Houdini's Last Trick (The Burdens Trilogy)

by Khalaf, David

  This was where Pope Benedict had been twenty-four hours earlier—where he had furiously scribbled a note to Houdini just minutes before his death. The sound of the magician’s heart was deafening.

  Dark must die.

  The thought surfaced unbidden into Houdini’s head, as if he had come across someone else’s sock in his laundry basket. What it meant, he hadn’t a clue. He shook it off.

  The Battery was dark and empty, and the sound of waves lapping up against the pillars of the dock was louder than the hum of traffic from the city behind him. He looked into the dark horizon, where the Hudson and East rivers met. He saw lights in the distance, across the water in Jersey City. That was his best chance, if he could get there.

  There were only tiny fishing boats tied up in this area. He ran up and down the docks, looking for anyone to ferry him across. He dodged feral cats that were drawn out by the smell of rotten fish. At the end of one dock sat someone petting one of the cats. Houdini ran up, but his shoulders slumped when he saw that the person was too small to be an adult. The child looked up and Houdini recognized her as the girl who had visited him that morning at the Hippodrome.

  “You stink,” she said. “What happened?”

  “Never mind me,” Houdini said. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping in a posh hotel?”

  The girl shook her head fiercely.

  “My friends are here.”

  Houdini looked through the darkness and saw other street children further down the dock.

  “It’s not safe out here,” he said.

  “You’re safest with your own kind,” she said.

  Houdini felt in his pocket and pulled out the small notebook he used for sketching ideas for his act. He ripped off a piece of paper and scribbled on a dry corner with a pen he always kept on him.

  “I need you to do me a favor. Take this note back to the theater and give it to a woman named Bess. She’ll be backstage. Bess.”

  The girl stood and took the note. Houdini opened his wallet but it was empty.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have anything to tip you with.”

  She pocketed the note and eyed him thoughtfully.

  “I never did get to punch you.”

  Houdini cast a quick glance around.

  “Very well.”

  He knelt down and braced his stomach, even though he needn’t have. The little girl raised her twig arms and balled up her tiny fists. She punched with all her might. The blow was inconsequential, and under other circumstances Houdini would have rolled around in mock pain to make her laugh. There wasn’t time for that now.

  “Good shot,” Houdini said. “Now run as fast as you can. It’s urgent.”

  The girl nodded and ran down the docks, into the city. The note told Bess he was in danger, and to go immediately to their small cabin in Vermont. He would write her there.

  As he watched the girl disappear between buildings, he saw movement in the park. Out from the trees emerged the giant man, who bounded toward him with all the subtlety of an avalanche.

  There was a small motorized boat in front of Houdini.

  No time to find a captain.

  It was tied to the dock at both the bow and stern with ropes, and secured by a steel chain around the steering wheel. The ropes were tied with a basic cleat hitch, with the tail tied back on the standing end with a rolling hitch. These were basic knots that took Houdini seconds to undo.

  “Houdini!” the giant man called ahead.

  The magician jumped in the boat. The steel chain around the wheel was secured with a Keystone 3-Lever padlock—an impenetrable lock by most standards but nothing for Harry Handcuff Houdini. He removed one of the picks he always kept up his sleeve and cupped the lock in his hand as he jiggled the pins. He forced his hands to stop shaking; finally the padlock popped open.

  Houdini started the engine, and threw the boat into reverse just as the man reached the edge of the dock.

  “The Pope was a coward,” the giant man called out as the boat backed away. “He held the power to change the world and he kept it locked in a vault.”

  “And what would you do?” Houdini asked.

  “I would use it. Power is futile unless it’s used.”

  “Maybe,” Houdini shouted as he turned the boat around in the water. “Or maybe the greatest expression of power is restraint.”

  He threw the boat into forward and sped at full power toward the lights in the distance, glancing back only to make certain none of those tiny boats would support the giant man’s weight.

