“If you don’t let me go, you lunatic, I will prosecute you to the fullest extent—”
“You won’t be in any condition to prosecute! Don’t you understand? Golly Gee and Clarisse Staunton weren’t the end! They’re just the beginning!”
“How do—oy! Get off me!”
“No.” He sat on my chest. “Not until you listen to reason.”
“Reason? First you tell me those women really vanished, and now you’re trying to tell me there will be more,” I panted, shoving at him.
“Exactly.”
“Oh, and what makes you think that?” I snarled.
“Because there’s been another.”
I stopped breathing. “What?” I croaked.
He nodded. “Last night. On the Upper West Side.”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, that’s not possible.”
“At the annual gala dinner of the Urban Cowboys Club of Greater New York.”
I felt ill. “Who?”
“Duke Dempsey the Conjuring Cowboy. For the big finale to his act, he put Dolly the Dancing Cowgirl inside a large, wooden, rhinestone-studded horse for a disappearing illusion.”
“Don’t tell me any more,” I begged.
“And she vanished.”
CHAPTER
3
“What are you doing?” Maximillian Zadok demanded as I lunged for the sink.
“One of the faeries has a bad ankle. She brought this bag of ice to put on it during intermission, in case it starts acting up tonight.” I hauled the ice out of the sink.
“So?”
“So I’m not just going to walk out of the theater in perfect health and destroy my career.”
“Stop that! You’ll make yourself sick,” he exclaimed as I opened the silk bodice of my costume and hugged the ice to my linen-clad chest.
I sat down in a chair and curled my body around the freezing cold bag. “I read that Meryl Streep did this once before shooting a death scene.”
“Zounds!”
“Zounds?” I shook my head. “Anyhow, it worked so well that when they finished shooting the scene, they thought she really was ill.”
“I don’t understand. Why do you—?”
“When I miss my cue, which will be any second now, they’ll come looking for me. If I simply walk out of the theater, Matilda will fire me and turn my name to mud. But if I appear to be sick, she’ll have to let me come back to the show.”
I heard my cue over the intercom and suddenly did feel sick. What the hell was I doing?
“This is crazy,” I muttered, starting to shiver. “Keep a lookout for me. Tell me when someone’s coming.”
“How is my presence to be explained?” he asked nervously.
“You’re the doctor I called when I started feeling ill.” That was the part of the performance that worried me. I knew I could play near-dead, but could Zadok fool anyone into believing he wasn’t hopelessly insane?
“But shouldn’t there be an ambulatory vehicle?”
“What?”
“You know. With the red lights and the wailing.”
“An ambulance? No. I’ll regain consciousness slowly and ask you to take me home. You tell them all how dangerously sick I am, and then we’ll leave the theater together. Got that?”
He looked anxious. “But—” Then he flinched. “Someone’s coming!”
“Quick! Put the ice back in the sink.”
I sank to the floor and sprawled across it in a shivering heap. Zadok had just deposited the ice bag in the sink when I heard Matilda’s strident voice in the hallway.
“Where is she? I’ll kill her for this. I’ll make her rue the day she applied to drama school! Of all the irresponsible, witless, unprofessional…” Her voice trailed off as she entered the dressing room. Then she must have spotted me. She also spotted Zadok bending over me, about to check my pulse. “Help! Help! Someone’s attacking Esther! Help! Get him!”
Things went awry then. Joe, the Prince and the stage manager all came rushing in behind Matilda. The intercom blared with the noise of the chorus singing my introduction over and over, waiting in vain for me to appear. Two of the men jumped on top of Zadok and started beating him to a pulp while he cried, “I’m a doctor! Really! Oxford University! Class of 1678! You may verify it if you don’t believe me!”
“Esther. Esther, are you all right?” Joe cried, shaking me like I was a rag doll.
Matilda slapped me sharply across the face. I’d have paid real money for the chance to hit her back. Instead, I moaned feebly and muttered feverish nonsense.
“My God, she’s freezing!” Joe said. “And wet.”
