A Snowball in Hell

by Christopher Brookmyre

  Innez finishes pouring and the assistant puts a cap on the shaker before taking the tankard and exiting stage left. ‘I love a Margarita,’ he says, walking forward and contemplating the shaker. ‘I feel it infuses the whole atmosphere with its ambience, even the light itself.’ As he says this, he gesticulates towards the bar with the shaker, at which the white light suddenly turns green. ‘I wonder how it does that. Probably just the booze.’

  He wanders back to the bar, handing the shaker to the returning assistant en route, then switches off the light and removes the translucent shade. Inside there’s a huge bulb connected to the socket, which looks at first to be green. However, once he’s unscrewed it and held it up, Albert can see it is actually clear, and filled with green liquid. With a flick of the wrist, Innez removes the brass end from the bulb and pours the liquid into three of the stemmed glasses on top of the bar. He puts them on a silver tray and carries them to the front, where he invites anyone who fancies one to come and get it.

  There’s a woman four tables along who steams right in there for her and her mates, who’ve already emptied a jug of Margaritas between them and are having the same luck as Albert getting a refill.

  ‘How is it, ladies?’ he asks. ‘The real deal?’

  ‘Better than from the bar,’ one of them reports, and they all get stuck in.

  Innez walks back to the centre of the stage and takes the shaker back from the assistant. That’s when Albert’s sussed it. It’s the shaker, innit? Got to be. Innez has switched it, several times probably. Yeah. Albert’s always been good at tippling magic tricks. He’ll have his eye on that shaker now.

  ‘Now, you may be wondering whether the effect I just mentioned works both ways, given the capacity of that bulb is smaller than the capacity of my shaker. Truth is, it doesn’t. I’ve got some Margarita left in here. But maybe that’s not everybody’s cup of tea. Or Long Island Iced Tea, even.’

  Yeah, here we go. He goes back to the bar and pours out a brown-coloured drink into a stemmed glass. Switched the shakers, definitely. Smart, but not as smart as he thinks. That’s why Albert’s gonna have him.

  Innez brings the Long Island Iced Tea out to a keen recipient in the audience. All eyes are on this bloke as he takes a sip, waiting to see if he’ll verify that the drink is what it purports to be. All eyes, that is, except Albert’s, which remain locked on the shaker in Innez’s hand. The cocktail approvingly appraised, Innez walks back to the bar with applause ringing around him. Albert keeps eyes on, waiting for the switch, but Innez stays in front of the bar in full view as he lifts another glass and suggests: ‘How about we move from Long Island to Manhattan?’ He puts a cap on the shaker and gives it a thorough jiggle before pouring out a distinctly amber-coloured drink. The assistant comes over again, this time bearing a tray of fresh glasses, upon which Innez places the new drink and the cap.

  All right, so it’s the lid, Albert decides, but Innez immediately takes another stemmed glass and pours a clear drink into it from the same shaker. Just to rub it in, it’s only a bleeding Martini, innit?

  Holding the Martini in one hand, Innez leaves the shaker on top of the bar and lifts the Manhattan from the tray, then takes the drinks down to the audience. He asks for opinions from the grateful recipients. The woman who gets the Martini says it’s the best she’s had since they left Marbella, asks him if it’s Tanqueray. Albert’s throat’s like an Arab’s sandal just looking at her knocking it back.

  He returns to the bar, where the shaker remains in plain sight, the assistant still standing there with her tray of clear glasses, and now it just gets daft. He pours out, from this same bloody shaker, a cherry liqueur, a Crème de Menthe, a Piña Colada, a Bloody Mary and a Blue Lagoon. Albert’s all but licking his lips as he watches the assistant carry the tray down to the floor and start handing out the goodies. Innez has walked to the front of the stage to take the applause, still holding the shaker. He has a look back and forth and suddenly zeroes in on Albert’s empty glass.

  ‘You ready for a refill there, sir?’ he asks.

  Albert thinks for a split-second about waving the offer away, keeping his head down, but remembers his own rule of keeping your nerve: the slightest extra effort to be inconspicuous can be the single most conspicuous act. Added to that, the guy can’t possibly see any of the audience’s faces with much clarity while he’s on stage under the lights and they’re sitting down in the dark. And all of this is to say nothing regarding precisely how much Albert fancies another drink.

