by Marty Chan
Ehrich grimaced, weighing the offer. Finally, he replied. “Eight minutes.”
“Five, and that’s my final offer, boy.”
“Fine. That should be all I need.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” the copper said, flashing a smug grin at Nellie Bly.
“Are all members of your force so quick to take bribes?” she asked.
“This isn’t a bribe. It’s a wager,” the copper argued as the two stepped out.
As soon as Ehrich was alone, he retrieved the lock pick set from his shoe. He snaked his legs through his arms with great ease, having performed this move at least a dozen times. The Irish 8s were aptly named because the cuffs looked like the number 8.
He twisted his hands around so he could insert the pick into the open hole at the bottom, then he poked around for the latch. The pick jammed about halfway into the mechanism. Ehrich now realized what the copper had done behind his back. He had spiked the mechanism.
A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead as he worked at the lock, but try as he might he couldn’t dislodge whatever had gummed up the cuffs. He cursed himself for being so cocky. He had pushed too far, and now he was paying for his arrogance.
He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. Then he worked the pick into the mechanism, carefully probing the lock to edge out whatever was inside. No luck.
The copper knocked on the door. “Two minutes left.”
“Almost there,” Ehrich said. “Just a bit longer. Is the reporter still here?”
“Why? You need to borrow some money off her?”
Ehrich redoubled his efforts, and they began to pay off. Whatever obstructed the lock was sliding out. He vowed the next time he would insist the cuffs be tested before he allowed himself to be locked up in them.
Finally, a wad of gum fell out. His pick was covered with grey matter. He wiped the remnants on his trousers and inserted the pick into the lock. Click. The cuffs opened. He rushed to the cell door and picked the lock. His cell door swung open just as the copper, Nellie, and Amina entered. “Time’s up!” the copper announced, but fell silent when he saw Ehrich leaning against the open cell door with his arms crossed. The sweaty Weisz hid his lock pick set under his armpit.
The desk sergeant grumbled as Nellie Bly wrote in her notepad. “How do you spell your name, sergeant?” she asked.
“Leave my name out of this,” growled the copper as he stomped into the cell to examine the open shackles on the floor.
Ehrich took Amina’s hand and trotted off.
“My first performance is at the Bijou tonight,” he shouted to Nellie. “I promise you will be amazed.”
Then he escaped into the street with Amina in tow.
THE CONDEMNED MAN
The evening of the performance, a stream of excited audience members streamed into the Bijou. Ehrich hid in the wings while the other performers warmed up for their acts. The backstage cacophony of vocal exercises and last-minute patter rehearsals nearly deafened him. He waved across the stage at the other wing, where Tesla was stationed. He shook his head—no sign of Thomas Edison.
Ehrich headed backstage to prepare. He bumped into Ms. Rahner, who was decked out in a white satin top with a huge billowy headdress. She was a dancer. A young man in a smart jacket with tails assisted with her outfit. He possessed the manicured nails of a magician. Beside the infamous steamer trunk sat the young man’s gear—a table, a box, and a cage with two pigeons cooing inside.
“Ah, Harry Houdini,” Ms. Rahner said. “Seems you have a knack for getting attention. I suppose we should thank you for the house.”
“Bess, is this the fellow you chirped about?” the young man asked.
She smirked. “Walter, you had better keep your eyes on your equipment. You may stumble across this man using them to make breakfast one morning.”
Ehrich now knew the young woman’s first name. “I assure you, Bess, I have all that I need. Pleased to meet you, Walter.”
“I’ve not seen you around the circuit.”
“This is my first performance.”
The young man laughed. “You brought in this crowd for your first time, Harry? Friends or family?”
Ehrich shook his head. “Neither. Good old fashioned legwork.”
Bess rolled her eyes. “He probably stole them from the nearest tavern.”
He slipped past them. “I have to prepare. Good luck with your show.”
The nearby performers hissed.
“Never say that,” Bess said. “Break a leg. That’s what you say if you want to wish a performer well.”
