tantaliz

by Isaac Asimov ed.

  "But you saw her shot!"

  "That's one of the two reasons Fletcher and I were on the phones to Hollywood this morning. My ex-wife worked in pictures, at times in the technical end of movie-making. On the screen there are a number of ways to simulate a person being shot An early method was a sort of compressed-air gun fired at the actor from just off-camera. These days, especially in the bloodiest of the Western and war films, they use a tiny explosive charge fitted under the actor's clothes. Of course the body is protected from burns, and the force of it is directed outward. A pouch of fake blood is released by the explosion, adding to the realism of it"

  "And this is what Monica did?"

  Leopold nodded. "A call to her Hollywood studio confirmed the fact that she worked on a film using this device. I noticed when I met her that she'd gained weight around the bosom, but I never thought to attribute it to the padding and the explosive device. She triggered it when she raised her arm as she screamed at me."

  "Any proof?"

  The hole in her dress was just too big to be an entrance hole from a .38, even fired at close range—too big and too ragged. I can thank Fletcher for spotting that. This morning the lab technicians ran a test on the bloodstains. Some of it was her blood, the rest was chicken blood."

  "She was a good actress to fool all those people."

  "She knew Dr. Thursby would be the first to examine her. All she had to do was fall over when the explosive charge ripped out the front of her dress."

  "What if there had been another doctor at the wedding?"

  Leopold shrugged. Then they would have postponed it. They couldn't take that chance."

  "And the gun?"

  "I remembered Thursby bumping against me when I first met him. He took my gun and substituted an identical weapon—identical, that it except for the serial number. He'd fired it just a short time earlier, to complete the illusion. When I drew it I simply played into their hands. There I was, the only person in the room with an apparently dying woman, and a gun that had just been fired."

  "But what about the bullet that killed her?"

  "Rifling marks on the slugs are made by the lands in the rifled barrel of a gun causing grooves in the lead of a bullet A bullet fired through a smooth tube has no rifling marks."

  "What in hell kind of gun has a smooth tube for a barrel?" the Commissioner asked.

  "A home-made one, like a zip gun. Highly inaccurate, but quite effective when the gun is almost touching the skin of the victim. Thursby fired a shot from the pistol he was to plant on me, probably into a pillow or some other place where he could retrieve the undamaged slug. Then he reused the rifled slug on another cartridge and fired it with his home-made zip gun, right into Monica's heart. The original rifling marks were still visible and no new ones were added."

  "The ambulance driver and attendant didn't hear the shot?"

  "They would have stayed up front, since he was a doctor riding with a patient. It gave him a chance to get the padded explosive mechanism off her chest, too. Once that was away, I imagine he leaned over her, muffling the zip gun as best he could, and fired the single shot that killed her. Remember, an ambulance on its way to a hospital is a pretty noisy place—it has a siren going all the time."

  They were entering downtown Boston now, and Leopold directed Fletcher to a hotel near the Common. "I still don't believe the part about switching the guns," the D.A.'s man objected. "You mean to tell me he undid the strap over your gun, got out the gun, and substituted another one—all without your knowing it?"

  Leopold smiled. "I mean to tell you only one type of person could have managed it—an expert, professional pickpocket. The type you see occasionally doing an act in night clubs and on television. That's how I knew where to find him. We called all over Southern California till we came up with someone who knew Monica and knew she'd dated a man named Thompson who had a pickpocket act We called Thompson's agent and discovered he's playing a split week at a Boston lounge, and is staying at this hotel."

  "What if he couldn't have managed it without your catching on? Or what if you hadn't been wearing your gun?"

  "Most detectives wear their guns off-duty. If I hadn't been, or if he couldn't get it, they'd simply have changed their plan. He must have signaled her when he'd safely made the switch."

  "Here we are," Fletcher said. "Let's go up."

  The Boston police had two men waiting to meet them, and they went up in the elevator to the room registered in the name of Max Thompson. Fletcher knocked on the door, and when it opened the familiar face of Felix Thursby appeared. He no longer wore the moustache, but he had the same slim surgeon-like fingers that Immy Fontaine had noticed. Not a doctors fingers, but a pickpocket's.

