“Never more than three steps at a time,” Max was saying, transported, words falling quickly from his lips. “Quick steps. Slow. Exaggerated strides.” He demonstrated each with delicate precision. “Details, always details.”
Harry was leaning forward now, muscles quivering. Any moment now, I thought. For God’s sake, Max, wake up!
“How to take applause,” Max said. “Never beg for it, but never bully either. When to stifle it. When to encourage it. Never let it die completely as you bow.”
Max, that’s fascinating information, but don’t you see that Harry is drawing in quick, strengthening breaths?
Apparently not. He kept on speaking, demonstrating.
“The art of taking bows. Face front for small ones. Eyes on the audience, never missing anyone.”
Max! Harry’s body was starting to rise.
“They will increase their applause if you look at them directly,” Max said, all unaware. “Bow to the center. Bow to the left. Bow to the right.”
Harry’s gaze was fixed on the magician. My gaze ping-pong-balled between the two of them.
“Bow from the waist for loud applause,” Max said. “‘Thank you! You are very kind!’” His eyes were positively glazed.” ‘I’m very pleased to—’”
Three things happened simultaneously (four, if you count the painful leap of my heart).
Harry jumped up from the chair and started quickly for the desk.
I heard the sound of the front door closing in the entry hall.
And Max, brought back abruptly from his dreaming state, saw Harry and moved quickly to the desk, grabbing up the pistol. If I was not already slumped, I would have slumped.
Harry froze in his tracks, staring at my son.
Footsteps moved across the entry hall: the giveaway clack of a woman’s heels.
Harry opened his mouth to cry out.
The sound strangled in his throat as Max extended the pistol toward him, his expression threatening.
“Damn!” whined Harry, in an agony of frustration, I believe. Should he cry out anyway? Risk being shot?
He couldn’t. He was too afraid.
Both men stiffened (I did too, albeit unnoticeably) as the doorknob turned and someone tried to enter.
“Max?” said a voice—Cassandra.
Max did not respond, and, from his menacing look and gesture, he made it clear to Harry that he was not to speak either.
“Why is the door locked?” Cassandra asked.
No response. (Least of all from me.)
“What’s going on in there?” Cassandra demanded, voice rising.
Max cleared his throat. His voice was calmly affable.
“Nothing’s going on,” he said. “Come back in a few minutes. I’ll have something interesting to show you.”
Moments passed. Despite his dread, Harry almost spoke. Only Max’s repeated brandishing of the pistol stopped him.
“All right,” said Cassandra.
Her footsteps moved away.
Max smiled (not the kind of smile I’d like directed at me). “Something interesting to show you,” he repeated.
The masking smile fell away. “Your lover’s corpse,” he finished.
He walked toward Harry, pistol still extended.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” Harry said with unconvincing bravado.
“I’m not?” said Max. “I don’t—”
He broke off as Harry’s gaze leaped to one of the other windows. My gaze did likewise; the only part of me that could leap. Max whirled, reacting.
Cassandra was standing at the window looking in, an expression of shock on her face.
Suddenly, she turned away and rushed out of sight. To call the Sheriff? I wondered. To get a pistol she owned?
Max turned back.
“Well, dear Harold,” he said, “it’s about that time.”
“She’ll call the police,” Harry warned.
“The Sheriff,” Max corrected. “But I doubt it. Why should she? Because of you? She never cared for you. You were, like me, merely a stepping-stone.” His smile grew iced. “Or should I say a sleeping-stone?”
He pointed the pistol at Harry’s chest.
“Max, don’t do it,” Harry pleaded.
The front door slammed shut loudly. Cassandra’s shoe heels clacked rapidly across the entry hall. She threw herself against the door.
“Max!” she cried.
“Farewell, old friend,” said Max.
He fired.
chapter 11
I would have cried out if I’d had the power. As always, however, I remained a soundless squash.
It was Harry who cried out in hoarse amazement as a gout of blood erupted from his white shirt. Stumbling back, he slipped and fell.
Cassandra screamed. “Max!”
She pounded on the door as Max watched Harry.
Harry was slouched on the floor, staring down at his shirtfront. He might well have been dead, he was so completely motionless.
He lived, however. Stunned and breathless, in a state of shock.
But quite alive.
“The pistol ball was hollow,” Max informed him. “Wax. Rubbed with graphite.”
He raised his left hand, thumb elevated. “Filled with blood from this very thumb,” he said.
His smile was mirthless, cold. “The other pistol ball was real,” he said, “to throw you off. Misdirection, don’t you know. My business.”
And he winked at me.
I did not return it. I would not have done so even if I could. Sonny, I was thinking with exasperation. My heart is not constructed of steel, you know.
“I hope I didn’t frighten you again,” he said as though reading my thought.
Harry had not spoken a word. Now he was staring at Max uncomprehendingly. I think that, had his heart been at risk as well, what Max had just done to him might have finished him off.
