The Bullet Trick (21 page)

I collected my personal belongings at the front desk, expecting a hand to reach out and a firm voice to tell me another matter that had come to light that they needed to talk to me about. I’d signed for my watch, wallet, keys and the little bit of cash I had left, when the officer at the desk produced a white envelope with my name written on it in a plain modern hand.

'Miss Hunter asked me to pass this on to you.'

'Miss Hunter?'

His voice was brisk.

'Your solicitor.'

I waited until I was outside before I opened it. I’m not sure what I expected; an apology for not being convinced of my innocence? Inside were five brown notes, fifty pounds in cash. I slid the money back into the envelope and looked at the note that had been tucked beside it. Johnny asked me to give you this. I shook my head then stuffed it in my pocket and went to look for a quiet bar.

Berlin

IT’S WORTH REPEATING — tricks don’t make a conjurer. Anyone with time to spare and a mind to it can cobble together a stock of sleights. You meet them in bars: men that can fold a napkin into nothing, or rip a ten-pound note to shreds and restore it just before its owner hits him between the eyes. These are the guys who get you to pick a card any card and reveal with their back turned and their eyes closed which one you chose. There are granddads and Lotharios across the globe can pinch a coin out their baby’s ear, science bofs and businessmen who try to milk charisma from a loaded deck. But without an act these men are as much diversion as a karaoke amateur.

The key lies in performance. A true conjurer is as hungry for applause as he is to master any deception. He schemes and worries, composing new ruses to thrill the crowd, working variations on his theme — smashing, breaking, vanishing; elephants, Mercedes, aeroplanes, whole buildings — until it becomes a trial to find anything worthy of being at the centre of his illusion. He guides the audience’s eyes, forcing them to glance away from the stage at exactly the right moment. They follow the hand he wants them to follow, see what he wants them to see. The hours spent perfecting a sleight mean nothing if the trick isn’t done with style.

The master conjurer is a psychologist deserving of a professorship. He can anticipate greed and tell when sex will give things a twist. He knows from the angle of your head, the hunch of your shoulders, the set of your eyes whether you are a liar. He can spot the easy touch as well as any conman can. He can chase the lady and cut the cards, he can summon up ghosts and put genies back in bottles, he can throw the dice and roll out sixes every time. He can rap tables, vanish loons, hang himself and come back for more. He can saw a lady in half, stick her together, then run her through with knives; and if he spills a drop of blood nae matter, he can zap it into one of God’s white doves. A successful conjurer can challenge gravity, defy nature, escape any restraint and sidestep death — as long as he’s on stage.

I’d long given up the illusion that I’d ever near the top of my profession, but for some reason in Berlin in the face of trouble I got an urge for that to change. Maybe it was a secret wish to impress Sylvie and Ulla, maybe it was an urge to make something of myself before I ended up like Sam, or maybe it was just anger at being pulled into something that had nothing to do with me. Whatever the reason, the confusion around me seemed to concentrate my thoughts and sharpen my wits into ambition until I became determined to produce an act that would stun the city.

Sylvie was a quick learner. We rehearsed by day and each night I ran on as the clowns bounded off, ready to haul her from the audience when the time came for her to play my shy conscripted volunteer.

At first it was a simple routine. Sylvie stood blinking prettily against the glare of the stage lights, wearing one of the succession of sweet thin dresses she’d equipped herself with from the Flohmarkt. She wore no slip beneath it, allowing the bright lights to reveal the outline of her body to the audience below.

I’d welcome her gallantly, then ask if she had a piece of jewellery I could use in a trick. Sylvie would shake her head, softly whispering no, putting her arms behind her back, resisting just a little when I grabbed her wrist and held up the hand wearing the cheap cut-glass ring that shone brighter than any diamond ever dared.

My new assistant was a better actress than I could have hoped. When she gasped that the ring was her only reminder of her dead grandmother, I thought she was overdoing things but the audience gasped with her. Perhaps Berliners, with their history of loss and separation, valued keepsakes even more than most.

I slid the ring from her finger then held it to her mouth, telling her to blow through it and make a wish. Sylvie closed her eyes and puckered her lips like a child about to blow out the candles on her fifth birthday cake. She puffed a morsel of breath through the ring and I folded it fast away. Sylvie opened her eyes; I put my hands on her shoulders, turned her towards the crowd and in a deep voice that echoed all the way to the back stalls and left no one in any doubt of what a prick I was, asked her to open her mouth and take the ring from beneath her tongue.

Sylvie’s eyes opened wide, she touched the inside of her mouth with her fingers, then slid into a rehearsed panic sobbing a stream of German, almost pushing me across the stage with the force of her fury. That first night there was a rumble in the crowd. I almost laughed to see them buy the ruse but managed to keep my tone pure pompous as I held up my hands and said ‘I think you may have swallowed it.'

There was a grumble from below and Sylvie repeated the line, slowly, in German.

'You think I swallowed it?'

I faced the auditorium and smiled a full-on evil smile.

'Don’t worry, this has happened before and it’s always worked out OK in the end.'

Then strobe lights flashed across the stage, the band creaked into a tune that was as near to manic as they could get and Sylvie leapt into an escape, but fast as she was, she was no match for me. I grabbed the girl by the waist, whirling her onto a table that had lain unnoticed at the back of the stage. Sylvie screamed, I laughed again. Then roughly buckled her down beneath thick leather straps, until she was struggling like a silent movie star tied to the railway tracks, and I was gloating over her like a moustachioed villain. I slapped a napkin over her front and, donning a handy operating gown, whizzed the table fast on its casters to centre stage.