“I’m sorry,” Ehrich said. “Break a leg.”
He shuffled to his corner where Amina tried to slip into the arms of her costume. “Is this costume really necessary? I feel naked.”
“You look incredible,” Ehrich said, taken in by the beauty of his partner. He had seen her in her battle uniforms, but never in something so delicate as the white dress, which accentuated her feminine curves. She caught him staring. He blushed.
“You’re getting on with the other performers,” she said.
“Who? Oh, you mean Bess. She’s the one I had a run-in with the other day.”
“Be careful, Ehrich. It seems she has her eyes on you.”
He peeked at Bess. “Her?” he said, trying to hide his grin. “I have no interest.”
“Then stop staring,” Amina said. “Did Mr. Tesla spot Edison?”
“No, but the audience is still filing in. We’re not on until after the intermission. He might be late.”
“How are we going to lure him on stage?”
“Mr. Tesla will work the crowd when we call for volunteers. He’ll bring Edison to us.”
When Bess was set to perform with two other girls, Ehrich sneaked a peek. The other two danced better, but he couldn’t stop staring at Bess. She had a magnetic personality. He caught her glancing toward the wings at one point in the act. He felt sheepish for staring, but thrilled that she’d noticed him. The audience whooped and hollered at the girls, enjoying the flash of a bare leg here and there.
The first act ended with Walter taking the stage to perform his magic tricks. He handled the cards with amazing dexterity. He fanned the cards, then produced one card after another, seemingly from thin air, but the audience response seemed tepid at best.
Ehrich appreciated Walter’s skill. This man was a magician’s magician. He had incredible technique as he made a handkerchief disappear from his hand. He didn’t waste a single move. With impeccable timing and rhythm, he misdirected the audience with a simple glance. The only thing he lacked? Showmanship. The crowd sensed this.
For his finale, he made a cage of pigeons vanish. No one cared. Some polite applause from the front row, then the men headed out to grab a drink before the start of the second act.
During the intermission, Ehrich tracked down Tesla, who hovered near the front of the stage. “Any sign of Edison, sir?”
Tesla shook his head. “Not tonight, but maybe tomorrow.”
Ehrich headed backstage to prepare for his act. The audience had come to watch Harry Houdini. He would need to deliver a dynamite performance to lure Thomas Edison to the venue.
A few minutes later, Godfrey introduced Ehrich, “The next act of our evening brings to us the incomparable Handcuff King, Harry Houdini, and his pretty little bird. The crowd hooted. After observing Walter, Ehrich had realized the trick didn’t need to be clever or amazing. He had to sell the effect. If he focussed solely on the trick, he would be lost, because his skills paled in comparison to Walter’s. He had to rely on his charisma.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure some of you are here because you’ve heard I had a run-in with the law. A few times, in fact.”
Knowing laughter rippled through the audience. A couple of coppers in the back row didn’t laugh, but they elbowed each other.
“Well, don’t tell the coppers, but I’m supposed to be in prison right now.”
The audience exploded. Even t
he coppers chuckled.
He pointed to the back row. “Tell your friends I’ll be back in my cell right after the show.”
More laughs. He had won over the audience. He forged ahead. He wanted to create a sense of danger because laughs alone were not enough to sustain a performance.
“Prison makes me think of different things. I mean, you spend a day in prison, and it puts things into perspective.”
“Yeah, gives me time away from the missus,” a heckler yelled out.
Ehrich took the comment in stride. “Marriage, sir, is a prison even I couldn’t escape.”
The men laughed. A few women elbowed their partners into silence.
“But imagine it’s your last day in prison. Imagine you were a condemned man facing the gallows or the guillotine. What might go through your mind as you count the minutes? Do you want to make peace with your maker, or do you want to fight for one more sunrise? I tell you…I would fight.”
Applause.
“That’s what I intend to do tonight. I’ll ask my assistant to come out.”
Hoots and hollers as Amina took the stage bearing shackles, cuffs, and rope.
