Brandy and Bullets

by Jessica Fletcher

  It was the perfect weekend to go to Boston. I hadn’t been there for some time, and Seth had mentioned he was planning to go in the next couple of weeks to do some Christmas shopping. My Thanksgiving shopping was basically completed. I’d shelved working on my book. The weekend was free of social obligations.

  Yes. I would go, and encourage Seth to go with me.

  There was another reason for deciding to head for Boston and this “charming little dive” called Tickletoes. I’ve always been fascinated with hypnosis. Although I’ve never been a subject of it—I was told I wouldn’t be a good one—I delved into it a number of years ago as background for a novel in which hypnosis played a role in the resolution of the plot. I consulted with doctors known for their use of it in medical situations, and walked away from the learning experience impressed and excited about my newfound knowledge. It would be fun to see a professional practice hypnosis, even in a nightclub setting.

  And, I reminded myself as I went through the process of convincing myself to take Carson James up on his offer, that hypnosis was part of the package offered at the Worrell Institute for Creativity. A refresher course couldn’t hurt.

  Carson sounded sincerely pleased when I reached him and said I would be there for his Saturday night show, and that Seth had agreed to accompany me. Carson’s only reservation, which he proclaimed in his theatrical, overblown fashion, was that many doctors look upon stage hypnotists with scorn.

  “Not this doctor,” I quickly told him. “The only thing Seth scorns are people who are scornful. See you Saturday.”

  Chapter Seven

  The only problem in going away with Seth Hazlitt is that he’s the quintessential early-morning person. He’s always up at the crack of dawn, showered, shaved, and breakfasted by six, jolly and alert, excited about what the day might bring. I respect that. But leaving for Boston at five A.M. Saturday morning “in order to beat the traffic” seemed a bit much.

  “Could we leave at six?” I asked, thinking I’d offered a reasonable alternative.

  “By six, Jessica, everybody and his brother’ll be on the road. Be at your house at five sharp.”

  We were Boston-bound at 5:05.

  I love Boston, always have. I’ve stayed at a number of fine hotels there, but the Bostonian has become a particular favorite of late. Despite its central location—just across from Faneuil Hall and the bustling Quincy Market—it has the quiet charm of a small, secluded European retreat, with its cobble-stone courtyard entrance, sedate lobby, and tastefully furnished and decorated rooms. I believe in indulging myself in a hotel’s better rooms when traveling. Once I’ve committed to the cost of staying at a hotel, the few extra dollars to upgrade seem worth it. I’d reserved a room with a fireplace and with a balcony that afforded a wonderful view of the market. Seth doesn’t share my enthusiasm for a touch of opulence when traveling. I reserved the smallest, least expensive room for him, on his instructions.

  Although it wasn’t yet Thanksgiving, the holiday season was in full swing in Boston that day, as shoppers braved a brisk, cold wind in search of the perfect early Christmas gift. Seth and I were swept up in the spirit, and I returned to the hotel delighted that I’d gotten such an impressive start on my list. I was also exhausted. Carson James had told me that Tickletoes was a comedy club catering to the younger set, which meant the entertainment started late, and ended even later. The first show was at nine-thirty. It was now five-thirty. Seth and I had agreed to meet for dinner at Seasons, the hotel’s fourth-floor restaurant, at seven. That left me an hour and a half to sink into my room’s Jacuzzi, relax in front of a fire—undoubtedly to doze a bit—then dress and head out for the evening.

  We took a cab to the comedy club because Seth decided the neighborhood in which it was located, on the fringe of Boston’s notorious “Combat Zone,” wasn’t a safe place to park his Toyota. It was a good thing Carson had reserved a table for us, because when we arrived, there was a block-long line outside Tickletoes.

  We were spirited to a table directly in front of the tiny stage and microphone. I glanced about. There were a few people our age, but not many. You could tell who they were without having to see their faces because they were dressed like us—suits and ties for the men, dresses on the women. Everyone else wore a uniform of sorts—jeans, sweaters, and an astounding number of baseball hats, most of them worn backward.

