Now You See It (14 page)

Max looked at her, then made a casual noise which I interpreted as asking, “What on earth is bothering you, my dear?”

As the Sheriff began to question him, Max removed four playing cards from his left trouser pocket and started to perform a back-and-front palm with them. The sight made me uneasy as I recalled the difficulty he’d had with the billiard-ball replication earlier.

“This Mister—” Plum began.

“Kendal. Harry Kendal,” Max provided, one of the playing cards between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

He made a slight downward movement, followed by an upward movement which allowed the card to fall across the back of his first, second and third fingers, the little finger rising to the edge of the card. (Despite my uneasiness, the magician in me was absorbed completely by his hands.)

Rapidly, his forefinger replaced the thumb, his fingers were extended, and the card vanished from the palm, all in the space of a second. Seeing this, I felt a sense of relief for him.

“K-e-n-d—” Sheriff Plum was writing down the letters with laborious effort.

“—a-1,” completed Max. “Kendal. Very good.”

As he turned back his hand, he closed his fingers into the palm and gripped the center of the card with his thumb, opening the four fingers outward until the card was gripped against the two middle fingers and vanished from the back of his hand as well.
Good, Max
, I thought automatically.

“What time did he get here?” the Sheriff asked.

Max was repeating the back-and-front palm, the cards appearing, disappearing, then appearing once again.

“Who’s that?” he asked in a distracted voice.

“Don’t let him do this to you, Sheriff,”
warned Cassandra.

Cassandra’s remark made Max almost drop the card.

He winced, then directed a forced smile at the Sheriff.

“Does this bother you?” he asked. “It’s just a habit.”

“I
said
, what time did Harry Kendal get here?” Plum repeated the query.

“Darling?” Max inquired sweetly. “You were here when he arrived. I was out walking, you recall.”

As he spoke, he fanned the four cards with his right hand, then let them drop into his palm.

Cassandra regarded him balefully.

“Just past noon,” she told the Sheriff.

“Thank you, precious,” said Max, bringing up his right hand to his left as though to transfer the cards, then palming them in his right and closing his left as though they contained the cards.

“You murdering bastard.”
Cassandra glared at him. “If you think you’re going to get away with this …”

Max made a sound of disapproval at her language, quickly grasping the corners of the cards with his right
thumb and bending them over so he could pass the hand, fingers open, across the back of his left hand.

All of this took place in rapid order as the conversation progressed; a skilled magician’s feat.

“Why did he come to see you?” asked Plum.

“Well—” Max dropped his left hand casually, displayed the empty left hand, then produced the card with a fan from behind his right knee “—he came to talk about business,” he said. “An engagement in Las Vegas. Wasn’t that it, babe?” He smiled falsely at Cassandra.

She didn’t answer, watching him with hooded eyes.

The Sheriff watched with displeasure as Max repeated the card manipulations.

I watched Max with a coldness in my stomach, wondering what he was up to, what he had in mind, what
plan
. I knew there had to be one.

“Second method,” Max was saying as he demonstrated. “Hold the cards between the right forefinger and thumb and pass the left hand across the front of the right as though taking hold of them. Under cover of the left hand, quickly back-palm them behind the right. Your audience—”

“I’d prefer you didn’t do that, Mister Delacorte,” the Sheriff told him.

“Really?”
Max sounded surprised. “You don’t like it, Grover? You don’t think it’s jolly?
Legerdemain?
Sleight of hand?”

“Mr. Delacorte—”

Max fumbled, almost dropping the cards.

With a scowl, he made them vanish, slipping them into his trouser pocket. He looked at Plum with a goading expression.

“I’m all ears, Grover,” he said in a hardened voice.
“Hit
me.”

“Why did you have to kill him, Max?” Cassandra asked.

There was an aching in her voice now which made him look at her strangely.

“Did Mister Kendal leave the house?” the Sheriff asked.

“I’ve already told you!” Cassandra’s anger burst out. “Harry Kendal was
murdered!”

The Sheriff tried to curb his irritation.

“I would like to hear what your husband has to say, Mrs.—”

“He’ll say anything to throw you off!” she interrupted, raging.

Again, she looked at Max, her tone despairing.

“You didn’t have to
kill
him, Max,” she said.

Max, admit it
, I thought.
Be done with this
.

Cassandra turned and walked to the picture window, looking out at the gazebo by the lake, her features taut.

“To repeat the question, Mister Delacorte,” said Plum. “Did Harry Kendal—”

“Harry Kendal vacated these premises—under his own power, I might add—I
will
add—I
did
add—at approximately a quarter after one.”

“He’s lying,” Cassandra said without turning.

He
was
lying. But
why?

The Sheriff was writing in his pad. “One … fifteen,” he said.

“Another way of putting it, but just as good,” Max said.

The Sheriff threw him a frowning glance. “I’m not amused, Mister Delacorte,” he said.

“Nor should you be,” concurred my son.

Cassandra turned abruptly and walked to the spot where Harry had been lying after drinking the Scotch.

Kneeling, she began to examine the floorboards.

“Looking for something, darling?” Max inquired.

“You’ll know when I find it,” she answered coldly.

“Looking forward to it, snookums,” Max responded.

He watched Plum writing on his pad.

“Did you know,” he said, “that when one is blindfolded, one can see past one’s nose?”

Plum glanced at him with disinterest.
Now what?
I thought.

“But,”
continued Max as though the information must be absolutely fascinating to the Sheriff, “until one needs that sight, one keeps one’s eyes
shut
, don’t you see? In that way, one need not feign blindness during that period, because one is genuinely blind.
N’est-ce pas?”

I felt a sense of melancholic pain, remembering the very day I’d told that to my thirteen-year-old son.