  ‘Wouldn’t say no,’ he replies, deepening his natural voice a little and neutralising his accent.

  ‘Elizabeth, bring me that man’s glass.’

  Now, this really bloody surprises him. He’d assumed Innez would just toddle back to the bar for another glass as a pretext for some nifty bit of legerdemain, but it is indeed the glass he so long ago finished, and this glass only that is presented to the magician on her tray. Remaining at the front of the stage, he takes it in his hand, gives it a sniff.

  ‘Martini?’ he asks.

  Albert nods. Innez places his glass back on the tray and reattaches the cap to the shaker before giving it a good old once-over. He then pours out a fresh drink, complete with an olive, and walks down to present it to Albert, with the audience giving it plenty. Innez hands it over with a smile, looking him right in the face without the merest glimmer of anything that could be interpreted by the most cautious mind as the slightest hint of recognition.

  ‘How is that, sir?’ he asks.

  Albert takes a mouthful. It’s chilled, it’s smooth, and it’s a sight better than the one he got from the bar.

  ‘Delicious,’ he declares, then watches Innez return to the stage, lapping up the ovation before one last surprise to close the bar act: pouring himself a drink from the shaker, which turns out to be milk.

  Albert rests back in his seat to enjoy the rest of his drink and the rest of the show. No doubt about it, it’s a bloody good Martini. Bloody good routine, too. Almost a shame to deny subsequent audiences the unquestionable pleasure, but not everybody could get paid for doing card tricks and stunts with a magic cocktail shaker. Nothing personal. And he wouldn’t be taking any chances this time, wasn’t going to be underestimating a bloke like Innez. You live and learn.

  The assistant rolls away the bar, then high-tempo drum music plays over the speakers as she performs a quick change. She returns dressed in a black leather outfit with understated but inescapable S&M overtones, bearing two armfuls of handcuffs, padlocks and chains. She and Innez perform a bit of a dance to the rhythm for a minute, establishing that she’s the one wearing the strap-on dildo in this particular relationship, then she leads him over to the pillar near the right-hand side of the stage. As part of the dance, she commands him to his knees in front of the column, then pulls his hands behind his back either side of it and cuffs them together.

  Albert feels the old ticker give a start, but reminds himself it don’t mean nothing. What happened back in Palma must’ve given him the idea, that’s all. The girl cuffs Innez’s feet together too, at which he feels a little light-headed. Tells himself not to panic: it’s the old déjà vu all over again, got him a bit dizzy, innit.

  The assistant rolls a screen across from stage left, an opaque drape to conceal whatever technique Innez uses to get out of the cuffs, and Albert would have to confess to deep disappointment and discomfiture at this impending absence of revelation. But that’s bugger-all compared to how he feels when, just before the screen obscures him, Innez looks straight at Albert and gives him a wink.

  Something inside him turns to ice. Suddenly he feels like the audience has disappeared and he and Innez are the only ones left in the place. The tempo of the music increases, but it’s like he can barely hear it, like it’s fading out. He grabs his drink and downs the rest of it. After that, everything starts to go swimmy.

  Zal’s hands are cuffed, tight about both wrists, the jangling links of solid steel looped behind his back around an uprig
ht column. He is on his knees, his bare feet similarly bound to the immovable pillar. The steel is warm from the hands that fastened it, moist now with two people’s sweat. His arms are stretched behind him, his back tight to the column, his posture cramped and contorted.

  His captor has retreated from sight. Zal is now isolated, hidden from any observer, cut off from all intercession. The bounty hunter, though unseen, remains mere yards away, rapt in his vigil.

  Zal allows himself a moment to contemplate precisely how his situation must look from that bastard’s point of view: one man relishing the other’s inescapable captivity, blissfully unaware that he has the picture back to front.

  Zal smiles and whispers to himself: ‘Alakazammy, stairheid rammy. Suffer, you prick.’