  "We're taking you in for questioning," Fletcher said, and the Boston detectives issued the standard warnings of his legal rights.

  Thursby blinked his tired eyes at them, and grinned a bit when he recognized Leopold. "She said you were smart. She said you were a smart cop."

  "Did you have to kill her?" Leopold asked.

  "I didn't I just held the gun there and she pulled the trigger herself. She did it all herself, except for switching the guns. She hated you that much."

  "I know," Leopold said quietly, staring at something far away. "But I guess she must have hated herself just as much."

  Bill Pronzini and Michael Kurland

  So far we have limited our anthology to locked room stories only, but we thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce the impossible crime story which is usually considered part of this sub-genre because it investigates the same problem—how could a seemingly uncommittable crime have been committed?

  Bill Pronzini (1943- ), the first author, is a good young mystery writer who is quietly becoming great. He has always written brilliant stories such as "Peekaboo," "Sweet Fever," and "The Man Who Collected 'The Shadow'" but now he is producing them more frequently and consistently.

  Michael Kurland (1938- ), the second author, has written (and collaborated on) several science fiction novels, and won an Edgar Allan Poe Scroll from the Mystery Writers of America for A Plague of Spies (1969).

  VANISHING ACT

  The three of us—Ardis, Cedric Clute and I—were sitting at a quiet corner table, halfway between the Magic Cellar's bar and stage, when the contingent of uniformed policemen made their entrance. There were about thirty of them, all dressed in neatly pressed uniforms and gleaming accessories, and they came down the near aisle two abreast like a platoon of marching soldiers. Most of the tables that front the stage were already occupied, so the cops took over the stack of carpet-covered trunks which comprise a kind of bleacher section directly behind the tables.

  I cocked an eyebrow. "Most saloon owners would object to such an influx of fuzz," I said to Cedric. He owns the Cellar, San Francisco's only nightclub devoted solely to the sadly vanishing art of magic.

  "Policemen have a right to be entertained," he said, smiling. "Their lot, I understand, is not a happy one."

  Ardis said speculatively, "They look very young."

  "That's because they're most of the graduating class of the Police Academy," Cedric told her. "Their graduation ceremony was this afternoon, and I invited them down as a group. Actually, it was Captain Dickensheet's idea." He indicated a tall, angular, graying man, also in uniform, who was about to appropriate a table for himself and two other elder officers. "I've known him casually for a couple of years, and he thought his men would enjoy the show."

  "With Christopher Steele and The Amazing Boltan on the same bill," Ardis said, "they can't help but enjoy it"

  I started to add an agreement to that—and there was Steele himself standing over the table, having appeared with that finely developed knack he has of seeming to come from nowhere.

  Christopher Steele is the Cellar's main attraction and one of the greatest of the modern illusionists. I don't say that because I happen to be his manager and publicist He's also something of a secretive type, given to quirks like an in
ordinate fascination for puzzles and challenges, the more bizarre the better. Working for and with him the past five years has been anything but dull.

  Steele usually dresses in black, both on stage and off, and I think he does it because he knows it gives him, with his thick black hair and dark skin and eyes, a vaguely sinister air. He looked sinister now as he said, "The most amazing thing about Phil Boltan, you know, is that he's still alive. He does a fine job on stage, but he has the personal habits and morals of a Yahoo."

  Ardis' eyes shone as they always did when Steele was around; she's his assistant and confidante and lives in a wing of his house across the Bay, although if there is anything of a more intimate nature to their relationship neither of them has ever hinted at it to me. She said, "You sound as though Boltan is hardly one of your favorite people, Christopher."

  "He isn't—not in the least."

  Cedric frowned. "If you'd told me you felt that way, I wouldn't have booked you both for the same night"

  "It doesn't matter. As I said, he is a fine performer."

  "Just what is it that you find so objectionable about Boltan?" I asked as Steele sat down.

  "He's a ruthless egomaniac," Steele said. "Those in the psychological professions would call him a sociopath. If you stand in his way, he'll walk over you without hesitation."

