„Wrong again,“ said Riker. „Oliver didn’t have much use for his nephew, but he didn’t want the kid to die from an overdose of money. So the old man hired the best lawyer in Manhattan to make an unbreakable trust. Oliver’s attorney is the mother of all sharks. Remember that when you meet him. You can’t bullshit this bastard.“
Mallory held up a crisp twenty-dollar bill. Riker nodded, and the bet was made.
„Okay, next interview.“ Riker turned back pages in his notebook. „I talked to the guy who managed Oliver’s company after the old man retired. He says Oliver still did some work on the side. He owned an old theater uptown. The renovation was kind of a hobby. That’s where he built the platform a couple of years ago.“
She drummed her fingers on the ream of paper. „This will is dated eight months ago. So why isn’t the platform mentioned?“
Riker shrugged. „Old guy, bad memory.“
„Maybe he gave it away before he died. Remember the dinner party, Riker? Those gifts to his old friends? One of them got the platform and Oliver’s plans for the Lost Illusion. That man knew how to sabotage the trick.“
„It’s a good theory, but – “
„It gets better. I went over Max Candle’s platform last night. The loops for the handcuffs are set high on the posts. Same position for both platforms.“
„So?“
„The trick was originally designed for a taller man. Max Candle was six feet tall. Oliver was seven inches shorter. Prado and Futura are both about the same – “
Charles returned with a tray of coffee mugs. He set it down on the low table in front of her, and the aroma of cappuccino did not make her nauseous. Riker’s hangover remedy had actually worked. „Thanks, Charles. How bad is the damage on the post? Do I need a carpenter to – “
„The post isn’t broken,“ said Charles, and he appeared to be sorry about that.
„Of course it is,“ she said – she insisted. „I broke it last night.“
„Are you quite sure you broke it?“
„What the hell is that supposed to mean?“ Did he think that she imagined it?
Riker was squinting at Charles. „Would I want to know what this is about? Did I miss a good party?“ He turned to Mallory. „You never take me anywhere.“
„That’s enough,“ said Mallory. „I did shoot the rat, I did not shoot the balloon, I did break the post.“ She hoped they both understood that it would be a big mistake to challenge any of this. „Malakhai must’ve fixed it.“ He had obviously been visiting the cellar while she was sleeping through the alarm this morning.
So it was not the passport he wanted. Malakhai was still searching for something.
The young messenger’s bicycle basket was loaded with packages as he rushed down the mighty artery of Broadway, ignoring the traffic light and aiming his front wheel at a crowd of pedestrians in the crosswalk at 42nd Street. He screamed out a warning to those who were foolish enough to block his way: „No insurance! No insurance!“
Mallory pulled Mr. Halpern back, and the rest of the crowd divided to clear a path for the bicycle. The messenger whizzed through the crush of bodies on either side of him. Jeers and raised fingers suggested that the rider should commit an unnatural sex act upon himself at the first opportunity.
Mr. Halpern shook his head and smiled as he stared at the back of the departing bicyclist. „That’s New York.“ He said this as if it might be a good explanation for a near-death experience. And it probably was.
The night of the poker game, the old man had carried a homburg. Today he wore a deerstalker with fur flaps to protect his ears from the cold. „On my lunch hour, I always take a stroll around Times Square, no matter what the weather. Anything to get out of the office.“
Mallory strained to hear his weak voice. The nervous streets of flashing electronic signs, fast-walking pedestrians and vehicles converged on them from all directions. Broadway merged its cars and tour buses with Seventh Avenue traffic, and all the cross streets contributed more hustle to the flow.
„It’s changed so much,“ said Mr. Halpern. „It’s like watching a child grow.“ He pointed to the Disney store. Flights of cheerful cartoon characters had displaced hookers, peepshows and adult bookstores. Mickey Mouse reigned over Times Square. „My great-grandchildren love the – “ And now he stopped, perhaps recalling newspaper headlines to the effect that Detective Mallory was not a friend of the cartoon world.