  “Never will understand wearin’ hats indoors,” Seth muttered as a young waitress delivered our drinks. “Bad manners.”

  “It’s the style,” I said.

  “Ayuh, I know that. Still doesn’t excuse bad manners.”

  “Cheers,” I said. We clinked rims.

  “Jessica!”

  I looked up at a smiling Carson James. Seth started to stand, but James placed a hand on his shoulder. “No need for formality, my good man,” he said. There was a third chair at the table, which James took. He looked much as he had the last time I’d seen him. Carson James was very tall, and very thin. The elongation of his face was exaggerated by a pointy, black Vandyke beard hanging like a black icicle from his chin. Hair on his head was sparse, a few wet black strands pasted from front to back. He wore steel-rimmed glasses, which framed unusually small eyes, little black beads that seemed incapable of resting on anything.

  I introduced Seth to Carson, and they shook hands. “A medical doctor,” James said loudly. “My medical career was thwarted in midstream. Lack of money”

  “I’m sorry,” Seth said.

  “And, I’ll be candid, a lifelong abhorrence of blood. Mine, or anyone else’s.”

  We laughed. “A distinct disadvantage,” said Seth.

  “Do you use hypnosis in your practice?” James asked Seth.

  “Ayuh. Now and then. Help a smoker kick the habit, help an insomniac get some sleep.” I was pleased that Seth didn’t dismiss Carson’s specialty. He’s always been skeptical of hypnosis, despite using it in special situations. But then he added, “Don’t have much faith in it, ’cept for certain types of people.”

  “I’m excited to finally see you perform, Carson,” I said quickly. “All these years gone by.”

  “I’ll make it an extra special evening for you, dear lady.” He kissed my hand. “Time for me to be backstage. I hope you enjoy the show, Doctor.”

  “I’m sure I will,” Seth said.

  It occurred to me that dragging Seth along might not have been my best idea. He was not a man who enjoyed nightclubs and comedians. Add hypnosis to that mix and it was unlikely he’d find the experience uplifting. But too late for that now. Even if he hated it, he’d be gracious about it, one of many traits I’ve always admired in my friend.

  We declined a second drink as the house lights dimmed, a single spotlight illuminated the microphone, and a cherubic young man wearing “the uniform” bounced on to the stage. “Hey, hey, how are we tonight?” he boomed. The audience erupted in whistles and applause. “Welcome to Tickletoes. Have we got a lineup for you tonight.” He ran off some names before saying, “And Boston’s own mesmerizing Carson James is with us.”

  “Awright!!”

  “Lets get it on!”

  The enthusiasm was catching. I couldn’t help but laugh. Poor Seth. The best he could manage was to avoid grimacing.

  Carson James was the featured attraction that night, which meant sitting through a half-dozen young men and women telling jokes. A few were funny; all were dirty, although I suspected their generation of fans found nothing salacious about them.

  Finally, the MC announced Carson, who ambled to the mike and waved to the audience. He wore a black dinner jacket with silver sequins, and a red bow tie. Six straight-back chairs were lined up behind him. He looked down at me. “We have a real live celebrity in the audience tonight,” he said.

  I wanted to crawl under the table.

  “My friend, and the world’s greatest mystery writer, Jessica Fletcher. Stand up, Jess. Take a bow.”

  I rose an inch off my chair, and nodded.

 
James pointed to a young woman at the table next to us, then to a man, another woman, and three others. “Come up here,” he commanded. After much giggling, and a few vocal protestations, they all did, to my surprise.

  Carson had them sit facing us in the chairs. He snapped his fingers: “You’re going into a trance, a deep and relaxing state of mind. Deeper. Deeper. Close your eyes. You can’t keep your eyes open. Your eyelids are heavy. Heavy. It feels so good to close your eyes and to float to pleasant places. Your body feels as though there are helium-filled balloons attached to it, making you feel light. Lighter. Lighter. Buoyant. Floating. You’re so relaxed, carefree, floating, floating, hearing only my voice. Only me. My voice. Deeper. Deeper. Lighter. Lighter. More buoyant.”

