The Bullet Trick (23 page)

I put my hand on the waitress’s arm and said ‘Dankeschön’, looking her in the eyes, making my tone soft and soothing.

She hesitated, glancing at Sylvie as if trying to decide whether she was worth a murder sentence, then murmured, 'Bitteschön’, and turned her back on us.

I lifted my lager and peered at the girl on stage through its liquid lens.

'Do you think I should check this for arsenic?'

Sylvie shot a look of venom towards the departing waitress.

'Why?'

'You don’t seem too popular around here.'

'Don’t worry, things have a way of rebounding on bitches like her.'

'Bad karma.'

'Something like that.'

Up on stage the naughty nautical shifted her rear making the pleats on her skirt bounce. The singer straddled the chair and I shifted my eyes from the shadows beneath her pelmet-lengthed skirt towards her face while she belted out the last verse of her song.

You can tell my papa, that’s all right,

'Cause he comes in here every night,

But don’t tell mama what you saw!

She tipped her sailor’s cap at the audience, smiled at the scattering of applause and left the stage, darting a quick look at our table.

Our waitress took her place; she’d changed into a stage costume and was smiling now, flanked by two equally jolly and equally busty girls. The trio were dressed identically in short shorts, low-slung halter-necks and cheekily angled bowler hats. They each dragged a chair on with them and started to go through a routine that must have been hell on the thighs. I had no illusions, Germans didn’t need to plunder their past for their own amusement, this was aimed at tourists hungry for a taste of Weimar decadence, but there was something about the way the flesh at the top of the girls’ legs trembled as they went through their steps that appealed to me.

The fascination seemed lost on Sylvie. She mooched a cigarette, and started talking loudly about the costumes she was designing for herself. Up on stage the trio were doing a syncopated wiggle while beside me Sylvie fought for my attention with descriptions of satin corsets and nipple tassels. Travel was certainly expanding my horizons. Sylvie’s voice rose a notch and I put my hand on hers. She smiled warmly at me, triumphant at wresting back my attention.

'What do you think?'

'I think you’ll get us thrown out.'

She shot me a hard look, then suddenly she was on her feet, waving towards the doorway, and that was when I saw Dix.

Dix was as stone calm as he’d been at our last meeting, but Sylvie’s high was edging on a fever. She described the evening, acting out both of our parts, not minding that Dix only nodded where she laughed, but then she was laughing enough for all three of us, her eyes darting between Dix and me, as if unsure of whether she could hold us both on her leash while there were so many other distractions around.

'You have to come tomorrow, Dix, it’s an ace trick, they loved it.'

'OK.' Dix looked beyond Sylvie at the girls on stage, following their legs, his face unimpressed, as if he’d seen the act before and didn’t find it much improved. He turned to me. 'So, William, did they want to see a magical trick or did they want to watch you cut her open?'

'Is that not a bit sick?'

Dix’s face wore a serious expression, but it was hard to see his eyes behind his specs.

'Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.'

Sylvie’s smile was eager; her teeth shone white against the nightclub gloom.

'They want to see you murder me, William.'

'Aye, the greatest show on Earth.'

Dix looked me straight in the eye, his voice mellow, and I thought that perhaps he meant what he said.

'There are people who would pay a lot of money to see it.'

'Sick people.'

'Rich, sick people.' He stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray then levelled his stare to meet mine. 'Better they see a trick than the real thing.'

'Better they get treatment.'

He shrugged.

'Maybe it could be treatment of a sort. Get it out of their system. Seriously, we should talk about it. You’re a conjurer. We find the right sick people and make it look real enough — it could be a good way to get rich.' His gaze held mine. 'Remember, William, we’re all sick in some way.'

'Speak for yourself.'

'You’re a dying man, William.' Sylvie leaned forward with an intensity that might have been sincerity or maybe just drink. 'From the moment we’re born we start to die.'

I lit a fag and said, 'All the more reason not to hasten things along.'

Sylvie slid the cigarette from my fingers.

'You’ll not want this then?'

And for the only time that evening we all laughed together. But even as we laughed, Sylvie grinning at me through the smoke of my lost cigarette and Dix almost managing to look avuncular, I started to wonder if this was the only late-night place in the district or if there was a quiet bar somewhere that I could slope off to. Sylvie and Dix began slipping between English and German. I listened for a while, keeping my eyes on the girls up on stage, then stood up and made my way unsteadily across the room.