In the meantime, Cassandra continued to pound on the door and scream Max’s name.
Finally, she added, “Open the door!”
Max moved to the desk and tossed the empty pistol on its top. Then, reaching underneath, he pushed the hidden button.
The locking mechanism clicked, the knob was quickly turned, the door flung open, and Cassandra rushed in.
“What the hell is—” she began.
She stopped, aghast, catching sight of Harry on the floor, his shirtfront drenched with blood.
“Oh, my God,” she murmured shakily, and ran to him.
Kneeling beside him, she looked at his chest, shuddering at the sight. “My God,” she said.
“All right,” Harry muttered, scarcely able to speak. “I’m all right.”
“All right?” She stared at him incredulously. “How—”
“Scotch,” said Harry, interrupting.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Scotch, some Scotch!” he ordered in a rasping voice.
“Yes.” She struggled to her feet and hurried toward the bar, glancing apprehensively at Max, who was sitting on the edge of the desk now, quietly observing—as I was, though my quiet was the consequence of a stroke. God only knew what lay behind my son’s calmness.
Harry was looking down at his shirt again.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. With a palsied hand, he tugged a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and dabbed weakly at his shirt.
“What is this?” Cassandra demanded of Max.
It was as though she hadn’t spoken. Max kicked one foot casually as he sat there. What is in his mind? I thought.
Cassandra finished pouring Scotch into a glass and turned from the bar. Returning to Harry, she knelt beside him. Harry took the glass and swallowed half its contents in a single gulp.
He started to cough, eyes watering, and drew in wheezing breaths. Then he downed the rest of the Scotch, shuddering convulsively.
“Can you get up?” Cassandra asked.
He nodded, a feeble stirring of his head. Setting down the glass, he tried to push
up, thudding down as his arms gave way.
Grimacing, he rolled to the right and struggled to his knees. “God damn,” he muttered.
Cassandra helped him to his feet. He stood unevenly, expression almost blank.
“What?” he muttered.
Abruptly, his legs lost strength and he fell to one knee, pulling loose from Cassandra’s grip. He twitched, looking startled as he wavered to his left.
“What is it?” asked Cassandra.
“I don’t …” His voice faded as he lost all balance and toppled to one side, crying out in pain as his left elbow banged on the hardwood floor, bearing the brunt of his weight.
He collapsed onto his back, clutching at his elbow, looking dazed.
“What’s happening?” Cassandra cried.
She knelt beside him hurriedly and tried to help him up.
She couldn’t; he had virtually no muscle control remaining. And, newly shocked, I knew exactly what had happened.
Cassandra sensed it too, because she looked accusingly at Max.
“What’s happening?” she demanded in a low, trembling voice.
“Nothing much,” Max answered cheerfully. “He’s dying, that’s all.”
Oh, Max, I thought. Son.
Harry was now too groggy to speak. He tried to sit up. It was impossible. His body was a dead weight, uncoordinated.
“What have you done to him?” Cassandra shrieked.
Max smiled.
“Ah, there’s the lovely irony, you see,” he told her. “I haven’t done a thing.”
The smile vanished in an instant, leaving his face a mask of implacable venom.
“You did,” he said.
The smile again, now—terribly—accompanied by a chuckle.
“And he asked you to,” he finished.
Her gaze jumped to the empty glass.
“Right on,” said Max.
Cassandra strained to pull Harry to his feet. “I’ll get you to a doctor,” she muttered.
“You’d only be driving a corpse into town,” Max told her.
She looked at him, appalled. “You bastard,” she said. “You absolute bastard.”
She saw the impossibility of getting Harry up and, with a sudden movement, she pushed to her feet and strode quickly toward the entry hall.
Max leaned back and reached beneath the desk. My God, it isn’t over yet! I thought in dismay. (How little I knew.)
The door swung shut, slammed hard into its frame, and locked itself.
Cassandra stopped in front of it. She tried to open it, then turned, a look of fury on her face.
“And now—” said Max.
Sliding off the desk, he circled it and moved to the mantelpiece, taking down the African blowgun.
“—the coup de main,” he finished the sentence. “Surprise attack.”
He lifted the blowgun to his lips and pointed it at Cassandra.
She shrank back against the door, a look of panic on her face.
Max blew.
Cassandra jolted and gasped. (Inside, I did the same.) She looked down at her chest.
A small feathered dart was protruding from her right breast.
With a sickened noise, she jerked it out and looked at it in disbelief.
A sudden numbness struck her and she dropped it, wavered, slumping back against the door.
Both of them, Max? I thought in horror across the room. Harry was emitting tiny, breathless sounds.
Max set the blowgun back in place above the mantelpiece, then looked at Cassandra.
“I wanted both of you together when I did this,” he told her. “Terrorize Harry first, of course. I needed that for my soul’s sake.
“But the two of you together for this moment. This most rewarding and fulfilling …”
His voice trailed off; he didn’t look rewarded or fulfilled. He looked completely desolated.