  As the docks grew small behind him, thousands of options exploded in Houdini’s mind. Places he could go; actions he could take. They felt like sharp little worms burrowing into his brain. He closed his eyes and tried to shake them off. It was too much.

  The river was choppy, and water sprayed his face. He focused on his racing heart, and slowed it down with a couple of deep breaths. At least he knew he would make it across the river safely.

  But what then?

  He could hide in Jersey City. Or take a cab to Newark. Or go all the way to Vermont and wait for Bess. But hiding wouldn’t solve his problem. What he needed was help.

  He thought about the girl on the docks.

  You’re safest with your own kind.

  All of a sudden the answer seemed obvious. Houdini felt in his pocket, and removed the piece of deerskin from the Pope. He stared at it a moment, then scratched out Benedict’s name.

  Aside from his own, there was only one other name not crossed out on that list. He knew the man. It wasn’t difficult; the whole world knew of him.

  Houdini decided he would go west, to Hollywood. He would track down his old acquaintance, Charlie Chaplin.

  INTERLUDE I

  JANE STOOD OFF-STAGE at the Palace Theater, drinking the cold out of her bones. An unexpected snowstorm had struck St. Paul an hour before show time, and the bitter wind seemed to find its way into every crack of the theater.

  The Farmer’s Almanac was predicting a long winter for 1896, and it was only mid-November.

  Jane had suffered far worse than this—blizzards on the plains with nothing more than a bear pelt and a bottle of hooch to keep her warm. But these days even the slightest cold chilled her to the core. Her aging body was like a dying fire, incapable of producing heat no matter how many layers she piled on.

  The young man on stage had only a handful of spectators, people who seemed more interested in getting warm than getting entertained. He was a magician, performing card tricks and other sleight-of-hand magic that was too intricate for anyone in the audience to appreciate.

  When his assistant clamped on a pair of heavy-duty handcuffs behind his back, Jane squinted through her cataracts to watch. His fingers were nimble, and his movements deft. He had the shackles off in only seconds.

  “There’s something about him,” Petey said.

  Jane nodded her head in agreement.

  “Something special,” she said. “But what?”

  She tipped the flask to her lips.

  “Speed?”

  “No,” Petey said.

  “The boy’s a little scrawny for strength.”

  Petey didn’t say anything. Jane leaned on the rifle that doubled as a cane.

  “You know, it’d be a hell of a lot easier if you just told me.”

  “But then it wouldn’t be intuition, would it?” Petey said.

  “Bah!”

  Jane yanked off her hat and swiped it at the air, as if she could hit Petey. She then tugged the hat back on over her thick braid. She hated her hair, but she kept it long so that people didn’t mistake her for a man. Makeup was a foreign concept to her and, besides, no amount of blush would hide her flat nose and square jaw.

  The magician finished his act and bowed to a murmur of applause. He walked off-stage toward Jane, his head drooped in disappointment. She cleared her throat and spit, a direct hit on the tip of his shoe. She was as good a shot with her mouth as she was with her rifle.

  The magician l
ooked up, and Jane got a first good look at his eyes, blazing with intensity. There was no doubt he was one of them.

  “Apologies,” she said, handing him her handkerchief. “I’m an old coot.”

  The young man took in her cowboy hat and fringed buckskin jacket.

  “You’re Calamity Jane,” he said. “I heard you tell your stories on stage. Is it true your horse was a drunk, and that you shot a man with your eyes closed at a hundred paces?”

  Jane gave him a wink.

  “Askin’ for truth is like searching for Sasquatch,” she said. “You don’t actually wanna find him. The fun is in the hunt.”

  Jane spit again, this time into a teacup she used as a spittoon.

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Harry Handcuff Houdini.”

  “That mean anything to you, Petey?” Jane asked.

  Petey remained silent.

  Typical Petey.

  He would jabber on all day about things Jane didn’t care a skunk’s tail about, but as soon as she asked him a legitimate question she’d get the silent treatment.

