The building was twenty-five blocks north of the theater district, but it was Broadway. Not a bad address for the man Charles had described as a tired museum of magic.
Mallory turned to the glass doors trimmed with thin wheels of steel. Riker had removed the yellow crime scene tapes. Was he still here? Still angry? Her birthday gift should have covered a multitude of sins, payback for crimes she had not yet thought of committing. Actually, she had bought the coat because his old one was too threadbare to keep him warm in winter. But this simple explanation would have cost her too much.
She paused by the entrance to inspect a recently installed display case of chrome and glass. Photographs of Oliver’s grandmother were arranged in a circle around her memorial plaque. In a clockwise history of snapshots and publicity photos, Faustine aged from a slight dark-haired girl to a portly diva sporting an obvious wig. In the most recent portrait, hard black lines rimmed her eyes, and the mouth was made wider with dark lipstick. Among the traits that had remained constant throughout Faustine’s long life was a look of hunger, a prominent determined chin and heartless eyes. Mallory wondered if anyone had ever crossed this woman. She thought not.
Pushing through the doors, she stepped into a small lobby. More alterations had been made since the auction. This intimate space was decorated with a dark green couch. The smell of new leather mingled with the odor of fresh plaster. A tarnished brass spittoon sat on the floor beside a standing ashtray. The walls and carpeting were paler shades of green. Faustine had obviously had a penchant for this color – and for attractive young boys.
The old woman’s apprentices were ganged together on a giant theater poster framed in ornate gold. Mallory read the small brass plaque on the wall to her right.
So this photograph had been rescued from 1940, while Faustine was still alive; before the theater seats had been ripped out to accommodate dining tables; before the war had marched into the city in the gray uniforms of occupation forces. It would be two years before Louisa arrived in Paris. Oliver Tree was not listed in this company of boy performers in tuxedos and top hats. Evidently his own grandmother had not considered him a magician. Young Max Candle stood in the background, barely contained inside the borders of the frame. There was a boy’s explosion of energy in his body language. He was set to fly, to escape the camera and rush into real life. In his eyes was an expectation of things to come – wonderful things.
But there was so much more to Malakhai, though he could only have been fifteen that year. He was the dynamic center of the photograph, enthroned in a high-backed chair, a boy king with long hair spread across his broad shoulders. In a sense, Mr. Halpern had been correct – only Malakhai’s hair had grown old. Something of the boy and his beauty had stayed with the man.
The others had followed the more natural course of time, morphing into entirely different faces and forms. The young version of Emile St. John was glorious, with thick curling hair and the body of a god – a remote god, for his eyes were focused on some interior landscape. Franny Futura had been delicate, almost girlish with his full pouting lips and long eyelashes. But Mallory could barely recognize the teenage Nick Prado, sleek and saturnine. Standing a bit apart from the others, he was a dark figure with liquid Spanish eyes and a wicked grin that said, Yes, I am beautiful, aren’t I? There was not enough resemblance to make Prado the father of this graceful boy. All that survived was the love affair with himself.
Mallory turned toward the sound of laughter. She peered through a glass circle in the lobby door. Three of Faustine’s apprentices were on the stage. Emile St. John stood against the backdrop of a green curtain. Nick Prado and Franny Futura sat on wooden crates, passing a wine bottle between them. The auction tables were gone, and so was Oliver’s platform. The movie people must have taken it. Damn you, Riker.
He knew she wanted another look at the interior room, yet he had allowed the new owner to ship the platform out to the West Coast. Angry now, she pushed open the swinging door and marched down the wide center aisle.
„What are you people doing here?“ Three heads turned her way. „I’m guessing this isn’t a wake for Oliver’s nephew.“
„Well, hello.“ Nick Prado smiled and sucked in his paunch. „Just collecting the spoils of the auction.“ He held up a set of keys. „Sergeant Riker let us in.“ He looked down at the champagne bottle in his hand. „And of course, we had to properly christen Oliver’s theater.“
Squinting to see her better, Franny Futura walked perilously close to the edge of the stage. Normally a clean and tidy man, his tie was awry, and so was his mouth; it wobbled in a foolish smile. He was holding a plastic wineglass and weaving in an intoxicated line when he tangled his feet and tripped, landing on his backside. Eyes round and innocent as a startled gray-haired baby, Futura sat bolt upright on the floor of the stage, legs splayed out. He stared at his glass and the miracle of unspilt wine, mumbling something incoherent, which might have been, „There is a God.“
Mallory climbed the stairs to the stage. „Where’s the platform?“ If it had been collected recently, it might be in the city and still within reach.
„Not to worry.“ Emile St. John parted the backdrop curtain to give her a glimpse of the large wooden structure behind it. All the crossbows were in position and pointing up toward the wooden posts at the top of the staircase. „Riker told the Hollywood people they couldn’t ship it for a few more days.“
„Oliver’s lawyer adores you.“ Prado was at her side and standing too close, exhaling fumes of wine with every word. „That corpse probably doubled the opening bid on the platform. And of course, Franny loves you, too. His performance is sold out for the entire festival.“ He looked down at Futura, who sat on the floor calmly sipping his champagne.
„And you thought this place was too far from the theater district to pull in a crowd.“ Prado bent down to clap Futura on the back. The man’s torso slumped forward, then slowly toppled the other way. Now he lay flat on the stage, and the wine was still unspilled.
Emile St. John left off the chore of uncorking another champagne bottle. He wrapped one massive hand around Futura’s arm to lift the smaller man from the floor. „Enough wine, Franny?“
Prado’s smile was all for Mallory as he flicked his wrist to snap a disk of black silk, popping out the crown of the top hat. „You’ll excuse Franny? He’s not himself.“
Too bad.
Futura was leaning on the arm of St. John, grinning at her and utterly impervious to fear – but that would change. Tomorrow morning when he was sober, she would officially own this case. Just for the fear value, she would order two uniformed cops to haul Futura downtown. She didn’t think much of his chances for holding out more than five minutes into the interview.
Nick Prado straightened Futura’s tie. „He’s not much to look at now, is he? I wish you could have met Franny when he was young and beautiful. Faustine only hired the most alluring boys in Paris. Ah, what time can do to the human body.“
Apparently, Prado did not include himself in the aging process. What an odd mirror this egoist must have, a looking glass that blinded him to time, perhaps something like Max Candle’s carnival mirror. Oliver Tree’s replica of that prop had been laid across a wooden crate. The distorted glass surface served as a makeshift tabletop for champagne bottles and an assortment of delicatessen containers.
She followed St. John’s shifting form in the mirror, alternately thinning and expanding. His aging had been less dramatic. The serenity of the boy in the poster was still in evidence, and he carried his excess pounds as ballast in the world. This man would not be shattered easily. As an interrogation subject, he posed the most interesting problem.