  "A fairly common trait among performers," I said blandly.

  "Not in Boltan's case. Back in the 40's, for example, he worked with a man named Granger—"

  "The Four-Men-in-a-Trunk Illusion?" Ardis said immediately.

  "Right. The Granger Four-Men-in-a-Trunk Illusion premiered at the Palladium before George the Fifth. That was before Boltan's time, of course. At any rate, Granger was getting old, but he had a beautiful young wife named Cecily and an infant son; he also had Phil Boltan as an assistant

  "So one morning Granger awoke to find that Boltan had run off with Cecily and several trunks of his effects. He was left with the infant son and a load of bitterness he wasn't able to handle. As a result, he put his head in a plastic bag one evening and suffocated himself. Tragic—very tragic.''

  "What happened to the son?" Cedric asked.

  "I don't know. Granger had no close relatives, so I imagine the boy went to a foster home."

  Ardis asked, "Did Boltan marry Cecily?"

  "No. Of course not. He's never married any of his conquests."

  "Nice guy," I said.

  Steele nodded and leaned back in his chair. "Enough about Phil Boltan," he said. "Matthew, did you have any problem setting up for my show?"

  "No," I told him.

  "All your properties are ready in the wings."

  "Sound equipment?"

  "In place."

  "Ultraviolet bulbs?"

  "Check," I said. The U.V. bulbs were to illuminate the special paint on the gauze and balloons and other "spook" effects for Steele's midnight seance show. 'It's a good thing I did a pre-check; one of the Carter posters fluoresced blue around the border, and I had to take it down. Otherwise it would have been a conspicuous distraction."

  Cedric looked at me reproachfully. "I suppose you'd have removed the Iron Maiden if that had fluoresced," he said, meaning the half-ton iron torture box in one corner.

  "Sure," I said. "Dedication is dedication."

  We made small talk for a time, and then Cedric excused himself to take his usual place behind the bar; it was twenty past ten. I sipped my drink and looked idly around the Cellar. It was stuffed with the paraphernalia and memorabilia of Carter the Great, a world-famous illusionist in the Ws and '30's. His gaudy posters covered the walls.

  The stage was rather small, but of professional quality; it even had a trapdoor, which led to a small tunnel, which in turn came up in the coatroom adjacent to the bar. The only other exits from the stage, aside from the proscenium, were curtains on the right and left sides, leading to small dressing rooms. Both rooms had curtained second exits to the house, on the right beyond the Davenport Brothers Spirit Cabinet—a privy-sized cubicle in which a tarot reader now did her thing—and on the left behind a half-moon table used for close-up card tricks.

  At 10:30 the voice of Cedrics wife Jan came over the loudspeaker, announcing the beginning of Boltan's act. The lights dimmed, and the conversational roar died to a murmur. Steele swiveled his chair to face the stage, the glass of brandy he had ordered in one hand. He cupped the glass like a fragile relic, staring over its Hp at the stage as the curtain went up.

  "Oh, for a muse of fire ..." he said softly, when The Amazing Boltan made his entrance.

  "What was that?" I whispered, but Steele merely gave me one of his amused looks and waved me to silence.

  The Amazing Boltan was an impressive man. Something over six feet tall and ever so slightly portly, he had the impeccable grooming and manners of what would have been described fifty years ago as a "born gentleman." His tuxedo didn't seem like a stage costume, but like a part of his personality. It went with the gold cuff links and cigar case, and the carefully tonsured, white-striped black hair. He looked elegant, but to my eyes it was the elegance of a con man or a headwaiter.

  Boltan's act was showy, designed to impress you constantly with his power and control. He put a rabbit into a box, then waved his hands and collapsed the box, and the rabbit was gone. He took two empty bowls and produced rice from them until it overran the little table he was working on and spilled in heaps onto the stage floor. He did a beautiful version of an effect called the Miser s Dream. Gold coins were plucked out of the air and thrown into a bucket until it rattled with them; then he switched to paper money and filled the rest of the bucket with fives and tens. AH the while he kept up a steady flow of patter about "The Gold of Genies" and "The Transmutations of the Ancients of Lhassa."

