THE AMAZING MALANEE

At the Santa Monica Pier, a magician, The Amazing Maleeni, twists his head completely around at a carnival, while Billy LaBonge, another magician, heckles Maleeni during the event. As he's leaving, his severed head falls completely off. Billy LaBonge is later questioned by Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson); he tells the agents that he thought Maleeni was a ripoff. During the autopsy, Scully finds that, although Maleeni's head was cleanly cut off, he died of a heart attack. She also finds that he was dead for at least a month and refrigerated, even though the carnival manager spoke to him mere moments leading up to his head falling off.

Meanwhile, LaBonge finds a man named Cissy Alvarez, to whom Maleeni owed money. LaBonge admits that he caused Maleeni's head to fall off, and says that he will give Alvarez the money he is owed if he helps him with his magic. Mulder and Scully learn that Maleeni has an identical twin brother, Albert Pinchbeck. Albert is even wearing a neckbrace, which he says he got in a car accident in Mexico. Mulder tells him he thinks he did the magic act, but the man shows that he has no legs, which he also lost in Mexico in the car accident. Back at work, Alvarez threatens Pinchbeck that he will kill him if he does not get his money. LaBonge then frames Alvarez for a robbery by attacking a security truck disguised as Alvarez. Mulder soon finds out that Pinchbeck is the real Maleeni and that he faked having no legs. After confronting Pinchbeck, he admits that he faked his own death in order to get out of Alvarez's debt. Pinchbeck admits that he found his brother dead of a heart attack at home and used his body as a double. Pinchbeck is promptly arrested, as is LaBonge, who brings a gun to a bar, in an attempt to purposely get arrested. In addition, Alvarez is arrested because of the attempted robbery LaBonge did earlier.

The vault at Pinchbeck's work is emptied and the money is found above Alvarez' bar. Later Mulder and Scully confront LaBonge and Maleeni as they are released on bail, where Mulder explains that he figured out their plan - LaBonge and Pinchbeck were not, in fact, enemies, and that they had been working together to put Alvarez in prison for making LaBonge's life miserable in prison 8 years prior, and that, as masters of sleight of hand and escape tricks, the two of them easily escaped, performed the robbery, and returned to their cells before being noticed.

After the two magicians make their exit, confident in the lack of evidence against them, Mulder reveals to Scully the true trick being performed—that everything involving Alvarez was purely misdirection. Earlier, when checking whether Pinchbeck had stolen funds from the bank, the manager had told Mulder they would need his badge number and thumb print to gain access to the Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) system. Mulder shows Scully Maleeni's wallet, which he had collected from evidence before confronting him and LaBonge. When the agents first met LaBonge, he had surreptitiously pickpocketed their badges as an example of his skill with sleight of hand, which gave him Mulder's badge number. Upon their first meeting with Pinchbeck impersonating his brother, Pinchbeck did a card trick with Mulder, leaving Mulder's prints on the card, which as Mulder displays, is securely in Maleeni's wallet. Mulder explains that the pair purposely acted in a high-profile manner to draw the attention of the FBI, and that if they had collected the badge number and thumbprint, they would have been able to perform EFTs. As Mulder and Scully leave the jail, Scully shows that she, too, has learned a trick, and turns her hand around 360 degrees in a similar fashion to what LaBonge did with his hand. Mulder asks Scully to explain how, and she brushes him off, saying simply "magic"

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