I’m recalling where I left off when I notice the new arrival’s gait, and my breath catches. His limp clues me in even before I recognize his face, chiseled and dashed with a thin brown mustache. The SS captain from the village. The cold-blooded Hauptsturmführer.

All at once, I recall the field executions, the lineup at the bus. Would he remember me from the morning after the night drop? Who’s to say he’s not still hunting the missing “fourth”?

“Go on, go on,” Orpo says, impatient for my reveal.

Nearly dropping my palmed card, I aim to steady my hands, my voice, to resume with Abbott. “Perhaps, somehow…your card landed in my own pocket.” I give my coat several pats, all while making my hands look empty. “How strange,” I say, as the captain takes a seat at the table. “It must be in the room somewhere. It couldn’t have simply vanished. Or could it?” For a mere moment, not dragging out the buildup, I concentrate on a spot in the air and lurch with my hand, snapping the card into view as if appearing out of nowhere.

A partial smile edges out of Abbott, boosted by chuckles from his first two pals. Yet their approval is suddenly the least of my concerns.

As the captain packs his pipe with tobacco, a compulsion bolts through me: to clear out of this room, to avoid his gaze.

“I am terribly sorry, gentlemen,” I say regrettably, “but I really ought to return for dinner.” I’m fast to add, “If you’ll permit me.”

Orpo responds as though I’ve not spoken. “Give us more.”

But Abbott, then Costello weighs in, speaking German; they seem to have greater matters to discuss. As the captain lights his pipe, further choking the air with each smoky puff, Orpo ruminates. “One last trick,” he grumbles, conceding. “Make it good.”

In another time and place, the stipulation would mean little. Here, reinforced by the sight of his hand resting on his pistol, disapproval could end with a bullet to the head.

And so I begin to shuffle. I need to work fast while looking calm, perform well but not excessively so and, as much as possible, divert attention from myself. It’s this last thought that spurs me to fumble, dropping half the deck onto the table.

A deliberate flub. I audibly gasp to help sell it.

The misdirection will allow me to set up the rest of the deck by flipping the bottom card in my grip while, reliably, at least one spectator—Costello in this case—reaches reflexively for the dropped cards.

Typically I hurry to regather the deck and continue with the trick that dazzled many a street crowd in Chicago. For once, however, I don’t get that far.