“She’s also supposed to be onstage right now,” Matilda snapped. She hit me again.
“Darling, stop! She’s unconscious. And very ill. She can’t go on like this.” Joe sounded relieved.
“Doctor,” I moaned.
Zadok pounced. “You see? She’s asking for me.”
“What were you doing to her, you fiend?” The Prince brandished his sword.
“Matilda, I think we should let the doctor have a look at her,” Joe urged.
“Oxford University, did you say?” Matilda asked.
“Yes. Dr. Zadok.” Panting from his fight, Zadok added bashfully, “I distinguished myself in science and theology.”
“Can you get her up and on her feet, Dr. Zadok?”
He knelt beside me. Through my lashes, I could see that he had a split lip. “I doubt it. All her symptoms indicate cryogenic fever.”
“Come again?”
“She’s got to be put in a warm bath right away. I’m prescribing a strong dose of aqua vitae, to be followed by a course of pollo brodo—I’d say four times a day for a week.”
“A week?” Matilda said. “Now wait a minute. She’s got to perform—”
“And I’d advise you all to stand back,” Zadok added. “Her condition is highly contagious.”
Well, it’s amazing how fast that room emptied out. Dismissed from work, I leaned feebly on Zadok as he escorted me through the stage door. I knew there was no such thing as cryogenic fever, but I was curious about his prescription. As soon as we were outside, I asked him what aqua vitae and pollo brodo were.
“Brandy and chicken soup.” He dabbed at his lip and winced. “What a week I’m having.”
“You did well, Mr. Zadok.”
“It really is Dr. Zadok, you know.”
“Oxford University?”
“Yes, among others. Shall I escort you home?”
“I’m not going home. I’m going with you, to talk to Cowboy Dan.”
“Duke.”
“Whatever. I want to know what’s happening to these women. The sooner we wrap this up, the sooner I can go back to work.”
“But—”
“And if we can resolve this…this thing before another actress has time to learn Virtue’s part—”
“Miss Diamond, you—”
“Call me Esther.”
“Max. How do you do?”
“Max, no one has a greater stake in this mess than I do. I can’t go onstage now, and I very much want to go onstage.”
He wrung his hands. “There may be great danger.”
“I live in New York City—don’t tell me about danger.”
“I have to do this, but you—”
“Why do you ‘have’ to do this?” I asked.
“Well, it’s my job.”
“I see,” I said, not seeing at all. “Well, if I’m ever going to do my job again, it seems that I must help you with yours. After all, three women have already disappeared, Max. Isn’t that indication enough that you need a little help?”
“Oh dear. Perhaps you’re right.”
“Thank you.” It was so nice to be told, for the first time in this whole affair, that I was right. “Shall we go?”
We took a cab up to the Waldorf-Astoria on Park Avenue. I figured Max must be from out of town—way out of town. Aside from his general strangeness, he had to be
physically forced into the taxi; then he sat with his eyes closed and a fine sheen of sweat covering his face while he muttered incantations nonstop until we arrived safely at our destination. He was shaking when I paid the driver and helped him out of the cab.
“I could feel the forces of chaos encroaching on my cosmic destiny,” he said in a shaken voice.
“New York cabs take some people that way.”
I saw the doorman give us a doubtful glance as we entered the hotel’s elegant lobby. Max looked peculiar enough, but I was still wearing Virtue’s costume. I might have gotten away with the gaudy, low-cut, fluttering gown and ballet slippers, but the gold stars and fake bird nestled in my hair, not to mention the glitter dusted onto my cheeks, shoulders and chest, probably dented my credibility.
“Do you know what room the Cowboy is in?” I asked Max. I had a shrewd suspicion the desk clerk might not want to tell us.
“Yes. I wrote it down somewhere.” Max started searching through the pockets of his voluminous duster.
“Nice coat,” I said. “Looks genuine.”
“Oh, it is. It was bequeathed to me by a gunfighter.”
“A gunfighter?”