  “Sorry, are you talking to me?” Houdini asked.

  Jane flicked away the magician’s question with her hand and took another swig from her flask. They stood there a moment, the two of them alone in the dark. On stage, a gawky girl with a neck like an ostrich danced an uninspired tap.

  “So what’s your talent?” Jane asked.

  “You saw my act,” Houdini said. “I’m a magician. Card tricks and handcuff escapes.”

  “Nah,” she said. “What’s your real talent? I been put in handcuffs fancy as those. How do you escape them so easily?”

  Houdini shifted uncomfortably.

  “Tread carefully,” Petey said. “You’ll scare him off.”

  “Don’t you tell me what to do,” Jane muttered under her breath.

  “It’s just practice,” Houdini said. “Staying limber and daily practice. Why do you ask?”

  “I get a sense about people,” Jane said. “It’s a hunch.”

  It’s a loudmouthed nudnik in my head.

  “Very funny,” Petey said. “You’d be dead ten times over if it weren’t for me.”

  It was true. Petey had kept her alive all her years on the Great Plains. Her ability to feel out a bad situation prevented her from getting scalped, hanged, and shot half a dozen times. Petey also told her who could be trusted, which was a list shorter than the number of chambers in her six-shooter.

  But the young magician in front of her, he could be trusted. She was sure of it. If only she could get him to trust her.

  “Point out the girl,” Petey said.

  “See that girl?” Jane asked, nodding to the performer on stage. “I gotta hunch she’s gonna fall flat on her face.”

  Jane had been watching the way the girl stumbled around in tap shoes she probably wasn’t used to, and how her routine was sloppy and imprecise. Every time she danced the chorus, she ended up a few inches closer to the front edge of the stage.

  “Watch now.”

  Sure enough, as the girl rounded into her finale, she threw her hands out and stepped forward, completely missing the stage. She tumbled into the orchestra pit.

  Jane erupted into laughter, stamping her rifle on the ground. Houdini looked at her, horrified.

  “Oh, don’t be such a stick in the mud,” Jane said. “She’ll be fine.”

  Houdini watched as the young dancer stood in the pit and brushed herself off.

  “So that’s my talent,” Jane said. “Now tell me about yours.”

  A bead of sweat rolled down Houdini’s temple.

  “I’m not sure what you want of me.”

  “He’s not ready,” Petey said. “He doesn’t know about the rest of us. He barely knows about himself.”

  Jane agreed. He was young, and it was better to let him grow into his talent before she told him more. She forced her face into a cordial smile.

  “Well, OK then. It’s a nice trick you got there, sonny. Skip the cards and stick with the escapes. And next time, do a stunt that people in the cheap seats can see too.”

  Houdini broke into a relieved smile.

  “That’s good advice,” he said. “I should go find my wife. This is a belated honeymoon of sorts. Nice to meet you.”

  They shook hands.

  “We’ll meet again someday,” Jane said.

  Just a hunch.

  The magician dashed off.

  Jane rummaged through her pockets and found an old deerskin she always kept on her. There were three names on it, including her own at the top. The second one, Crazy Horse, she had scratched out years ago after his death. The third one, that sharp wit she had once met from Missouri, was still alive as far as she knew. The magician was the first new talent she had met in nearly a decade.

  Jane removed a fountain pen she had won at a game of poker. It was far too nice for her chicken scratch. She propped the deerskin up against the nearest wall and wrote a fourth name.

  Harry Handcuff Houdini.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “YOU LOOK LIKE you could use some coffee.”

  Houdini shot awake. The receptionist stood over him in her crisp white blouse and red pencil skirt. She shoved a teacup in his hand the moment he opened his eyes.

  “Thank you.”

  She offered a tight-lipped smile, then scuttled to the far side of the room before taking a deep breath. Houdini sipped the coffee.