  Carson tossed out occasional humorous asides to the audience, which resulted in a few laughs. But the mood in the small room had become quiet, serious. Everyone, including Seth and I, leaned closer to the stage and watched with fascination as Carson continued to hypnotize his subjects.

  Carson focused on one of the young women, who seemed to have been most affected by his hypnotic instructions. She sat placidly, her eyes closed, arms dangling loosely at her sides, a smile on her face. Carson touched her forehead and said, “Your left arm is light and buoyant. Let it float up.” Her arm slowly ascended. “That’s right,” Carson said. “Now, I want you to stand.” She got up. “The sun is shining brightly,” he said. “The barnyard is a warm and happy place—and you’re a happy little chicken.”

  Snickers from the audience.

  “Listen to me,” Carson said. “You’re going deeper, deeper, deeper into your pleasant trance. And you hear only me, my voice. Go ahead and speak like a chicken. I’m speaking to you. You have something to say.”

  The young woman started clucking.

  “And you want to fly. Go ahead. Flap your wings.”

  She tucked her hands beneath her armpits, and energetically moved her elbows up and down, accompanied by her clucking.

  Carson told her she could stop, and had her sit down. He went to another subject, a young man with a baseball hat on backward, and had him stand. Within a few minutes, this person was doing crude ballet dance steps, much to the delight of the audience, now very much into what Carson was accomplishing onstage.

  He didn’t attempt to have all six subjects act silly. He worked with only four of them, allowing the remaining two to be bystanders to the others’s antics.

  As Carson was about to bring everyone out of their respective trances, he instructed them that they would remember nothing of what had transpired on the stage, but that when they heard the song, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” they would again become a chicken, a ballet dancer, and the roles Carson had given the others to perform.

  “Awake!” Carson commanded, snapping his fingers.

  The six subjects came to attention, opened their eyes, smiled, then laughed, and took their seats in the audience.

  “Amazing,” I said to Seth over the lingering applause.

  “Plants in the audience,” he said.

  “Oh, no, Seth. I don’t think so.”

  Carson took the microphone. “They say writers go into a sort of trance state when they write,” he said. “They lose themselves in the scenes and characters they create.” He looked down at me. “Am I right, Jessica?”

  I shrugged.

  “Come up here.” He motioned with his index finger for me to join him onstage.

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  “Please,” Carson said. “Just a friendly little experiment in the interest of science.”

  I looked to Seth, whose expression said I should accommodate Carson. It wasn’t what I wanted to see. I wanted Seth to shake his head, which would have given me the resolve to decline. But Seth hadn’t given me that sign, and Carson was still motioning, so I stood, straightened my dress, and climbed up next to him. The applause was loud.

  “Ever see the world’s greatest mystery writer go into a trance?” he asked the audience.

  “Do it!” someone yelled.

  “Awright!!”

  “Carson, I really don’t think I should—”

  “Relax, Jessica. Close your eyes. Think of pleasant thoughts. A beach at sunset. Relax. Relax. That’s right. Think of your lovely home in Maine. A fire burning. Warm. Comfortable. Just hear me. Your eyes are closed because your eyelids are heavy. Very, very heavy. That’s right. Your left arm is attached to helium-filled balloons and wants to float up over your head. Lighter and lighter. Let it go, Jess. Let it float free.”

  I can only report in retrospect what I felt during the time with Carson James on that small stage. It was blissful. I was totally relaxed, felt light as a feather. Seth told me later that I had a wide smile on my face throughout, until—

  Until Carson had me sit in a chair. “You’re driving down a beautiful coastline, Jessica,” he said.

  That’s when, according to Seth, my smile changed to a frown, and then a panicked look crossed my face. Carson saw the change, too, and asked if I was feeling all right.

