„Stop!“
„Franny’s act is almost done. I have to hurry.“
Mallory didn’t aim to wound him; she picked that place where the shaft would travel into his back and rupture his heart. She squeezed the crossbow trigger. The bowstring released with a twang, and in that same instant, he whirled around. His hand flashed out and caught the arrow in midair.
Impossible.
She knew the velocity of the arrow. He could not have done that, yet there was an arrow in his hand.
„Apparently I misjudged you.“ He came strolling back to her, smiling, taking his own time. „Sorry. No hard feelings?“
„You palmed that arrow.“ She looked down into the magazine. A misfire? She cocked it again and raised the sights to his chest.
He kept coming. „It won’t work this time either.“ He was closing the gap between them. Futura was still shouting for help from his little room.
She fired the weapon at his chest. The string released, but the arrow did not fly. „You jammed the magazine? That’s not the way – “
„Just the way Max did it. Felt a slight kick though, didn’t you? Oh, I see the confusion. How could the arrows fly for the dummy, then jam for the human target? Well, you’re really going to hate this part.“
He held up the arrow and twisted the metal tip. It screwed up and down on the shaft. „This elongates the arrow. Only the first one drops straight into the bed – that’s for the test shot on the dummy. When you load the second arrow, the long one, its tip digs into the wood of the magazine as you press down on the other end. And the third arrow? That kept the audience from seeing that the second arrow never fired.“
„But cops loaded the magazines in both – “
„Not when Max did the routine. The policemen only handed him the arrows, all identical, all the same length. He loaded them. Oliver and Charles got that part backward. So as Max loaded the second crossbow, he twisted the tip.“
He put the arrow into her demanding outstretched hand.
„So that’s all there was to it? Max rigged a crossbow?“
„Oh, no,“ said Malakhai. „He rigged two bows. Now Charles’s solution was good, but when Max did the illusion, the effect was brilliant, electrifying. He evaded the first two shots, and the tension was unbearable while he struggled with the handcuffs. Then he broke the post, and the audience screamed – they howled. The crossbow fired – then the arrow was in his hand, caught in midair to thunderous applause. And the last shot? It appeared that his timing was off, that he had failed to catch the last arrow before it pierced his heart. Max died there on the target. When he came back from the dead to pull the arrow out of his own heart, a man in the front row fainted.“
„So he had two arrows hidden in his jacket.“
„Right. It was a thrilling effect.“
„But the jammed arrow could’ve been dislodged by the kick when the first arrow fired.“
„That actually did happen in a rehearsal with the dummy. It was always a possibility. When I saw Max take the arrow in his heart that night, I wasn’t sure. Only someone as tall as Charles could’ve avoided the fatal arrow. Even with one free hand, Max didn’t have that much room to maneuver. Still, Charles risked his life. You don’t see that kind of courage every day. That’s why Max’s routines were never stolen.“
Malakhai smiled as he watched her use an arrow to push the jammed one into the shaft, still determined to shoot him.
Behind her the music began to play again.
„And now, the best for last.“ He tugged on his shirt cuffs and showed her his empty sleeves. Then he held up two closed fists for her inspection.
His fingers slowly uncurled, and Mallory heard the distant scream of real pain coming from two directions at once, the stage and the back room. She listened to the audience reaction, the great white static of a hundred whispers all seeking reassurance in the dark. The screaming grew louder as his hands opened wider, as if Malakhai were working the other man’s pain like a ventriloquist.
She turned to the stage where the pendulum was swinging in a wide arc between the glass boxes. The edge of the crescent razor was stained red. „Max Candle didn’t use blood in the act.“
„No, Mallory. Neither did Franny.“
„Not a microphone in the box.“
„Oh, yes there is – but so is Franny.“ He caught up one of her hands as she was rushing the stage. When he swung her back to his side, the crossbow clattered to the floor. „It’s the sound equipment you hear in the back room. Nothing to cheat you and disappoint you – not this time. It’s all quite real.“
She tried to pull away. Her leg was rising and she needed space for the groin shot. He wrenched her wrist sharply, and she was wrapped in his arms.
„The pendulum won’t stop for you, Mallory.“ He spoke so softly, so reasonably – this from a killer. It was the voice of reason that chilled her, as if he could believe that this was a sane act.
„It’s not a device you can switch off,“ he said. „It has to play out the movements of the gears. That machine doesn’t care if you’re a cop.“
She tried to break Malakhai’s hold, writhing in his grasp until she faced the stage. He held her closer – like a lover, like a jailor, imprisoning her hands in his, arms binding her tighter than ropes.
Futura’s pain was a continuous shriek. Malakhai’s voice was at her ear. „You wanted to know what I did in the war? Then watch.“
„No! Stop it!“ She called out to the dancing boys, „Move the coffin out of the way!“ Mallory’s shouts mingled with Futura’s screams. The assistants faced the audience as they danced at the edge of the stage, ignoring cries for help, and the music played on. Her heart was banging in a sympathetic rhythm with Futura’s terror, his bleating and his bleeding.
And Malakhai was whispering, „Rare justice, Mallory. For Louisa, for Oliver.“
The pendulum was splattering the stage with blood, drops of it landing on the costumes of the dancing boys. Their backs were turned on the coffin as they kicked their feet in unison.
Malakhai tightened his embrace. „See those people at the back?“ Two shadowy forms were rising in the dim light of the audience. „Those men are coming to save Franny. They’ll be too late, of course, but they’re coming. Only two of them. Look at the rest.“
A lone woman’s scream rose above the sound of shrieking pain in the coffin.
„Mallory, think of Oliver Tree – all those arrows. He was your Oliver, too, wasn’t he? You always called him by his first name.“
Blood splattered the edge of the stage. The pendulum swung in a wider arc, and red drops hit the dresses of two women in the front row. Only one woman was screaming as loud as Franny Futura and with the same pain. The rest of the audience sat in stunned silence, except for the two men who had made their way to the center aisle. Now they raced toward the stage.
„Only two rescuers,“ said Malakhai.
There were spots of blood on a woman’s dress in the second row. The pendulum swung out again, red and wet. And now a man in the front row had a trickle of blood streaming down his face, as did the man next to him. The two rescuers were climbing onto the stage.
„Mallory, look at the people in the front rows. They know it’s gone wrong – never doubt that. They know Franny’s dying, and they can’t take their eyes away. Now this is theater – a small window on World War II, the way it really was. A leftover minute of horror.“
The two rescuers could not reach the coffin. They were surrounded by flapping red capes in a tight formation of tap-dancing chorus boys. Blood pooled beneath the table.
One desperate woman’s scream harmonized with shrieks from the glass coffin, echoes from the back room, and a shrill electronic squeal of sound equipment.