He was so angry afterward that he could barely even look at Dash.
“I’m sorry,” Dash said. “The gimmick jammed.”
“Well then, that’s fine, Dash. We’ll just explain that to everyone. Once they hear that the problem is you’re incompetent they’ll understand.” He looked at Dash, who was going to either start a fight or cry, then pushed him aside and stomped out. They were fired from the balance of the remaining shows, but he’d already decided to replace Dash with Bess. She was smaller, a woman, and more versatile, all of which made for a better show, plus she was his wife. He’d been foolish to wait this long to make the change.
The stage was fully struck now. He’d best return to Bess. He hoped enough time had gone by. The duration of her anger was not something he could divine. He clambered down the stairs and made his way to their dressing room. On the way he passed several other performers, but none met his eye. They all knew what had happened between him and Harold Osbourne. No one wanted to become involved. That was how things worked. They were a troupe, but really it was every man for himself. Dr. Hill’s California Concert Company wouldn’t last forever, or likely much longer. Friendships were as much an illusion as any stage magic.
When he reached their room Houdini paused. He and Bess had a system for dealing with these matters, which he disliked but found necessary. He opened the door slightly, about a foot, and tossed in his hat. He then opened the door all the way but stepped out of view.
Almost immediately he heard a shuffling of feet, the snap of fabric, and his hat flew into the hallway. He closed the door and bent down to retrieve it. Fine. If that was how she was going to be, there were better things to do, even in this nowhere town, than sit and listen to his wife tell him all the many ways he was a failure.
He checked his watch. It was just after midnight. A walk was an idea. His overcoat was still inside the room but it wouldn’t be cold out, and if he kept the brim of his hat low he wouldn’t be recognized by the few who would be out at this hour.
The back door of the theatre led into an empty lot. He could see his breath, and he walked briskly through the lot and down the street, away from town, his head down and his hands in his pockets.
He’d backed off doing the escapes for a reason. He doubted there was anyone around as good at them as he was, but escapes were difficult and dangerous. This worried Bess to the point of sleeplessness and he’d calculated that it was wise to appease her. Besides, escapes could quickly go wrong. When they did, the stakes were a lot higher than in tricks like the Metamorphosis.
The last time he’d done a handcuff trick was six weeks earlier in Halifax. It was a publicity stunt for that night’s show, where in front of a crowd he was handcuffed and tied to a horse. The plan was to have the horse trot out of sight, where Houdini would free himself and ride back, triumphant. But the horse had other ideas. The second it was able, it took off at a full gallop toward the outskirts of town. Houdini managed to get himself free of the ropes, but he couldn’t hold on to the horse and pick the cuffs, so he had no choice but to let it run itself out. It was a full half hour before he returned and most of the people had left, except for the newspapermen. Because of the amount of time he’d been gone, it was generally assumed that a confederate had freed him. He was about to explain the truth when he realized that what had happened was worse than what they thought. He’d been outsmarted by a horse, so it seemed preferable that they think him incompetent. His show that night was one of his best, but it didn’t matter. The feeling of helplessness that overcame him while at the mercy of the horse was the worst thing he’d ever encountered, like a noose tightening around his throat.
A man passed by him on the street, and he worried that he might be recognized, but if the man knew him, he didn’t show it. Houdini veered away and headed south, toward a small lake that was most likely deserted.
Since he was a boy he’d been good with locks, a talent discovered when his mother tried to prevent him and his siblings from eating a pie by locking it in a cupboard. He was so adept that at the age of eleven he’d been apprenticed to a locksmith named Hanauer in Appleton, Wisconsin. At first Hanauer wouldn’t let him near anything but the simplest lock, and even then only to clean it. It seemed that all he wanted was someone to sweep up and watch the shop when he was out. Then one day the sheriff, a perpetually winded baby face named Shenk, came in with the largest man Houdini had ever seen. The giant was nearly seven feet tall and must have weighed at least two hundred and eighty pounds, most of it muscle. He was unshaven, his hair was mussed, and his hands were shackled in front of him.
