The Bullet Catch Read online

  Praise for the Eli Marks Mystery Series

  “This is an instant classic, in a league with Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Arthur Conan Doyle.”

  – John Lehman, Rosebud Book Reviews

  “A wonderfully engaging, delightfully tricky bit of mystery. Fans of magic will delight in John Gaspard’s artful use of the world of magicians, onstage and offstage. It’s a great story and great fun!”

  – Jim Steinmeyer,

  Author of Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians

  Invented the Impossible and Learned to disappear

  “Gaspard’s latest Eli Marks mystery, The Bullet Catch, has as many tricks up its sleeve as its likeable magician-hero. As the body count rises, so does the reading pleasure.”

  – Dennis Palumbo,

  Author of the Daniel Rinaldi Mystery Series

  “Filled with snappy, delightful dialogue and plenty of sleight-of-hand humor, Gaspard’s latest mystery in the Eli Marks series does not disappoint. Head to the bookstore and get yourself a copy now!”

  – Jessie Chandler,

  Author of the Award-Winning Shay O’Hanlon Series

  “The relationships between Eli and his remarried ex are interesting, to say the least, and the pure entertainment of the industry will leave all readers hoping that there will be a ‘number three’ very soon.”

  – Suspense Magazine

  “The Bullet Catch has a quick pace and dialogue that engages the reader from the first page…Gaspard has written a great character into an original storyline…I will definitely be seeing/reading more of Eli as Gaspard expands this promising mystery series.”

  – Examiner.com

  “The Ambitious Card is intelligently written and...entirely engrossing.”

  – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

  “This is a hugely entertaining crime novel, packed full of comedy….Warm, funny and well-plotted–a book to brighten any grey day. Do read it!”

  – FictionFan’s Book Reviews

  “Before I even finished the first chapter I had fallen in love with Eli. He is intelligent, sensitive, witty and, suddenly, the main suspect in a series of murders…well-written, fast-paced and exciting.”

  – The Frugal Mennonite

  “The deftly-plotted mystery is enriched by Eli’s relationships with his ex-wife, her new husband, his old-school stage magician Uncle Harry, and an interesting collection of people and places in and around St. Paul…This stylish novel is filled with interesting details, snappy dialogue, and appealing characters.”

  – More Than a Review

  “This story is very well-written and fun to read. I would definitely read another Eli Marks Mystery!”

  – A Simple Taste for Reading

  The Eli Marks Mystery Series

  by John Gaspard

  THE AMBITIOUS CARD (#1)

  THE BULLET CATCH (#2)

  THE MISER’S DREAM (#3)

  THE LINKING RINGS (#4)

  Short Stories

  THE INVISIBLE ASSISTANT

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  Copyright

  THE BULLET CATCH

  An Eli Marks Mystery

  Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection

  First Edition

  Trade paperback edition | November 2014

  Henery Press

  www.henerypress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Copyright © 2014 by John Gaspard

  Author photograph by Bill Arnold

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-940976-43-3

  Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-940976-44-0

  Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-940976-45-7

  Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-941962-17-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Amy,

  who delights in never knowing how the trick is done.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to the folks who helped me get this story on paper and, more importantly, get most of it right: Amy Oriani, Scott Wells, Steve Carlson, David Parr, Jim Cunningham, Joe Gaspard, Matt Dunn, Tom Forliti and Thomas Rescinti.

  “Nothing is foolproof,

  because fools can be very determined.”

  Jamy Ian Swiss

  Chapter 1

  “It is terrifying. Utterly terrifying.”

  “That’s a strong word.”

  I considered my word choice. “Yes. Yes it is.”

  “Is this a new fear?”

  Another pause. “Well,” I finally said, “it’s new to me.”

  “That’s what I meant. Can you name it?”

  “What do you mean? Like Pete or Louise?”

  This elicited a deeply felt and well-earned sigh. I sensed, not for the first time, that Dr. Bakke regretted taking me on as a patient. However, he was young and his office appeared to be new. The rent payments had to come from somewhere. And so he had—probably, he was now thinking, against his better judgment—said yes. So here I was: a first-time therapy patient in the office of a therapist who was still using metaphorical training wheels.

  “Is the fear specific?”

  “Yes.”

  “When does it manifest?”

  “Well,” I said, searching for the words to describe it, “I feel it mostly when I’m walking across a bridge or standing near the edge on the roof of a tall building. Or on a balcony overlooking a high atrium,” I added.

  “Ah,” he said, at long last taking a note on his unsullied notepad. “Acrophobia.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’ve always had acrophobia. I mean, not in a debilitating way. I know what that’s like. This is different. Much, much worse. Terrifying, actually.”

