Disappearing Nightly

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Disappearing Nightly Page 22

by Laura Resnick


  “I can’t tell you, Lysander,” I said. “Because I have no idea what you two are talking about.”

  “Conduit?” Delilah said. “Whoa! Whoa, wait a minute. Are you saying that someone—or something—was doing its nasty work through me? Are you saying I was possessed when I made Samson disappear?”

  “In a sense,” Max said.

  “No, not at all,” Lysander said. “Conduitism is completely different from possession.”

  “There are similarities,” Max argued.

  “According to the writings of Zosimus—”

  “Who did not have access to the works of the great Chinese scholars on the subject—”

  “Their conclusions are highly questionable, Max!”

  “Cornelius Agrippa thought they had merit.”

  “Only if you completely misinterpret his writings on the Great Chain of Being!” Lysander said.

  I felt like firing a gun in the air. “Stop! Guys! Guys, stop.” When I had their attention, I said, “The rest of us would like to know what a conduit is.”

  “I’ll field this one,” Lysander said to Max. Then he explained conduitism to us. When he was done, we stared at him in silence for about fifteen seconds.

  Then Khyber said, “Maybe we’d understand better if Dr. Zadok explained it.”

  Lysander frowned and sat down, muttering something bitter about mundanes.

  “Well…” Max tugged at his beard. “Let’s try this. Esther, would you go turn on the fire?”

  Wondering why he’d requested it, I crossed the shop to the fireplace, picked up the remote and turned on the gas fire.

  Max said to his audience, “Having seen that, who among you believes that Esther has the power to create fire at will?” No one did, of course. “Does anyone here believe that the remote in her hand is invested with independent power? That it could just as easily set this table alight, or start a fire in a garbage can?” When they all shook their heads, Max said, “But we have been seeing a remarkably similar set of events lately. And we have been making presumptions precisely like the ones we instantly realize are ridiculous when we try to apply them to Esther and the remote-control device she’s holding.”

  “In other words,” Khyber said, “the power originates somewhere other than the magicians or their props?”

  “Exactly! I have turned my brain into porridge trying to figure out how the magicians were exercising such power without realizing it, or how someone was exercising such power through their props without the magicians’ knowledge.” He shook his head, making little tsk-tsk sounds. “Wasted time!”

  “In all fairness, Max, you shouldn’t blame yourself,” Lysander said, exhibiting an unexpected side of his personality. “After all, conduitism is rare, arcane, obscure and so unpredictable that few adepts dabble in it.”

  “True.”

  “And that is, of course, why I didn’t think of it,” Lysander added, sounding more like his usual self. “A perfectly understandable oversight.”

  “In other words, there were other first-glance possibilities in the way,” Whoopsy said.

  “Yes.” Max nodded. “After all, the first time Esther ever saw a fire in that fireplace, she mistakenly thought I was the source of the power that created those flames.”

  “Because I didn’t know it was a gas fireplace,” I said, thinking it over, “and I didn’t see the remote in your hand.”

  “Right. Er, check. Now,” Max said, “what if you picked up the remote and pressed the power button thinking it would turn on a TV set?”

  “Then I’d be pretty startled when I started a fire, instead.”

  “Of course. Because you would have created fire without conscious intent. And if you had no prior knowledge of remote-control devices or of gas fires, you’d probably be frightened by the event—and perhaps even mystified by your sudden, strange power.”

  “But the power isn’t hers,” Whoopsy said, catching on, “and it doesn’t come from her. It’s invested in the remote.”

  “Correct! Yet the power doesn’t originate in the remote,” Max said.

  “It originates with the manufacturer,” Whoopsy said.

  “Specifically, with the programmer,” Khyber said. “The person who figured out how to get the remote to create fire when the right button is pressed.”

  “When it’s pressed by anyone,” I said.

