„No, Mallory. You have to stay here and keep Charles alive. I promise you, there’s nothing in those magazines to block any of the arrows.“
Charles was standing at the base of the staircase.
„You expect me to – “
„Believe it, Mallory. All the arrows will fire, and he’ll never get out of those manacles. I got this idea from you – last night, when you asked me if I’d hurt Charles. If not for you, it never would’ve occurred to me. Remember, Charles is doing this to impress you, so it won’t be easy to talk him out of it. You may have to shoot him.“
She turned to the stage. The officers were bowing to the audience. So what were the odds they would come running when she called? „You wouldn’t hurt him.“
„No, I love Charles. In your own strange way, I think you’re also rather fond of him.“
„I’m not buying it, Malakhai. I don’t believe you’d let him die.“
„I never lied to you, Mallory.“ He turned his back on her.
„Stop! You know I’ll shoot you.“
„Remember, if you can’t stop him from mounting the platform, you have to pull the front crossbow off the pedestal.“ He was moving under the exit sign.
She pulled out her revolver and aimed low to shoot a leg out from under him.
What the hell?
The revolver was too light. She fired off a click. The prop gun wasn’t even loaded with a charge.
The kiss. He had taken her gun with a kiss and left a toy in its place. And now he was gone. The doors closed behind him.
Charles was walking toward the first crossbow with the officer who would set the gears in motion. Standing between the doors to the stage and the doors to the street, she damned Jack Coffey for shorting her on manpower.
„Wait!“ She ran onto the stage and grabbed Charles by one arm. „You can’t go on.“
He glanced over one shoulder to look at the three thousand expectant faces behind them. „Well, actually, I am on.“ There was tittering in the audience, though his voice had been low. Now he removed her hand from his arm, saying, „So you’ll excuse me, Mallory, but – “
„Malakhai rigged your act. If you go ahead with it, you’ll die.“
More laughs came from the audience. And now she saw the microphone on Charles’s lapel.
He looked down at her, saying in a louder voice, „Mallory, it’s a solo act.“
And the audience was laughing again. His foolish face was no good to him in a poker game, but it did lend itself to comedy.
She put her hand over his microphone. „You can’t go through with this. Your cuff key won’t work.“
Charles grinned. „Malakhai told you that, did he?“ As he turned to face the audience, his voice was booming, needing no amplifier in the perfect acoustic realm of the great hall. „She doesn’t want me to go through with the act. Thinks it might be dangerous.“
And now they were all laughing at her. She could feel the heat rising in her face. „If you go up those stairs, I’ll dismantle the crossbows. I don’t have time to screw around, Charles.“ She moved toward the deadliest weapon at the corner of the platform.
„Do you mind?“ He gripped her wrist to stop her from pulling the crossbow off its pedestal. „Perhaps we could discuss this another time.“ Charles picked her up and put her over one shoulder, as if she weighed no more than a sack of screaming, pounding feathers. He carried her to the side of the platform. And now the door was opening in the wooden wall.
„No!“ she screamed, beating her fists, forgetting that this would be akin to flies landing on the back of a man Charles’s size.
And the audience was roaring.
„No!“ Mallory was deposited on the floor inside the platform. She landed on the empty back pocket of her jeans, where her cell phone used to make a bulge – but no longer.
Damn Malakhai.
The door slammed shut. The tin lampshade cast a bright pool of light on the floor, and the ceiling was in shadow. Mallory was on her feet and banging her fists on the wood. „Let me out!“
The crowd fell silent, and she could hear the loud tick of the first pedestal gear through the baffle of the walls. Seconds later, the next one was armed. The ticking grew louder with each pedestal set in motion. She heard his footfalls halfway up the staircase, and screamed, „Stop now! Go back down, or you’ll die!“
He stomped his foot on the middle stair, and she heard his amplified voice saying, „Quiet! You’ll break my concentration.“
The audience was laughing again. She was an even bigger joke. „Charles, you have to stop the act!“
He was on the small stage at the top of the stairs, stomping on the floor. „Enough!“ he yelled.
More laughs.
Mallory looked up at the shadows on the ceiling. Charles had said there was no way out except for the knobless door, but there were two exits from the prop room in Charles’s basement. Malakhai had said that Oliver’s copy was made too well. This original might have a weakness.
The ticking was loud. The trapdoor dropped open in the nine-foot ceiling, and the lazy tongs were rising up through the square hole in the stage. She could see a flash of Charles’s trousers as he stepped away from the cape supported by the metal skeleton. Before she could climb the wall ladder, the door had snapped shut. She could not reach it from the wall, but the other trapdoor behind the curtain was at the top of the ladder. She pulled on the spring that kept the door from falling open. It would take a more powerful man than Charles to work it manually, and the operating levers were on the stage above her.
By now Charles’s body would be spread across the face of the target, his ankles bound by leg irons and his wrists in NYPD manacles. The lazy tongs were lowering through the trapdoor beyond her reach. The ticking was louder. No – that was a trick of her mind; panic was magnifying the noise.
She heard the audience’s collective gasp. The first arrow had flown, and Charles was yelling, „Wait! Something’s gone wrong!“ Max Candle’s famous lines.
Or had Charles just discovered that his cuff key didn’t work? The front rows were filled with magicians and Charles’s poker cronies. They all knew the trademark words; not one of them would help him. And the two police officers would prevent any good Samaritans from climbing onto the stage.
The audience gasped again. Had he avoided the second arrow to the leg? He was still screaming for someone to help him. She had twenty seconds to get to the crossbow.
How did Malakhai get out? His exit had to be at the ground level, yet he had not used the side door. She climbed down the ladder and stood before the rear wall, pressing on the slats around the center panel. Charles was screaming. Another arrow had flown, and she started as though it had hit her.
Easy, now. Don’t panic, don’t – And now her fingers found the pressure lock, a give in the wooden slat. The door opened to the bright lights of the stage. She was out and running, looking up as she flew around the platform. Charles’s eyes were wide with fear, but in his face, tragedy passed for comedy. He was still bound by leg irons and both hands were cuffed to the iron post rings. Only one pedestal was ticking now. His right hand balled into a fist and lunged forward, ripping the loop from the post, where she had weakened it. His hand came away with a splintered section of wood.
Mallory’s eyes fixed on the crossbow that was going to kill him. She flew toward it, almost there. Charles was almost dead. Her hands closed on the crossbow – too late. The string released before she could unseat it from the pedestal.
Charles screamed in pain.
She turned to see the arrow buried in his chest as he rolled away from the target and stopped struggling. He was not holding an arrow in place this time. He sank down, dangling by one manacle, eyes closed.
And Mallory’s whole world took on the dreamer’s quality of walking underwater. Sound was dulled, and her movements were slow. She was unaware that she still held the pistol grip of the crossbow. The uniforms were racing up the stairs. Dr. Slope had left his wife and child in the front row and he was climbing over the edge of the stage. Now he was also running past her on the staircase. All the rest of the world was moving faster. Her legs were so heavy. Each step was a great effort. Her hands were frozen, wrapped tight around the grip of the crossbow pistol.