dimensions as a coffin. The board was decorated with a woman’s curved silhouette, a silhouette formed of concentric black and red rings. A female-shaped shooting target with the bull’s-eye roughly where the woman’s mouth would be. Thick leather straps topped by metal buckles were attached to the figure’s wrists and ankles. Sylvie turned, saw it and gasped, but once again the ninjas were too quick for my poor assistant. They secured her against the board and placed a clear, door-sized panel of glass between her and the audience. I took a revolver out of my pocket and stroked it gently.
'This is your last chance. If you escape this ordeal then I will let you go free. If not…
well… it’s been nice knowing you.'
Sylvie struggled against her bonds. I climbed off-stage and approached a table of men.
'Sirs, will you watch while I load my gun with six live bullets?' They stared warily at my hands while I slotted the ammunition home, then each man nodded to show that the barrel was full. I handed the gun to the man nearest me. 'Sir, will you please hand this gun around your friends, I’d like you all to confirm that there is a bullet in every chamber.' The men passed the gun between themselves, weighing it in their palms, looking at the shells snug in their little hollows. Once more, each man nodded in turn. I said, 'Could you say it out loud please, so that everyone can hear you?'
And one by one they confirmed that, Yes, the chamber is full.
I turned to the man I had first accosted, a young blond boy with a clean-cut, intelligent-looking face.
'Thank you, sir. Now I’m going to ask if you could give the chamber a spin so that there is no way that I could have concealed a dud amongst the live bullets.' I handed the gun towards the man but he refused to take it. 'What’s wrong? Don’t you want to help me shoot my beautiful assistant?'
'No.'
The boy’s smile was embarrassed. He shook his head shyly, aware of his friends’
laughter, but unwilling to handle the weapon all the same. I held my hands out, gesturing casually as if I had almost forgotten that I was holding the gun.
'Don’t laugh, this is a serious business, he has every right to refuse to help. Who knows?' I looked evilly around the room. 'He may be the only one of you who doesn’t end the night on a charge of abetting a murder.' I looked at the revolver in my hand as if I had suddenly remembered it. 'Now, is anyone a little less squeamish than my young friend here?'
I scanned the audience, spotting Dix watching me, pale and intent from a centre table.
His grey eyes, still as ice, caught mine and I faltered, but I had no need to jeopardise the illusion by appealing to someone I might have been seen with. I rallied myself and shouted,
'Anyone brave enough to help me out?' The young man’s refusal had been exactly what was needed. The hilarity had gone from the room; in its place was a tension I hadn’t felt in Schall und Rauch before.
Sylvie shouted, 'Don’t help him.'
And a square-jawed man got to his feet, raising his hand in the air. I passed over the revolver and he gave the barrel three sharp spins, his face flushed. As he handed it back he whispered low enough that only I could hear, 'Shoot the bitch through the heart.'
I took the gun off him without faltering.
'Thank you very much, Sir.'
And walked into the centre of the audience, facing the stage where Sylvie stood shivering behind the transparent pane of glass. The prop shifters dragged on a huge padded mattress and placed it to her left.
I undid my tie, leaving its limp ends hanging down my white shirt, trying to look like a ruined man, then cast my gaze across the room and said, 'Love is a strange and fragile thing.' I lifted the gun and pointed it at Sylvie. She shrank against her board. I took a deep breath, squeezed the trigger and fired it, BANG, into the mattress, sending an explosion of stuffing into a small dark blizzard around the stage. 'I used to love that woman, but she took my love and…’ BANG. The mattress took another hit and the smell of cordite filled the room. 'Ruined it.' I looked about the hall. 'It’s enough to drive a man…’ BANG, BANG, BANG. I dropped my voice to the low mild tone of the clinically insane. '… Mad.'
I turned, took aim, raised my arm and fired. The glass in front of Sylvie shattered, she jerked against the board and someone screamed. Then there was silence.
Sylvie stood intact with something clamped tight between her teeth. The ninjas jogged on and released her. She massaged her wrists then reached into her mouth, took out a bullet and held it high.
The crowd broke into noisy applause; I bounded on-stage to the accompaniment of laughter and hisses. We took our bows, the curtain descended and the lights came up for the interval.
Gina sat dizzyingly high above us at the suspended baby grand, her black hair spiked into a plume, her slim legs pumping against the pedals as she banged out a honky-tonk number. She shook her head with the melody and peered through her glasses, smiling at the party down below.
The theatre’s seats and tables had been pushed around the side of the hall; a few couples had started to dance, but most people were still at the drinking stage. I leant by the bar listening to one of the clowns describe the new act his troupe were rehearsing, a mime gag that involved disguising him as a mechanical doll. It was an old ruse, but a good one.
If I’d known it was Ulla’s birthday I would have bought her a gift. The triumph of the evening’s performance was soured by the missed opportunity. I swirled my drink around my glass wondering what I would have got her. Flowers? No, the clowns gave those to her all the time. Jewellery? Maybe too elaborate. Tomorrow I would walk along the Kurfurstendamm and search for a modest but thoughtful present. Something Scottish? No, something chic but simple, something that would make her look at me in another way. I wondered what Kolja had bought her, perhaps a fancy frame and a new portrait of himself.
The party was mainly composed of people from Schall und Rauch, some still dressed in costume, others in street clothes, some half in, half out. They were performers, most of them in their twenties. I looked around the room and thought that maybe I should find a gym and try to get fit. Or maybe I should just join a library and find some good books to fill the long, lonely hours with.