“… and tragic moment,” he finished in a broken voice.
Cassandra tried to remain erect, but couldn’t.
As though her limbs had been reduced to jelly, she slid downward on the door and landed in a crumpled heap, eyes staring, mouth ajar; a hideous sight. Despite my feelings toward her, I would never have wished this for her.
Harry made a gagging noise, and Max and I looked over at him.
Max walked around the desk and moved to where his agent lay, slowly writhing, eyes—like Cassandra’s—staring glassily, breath a failing sibilance.
“So, dear friend,” said Max.
Harry tried to lift his head—could not. He stared up sightlessly.
Then his head fell back, thumping on the floor, his eyes closing.
Max knelt to check for a heartbeat.
Satisfied, he stood and moved to where Cassandra half sat, half lay against the door, eyes now closed.
He knelt and pressed a finger underneath her left breast.
“Done,” he said, “and done.”
Standing quickly, his expression grim, he moved behind the desk and reached beneath it.
The door lock clicked in opening.
Max returned to the door, bent over and, taking hold of Cassandra’s arms, pulled her to one side, leaning her body partially against the wall.
He then walked over to me.
“Well, Padre,” he said. “Had enough for now?”
Could he see in my eyes the pain I felt?
He must have, for he said, “I know; it’s terrible.” He squeezed my shoulder. “But necessary,” he added.
He began to push my wheelchair toward the door.
“Let’s get you cleaned up and changed,” he said. “Maybe a little lunch.”
His tone was so matter-of-fact that I felt more dread than ever.
Just before he opened the door, a distant flash of lightning bleached the shadowy room.
“A storm is on its way,” he said.
How was I to know that the nightmare was barely half concluded?
now you see it …
chapter 12
Max took me upstairs on the elevator, wheeled me to my room, and gently cared for me—which meant removing my clothes, cleansing my withered body and re-dressing same.
Throughout all this, he never said a word. I kept looking at his face, hoping that he’d seen the question burning in my eyes.
Why?
If he saw the question—and he must have, being the observant son he always was—he did not elect to answer it. Leaving me to wonder, pained.
Two murders?
Him?
Presently, he took me downstairs once again and rolled my wheelchair to the kitchen. There, he fed me like the child I had become in my eating habits—bib around my neck, spoon scooping up what food I dribbled from my mouth.
All this he did without a word, his expression unreadable—even to me, who had always read him so well.
When I was finished eating, he finally spoke.
“I’m going to leave you in the kitchen for a little while,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
He kissed me on the cheek and left.
I think I felt a tugging at the corners of my eyes; a hint of tears?
Why had he done all this?
Had his need for revenge on Harry and Cassandra been so rabid that he’d been driven to kill them both?
It seemed hard to believe. Max had never been a violent man. Certainly, to me, he had been nothing but a loving son.
Then why?
So there I sat in the stillness of the kitchen, bathed, changed, and fed—like the physical infant I’d become. Only my brain remained alert.
Wondering and suffering.
How long was it before he came for me? I would estimate the time as half an hour or so, perhaps a little longer.
When he returned to the kitchen, he rolled me back to The Magic Room without a word and set my chair in its customary spot, patted my shoulder, and said, “I hope you’ll understand in time, Padre.”
With that, he left me there alone … as I had been before the nightmare had com
menced.
I looked at the desk clock.
It was 2:33 P.M.
A random flicker of lightning continued in the distance, an occasional rumble of thunder. They seemed closer now.
The storm was still approaching.
I looked around the room.
Everything was back in order except for a single detail.
The bloodstains had been wiped up.
The fragments of terra-cotta had been gathered and removed.
The pill vial was gone, presumably returned to the center desk drawer.
The African blowgun was, as noted, restored above mantelpiece.
The pair of dueling pistols had been similarly returned to their places.
The Arabian dagger lay on the desk in its original position.
Four changes had been made.
On the bar, the silver bucket was filled with ice, a bottle of Dom Perignon protruding from its top.
The globe had been covered with a red silk scarf.
The casket was closed.
The Egyptian burial case was closed.
Only one detail deprived the room of orderly appearance.
Still in the same position, crumpled and immobile, lay the body of Cassandra Delacorte.
This I did not understand at all.
Not that I truly understood the reasons for Max’s brutal actions.
But this was downright confusing.
Why commit a double murder, hide one body, clean up all the evidence, then leave the other body untouched?
It made no sense.
But then, very little of what happened that day—what had already taken place and what was about to take place—made sense.
At which point—with me utterly perplexed—the lunacy resumed.
In the entry hall, the doorbell rang.
There was no response.
Where is Max? I wondered.
The doorbell rang again.
No response.
Then, as though the person at the door felt that the doorbell wasn’t loud enough, he (or she) began to knock.
No answer.
The knocking grew louder.
Soon became a pounding.
Causing a response.
My nerve ends (what was left of them, at any rate) jumped as Cassandra made a feeble sound.