He looked at the slender white shaft between his fingers. „It’s medicinal, you know. My wife was dead. I took a few small puffs of nicotine and consolation. I believed I had killed Louisa with my arrow. More pain set in. Another cigarette, more consolation.“ He tilted his head to one side.
„And after she died,“ said Mallory, „when you used her in the act, how do you know Max was still – “
„Still crazy about Louisa? When I brought her ghost back from Korea, I took her to dinner at Max’s house. He fell in love with her all over again. Never mind that she was dead. He was an American. All things were possible to Max.“
He pushed the ashtray to one side. „But that’s another story and another cigarette.“ He walked over to the wardrobe trunk. „Oliver’s memorial service is tonight. I recommend the white satin tuxedo.“
„That’s customary for the death of a magician, isn’t it? But everybody keeps telling me Oliver wasn’t one.“
„And they’re right about that. Hopeless bungler. There won’t be an elaborate service, not like the one we held for Max Candle. That was quite an event. Magicians came from all over the planet to give him a proper send-off. I haven’t heard of anything on that scale since he died. Anyway, Oliver’s already been buried. We’re just having a wake at a little place in your neighborhood.“
„Futura said Oliver loved Louisa, too.“
„He was devoted to her. Oliver never married, you know. Never cheated on her memory.“
„And you’ve never loved anyone but Louisa?“
He knelt down beside Mallory. „You’re still wondering – am I crazy, or is Louisa just part of the act? Do I carry her around for guilt or profit?“
„I think you might’ve been legitimately crazy once. But now it’s just a routine. It’s getting harder to work the wires, isn’t it?“ Mallory pointed to the ashtray. „Her cigarettes keep going out. It’s almost over now.“ She smiled, and he took that as a warning, backing away from her.
„This is my second trip to the basement this morning,“ she said. „I thought I found what you were looking for – an old letter stuffed in the toe of a shoe.“ That was where Mallory’s foster mother had hidden valuables to keep them safe from burglars – as if there had been a black market for bad poetry written by Helen’s middle-aged husband.
Malakhai was hovering over her. „Was it a letter from Max?“
„From Louisa. It was addressed to you. She probably thought you’d keep her personal effects if she didn’t make it through the night.“ Mallory glanced at the wardrobe trunk. „I always wondered why you didn’t.“ She looked down to inspect her fingernails, as if this transaction meant nothing to her. „I’ll trade you for the letter. When you fired that gun on Thanksgiving Day, which one of them were you aiming at?“
He shook his head slowly to say, No deal.
„I’ve got rules, Malakhai. Nothing is free. Tell me which one you were aiming at – or I destroy Louisa’s letter.“
„So be it.“ There was no hesitation. He was not bluffing.
Mallory stood up and walked over to the wardrobe trunk. „I know she wrote it the night she died.“ She pulled out the white tuxedo and draped it over one arm. „Louisa mentioned the confession in the park.“ She turned back to him. „Last chance. Was it Nick Prado? Was he standing near the float when you fired that rifle?“
He looked down at the case of wine, head shaking from side to side. No deal.
Mallory reached into the pocket of her blazer and drew out the single page. It was a fragile thing, yellowed and creased – such delicate paper. The ink was a faint flourish of violet lines, almost illegible. She walked back to him and put it in his hand as an offering – for free.
He looked down at the aged paper, not quite believing in it yet.
She turned toward the partition. Malakhai’s head was bowed as he read the faded lines of his letter. It was written by a woman who did not know how the night would end, if she would escape or be captured – live or die. ‘Dear Malakhai,’ it began, and the long goodbye followed after.
Mallory had received a similar letter from her prescient foster father, written before his own violent death and delivered on the day of his funeral. Three generations of Markowitzes, all police officers, had written these letters to their families. The cop’s daughter understood the importance of the farewell.
Walking close to the accordion wall, she headed for the side exit, never turning back for the chance to catch him crying.
She had rules.
Chapter 16
Franny Futura listened for a noise to tell him that he was not alone. At last, he was satisfied that all the chorus boys and stagehands had left for their lunch break.
He laughed out loud and did a little dance across the floorboards, tapping his feet and whirling in his own arms, hugging himself tightly, as if this might contain his joy. It did not. His grin was wide as he paused and bowed to the empty theater seats.
„Broadway.“ He spoke this name, holy of holies, as he was rising on his toes. Then, soft as a prayer, „Thank you, Oliver.“
True, this patch of the road was far uptown, but he had never expected to come so close to an old dream, the Great White Way. Franny knew his place among magicians. They had dubbed him a living museum, a compendium of tired old tricks that amazed no one. However, come Friday night, he would perform a Max Candle illusion to a sold-out crowd. In this theater, he would be the headliner. On the marquee outside, his name was writ larger than all the other magic men on the bill.
He walked over to the long black table supporting his glass coffin. The transparent panels were edged in dark lines of lead. And lead molding marked the midsection where the two halves of the coffin joined together.
Holding on to the pewter handles, he separated these independent boxes, and they slid back easily along metal tracks embedded in the table. He patted the large pumpkin at the center of the bed. It was held in place by a metal brace so the razor would not knock it to the floor with the first swing. He had chosen this seasonal fruit over Max’s burlap dummy because it would bleed. Though the juice was pale in comparison to blood, it was miles better than sawdust.
Four feet behind the table, a narrow rectangle of black wood rose from the floorboards to the catwalk. It was decorated with functional springs and toothy wheels that resembled bright clockworks strung out along a giant velvet jeweler’s box. At the top of this mechanical base, two metal arms reached out to support the pendulum, a thin stalk of steel ending in a crescent razor.
He tap-danced toward the wings with a soft-shoe shuffle and climbed the ladder to the catwalk. When he walked across the narrow wood planks of the suspension bridge, it even swayed the same way Faustine’s had done. He gripped the rails and smiled. Just like the old days.
This theater was no mere re-creation; it was Faustine’s revisited. He had come full circle – home again.
Franny looked down and imagined Max Candle lying in the glass coffin, bound hand and foot, screaming well-rehearsed lines to tell the audience that something had gone wrong with the pendulum, that the machine was going to kill him – night after night.
From the dark of the wings stage right, smoke was curling forward into the footlights. „Emile?“
The only reply was a knock on wood, and now he knew his visitor. How many years must he put behind him before that sound would cease to make him afraid?
Nick Prado said, in a badly disguised sotto voce, „Suddenly there came a tapping.“
Franny’s hands tightened on the rail as the man walked into the light of center stage. Nick stood beneath the catwalk and looked up as he slaughtered the poet’s line. „Who’s that rapping at my door? Franny, you must try to work something of Poe into the act.“ Nick’s gaze traveled down the long stalk of the pendulum to the razor-sharp crescent. „I heard a rumor that you hired six chorus boys.“ He looked up again. „Say it isn’t so.“