The saucy sailor was perched on a stool by the bar in a pose that made the best of her long legs. I guessed she’d grown too tall to be a ballerina, but I had no problem with her height. I looked up to tall girls. The barman was wiping glasses at the opposite end of the small bar. I feigned interest in the matchbooks tumbled in a round fishbowl on the counter next to the dancer, picking one up and reacquainting myself with the champagne bather, wondering how drunk I was. I swung onto a stool, grasping the edge of the bar to steady myself, realising I was pretty blasted. But a man fit enough to get his leg over a barstool still has some hope. I treated the sailorgirl to the full force of the William Wilson grin and said, 'Great song.'

Close to, the girl’s thick stage makeup grew malicious. Face powder had drifted into the fine lines around her mouth; it rested in the creases that framed her dark eyes and hung amongst the fine down coating her cheeks and upper lip. She looked ten years older than she had on stage, but she was still out of my league. She gave a slight nod of the head, but there was no trace of the smile that had glittered throughout her performance.

'Thank you.'

Her accent was Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Ingrid Bergman all coiled into one well-tuned set of vocal cords. The barman gave me an amused look, then turned his attention to the glass he was cleaning, holding it up to the light, making no move to serve me.

I said ‘Ein Bier, bitte’, pleased my German was coming along, then turned to the girl and gave her my best chat-up line.

'Can I buy you a drink?' She hesitated. I followed her gaze to the table where Dix and Sylvie were deep in conversation, then caught her eyes in mine, forcing her to look at me instead. 'Singing must be a thirsty business.'

It was nowhere near hypnosis, just a cheap use of her good manners, but it worked.

'OK, that would be nice.'

I wondered if she’d put on any underwear, and if my new status as exotic foreigner would add to my pulling power. The ballerina said something to the man behind the bar then turned back to me.

'You’re from London?'

'Via Glasgow.' She looked uncertain and I said, 'Scotland — wind, snow, rain, tartan, haggis, heather, kilts, all that crap.' She nodded and I added, 'We don’t wear anything under our kilts either.'

She laughed, pretending to be shocked, hiding her mouth behind her hand geisha style.

'Then we have something in common.'

'Aye, cold arses.'

The girl giggled. I appreciated the effort.

'My name’s William, William Wilson.'

I stuck out my hand and she took it in her soft grip.

'Zelda.'

The name suited her and I wondered if she’d had it long. The barman returned with something pink and fizzy in a tall fluted glass and said a price that suggested he’d just handed her the elixir of life. I slid a fifty-euro note across the counter and she raised the glass in a jaunty salute.

'Prost!' Zelda took a sip of her drink and gave me a smile that was worth the money. 'You’re a visitor to Berlin?'

'I’m working here, performing at Schall und Rauch.'

The smile was genuine this time.

'I know it.' She rubbed away some imagined stain from the side of her face. Her eyes did a quick flit towards Sylvie and Dix then back to me. 'Is Sylvie dancing there?'

There was an enforced casualness about the girl’s question that made me wary.

'Sylvie is my lovely assistant.' I smiled and fanned half a dozen of the matchbooks seemingly from nowhere into my hand. 'I’m a conjurer.'

Zelda clapped, but it wasn’t my trick that had made her sailorgirl eyes wide.

'Sylvie isn’t dancing any more?'

The edge to her tone might have been gloating or maybe just surprise. I played it safe for Sylvie’s honour’s sake.

'There’s a lot of dance in the act.'

'Ah.' The glass went to her lips and I began to wonder if I had enough cash to buy her a second drink. 'You can’t have been together long.'

'This was our first night.'

'So you are celebrating.'

'Got it in one.' Zelda glanced towards the table where Dix and Sylvie were leaning intently towards each other, their faces serious. I asked, 'You know each other?'

Zelda smiled a small tight smile.

'A little.'

'Come and join us then.'

The smile grew tighter.

'Dancers need a lot of sleep. One drink is enough.'

I took a sip of my beer.

'There’s a saying where I come from, one’s too many, a hundred’s never enough.'

Zelda drained the last of the pink stuff from the flute.

'You seem like a nice man.' She hesitated. 'Sylvie’s a good dancer, good company…'

'But?'

Zelda shrugged her shoulders.

'There is always a but.'

Yes, I thought, and yours is very nice, but kept my opinion to myself and put a tease into my voice.

'And in Sylvie’s case?' She hesitated and I said, 'Remember, I’m going to be working with her.'

Zelda held her empty glass in front of her, studying its stem, all the better to avoid meeting my eyes.

'Things happen when Sylvie’s around. Sometimes they’re fun.'

At last she met my gaze, telling me that what she said was true, she and Sylvie had had fun together.

'But sometimes not so much fun?'