  “Anyone who happens to be holding the remote,” Max agreed. “Whether such a person intends it or not, wants it or not, knows what’s about to happen or not, he inevitably creates fire—as long as he is within range of the fireplace and presses the right button on the remote.” Max beamed at us. “That’s conduitism.”

  “Okay, now I get it,” I said with relief. “But what’s acting as the conduit in the disappearances?”

  “Hmm.” Max frowned. “This leads us right back to the same problem. We’re still looking for a common factor among the magicians, the acts or the disappearees.”

  “There is a common factor,” I insisted. “The disappearances all occurred while the victims and the magicians were onstage and in performance.”

  “Why then and there?” Max asked.

  “Energy,” Goudini said.

  We all looked at him.

  Seeing us suddenly pay serious attention to something he’d said, he looked a little startled. Then he shrugged. “Well, surely it’s obvious? You can rehearse something a hundred times, imagine how the audience will respond, even practice the bows you’ll take and the encores you’ll give. But there is absolutely nothing like performing for real in front of a live audience. Nothing. No amount of rehearsal can simulate it or prepare you for what that’ll be like.”

  “Of course,” I said, too stunned at my own obtuseness to wallow in my astonishment that Goudini had contributed something useful to the discussion. It was yet another thing so obvious to me that I hadn’t even seen it! “Getting in front of the audience brings everything—particularly the performer’s energy—to a whole different level.”

  “It’s why some people freeze up every single time they have to give a speech or accept a prize,” Delilah said, nodding. “And why other people fall in love with performing by the time they’re eight years old and know they’ve got to spend the rest of their lives working in front of an audience!”

  “But what was different about that night?” I asked Delilah. “The night Samson disappeared? You’d been working together in front of audiences for a long time together.”

  “It was a new act,” she said promptly. “We were so excited about it.”

  “Mine was a new act, too,” Goudini said. “And last night was my first time before an audience in more than two years.”

  “And Duke and Dolly were incredibly excited about performing in New York the night she disappeared!” said Satsy.

  “That’s it!” cried Whoopsy. “We’ve found the common factor!”

  “Not quite,” I said. “We’re still missing something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Barclay and Clarisse weren’t particularly excited about performing for a bunch of society children at a birthday party.”

  “But they were excited,” Satsy said, “about the upcoming gig at the Magic Cabaret. Very excited.”

  “We have found the common factor!” Whoopsy said.

  “No, not yet,” I said.

  “You’re becoming a real wet blanket, Esther,” he said.

  “Why did Clarisse disappear at the birthday party?” I asked. “Why didn’t she wait to disappear at the Magic Cabaret if that’s the performance she was so excited about?”

  “You’re splitting hairs,” Whoopsy complained.

  “All right, how about this?” I replied. “Golly didn’t disappear on our first night, she disappeared at the end of our first week of performances. And no one in the show was unusually excited that night. If anything, we were finding our stride, getting into a sustainable routine that night. Or so we thought, until Golly vanished. She claimed Joe Herli
hy nearly set her on fire in Act One, but I don’t think that was true, I think that was just Golly being a prima donna. Joe was getting through the show better that night than he had at any previous performance.”

  “Concentration,” Goudini said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “That’s the other thing performing for a live audience does for me,” he said. “It totally focuses my concentration. I’m razor sharp, and nothing can distract me. Well…nothing apart from realizing how my show was flopping today without Alice and wondering how I’d made her vanish,” he added wearily. “I was off today. So, so off. It’s lucky I didn’t decapitate one of the girls for real or accidentally immolate myself.”

  “Concentration. Yes!” I nodded. “That is what was different about Joe that night. He had it that night. For the first time since the show opened. I remember noticing it, and being relieved. It made me think we’d get through the whole performance smoothly for once.”

  “I had it the night Samson disappeared. I was totally in the zone!” Delilah’s voice caught as she said, “The new act was going so well right up until he vanished.”

  “I had it, too, last night,” Goudini said. “I was so on my game. So focused.”