  “She doesn’t drive,” Seth hissed from the audience.

  My arms stretched in front of me, and my right foot tapped the floor in search of a brake pedal. Carson quickly brought me out of my trance, thanked me, and I returned to the table.

  “You looked right petrified up there,” Seth said.

  “I was driving a car, Seth. I was afraid because I didn’t know how to stop it. I thought I was going to plunge over a ledge.”

  “Damn fool thing for him to be doin’ to people,” Seth said.

  “Well, it’s over,” I said.

  Carson ended his act by whistling the first few bars of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” into the microphone. The people at surrounding tables who’d been his earlier subjects went into their crazy routines again, a chicken clucking and flapping her elbows, the young man with the baseball hat standing, his arms extended above his head in a circle as he attempted an intricate ballet move. Carson brought them back to the stage, told them everything he’d said would now be forgotten, and that hearing that particular song would no longer mean anything to them. He took his bows and strode from the stage.

  Minutes later he was at our table. He took my hand in his and said, “I’m sorry, Jessica. It never dawned on me that you didn’t drive.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “But I must admit there was a moment there when I was frightened. Incredible, how you actually had me in a car. I wasn’t here in this club. I was in a car, behind the wheel.”

  “Dangerous thing you do, Mr. James,” Seth said sternly.

  “Not really, Doctor. What happened to Jessica doesn’t happen often. The moment I saw that she was in some sort of distress, I brought her right out of it.”

  “Maybe that’s ‘cause Jess is a strong woman. What happens when you get somebody who’s a perfect subject for hypnosis, a ‘five’ on the Spiegel scale of hypnotizability?”

  “You’re familiar with Dr. Spiegel’s Hypnotic Induction Profile?” Carson said.

  “Ayuh. Took a course once with him down at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Learned a lot.”

  Two people came to the table and asked me for my autograph, which I happily gave them.

  I said to Seth, “I didn’t realize you knew as much as you do about hypnosis.”

  “I don’t know much, ‘cept that everything depends on the subject. Some folks are good, some not so good. You can do damn near anything with a good subject, one of those ‘fives’ I mentioned.” He looked at Carson James. “Am I right?”

  “Yes. Well, you really can’t do anything with such a person.”

  “You can’t?” I said. “I thought—”

  Carson smiled. “I have a splendid idea,” he said. “It’s an hour before my next show. I know a fine little pub a block from here. What say we retire there for a much-deserved nightcap for Jessica, and continue this conversation?”

  “Seth?” I asked.

  “Fine w
ith me,” he said. “Need a check.”

  “Absolutely not,” Carson said. “My treat. Part of my deal with Tickletoes is that I get to entertain two guests at each show. You’re my two guests at this one. Come, I’d like to pick the doctor’s considerable brain about this thing I do for a living on the stages of the world.”

  The pub was called Boston Beans. It was a small neighborhood place with a fireplace, and country-and-western music on the jukebox. We took a booth near the door. Seth and I each had a brandy, Carson a vodka martini, straight up. I resumed the conversation where it had ended at Tickletoes.

  “I thought you could make people do things under hypnosis that are uncharacteristic of their basic nature,” I said.

  “Not true, my dear Jessica,” Carson said, tasting his drink and pronouncing it satisfactory with a loud smack of his lips. Seth sat quietly and listened as Carson explained. “You see, no matter how skilled the hypnotist, or good the subject, people will not do something that violates their moral code.” He laughed. “You’ve heard about those teenage boys with the fantasy that they can hypnotize a young lady, and convince her to disrobe in their presence. Impossible ! Unless, of course, she is the sort of young lady whose moral code does not preclude such behavior. Am I right, Dr. Hazlitt?”

  “Yes. And no.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Seth. “Not your usual filled-with-conviction response to a question.”

  “Mr. James here is basically right,” said Seth. “But people can be made to act contrary to their deep beliefs if the hypnotist, working with a very good subject, changes the visual.”