, lungs burning, bursting, dying for a sip of air. He pressed the pillow down harder. Louisa writhed and pushed. Her legs kicked out. Blood poured from the wound, greasing the floor, making it all slick and red.

Where is Malakbai?

He’s gone, Louisa. He ran away. You know that.

No help was coming, not ever. Her assassin was on top of her with his full weight, pressing down on the pillow. Mallory could hear voices on the other side of the door, speaking in foreign tongues.

Why don’t you scream, Louisa?

I can’t. There are German soldiers at the door.

So soon? Only minutes had passed by since the shot. Soldiers from the audience?

Her killer was so desperate now. She wasn’t dying fast enough. His knee pressed down hard on her chest with all the weight of his body. She could hear her breastbone breaking, snapping. Pain was layered over with shock. She could feel her heart being crushed under the weight of him, torn by shards of broken bone.

No, no!

And then her body ceased to thrash. Blood welled up behind her eyes. What Malakhai had begun was being finished now – nearly done. And then Louisa lay still, eyes wide and staring. A pink froth spilled past her lips, and tiny delicate bubbles burst, one by one.

Mallory curled into a ball within the dimensions of Malakhai’s prison cell. There were no sounds or images anymore, no life of the sleeping mind, for the dead do not dream.

When she opened her eyes again, morning light was splashed across the ceiling beyond the masking tape bars, and every muscle ached. She felt the stiffness in her neck and limbs. The concerto was still looping on the CD player, flooding her brain with music that meant nothing to her. So much for the myth that Louisa inhabited her composition.

She had never considered musical metaphors before. Her foster father’s swing music and his rock ‘n’ roll had moved her body without conscious effort or thought. Louisa’s music was too difficult.

Mallory forced a meaning on the composition. Between the strings of violins, the cornets were firing high notes. Perhaps they stood for guns. And now all the pieces of the orchestra loomed up in a great wall of sound. It exploded into shards of clarinets and flutes – bombs bursting in air, bright shrapnel falling like stars. And then music cascaded into liquid valleys of rich low octaves. When the lull came round again, that hollow place in the music, Mallory nodded unconsciously. She had a long-standing acquaintance with emptiness.

How much had Malakhai figured out during his year in the box?

The killer was marked by Louisa’s blood. The others might be dabbed with it, but the assassin would be splashed with it. Malakhai had always known who the man was. Not one small detail of that night had been lost to him. And yet he had waited all this time for revenge.

She picked up the CD player to turn off the music. The cord was no longer taut, but loose. She pulled on it, and the black wire slipped easily through the crack between the boxes until the plug jammed in the narrow cardboard crevice. The machine was not connected to the wall anymore. It had come loose while she slept. The battery bay was empty – she knew that. She had thrown away the old batteries long ago. Yet she could still hear the music inside her head.

No! That was not possible!

She kicked out at the enclosing cartons, then screamed in sudden pain. The tendons in her legs were on fire. A shoulder muscle spasmed. Panic was rising in a swirl of music, spiraling up and up. It was a fight to be still, to lie back and let the muscles uncramp. The music gathered speed. Beads of sweat slicked over her face. Her heart was beating faster, harder, hammering to the music. She pushed the cartons out of the way to make an opening, and pain stabbed her arms.

The music was welling up again, about to crash down on her in a crescendo. Her hands went up in a defensive posture. And then the music softened, like a living entity deciding not to bludgeon her with a heavy falling wall of sound. Mallory slowly rolled her body, and on her hands and knees, she crawled out of Malakhai’s box, dragging the CD player by the wires of her headset. And the music crept after her.

This isn’t real!

The score was climbing again, rising. In a rage, Mallory smashed her fist down on the music machine. A small rectangle of plastic broke away to expose the battery bay. Not an empty compartment.

She had believed that the old cadmium batteries had been thrown away, but there they lay, side by side – alive, recharged in the night.

Idiot.

Mallory touched the power switch. The music ended. She breathed deeply. So nothing was what it seemed. Even insanity was only a cheap trick.

Lieutenant Coffey opened the window blinds spanning the upper half of the wall. In the squad room beyond the glass, all his detectives were gathered around a small television set, and cash was being laid down. He guessed it was still an even-money bet, for no one but the mayor’s publicist knew how the TV script would play out this morning. He turned back to the larger television screen in the corner of his office.

Detective Sergeant Riker slouched in a chair, showing no enthusiasm for the coming event – perhaps because he had no money riding on it. He had been hustled through the office door before he could even make conversation with the gamblers in the next room.

Jack Coffey ran one hand through his hair, stopping short of the bald spot, which he attributed to stress and blamed on Mallory. In silence, he and Riker watched the weather segment of the morning talk show. Jack Coffey resented the smug weatherman, a happy idiot with luxurious, unmerited hair and a huge paycheck for presiding over a gang of cartoons. Smiling suns and frowning raindrops decorated the map in the background. A single large snowflake was menacing the entire state of Connecticut.

The lieutenant leaned forward and browsed through a fresh stack of paperwork on his desk.

What the hell?

He ripped off the top sheet and waved it at Detective Riker. „How did she get Heller’s crew to go along with this? I signed off on the platform inspection, not the parade float.“

Riker shrugged, and Coffey decided that his sergeant might be genuinely in the dark. Mallory had probably covered her partner with deniability for this less than legitimate work order.

Coffey looked back through the glass. Last-minute bets were going down while the weatherman laughed at the cartoon raindrop converging on New York State with incoming storms.

The screen image changed to a tourist’s home movie of the Thanksgiving Day parade. The camera was focused on Mr. Zimmermann’s wife and children. The little family was gamely smiling as Mrs. Zimmermann’s hair stood straight up in the wind. The children waved as they stood beside the giant snowman float. For no good reason at all, the video camera panned to a clear shot of the rocky knoll overlooking the rear end of the parade route. Mrs. Zimmermann and the children jostled one another as they hurriedly regrouped in front of the camera’s new position. Now they all moved backward toward the park, while every other camera in New York City was pointing at the spectacle of giant balloons flying in the opposite direction.