  His face twisted and I could see he was mourning the loss of his tiger again.

  “So…” Satsy thought it over for a few moments. “Our perpetrator looks for magic acts where the performers have good concentration or are developing it, and picks them as his targets?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think anyone choosing his targets that way would pick Joe Herlihy. I’d say concentration is generally a weak spot for him.”

  “Pretty dangerous for a magician,” Goudini commented.

  “Pretty dangerous for those of us working with him,” I said.

  “So how did he manage to concentrate that night?” Goudini asked. “The night the girl disappeared?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I gather he’d been working on the act, on his skills….”

  Working on the act. Striving for improvement.

  Something clicked again. What was it? Joe, Duke, Barclay…all trying to raise their standards and…

  “Improve the act,” I muttered.

  “What?”

  What had Matilda told me the day I’d fled the stage in panic during rehearsal and knelt heaving over a toilet while she screamed at me?

  “Esther?”

  She’d said…she’d said that Joe had studied new techniques, worked with a coach, developed new standards, refined his abilities.

  “Developing…studying…striving for improvement…” I mumbled. Barclay, Duke, Joe…

  “What did you say?”

  “Esther’s got that look again.”

  “Concentration,” I said to Delilah and Goudini. “Pretty essential to a magician, would you say?”

  “Definitely,” Delilah said.

  “Indispensable,” Goudini said.

  “Joe didn’t have it. Not really. Not until that night.”

  “So he’s learning,” said Delilah.

  “Yes.” I nodded. “He’s improving his concentration.”

  “Which is a good thing for any girls he saws in half,” Goudini said dryly.

  “How would you do that?” I asked him.

  “Saw a girl in half? I can’t give away trade secrets.”

  “No, how would you improve your concentration? Or, I guess, your act?”

  “Well, we hired a coach,” said Delilah.

  The tumblers clicked into place and the chain fell away.

  “You did what?” I snapped.

  She blinked at my tone. “We hired a coach. I think Samson and I sensed we had hit a plateau, but we didn’t really see it, hadn’t defined it. Not until this guy came backstage one night after seeing our show and…” Her eyes opened wide. “Oh. My. God.”

  “Joe hired a coach, too,” I said. “His wife told me.”

  “God’s teeth!” cried Max. “That’s how the conduit was created! Someone gained intimate access to your practice of your art!”

  “To your practice of a disappearing act!” Lysander added.

  We all looked at Goudini.

  “What?” he said.

  “Did you hire a coach?” I said impatiently.

  “Me?” He snorted. “No, of course not.”

  “So he wasn’t the one?” Delilah asked Max. “Our coach, I mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Max replied. “Tell us what happened.”

  “He came backstage and said…” Delilah started breathing faster. “He said we had talent, had spark, but we needed focus. Refinement. Said he could help us in just a few sessions. Offered the first session for free. We only had to pay him for it if we decided to hire him for the whole course.”

  “And then?”

  She swallowed. “We felt like we learned something in the first session, and there were only three more to go, so we wrote the check. It wasn’t expensive, it didn’t take much time…Come to think of it, I haven’t really thought about it since then, even though it inspired us to work up a whole new act.”

  “A blind?” Lysander suggested to Max.

  “It sounds like it.”

  “What’s a blind?” I asked.

  “The perpetrator…This, uh, coach. He probably made sure Delilah wouldn’t think about it much once the sessions were over. Made sure that he would seldom come to mind.”

  “How?”

  “Any number of ways,” Lysander said. “The easiest would be to use mystical influence in tandem with a hypnotic or hypnagogic suggestion.”

  Max asked Delilah, “Was there anything in the sessions that resembled, oh, a relaxation technique or—”

  “Yes! That was quite a lot of what we did, in fact. He said it would help improve our focus.”

  “When did all this happen?” I asked.