A car honked to break a city ordinance against unnecessary noise. And now the warm scent of roasted chestnuts turned Mallory’s head. A sidewalk vendor had illegally set up his cart, despite the fact that the mayor had recently driven small entrepreneurs from the square. In the absence of a police presence, there were a lot of violations going down today. And that was odd – not a single uniformed officer in sight.
She focused on the old man again, walking alongside him, taking his measurements. According to the rabbi, Mr. Halpern was Malakhai’s age, but he seemed decades older. Was he ill, or only tired?
„I can read your mind, Detective Mallory. Why do I still work? It’s almost indecent, isn’t it? I should yield to the young – my replacements.“
„Not if you don’t want to.“ She was following the rabbi’s protocol to the letter. This was the warm-up, the casual conversation, an utter waste of her time.
„Oh, but I wanted to retire,“ said Mr. Halpern. „When my son took over the family business, I wanted to make an art studio in my garage. At last, I would have the time to work on my drawings. I’d waited so many years for the chance. But my boy had other plans. Now he keeps an office for me. I sit there every day and do work of no importance. He pretends I’m needed. I pretend not to notice that I’m in his way. Such loving lies we tell each other.“
„Why don’t you tell him what you want?“ At best, this old man would only have a few years left to draw his pictures.
„I did tell him. I said I wanted to retire. But my son knows I love him very much. He was sure I must be lying to him.“ Mr. Halpern shrugged. „So to prove his love is greater, he told the bigger lie. He said he couldn’t run the business without me. Well, he’s my son. How can I accuse him of lying?“ He raised his eyebrows to ask if she saw the humor in this.
Yes, she did. And thanks to Rabbi Kaplan, who had invented the concept of irony, Mallory had even predicted the punch line.
She pulled out her pocket watch and frowned at the time. Well, this little warm-up chat was definitely over. „The rabbi said you had a story about Malakhai?“
„Oh, yes.“ He looked at the watch in her hand, nodding his understanding that she had more important business elsewhere.
„You spoke to him at the rabbi’s house the other night.“ She kept the watch open in her hand, a visual prompt to make him talk faster.
„Yes, I was surprised by how well he looked – how young. Only his hair had grown old.“
„How old was he the first time you met him?“
„In the camp? He was about my age, maybe seventeen. I was unloading mailbags from the train. That was my – “
„This was a concentration camp?“
„Yes, but there were no ovens, no gas chambers in this place. It was a transit camp, a limbo station on the way to worse places. It was prison, but there was food enough. And that day there was music. There was always music when we had visitors from the outside. That was the day the Red Cross inspection team arrived. While they were touring the camp, the train came in with new prisoners to be processed. Later, the list of names would be called out for boarding. When the train pulled out again – “
He winced at some old memory and looked down at the pavement. „Well, you never wanted to be on the outward-bound trains. My parents, my whole family had gone down that track to Auschwitz. Not one of them ever came back. Not one cousin, an aunt or an uncle. And I knew my name would be on that list one day.“ He paused again. „But I’m rambling – sorry.“ He leaned down, the better to see the face of her pocket watch.
Mal
lory snapped it shut and put it away. „I have time,“ she said. „All the time you need.“
The old man nodded and took a package of cigarettes from his coat pocket. He held them up to ask if she objected. She didn’t.