“Afternoon, Sheriff. What can I do for you?” Hanauer asked, obviously nervous about the man Shenk had in tow.
Shenk leaned against the wall and picked at his thumbnail. “I need you to get the cuffs off this fella. Judge says he’s innocent, though we both know that’s not the case, don’t we, Goliath?”
The giant said nothing, keeping his gaze on the floor.
“You lose the key again?” Hanauer moved to the drawer where they kept the master keys.
Shenk shook his head. “Worse. Key broke off in the lock.”
Hanauer closed the drawer and took a closer look at the handcuffs. “You don’t need a locksmith, Sheriff. You need a hacksaw. Ehrich, you get the saw and free this man while the sheriff and I get ourselves a beer.” He turned to Shenk. “Should take him about an hour.”
Houdini stepped back, bumping into the workbench. “You’re leaving me alone with him?”
Shenk shrugged. “Sure, why not. Apparently he’s done nothing wrong.”
Hanauer let out a small chuckle and left with Shenk.
Houdini got the hacksaw from the back room. The giant stood immobile. He hadn’t moved at all since entering the shop except to step aside and allow Shenk and Hanauer to leave.
There was a small vise attached to a workbench on the far wall, and Houdini motioned the giant toward it, but the man wouldn’t go.
“I need you to put the cuffs in the vise so I can saw them.”
The giant looked down at him and Houdini could see that he was afraid. “You’ll cut me.”
“I won’t. At least not on purpose. I’ll try to be careful.”
“No.”
Houdini put down the saw. “What do you want me to do?”
The man stared at him. “Dunno.”
He was stuck for options. If Hanauer came back and the man was still in the irons, there’d be trouble. But Houdini would hardly be able to convince the behemoth to do anything he didn’t want to. “Can I see?”
The giant held out his hands. Houdini stepped forward, then stopped. “What did they say you did?”
The giant looked down at the floor. “Stole.”
“Did you?”
The giant looked at Houdini and smiled. “Yep.”
Houdini smiled back, mostly because he didn’t know what else to do, but he didn’t move closer.
“I won’t hurt you,” the giant said. “I just want out of these cuffs so I can get far away from this town.”
Houdini could relate. He’d twice run away, and twice returned to Appleton, not because he wanted to but because he had failed to make anything of himself. He stepped forward and examined the cuffs.
They were a fairly new pair of what he would later come to know was a Berliner figure-eight-style handcuff, shaped like a number eight that had been placed on its side and cut in half horizontally. On one side of the bisected eight was a hinge, and on the other side was the locking mechanism. Each loop of the eight encircled one of the giant’s wrists.
The key had indeed broken off in the lock. If he was lucky, he could get it out and use the master. He fetched a pair of fine-point pliers and tried to grasp the piece of key. He succeeded in moving it around the keyhole enough so that the plug was partially exposed, but all his attempts to free it were fruitless. He’d have to pick it, though he wasn’t sure if he could. The cuffs themselves were simple enough—a fairly standard pin and t
umbler lock, probably with three pins. If he could get something past the broken key and into the plug he’d have a chance.
Although he’d never actually opened or even seen a pair of handcuffs up close before, he’d taken apart enough of these sorts of locks to know how they worked. A series of pins, in this case three, prevented a round metal plug from moving inside a larger cylinder. It was like he’d made a fist with a hole large enough to stick his thumb into, and then put toothpicks between the fingers of the fist and sunk them into his thumb.
So that the plug can turn and the lock will open, each pin is broken in two at a specific point. When a key is inserted into the keyhole each pin is pushed upward a set distance so that the break is exactly between the plug and the cylinder, allowing the plug to turn and release the locking mechanism. If a little tension is applied to the plug, like a turning key, it creates a tiny ledge for the rising pin to rest on so that it doesn’t fall back down into the plug. From there it is a relatively simple feat to push up on each pin until the point at which it cleaves is found. Get all three pins up and the lock opens. That was the theory, but he knew that what is simple in theory is not necessarily so in practice.