Sylvie’s cries ripped across the hall and I half-expected the audience to storm the stage, but they were quieter than they’d been all night. I could feel their attention, but couldn’t tell whether their silence signalled interest or disapproval. I grabbed a scalpel from my top pocket, held it high so they could catch its quick sharp glint, eager as a shark’s grin, then I stabbed her hard in the solar plexus.

Fake blood from the gel packs concealed in the napkin’s lining spurted red and unforgiving over my gown, face and hair. I spluttered against its bitter tang and laughed like a crazy man. An echoing ripple of laughter came from the audience. They were with us now.

Sylvie lay frozen beneath my hands. Her sweet dress was ruined, her sleek mane stuck to her head with theatrical gore. She wiped a hand across her face and asked in German, 'Have you found it yet?'

I shook my head.

'Not yet, but don’t worry.'

Then shoved my hand roughly into the red stuff, seeming to lose first one arm then the other as I delved shoulder deep into her open wound, pulling out latex guts and organs, tutting at her liver, marvelling at the contours of her still beating heart, yohohoing as I hauled her intestines the full length of the stage like a reeling routing sailor tearing down the rigging. The audience laughed, delighted with this Grand Guignol conjuring. I pulled a succession of impossible objects from her slim form, a bottle of champagne, a waxen head I’d found in Costume, a bicycle wheel. Each one received its own slick comment and was welcomed with applause. At last I found the ring. I spat on it then rubbed it clean against the hem of my operating gown and held it triumphantly in the air. On a rig high above the hall the lighting engineer turned a spot to face a glitter ball. Bright diamonds of white light bounced across the stage then glimmered into the beyond, embracing the auditorium, dancing across the faces of the crowd as if the gleam from Sylvie’s ring were dazzling the whole world.

It was as heavy-handed as the ta-da at the end of a poor symphony but at least the audience knew it was time to clap. And they did, there were even a few cheers. I unbuckled Sylvie, helped her to her feet then stood her centre stage, noticing how the bloody dress clung to her curves and the hand that accepted the cheap glass ring trembled. She grinned at me, blood-spattered and beautiful; I smiled back then put my arm against her shoulders and made her take a bow before giving her a quick peck on the cheek and returning her back into the audience.

Alone on stage I ripped off the gown, wiping my face as clean of the stain as I could in one slick move, and stood, arms outstretched in my dinner suit, drinking in the applause, trying to look like James Bond after a violent victory. There was no doubt about it, the trick had gone down well. But no one could mistake it for a clever conjuring.

I cleaned myself up then waited backstage for what felt like an age. Eventually Sylvie burst into the dressing-room breathless with amusement and made to grab me. I threw a towel at her, ruffling her still sticky hair but keeping her at arm’s length.

'Watch the suit.'

She took the towel and rubbed it through her hair still laughing.

'Why’d I bother with makeup and fashion all these years? All I needed to do was throw a bucket of blood over my head and I’d have got all the attention I needed.'

I passed her a packet of facial wipes. I’d had a couple of tilts of the bottle of whisky in the room but I was too thirsty for spirits.

'Bit of a man-magnet were you?'

'You’ve no idea.' Her laugh was loud and buzzed up. 'They loved us didn’t they?'

'I guess so.'

Sylvie smiled, satisfied that I was as pleased as she was, then she turned round and I unzipped her dress. The phoney blood resisted mixing with her sweat, trembling in droplets on her pale back, like tiny worlds caught on a microscope slide. I fought the urge to trail my finger down the damp of her spine.

'D’you fancy going for a pint?'

She laughed.

'A man out there offered me champagne.'

I turned slowly to face the wall, feeling vaguely sleazy as I watched her reflection shrug off the ruined dress in a small shaving mirror above the sink. I took my fags from my pocket and lit one.

'Ten years in this game and no man ever offered me champagne.' I took a long drag. 'You going to take him up on it?'

'No, I think you and me should celebrate together.' She stretched a red hand into my line of vision. 'You got one of those for me?' I gave her the freshly lit cigarette and sparked up another for myself. Sylvie wrapped herself in a soiled robe and drew deep like she was toking a joint. 'Let me catch the next act and I’ll assist you in what I suspect is your favourite trick, making beer disappear.'

I said, 'As long as we can watch from out front.' Thinking about the cold lager they served there in tall chill-sweating steins.

'It’s a deal. Set ’em up and I’ll catch you when I’m decent.'

'That’ll be never then.'

She gave the back of my head a light slap as she ran off to the showers.

It was a poorer house than it’d felt from up on stage and I had no trouble bagging a table towards the middle of the room. For once my nod to the waitress produced swift results and soon I was sitting back with a cool beer and a cigarette. I was beginning to learn that there were some things you couldn’t touch the Germans on. Good beer and a lax smoking policy in public buildings came pretty high on the list.

The twins, Archard and Erhard, were nearing the end of their acrobatic act, a narcissistic man-in-the-mirror excess of preening and vogueing that had a table of buff queens next to me sitting to alert. Each twin was decorated with the inverse of his brother’s tattoos, spiralling green, black and red designs curling out of their tight trousers, across their chests and down their arms, emphasising the swell of their muscles, the sinewy definition of their bodies.