“I’ll also need a few assistants from the audience,” he said. He waved at Mr. Tesla at the foot of the stage, referring to him as his alias. “Mr. Vernon, find me two strapping young men. No coppers. They can’t seem to keep me in custody.”
Howls of laughter. Ehrich enjoyed the adoration. He almost forgot why he was performing.
Tesla ushered the men to the stage, and Ehrich presented the task at hand. They were to truss him up with the shackles, cuffs, and rope. The men set to work immediately. One wrapped the heavy rope around Ehrich’s body until it nearly cut off the circulation in his arms. The other clapped leg irons around his ankles. Then both worked on the handcuffs, cinching him in. All the while, Ehrich grunted in mock pain. Amina assisted when one of the volunteers couldn’t figure how a lock worked. When the men had affixed the last lock, Amina ushered them to stand back to give the audience a clear view of Ehrich, the Christmas ham.
“No possible way I could escape,” he announced. “Gentlemen, are the locks real?”
Both men agreed that they were.
“I thank you and ask you to take leave of the stage. A round of applause for my volunteers.”
They jogged off to thunderous applause.
“And now the dangerous part,” Ehrich announced.
He motioned to Amina to part a curtain. The audience gasped when they saw the guillotine hidden behind.
“I’m fated to meet my end,” Ehrich said. “If I cannot free myself in time, then I’m afraid I will quite literally lose my head.”
Not a peep from the theatre.
Ehrich hopped behind the guillotine and kneeled. He placed his head on the stocks, under the heavy blade. He popped up. “I’m going to ask for privacy. My assistant will close the curtain so I may be able to work without distraction. But the guillotine will remain visible. I’m going to ask my assistant to count down from 100. When she reaches one, she will pull the rope and release the blade. If I’m free, the guillotine will strike nothing. If I fail, well, then it has been nice to meet you.”
The audience members perched on the edge of their seats. Even the hecklers were rapt. Amina closed the stocks over Ehrich’s neck and locked him in.
“Please close the curtains,” Ehrich said.
Amina drew the curtains closed. Ehrich shed off the rope first. He had puffed his arms out when the men wrapped the coil around him, creating the illusion of being bound. All he had to do was close his arms, and the ropes slid away.
“Ninety-two, ninety-one…” Amina said.
Next, he worked on the shackles around his arms. They were a little more complicated to shake free because they intertwined with the locks. He slid the chains against his wrists to find an opening. He began to worry he had erred in adding too many locks. He pushed his arms together and tried to squirm out. The chains did not respond the way they had in rehearsal. They seemed to bind and kink against each other. He twisted his arms, trying to gain some kind of slack.
“Seventy-seven, seventy six…” Amina’s voice counted slowly and steadily.
He abandoned the chains and reached into his belt for his lock pick. He attacked the first of three handcuffs on his wrists. The ones on his forearm would easily slide off his arm once he picked the cuffs on his wrist.
The pick slipped into the mechanism. By the time Amina had counted down to forty, all three cuffs clanked on the floor. He stretched his arms open and squirmed out of the chains.
“Thirty-nine, thirty-eight,” Amina said, now joined by a chorus of audience members counting down with her.
Ehrich reached around to the front of the stocks and tried to pick the lock. He had to stretch to the full length of his arm. He tried not to panic. He could spring the lock in ten seconds if he concentrated. He shifted his legs, and realized he had forgotten about the leg irons. He ignored them as he tried to insert the pick into the lock.
“Twenty-five, twenty-four…” The entire theatre reverberated with the voices of all the spectators counting down.
The pick slipped out of his moist hands. He patted the floor to locate the pick. The tool was just out of reach. If not for the leg irons, he might be able to reach the pick with his foot. He began to panic.
“Thirteen, twelve, eleven, ten…” The voices were almost deafening.
He strained with his right arm, pressing his flesh into the wooden stocks as he stretched out for the cold metal pick. He grasped the end and slid it toward himself, then he picked up the key, reached around the stocks and inserted the tool into the lock. He missed on the first try.