„Louisa had been in the camp for about a month. I didn’t know her name then. I never spoke to her. But I saw her every day when she was led to the commandant’s office. Her eyes were always in a faraway trance – a walking dreamer. I thought she had lost her mind.“
He stabbed the air with one finger as if marking a moment in time. „But that day was different. Louisa stood on the bandstand and played her violin to entertain the visitors. The Red Cross team had come to inspect the camp. The commandant was anxious to show them how well treated we were. The camps down the track – what went on there… It was the worst-kept secret on earth. The prisoners all knew about the death camps. And the Red Cross people – they knew. Yet they came to photograph the transit camp, to show this to the outside world.“
He held an unlit cigarette as he dug into another pocket for his matches. „I was standing by the train with my cart, waiting for the mail car to open. Malakhai just appeared by my side – a young boy, straight and tall. His eyes were the same dark blue. Odd that his eyes never changed. His long hair was the color of lions. Such a handsome boy, but so strange and out of place. It was a warm day, but his shirt collar was buttoned up and his sleeves were pulled down. I knew he hadn’t gotten off the train with the others. Not a prisoner, not a soldier either. Later, I decided he must have come in with the people from the Red Cross.“
Mr. Halpern’s wooden match made a false strike on the side of a small box. „After the mail was unloaded, the boy walked along with me and helped to push the cart. No guard ever looked his way. They only recognized fear and covert acts. Nothing else got their attention. As the cart rolled along, Malakhai never took his eyes off the bandstand. It was maybe ten feet high, a stage on four thick legs, and guards were posted at the foot of the stairs. The lines of prisoners from the train moved around it like a living river.“
Mallory was aware of someone standing close to them. She turned to see a small bearded man wearing a ski cap and pretending sudden interest in a shopwindow. Was he hiding something?
She turned her attention back to Mr. Halpern’s story.
„There were three musicians on the bandstand. The cellist and the oboe player were middle-aged women. Louisa was only a schoolgirl. Long red hair and light blue eyes. She had milk-white skin like yours. I can still see her face in every detail. But her expression is what I will remember till I die. I don’t think she knew what was happening. She seemed so lost in her music, dreaming or insane.“
The old man was seeing it all over again in that middle ground of vision, looking back at time. „The prisoners marched past the bandstand. A soldier called out names for the death train. And the music was Mozart.“ He waved the wooden match in the air, a tiny baton conducting a memory.
„I was distracted, listening for my name on the list. I wasn’t called that day. When I turned to the young stranger, he was gone. I looked up at the bandstand, and Louisa had also vanished. The two older women were still playing their instruments. The guards stationed at the foot of the stairs didn’t seem to notice that one musician was missing. No one was aware of the escape, though it happened in front of hundreds of people. No one saw it.“
„Do you remember anything else going on?“
„You mean a diversion?“ He put the unlit cigarette in his mouth. „Yes, I figured that out afterward. I remember a commotion somewhere beyond the lines of prisoners. I didn’t see what it was – I was so intent on the list of names. Louisa must’ve jumped into his arms while the guards were distracted.“
Mallory nodded. „If the diversion was on the ground, the guards wouldn’t have any reason to look up.“ Most people went through their days without ever looking any higher than their own heads.
The cigarette dangled between his dry lips. „The train was loaded, ready to pull out. The last time I saw the boy and girl, they were hiding in the brush by the side of the tracks – too close. I wanted to warn them that the soldiers would see them when they secured the train. And then I realized that Louisa and Malakhai meant to climb aboard.“
Mallory was watching the other man, the smaller figure with the ski cap. He was hovering closer now, holding a valise in his arms, cradling it like a baby, as he skated back and forth on his sneakers. A pickpocket looking for a likely mark? No, that didn’t fit with the valise. She looked around the square. Why were there no cops?
„I wanted to stop them, to warn them,“ said Mr. Halpern. „It was insanity to board the death train. When they climbed into the mail car, I was so frightened for them. Then I looked away. I didn’t want to draw attention to them with my own fear. The search of the mail car only took a few minutes. Not a big security problem. Who would willingly get on board? That way down the rail was death and worse things.“
He struck another match absently. It failed to light. „The soldiers checked inside the mail car, but they never found the boy and girl. The train rolled out.“
„So Louisa and Malakhai hid in the mail sacks?“
„That’s what I thought when I made my own escape. There were always ten or twelve mailbags on that car. Only one was unloaded at the transit camp. All the sacks were large enough to hide a body, and most of them were never full. I figured the train would make a number of stops before it entered Germany. Until that moment, I never thought of escaping death that way – on a train to an extermination camp.“
Mallory was distracted again. The bearded man with the ski cap slid back into her field of vision, still clutching his valise. He was waiting for something or someone.