“The bullet hole left by his final encounter wasn’t that difficult to repair, but I did have some trouble getting the blood out of…Ah, here it is!” He waved a piece of paper at me.
“This looks like a shopping list.”
“Oops! So it is.”
While he continued rummaging through his pockets, I looked over the list he had absently handed me. “Licorice, deodorant, honey, oil of roses…” I frowned. “Dare I ask why you need cobalt and zinc?”
“New experiment. Now, where did I put it?” He plucked an assortment of dried leaves and roots out of his breast pocket.
I continued reading. One item stopped me cold. “Dragon’s blood?”
“I’ve been looking for months. I don’t suppose you know a good source?”
“Not offhand. Uh, Max…”
“Oh! Here’s that formula! I thought I’d lost it.” He dropped a sheet of that familiar M.Z. letterhead onto the pile of stuff accumulating at his feet. It was covered with scribbling, strange charts and symbols. The lettering looked vaguely familiar.
“Is that Hebrew?”
“Aramaic.”
“Why do—?”
“Aha! Cowboy Duke’s room number.” He showed it to me.
“It’s on the ninth floor.”
“Nine. That’s a very good number,” he murmured, shoving things back into his pockets. “A trilogy of threes.”
We crossed the lobby and got into an elevator. “I prefer stairs,” Max said uneasily.
“Not nine floors of them.”
A respectable-looking middle-aged couple got into the elevator with us. “Twelve, please,” the man said. I pressed the button.
“Costume party?” the woman asked me.
“Funeral,” I said.
We rode to the ninth floor in silence.
Cowboy Duke Dempsey welcomed us personally into an enormous, plush suite overlooking Park Avenue. East Texas fairly dripped from his tongue. “Well, howdy! Come on in, come right on in, young lady!” If his handshake got any more enthusiastic, my arm would fall off.
“I’m real pleased to meet you!” the Cowboy assured me. “And it sure is a relief to see you again, Maximillian. Come on in, come in and make yourselves at home. That sure is a pretty outfit you’re wearing, young lady. Now just set yourselves down, and Dixie here will get you whatever you need. Dixie, honey?”
“I thought Dixie disappeared,” I said.
“That was Dolly,” Duke explained.
“Oh.”
“This here’s my little girl.”
“How do you do?” I said to Duke’s “little” girl. She was about eighteen years old, tall, buxom and wasp-waisted, with miles of flaxen blond hair, cornflower blue eyes and sun-kissed skin that fairly glowed with good health.
“Ain’t she pretty?”
“Oh, Daddy!” Dixie blushed becomingly.
“Are you in the act, too?” I asked.
“She sure is,” Duke said. “And she ain’t doing that disappearing act until we find out what happened to Dolly.”
“Oh, Daddy!” Dixie said again.
“You want to do it?” I asked.
“She’s got show business in her veins,” the Cowboy said proudly. Clearly a love of spectacle ran in Duke’s veins; the sheer drama of his fringe-edged and rhinestone-studded clothes made it clear why my own costume didn’t give him cause to pause.
I looked around the suite. “I can see that show business has been good to you, Duke.”
“Oh, I don’t earn nothing for the act. Magic is my hobby. Clubs, charity events, family gatherings. No, all this—” he gestured carelessly at our palatial surroundings “—is paid for by my business interests.”
“Oil?”
“Condoms.”
“Good investment.”
He grinned. “I got in on the ground floor. Now what’ll you have to drink, young lady?”
Max and I both declined food and drink before settling into comfy chairs and getting down to business. Cowboy Duke and Dixie, it turned out, lived on a vast ranch in Texas but had been staying in New York for the past six weeks. Dixie had finished high school one semester early, and with honors. Since she wouldn’t start college until the fall, she had asked her father if she could come to New York this spring to participate in a prestigious (and expensive) eight-week drama program at one of the leading institutions.
“Of course I agreed,” the Cowboy said. “I can’t refuse her nothing, not since her mama died.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. When was that?”