  He stopped in mid-stroke. “How so?”

  I didn’t answer immediately. “My knees get weak, my head gets light and I am consumed, from head to toe, with panic. Real, palpable panic.” I hesitated for a moment, as I had never said this part out loud before. “I get this feeling,” I said finally, “when I’m on this bridge or high ledge, there’s really nothing stopping me and I should just go ahead and jump.”

  Dr. Bakke leaned back in his recently purchased, slightly squeaky leather chair. There was the slimmest trace of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

  “Is that the first time you’ve said that out loud?” he asked.

  I took a deep breath. “Yes,” I said.

  “I knew it,” he nearly cried out, coming just short of pumping his fist in the air. He sat back in the chair, clearly satisfied with this diagnostic achievement. He made a note on the pad. It was the happiest I had seen him all hour.

  “So, to recap, you’ve got uncontrolled panic, an intense physical reaction, suicidal ideation a
nd a sense you’re losing control and might harm yourself if you can’t get away from the high location?”

  “Bingo,” I said. Hearing it read back to me made it sound much more clinical than it felt.

  “You’ll be relieved to know,” he finally said as he finished his notes, “what you’re experiencing is not really all that rare and it is certainly treatable.”

  “Great. What is it?”

  “Well,” he said, nodding as sagely as a twenty-something therapist can, “there’s no clinical name for it, although some call it the Imp of the Perverse. It’s when your mind suggests you should do something that really isn’t in your best interest.”

  “Like a voice in your head?” I asked.

  “Perhaps. Or just a sudden or overpowering feeling you should do something wrong. It manifests itself in many different ways. In your case, it’s most likely an outgrowth of acrophobia. Many experts think it might simply be a reaction to stress.” He flipped the page in his notebook, smoothing out the next page before looking up at me. “So, what’s going on in your life, Eli? What might be causing you stress?”

  “Okay, let’s see,” I said, as I sorted through where to begin in the rich tapestry which was my life. “I’m a magician, making my living doing corporate events, parties, restaurant work, that sort of thing.”

  “How’s business?”

  I shrugged. “Not too bad. It comes and goes.” I struggled to generate more information that might be construed as relevant. “So, let’s see, I’m thirty-four. I got divorced a year, no, almost two years ago. My wife was having an affair with a co-worker.”

  “Sadly, not so uncommon,” Dr. Bakke commented quietly as he scribbled.

  “So I’ve learned. She’s an assistant DA. He’s a homicide cop, so you can imagine the romantic possibilities of that unholy union.”

  Dr. Bakke shot me a glance over his glasses; the look suggested I should stick to the facts.

  “Anyway, so we got divorced. I had nowhere to live, so I moved back in with my uncle Harry. My aunt Alice had recently died and they had mostly raised me, so I moved back into my old apartment above his magic store, over on Chicago and 48th street, Chicago Magic.” I sensed this was more detail than he really wanted.

  “And what’s that been like?” he said without looking up.

  “Not too bad, actually. Harry and I, we’ve always gotten along really well. He’s a magician, too. Very old-school. He was on Ed Sullivan, that sort of thing. Basically taught me everything I know, but, as he likes to point out, not everything he knows. And I’ve always loved the store. You know, it’s home.” I paused, not sure what else he needed.

  He finished his note taking and looked up. “Anything else going on recently? Anything that might have caused you undue stress?”

  “Um, let’s see,” I sighed. “Oh, well, about six months ago I was suspected of killing a bunch of people, sort of a serial killer thing. Maybe you read about it—it was in all the papers. Three psychics were killed—I know what you’re going to say, if they were true psychics why didn’t they see it coming? Trust me, psychics don’t find that funny. Plus, my ex-wife’s new husband was assigned to the case, so that was a hoot and a half.

  “Anyway, during the course of the whole thing, I got conked on the head and also fell down a steep incline and got cut up pretty badly. I wasn’t the killer, but I gotta tell you, it looked bad there for a while. The upshot was I got a girlfriend out of it—Megan. We were almost killed together, which sort of speeds up the bonding process. But then she felt we were moving too fast, plus, she was in the midst of a divorce and you know how stressful that can be. So we’re sort of ‘taking a break’ right now, although I’m not entirely certain what that means. But we’ve been on hold for a couple of months and I’m just in limbo, waiting for the ‘break’ to be over.”

  I added air quotes and immediately wished I hadn’t. I looked over at Dr. Bakke. He had ceased taking notes, although I wasn’t entirely certain at what point he had stopped. It might have been around “serial killer,” or maybe when I got to “conked on the head.” I’m not sure. He turned in his chair, set his notebook down and picked up what looked to be an old-style day planner.