Plum had frowned at the remark. “What has that got to do with what we’re talking about?” he asked.

Max smiled benignly. “Nothing,” he said. (
Does he have a plan?
I wondered.)

The Sheriff drew in a tight breath.

“I’m getting tired of this, Mister Delacorte,” he said.

“Here’s an intriguing item, Grover,” said Max, raising his right index finger as though testing the wind. “The magiciar tressed in blue, rides a horse onto the stage, accompanying a number of attendants dressed in white.”

His next words faded from my hearing as, abruptly, I was on the stage again, on horseback, dressed in blue. A screen was raised for several seconds, then removed.
Voila!
I’d vanished into thin air, the attendants running the horse offstage. Applause; delighted laughter.

The answer was, of course, simplicity itself. While behind the screen, I jumped from the horse, ripped off my paper costume and stuffed it into a pocket. Underneath, I was dressed in white, like the attendants. No one ever noticed.

“Pourquoi?”
Max’s final words grew audible to me. “In
the ensuing rush of movement, no one takes the time to count the number of attendants.”

The Sheriff was glaring at him now; that made a pair of glares. (You know where the other one came from.)

“You understand?” asked Max. “Leading your audience into seeing what you want them to see.”

Cassandra looked up from her rapt perusal of the floorboards.

“How long are you going to let him do this, Sheriff?” she asked, standing.

“Listen, Mister Delacorte,” Plum started to say.

He broke off, tightening resentfully as Max began a rapid single-card production, speaking as he worked.

“Back-palm ten cards in the right hand. Bend the fingers in. Reach across with Right One, press against the top card.”

“Mister Delacorte—”

“Disengage the card from the pack by pressing down and in with thumb pad as you straighten out the fingers.”

“Damn it,” said the Sheriff.

“Wait,”
Max said. “Let the card slip down between Right One and Right Two, through Five, until all the cards have been produced.”

He started to do the same thing with his left hand. “Backpalm ten cards in the left hand,” he began.

“Delacorte.”
The Sheriff’s cheeks were getting pink.

“All tricks must be done in threes, you know,” my son nonsequitured, the expression on his face not entirely sane now, I saw with dismay.

“Card tricks. Coin tricks. Ball tricks.
All
tricks.” The cards kept appearing one by one in the fingers of his left hand. “Tear paper three times. Tap tables and containers three times. Announce illusions three times. This creates a deep response, you see. Beginning, middle, end.” His eyes were
positively glittering. “Father, Mother, Holy Ghost. Eternal—
damn it!”

I started inwardly as his voice flared when he lost hold of the cards, which scattered to the floor like falling birds. He kicked them aside in a burst of fury.

Cassandra looked delighted by his failure.

“You have just enjoyed the privilege of seeing
The Great Delacorte
in performance,” she said. “Thrilling, wasn’t it?”

Max gave her a quick, acerbic look, then turned back to Plum as the Sheriff spoke, his voice antagonistic.

“Would you rather we continued this at my office?” Plum asked.

“No,” said Max immediately. “I prefer to be here.”

“Let’s
do
it then,” snapped Plum.

Max gestured loosely. (Was he back again, or farther adrift? I couldn’t tell.)

“What can I tell you?” he inquired. “That my wife is loony? It’s a fact. There’s been no murder here.”

“Liar!” Cassandra shouted. “You killed Harry right in front of me!”

Max looked bemused. “I
did?”
he said. “Maybe I should reevaluate. Maybe I’ve got amnesia.”

He was still playing the game, then. Dementedly perhaps, but in control of his faculties.

“For God’s sake, take him in!” Cassandra told the Sheriff. “I’ll testify against him.”

“Wives can’t testify against their husbands, darling,” Max reminded her. “I must say, you’re behaving most erratically.”

“I think we’d better take a drive into town,” the Sheriff said. “If you want to get a coat or something …”

Max looked at him without expression.

Abruptly, a red ball appeared in his right hand, and he tossed it into the air. Plum lowered his eyes involuntarily as it fell to the floor and bounced. So did Cassandra.

“See how his gaze followed the ball, my friends,” said Max, addressing an unseen audience. “Unexpected movement, you see.”

“Never mind the—” started Plum.

He stopped, eyes shifting suddenly as Max produced a burning match in his left hand. (I remembered teaching him that.)

“Again,” said Max, “his gaze caught by the movement, by the flame.”

The Sheriff grimaced and was about to speak when Max turned quickly to his right, gasping as he looked upward. Plum glanced at the same spot.

“Again.” Max smiled. “His line of sight directed.”

His arm shot out as he pointed across the room.
“There!”
he cried.

The Sheriff began to turn, then looked back willfully, his face a mask of anger. “Damn it, Delacorte!”

“You see,” said Max, striding toward Cassandra, “I can decide, at any moment, what he will or will not look at.”

Cassandra drew back in alarm as Max walked up to her.

Reaching down, he jerked apart the front of her blouse, revealing her large, brassiere-cupped breasts.
Max!
I thought in shock.

Cassandra gasped and snatched at the blouse to cover herself, her face hardened with fury.

A startled Plum was gaping at the sight.

“How’s that for misdirection, Grover?” asked my son. “At the moment you got an eyeful of my wife’s knockers, I could have walked a purple elephant past you without you seeing it.”

He glanced at me. “Forgive me,
Padre,”
he said. “I was only making a point.”

Cassandra was fastening her blouse now, an odd expression on her face, no longer furious, but grimly thoughtful.

“You didn’t have time, did you?” she asked.

Max elevated his eyebrows. “Pardon?”

“You didn’t have time to put the body anywhere outside,” she said. “It has to be in the house.”

Plum stared at her in confusion.