„I’ll never tell. That’s my gift to you, Mallory. At three o’clock some morning, you’ll be lying awake, and it’ll cross your mind that the shadow might’ve been Louisa.“
„You don’t believe in her any more than I do.“
„Oh, but I do. Creating absolute faith is a magician’s game – always has been.“ He pulled a black scarf from his pocket and held it up to her. Slowly, he lifted it to expose five floating cards. „And behold a miracle – a royal flush. Oh, I forgot.“ The cards fell to the floor, and he kicked them aside. „You’ve already seen that one, and you didn’t like it.“
Mallory stared at the rod of lights suspended above her head. He might be doing a projection with spotlights and silhouettes, but she could see no evidence of it. There were other racks of lights, at both ends of the third-tier balcony, but neither of them was lit. She looked down at the extension board. Perhaps the answer was here. A dedicated unbeliever, she hunted for Louisa’s shadow in a bank of lights and switches.
Malakhai folded his arms and watched her for a moment. „When Picasso paid a visit, he always warned a man that he came to steal.“
„Did you know Picasso?“
„No, and now you’ve ruined a perfectly good story. I’ll have to tell you another one. How about the liberation of Paris?“
„I’d rather hear about the night Louisa died. You didn’t stick around very long, so what happened to the body?“
„Emile took care of her. He was anxious to get me out of the city, and quickly. I was half crazy and dangerous to everyone. Louisa was buried in the St. John family plot.“
Mallory looked up from the board. „So St. John had possession of the body – all the evidence of a murder. After the war, did he tell you how she really died? Or did he cover it up? The day of the parade – was he the man you wanted to shoot?“
„May I?“ He motioned her to move aside, then resumed his work at the board. „You’re getting ahead of the story. When we got to London, Max and I were split up. We didn’t meet again until the liberation of Paris.“
„The battalions converged on Paris the same day. I already know that.“
„Then why don’t you tell the rest of it, Mallory?“ He hit a switch and a silver orb rose from the stage and floated toward her head. She was backing up to the edge of the scaffold when it veered upward and popped against the heat of a spotlight – only a balloon.
The houselights went dark, but for the tiny lamps that trimmed the balconies, stars in close formation.
„When the Allies liberated Paris, I left my unit to hunt for Max. I ran through the streets all day. The war was still going on all around me. The Commander of Paris had surrendered, but the occupation forces were still firing on us. And there was an absurd party in the streets. People were screaming for joy, and then dying from shells and bullets. Girls were kissing every man in a uniform. And a small crowd gathered to watch the duel of two tanks on the place de l’Opera. I wish you could’ve seen it – a battle of dinosaurs.“
The stage turned red. More switches added bursts of yellow light.
„All around us, the city was wired to explode. While the dynamite was being dismantled, we were all existing inside a giant bomb. People came out on the balconies with their children and waved little flags. Then they ran for cover when the bullets started flying. The whole day was like that – an emotional slingshot.“
„I looked for Max’s face on every troop truck, every marching column. Finally I went to Faustine’s to wait for him there. If he was still alive, I knew he’d come. The theater was boarded up. I waited by the door until dark.“
The color of the walls changed to indigo, and tiny stars of silver confetti fell from the bank of dark lights in the false sky.
„I came back to Faustine’s the next day and the next. I remember crying when I realized that my best friend must be dead.“
„He forgot you.“
Malakhai only looked at her to say, Whose story is this? „I went on a – the Germans would call it the Wanderjahre. A time of wandering.“ He worked over his board. And now the walls were bathed in a purple glow. „When I came back to Faustine’s again, the theater was empty. A rich American had bought out the entire stock.“
„Max Candle.“
„Yes. When we met in New York, he told me he was waiting at the theater while I was searching for him in the streets. Emile also showed up for that reunion. He found Max banging on the padlocked door, shouting my name over and over. Emile used his police sources to get a list of casualties for my unit, and my name was at the top. I was reported dead quite a few times.“
Mallory turned to the sound of running footsteps on the stage below. The stage was empty, but the feet ran round and round the platform, faster and faster. A recording? Was the lighting board a sound board too? The amplifiers must be set into the base of the scaffold.
The footsteps ended.
„Max had saved Louisa’s music,“ said Malakhai. „He had the presence of mind to hide the manuscript before we left Paris. That’s why he bought up all the stock from the theater. There were so many old trunks, he had to be sure they’d ship the right one. We used his family connections to get the concerto published. That was my stake for a magic act and a new life.“
„When you went to Korea, was that another tour of mass murder? Or just an interesting form of suicide?“
„I never killed anyone in that war. I was captured a few weeks after I enlisted.“
Mallory nodded. This agreed with his war record. She had yet to catch him in a lie. „So you came back from Korea and put your dead wife in the act. You didn’t want to die anymore?“
At the edge of the stage, gray scarves were whirling, barely detectable against the shadowed theater except where the silk threw back the light. A spotlight came on and the scarves changed to blue in the illusion of a whirling dress.
„And now?“ Mallory looked at him, refusing to be distracted anymore. „How do you feel about dying now?“
The spotlight died, and the scarves fell to the floor in a heap of crushed silk as he turned his face to hers. „You think I’m baiting one of them to kill me? An elaborate suicide?“
„Why not? I know what’s waiting for you. You’re losing your brains a bit at a time. But sticking a gun in your mouth never was your style. You went into two wars looking for a more interesting way out.“
„You’d make a terrible magician. Your logic is too complex. The solution is always going to be something simple.“
„Revenge is pretty simple,“ said Mallory. „You always knew which one of them killed Louisa. It was the man covered with her blood. You were fifty years late, but that’s the simple solution you were going for when you fired on the parade float. Or were you aiming at someone nearby? Nick Prado?“
„Do you still think I put that body in Oliver’s platform? The red hair you pocketed at the restaurant – “
„It came from a wig – very good quality, but not human.“ She looked around at the mass of props on the stage. „Charles says you don’t use a wig in the act. So what do you do with it – besides fooling waiters? Do you leave hairs around the hotel room for the maids to find?“
He seemed to understand the look in her eyes. She was asking, How crazy are you?
„Well, at least I’m off the hook for Oliver’s nephew. That’s promising.“
„No,“ said Mallory. „You might have planted the body if you wanted to rattle someone. Futura’s an easy target for something like that.“
„Hysteria is my best trick. You just can’t admit that Oliver bungled the illusion, that everything has a logical explanation.“
„You stayed friends with Max Candle until he died. Where’s the logic in that? The bastard was going to run off with your wife. And you still carry that dead woman around with you. After what she did – “