  The escape itself is not, he would concede, much of a spectacle, and he had no intention of making it a regular part of the repertoire: it was intended to be for one night only, and for one spectator only. However, Lizzie had the idea of turning it into a dance, and it seems to have played pretty well, so it may end up being reprised and probably built upon. The whole show is coming together nicely, some genuine finesse now augmenting the mere energy, pace and enthusiasm that got them through some seat-of-the-pants early performances.

  Zal had been practising for up to fifteen hours a day, Lizzie not much fewer in the run-up to that first unsanctioned show, with Morrit just as busy behind the scenes. Henderson had attended, as predicted, but earlier than anticipated, turning up to investigate why there was a large crowd queuing outside what was scheduled to be an empty lounge. He wasn’t foolish or officious enough to stand between the unsolicited act and an eager audience, especially on a rainy day, though he did tell Zal sternly that he wouldn’t be paying anyone for it. To this Zal responded by reminding him that he already had. Understanding that there was very little to lose, Henderson took a seat along with everyone else.

  The next day’s show was scheduled and official.

  They got the benefit of it now being advertised as part of the entertainment programme, but Zal considered it more effective (as well as good practice) to preview the act by walking the decks and bars, performing card and coin magic on the spot. It was kind of like David Blaine, though without the tricks coming across as a cry for help. Also as predicted, the act soon got moved to the bigger lounge, where the trapdoor under the stage allowed them to open with the Expanding Die. Mirrors fixed between the legs either side of the table, plus some careful work with Morrit’s tricked suitcase, concealed Lizzie’s elevation, assisted by all eyes being drawn to the die itself. DeKolta’s original was a complex construction of telescoping brass tubes, a maintenance nightmare and said to require two men to recompress after each performance, but Morrit’s reconstruction had the benefits of lightweight aluminium, which led the old man to speculate wistfully about what his idol might have achieved given access to modern materials.

  Zal undoes the handcuffs, taking longer about it than he did back in Palma, or at least appearing to. On stage, you never want an escape to seem too easy. He wanted to give Fleet some time for things to sink in too, before he lapsed into unconsciousness.

  It was often said that conjuring could lay claim to being the world’s second oldest profession. It had been around as long as human civilisation, and in those aeons taken innumerable forms, but there were certain fundamentals of it that never changed. In 1634, a London writer calling himself Hocus Pocus (believed to be one Samuel Rid) published The Anatomy of Legerdemain: The Art of Jugling [sic], in which he prescribed these essential requirements of one wishing to practise the arts of ‘conveyance’:

  First, he must be one of impudent and audacious spirit, so that he may set a good face upon the matter.

  Secondly, he must have a nimble and cleanly conveyance.

  Thirdly, he must have strange terms, and emphatical words, to grace and adorn his actions, and the more, to astonish the beholders.

  Fourthly and lastly, such gestures of body as may lead away the spectators’ eyes from a strict and diligent beholding of his manner of conveyance.

  In 1716, one Richard Never added:

  He must have none of his trinkets wanting when he is to use them, lest he be put to a non-plus.

  This last was the one most solemnly imparted to him by his father, and remained the touchstone that served his every endeavour. Zal had been preparing the stage for Albert Samuel Fleet’s arrival since long before the guy even set foot on board the Spirit of Athene. Strictly speaking, Zal’s preparations for their second encounter had begun before he set foot on the ship.

  Zal had believed Fleet unquestioningly when he said he’d find him again. That was why, once he’d opted for travelling hopefully aboard the cruise ship, he decided to use the bounty hunter’s credit card to pay for it. He didn’t need the guy’s money, merely needed him to pay for his passage, so that Fleet would know where to find him, and Zal would know he was coming.

  Once he had established his credentials as a valued member of the entertainment crew, Zal was soon able to charm the ship’s purser into setting an alert for Fleet’s name against the advance passenger manifest, knowing he’d have to embark under his real name because he’d need his passport. This ensured that when inevitably he got his monthly statement, joined the dots and made his booking, Zal knew not only when and where he would be boarding, but right down to which cabin he would be assigned also.

  Fleet joined the ship in Tenerife, having flown out there to catch up with it. Zal watched him board from an overlooking deck. His disguise was pretty good, but only if you weren’t specifically on the look-out for the sonofabitch and didn’t already know where he was going to be.