The broken key made using a conventional pick almost impossible, as it prevented him clear access to the plug. He fetched a piece of stiff wire he’d seen on the back workbench earlier that he thought he could bend to his purpose. But he needed some tension placed on the lock and the broken key left nowhere to get a tension wrench into the plug.
He looked at the giant. “What’s your name?”
“Jim Deakins.”
“I’m Ehrich Weiss.”
Deakins held out his arms and for a moment Houdini didn’t know what to do. Then he realized that Deakins meant for them to shake hands. He let the giant grasp his right hand and was surprised when his grip was gentle. He had an idea.
“I need you to pull your hands apart. Not a lot. I just need a little force on the lock.” He took back his hand. It was warm.
Deakins flexed his arms and twisted his hands apart.
“Easy. Not so much. Less.” If there was too much torque the pins wouldn’t move freely in their shafts.
“Sorry.” Deakins relaxed a little.
Houdini worked the tip of the wire past the broken key and into the blank. He closed his eyes. It helped, he believed, if he visualized the inside of the lock. Nothing he could see was of any use anyway—everything of import was hidden to him.
He felt the first pin. With a light twist he eased the wire under it and pushed it upward. At first he felt no sign of any change. He raised the pin a millimetre, then another, and heard a small click.
“Did you hear that?” he asked Deakins.
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“Just keep your arms the way they are.” If Deakins let off, the pin would fall and he’d have to start over.
He moved on to the second pin. The bend of the wire and the difficulty of access to the plug made this one more difficult, but eventually he got underneath it and brought it up. Again he heard a click.
“That’s two.”
Deakins looked at him, confused. “Two what?”
The third pin would be the hardest. The angle made getting the wire under it nearly impossible. He used a pair of pliers to bend a hook into the tip of the wire, hoping that would get him to the right spot, but it didn’t work. After ten minutes it became apparent that the pin was not going to be raised. He took out the wire.
“Why are you stopping?”
“It’s not working.”
Deakins frowned. “It has to work. I get to go. The judge said so. I can’t keep wearing these things.”
Houdini stepped back. “Let me think. Don’t move.”
He closed his eyes. He visualized the plug, saw the small ledge the pins sat on when there was no key inserted, saw the pressure Deakins was applying create a slight twist between the plug and the cylinder that kept the top half of the pins up and open. And he saw the one remaining pin that was keeping the lock from moving. One tiny piece of metal sitting inside a shaft.
That was it. The shaft. All he had to do was move the pin in the shaft. He went into the back and returned with a ball peen hammer.
“Hey, hold on,” Deakins said.
“You’re skittish for a giant,” he said. “Hold still.”
He held the cuffs at the lock with his left hand, and with his right he struck the underside of the plug with the hammer. Lightly at first, and then harder. On the fourth strike the lock sprung open and the cuffs fell to the floor.
Deakins stared, his mouth open. He looked at Houdini the way a man looks at someone who’s just told him a lie. Then he rotated his hands, loosening his wrists, and stretched back his shoulders. He grinned.
Houdini bent down and picked up the handcuffs. They were undamaged. Now he could remove the broken piece of key from the keyhole. He sat at the workbench and began to disassemble the cuffs.
“Thanks,” Deakins said.
Houdini didn’t look up. “You’re welcome.”
“What just happened?”
Houdini paused. He’d nearly got the cuffs apart. “I think I just discovered how to open handcuffs without a key.”
He twisted out the broken key, put the cuffs back together, then went to Hanauer’s drawer of master keys and handed the key to Deakins along with the handcuffs.
“Lock them on me.”
Deakins shook his head. “I don’t want to put anyone in these.”
“I want to try something.” He held out his wrists, palms down. “Please. Before Hanauer and the sheriff come back.”