“Fifteen years ago.” He smiled at Dixie. “Anyhow, there was no way I was gonna let my little girl live all alone in New York City. No, indeedy. I can operate my business interests from here, at least for a couple of months, so I came along with her.”
“How nice.” I suspected that half of Dixie’s motivation for coming to New York had been an understandable desire to escape her father’s watchful eye.
I said to Duke, “So tell me what happened last night.” There had been no point in trying to get a coherent explanation out of Max during the cab ride.
Although the Cowboy was too much of a gentleman to say so, especially in front of his daughter, it became pretty clear that Dolly the Dancing Cowgirl was his mistress. She and Dixie had been performing with him for several years, ever since a chance meeting with David Copperfield had gotten him interested in magic. Apparently, Copperfield had managed to make the Cowboy’s whole house disappear on one occasion.
A relative newcomer to the art of magic and illusion, Duke (like Barclay Preston-Cole III) had the drive, money and time to acquire knowledge and props faster than he acquired skill.
“But it’s just a hobby, after all. I’m really a businessman and a rancher,” he said somewhat wistfully.
“Oh, but you’ve been doing real well, Daddy,” Dixie said encouragingly. She seemed like a sweet girl. “You should see how much the act has improved, Miss Diamond. I’ll bet Daddy could give up condoms and be a professional.”
Duke blushed. “Oh, pshaw!”
I’d never actually heard anyone say that before. “So the Urban Cowboys Club invited you to perform at their annual gala?” I prodded.
“That’s right. I flew Dolly up from Texas for the occasion.” He shook his head sadly. “I sure do blame myself for what’s happened.”
“Oh, Daddy!” Dixie took his hand.
Like Joe and Barclay, he had put his assistant into a vanishing box (in this case, a large, complex and extremely expensive hollow horse decorated with—what else?—fringe and rhinestones) that they had used many times in the past. Dolly had disappeared right on cue. And Duke, somehow sensing that she had really disappeared, tore that horse apart backstage, looking for her.
“But she wasn’t there,” he concluded.
Hearing nothing new
or useful, I looked at Max. “How did you find out about this?”
“I felt the disturbance in the fabric of this dimension,” he mumbled without looking up, “so I cast runes in search of its source.”
“Uh, Max—”
“However he found out, we were sure glad to see Maximillian,” the Cowboy said. “No one else seems able to help us.”
“Certainly not the cops,” I grumbled, thinking of Lopez.
“This is a realm in which the forces of law and order are helpless,” Max said.
“What do you make of all this, Dr. Zadok?” Dixie asked.
Max looked around at all of us. “The question is, why?”
I shook my head. “No, surely the question is, how?”
“Some form of black magic, I suspect,” Max replied.
“Black magic?” I repeated.
“Hmm. Teleportation. Or transmutation? Clearly an unorthodox method, in any event.”
“Max,” I said.
He stroked his beard. “Apparently the props—the boxes and cages—are necessary. Are they cursed?”
“Cursed?” the Cowboy repeated.
“Max,” I said, getting to my feet.
“Are they specially designed to be windows to the other side? And how are the victims selected? How many are needed? How many more will there be?”
Dixie gasped. Duke went pale. I decided we’d made enough of an impression on our hosts for one evening.
“Thanks so much for your time,” I said, yanking Max to his feet. “We’ll be in touch. And don’t worry. We’ll find out what happened to Dolly if it’s the last thing I do. Coming Max?”
“What is this mumbo jumbo about black magic and the other side?” I demanded as we walked down the street.
“I’m just speculating, I’m afraid. None of the usual signs of demonic possession, shapeshifting or infernal evocation seem to apply. Of course, I suppose time travel is a theoretical possibility, but it would seem to be involuntary and highly problematic in this case. No, for the time being, my theory—”
“Is crazy!”
“Hmm. Do you have a theory?”
“Not on the tip of my tongue,” I said. “But I’ll think of one.”
“Very well. In the meantime, there are two things we must accomplish tonight.”
Disappearing Nightly Page 5