  Swiping a passcard from housekeeping, Zal turned over his cabin while he was having lunch in one of the restaurants. It appeared Fleet had invested in some new cuffs and an outsize suitcase with wheels. He hadn’t brought anything to fill the thing, however, as the intended contents were standing looking at it. Zal also found several phials of Rohypnol, which was how Fleet was planning to get him into the big luggage and on to dry land. Either that or he just placed little faith in his chat-up lines.

  He knew Fleet would come to the show, same as he’d kept an eye on his prey at the Dracon Rojo. Zal watched him come in from through the curtains and enlisted a friendly waitress to let him know what he was drinking.

  Zal remembered his dad trying to work out how Alan Wakeling did his ingenious bar act, a quest that had continued after Wakeling passed the apparatus and techniques on to Earl Nelson. Wakeling’s itself was merely the latest improvement upon a trick called the Inexhaustible Bottle, dating from the early nineteenth century: like everything in magic, its evolution was ongoing and its secrets plundered. Soon enough, his dad incorporated a version into his own repertoire, and around that time variations of the act became common. As a young child, Zal had been uninterested in the mechanics of it, just dazzled by the impossibilities and the cascade of different colours emerging from the shaker. He had confidence that such a spectacle would still entertain an adult audience today, and giving a few of them free drinks never hurt your popularity either.

  It was all in the routining. His dad had puzzled over it, constantly changing his mind about whether it must be done by switching the shaker, by use of imitation drinks or by some kind of chemical solution. The switch theory fell down on the sheer number of such transpositions that would be necessary, while the other two collapsed to the sound of approving thanks from all those satisfied customers. Like all the best routines, of course, the effect was not achieved by a solitary technique, but by a manic combination of all three. There were hollow-stemmed glasses involved, a cleverly constructed drinks tray that concealed what cocktail constituents were already at the bottom of hi-ball tumblers, as well as shaker caps filled with various liquids too. Most nights, only one drink was unapproved for human consumption, and that was the flaming wine, containing as it did sodium carbonate, phenothalene, potassium and lighter fluid. Zal had added it to the a
ct after they put in at Puerto Del Carmen and he was able to get hold of the more exotic constituents.

  The main shaker dispensed only vodka, which being essentially tasteless, worked as a standard base solution (or at least passable substitute) for most of the cocktails. It also gave them all an extra alcoholic kick, which ensured that the customers immediately found their drinks to be the real deal. Tonight, however, there had been one that packed more of a punch than usual, that final shaker lid containing Vermouth, Tanqueray, one olive and a generous dash of Fleet’s own sedative.

  Cheers.

  The tyranny of normal

  She was expecting some dodgy lock-up under a railway arch, a crumbling end terrace with a garden full of fridges, or maybe some semi-derelict rural cottage with rabbit heads impaled on a surrounding barbed-wire fence. Instead she’s in a new estate, all burnt-ochre brickwork, double-glazing and monoblocked parking bays. There’s a Dora the Explorer trike lying on its side in front of a Toyota SUV and a new-model Honda Civic in the driveway of the address she’s been given, with the Bugaboo infant equivalent of a 4x4 all-terrain vehicle sitting at the front door. So, two cars, two kids and a new-build in suburbia. This can’t be right. Either the new estate has a duplicate street name for somewhere else entirely or her sat-nav is taking the piss.

  Angelique gets out of her car. She has to check it out anyway. There was always going to be an abundance of wrong turns and dead ends on this quest. Tracking down Zal Innez strikes her as only slightly less of an ask than tracking down Simon Darcourt, but at least she has a lead in the case of the former, and it’s a good displacement activity to distract her from contemplating the abject absence of any such clue towards the whereabouts of the latter. Minute to minute, she can’t decide whether no news is good or bad news on that score. The lack of progress feeds her feelings of impotence, the dread sense that he’ll disappear again, never to be found; and yet whenever there’s even a whisper of a new lead, she feels sick in case it becomes something momentous, something that accelerates matters beyond her control and delivers a solution that she is powerless to influence. Searching for Zal at least provides the reassurance that there’s an aspect of this chaos being driven by her own hand.