  When he was finished with this effect, Boltan said to the audience, "I shall now require an assistant. A young lady, perhaps. What about you, miss? That's it—don't be afraid. Step right up here on stage with me." He helped a young, winsome-looking blonde girl across the footlights, and proceeded to amaze her and the rest of the audience by causing sponge balls to multiply in her closed hand and appear and disappear from his.

  He excused the girl finally and asked for another volunteer: "A young man, perhaps, this tune." I could tell by the pacing of the act that he was headed toward some impressive finale.

  A bulky bearded man who had just pushed himself to a table at the front, and was therefore still standing, allowed himself to be talked into climbing onto the stage. He was dressed somewhere between college casual and sloppy: a denim jacket, jeans, and glossy black shoes. He appeared to be in his late twenties, though it wasn't easy to tell through his medium-length facial hair.

  "Thank you for corning up to help me," Boltan said in his deep stage voice. "Don't be nervous. Now, if you'll just hold your two hands outstretched in front of you, palms up. . ."

  The bearded man, instead of complying with this request, took a sudden step backward and pulled a small automatic from his jacket pocket

  The audience leaned forward expectantly, thinking that this was part of the act; but Steele, who apparently felt that it wasn't, jumped to his feet and started toward the stage. I pushed my own chair back, frowning, and went after him.

  Boltan retreated a couple of steps, a look of bewilderment crossing his elegant features. The bearded man leveled the gun at him, and I heard him say distinctly, Tm going to kill you, Boltan, just as someone should have done years ago."

  Steele shouted something, but his words were lost in the deafening explosion of three shots.

  Boltan, staggering, put a hand to his chest Blood welled through his fingers, and he slowly crumpled. A woman screamed. The uniformed police cadets and their officers were on their feet, some of them starting for the stage. Steele had reached the first row of tables, and was trying to push between two chairs to get to the stage. The bearded man dropped his weapon and ran offstage right, disappearing behind the curtain leading to the dressing room on that side. />
  The entire audience knew now that the shooting wasn't part of the show; another woman screamed, and people began milling about, several of them rushing in panic toward the Cellar's two street exits. Blue uniforms converged on the stage, shoving tables and civilians out of the way, leaping up onto it. Steele had made it up the steps by this time, with me at his heels, but his path toward the stage right curtain was hampered by the cadets. Over the bedlam I heard a voice shout authoritatively, "Everyone remain calm and stay where you are! Don't try to leave these premises."

  Another voice, just as authoritative, yelled, "Jordan, Bently, Cullen—cover the exits! Let no one out of here!"

  I could see the stage area exit beyond the Spirit Cabinet, the one from the dressing room area stage right to the club floor; in fact, I had kept my eyes on it from the moment the bearded man had run off, because that was the only other way out of that dressing room-but no one appeared there. Steele and the cops pushed their way through the stage right curtain just as several other cadets reached the exit I was watching. Any second now they would drag the bearded man out, I thought, and we could start to make sense out of what had just happened.

  Only they didn't emerge, and I heard shouts of surprise and confusion instead.

  "He's got to be in here somewhere."

  "He's not here, damn it, you can see that"

  "Another exit. . ."

  "There isn't any other exit," Steele's voice said.

  "Well, he's hiding in here somewhere."

  "Where? There's no place for a man to hide."

  "Those costume trunks—"

  "They're too small to hold a man, as you can plainly see."

  "Then where the hell is he? He can't have vanished into thin air!"

  Subsequently, it appeared that the man who had shot The Amazing Boltan in full view of more than thirty cops had done just exactly that.

  Half an hour later I was again sitting at the corner table, along with Steele, Ardis, a harassed-looking Cedric, and Ced's slender and attractive wife Jan. The contingent of police had managed to quiet the frightened patrons, who were now all sitting at the tables or in the grandstand, or clustered along the walls, or bellied up to the bar for liquid fortification; they looked nervous and were mostly silent. Blue uniforms and business suits—the cadets and