  “About two months ago. We started developing the new show after that—a show that included a disappearing act. In fact, we’d specifically wanted to improve enough to add it to our act. We’d practiced it before, but it had always been clumsy and unpredictable until we hired that coach.”

  “Garry?” Whoopsy said. “Are you all right? You look a little…”

  I glanced at Goudini. He was staring at Delilah with an expression of such horror that I realized the truth. “You were lying! You have seen a coach!”

  “Um…”

  “This coach!”

  He let out his breath in a rush. “Yeah. Okay, yeah. I have. I didn’t intend to…” He shrugged. “It’s a little embarrassing. Someone like me. Famous.”

  “Famous?” Khyber repeated doubtfully.

  “Accomplished. Experienced. I didn’t want anyone to…” He shook his head. “Look, I said no to him at first. I thought he was some nutty fan or fruity wannabe. But something about him was convincing. He had insights, he had confidence.”

  “But he wasn’t brash,” Delilah said. “His manner was kind of intellectual and humble.”

  “Nerdy,” Goudini said.

  “When did he approach you?” Max asked Goudini.

  “About three months ago. Made me the same offer that he made to, er, Samson and Delilah. Just four sessions, reasonably priced—and the first one was free if I decided I didn’t want to finish the course.”

  “How did he approach you?” I asked.

  “I first bumped into him at my supplier’s shop. A guy called Magic Magnus who—”

  “Magnus?” I blurted.

  “Zounds!” Max cried.

  “You guys know Magnus?” Goudini asked.

  “Is this coach a friend of his? A colleague? A confederate?”

  Goudini blinked. “No. Magnus didn’t like him, wouldn’t let him post flyers in the shop, told him not to pester customers. Insisted he leave when he pestered me.”

  “I’ll bet you that’s how this guy met Joe,” I said. “And Barclay. They’re both customers of Magnus’s, too. I’ll bet anything that this guy was Joe’s coach. And Barclay
’s committed to improving his act, has been working hard on it and could certainly afford a coach.” It all fit. When we got hold of Barclay, he would undoubtedly confirm that he, too, had hired this guy within the past few months.

  “But what about Duke?” Satsy asked. “He doesn’t know Magnus.”

  “Duke’s a wealthy magic aficionado who devotes time and money to his hobby and has many contacts among amateur magicians,” I said. “He’s been in New York for a couple of months, and he’s flamboyant, someone that people notice—someone that other magicians probably talk about.” We’d ask Duke, too, later tonight; but I knew in my bones that he’d confirm our theory.

  “Yes,” Lysander said. “He would have been an easy quarry for our villain to spot.”

  “And the sessions?” Max asked Goudini. “They were similar to what Delilah has described?”

  “Yes. Also…well, like her, I didn’t think about them much once they were over, even though I felt my work improved as a result of them.” He shuddered. “So that guy has been crawling around in my head? Using me as his conduit?”

  “But how?” I murmured.

  After questioning Goudini and Delilah for a while, Max determined that the conduit had been created by coaching them in the use of psychological “tools” to be employed before rehearsing or performing the act: mental phrases they used to clear their heads and mental exercises they did to focus their concentration.

  “I have always been suspicious of this kind of New Age ‘empowerment’ shit,” Whoopsy said.

  “Oh, but it really worked, Whoopsy!” Delilah protested.

  “Sweetie, it really worked,” he pointed out, “because some demonic perpetrator of Evil was hexing you with supersonic mystical mojo.”

  “And then,” Khyber added, “he used that opening to make Samson disappear.”

  “Which brings us back to the question of why?” I said.

  “Ah. Yes.” Lysander frowned. “Unfortunately, knowing how has not actually brought us any closer to knowing why.”

  “It’s puzzling,” Max admitted.

  “Maybe if we knew who?” I said. “I mean, who is this guy?”

  “He said his name was Philip Hohenheim,” Delilah said.

  Goudini snapped his fingers. “Yeah, that was the name!”

 

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