  He was sitting in an overstuffed chair in the waiting room of MGM Studios Head Louis B. Mayer. Everything in the room was creamy white—the walls, the drapes, the furniture, the plush carpet. It was as if he were sitting inside a giant cream puff. The decor only helped to magnify the filthiness of the magician’s suit.

  Houdini barely noticed the smell by now. The worst part of his exit out of New York had been the train to Chicago, which he had paid for by selling his watch at a pawn shop. He boarded the train still soaked in sewage, causing passengers to repress gags. Well-dressed women huffed loudly and made little “tsk tsk” sounds. The conductor was going to kick him off at Columbus until he recognized who Houdini was. The magician had convinced him it was part of an elaborate escape—which was entirely true.

  He had showered in Chicago at a YMCA facility near the train station, and had fully rinsed out his suit in a sink, but the smell clung to him like a second skin. He rinsed off again in a public toilet in Salt Lake City, and again in San Francisco at a church shelter for men heading south to pick fruit. By now his skin was raw from scrubbing, but there was still a residual something that he couldn’t wash clean. Maybe it wasn’t the sewage he was trying to escape. Maybe it was the image of Tommy Cipriano’s head getting bashed in.

  The white double doors opened and Louis B. Mayer stepped out. Houdini stood.

  “Harry!” Mayer said, holding his arms out as if he expected the magician to go running into them. He was a stout man with round glasses, neat gray hair, and a hawkish nose. Houdini smiled, nodded, and shook the studio head’s hand.

  “Most people dress up for an interview with me,” Mayer said, taking in Houdini’s ragged attire. “You’re the only one I know who dresses down.”

  “It was a last-minute trip,” Houdini said.

  Mayer led them inside. His office continued the cream-on-cream-on-cream color scheme, with a massive oval desk that looked nothing short of presidential.

  “I thought you ran a movie studio,” Houdini said. “It looks like you run the country.”

  Mayer shooed away what he perceived as a compliment.

  “Coolidge does a good enough job with that. Sit, sit.”

  Houdini sat in another overstuffed cream chair facing Mayer’s desk.

  “You want a scotch? Cigar?”

  Mayer walked over to a glass-and-chrome bar next to a door that led into a private bathroom.

  “Thank you, no. I rarely drink or smoke.”

  “Good man,” Mayer said. “Neither do I. I only drink at weddings. And funerals
, if I hated the guy.”

  Mayer sat down behind his enormous desk. His chair was raised so that he’d sit a good six inches higher than anyone in the room. Houdini had the sense of visiting a king at his court.

  “I like you, Houdini, I do. You’re good wholesome fun. Daring and dangerous, sure, but none of that sex and drugs and new-fangled jazz they’re playing in the seedy night clubs. You’re family entertainment.”

  The magician gave a perfunctory smile. Like so many others before him, Mayer assumed Houdini was a prude because he didn’t drink, never cursed publicly, and was solidly married. But the magician had grown up in vaudeville, one of the bawdiest cultures in America. Mayer would be shocked to know the kind of people Houdini counted as friends.

  “Let’s get down to business,” Mayer said. “I’ve got a job for you.”

  He said it as if Houdini were an out-of-work juggling clown. But Houdini paid him no heed. Whatever movie Mayer wanted him to be in, Houdini had no intention of actually doing it.

  The magician had remembered Mayer’s telegram as he was making his way out West. He was hoping Mayer would bankroll his visit there, since he had no money and no way to get a wire transfer with Bess hiding in their cabin. Besides, he was afraid someone might be watching his accounts.

  All Houdini had to do was to listen to Mayer’s pitch, feign interest in the project, and ask for a week to think about it. Mayer would put him up in studio housing and, if he was lucky, offer him a per diem for food. He hadn’t eaten in nearly two days.

  “I want you to perform an escape,” Mayer said.

  “What’s the movie?” Houdini asked. “And who’s in it?”

  “There’s no movie,” Mayer said. “I want this to be a live stunt. In front of a massive crowd.”

  “To promote a movie?”

  Mayer winked and leaned in conspiratorially.