  “That’s great, Eli,” he said very slowly and a little too calmly as he paged through the planner. “Just great. I think I’m going to need to see you two or three times a week. At least to start.”

  Chapter 2

  Until the sound of the bell alerted me to the arrival of a customer, I had spent the better part of the next morning fumbling with a deck of cards in my hands, trying not for the first time to unlock the secret of the Center Deal. The Center Deal is a fabled card move in which the magician deals a selected card not from the top or bottom of the deck, but from the center. It’s a sleight that had always stymied me and I take only a small amount of solace in the knowledge that I am far from alone in my inability to master the move.

  I set the cards down and looked up to see who had come in, expecting to recognize one of the two dozen or so customers who still frequented our brick and mortar shop as opposed to doing all their magic shopping online. Instead I was greeted with the image of a complete stranger who also, oddly enough, looked vaguely familiar.

  He was somewhere in his thirties and he wore a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, which were covered with dark, expensive-looking sunglasses. A mop of dirty blond hair jutted out from under the hat in a random and reckless fashion. He wore a faded Minnesota Twins jersey and even more faded jeans, but the footwear peeking out from beneath his pants cuffs appeared pointed, textured and rich—alligator perhaps, or maybe from a species higher up on the endangered list. If someone had made a pair of boots out of a Komodo dragon, I thought, this is what the result might look like.

  “Is anyone else here?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “Depends,” I said, calculating how much cash was in the register and which nearby magic prop might best be employed as an impromptu weapon.

  “Eli, it’s me. Jake. Jake North.” He pulled off his cap and the dirty blond mop came with it. The glasses came off next, and it was then I was able to put the name with the face.

  “Jake? What are you doing here? In disguise? I’d heard you were in town…”

  He cut me off, looking around again to double check for others in the vicinity. It’s a small shop and that didn’t take long. “Have you got a few minutes? To talk?”

  “Sure. Absolutely. What’s going on?”

  Even though we were clearly alone, he still leaned in close and spoke just above a whisper.

  “I need your help,” he said “Someone is trying to kill me.”

  “Okay, start at the beginning.”

  We had taken a corner table at the coffee shop down the street and settled in with our respective purchases—black coffee for me and a double-soy mocha latte grande for Jake. His precise and arcane instructions to the barista had slowed the process considerably, but with his order in hand he seemed less on edge. He was still in his disguise, which I was convinced was calling more attention to him than if he had just gone with his normal look. But you know actors and their innate ability to add drama to any situation.

  “All right,” he said, his voice a soft whisper, “So, I’m back in town making a flick.”

  I nodded. “Sure, I heard something about that. Some low-budget thing, right?”

  “Low by Hollywood standards, sure, but it’s a real movie and my agent thinks it could be my ticket out of TV and onto the big screen.”

  Being in films full-time had always been Jake’s dream. He and I had met in high school, and although we hadn’t traveled in the same circles, our circles did have points of intersection. We’re both performers. His path had put him in all the plays at school, while my path put me in all the talent shows. His real break came when he was cast as the lead in a TV series called “Blindman’s Bluff,” a comedy
about a lout who pretends to be blind to impress a girl and then must continue the ruse indefinitely. It hit new lows on the bad-taste index, even by cable standards, and was known for its equal servings of disabled jokes, ethnic slurs and crude sexual puns and peccadilloes. So of course it was a huge hit.

  “Anyway,” he continued, sucking some of the foam off the top of his coffee, “the movie is a biography of a guy with whom I’m guessing you’re at least slightly familiar: Terry Alexander.”

  I nodded slowly, surprised to hear that name after all these years. I certainly knew the name of Terry Alexander. Any magician with a heartbeat was familiar with the life—and death—of Terry Alexander. “Sure,” I said. “Infamously known as The Cloaked Conjurer.”

  “Yes. And also infamously known as one of the dozen or so magicians who have died while attempting to perform The Bullet Catch.”

  “In South America somewhere, wasn’t it? Peru, I think?”

  Jake shook his head. “Ecuador. Toward the end, he was basically doing his act in a traveling circus.”

  “Wow. His career certainly took a nose-dive.”

  “Apparently that’s what happens when you go on national TV and start exposing magic’s greatest secrets.” He added a dramatic flourish to those last three words.

  “Magic’s Greatest Secrets” had been a series of television specials in which The Cloaked Conjurer revealed the inner workings of some of the best magic illusions of all time. Magicians, of course, were outraged at his flagrant disregard for the code of ethics that binds all magicians: the promise to never tell lay people how the trick works.