“Eight.”
The second try, the pick went in. He probed the slender metal along the lock’s internal pins. Nothing.
“Five.”
He raked the lock.
“Four.”
Finally, the lock opened.
“Three.”
He slipped the lock off the hook.
“Two.”
He lifted the wood stocks off his neck.
“One.” Amina said, barely audible over the chorus of audience members counting with her. She stared at the blade and pulled the rope. The blade slid down behind the curtain with a deafening thunk.
Silence filled the audience. Even Amina didn’t know if her partner had escaped. She leaned forward and pulled the curtains open. Standing in front, Ehrich panted, drenched in sweat but free of the shackles. The blade had bit into the wood and not flesh.
The entire theatre erupted into wild applause. Hoots and hollers filled the air as Ehrich bent over to pretend to rub feeling back into his legs but used the lock pick to free himself from the leg irons.
Then he stepped out from behind the guillotine and shouted, “The last day of the condemned man is the first day of the rest of my life.”
The audience stamped their feet and cheered raucously.
“For my next trick, I would like to show you the power of transformation.” The crowd drowned him out. Godfrey took the stage to usher the pair off before they could present the trick.
Backstage, Ehrich fumed. “We didn’t do metamorphosis.”
Tesla shook his head. “No need to worry. You hear the audience. They will be talking about this for weeks.”
Bess rushed up and clapped Ehrich on the back. “Amazing act. You had them from start to finish.”
“But I had another trick,” Ehrich said.
“Harry, we have two more performances tonight. You want to change your act up later, you can, but one word of advice. First lesson of show business, never start your act with a closer.”
“What?”
“Nothing is going to top what you did out there. Enjoy the glory and don’t overstay your welcome.” She pushed past him to join the rest of her troupe.
Bess had taught him the first lesson—leave the audience wanting more. If they were to reveal the projection effect, they would ha
ve to incorporate the codex into the escape act. He hoped that, when Edison showed up, he would have a tight act.
Three performers followed—a singer, a juggler and a mime—but the crowd reaction dulled after Ehrich left the stage. He witnessed firsthand that his act was as Bess called it, a closer. He enjoyed being the star of the night.
The other performers didn’t share his feelings.
Walter strode over and offered curt advice. “Never call an effect a trick. You call it a trick, and they know you’re up to something.”
Ehrich couldn’t remember using the word “trick” in his act, but apparently, he did enough times for Walter to comment. The other performers kept their distance.
He performed the escape twice more eliciting bigger reactions each time. Hoots from the new audiences. Jealous glares from his fellow performers. Only Bess seemed supportive.
“Not bad for your first night, but it’ll all be downhill from here.”
“Ah, one of the Floral Sisters. You weren’t so bad with your dancing. Get yourself a right foot and you’ll be set.”
She slapped his arm and walked away.
“Are the Floral Sisters really related?” he called after her.
“Second lesson of show business: everyone lies. Love you.”
She flounced away. He couldn’t stop staring until he noticed Amina watching him.
“We have to find Mr. Tesla, lover boy,” she said, taking his arm and leading him out of the backstage area.
As they entered the theatre, a few audience members lingered in the theatre. Tesla shook his head. The one guest they wanted had not arrived. Ehrich spotted a few familiar faces in the audience. Two female hunters pointed at the stage and whispered to each other. He pressed his fake beard against his face and approached the hunters.
“Did you enjoy the show?” he asked.
“How did you escape?”
“I’m afraid I can’t reveal the secrets to my—” He cut himself off before he said “trick” and instead answered, “—my effects.”
“I think I know how he did it. You weren’t really chained up all along. The guys who locked you up worked for you.”
He shook his head. “No. They locked me up fair and square.” He mentally noted he would have to invite different people to inspect the locks. “Come back tomorrow night, and you’ll see something spectacular. Something, you’ll be talking about for weeks. Be sure to tell all your friends on the Demon Watch.”