Carol O’Connell - Shell Game

He dabbed at the red stain on the sheet. „You’re the most ruthless woman I’ve ever met.“

She sat back, somehow disappointed, waving her hand to ask, Is that all?

„But whatever you are,“ he said, „I suppose I’m a hundred times worse. I was doing monstrous things when I was only eighteen years old.“

„I can top that,“ she said. „I was diagnosed as a sociopath when I was eleven years old.“ Did that sound competitive? This was all about control now.

„You’re lying, Mallory. Ruthless is the only compliment you get.“

In a case with no hard evidence, so much depended on topping him at ripping human beings to shreds. „It’s true. I’ve got everything it takes to nail that bastard. You can trust me to do the job right.“

He shook his head to say he didn’t believe her.

„Helen – my foster mother – she tore the psychiatrist’s report into a million pieces. That’s how bad it was.“ The violence of that tearing and shredding had piqued a child’s curiosity. Long past the bedtime of a little girl, she had retrieved all the scraps from the garbage pail. Behind her locked bedroom door, young Kathy had been wearing the hated ducky pajamas, bright yellow baby birds on a field of ocean blue. She had pretended to love them because they were a gift from Helen’s loving hands.

The child had patiently worked through the night, taping all the torn bits of paper, restoring each page to precise right-angled corners and perfectly straight edges. Then she had read the diagnosis of an eleven-year-old girl. The summary page had been written in simple language so that no one could escape its meaning – not even a child.

She recalled the pages falling to the floor, then staring into a mirror, eyes wounded by an assault of words on paper, slowly coming to grips with the idea that a monster could have blue pajamas with yellow ducks.

„I still remember that test.“ The doctor had said there were no right or wrong answers, only choices. Later it turned out that he had lied about that. „I think I only got one question right.“ One response had been circled in red ink – probably as a consolation prize for her foster mother. Dr. Brenner had known that Helen was a sucker for wounded animals.

„He asked me to choose between a bag of money and a mangy old cat. Which one would I carry out of a burning building? I picked the cat – because it was alive.“ And because that response would have pleased Helen.

„Then you didn’t get that one right either,“ said Malakhai. „The rest of us would’ve taken the money.“ He turned to the window. „It’s raining again.“

She leaned toward him. „Give Prado to me. All I need is a statement. I’ll get even for Oliver and Louisa. That’s my job, and I’m good at it.“

Better than you – twice the monster. As Emile St. John had said, she was born to do this work.

Malakhai looked at her across the expanse of the bed. „I’m trying to picture you as a baby sociopath.“ He turned away from her to pour another glass of wine. „I don’t see it.“

„I can bring Prado down. You want him to suffer? I can arrange that too.“

Was he laughing at her? She could not see his face.

Mallory crept across the bed, coming up on his blind side with a new idea for earning his absolute faith in her monsterhood. „Didn’t you think it was odd that Max never got a goodbye letter? He would’ve told you, right? He told you about his diaries. You never wondered about that?“

„No, not at all. Since Max was running away with Louisa, she wouldn’t need to say goodbye to him.“

„It wasn’t that kind of goodbye, and you know it. She didn’t think much of her chances for getting across the border alive.“ Mallory held out her glass. „Do you really believe she was planning to get Max killed, too?“

Now he was paying attention.

She knelt on the mattress beside him, very close, and he filled her glass with more wine. „Your wife sat down to write that letter after her confession in the park.“ And now, so softly, the hook. „There was only time for one letter. It was beautiful. I think Louisa worked on it for all the time she had left. Then she hid it away in the toe of a shoe. She didn’t want you to find it, not till she was across the border – or dead.“

His smile was sad and wry. „Where are you going with this?“

„Louisa was more devious than you thought.“

„You can’t possibly know – “

„Max was in love with her. It wasn’t hard to get him under the sheets. She planned it very coldly on the dancing bed – that’s what Prado called it. You knew she cheated on you before that confession in the park.“

„Don’t do this, Mallory.“

„You walked into Oliver’s room while your wife was upstairs, rolling around your bed with another man. She was rocking the whole damn floor with the sound of sex. Louisa wasn’t trying to hide it – she was announcing it. I’d bet even money she timed it so you’d catch her in the act with Max. You’re always telling me that timing is everything.“

„That’s enough.“ He grabbed her arm. „I don’t want to hear Louisa’s name in your mouth anymore.“

„But you didn’t go up there, did you, Malakhai? No, you just walked away. And you never would’ve called her on it. That’s why Louisa had to make the confession in the park. She even brought Max along as proof.“

He tightened his grip on her arm. He was hurting her, but damned if she would show it. She smiled instead. „Emile told her Paris was dangerous. Louisa couldn’t go back to the prison camp, the interrogations. When she wanted to make a run for the Spanish frontier, you told her that was suicide.“

„The border was closed down and the frontier police had her photograph.“ He pushed her away with enough force to roll her to the other side of the wide bed. „It was a suicide run.“

„But Louisa already knew that.“ Mallory crept back across the mattress for another turn at him. „Emile would’ve told her the same thing. And still, she was game to make that run.“

His hand was rising for a strike at her face. She ignored it. „But first, Louisa had to make sure you wouldn’t run after her and die with her. She had to make you bate her. So she slept with your best friend. Louisa was planning a suicide run, but she wanted you to live. That was her plan.“

Malakhai’s hand dropped away from her face. His head moved slowly from side to side, his mouth forming a silent No.

„You shot her with an arrow so she could survive. In a way, she did the same thing to you.“

He was slowly doubling over, as if Louisa had indeed shot him. He covered his face with both hands. The rain poured down the windowpane in a solid sheet, obscuring everything beyond the glass, starlight and city lights, heaven and earth – all gone.

A thirty-piece orchestra joined in the applause for the man in the white tuxedo and top hat. Malakhai stood above them on the smaller stage of the platform and cast his shadow on the drawn red curtains hanging from the crossbar. High on the back wall of the Carnegie stage, a video screen made his image several times larger than life.

The audience rose to its feet in screams of „Encore! Encore!“ Feet were stamping, hands clapping.

At Malakhai’s bidding, the men and women of the orchestra stood up to accept their own bravos. The magician had come out from behind the platform curtains five times to answer his encores with a deep bow. And now the audience shouted as a single entity, amplified with three thousand voices, „Louisa, Louisa, Louisa – “