Mr. Halpern pulled another match from the box. The unlit cigarette moved in the corner of his mouth as he spoke. „Twenty years later, I saw them again on the stage – right here in New York. Louisa was long dead by then, and her ghost was part of a magic act. I could hear Malakhai speaking to her, but I couldn’t see her – only the objects she carried. And then he sent her out into the audience, this poor dead girl. I felt a rush of air near my chair. I could smell a woman’s perfume – the scent of a flower.“
„A gardenia?“
„Yes, perhaps a gardenia. And then, I swear Louisa brushed my cheek with her hand. After the performance, I wanted to go backstage, to ask him then – how did they make their escape? But I was in tears. I couldn’t speak.“
Mallory had lost track of the odd little man in the ski cap. He had melded back into the crowd. „But didn’t you say you escaped?“
„Not the way they did, though I thought so at the time. I made the run myself on the next train. Once the guards knew Louisa was gone, the camp would lock down. I’d never get the chance again. I walked along the rails with my cart. I paid no attention to the guards, and so I was invisible to them – just as Malakhai had been. I waited for the steam of the engine to cover me, and then I boarded the mail car. There were no names on the sacks, only numbers. There was no way to tell when or where the next mail drop would be. They searched the car before the train pulled out. The butt of a rifle missed my head by an inch when a soldier jammed it into my sack.
You begin to see the problem? How did they miss two people in different mailbags?“
He struck the match; it flamed in the wind and died. He pulled out another. „I hid in there for hours and hours. I was afraid the train would never stop before we entered Germany. When it finally did stop, the mail car wouldn’t open from the inside – there was no latch. Can you imagine that moment? I gave myself up for dead and crawled back into that canvas bag, my shroud.“
„Then the door was pulled open. Only one sack was unloaded, and I was in it. A stroke of luck, one chance in a pile of ten mailbags to escape from the train. I was thrown onto the back end of a supply truck. Once it was on the road, I crawled out of the sack and jumped off. I was free.“
He struck another match, and Mallo
ry cupped her hands around it to shelter the flame from the wind.
„But you see, don’t you? That couldn’t have been the way Malakhai and Louisa escaped. You can see the odds against it.“ He bowed to the glow of the match and lit his cigarette. „But I think I’ve figured it out – the only way it could’ve happened.“
He turned to exhale the smoke away from her, and a look of extreme horror flooded his eyes. Mallory stepped to the side and saw the gun rising in the hand of the little man with the ski cap. The spray gun was firing a black stream of paint at Mr. Halpern. And now there was also surprise on the face of the smaller man. He was trying to stuff his spray gun into the valise as he ran.
Mallory didn’t have to chase him far. He was laughing when she brought him down, unafraid, even proud – until the pain set in.
„You’re breaking my arm,“ he screamed, as she ungently pulled it back to handcuff him.
A group of people gathered around them, some for the show, and others were probably hoping to catch her in an act of police brutality. Never a willing crowd pleaser, Mallory elected not to break the little man’s bones.
„Thanks,“ said a woman in street clothes, kneeling on the ground beside her. A man joined them, flashing his identification and badge for Mallory as he crouched over the prisoner. „We’ll take over now.“
She looked past these two to see the others approach, at least ten cops in plainclothes, coming out from under cover, pinning badges to their coats as they ran. Turning around, she saw more of them coming from across the square.
So this had been a stakeout. That would explain the lack of uniforms. All of them had known what the little freak was planning. They had probably been watching him while he shot the old man with the spray gun – and they let it happen. An attempted assault was no substitute for the real thing.
She walked away from the cluster of spectators and plainclothes cops. Mr. Halpern was alone, standing apart from the crowd. His face was splattered, and his coat dripped black paint on the ground. Taking the old man’s arm, she led him along the sidewalk. Mallory saw every approaching pedestrian as a potential criminal who might jostle him, and she held Mr. Halpern’s arm a little tighter.
Shell Game Page 16
