In lieu of hello, she said, „You got a lot of mileage out of that German uniform. You wore it the day you took Louisa out of the transit camp – and again the night you shot her.“
Malakhai calmly took his seat and moved the wine bottle to one side of the table, the better to see his dinner companion – the living one. „I missed you all day. I kept looking over my shoulder, but you weren’t there.“
Back to that old game, simply ignoring what he did not want to deal with and diverting her to other things. Even his conversation was a magic act of misdirection. But tonight she had come prepared.
„You’re sure I wasn’t there? I know you had breakfast with Prado and St. John. In the afternoon, you worked on your act.“ According to the stage manager at Carnegie Hall, Malakhai had spent hours rigging strings and small anchor loops of metal.
„I gather you spent part of the day with Mr. Halpern.“ He blew smoke into the air. „And of course, your visit to the auction was on the evening news. Did you like Oliver’s version of the magic theater?“
„No.“ It had not lived up to the vision Malakhai had created for her in the basement. Oliver’s theater was only a pale copy that lacked the drama of wartime, smoke and wine, perfume and soldiers with guns. Even the corpse in Oliver’s platform had suffered a bloodless wound, more like an imitation of violence.
„About that uniform,“ she prompted him. „You were never in the German Army.“
He signaled to the waiter and pointed to the empty bottle, then turned back to Mallory. „I remember it well – superb tailoring. It belonged to an SS officer.“
„Did you kill that officer?“
„No. Sorry to disappoint you, Mallory.“ He blew a smoke ring and watched it rise into the blades of the fan. „I stole the man’s bag at a railway station. A mistake – I meant to steal his orderly’s clothes, a private’s uniform. I wasn’t old enough to pass for an officer. But then I realized that no one ever looked at the faces of the Gestapo. They only saw the SS insignia.“
She reached across the table and delicately plucked a hair from the sleeve of his dark suit. So this was the waiter’s evidence of a redhead. There was no root follicle for a DNA match. Even so, she made a show of folding it into a tissue and placing it in her purse. He followed this action with mild curiosity.
„You’re getting careless, Malakhai. I guess there wasn’t time to change clothes – after you stuffed that body into Oliver’s platform.“
„So his nephew had red hair. There were no pictures of him on the news.“ He set his cigarette in the ashtray next to one marked with Louisa’s lipstick. „I never met the boy. I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead.“
„You don’t remember hiding the body? Not surprising. I know about the strokes.“
„Courtesy of Mr. Halpern? He was so upset when I couldn’t remember how – “
The waiter appeared with a tray balanced at shoulder level. After unfolding a stand with his free hand, he set his burden down, then rearranged all the items on a tabletop barely large enough to accommodate three plates and silverware, glasses, a bottle, an ashtray and a purse. Mallory and Malakhai watched in silent fascination as the waiter altered the laws of physics to expand space, creating more room for a basket of bread, a candle, another wine bottle and a large plate of hors d’oeuvres.
„I couldn’t have done that,“ said Malakhai.
When the three glasses had been filled with red wine, and the waiter had departed with their dinner orders, Mallory slipped one hand into the open purse by her plate. Malakhai took no notice. He was staring at her face, not expecting anything out of the ordinary tonight, certainly no magic – not from her.
„It’s an interesting problem,“ she said. „You have to get even for Louisa’s death before you forget who she was.“ Her blind fingers found the anchor loop inside the purse. The string was still in place. „What about the day Oliver died in Central Park? Do you remember where you were?“
„At home, hundreds of miles from here. I watched it on television.“
She teased a length of string from her handbag. „What time was that?“
„There are no clocks in my parlor. I believe it was a live performance – whatever time the show went on that night.“
„Night?“ said Mallory. „You didn’t notice the sun shining on the bandstand and the crowd?“
„Not bright camera lights?“ He smiled to say that this was an honest mistake. Sorry.
Yeah, right.
„Oliver Tree was pronounced dead at three thirty-one in the afternoon.“ She liked to be precise about death. „But you watched the show at night.“
Under the cover of her napkin, she moved the string toward Louisa’s place setting as she leaned forward. „Can you explain that?“
„After a stroke, sometimes it’s all I can do to find the right decade. Mistaking night for day is one of my lesser errors in time.“
„Or you watched Oliver’s show on a VCR. Maybe you taped it because you knew you wouldn’t be home that afternoon.“
„I remember an alarm clock going off. It might have been ringing for hours. Perhaps I did tape the show – as a precaution against a stroke.“
She left the napkin by Louisa’s glass. „So you have no alibi for that afternoon?“
„No, I’m something of a hermit. Days can go by without my seeing another soul, and it’s been years since I asked anyone for the time of day.“
„What’s your first name?“
„Malakhai is the only name I have. My father abandoned my mother and never acknowledged me as his bastard. So Mother put his surname on the birth certificate. It drove his family wild. My mother had an interesting sense of humor.“ He was staring at the bulge of her blazer where it covered the shoulder holster. „The gun ruins the line of the jacket. Does that upset your tailor?“
Other detectives had solved this problem by wearing the gun lower, but she liked the intimidation value.
„Louisa had a better tailor,“ said Mallory. „Very expensive alterations. How much loot did you get after you buried Oliver’s grandmother in the cellar?“
He laughed. That was not the reaction she wanted.
„My compliments. I won’t ask how you pried that story loose. The only profit was Faustine’s pension. It was barely enough to cover rent on the theater. Louisa’s clothes belonged to a boy who left the troupe. She remade all the costumes herself.“
Mallory shook her head. „I know expert tailoring when I see it. And I know what it costs.“
„My wife was a tailor’s daughter.“ When he turned to the dead woman’s chair, he was suddenly unsettled. Louisa’s plate held oysters and shrimp speared with bright-colored toothpicks, but he had not placed them there.
„Why was Louisa in that transit camp?“
When he turned his eyes to Mallory again, he was still disconcerted. „Oh, lots of people wound up there. Refugees were always being rounded up on the street in mass arrests, twenty at a time. They were sorted out later at the transit camp. Most of them were let go.“
„There’s more to it,“ said Mallory. „I know the camp commandant questioned Louisa every day. She was more than a tailor’s daughter.“
„She wasn’t a spy, if that’s what you mean. But her father was more than a tailor. He had a list of names that interested the Germans. They thought Louisa might know where he was.“
„So you were working with the Polish underground.“
„No, I was only a runaway schoolboy in love with Louisa. I’ve loved her since we were children.“ His head turned as Louisa’s wineglass moved, but not by his hand, not his strings. There was a grave disquiet in his eyes. But he showed no suspicion that Mallory was working his dead wife like a puppet.