Deakins still appeared reluctant, but he reached out and snapped the cuffs onto Houdini’s wrists. They weren’t intended for a boy and were too large for him, but it didn’t matter. Deakins locked the cuffs and Houdini walked across the room toward the workbench.
He closed his eyes and pictured the inside of the plug, the three pins, the cleave in the pins, and the cylinder. There was an angle he wanted to achieve, and after a moment he knew what it was. Then he opened his eyes, twisted his wrists in opposite directions to place some torque on the plug, and slammed the cuffs down hard on the workbench.
The cuffs leaped open and clattered to the floor. Both Houdini and Deakins stared at them. The hooves of a horse clopped by out on the street, and the wind creaked at the door. Deakins nudged the cuffs with his foot as if they were a dead animal. “Huh,” he said.
Houdini didn’t say anything for a while, unsure of what to do. “We shouldn’t tell anyone how this happened,” he said.
Deakins nodded. Houdini could tell that he would keep the secret. He picked the cuffs off the floor and returned the master key to its drawer. Deakins didn’t move for a while, and then seemed to realize that he wasn’t in anyone’s custody.
“I guess I’ll go then,” he said.
The giant stared at the boy for a moment and then walked out into the street. Houdini took out a jar of polish and began to clean the handcuffs. He was finishing up when Hanauer and Shenk returned. It was obvious that they’d had more than one beer.
Shenk looked startled. “Where’s the prisoner?”
“He’s gone,” Houdini said. “You said the judge let him go.”
He handed the cuffs to Hanauer, who gawked at them in amazement. “How did you open these?”
“I picked the lock.”
“Impossible.”
“Not impossible, sir.”
Shenk took the cuffs from Hanauer and slapped Houdini on the back. “Good work, boy. Saved me a pair of cuffs. Can you make me a new key?”
Houdini looked at Hanauer. So far he hadn’t let him cut keys, though it was a relatively simple task. Hanauer nodded at the sheriff. “He’ll bring it by later this afternoon.”
After that Hanauer began to teach him. In less than a year Houdini had become a master locksmith. When he left Hanauer’s employ the man actually wept.
Houdini smiled to think of it now. He hadn�
�t seen Hanauer in years, and had learned more about locks than Hanauer could ever conceive of. He understood that he wasn’t the only one who knew how to slam handcuffs, but he took pride in having figured it out on his own.
He reached the small lake. He’d visited here the last time they were in Garnett. It was during the day, and he and Bess had walked around the lake several times. There were a lot of people about, particularly children, and at one point a girl of about seven had come running around a corner fast, being chased in a game by some other children. She’d slammed into Bess, knocking her sideways into him. They’d both kept their feet but the girl tumbled over and skinned both her palms. As Bess rushed to her the child began to cry, apologizing through her tears.
“Don’t worry, dear, don’t worry. I’m fine, and you’ll be all right too. It’s just a little skin.” She held the girl close and after a while was able to calm her, but Bess was quiet for the rest of the walk and that night in bed he heard her sob. He didn’t let on that he was awake and eventually she fell asleep. He’d lain awake for the rest of the night with a dull ache in his stomach, and as he looked at the lake now it returned. He turned around and started back toward the theatre.
They hadn’t been married even a year when they found out they couldn’t have children. Bess’s ovaries were underdeveloped, the doctor said. It was all Houdini could do not to punch him in the face. He’d expected Bess to go into hysterics but she sat dead faced. Later when he’d tried to talk to her about it, she gave him that look again; and in the years since, they’d never spoken of that day or of children. But the memory was always there.
When he’d confided the news to his mother, she’d clutched him and wept with an unexpected ferocity.
“I’m so sorry, Ehrie. I can’t imagine a life without my children.” But when she’d stopped crying she’d told him that he would be fine, that there were many who loved him and many more who would love him.
“You are remarkable, my son. Your Bess knows it, and I know it, and that is enough. But in time many more will know it too.” He could tell she believed her words, and the ache in his stomach lessened. What would he do without her?
The Confabulist Page 3